Broadband In The News

from the Seattle Times:

Grant County's smoking fiber broadband network is once again kicking sand in Seattle's face. Actually in the face of most every ISP in the world.

The public utility district has been tweaking its network to the point average download speeds in Ephrata are now 114.49 megabits per second, giving the town the fastest Internet service in North America and perhaps the world.

Across the service area in Grant, Douglas and Chelan counties, download speeds are 85 Mbps, according to measurement firm Speedtest.net. All for $44.95 per month.

from CNET News:

AT&T wants its iPhone users to use less wireless data, and it may consider new pricing models to curb users' data usage as it tries to keep up with growing demand.

At an investor conference in New York on Wednesday, Ralph de la Vega, AT&T's head of wireless, said the wireless operator is considering incentives to get consumers to reduce their data usage.

De la Vega said 3 percent of smartphone users are consuming 40 percent of the network capacity.

"We're going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives to those small percentages to either reduce or modify their usage so they don't crowd out the other customers in those same cell sites," said de la Vega according to a transcript of the conference. "And you'll see us address that more in detail."

He went on to say that most consumers aren't aware which applications use a lot of bandwidth and which do not. For example, email does not consume a lot of bandwidth, whereas streaming video and audio do consume a great deal of bandwidth.

from ITProPortal:

"A survey carried out by broadband service provider Talktalk ironically points the finger at faster broadband connections to explain why Brits are becoming more and more impatient although it does not explain why many of us do not complain at queues at supermarket tills, banks or to buy cinema tickets.

According to Talktalk, which incidentally is UK's largest consumer broadband service provider, we can hold our nerves for only 502 seconds before we lose our temper. Technology-related tantrums are rife with most of us likely to wait for 3m38s for a web page to load before hitting the buffers.

The research also showed that on average we can expect to stay on hold on the phone for 5m4s before breaking down and 13m16s for someone to reply to a voicemail or text before reaching our patience's limits."

from CNNMoney.com :

"More than 30,000 people in 175 Amazon villages will get access to e-health and e-education services through mobile broadband. Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Vivo are part of a group that will bring mobile broadband connectivity to the Amazonian state of Pará in Brazil.

With more than 5 million sq km, the Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest biodiversity on the planet.

Among other applications, the project will implement the mobile survey tool that will be used to monitor environmental impacts, diagnose patients, facilitate communication with the communities, and run studies to monitor the life quality index. "

from PC World:

"A cable industry trade group has proposed a program that would help low-income families of middle-school students get broadband service in their homes, with cable broadband providers pitching in about US$572 million worth of discounted service over two years.

Under the Adoption Plus, or A+, program, U.S. cable broadband providers would discount monthly broadband service and cable modem prices by 50 percent, said Kyle McSlarrow, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA). But the proposal would also require the help of the U.S. government and local school districts to implement, he said during a press conference.

The proposal, offered to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), asks for $100 million in federal government funding to support digital media literacy training programs offered by local schools. The proposal also asks the U.S. government to establish a program to provide discounted computers to low-income families, through partnerships with computer vendors or nonprofit groups."

from DSL Reports:

"In last year's 700 MHz Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum auction, Cox Communications won 14 Block A and 8 Block B licenses for bids totaling $304 million. Through a joint venture with Sprint and several other cable companies, Cox also spent $2.37 billion to buy 137 AWS licenses. If those acquisitions didn't make it obvious, Cox is planning to become a wireless voice/broadband carrier.

Unlike Comcast and Time Warner Cable however, Cox wants to do more than just resell existing service -- they want to build a wireless network. That build is well underway, but so far Cox has been quiet about specific details for the service.

That changed somewhat today, when Cox reached out to us to announce the first three markets they plan to deploy wireless service: Hampton Roads, Virginia; Omaha, Nebraska, and Orange County, California."

from Top 10 Broadband News:

"Leading broadband providers BT, Virgin Media and Orange are working together on a new system designed to improve the delivery of online video services, according to reports.

The Guardian has revealed that BT's Wholesale division is working on a new network called Content Content, which would see popular videos stored on a broadband provider's network as opposed to the internet.

It is hoped the move would cut levels of congestion on the internet and BT is believed to have spoken to Virgin Media, Orange and the likes of the BBC and Five over the plans.

