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 »
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 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 »
History demonstrates that in order to build world-class infrastructure, be it railroads or electricity, a mutually beneficial commitment between communities and the providers of that infrastructure is, and has always been, essential. It is no different for communications. Read more »
Sending traffic over long-haul pipes is much cheaper in most places than connecting back to a local point of presence. TeleGeography looked at the price differences and discovered that the service offering and the competitiveness of the market determine how much more you pay. Read more »
The EU is preparing a package of loans to boost broadband speeds and access across Europe. Neelie Krose, the VP of European Commission is meeting with telecom CEOs and government leaders to push a broadband loan package worth €9.2 billion. Read more »
The FCC chairman is concerned about data caps, but that may not mean he’s ready to take any action. At an event in Silicon Valley last night the chairman of the regulatory agency said he viewed anything that would depress broadband usage as a concern. Read more »
Google has signed up 180 out of 202 neighborhoods in a pre-registration drive for its fiber-to-the-home service. That’s an amazing take-up rate, although it’s not clear what percentage of homes have signed up. But the incumbent ISPs, AT&T and Time Warner Cable, must be worried. Read more »
Google has convinced 10 percent of the people living in areas where it can deploy fiber to pre-register for the service with two days left before the Sept. 9 deadline. That’s a good start, but it might not be enough to get the service to profitability. Read more »
Time Warner Cable is shelling out $25 million to lay fiber to select NYC buildings, but comparing the cable company’s network to Google’s fiber-to-the-home network in Kansas City is silly. The end customer, the money spent, the rationale for the investment and the scope are different. Read more »
The decline of DSL in the US has life tough for the phone companies – who in total lost 70,000 subscribers during the second quarter of 2012. Winner: cable companies in general and Comcast in specific as 260,000 new folks signed up for broadband in the US. Read more »
Good news for anyone shipping a bunch of bits around the world. IP transit costs are down and are dropping more rapidly. But this doesn’t mean cheaper broadband for most consumers given the lack of competition in the middle and last mile access businesses. Read more »
Thinking about signing up for Google Fiber? Curious about those sleek black boxes Google is showing off? Here’s what each box does and what it looks like — the Network Box, a Storage box and optionally a TV Box if someone gets the TV service. Read more »
Our reporter visited a vegan bakery in Kansas City that was one of the first places to get Google Fiber. He offers speed tests via wired, Wi-Fi and a sense of the problems that Google Fiber will have to overcome to sign up customers. Read more »
Google’s launch of its gigabit fiber to the home network on Thursday had many positive elements, including free broadband at lower speeds for residents. But there were some things about the proposed network that will disappoint people in the industry and may worry privacy groups. Read more »
Google’s fiber-to-the-home network may look like a loss leader for the search engine company, but its executive teams says it’s profitable. Here are the three ways Google has managed to cut the costs of building out a network and beat ISPs at their own game. Read more »
For $300, people in the Northeast, presumably in areas where Comcast competes with Verizon’s fiber to-the-home offering, can soon get 305 Mbps service from Comcast. The fastest tier is expensive, but its the doubling off other Comcast speed tiers at no cost that will hurt Verizon. Read more »
Comcast isn’t going to let Verizon’s recent launch of a 300 Mbps speed tier go unchallenged. The nation’s largest broadband provider is apparently prepping its own 305 Mbps speed tier according to BroadbandReports. Yay for competition. Read more »
In a surprise move, the National Cable and Telecommunication Association used the results of today’s FCC report on broadband quality to congratulate cable … and to acuse Google and Netflix of slowing down the user experience. Here’s what’s behind its crazy claims. Read more »
I demand a lot from my broadband connection. But I was surprised to see my family uses 125 gigabytes of data a month. And that got me wondering. How much do my parents use? My friends? The little old lady down the street? Read more »
When it comes to speeds Cablevision and Verizon FiOS are the most likely to deliver better than advertised download speeds while any provider offering DSL — AT&T, Frontier, Windstream and CenturyLink– struggle to deliver on their promises. A new FCC report looks at how well ISPs perform. Read more »
