When talking about the benefits of broadband, it's easy to overlook how broadband has become the glue that brings people and communities together. This is becoming particularly important for rural communities but matters to people everywhere. Rural communities have been rapidly losing other forms of media that were the focal point in the past. 2004 was the peak of the newspaper business in terms of readership and revenues. more
As Trump's horrific Administration of non-stop debacles and self-serving gambits headed toward the exit over the past few weeks, one last regulatory grab after another has been pushed out the door while the toddler-in-chief rants. Sure enough, the last of the 5G debacles just appeared in the Federal Register courtesy of the President's policy instrument, the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA). It was titled the 5G Challenge Notice of Inquiry. more
Contrary to what some financial analysts would have us believe, it is highly unlikely that the price increases for mobile broadband services which were recently announced by AT&T will be replicated by other mobile operators around the world. The mobile market in the US is one of the least regulated and therefore one the most monopolised markets in the western world. more
On March 2, Russia covered the US flag on the Roscosmos Space Agency rocket that was scheduled to launch 36 OneWeb broadband satellites on March 5. The Russians made two obviously untenable demands -- that OneWeb guarantee that the satellites would not be used for military purposes and the United Kingdom government remove its investment in the company. OneWeb declined, and the satellites were removed from the rocket. more
SpaceX has filed a plan to place more than a million satellites in low Earth orbit, recasting data centres as spaceborne infrastructure while testing regulators, safety, competition and the line between vision and paper ambition. more
Opensignal recently published a report that looks around the world at the quality of cellular video. Video has become a key part of the cellular experience as people are using cellphones for entertainment, and since social media and advertising have migrated to video. The use of cellular video is exploding. Netflix reports that 25% of its total streaming worldwide is sent to mobile devices. The new Disney+ app that was just launched got over 3 million downloads of their cellular app in just the first 24 hours. more
In December 2005 the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched an inquiry into the future regulation of wholesale access on fixed networks. It has now announced a final decision, following a public inquiry, under section 152AL of the Trade Practices Act 1974 on six fixed-line services that had been due to expire at the end of this month. The following will remain declared services until July 2014... more
"The US Senate today voted to eliminate broadband privacy rules that would have required ISPs to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other companies," Jon Brodkin reporting in Ars Technica. more
For the first time in my memory, broadband has entered into U.S. presidential politics. This is an important milestone for rural broadband – not because of the proposals being made by candidates, but because it indicates that the voices of those without rural broadband have reached upward to the top of the political system. I'm sure that when the presidential candidates go to rural areas, they are asked if they can help find a solution for the lack of broadband in many rural counties. more
Emily Jackson interviewed Dan Goldberg, Telesat President and CEO, in a recent episode of the Down to Business podcast. The interview followed the announcement that the Canadian Government would contribute $85 million (all amounts are in Canadian dollars) to support research and development in support of Telesat's planned constellation of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and another $600 million to subsidize Internet connectivity in rural Canada. more
"Saint Elon" is a bit much but ... It started with a tweet from Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation. The quoted text below is excerpts from How Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet keeps Ukraine online in The Kyiv Independent. "Among the Ukrainian military, Elon Musk, the richest tech entrepreneur in the U.S., is often half-jokingly referred to as 'Saint Elon.'. The reason is Starlink, Musk's satellite communication system that keeps many Ukrainians, most importantly the military... more
San Francisco Supervisor Mark Farrell has assembled a group of business, privacy and academic experts to discuss crucial, early-stage questions surrounding Farrell’s plan to wire the city with high-speed Internet service. more
US House of Representatives’ committee on energy and commerce has sent a letter to John Hanke, CEO of Niantic, Inc. - the maker of the game Pokémon Go under a license from Nintendo - inquiring about the impact of the game on consumers' mobile data usage: more
According to Data from TeleGeography's Wholesale Bandwidth Pricing Database, there are stark price differences around the globe for companies with large international bandwidth requirements. "For example, the median price of a 2 Mbps E-1 circuit between London and Johannesburg in Q4 2008 was nearly $15,000. For the same price, a bandwidth buyer could lease a 10 Gbps wavelength -- 500 times the capacity of an E-1 -- between London and New York." more
Starlink has quietly updated its business broadband offerings. The original plan for businesses was $500 per month with a two-terabyte data cap. If a customer exceeded the data cap, the speed reduced to 1 Mbps for the remainder of the month unless a customer bought additional broadband at $1 per gigabyte. Starlink business comes with a premium antenna from HP at a one-time cost of $2,500. more