Access Providers

The Trade War for Undersea Fiber

A recent article by Joe Brock for Reuters describes a new geopolitical battle over undersea fibers. There are about 400 undersea fiber routes that cross oceans and that connect the world with fiber. This is a huge business, and about 95% of all international broadband traffic passes through the undersea fibers. more

It’s Time to Change the US’ Cuba-Internet Strategy

In a post last week, I advised Cuban President Díaz-Canel that investment in fixed broadband Internet would benefit both the Cuban people and his regime. This week, I've got advice for US President Biden -- don't try to out-pander the Republicans and call President Díaz-Canel's bluff by offering support for fixed broadband. What won't work... more

Implications of California Telecom Attack Gone Un-Reported

In an article titled "A Cyber-Attack on an American City", Bruce Perens writes: "Just after midnight on Thursday, April 9, unidentified attackers climbed down four manholes serving the Northern California city of Morgan Hill and cut eight fiber cables in what appears to have been an organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, though startling, have gone almost un-reported. That attack demonstrated a severe fault in American infrastructure: its centralization. The city of Morgan Hill and parts of three counties lost 911 service, cellular mobile telephone communications, land-line telephone, DSL internet and private networks, central station fire and burglar alarms, ATMs, credit card terminals, and monitoring of critical utilities..." more

The History of Broadband Price Competition

It's sometimes easy to forget that the broadband business is just over twenty-five years old. The telephone companies had a monopoly on copper-based technologies until Congress passed the Telecommunication Act of 1996, which forced the big telephone companies to allow competition for copper-based broadband services. more

Syria’s Undersea Cable Repairs Will Take Down 60% of Nation’s Internet for Close to 10 days

Syrian Telecom has announced that 60 percent of the country's Internet will be down for close to ten days, starting Wednesday. more

U.S. Officials Asking Cuba to Speed Up Its Internet Infrastructure Build Out

A number of Senior U.S. officials and business leaders visited Cuba last week and urged the government to speed up its build out of Internet infrastructure and to make it more widely available, Mario Trujillo reports in The Hill. more

Facebook In Talks with U.S. Government About Offering Its Free Internet Service

Facebook is talking to the White House about giving US citizens ‘free’ Internet access via its Free Basics program, Brian Fung reporting in the Washington Post today. more

Neighbours Create Their Own Internet Service on Orcas Island

Faced with slow and outage-prone Internet access, residents of Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands in Washington state, decided to design their own network and built it themselves. more

Starlink and the Seven Dwarfs

Starlink dominates the satellite internet race, echoing IBM's past supremacy in computing. But geopolitical divides, advancing rivals, and Elon Musk's controversies suggest its lead will narrow as competitors gain ground in a fragmented global market. more

Latvian ISP Closure Dents Cutwail Botnet ...for a Whole 48 Hours

From MessageLabs' latest report: "Real Host, an ISP based in Riga, Latvia was alleged to be linked to command-and-control servers for infected botnet computers, as well as being linked to malicious websites, phishing websites and 'rogue' anti-virus products. Real Host was disconnected by its upstream providers on 1 August 2009. The impact was immediately felt, where spam volumes dropped briefly by as much as 38% in the subsequent 48-hour period. Much of this spam was linked to the Cutwail botnet, currently one of the largest botnets and responsible for approximately 15-20% of all spam. Its activity levels fell by as much as 90% when Real Host was taken offline, but quickly recovered in a matter of days." more

Network Down? Don’t Forget the Angry Subscribers

Whether you're a service provider or subscriber, a broken connection is an ugly situation. Operators need to shift resources to diagnose and fix the problem. Subscribers must find another way to get back online and continue with their business. And with the proliferation of cloud storage and Internet-based communication platforms, Internet connectivity is now a necessity for many. So when a disruption occurs, the angry calls are guaranteed. more

The End of Rural Landlines?

Recent coverage by CBS News on Channel 13 in Sacramento, California documented how AT&T had cut off landline telephone from 80-year-old Patricia Pereira in Camp Seco. She called at the beginning of 2023 to ask if landline service could be transferred from a neighboring home to hers. Instead of transferring the service, AT&T cut the copper lines dead on both properties. more

Experience is Paramount at the 2017 ANGA COM

Right as May turned into June, we joined thousands of attendees at the latest edition of ANGA COM in Cologne, Germany. Over the course of three days, I had the opportunity to listen and gain insights on the challenges faced today in the industry. As we're already aware, data consumption and demand continue to march upwards. This is further evident by the sheer amount of FTTx-related vendors and solutions present at the show. Cable service providers can look at DOCSIS 3.1 or tilt their HFC towards FTTx. more

Four Crucial Questions to Ask When Considering Telecom M&A

Many industries have gone back to pre-COVID days but not telecom or their supporting technology partners. In fact, the pandemic gave a modern-day meaning to the decades-old iconic long-distance campaign to "reach out and touch someone." With so many months (and even years) of remote and isolated living, telecom audio and voice communications became the heroes of the era, bringing us together and forever changing our options in socializing and doing business. more

A School Without WiFi: Learning in America’s Quiet Zone

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post that talked about an elementary/middle school in West Virginia that is finally going to get WiFi for students. The Green-Bank Elementary-Middle School is located within the National Radio Quiet Zone. more