Analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta looked at the long-term impact of working from home on the economy and ranked different parts of the economy on two factors related to working at home – the likelihood that an area will generate a lot of work-at-home opportunities, and the ability of an area to support a work-at-home economy. more
I work with communities all of the time that want to know if they are unserved or underserved by broadband. I've started to tell them to toss away those two terms, which is not a good way to think about broadband today. The first time I remember the use of these two terms was as part of the 2009 grant program created by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009. The language that created those grants included language from Congress that defined the two terms. more
A lot of rural America continues to hope that low orbit satellite (LEO) service will provide a broadband alternative. It's been a while since I've covered the status of the companies proposing to deploy constellations of satellites for providing broadband. In March, OneWeb filed for Chapter 11 restructuring when it was clear that the company could not raise enough cash to continue the research and development of the satellite product. more
With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the fifth month of global disruption, many companies have readily shared data, statistics and observational insights on how the pandemic has impacted the global data infrastructure. At DE-CIX, we quickly observed core Internet infrastructure demand increasing and readily reported this data in April of 2020. Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella remarked to DatacenterDynamics in April of 2020 "we have seen two years' worth of digital transformation in two months." more
The pandemic made it clear that the millions of homes with no broadband or poor broadband were cut off from taking the office or the school home. But the pandemic also showed many additional millions of homes that their current ISP connection isn't up to snuff for working or doing schoolwork from home. Families often found that multiple adults and students couldn't share the bandwidth at the same time. more
Over the past two years, governments and foreign intelligence agencies around the world have tried to understand the inexplicable, chaotic, irrational, indeed maniacal 5G policies of the Trump Administration. Revelations by former Trump administration officials and most recently Trump's niece confirm that there is no rational basis for Trumpian positions and policies and that the best response is to recognize that Washington is no longer capable of playing a meaningful role... more
The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) published a recent report that looks at "5G policy Principles and 5G Essentials for Global Policymakers." For those who don't know ITI, they are a DC-based lobbying group that represents most of heavy-hitter tech firms, and which works to help shape policy on tax, trade, talent, security, access, and sustainability issues. I don't think I've seen another document that so clearly outlines the hopes of the big US cellular companies. more
The Democratic Staff Report Prepared for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate, July 21, 2020, entitled "The New Big Brother," is actually all about 5G technology. The report jumps on the runaway anti-China train chaotically flailing around Washington these days to "out-Trump, Trump." It characterizes 5G technology, longstanding international collaboration, and COVID-19 tracking as all part of a global conspiracy for "digital authoritarianism" run out of Beijing. more
A consortium of the UK Government and Bharti Enterprises bought bankrupt OneWeb, a company that had raised $3.2 billion and had acquired valuable spectrum rights, for $1 billion. That is a good start, but a BBC article says experts believe that at least $3 billion is needed to complete the OneWeb constellation. Will they make it?
The UK government will be a source of further funding. OneWeb's primary goal is closing the digital divide by bringing broadband connectivity... more
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
A World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.