Access Providers

Cablecos Continue to Gain Telcom Market Share; Now at 15% and Growing

In a report released today by the research group, TeleGeography, Executive Director, John Dinsdale says, "traditional telcos have been losing substantial market share while leading cablecos have succeeded in transforming their businesses to the point where almost 40% of their revenues now come from telecoms. Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global all now feature in the top 15 ranking of broadband internet service providers, and telecoms remains an engine for growth for many cablecos around the world." more

Network Neutrality is the Wrong Fight!

We shouldn't settle for network neutrality. It's a poor substitute for what we had and much less than what we need. Let me explain. There are two topics to discuss. The first is "common carriage," a centuries old legal concept that applied to the US telecom industry throughout most of the 20th century. The second involves communications protocols. Both topics are complex, so I will cover only what's needed to understand why we shouldn't accept network neutrality and why, at a minimum, we should fight for enforcement of existing common carriage rules. more

Why Vint Cerf is Wrong

At the Internet Governance Forum in Baku, I made an intervention on behalf of NL IGF, reporting on the recommendations given by the participants of Workshop 87... I concluded that more regulatory and law enforcement bodies need to become part of the IGF discussions, as they are an integral part of governing the Internet from a safety and security perspective. Mr. Cerf responded with a one-liner: "I can't help observing, if we keep the regulatories confused, maybe they will leave us alone". more

The Internet’s Gilded Age

The rise of the Internet has heralded rapid changes in our society. The opportunities presented by a capable and ubiquitous communications system and a global transportation network have taken some corporations from the multinational to the status of truly global mega-corporation. Good examples of these new corporations include Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. There are a handful of large-scale winners in this space and many losers. But this is not the first time we've witnessed a period of rapid technological and social change. more

Study Reports on Baseline of Global IPv6 Adoption

A new research on native IPv6 traffic across six large providers in North America and Europe suggest that despite fifteen years of IPv6 standards development, vendor releases and advocacy, only a small fraction of the Internet has adopted IPv6. "The slow rate of IPv6 adoption stems from equal parts of technical/design hurdles, lack of economic incentives and general dearth of IPv6 content." more

China Continues to Add 30M Broadband Subscribers Per Year

China continues to add broadband subscribers at a rate of about 30M per year. MIIT puts the January growth at 2.5M to a total of 152.5M. Of those, about 1.5M were DSL. They don't release fiber counts, but Jeff Heynen of Infonetics is reporting tens of millions of lines of fiber gear are in the pipeline. China has been consistently at 2-3M net adds per month. Two key policy moves are likely to maintain or even increase the growth rate. more

IPv6 Over Satellite: Pie in the Sky?

I am writing this from the Satellite 2008 conference in Washington, D.C. As I make my way through the exhibits, I see many vendors advertising IP capabilities in their hardware products or network services. But when asked about IPv6 support, the common reply is a not so believable "it is on our roadmap" followed by a somewhat vague delivery date. Although IPv6 development has been slow across the board, it appears to be moving even more slowly in the satellite world... more

Electronically Steerable, Flat-Panel Antennas for Satellite and Terrestrial Connectivity

What will the cost and capability of these antennas be in ten or twenty years? What would be the applications and implications of ubiquitous wireless networks? You might have some short-term guesses, like smart cities, but farther out it's science fiction -- Gaia, the Noosphere, 1984? ... Three companies, OneWeb, SpaceX and Telesat, plan to provide global, low-latency broadband Internet service using constellations of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. more

FBI Pushing Plans to Force Surveillance Backdoors on Social Networks, VoIP, and Email Providers

Declan McCullagh reporting in CNET: "The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require the firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities..." more

Limitations of Carrier Grade NAT, and Some Workarounds

Qtel, the largest carrier in Qatar (and nearly the only Internet provider) appears to connect all their users (~600K) to the Internet through just one or a very few public IPv4 addresses. 82.148.97.69 was their single public address in 2006-2007. How can network address translation (NAT) put all those users through just one IP address? more

FCC Approves White Space for Broadband in Unanimous Vote

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today approved, in a 5-0 unanimous vote, the plan to open up unused, unlicensed portions of TV white space spectrum for wireless applications and devices. However, to prevent interference, FCC has also placed some "rigorous certification process" which device offered by a technology company for use on the white spaces will have to go through. more

Beavers Chewing Through Fiber Cable Cause Hundreds Lose Internet in a Canadian Remote Community

Internet service was down for nearly 900 customers in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, over the weekend after beavers chewed through a crucial fiber cable, resulting in "extensive" damage. According to a statement from the area's telecom provider, Telus, the outage also affected some cable TV customers and caused disruptions to local cell phone services. more

The Future of Home Networking: A Problem Statement

I'm a network engineer, and like many engineers I often gravitate to the big projects; large networks with problems of scale and complexity in my case. However, I also consider myself a student of Occam's razor and often quote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: "perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." In this spirit of "less is more" I have recently become intrigued by the problems appearing in home networking. more

Affordable Starlink Prices Coming to Low and Middle-Income Countries

SpaceX first departed from its uniform Starlink pricing policy when it offered a reduced price for throttled service in France two years ago. Since then, many new, higher-capacity satellites have been launched, enabling SpaceX to reduce prices in low and middle-income countries like Kenya. Kenya had 405 geostationary satellite internet subscribers when Starlink became available in July 2023. more

Paid Peering: Issues and Misunderstandings

Recently I was asked for my opinion on Google paying France Telecom (FT) to deliver traffic into FT's network, i.e. Google paying to peer with FT. I wasn't aware Google pays FT. I don't even know if it's true. But I do know this is a topic fraught with misunderstandings. Also, if there is a "problem" here, the problem is one of competition (or lack thereof) in portions of the French broadband access market. It is not a problem that can be or should be fixed by "network neutrality" regulations or legislation. more