For years, it’s been taken for granted that the US ranks low in the broadband performance table. But a controversial piece by ITIF’s Richard Bennett explodes the myth of poor US broadband. Not everyone, however, agrees with Bennett. So, to debate the ITIF Senior Research Fellow, I invited Public Knowledge SVP Harold Feld, who has a much less positive take on America’s broadband reality. → Read More
Editor’s note: Richard Bennett is a Senior Fellow with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and co-author of ITIF’s 2013 report, “The Whole Picture: Where America’s Broadband Networks Really Stand.”
We’ve all heard the story: America’s broadband networks are second-rate. We pay exorbitant prices for shoddy service because broadband providers print money and hold… → Read More
Reuters has reported, and TechCrunch has now confirmed with an independent source close to the situation, that the European Union’s competition commission is approving the deal for Liberty Global to buy UK’s Virgin Media for $15.75 billion, first announced in February when it was calculated to be worth up to $23.3 billion with debt factored in. As we understand it, there will be no antitrust… → Read More
The European Commission wants half of the region’s households to have Internet connections of 100Mbps or more by 2020, with minimum connections of 30Mbps for everyone; so today it kicked off one part of the plan it has to get it there: cutting €60 billion ($77 billion) of red tape. → Read More
The research chief of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said yesterday (link via Google Translate) that there is still a significant gap between China’s broadband coverage and that of developed nations, and that the lag is increasing. → Read More
The U.K. has the highest proportion of online individuals out of the five leading economies in the EU, according to telecoms regulator Ofcom which has compared the U.K.’s fixed and mobile broadband performance to France, Germany, Italy and Spain. It’s just one of the metrics Ofcom is tracking, having been tasked by the U.K. government to produce regular European broadband scorecard reports. → Read More
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) minister Miao Wei announced yesterday (link via Google Translate) that the Chinese government plans to increase the number of households with broadband access, and that more than 70 percent of China’s Internet users will have 4M broadband service by the end of 2013. The initiative is part of the 2013 Broadband China project, which… → Read More
International cable company Liberty Global has struck a deal to acquire U.K. cable, broadband and mobile telephony company Virgin Media. Liberty’s approach was confirmed yesterday by Virgin Media but the pair have now put out a joint release confirming the acquisition and its terms. The stock and cash merger puts an approximate value of $23.3 billion on the deal. → Read More
FreedomPop, the wireless broadband company that started out offering free mobile data plans with 500MB of bandwidth for free, today began offering its Hub Burst modem for pre-order with an early 2013 expected arrival date. The modem uses Clearwire’s WiMAX network to provide customers with in-home broadband connections at speeds it claims exceed DSL connections, and comes with 1GB per month of free… → Read More
Our thirst for more Internet seems to be insatiable. According to the latest data from broadband network solutions provider Sandvine, fixed network data usage increased by 120 percent in the past year in North America. The average household now uses about 52GB per month, up from just 23GB last year. → Read More
Globally, the speed for broadband connections is steadily on the rise: according to Akamai’s Q1 2012 State of the Internet report, it’s now at 2.6Mbps, compared to 2.3Mbps in the last quarter, and a rise of 25% on a year ago and a reversal of the 14% decline of last quarter. South Korea continues to remain the connection king, with an average connection speed of 15.7Mbps. The U.S., meanwhile… → Read More
After a few delays and setbacks, Google today officially launched its 1 gigabit residential fiber network in Kansas City. The network will deliver symmetric 1 gigabit connections to households across the city. That’s about 100 times faster than most current residential broadband connections in the U.S. There will be no monthly caps or overage charges. Google Fiber will also come with 1 terabyte of… → Read More
What does it mean when Facebook says it has 901 million monthly active users on its network? According to figures out from the International Telecommunication Union, it effectively signifies that Facebook is the world’s largest social network by a very long shot. The ITU says in a new report that that the number of people using all social media services have passed the 1 billion mark. That is just… → Read More
Pando Networks is releasing new data today about American broadband speeds, taken from over 10 million downloads facilitated by the company’s consumer-facing software throughout the course of 2011. The study’s goal was to discover which cities in the U.S. had the fastest average download speeds, and not surprisingly, major tech hotspots like San Francisco, Austin, Seattle and New York all led the… → Read More
The question of broadband metering is becoming more important by the day. And while there’s much to be discussed about the cost of bandwidth, the trends of consumption, the public money involved in the infrastructure, and so on, one basic fact today is this: AT&T wants to put caps on your bandwidth, but they can’t be trusted to measure it correctly. That’s not a situation consumers should take… → Read More
Australia’s Special Broadband Service has warned that the steady increase in broadband speed, and its increasing availability, may lead to “digital ghettos.” The premise is simple: faster and more reliable broadband means that more and more people can participate effectively online. As affordable broadband access spreads to different ethnic groups, argues the SBS, these communities could form… → Read More
It’s hardly a secret that many of us here are big fans of Steam, Valve’s digital download service that makes buying PC games pretty painless. Who among us hasn’t spent more than a few dollars during one of those big Steam sales?
