Sandvine report confirms: video makes bandwidth hogs of us all
Video has long been the driving force behind our growth in broadband traffic. The latest Sandvine report shows us that’s still the case and offers clues on how ISPs may cope. Read more »
Updated: Where are your five nines now? CenturyLink’s nationwide outage affects millions
If you’re one of CenturyLink’s 5.8 million broadband subscribers, you’re probably fuming because your service is out. Such nationwide outages are rare, but that doesn’t make it any less painful for customers. Read more »
Time Warner Cable CEO’s response on Aereo: Yeah, we could do that
photo: Flickr user The Consumerist
Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt is watching the Aereo legal battle with interest. If the upstart prevails, Britt may try a similar tactic himself. Read more »
CenturyLink gets gigabit fever … in Omaha
Guess who’s getting a gigabit network now? Residents of Omaha, Neb. woke this morning to news they are getting a fiber-to-the-home network. From CenturyLink. Read more »
How many people have a gigabit connection? Fewer than you think.
It’s tough to count how many homes have a gigabit connection, but we can try to get some numbers to give a sense of how prevalent such connectivity is. The answer is not very. Read more »
As Internet gets faster, Hong Kong & South Korea lead the broadband speed derby
The broadband speeds across the planet are going up, even as more and more people are connecting to the Internet from their mobile devices, according to Akamai State of the Internet Report. Read more »
Finding Google fiber in your own back yard
Instead of being jealous of towns getting Google Fiber, municipalities should look not to Google, but to local businesses that might want broadband badly enough to help play the same role. Read more »
Zonoff gets $3.8M to connect the smart home with super software
Are home automation and the internet of things always related? A recent $3.8 million funding for a company called Zonoff has me pondering this question. Read more »
We are all bandwidth hogs now
photo: Telegeography.com
Last year demand for bandwidth rose by 40 percent, and much of that demand is now coming from all over the world, not just in developed countries. Read more »
AT&T and Google’s plans to give Austin a gigabit is an experiment. Is it a good one?
photo: Stacey Higginbotham
With both AT&T and Google planning a fiber-to-the-home, gigabit network in Austin the stage is set for a test of broadband deployment models that could determine how fiber is rolled out elsewhere. Read more »
Who knew? Fiber is also good for a telco’s health
the number of homes that have access to fiber-to-the-home connections increased by 20 percent year over year, but at 9.7 million North American homes, the population that has FTTH still relatively small. Read more »
Egyptian Navy arrests divers over major broadband cable cut
It looks like Wednesday’s internet slowdown in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia may have been the result of sabotage, rather than the sort of accident that usually knocks out submarine cables. Read more »
Undersea cable cut near Egypt slows down Internet in Africa, Middle East, South Asia
photo: Shutterstock / Mikhail Melnikov
Internet and telecommunication networks live on undersea cable networks. And like clockwork, every so often we have cable cuts which disrupt the flow of information. A recent cut near Egypt has impacted millions of Internet users in Asia, Middle East and Africa. Read more »
Less digging and more speed: how Europe plans to get back on the broadband track
The EU still wants to meet its lofty fast-broadband goals despite having had to slash funding, and it sees simplification of roadworks and 4G mast planning as key to achieving this. Read more »
Is there a better way to upgrade the internet? BitTorrent’s CEO says there is
photo: Shutterstock / Aaron Kohr
Could distributed computing hold the future for scaling out the internet and meeting our increasing demands for broadband? The CEO of BitTorrent argues it does have a place in next generation architectures. Read more »
Rating the legacy of outgoing FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said he was stepping down from the role today. Let’s take a look back and see how he did against our hopes for him back in 2009. Read more »
This startup’s new router sends bits at the speed of light
As we process more information, we need faster networking gear at the edge and deep inside telecommunications hubs. CompassEOS is coming out of stealth with an optical router that’s faster and cheaper to operate. Read more »
Google puts its data-crunching powers to use mapping white spaces spectrum
photo: Shutterstock / Ana de Sousa
Google will map street grids, satellite views and even traffic conditions. Now it’s mapping the availability of white spaces, the unused portion of the TV broadcast airwaves that one day could be used for broadband services. Read more »
France wants to invest $27B in high speed broadband
photo: Flickr user fdecomite
France plans to spend up to $27 billion on fiber connectivity. Yet, the plan so far doesn’t detail how operators will fund deployment in rural areas, a sticking point that torpedoed a previous attempt. Read more »
Say it with me now. Data caps are about profits, not recovering fixed costs
The cable industry has tweaked its justification for capping broadband, but a report from the Open Technology Institute is having none of it. Read more »
Can you see me now? Video messaging and the future of communication
The web is getting more visual and our communication options now span video, voice and the written word. Technology and the web are breaking down the barriers of distance. Can bandwidth and devices keep up? Read more »
Some broadband is better than others, like fiber and …. satellite!
