Broadband

My 2023 Broadband Predictions

This is my annual stab at predicting the major trends in the broadband industry in the coming year... This might be the least brave prediction I think I've ever made. The first iteration of the new map just came out, and there is a lot to like and hate about the new maps. Early reports, like from the State of Vermont, are that the new maps are pretty far off in identifying the locations that can buy broadband. more

China Developing Anti-Starlink Measures, Aims to Launch Nearly 13,000 Satellites

Researchers in China have proposed a plan to establish a large satellite network in near-Earth orbit to provide internet services to users worldwide and to stifle Elon Musk's Starlink project. The project, referred to as the GW constellation, would include 12,992 satellites owned by the newly established China Satellite Network Group Co more

A New Busy Hour – One of the Many Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic

One of the many consequences of the coronavirus is that networks are going to see a shift in busy hour traffic. Busy hour traffic is just what it sounds like -- it's the time of the day when a network is busiest, and network engineers design networks to accommodate the expected peak amount of bandwidth usage. Verizon reported on March 18 that in the week since people started moving to work from home that they've seen a 20% overall increase in broadband traffic. more

Attack Traffic: 10 Countries Source of Almost 75% of Internet Attacks

A recent quarterly report titled "State of the Internet" has been released by Akamai providing Internet statistics on the origin of Internet attack traffic, network outages and broadband connectivity levels around the world. According to the report, during the first quarter of 2008, attack traffic originated from 125 unique countries around the world. China and the United States were the two largest traffic sources, accounting for some 30% of traffic in total. The top 10 countries were the source of approximately three quarters (75%) of the attacks measured. Other observations include... more

Facebook Completes First Test Flight of Its Full-Scale Internet Drone

Facebook's Connectivity Lab today reported its completion of the first full-scale test flight of Aquila, a high-altitude unmanned aircraft. more

Reframing the Infrastructure Debate

Fast and reliable infrastructure of any kind is good for business. That it's debatable for the Internet shows we still don't understand what the Internet i -- or how, compared to what it costs to build and maintain other forms of infrastructure, it's damned cheap, with economic and social leverage in the extreme. Here's a thought exercise... Imagine no Internet: no data on phones, no ethernet or wi-fi connections at home - or anywhere. No email, no Google, no Facebook, no Amazon, no Skype. That's what we would have if designing the Internet had been left up to phone and cable companies... more

National Broadband Growth is Slowing

Leichtman Research recently released the U.S. broadband customer statistics for the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. The numbers show that broadband growth has slowed significantly for the sixteen largest ISPs tracked by the company. LRG compiles these statistics from customer counts provided to stockholders, except for Cox, which is privately owned. Net customer additions sank each quarter during the year. more

Grenada Steps Up Into New Role in Global Internet Governance

Grenada advances its digital resilience by signing the Convention on the Packet Clearing House Organization, positioning itself to help shape global Internet governance while gaining coordinated support, stronger infrastructure, and a formal voice in decisions that influence worldwide connectivity and security. more

China Nearing Full Mobile Broadband Coverage

China’s mission to put its entire population on the internet is almost complete, as analysts predict full mobile broadband network coverage in the world’s second-largest economy within the next few years. more

FCC Aiming for 100 Million Households at 100 Megabits Per Second

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission unveiled a plan on Tuesday proposing minimum broadband speeds of 100Mbps. In his remarks, FCC's chief Julius Genachowski said: "To meet the imperatives of global competitiveness and enduring job creation, we must have broadband networks of such unsurpassed excellence that they will empower American entrepreneurs and innovators to build and expand businesses here in the United States. Our plan will set goals for the U.S. to have the world's largest market of very high-speed broadband users. A '100 Squared' initiative -- 100 million households at 100 megabits per second -- to unleash American ingenuity and ensure that businesses, large and small, are created here, move here, and stay here." more

Are You Ready for WiFi 7?

It wasn't that long ago that we saw a major update to WiFi standards with the release of WiFi 6 in 2019 and WiFi 6E in 2020. But we're on the verge of the next generation of WiFi with the official launch of the new WiFi 7 standard in November 2022. There has already been a soft release of WiFi 7 routers in China, and we'll start seeing the new routers in the market here sometime this year. more

2.5 Billion New Broadband Subscribers By 2013

When it comes to broadband subscriptions, the current global recession is merely a short-term phenomenon according to new research released by TeleGeography. The research group reports that "by the end of 2013 the number of broadband subscribers across the world will have grown by 72% to over 700 million, while wireless subscriptions will have grown by well over two billion, an increase of 60%." TeleGeography's GlobalComms Insight predicts that the Asia-Pacific region will continue to dominate the global market but only in terms of total subscription numbers -- the market value will have a different story. "In 2013 the region's 50% share of global subscribers will account for only 28% of global market value. Conversely, while the relative size and importance of the North American market continues to diminish, in 2013 its 7% of subscribers will still account for 23% of global market value." more

The 12 GHz Battle

A big piece of what the FCC does is to weigh competing claims to use spectrum. It seems like there have been non-stop industry fights over the last decade on who gets to use various bands of spectrum. One of the latest fights, which is the continuation of a battle going on since 2018, is for the use of the 12 GHz spectrum. The big wrestling match is between Starlink's desire to use the spectrum to communicate with its low-orbit satellites and cellular carriers and WISPs... more

TV Warehousing: Comcast’s 500-Terabyte Storage Development for Advanced Advertising

Comcast has sketched out plans for a gigantic database called "TV Warehouse," able to store a full year of statistics gathered from digital set-tops in more than 16 million households nationwide, according to an industry executive familiar with the project. TV Warehouse, envisioned as having a massive 500 Terabytes of storage, would then feed up to a database even broader in scope operated by Canoe Ventures, the advanced-advertising venture formed by Comcast and five other large MSOs. more

Taking the Long View: Will This Be the Year ISPs Rethink Their Business Plans

I have to wonder if this year is making the big ISPs rethink their business plans. For years, many big ISPs have foregone making long-term investments in broadband and instead chased the quick return. A good example is CenturyLink. Before the merger with Level 3, the company had started a program to replace the copper plant in urban markets with fiber aggressively. At the peak, the company built fiber to pass 700,000 homes a year. more