Broadband

Biggest Deal in Telecom Policy Since the AT&T Divestiture

The biggest communications policy moment since the AT&T divestiture has just happened: The $100 million-dollar-march (or more -- what Comcast spent to make sure this happened) has ponderously, self-evidently reached its conclusion with the FCC's approval of the merger between Comcast and NBCU. It wasn't the subtlest campaign; it didn't need to be; it was effective in its discipline and heavy persistence. The tweets are flying and the journalists are already weighing in. more

New York City Releases Internet Master Plan For City’s Broadband Future

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chief Technology Officer John Paul Farmer today announced an Internet Master Plan for the City aimed to chart a path for internet providers in the private sector to work in partnership with the City in order to address market gaps and deliver universal broadband to New Yorkers. more

Securing the Core

BGP. Border Gateway Protocol. The de-facto standard routing protocol of the Internet. The nervous system of the Internet. I don't think I can overstate the importance, the criticality of BGP to the operation of the modern Internet. BGP is the glue that holds the Internet together at its core. And like so many integral pieces of the Internet, it, too, is designed and built on the principle of trust... The folks who operate the individual networks that make up the Internet are generally interested in keeping the Internet operating, in keeping the packets flowing. And they do a great job, for the most part. more

Constraints on Satellite Broadband: Starlink Alone Unable to Meet Rural Broadband Demand

In a 2024 end-of-year memo, Gary Bolton of the Fiber Broadband Association said that FBA had partnered with the consulting firm Cartesian to look at the pros and cons of Starlink in the U.S. FBA says that report shows that Starlink currently has 1.4 million customers in the U.S., and with the current satellite constellation has the capacity to serve 1.7 million customers. more

Capping Broadband Internet by Design

FIOS by Verizon, is a bundled Internet access, telephone, and television service that operates over a fiber-optic communications network with over 5 million customers in nine U.S. states -- providing Fiber to the Home (FTTH). One of the first service areas was a Northern Virginia community known as Ashburn -- which is also is the cloud data center capital of the world. It literally sits on top of the most massive mesh of high bandwidth, low latency fiber in existence. more

Superstorm Sandy and the Global Internet

The Internet has managed to collect its fair share of mythology, and one of the more persistent myths is that from its genesis in a cold war US think tank in the 1960's the Internet was designed with remarkable ability to "route around damage." Whether the story of this cold war think tank is true or not, the adoption of a stateless forwarding architecture, coupled with a dynamic routing system, does allow the network to "self-heal" under certain circumstances. Can we see this self-healing in today's network? more

A Look at How the Internet Routes Around Damage: Measuring Global Effects of Storm Sandy

Hurricane Sandy caused major damage in both the Caribbean and the North-Eastern part of the USA. In an earlier article (RIPE Atlas - Superstorm Sandy) we showed data on 15 RIPE Atlas probes that are located in or near the affected areas in the USA. Most of these locations now appear to be back to normal round trip times to targets we monitor. But the effects of Hurricane Sandy were felt beyond the immediately affected area. more

What Does the Future Hold for the Internet?

This is the fundamental question that the Internet Society is posing through the report just launched today, our 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future. The report is a window into the diverse views and perspectives of a global community that cares deeply about how the Internet will evolve and impact humanity over the next 5-7 years. We couldn't know what we would find when we embarked on the journey to map what stakeholders believe could shape the future of the Internet... more

Forward-Thinking Remedies

Just a year ago, I gave a talk at David Isenberg's 2005 Freedom to Connect conference. I said, essentially, that we should be careful in asking for regulation to protect the net, because the power to protect carries with it the power to constrain. This was a very troubling message for the audience, and the chatroom projected behind me went wild with disapproval. Since then, I've become very concerned about the concentration in broadband service provision in this country, and worried that there won't be any competition for unfettered internet access. more

NORDUnet’s Brilliant Internet Peering Strategy

NORDUnet, the R&E network connecting the Nordic countries has recently undertaken a brilliant Internet peering strategy that will have global significant ramifications for supporting research and education around the world. NORDUnet is now emerging as one of the world's first "GREN"s -- Global Research and Education Network. NORDUnet is extending their network infrastructure to multiple points of presence throughout the USA and Europe to interconnect to major Internet Exchange Points (IXPs). more

Open Systems Lead to ‘Economies of Scope’

The 'economies of scope' is an appealing concept implying that if we share knowledge in an open way we can create new, healthy economies that do not just depend on 'scale'. As we have seen, over the last decade in particular, some of the companies that are trying to achieve exponential growth can endanger the economy and society in general - the global financial crisis surrounding the large financial institutions, the scandals around News Corp, the political lobbying (bullying) by the super rich and the destruction of the environment by some developers. more

The Internet’s Obesity Crisis

In 2001, I published a report on website weights and their impacts on website performance. Why you might ask, was I researching website weights all the way back in 2001... At the time, in the United States and many other countries, homes and businesses were in the process of upgrading from dial-up internet connections to broadband connections. Because businesses were on the leading edge of this upgrade, many web teams designed fancy new websites that relied heavily on images and this fancy new technology known as Flash. more

Over 190 Internet Engineers, Pioneers, Technologists File Comments with FCC on Net Neutrality

A group of over 190 Internet engineers, pioneers, and technologists today filed joint comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) explaining "Technical Flaws in the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rule-making and the Need for the Light-Touch, Bright-Line Rules from the Open Internet Order." more

CircleID Launches the First in a Series of Community Dialogues on COVID-19 and the Internet

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the rapid migration of the world's workforce and consumer services to virtual spaces, has amplified the Internet governance and policy issues including infrastructure, access, exponential instances of fraud and abuse, global cooperation and data privacy, to name but a few. The need for practical, scalable and efficient solutions has risen dramatically. more

Broadband Technology Improving - Faster, Smarter, and More Versatile Connectivity

Broadband infrastructure is advancing rapidly, from multi-gigabit cable and fiber networks to next-generation fixed wireless and satellite systems. With speeds reaching up to 25 Gbps for consumers and 1 Tbps in orbit, these developments mark a pivotal shift in connectivity, setting the stage for more scalable, flexible, and high-capacity networks. more