Broadband

Net Neutrality: What Is Old Is New Again

On July 22, the FCC's open Internet order - which transforms Internet access service from a lightly regulated information service into a heavily regulated telecommunications service - will take effect. This article describes the policies and legal theories underlying the Order and the Order's effect on consumers of Internet services and providers of the service, including a number of entities that had previously escaped FCC regulation. more

4G on the Moon

This post is a little more lighthearted than my normal blog posts. An article in FierceWireless caught my eye talking about how Nokia plans to establish a 4G network on the Moon. The primary purpose of the wireless technology will be to communicate between a base station and lunar rovers. 4G LTE is a mature and stable technology that can handle data transmission with ease... more

Reflections on the Pandemic Effect on Internet Use and Democracy

Last year, around the same time, the release on the same day of two flagship reports on 'the Internet' had prompted me to write an article on CircleID entitled 'Connecting the Next 46 Percent: Time to Pick the Good From the Bad and the Ugly'. I was then prudently asking whether 'the more we connect the world, the less free it becomes?'. Who would have known that a pandemic would erupt a few months later, unveiling different perspectives in assessing that very same question? more

ISPs in UK Legally Obliged to Provide High-Speed Broadband Upon Request, Starting 2020

UK Government says internet providers will be legally required to meet user requests for speeds of at least 10Mbps starting in 2020. more

Are You Ready for 10 Gbps?

Around the world, we're seeing some migration to 10 Gbps residential broadband. During the last year, the broadband providers in South Korea, Japan, and China began upgrading to the next-generation PON and are offering the blazingly fast broadband products to consumers. South Korea is leading the pack and expects to have the 10 Gbps speed to about 50% of subscribers by the end of 2022. more

Will Work for Bandwidth

The Internet is in for interesting times. Previously, on Renysys' blog I wrote about the engineering issues and the policy issues facing us over the next five years. But there is at least one large issue still lurking. Most of you will not be surprised to learn that almost all of these issues are outgrowths of a single factor: money. The core of the Internet still doesn't have a sustainable business model. more

Satellite Broadband, Stimulus Funds and Network Neutrality

At the IP Satellite Summit in Washington this week, a panel composed of satellite service providers and product vendors discussed whether or not they would pursue the economic stimulus funds set aside for broadband development. While the service providers agreed that there are viable business models for satellite broadband service without the stimulus money – of course, they were delivering service before the current economic collapse and talk of the stimulus money – the consensus seemed to be that they would apply for the grants to further develop, deploy and perhaps even subsidize their service offerings... more

The Freedom to Innovate Without Permission

In a speech this morning, widely heralded (and criticized) as a call for "network neutrality," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski: "Why has the Internet proved to be such a powerful engine for creativity, innovation, and economic growth? A big part of the answer traces back to one key decision by the Internet's original architects: to make the Internet an open system." Now "open system" doesn't mean anarchy. The Internet has rules, technical standards codified in the unassuming sounding "Requests for Comment." more

Disruptive Google Fiber Is Shaking up the Telco World

The Google Fiber project is receiving international attention. This in itself is a good thing, since it brings the benefits of high-speed FttH infrastructure to the attention of large numbers of people in business and government who will not have to deal with such developments on a regular basis... At the same time we have to look at Google Fiber from the point of view of operating in the American regulatory environment. Yes, we can all learn from its disruptive model, and particularly when the results of the more innovative elements of the services begin to kick in; but for other reasons there is no way that this model can be replicated elsewhere. more

The WiFi 6 Revolution

We're edging closer every day to seeing WiFi 6 in our homes. WiFi 6 will be bolstered by the newly approved 6 GHz frequency, and the combination of WiFi 6 and 6 GHz spectrum is going to revolutionize home broadband. I don't think many people understand how many of our home broadband woes are caused by current WiFi technology. WiFi has been an awesome technology that freed our homes from long category 5 wires everywhere, but WiFi has a basic flaw that became apparent when homeowners started to buy hordes of WiFi-enabled devices.  more

The US-China Technology Cold War Battle Over Optical Communication in Space

The United States and its allies are in a technology cold war with China and its allies. This is evidenced by major battles like the US ban on Huawei and China's drive for technological independence and their global infrastructure program to create a digital silk road. (The cold war began under Trump, but President Biden is continuing it). There are other, less well-known battles like the battle over optical communication in space. more

Digital Rights Management or Digital Restrictive Management?

We are all accustomed to purchasing and/or using copyrighted material in one fashion or another. From music, movies-(BluRay), e-books-(Kindle), computers-(software), mobile phones-(iPhone) and games; the umbrella of companies wanting to restrict access to its products continues to grow and become increasingly restrictive. more

A Repeat Performance for Cable TV 3Q22

Traditional cable providers in the United States continue to lose cable TV customers at the same fast pace as the second quarter of the year. In the third quarter, the cable companies list 1.68 million customers after losing over 1.65 million customers in the second quarter. These numbers come from Leichtman Research Group, which compiles most of these numbers from the statistics provided to stockholders, except for Cox, which is privately held and estimated. more

A Look at Cuba’s Digital Revolution

In spite of having a slow, expensive, government-controlled Internet infrastructure, Cuba is undergoing what Ted Henken and Sara Garcia Santamaria refer to as a digital revolution. The digital revolution might be said to have begun in 2007 when Yoani Sánchez launched her blog "Generation Y." Internet access was difficult -- she would get illegal connectivity at tourist hotels, and the blog was initially hosted in Germany. Soon, the Huffington Post began publishing her posts, and she has subsequently received many international awards, including the Ortega y Gasset Award for Digital Journalism in 2008. more

P2P: Boon, Boondoggle, or Bandwidth Hog? (The Dark Side)

Yesterday's post explained how peer-to-peer (P2P) applications use the processing power, bandwidth, and storage capacity of participants in a service rather than centralized resources. This makes such applications generally less subject to catastrophic failure, much less subject to running out of resources (since each new user brings new capacity as well as new demand), and much cheaper FOR THE PROVIDER of the application in terms of hardware and bandwidth required. It's the FOR THE PROVIDER part that's the rub. Let's consider the case of BBC's iPlayer service... more