Access Providers

“Restoring” Internet Freedom for Whom?

Recently, a colleague in the Bellisario College of Communications asked me who gets a freedom boost from the FCC's upcoming dismantling of network neutrality safeguards. He noted that Chairman Pai made sure that the title of the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is: Restoring Internet Freedom. My colleague wanted to know whose freedom the FCC previously subverted and how removing consumer safeguards promotes freedom. more

Greece Announces Plans to Install Free Public Wi-Fi Nationwide

Greece's Department of Telecommunications and Post (EETT) has announced plans to install 3000 public Wi-Fi hotspots around the nation beginning next year in both open-air and enclosed public spaces. more

SpaceX Authorized by U.S. Federal Communications Commission to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved an application by Space Exploration Holdings (SpaceX) to provide broadband services using satellite technology in the United States and around the world. more

Spam from Mobile Networks? Who Woulda Thought…

Mobile networks aren't usually thought of as sources of spam, but a quick look at some of the resources that track spam reveals they actually are. This is counter intuitive at first glance because when most people think of mobile they think of smartphones, and those aren't known to be sources of spam (at least not yet). What's really going on is PCs connected to mobile networks with air cards, or tethered with a smartphone where it's permissible, are the culprits more

Iran Almost Completely Shuts Off Internet Access Across the Country Amid Protests Over Fuel Prices

Iran has almost entirely shut down internet access across the country amid protests over an increase in fuel prices. more

Public and Private Infrastructure Investment Alternatives

Eric Yuan, CEO of the Zoom teleconferencing service, stated that the average number of daily meeting recipients increased from 10 million in December 2019 to 200 million in March 2020 in a webinar last month. I've been teaching 21 students using Zoom as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the audio and video are smooth, and switching between speakers is seamless. Offhand, I cannot think of any technology that has scaled so well so fast. more

Net Neutrality and Google/Verizon

What surprises me about the Google/Verizon deal is not that they have come to agreement, but that they have taken so long to do so. What they have agreed to is essentially what I proposed they do back in 2006. What Google want and what Comcast, Verizon and the carriers want is not and was not incompatible. more

White Spaces: Timing

Last week's emergency petition by the broadcasters to delay the FCC's Nov. 4 vote is just part of the white spaces atmosphere right now. Ars Technica reports that the mud is really flying -- the broadcasters are accusing proponents of white space use of wanting to kill off television. It's a familiar argument -- "If you do Y, broadcast television as we know it will be destroyed." more

This Week in the White Spaces

Every once in a while I look in on the white spaces, to see how things are going. You'll recall that the white spaces are unused, non-contiguous ("swiss cheese" ) frequencies between broadcast stations around the county. Commr. McDowell of the FCC has said that initial rules for the white spaces will be released sometime this fall. If the white spaces are made available on an unlicensed basis for use by opportunistic, "smart," low-power mobile devices, entrepreneurial engineers will think of ways to use this wealth of spectrum (300 MHz wide, if fractured) to provide mobile connections to whatever fiber installations are nearest. more

Verizon, AT&T Speeds Slow After Unlimited Data Plans Launch

Verizon and AT&T re-introduced their unlimited data plans earlier this year, and as a result, studies show that the providers' 4G speeds and overall speeds have fallen due to increased data demand on their networks. more

Satellite Internet Access That Could Be Good

According to The Wall Street Journal, a company called O3b Networks LTD Traditional is planning to launch up to 16 satellites by the end of 2010 to provide Internet access in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Latin America. This satellite plan, unlike many others, could be good. These are low earth orbit satellites or LEOs so they will be able to avoid the latency problems which are unavoidable with the geostationary satellites used by companies like WildBlue and Hughes to provide "last resort" Internet access in the US. more

Making the Wireless World More Web-Friendly

Your wireless carrier (in the U.S., probably AT&T or Verizon Wireless) has a lot of control over the handset you can use and the applications that can run on that device. In fact, wireless carriers routinely ask for (and get) an enormous slice of the revenue from applications that work on their networks, and they force handset manufacturers to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to be allowed to sell devices that can connect to these networks... This has had bad effects on the ecosystem of the wireless world. more

Broadband Data Improvement Act Passes Senate, House, A.K.A. Find Why U.S. is on Continuous Decline

In a major win for the public interest, the Broadband Data Improvement Act passed the Senate (on September 26th) and the House (on September 29th). Due to amendments, it now goes back to the Senate for final approval (should be pro-forma) before it lands on George Bush's desk. With the United States falling further and further behind a host of other countries, the question on many people's minds (including the folks over at Point-Topic who created this graphic) is, "Why is this happening?" more

The Madness of Broadband Speed Tests

The broadband industry has falsely sold its customers on "speed", so unsurprisingly "speed tests" have become an insane and destructive benchmark... marketing departments at ISPs refuse to define what experience that actually intends to deliver (and what is unreasonable to expect), the network engineers are left with a single and simple marketing requirement: "make it better than it was". more

Putin’s Iron Firewall Is Porous

In 1946 Winston Churchill declared that Russia had lowered an iron curtain across Europe, and in 2022 Vladimir Putin created an iron firewall between the Russian Internet and media and the rest of the world, but, like its precursor, it is porous. Information wants to be free. more