Broadband | GigaOM

At this year’s Mobile World Congress, you would expect LTE to hog the spotlight, but LTE might find itself overshadowed by a less sexy technology: Wi-Fi. As telecom vendors prep their new porfolios for MWC in two weeks, there is a preponderance of Wi-Fi products. Read More »

Cisco has read the mobile data tea leaves again, and it predicts that next year the global population of mobile users will switch to streaming the majority of their content from “the cloud.” This will represent a shift from downloaded and sideloaded content. Read More »

 
 

Cisco Systems’ oft-cited Visual Networking Index of the world’s projected mobile data consumption fell under some criticism this year as some operators’ rapid growth seemed to peter off, but Cisco isn’t changing its forecasts. Rather, it is revising them upward, predicting even greater traffic growth. Read More »

It was only a matter of time before a major operator abandoned its territorial notions about mobile voice and adopted a true ‘softphone’ service, and that operator appears to be Rogers Communications. It’s severing the bond between the mobile phone number and the mobile phone. Read More »

What to make of AT&T’s vanishing spectrum crisis

Is AT&T failing to keep its story straight about the need for more spectrum, or is it just that the popping of the spectrum bubble has taken them by surprise as well? The nation’s second largest operator now sees a data drizzle rather than deluge. Read More »

Want to really embrace the quantitative self? Forget tracking your sleep and start tracking your dental hygiene. Beam Technologies, a year-old startup is set to introduce a Bluetooth-enabled toothbrush and app that will launch next month and retail for around $50 for the base. Read More »

McKay Brothers, a firm that sells high capacity links to trading firms, is connecting the financial districts of New York and Chicago with a network that aims to execute the fastest trades in the country. Instead of using fiber, though, McKay is taking to the airwaves. Read More »

Will devices be the next victim in the net neutrality debate?

Korea Telecom in South Korea has taken an interesting twist on network neutrality, and is blocking Samsung’s Smart TVs from access the Internet, according to a large S. Korean daily. That’s right, net neutrality isn’t just for applications like Netflix anymore. Read More »

The payroll extension tax before Congress has two surprisingly technical segments related to mobile broadband–namely, will the FCC be allowed to set rules to promote mobile broadband competition in its next spectrum auction and whether the agency can set aside some airwaves for unlicensed use. Read More »

When AT&T first started throttling unlimited smartphone data users plans last fall, it claimed it had to limit the “extraordinary” consumption of its greediest customers. It turns out extraordinary is only 2 GB – a full gigabyte less than it sells customers under its most-common data … Read More »

Telus turning on LTE across Canada on Friday

Telus will launch Canada’s third LTE network on Friday, rolling out the mobile broadband technology in 14 cities from Vancouver to Halifax. It plans to expand the network throughout 2012 to cover 25 million Canadians, 71 percent of the country’s population, by year end. Read More »

The FCC is trying to get rural Americans online, and to help, later this year carriers can apply for part of a $300 million fund to bring wireless broadband to the heartlands. Only it’s not the heartlands, as the nifty interactive map shows. Read More »

More Must Reads

Airvana is suing Ericsson for $330 million, claiming the wireless giant has reneged on its licensing deal and is instead selling a “knock-off” version of Airvana’s 3G technology to Verizon Wireless, Sprint and other CDMA operators. Read More »

Cisco, an incredibly active acquirer, is ready to start doing deals again, according to John Chambers. We think it should be focusing on the cloud and beefing up its core networking skills by buying some of the companies we list in our story. Read More »

Nest has finally publicly commented on being slapped with a patent infringement lawsuit. Nest says it will “vigorously defend itself,” against Honeywell’s lawsuit, and says it has “the resources, support and conviction to do so.” Read More »

First the news: Yes, the rumors are true. We are indeed buying the assets of ContentNext Media from Guardian News & Media Limited. And no, we are not disclosing the terms of the deal. Here are the reasons why we are acquiring paidContent and its sister … Read More »

At the Super Bowl AT&T’s networks carried 215 GB of traffic, placed 74,204 phone calls and transmitted 722,296 SMS messages. AT&T reported no problems in handling the traffic and had, but in what is now becoming a common refrain, it used the event to lobby for … Read More »

Akamai said it purchased Canadian web site optimization company Blaze. In acquiring Blaze, the content delivery network offers an excellent example of how the web ic changing as we access it from more devices and as the nature of the web sites we visits changes Read More »

For the first time in six years, Sprint’s aging Nextel and wireline businesses didn’t overwhelm all positive gains from its primary CDMA business in its quarterly results. Still, Sprint is anxious to shed the Nextel albatross and Wednesday detailed its plans to shut down iDEN. Read More »

How do the heavy weights of the Internet and telecom stack up in terms of how green their technology, energy footprint and political advocacy are? On Tuesday night Greenpeace released its latest Cool IT leaderboard report, which ranks the world’s largest IT giants. Read More »

LightSquared has asked the FCC n to impose future standards on GPS device design, claiming such requirements would allow GPS and its LTE network to co-exist peacefully. While LightSquared would appear to be taking the middle path, the proposal smacks of a political stunt. Read More »

Consumer applications have driven the rapid take up of faster broadband services in the U.S. in the last decade. But as Google and others build gigabit networks to see what can be done with them, it’s time to bring businesses back into the innovation cycle. Read More »