The only problem with Steam sales is that, having purchased a game, you have to sit there for at least several (long!) hours, waiting for it to fully download. Meaning… → Read More
The FCC has just released its latest report on the sate of broadband in the US of A, and the results are… less than encouraging, and for a number of reasons. The agency found that around two-thirds of Americans’ broadband connections don’t actually qualify as broadband under its definition. (Broadband to the FCC is 4 mbps down/1 mbps up.) What’s sorta odd is that this isn’t a result of the lack… → Read More
There’s good news and bad news about broadband coming out of newly released Census data, courtesy of the Commerce Department. The good news is that more people than ever before now have broadband, with 63.5 percent of all households now subscribing to a broadband service. That’s up from 9.2 percent from way back in 2001. Read that carefully: that’s up from 9.2 percent, not merely up 9.2 percent. → Read More
The Pew research center put out survey results today on broadband adoption and Internet use in America. There was one data point that I found startling. According to the survey, 21 percent of American adults say they don’t use the Internet. One fifth of all Americans.
This isn’t just people who do not use broadband (which is 66 percent of American adults). It also includes people who don’t use… → Read More
The Cousins were mulling over a broadband tax, but the new Government has put a stop to that. (Now they’re considering using some of the BBC license fee to fund broadband development.) The idea was to charge people 50p (around $0.70) per month to fund the expansion of broadband into rural areas. Would such a move work here in the U.S.? Would you be willing to pay, say, $1 per month, paying toward… → Read More
It’s a brave new world of health and technology, coming together to keep you as healthy as modern medicine allows. The Senate Committee on Aging was witness to a show-and-tell of sorts last week, getting a first-hand look at some of the hi-tech innovations that promise to annoy people who cringe at the idea of universal healthcare. Because keeping people healthy is pure, pure evil, apparently. → Read More
Remember when 56K modems first came out? I remember walking around the mall thinking to myself, “Man, the Internet must be so fast with that thing!” I mention this because Akamai Technologies, the company which pretty much powers the Internet’s biggest sites, has published a list of the fastest Internet cities in America. The winner is Berkley, Calif., which has an average Internet speed of 18.7… → Read More
Kudos to Comcast for embracing the year 2009. The nation’s largest—and quite possibly worst—ISP has finally committed itself to deploying 100 mbps broadband beginning this year. That will make the FCC happy, what with the loft goals it set with its National Broadband Plan. It’s also good news for people who know their way around things like Usenet—taps nose like a spy. Will it… → Read More
The FCC would like to know what you do with broadband. This is what I do, and what I imagine 99 percent of Americans use it for. → Read More
Up until a moment ago, this was going to be a standard “newsy” post: the FCC will announce its National Broadband Plan on Tuesday, here’s what it’s all about. Then I read the comments of a PC World article discussing that very same plan—many people are outraged that the government would muscle its way into the free market! If Americans wanted fast broadband then the market would provide it… → Read More
About a year ago I signed up for Cablevision’s Optimum Online Ultra, and aside from a little snafu that I’m trying to fix right now (don’t ask!), it’s been great. How could you go wrong with a reliable 100 mbps down/15 mbps up connection? Only $100/month, too. Other ISPs are getting close to offering similar speeds, thanks to Docsis 3.0, but some people are wondering: will people even need that… → Read More
Virgin Mobile’s Broadband2Go prepaid 3G data service made a splash last summer by offering no-contract plans that came close to competing with two-year offerings from the likes of Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. The major drawback was that the top plan, at $60, only allowed for 1GB of data usage, whereas you’d get 5GB on a contract plan. → Read More
They’re trying to balance the books over in the UK, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has proposed a tax that may interest you. The proposed budget for the next year includes a broadband tax! The name is a bit misleading in that it’s not a tax on broadband, but a tax on telephone landlines (POTS), the money of which will go to making sure people in rural areas have sufficient access to… → Read More
[Sweden] The Swedish government is following in the footsteps of the Finns (well almost), as their IT-ministry is now promising that 90 percent of all Swedish homes will have access to a 100 mbit/s broadband connection before 2020.
According to Swedish IT-minister Åsa Torstensson it isn’t possible to function in the information society of today without a fast internet connection. You hear that? → Read More
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Berlin, Germany
San Francisco