When it comes to broadband most Americas get at least 90 percent of what they pay for and those with fiber to the home or satellite may get even more. Read more »
Not so fast: Budget cut wipes out €7bn European broadband fund
In a massive blow to Europe’s plans of getting everyone – even in rural areas – on at least 30 Mbps by 2020, a $9.36 billion fund for stimulating broadband deployment has been axed. Read more »
Liberty buys Virgin, creating largest broadband company outside China
The combined operation will have 25 million customers in 14 countries. It will also take John Malone’s Liberty Global head-to-head with Rupert Murdoch and BSkyB. Read more »
The real Gigabit Challenge is getting ISPs to think like tech firms
Forget getting a gigabit in one city in all 50 states of the U.S. The real gigabit challenge is helping the existing ISPs think like innovators, not like utilities. Read more »
Time Warner Cable’s modem fee cost it today, but should pay off tomorrow
Time Warner Cable’s $4 modem fee has cost it a few new customers suspect Wall Street analysts, but it is adding to sales and won’t have a long term affect. Read more »
Here be cables: An old-school map of undersea internet pipes
photo: Telegeography
Undersea cable maps are for the deeply nerdy, but Telegeography has just produced one that’s beautiful and functional. Plus it shows we’re only using about 36 percent of the purchased capacity. Read more »
German court says the internet is pretty much required for modern life
Germany’s top court has decided that internet access is so essential to modern day life that when someone gets cut off they deserve additional compensation. What happens if U.S. courts make such a decree? Read more »
State of the Internet: The broadband future is faster, but still unevenly distributed
photo: Akamai
Akamai, the content delivery network, has once again issued its assessment of web traffic based on the requests hitting its servers. The resulting survey shows the world’s broadband getting faster. Read more »
Want better Wi-Fi? Maybe you just need a better router.
Too many connected devices downloading, streaming or uploading in the home can choke a home network, and there’s not much average consumers can do about it. But Qualcomm hopes that its new StreamBooost technology will help make the router –and home networks — smarter and better. Read more »
The data center and mobile web drive Lightower Fiber’s and Sidera’s $2B merger
Without the underlying pipes connecting data centers, cell phone towers and telco points of presence, there would be no internet. A $2 billion deal to merge two fiber providers shows how the new infrastructure demands of the consumer web and cloud computing are driving deals. Read more »
Yes, software and the cloud could kill the set-top box
The efforts to sell Cisco’s Linksys business and Google’s attempts to sell Motorola’s set top business both indicate changes in the market for consumer boxes is changing. Soon we’ll see fewer of them. And maybe we’ll even lose the ISP-provided modems and routers. Read more »
Seattle is the latest city to go around ISPs to get a gigabit network
Seattle will join Chicago, Kansas City, Bruistol, Tenn. and other cities with its very own gigabit broadband network. The proposed plan would see a mix of fiber-to-the-home, mobile broadband and gigabit point-to-point wireless services. The city will partner with Gigabit Squared to make it happen. Read more »
Why your computer is getting cheaper but your broadband bill isn’t
As a general rule, prices of technology-driven products and services tend to fall over time. But what’s happened with broadband prices is a clear exception. Read more »
People trust the internet but lie to it anyway
Data from the Internet Society’s Global Internet User Survey shows that we’re contradictory when it comes to our feelings and actions taken online. This won’t come as a surprise to most, but we think the Internet is a source of good, yet we don’t trust it. Read more »
The state of broadband in the U.S. [infographic]
How do prices, speeds and rates of adoption for broadband in the U.S. stack up with the rest of the industralized world? Not as well as you might think. Here are some key facts on the state of broadband. Read more »
Fiber broadband finally heads for the British countryside
The European Commission has green-lit a vast chunk of UK state aid for a rural deployment of superfast connectivity. Most of it will probably go to one company – BT – but at least the countryside is finally set to get decent broadband. Read more »
US Broadband’s new reality: slowing growth
There are more than 80 million broadband subscribers in the US, a sign that the market is getting saturated. It is not a surprise that the growth of new broadband subscribers has started to slow. So far this year, we have seen 200,000 fewer new additions. Read more »
Getting beyond the magic broadband bullet theory
It can be hard to figure out the real economic benefits of broadband, which stops some politicians from ever investing in it. But if you define your scope and plan for additional programs to boost the effectiveness of a broadband investment, you’ll see results. Read more »
New York startups can compete to get a fiber connection
photo: New York City
New York startups can apply to be part of a new Fiber Challenge, which will award 240 business with a fiber hook up to their building. The competition is being done in partnership with Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, which will be wiring up the winners. Read more »