Then news that thermostat giant Honeywell has slapped startup Nest with a lawsuit for patent infringement throws an unexpected wrinkle in the landscape of the smart thermostat this year. We ask readers to weigh in on what the lawsuit means for the smart thermostat industry. Read More »

It’s no secret that Sprint plans to shut down its iDEN network in 2013, but until recently the details of how it would sunset it were a secret. Over the weekend, new maps appeared on the Sprint website that identify the individual cell sites being decommissioned. Read More »

Google is ready to start stringing fiber for its gigabit network in Kansas City. The news is a welcome update to the project after the local newspaper reported that Google fiber was delayed over a dispute on hanging its fiber on utility poles. Read More »

Thermostat giant Honeywell has slapped startup Nest, and retailer Best Buy, with a lawsuit over patent infringement for smart thermostat technology. I read the lawsuit so you don’t have to and here’s the details you need to know: Read More »

Verizon and Redbox are creating a joint venture to provide content online and through Redbox’s physical DVD rental kiosks around the country. The deal is a chance for Verizon to make money from streaming content and show off how awesome its network is. Read More »

Thermostat giant Honeywell has filed a lawsuit alleging patent infringement by the buzzy Silicon Valley startup Nest, which makes a smart learning thermostat. Read More »

Qualcomm’s wireless technologies already dominate the mobile broadband networks on U.S. land. Now it wants to dominate the skies above it. Qualcomm is petitioning the FCC to clear a huge swathe of spectrum for an airplane broadband network supporting the eye-popping bandwidth of 300 Gbps. Read More »

On average, 100 million people watch the Super Bowl. With connected devices everywhere, we’ll be tweeting about it and sharing thoughts on social networks. So will fans at the game. Here are some staggering numbers showing how Super Bowl 46 is ready for such mobility. Read More »

Report after report points to AT&T marrying Dish Network after Ma Bell’s forced break up with T-Mobile, but given the companies’ increasing belligerence, you wouldn’t think that was the case. What we’re witnessing here is some very cynical pre-nuptial gamesmanship. Read More »

Google’s Fiber organization is asking the FCC for the ability to test a residential gateway that has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It’s likely Google is asking the FCC for an experimental licence to test upcoming 802.11ac gigabit Wi-Fi technology inside residential gateways. Read More »

Mobile data is picking up momentum in Latin America as the number of 3G connections in the region doubled in 2011. Operators in Latin and South America are shutting down their CDMA networks, replacing them with UMTS systems, resulting in a huge surge in data adoption. Read More »

Ting, a new reseller of Sprint’s voice, 3G and WiMax, launched with one of the most unique mobile plans to date. Families using Ting share voice minutes and messages. But there’s another twist: they also share their monthly data across all devices on the plan. Read More »

Qualcomm and Ericsson have successfully passed a voice call from an LTE network to a 3G one, paving the way for mobile carriers to begin migrating their voice traffic onto all-IP 4G networks. Once that happens, operators can start shutting down their 2G and 3G networks. Read More »

Congress is eyeing the competitive implications of Verizon’s $4 billion deals to buy spectrum from the cable companies. Much like those of us at GigaOM, they are wondering if this is a cease-fire in terms of broadband competition in the air and on the ground. Read More »

Two decades Honeywell tested out learning thermostats — the notion behind Nest’s new device — and found that consumers didn’t take to them and would rather control their thermostat themselves. Read More »

Sunnyvale-based IP phone service provider ShoreTel purchased M5 networks for $146.3 million. The deal is made up $84 million in cash and 9.5 million shares of ShoreTel stock. M5 will be operated as a ShoreTel business unit and will be led by M5 CEO Dan Hoffman. Read More »

Next month, consumers in smaller towns and cities across the U.S. will have access to their first LTE network as U.S. Cellular ramps ups its commercial 4G service. The regional CDMA operator will start selling a tablet in March and a Galaxy smartphone in April. Read More »

The country’s largest mobile operator and largest cable provider bringing their “quadruple play” service to San Francisco and the Bay Area, jointly marketing Comcast residential TV and broadband and Verizon mobile service. In the process, they’re poking a needle in the eye of mutual enemy AT&T. Read More »

Palo Alto, Calif.–based video encoding startup eyeIO came out of stealth mode Wednesday and immediately announced an impressive first customer: Netflix is using eyeIO’s encoding technology to lower the bitrate of its HD video streams, which should help the company both in mobile and emerging markets. Read More »

With its executive reshuffling this week AT&T returned to a structure that more accurately reflects where its businesses are heading. The wireless juggernaut that drives most of AT&T’s revenues in now firmly in the hands of former consumer CEO Ralph de la Vega. Read More »

Machine to machine networks, sometimes called the Internet of things, are the logical extension of today’s connected society; but creating such a network will require multiple technologies; telcos to open up their networks; governments to figure out a way to assign unique numbers for each device … Read More »

Japan’s eAccess isn’t deploying any old LTE network. It’s going for broke, pushing the upper limits of the technology to launch a network that can support speeds of 300 Mbps. That makes Verizon’s LTE network, which can breach 25 Mbps on a good day, seem … Read More »

Mobile operators insist we are fast approaching a mobile datapocalypse where their networks will no longer be able to meet mobile broadband demands. But are these claims of a spectrum crisis red herrings? A couple of telecom industry commentators think so, and they’re calling the carriers … Read More »

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