Telecom

USC: Solving the Digital Divide?

Like many in the UK communications industry my colleagues and I at Entanet have been eagerly awaiting the Digital Britain report. Darren Farnden, Entanet's Head of Marketing, has posted an interesting assessment of key parts of the report at opinion.enta.net. Given the content of Darren's article I thought it would be useful to post it in full here for CircleID readers... more

Internet of Things Requires a Rethink of Business Models

There certainly is a lot of interest in machine-to-machine communication (M2M) and the Internet of Things (IoT). But what we are seeing is only what is happening on the surface. Most of the M2M activities are taking place unnoticed. For example, most newly produced electronic devices are now all M2M enabled. Over 100 million smart meters have already been deployed by the electricity industry, with literally hundreds of millions of them in the pipeline. Healthcare is another key industry. more

Study Reveals U.S. Carriers Throttle Online Video on Their Mobile Networks Even When Not Congested

A study conducted by researchers at Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst involving 650,000 tests indicates U.S. carriers are throttling online video on their mobile networks regardless of whether or not those networks are congested. more

The ITU Plenipotentiary: Member States Decrease Financial Contributions

The ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference wraps up at the end of the week. The more than 2000 people present in Busan Korea from 171 countries -- overwhelmingly government bureaucrats -- have been busily polishing nearly a hundred resolutions on everything that ails them. The good news is that some sanity seems to have prevailed and most of the really extreme provisions apparently disappeared during the ensuing dialogue. One of the reasons for the change of heart is the realization that the ITU emperor's budget for clothes is disappearing. more

Planning for the Ugly End of the Phone Network

Consumers who have a choice are quickly deciding they don't need the old copper-based phone network, often known as POTS for Plain Old Telephone Service. We use our cellphones for talking even when we're not mobile. The cell phones have built in phone directories, easy ways to return calls, the ability to call a number on a web page; and we don't share them with our parents or children... It's a good year for traditional phone companies when they don't lose more than 10% of their POTS lines. more

The Race to Bury Net Neutrality

The Internet is currently full of news articles describing how the FCC will soon be putting to bed the last vestiges of its order a few years ago to eliminate net neutrality rules. The order that is widely being called the net neutrality ruling was a far-reaching change at the FCC that essentially wrote the FCC out of any role in regulating broadband. more

Net Neutrality 101: Why ‘Title II’ Doesn’t Apply to Internet Transmissions

No baby boomers had been born when Congress enacted Title II of the Communications Act in 1934 as a means of regulating the Bell telephone monopoly, and the first Millennials were in elementary school when that monopoly was broken up in 1983. Title II was set to die along with plain old telephone service until the Obama administration decided Title II should be used to implement net neutrality -- the principle that consumers should have reasonable access to internet functionality. more

Ethiopia’s Ban on Skype: An Excessive Stretch

Most international Medias picked the story wrong. And I see it being repeated. It is true that there is some legislative initiative regarding the regulation of VoIP calls and mainly the telecommunication sector in Ethiopia. But the initiative is just a draft, noting more. Besides there is no such a thing as 15 years punishment in the draft law for using Skype. Here are the provisions in the draft law that are stretched in many news headlines to bemoan that the use of Skype in Ethiopia entails 15 years punishment. more

The Addressing System for the Next (Wireless) Internet

I gave a talk yesterday at Northwestern called A DNS in the Air. My idea is that, in order to scale, the emerging wireless Internet needs something analogous to the domain name system (DNS) -- the infrastructure that allows you to reach sites across the Net. Billions of mobile phones, and even more billions of connected sensors and other wireless devices will completely overwhelm our current spectrum management regime. AT&T Wireless estimates we will need between 250 and 600 TIMES the current wireless capacity in 2018, less than a decade from now. more

World’s Critical Infrastructure

After all the unexplainable outages that undersea cables have severed, I thought it would be essential to highlight a brief history about who owns the oceans including some pointers about global undersea communication cables aka world's critical infrastructure. more

Ambient Connectivity: An Introduction

"Ambient Connectivity" is the ability to assume connectivity anywhere and anytime. Ambient Connectivity is the future of the Internet once we've removed the barriers we associate with today's telecom and extend the reach beyond the narrow confines of "broadband". The nuanced definition of Ambient Connectivity is that we can view connectivity as infrastructure but we need to take responsibility if we find ourselves disconnected. more

Verizon and Skype: Who’s the Winner?

Until only recently, has it been remotely plausible to consider such different companies joining forces. I've written about Skype often, and for the most part, they've been a threat for incumbents of all stripes. To hear about this from Verizon during such a public event makes it very clear that the sands are shifting once more, and yet again, VoIP is the culprit. more

The Dumb Pipe Question

Every few years, I read something that resurrects the old question of whether ISPs should be dumb pipe providers or something more. Some ISPs have fought against the idea of being dumb pipe providers and want to believe they are far more than that. The latest event that raises this question anew is AT&T's debacle with ditching DirecTV and WarnerMedia. AT&T was clearly not content with being considered as only a dumb pipe provider. more

There Is No Artificial Intelligence

It seems like most new technology today comes with a lot of hype. Just a few years ago, the press was full of predictions that we'd be awash with Internet of Thing sensors that would transform the way we live. We've heard similar claims for technologies like virtual reality, blockchain, and self-driving cars. I've written a lot about the massive hype surrounding 5G -- in my way of measuring things, there isn't any 5G in the world yet, but the cellular carriers are loudly proclaiming its everywhere. more

Google Playing to Win in the 700 MHz Auctions

Many say Google will bid to lose in the upcoming 700 MHz auctions and many more are equivocating. The idea is Google's entry alone will induce enough openness, and besides they couldn't afford to become an operator. This shows a total lack of understanding! more