Broadband

A Cool Simulation of SpaceX’s Revised Satellite Broadband Plan

On November 15, the FCC approved a revision to the plan for Starlink, SpaceX's forthcoming broadband satellite service. The new plan reduces the number of satellites from 4,525 to 4,409 and lowers the altitude of the phase-1 satellites from 1,100 to 550 km. Mark Handley, a professor at University College London, has created videos based on simulations he ran of both the original and revised phase 1 plans. more

Measure Your Bufferbloat! New Browser-based Tool from DSLReports

All things come to those who wait, and bufferbloat measurement tools are no exception. When we hosted a workshop on reducing Internet latency way back in 2013, one of the identified outcomes was the need for better tools to help users understand when they had a bufferbloat problem, and now we have just such a tool from the awesome folks over at DSLReports. Before going any further I should probably clarify what we mean by bufferbloat. more

FCC Grants ISPs Temporary Access to Wireless Spectrum to Help Handle Demand During Pandemic

The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau today granted temporary spectrum access to 33 wireless Internet service providers serving 330 counties in the U.S. to help them serve rural communities facing an increase in broadband needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. more

The White House Broadband Plan

Reading the White House $100 billion broadband plan was a bit eerie because it felt like I could have written it. The plan espouses the same policies that I've been recommending. This plan is 180 degrees different than the Congress plan that would fund broadband using a giant federal, and a series of state reverse auctions. The plan starts by citing the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, which brought electricity to nearly every home and farm in America. more

A Three Minute Guide to Network Automation Bliss

The cloud computing paradigm has been making steady progress in 2016. With the DevOps model making its way from cloud to networking, the business upside of fully automated service architectures is finally beginning to materialize. The associated service agility is expected to unleash new business models that transform the ways in which applications and connectivity can be consumed. more

The Importance of the FCC

My friend Om Malik, dean of the telecom bloggers, posted on the importance of the Federal Communications Commission Chair appointment Obama will make as President... Om is dead on about the importance of this appointment. Decisions made by the five member FCC commission have had and will have an enormous effect not only on the tech sector but on the entire US and even the global economy. more

Toughest State-Level Net Neutrality Bill in the US Approved by California Senate

The California Senate on Friday voted to approve the toughest state-level net neutrality bill in the U.S. and now with both legislative houses having approved the bill, California Governor Jerry Brown has until September 30 to sign it into law. more

Starlink in the Spotlight: Growth, Challenges, and Future Ambitions

There is a lot of speculation that Starlink is positioned to get a lot more federal subsidy from the BEAD grant program. There are a few things that have to happen for that to come to pass, but that is not the only news about Starlink these days. Starlink announced in September that it reached four million customers worldwide. What is most impressive about that announcement is the rate of growth, with the company just hitting the three million customer mark in May of 2024. more

The G7 and EU Join China in Call for Space Debris and Collision Regulation

Last month, the Chinese government published space situational awareness and traffic management regulations and procedures designed to guard against collisions in orbit and mitigate space debris, and this month, at the G7 summit, delegates from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the USA, the UK, and the EU pledged to take action to tackle the growing hazard of space debris as our planet's orbit becomes increasingly crowded. more

The Broadband Adoption Rate

Yesterday's FCC report estimates that at least 80 million Americans don't have high-speed Internet access - defined as download speeds of at least 4 Mbps and upload 1 Mbps - at home. (Soon the Commission will release another report comparing these results to those in other countries.) This service is completely unavailable to at least 14 million Americans - the FCC estimates that "1,024 out of 3,230 counties in the United States and its territories are unserved by broadband[, and t]hese unserved areas are home to 24 million Americans living in 8.9 million households." more

A 5G Community Network Strategy for Cuba (and Other Developing Nations)

In a previous post, I suggested that Cuba might be able to leap over 4G to 5G wireless infrastructure using satellite and terrestrial networks for backhaul. While that would require political and policy change, it would be a good fit with Cuban culture and skills. Before talking about Cuba, let me say a bit about wireless generations. Each mobile technology generation used new technology and enabled new applications. more

Carriers Are Trying to Take Back Control of the Home Network

With all the focus on neutrality in the provider networks we must not lose sight of what is happening in our own homes. As with some of the efforts to make the networks work better (as measured in the providers' paternalistic) view, their attempt to retake the home is about serving us better by reducing the operators' costs. "Better" is of course in terms of the operator's own measures. It's not quite the same as in 1995 when providers opposed home networks and want to charge us for each machine... more

FCC Approves White Space Devices: The Dawn of the Age of Opportunistic Spectrum Reuse

Yesterday will go down in history as a bellwether moment. Few among us will soon forget the excitement of Obama's election. But there was an equally historic vote yesterday that for geeks, policy analysts, and technologists represents an entirely new trajectory in telecommunications. In essence, the FCC has begun the transition from command-and-control, single-user spectrum licensure to a more distributed system that holds the potential to eliminate the artificial scarcity that prevented widespread access to the public airwaves since 1927. more

What’s Wrong With the FCC’s Consumer Broadband Test?

The FCC recently published some tools to let consumers measure some internet characteristics. The context is the FCC's "National Broadband Plan". I guess the FCC wants to gather data about the kind of internet users receive today so that the National Broadband Plan, whatever it may turn out to be, actually improves on the status quo. The motivation is nice but the FCC's methodology is technically weak. more

Alphabet’s Loon Goes Live With Its Commercial Internet Service in Kenya

Alphabet's Loon on Monday announced that its high-altitude balloons are now providing internet service in Kenya to subscribers of Telkom Kenya.  more