Access Providers

A Winning Biden 5G Strategy: Flatten the Curve

No, not the COVID curve - the curve of U.S. engagement in global industry 5G activities. Let me explain. What is known as 5G actually consists of a broad array of fundamentally revolutionary virtualization platforms that are constantly, collectively developed by industry in several dozen open global bodies. These bodies meet every few weeks, and several score companies around the world process scores to hundreds of input documents to produce many hundreds of effectively mandatory... more

Protests Erupt Over EU’s Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

In a blog post today, Michael Geist writes: "The reverberations from the SOPA fight continue to be felt in the U.S. and elsewhere (mounting Canadian concern that Bill C-11 could be amended to adopt SOPA-like rules), but it is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that has captured increasing attention this week. Several months after the majority of ACTA participants signed the agreement, most European Union countries formally signed the agreement yesterday (notable exclusions include Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia). This has generated a flurry of furious protest..." more

Some Observations on Reachability of Egyptian Networks and Providers

Different media are reporting that Internet and other forms of electronic communications are being disrupted in Egypt. Presumably after a government order in response to the protests. Looking at BGP data we can confirm that according to our analysis 88% of the ‘Egyptian Internet’ has fallen of the Internet. In this post I’ll share some observations I made with regards to the reachability of Egyptian networks and providers. more

AT&T Says Google Voice Not Neutral

AT&T has turned up the volume on Google Voice in a filing with the FCC. At issue is Google's decision to block calls that are routed to certain rural areas with higher than average termination costs. Google questions regulating its service - a web application - the same as traditional phone services, but AT&T's letter claims that at the end of the day, Google Voice is routing PSTN to PSTN calls. more

USA: Court Leaves FCC With Discretion to Regulate Special Access Circuits

On Friday, the decision to deregulate "special access" circuits was upheld. The case had been brought by the Ad Hoc Committee, a long standing body of large business users, one of the main categories of buyers of high capacity leased lines to interconnect business premises. more

Obama Reinforces Belief in Net Neutrality

Following his State of the Union Speech last week, Obama was asked a number of user-submitted questions via prepared via YouTube. Popular questions included the issue of open internet and neutrality, to which Obama responded: "I'm a big believer in Net Neutrality. I campaigned on this. I continue to be a strong supporter of it. My FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has indicated that he shares the view that we've got to keep the Internet open..." more

Aircell vs. VoIP

Last week American Airlines launched their Aircell wireless Internet access on a limited number of flights. It didn't take long before a few folks tried to make voice and video calls (in violation of Aircell's terms-of-service according to their PR folks), and it didn't take long before someone figured a way around their voice/video blocking efforts. more

A New U.S. National Broadband Plan?

United States Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass) introduced a bill that would require that the FCC create a new National Broadband Plan by July 2021. This plan would lay out the national goals needed for broadband going forward and also provide an update on how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted Internet access. I am not a big fan of the concept of a national plan for many reasons. more

Email Service Providers and the Coming Changes

Yesterday I talked about how I'm hearing warnings of a coming paradigm shift in the email industry. While these changes will affect all senders, Email Service Providers (ESPs) in particular are going to need to change how they interact with both ISPs and their customers. Currently, ESPs are able to act as "routine conveyers." The traffic going across their network is generated by their customers and the ESP only handles technical issues. more

Starlink Broadband Service – More on the Beta Plus Exciting Video

If you have last-generation satellite internet access, broadband from a wireless ISP (WISP), or even satellite television from DISH or DIRECTV, an installer came and carefully aimed a dish antenna for you. Starlink, a broadband access service from Elon Musk's SpaceX company, reimagines the install process and, in most cases, eliminates the need for an installer. The Starlink dish can sit on the ground or the peak of your roof; more importantly, it aims itself, as you see in the accompanying video. more

Spotlight on African Contributions to Internet Governance Discussions (Part 1: NETmundial)

The internet affects every individual in this world whether directly or indirectly. For example, a medical professional somewhere in Goma, Congo might access the internet to read and post reviews to current medication available and this might have an impact on the kind of medication that he/she recommends to the patient, whether the patient has access to affordable internet or not. Since the internet affects everyone, Africans citizens who are aware of internet governance discussions, expect African stakeholders to engage in these discussions. more

Can 5G Compete with Cable Broadband?

One of the recurring themes used to promote 5G is that wireless broadband is going to become a serious competitor to wireline broadband. There are two primary types of broadband competition - competition by price or performance. Cable companies have largely won the broadband battle in cities and suburbs, and I've been thinking about the competition that cable companies might see from 5G. more

Cable Customers Plummet in 2019

The final numbers are in for 2019 and the largest cable providers collectively lost over 5.9 million customers for the year - a loss of almost 7% of customers. The numbers below come from Leichtman Research Group which compiles these numbers from reports made to investors, except for Cox which is estimated. The numbers reported are for the largest cable providers, and Leichtman estimates that these companies represent 95% of all cable customers in the country. more

Australian Farms Get Connected to the Starlink Satellites

Last year, I reported on the possibility that LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite-based systems might be a gamechanger for the delivery of high-speed data services, including internet access, to people in regional and remote Australia. What has become clear with the rollout of the NBN is that the quality of data connections in metropolitan cities in many cases has improved, but that the rest of Australia doesn't have a similar experience. more

eco and AV-Test Publish Monthly topDNS Reports for Internet Service Providers

eco's topDNS initiative and AV-Test are publishing monthly reports to help ISPs detect and mitigate DNS abuse by analysing malware, phishing, and PUA trends, creating a long-term data foundation for industry-wide transparency. more