Grant Gross of IDG News report: "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will launch an investigation into exclusive handset deals between mobile carriers and handset makers, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said. Copps has instructed FCC staff to open an inquiry into exclusive handset deals, he said during a speech at the Pike and Fischer Broadband Summit Thursday." more
Millions of households in UK will be paying a "broadband tax" in order to fund increase and improvement of broadband access in the country according to the Digital Britain white paper launched yesterday. BBC today reports: "One of the biggest surprises in the Digital Britain report was the news that everyone with a fixed line telephone would pay a broadband tax. At 50p a month the amount is unlikely to break the bank but experts are already questioning what it will buy." more
Annual global IP traffic will pass two-thirds of a zettabyte in four years according the Cisco's Visual Networking Index report. The economic downturn has only slightly tempered traffic growth and the global IP traffic is expected to quintuple from 2008 to 2013. Cisco predicts IP traffic to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40%. more
In response to Canada's recent decision to keep a hands-off approach to distributed content over the Internet and through mobile devices, Jacob Glick, Google's Canada Policy Counsel has highly commended the decision. In a blog post today, Glick writes: "If you've ever wondered about the power and popularity of user-generated content in Canada, consider this: if all three Canadian television networks began broadcasting Canadian content 24 hours a day, seven days a week, YouTube would still have more Canadian content than those three networks combined." more
When it comes to broadband subscriptions, the current global recession is merely a short-term phenomenon according to new research released by TeleGeography. The research group reports that "by the end of 2013 the number of broadband subscribers across the world will have grown by 72% to over 700 million, while wireless subscriptions will have grown by well over two billion, an increase of 60%." TeleGeography's GlobalComms Insight predicts that the Asia-Pacific region will continue to dominate the global market but only in terms of total subscription numbers -- the market value will have a different story. "In 2013 the region's 50% share of global subscribers will account for only 28% of global market value. Conversely, while the relative size and importance of the North American market continues to diminish, in 2013 its 7% of subscribers will still account for 23% of global market value." more
According to Data from TeleGeography's Wholesale Bandwidth Pricing Database, there are stark price differences around the globe for companies with large international bandwidth requirements. "For example, the median price of a 2 Mbps E-1 circuit between London and Johannesburg in Q4 2008 was nearly $15,000. For the same price, a bandwidth buyer could lease a 10 Gbps wavelength -- 500 times the capacity of an E-1 -- between London and New York." more
In an article titled "A Cyber-Attack on an American City", Bruce Perens writes: "Just after midnight on Thursday, April 9, unidentified attackers climbed down four manholes serving the Northern California city of Morgan Hill and cut eight fiber cables in what appears to have been an organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, though startling, have gone almost un-reported. That attack demonstrated a severe fault in American infrastructure: its centralization. The city of Morgan Hill and parts of three counties lost 911 service, cellular mobile telephone communications, land-line telephone, DSL internet and private networks, central station fire and burglar alarms, ATMs, credit card terminals, and monitoring of critical utilities..." more
Nominet, the national registry for .uk domain names, has announced that ENUM, a registry service combining UK telephone numbers and the Domain Name System (DNS) for VoIP calls, is live. ENUM, also known as Telephone Number Mapping, is expected to allow companies and their customers and suppliers to make free or cheaper calls. In addition to the cost savings, other value-added features that ENUM is expected to provide for corporate communications include 'follow me' type function that will allow an individual to choose how (voice, fax, mobile, email, text messaging, location-based services and websites), and when they would like to be contacted throughout the day. more
According to a new study, VoIP services are having a significant impact on the fixed line market in Europe. By mid-2008, just under 30 million consumer VoIP lines were in service in Western Europe, up from 20 million only a year earlier. TeleGeography, a research division of PriMetrica, estimates that the number of VoIP lines in Europe topped 35 million at end-2008... more
Mobile WiMAX will outpace LTE over the next few years due to its head start on deployments, reports In-Stat. While WiMAX and LTE will take very different paths, the report suggests Mobile WiMAX already has commercial deployments where as LTE won't be commercially available until late 2009. more
ipoque, a European deep packet inspection hardware provider has published an Internet study for 2008/2009 providing an overview of the Internet's current state based on analyzing 1.3 petabytes of Internet traffic -- "the amount of data equal to 300,000 DVDs" -- in eight regions of the world (Northern Africa, Southern Africa, South America, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Southwestern Europe, Germany). The study includes the use of about 100 of the most popular Internet protocols including P2P, VoIP, media streaming, instant messaging. more
Announced today, Google Inc. along with the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, PlanetLab Consortium, and academic researchers are launching a new initiative called Measurement Lab, or M-Lab. According to Google's announcement, M-Lab is an open, distributed server platform for researchers to deploy Internet measurement tools. "The goal of M-Lab is to advance network research and empower the public with useful information about their broadband connections. By enhancing Internet transparency, M-Lab helps sustain a healthy, innovative Internet." more
Patrick Neighly reports on CommsDay about the Pacific Telecommunications Council 2009 Conference held last week where Vint Cerf was a keynote speaker. From the report: "Historians will view 2009 as a turning point in Internet history, according to Google internet evangelist Vint Cerf. Speaking to PTC'09 attendees, the legendary figure warned the industry to brace for 'significant change' and said Asia was poised to forever change the look and experience of the online landscape. The region boasts 578.5 million surfers with nearly 85% of its population still to come. That influx is likely to combine with the launch of non-Latin-character addresses to reshape the Web into a very different beast." more
Recent statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Survey has shown that American have been increasingly spending on mobile phones from 2001 through 2007. BLS data indicates cellular phone expenditures surpassed spending on residential landline phone services beginning in 2007. From the report: "In 2001, the ratio of spending on residential phone services to spending on cellular phone services was greater than 3 to 1. In 2007, cellular phone expenditures accounted for 55 percent of total telephone expenditures compared to 43 percent for residential phone expenditures. The distribution of telephone service expenditures between residential telephone/pay phone services and cellular phone services changed significantly in all age groups since 2001." more
In his last meeting today, Federal Communication Commission (FCC) chairman Kevin J. Martin, announced that he will be leaving the commission and will not be staying in the Obama administration. While the chairman had previously declined commenting on his future plans, the departure did not come unexpected. In the statement after announcing his departure at the FCC meeting, Martin also mentioned that he would depart Jan. 20 to become a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C. This announcement follows reports that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate Julius Genachowski to be the next FCC chairman. more
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