Telecom

Dave Crocker and John Levine Discuss Current Dealings With Spam (Video)

During the M3AAWG meeting in Brussels earlier this year, Dave Crocker and John Levine were asked to step into an impromptu video studio and talk about how email has changed over the past several decades and whether we are any closer to resolving the spam problem. more

FCC Proposes Over $200 Million in Fines Against Four Largest Wireless Carriers

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has proposed fines against the country's four largest wireless carriers for apparently selling access to their customers' location information without taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to that information. more

Open Networks Delivering the Goods for All

The City of Amsterdam announcement to now move to the next stage of their FttH (fibre to the home) project -- with another roll out covering 100,000 connections -- is a clear indication that the concept of open access FttH networks is a valid one. This will have large scale implications for countries around the world who are looking at using open network based telecoms infrastructure projects to stimulate their economies. more

Report from the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona

One of the biggest telecom events in the world, now in its tenth year, the GSMA Global World Congress, is attracting 90,000 visitors this year. Why are so many people flocking to this event? Obviously telecoms and mobile in particular, has become one of the biggest industries in the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars are invested every year and the market simply keeps growing. However, that alone is not enough to explain this large number of visitors. more

What If They Simply Made Communications Technology Better?

Rob Hyndman has a pointer to Mark Cuban's latest: Think the Internet Will Replace TV? Think Again. Cuban's post can be summarized as: Today's broadband networks are too slow. The insatiable appetite for on-demand rich media content will soon overwhelm them. Telco's aren't putting in upgraded networks quickly enough to meet that demand. Cuban also provides some facts and figures to back up that claim. In the comments, readers have a number of viewpoints, including the view that Mark has ignored cable, and that cable can provide the required speeds and feeds... more

Network Neutrality Upsetting Worldviews?

With everyone talking about network neutrality, with all the heat, it didn't feel good to have to be in NY today and miss the goings-on in Washington. I watched part of the late afternoon markup session online, with Rep. Barton sounding awfully effective as he marched steadily through Title III -- quickly taking votes, soothing congress people who were suggesting soon-to-be-rejected amendments, and sounding confident. The only substantive work I heard was the rejection of an amendment that would have left in place all state laws that regulate the subjects of the bill -- like mini wireless networks. But the real news had already happened... more

The McCain Campaign’s “Technology” Message

I look at this as the ideas of Mike Powell and Meg Whitman, and a lot of unimportant wordsmithing. Before the Dublin (Erie) IETF I wrote one for one of the top three DCCC targeted races. You, or One, or I (isn't voice fun) tries for ideas that matter, and then try to connect the dots, for the semi-literate staff of a candidate who needs clue, e.g., to make effective calls to the DNC's major contributor lists for area codes 415, 408, 650 and 831. I mention Dublin because ages ago Scott Bradner's plan for Harvard, decent bandwidth everywhere and location transparency was, in just a few pages, a revolutionary policy document then, and now, and I was happy to see Scott again and let him know that two decades later I still remembered seeing policy stated with confidence and clarity. more

About That Second, Third and Fourth Wireless “Attachment”

There is some good news about the decision by Verizon Wireless to offer shared monthly data plans. But there could be a lot more if the FCC applied its Carterfone policy. That policy gave consumers the power to decide what and how many devices to attach to a network connection. If Carterfone applied, consumers could use multiple devices to access a network subscription, albeit perhaps not at the same time. more

Beyond Telco 2.0 and Quadruple Play

One of the great challenges has been to conceive a business model for next generation telephone companies. This is constrained by their limited core competences which do not match well with many of the opportunities that lie in entertainment and complex/customised bundles for consumers. Frost & Sullivan, a leading firm of industry analysts, notes the enthusiasm of service providers to offer connectivity, entertainment and information services, within a digitally connected world... more

Google and Verizon Wireless Find Common Ground on Net Neutrality

In a joint statement released today by Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google, and Lowell McAdam, President and CEO of Verizon Wireless, the two companies have expressed their support for making existing 'net neutrality' principles enforceable. The joint statement was published as a blog post late Wednesday on both Google and Verizon policy blogs. more

The Madness of Broadband Speed Tests

The broadband industry has falsely sold its customers on "speed", so unsurprisingly "speed tests" have become an insane and destructive benchmark... marketing departments at ISPs refuse to define what experience that actually intends to deliver (and what is unreasonable to expect), the network engineers are left with a single and simple marketing requirement: "make it better than it was". more

Models for Muni WiFi Completely Neglect Technology Evolution

Modern travel means interminable waits, but it's a good time for reading. I finally read Wireless Pittsburgh: Sustainability of Possible Models for a Wireless Metropolitan-Area Network by Jon M. Peha, published in February as a working paper of the New America Foundation. The good news: it's full of interesting cost estimates and projected subscriber take rates based on specific demographics in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and Philadelphia... The flaws in this study...
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Tom Wheeler - New FCC Chairman

After a political and administrative process of more than a month Tom Wheeler has finally been nominated by President Obama as the new chairman of the FCC with the full support of Congress. Unlike other regulators around the world the FCC is directly accountable to the American Congress, making it a far more political body than most other regulators. I have known Tom since 1983. He is an enormously energetic person and has been involved in the ICT industry for most of his working life, holding very senior positions within the American industry. more

Is Starlink the Tesla of Broadband Access? I Have a Chance to Find Out

Starlink is satellite internet access from SpaceX, one of Elon Musk's other companies. If it lives up to its hype, it will cure the problem of broadband availability in rural areas, although affordability will still be an issue. Most satellite-based Internet access sucks (that's a technical term). If based on geostationary satellites (ones you can point a dish at), the distance to the satellite is so great that the round-trip time for data is forever; this problem is called latency. more

Comparing the Spectrum Policies of America and China

With the explosion in mobile broadband, every mobile operator is scrambling to secure the spectrum capacity needed to stay ahead in the market. There is no doubt that spectrum management is one of the most critical elements of telecommunications policy. It is seen as the pathway to 21C infrastructure... It is interesting to see how the different countries handle their spectrum management policies. more