Google today sent out invitations to a “special event” on July 26 which is undoubtedly the launch of its much anticipated fiber-to-the-home network. The invite reads, “We would like to invite you to a special announcement about Google Fiber and the next chapter of the Internet.” Read more »
The discussion of wired and wireless broadband often resembles a holy war. Devotees of each camp are adamant that theirs is the only true religion in the national effort to get broadband everywhere it needs to be. But they will have to work together. Read more »
Only five countries use more than 10 terabytes of capacity to feed their web surfing needs. But the rest of the world is catching up, and undersea cables worth $5.5 billion are coming online in 2012 and 2013 to feed those needs. Read more »
AT&T implemented a broadband cap a little over a year ago, so why is Ma Bell still unable to tell people how much data they’re consuming? For an undetermined number of subscribers AT&T doesn’t yet have a meter, but it will still charge customers overage fees. Read more »
Few people will likely take Time Warner Cable up on its new plan that offers customers a $5 discount in exchange for staying below 5 GB of data consumption each month. But the real benefit to the plan are the meters TWC is rolling out. Read more »
Somewhere in the mountains of Chile scientists want to build a telescope capable of taking roughly 1,400 photos daily of the night sky consisting of 6 gigabytes of information each. But getting all that data off the mountain will require better broadband and smarter algorithms. Read more »
Verizon filed its 116-page suit to appeal the network neutrality regulations enacted by the FCC. The suit has a glossary, 53 pages of legal argument, inflammatory prose on regulating the Internet and even the FCC trampling ISPs’ first amendment rights, but Verizon may prevail. Read more »
Want to control your community’s broadband? Then you you have to own the process that determines how the technology is used, as Kansas City might be learning to its chagrin after Google didn’t seem keen a proposal for community Wi-Fi in one section of the city. Read more »
Google, Microsoft and more than 500 colleges and universities are joining the team behind the Gig.U project to create a new partnership designed to bring broadband to rural America using Super Wi-Fi. The plan is to launch six pilot projects by the first quarter. Read more »
Verizon’s newly launched 300 Mbps-tier is expensive. What’s amazing here isn’t the price, but the audience for high speed broadband. Verizon expects roughly 70 percent of FiOS customers to take speeds of 50 Mbps or higher — the top-of-the-line speeds four years ago. Read more »
Network neutrality, the idea that ISPs can’t discriminate against traffic on its network, is an enshrined right in some areas and a hotly contested regulatory fight in others. But it may become moot if the ITU succeeds in take over the management of the Internet. Read more »
Netflix is rolling it’s own content delivery network, inviting ISPs to either connect directly to its video libraries at global peering sites or cache its content within their own networks. Called Open Connect, the service will help Netflix cut the umbilical cord to commercial CDN providers. Read more »
The adoption of tablets, social media and new interfaces and the changing nature of the TV itself mean the digital living room will continue on its path of rapid change, thanks to new ways of creating, viewing, bundling, distributing and selling content. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Bored with your 100 Mbps connection? Verizon plans to offer customers up to 300 Mbps down via its FiOS fiber to the home service. That’s double Verizon’s current top speed of 150 Mbps down and a slam against cable companies trying to compete with Big Red. Read more »
We’re on pace to send 1.3 zettabytes of data in 2016, about 4 times more than we send today according to data out from Cisco. To put that in perspective, that’s more than 38 million DVDs sent per hour. It’s a 1 followed by 21 zeros. Read more »
Thanks to the addition of multiple undersea cables, there’s more bandwidth capacity around the world, but prices are still relatively high along certain routes. A Telegeography report discovers that prices for bandwidth capacity along certain routes dropped, but not as much as one might expect. Read more »
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski reiterated his acceptance of broadband data caps and tiered pricing at The Cable Show. That’s fine, but it would be awesome if he started asking questions about how those caps are set and what impact they have on consumer behavior. Read more »
Go read this article in the New York Times. It articles the problems we have with U.S. broadband and where those problems come from. Not evil ISPs, but a weak regulatory environment, and to fix that we need to get politicians to talk about broadband. Read more »
With initiatives like TV Everywhere and broadband usage caps, is the cable industry biting the hands of the streaming video companies that are driving its most vibrant prospect for growth? Why the cable industry might consider enabling Netflix and YouTube, not hindering them. Read more at paidContent »
