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 »
A mobile internet subsidized by content providers: ESPN might want it but you shouldn’t
ESPN is reportedly in negotiations with Verizon to exempt its content from the carrier’s data caps. Such a deal would set a precedence for a very different mobile internet than the one we know today. 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 »
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 »
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 »
More bad news about broadband caps: Many meters are inaccurate
photo: Shutterstock / Aperture 51
An executive at a firm ISPs hire to audit their broadband meters says most of his clients so far haven’t built accurate meters. Read more »
Subscriber Content
How to manage the signaling storm in 2013
Signaling traffic growth is outstripping mobile data traffic by 30 percent to 50 percent and threatening the stability of mobile networks. However, the growth in signaling traffic is not only an indicator of success but also shows that mobile data has come of age. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The unlimited mobile data plan suffers more casualties
In January, Boost Mobile will start throttling speeds to its “unlimited” customers after they exceed 2.5 GB. Clearwire is experimenting with usage-based plans. It’s getting harder and harder to find a truly unlimited data plan anymore as carriers impose more restrictions. Read more »
As broadband caps turn 4, it’s time for the FCC to take action
Broadband caps are spreading like Kudzu but the FCC has no oversight of how ISPs implement them or who they affect. While, the agency is showing signs of waking up to the problem, we’ve laid out three areas where it needs to take action. Read more »
Is your carrier overbilling you for mobile data?
photo: Shutterstock / Tomas Urbelionis Photo
A new research study shows that carriers may be charging for mobile data that you don’t actually consume. A test of two U.S. mobile networks found that carriers count every byte they ship you even if your phone is incapable of receiving that data. Read more »
Verizon debuts Viewdini, but streaming still subject to caps
Verizon’s new video app Viewdini has escaped onto Android smartphones – at least the LTE ones. The video portal allows 4G smartphone customers to browse, search and view videos from multiple content services. What the app doesn’t allow you to do is skirt Verizon’s mobile data caps. Read more »
New Netflix iOS app capitulates to bandwidth caps
Carriers like Verizon and AT&T are trying to convince Netflix to pay for the bandwidth its subscribers consume on their networks. Rather than fork over the money, Netflix is giving its iPhone customers the option of turning off cellular access to Netflix completely. Read more »
Here’s what our web addiction looks like in 2016
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 »
U.S. Cellular ends punitive overage charges on mobile data
U.S. Cellular has finally done away with that relic of a bygone 3G age: punitive overage charges on its mobile data plans. Almost all carriers have stopped charging exorbitant rates the slightest breech of the cap, but until this week U.S. Cellular was the exception. Read more »
The future of TV isn’t TV, it’s broadband.
As government strives to keep up with the broadband age, the Senate held a hearing covering the future of television, but midway through I realized that the Senate has it all wrong. The future of TV isn’t found in deregulation, it’s found on the Internet. Read more »
Subscriber Content
The problems with app-based billing for data
This week AT&T floated a plan to enable app developers to pay for the data that subscribers use in their apps. The model might resonate with some developers and subscribers, but it is likely to create more problems than it ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
How T-Mobile’s roaming data caps would affect you
T-Mobile may soon begin restricting roaming data usage to cut down on the amount of packets its customers consume off the carrier’s networks. If true, the new caps could affect many of T-Mobile’s customers, though the size of the impact on each customer may be small. Read more »
AT&T boosts mobile data caps but hikes prices as well
On Sunday, AT&T is reconfiguring its mobile data plans in a way that will anger many customers but may actually please others. It’s raising its smartphone and tablet data plan rates, while simultaneously offering customers a better deal on the data they do consume. Read more »
Sprint: Unlimited still means unlimited
Sprint is walking back comments from CEO Dan Hesse on Thursday about Sprint throttling data speeds of its heaviest data users. At a conference Thursday, Hesse clearly stated Sprint was reining in bandwidth for its greediest smartphone customers, but Sprint maintains unlimited remains unlimited. Read more »
There are limits to Sprint’s unlimited plan, after all
At an analyst conference, Sprint CEO let slip a change in Sprint’s data policies that could have a big impact on iPhone and other smartphone customers lured in by Sprint’s unlimited plans: the carrier has been throttling back speeds to the heaviest consumers of smartphone data. Read more »
Consumers coming to expect free carrier Wi-Fi
Devicescape customers may not be your average mobile data users, but they almost uniformly expect that wireless operators provide some kind of mobile data service and that they provide it for free. Devicescape’s study also found many consumers are unaware that operators are capping data. Read more »
It’s coming: The emergence of second-class mobile citizens
Carriers are preparing ways to change their pricing to charge by applications or services. And as they do, consumers will lose — namely because carriers will offer a variety of their own services that could strangle the quality of anything one might consider over-the-top. Read more »
Capped data plan got you down? There’s an app for that
Mobile data efficiency isn’t a sexy feature that moves a lot of apps and devices, but it’s increasingly going to be a selling point, as mobile consumers look for savings in an data-capped world. Onavo says it can save iPhone users about $1 billion a year. Read more »
Since DSL is obsolete, AT&T will sell you LTE instead
AT&T’s solid second quarter results were driven by wireless, but its wireline business was nearing growth again — a success for the carrier as it nears the completion of its U-Verse deployment. But amid the cheering for U-verse, the DSL network was getting kicked to the curb. Read more »
Feel bad about your broadband? Canada has it worse.
Shaw, a Canadian ISP said this week that its movies and on demand service would be exempt from its data caps. Such a move places Shaw’s upcoming Movie Club service at an advantage to a competitive movie streaming service such as Netflix. Read more »
Facing data caps, consumers keep turning to Wi-Fi
As network operators drop unlimited mobile broadband data plans, consumers continue to shift their data needs to free or low-cost Wi-Fi hot spots: nearly 90 percent are hitting hot spots at home and on the go. Once a lowly home network standard, Wi-Fi is king of the road. Read more »
