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Singapore’s Fiber Infrastructure Beginning to Pay Off

It's still early days, but Singapore's approach to fiber deployment is beginning to pay off. In December 2007, Singapore announced a major program to get fiber deployed throughout their city state. A critical advantage of their approach was government mandated structural separation between the dark fiber layer deployed in the public right-of-way (a natural monopoly) and higher layer services (where competition is possible and highly desirable. more

Will 5G Trigger Smart City PPP Collaboration?

As discussed in previous analyses, the arrival of 5G will trigger a totally new development in telecommunications. Not just in relation to better broadband services on mobile phones - it will also generate opportunities for a range of IoT (internet of things) developments that among other projects are grouped together under smart cities (feel free to read 'digital' or 'connected cities'). more

FCC Requests Comments on Definition of “Broadband”  - Comments Due Aug 31; Replies Due Sept 8

The FCC is engaged in researching and preparing a National Broadband Plan which is due to Congress in February 2010. The FCC has released a Notice of Inquiry soliciting comments for the plan and is currently actively holding a lengthy series of workshops exploring the different aspects of what might go into the plan. more

Why Fiber?

As much as I've written about broadband and broadband technology, it struck me that I have never written a concise response to the question, "Why Fiber?". Somebody asked me the question recently, and I immediately knew I had never answered the question. If you're going to build broadband and have a choice of technologies, why is fiber the best choice? more

Connecting Every Home in Africa - Starlink Backhaul?

The vision of Kenyan ISP Poa! Internet is "to bring internet to every home in Africa." Poa! offers unlimited, uncapped, 4 Mb/s fixed wireless connectivity to homes for 1,500 KSh ($11.64) per month plus a one-time installation fee of 3,500 KSh ($27.16). But wait, there's more. They provide a dual-SSID router, and the home SSID is used by trusted family members, and the open street SSID is for others. Street users get 100 MB of free data each day and are charged 15 KSh ($.16) per GB with no expiry .data if they exceed 100 MB on a given day. more

Pew’s Broadband Home 2010 Research: Is It Truly Representative?

A Pew Home Broadband 2010 Summary reports in a sub-headline, a dramatic absence of continued growth in broadband adoption across the United States; while at the same time reporting increases in demographic adoption in a particular ethnic group. That sub-headline seems contradictory by indicating an overly dramatic slowing of adoption more

Ten Countries Face Significant Internet Disruption After African Coast to Europe Submarine Cable Cut

The ACE (African Coast to Europe) submarine cable that runs along the west coast of Africa between France and South Africa (connecting 22 countries), was damaged on March 30. more

Satellite Internet Service Progress by SpaceX and Telesat

This has been a busy week in the race to deploy constellations of low-earth orbit (LEO) Internet-service satellites. In their quarterly report, Telesat mentioned progress in two, disparate markets. As I noted earlier, they have signed their first LEO customer - Omniaccess a provider of connectivity to the superyacht market. more

Will LTE Steal the Broadband Revolution?

There is no doubt that LTE is going to take a prime position in broadband developments. With competitively priced services, innovative smartphones and an increasing range of very innovative apps this market is set to continue to boom. So how will all this impact the overall broadband market? ...this is not an 'us or them' issue between fixed and mobile broadband. As a matter of fact, the companies that are rolling out LTE are increasingly dependent on deep fibre rollouts as they need to handle massive amounts of data, to which the mobile infrastructure technology is not well-suited. more

Google and China: What Business Are Telcos Really In?

It seems like there's a different headline story about Google every day lately, and there's a lot here that service providers should be paying attention to. The launch of Nexus One around CES earlier this month is especially important for all mobile operators as well as the handset vendors partnering with them. A few days later, we started hearing noise about Google Energy. more

The Death of Millimeter-Wave Cellular?

Apple recently announced that it is not building millimeter-wave spectrum antennas into the next generation SE iPhone. Interestingly, this is a phone sold by Verizon, which spent a year advertising on TV and showing us speed tests on cellphones that were receiving gigabit speeds. more

Telecom in China: After the Dust Settles

The long rumored reorganization of the telecommunications sector in China has begun. Now China will have three major companies, each with both mobile and fixed networks. The focus for fixed network growth is broadband Internet access. The focus for mobile will be continued growth in mobile subscribers and the launch of 3G services, with the three companies using three different 3G technologies. more

Scientists Transmit Terabits Per Second Through Air, May Replace Undersea Cables

Scientists from ETH Zurich and their European partners have demonstrated a groundbreaking capability for transmitting several tens of terabits per second, despite considerable air turbulence. This feat was accomplished with lasers over a distance between the Jungfraujoch mountain peak and the city of Bern in Switzerland. The technology could potentially eliminate the need for expensive undersea cables, currently forming the backbone of the Internet. more

The Golden Dome and the Scramble for Spectrum: How Missile Defense Could Reshape Wireless Policy

A recently passed American spending bill, known as H.R. 1, allocates $24.5 billion for fiscal year 2025 to fund a nationwide integrated air and missile defense system. Although the term isn't used in the legislation, the new system is referred to as the Golden Dome. There will be higher costs coming in later years. The Department of Defense has already set a target to be able to test the new system by the fall of 2027. more

Widespread Network Outages Disrupt AT&T Services Across the US

In a significant service disruption early Thursday, AT&T's network experienced widespread outages, affecting cellular service and internet connectivity for users across the United States. According to the tracking site Downdetector, the issues began around 4 a.m. ET, with over 32,000 reports of outages, which surged to more than 71,000 by 8 a.m. ET. more