Broadband

Reaching Critical Mass for Gigabit Connections

The statistics concerning the number of gigabit fiber customers in the US is eye-opening. OpenVault tracks the percentage of customers provisioned at various broadband speeds. At the end of 2019, the company reported that 2.81% of all households in the US were subscribed to gigabit service. By the end of the first quarter of 2020, just after the onset of the pandemic, the percentage of gigabit subscriptions had climbed to 3.75% of total broadband subscribers. more

Poland Launches Eastern Europe’s First Commercial LTE Network

Paul Budde writes: "Two relatively new mobile market entrants, Mobyland and Centernet, have launched Poland and Eastern Europe's first commercial LTE network. Vendor Huawei provided the equipment for the network, which operates in the 1800MHz frequency band. Both Mobyland and Centernet previously offered GSM services in the frequency band before refarming the spectrum to offer LTE. The operators aim to expand coverage to 20% of the population by 2011 by deploying 700 base stations." more

F2C: My Opening Remarks

Here are my opening remarks at F2C: Freedom to Connect yesterday: "I am honored to be among so many remarkable people. We have to be remarkable people, because we have a hell of a job to do. The Internet has been given to us. It is a miraculous gift, and a boon to our lives... at least in part because it accidentally matured outside the purview of profit and loss. Now the money has arrived. If you want to see what happens when the money arrives, look at Nigeria or Venezuela or Russia or Iraq..." more

The Internet Access Gap Survey: Right Conclusion, Wrong Numbers

A colleague sent me a story by Cecilia Kang in the Washington Post: Survey finds gap in Internet access between rich, poor students. With my interest in programs to get connected computers into low income households, my friend knew I would be interested in the article which talks about a survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. Indeed, I would commend the Washington Post article and the survey itself to you for reading. I want to highlight the problem representing the survey results in the Washington Post. more

Hassle Over LEOs

Every second, 4.5 billion people using computers and other electronic devices send 100,000 gigabytes of information to each other. Around 60% of the world's population has an Internet connection. North America and Europe have penetrations of 95% and 87%. But Asia and Africa do not yet get beyond 54% and 40%. On those continents, there are many remote areas where there is no Internet yet. At least no affordable Internet. more

China Mobile Growing Faster Than GDP

In the past five years, as one of the country's 'pillar industry', China's telecom service industry has grown at a faster rate than the country's GDP. Revenue from basic telecom service contributes approximately 2.1% of the country's GDP, while value added telecom services contribute a further 3.2% to total GDP. more

FCC Gets 27,063 Comments on Network Neutrality

To date, the FCC has posted 27,063 comments it has received from the Citizens of the United States about its Network Neutrality NOI, aka Broadband Industry Practices WC Docket No. 07-52 [.doc, .pdf]. The first hundred are here, with links to the rest. more

Data Center Operators Are Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

The March 19, 2020, guidance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) declared what global citizens appreciate more each day as the COVID-19 pandemic crisis unfolds: "Functioning critical infrastructure is imperative during the response to the COVID-19 emergency for both public health and safety as well as community well-being." more

The Future of Satellite Broadband

People ask me a lot about what Starlink means for somebody building a rural broadband network. That set me to contemplate the long-term prospects for LEO satellite broadband. Today, the broadband provided by Starlink is a boon to rural subscribers who have had no alternatives. Hundreds of thousands of prospective customers have gotten onto the Starlink waiting list. It's not hard to understand why when the rural broadband alternatives are extraordinarily slow rural DSL, high orbit satellite broadband, or cellular hotspots. more

For the First Time in Recent Internet History a Subsea Cable Across South Atlantic Activated

For the first time in recent Internet history, a new submarine cable carrying live traffic across the South Atlantic was activated, directly connecting South America to Sub-Saharan Africa. more

Data Tsunami and the Looming Broadband Capacity Crisis

There is such a huge volume of genomics (DNA related data) and bio-informatics data being produced that it cannot be transferred over commercial Internet networks, and instead organizations are using FedX and other sneaker nets to ship the data. The same crisis in data volumes is also occurring in the climate modelling and other fields as well. Research and Education (R&E) networks for many years have been warning about this coming data tsunami. more

Lack of Broadband Competition Leads to Higher Prices in Most U.S. Counties

A recent study has revealed that broadband competition remains severely limited in 96% of U.S. counties, leading to significantly higher internet costs for consumers. Using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), researchers at BroadbandNow Research analyzed broadband market concentration across 3,143 counties and found a direct link between limited provider options and inflated prices. more

SpaceX Launching Two Experimental Internet Satellites This Weekend

On Saturday, SpaceX will be launching two experimental mini-satellites that will pave the path for the first batch of what is planned to be a 4,000-satellite constellation providing low-cost internet around the earth. more

New Analysis by Web Foundation Shows Dramatic Decline in Internet Access Growth

A striking trend revealed in a report to be released next week by the Web Foundation, an organization set up by the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, indicates that the rate at which the world is getting online has fallen sharply since 2015. more

Google Puts Its Weight Behind FttH

The blogs are flying all around the world -- some seem to get it right but most do not. My analysis of Google's announcement to become involved in building FttH networks is actually the same as the one as I made when that company announced its plans to build wireless city networks, and when it announced its intention to invest in submarine cable networks. more