Under the scheme, broadcasters would pay internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure quality video broadcasting at peak times, which may be beneficial to many firms."

from the Associated Press:

"AT&T Inc. is boosting its top available broadband speeds in Austin, Texas, San Antonio and St. Louis in preparation for a wider rollout.

The new U-verse High Speed Internet Max Turbo tier will provide downloads at up to 24 megabits per second and uploads at up to 3 megabits per second, the company said Wednesday.
The new tier will be available where AT&T has upgraded its phone lines to carry its U-Verse TV and data service. Max Turbo will cost residential customers $65 per month when bundled with TV."

from the Washington Post

"The tech boom that swept across the nation brought on an eruption of innovation, a virtual applications boom that created jobs and propelled the United States into a world leader on the bleeding edge.

That tech wave was more than one century ago, when affordable electricity was brought throughout the nation, according to 'The Big Switch' by Nicholas Carr.

Carr's book is being read by Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. And to understand his approach to the agency's task to bring affordable broadband Internet to all U.S. homes and businesses, take a look at what the nation did when electricity arrived, according to a source in the chairman’s office.

On Dec. 16, the FCC will present proposals for how it can meet the goal of universal and affordable broadband."

from broadbandcensus.com

A new report using an innovative approach to broadband data finds that the percentage of households in the United States that have adopted high-speed internet services is 72.9 percent.

The report was generated by comparing the Census blocks in which broadband is available with the number of subscribers that carriers report to the Federal Communications Commission.

By linking the number of subscribers in a particular state (from FCC data) to a data-set of Census block-by-Census block tabulations of broadband availability, consultant Brian Webster believes that he is able to peg the nation-wide broadband adoption rate for homes passed at 72.9 percent.

That number is about 10 percentage points higher than what other studies have found. That’s not surprising - precisely because he is attempting to count adoption of homes passed, and not of the population as a whole.

"That's a difference that could have a significant impact on the decisions made to deploy broadband in the remaining un-served markets," says Webster.

Library Journal has a summary of comments posted by the American Library Association to the FCC regarding the importance of public access computers and broadband in support of workforce development, small business creation, life-long education, and access to government resources. Full text of the comments is available here.

The author of this article in TechNewsWorld is the CEO of Ecessa, a company that makes WAN link controllers for aggregating broadband. He makes some good points about partnering with multiple organizations to save money on broadband connections.

Manassas, Virginia was the first US city to see a real, non-trial launch of broadband over powerline (BPL) technology. However, BPL has floundered the last few years because of its inherent potential for interference with amateur and emergency radio, its irrelevance in the face of next-generation speeds, and the unavoidable fact that many utilities simply didn't want to be broadband providers.

Comcast is beginning a test of a data usage meter in Portland, Oregon and will roll it out nationally after testing is completed. It will be available on their Customer Central site and will measure all usage over a cable modem. The current maximum usage allowed by Comcast is 250 Gb per month. To reach that number, a customer would have to do any one of the following:

Send 50 million plain text e-mails (at 5KB/e-mail)
Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)

Median usage for customers is 2 - 4 Gb per month.

Comcast, (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) the nation's leading provider of entertainment, information and communications products and services, announced it is launching next-generation DOCSIS 3.0 and making the leap from broadband to wideband in several areas of California, including Fresno, Merced, Modesto, Stockton, Tracy, Tulare, Visalia, as well as Santa Barbara County (see complete list of 83 cities and communities below).

With the launch, Comcast has now begun its rollout of the reliable wideband service in Central California and North Santa Barbara. The company previously deployed wideband in the San Francisco Bay Area and in the Monterey-Salinas area earlier this year.

With wideband, Comcast has introduced a new echelon of Internet speed tiers, which will redefine the customer experience online and create a platform for Internet innovation in the years ahead. Comcast now offers some of the fastest speeds available today in Central California, including the Extreme 50 tier with download speeds of up to 50 Mbps. Wideband also enables Comcast to double speeds for the majority of existing high-speed Internet customers.

"Wideband utilizes our existing fiber-optic network in neighborhoods across our footprint. With this next generation of service, our customers' online experience is dramatically enhanced," said Steve White, Senior Vice President of Comcast's California Region. "And this is just the beginning. Wideband,combined with our fiber-optic network, gives us the capability of meeting the needs of our customers for many years to come by offering even faster speeds in the future."

Beginning October 29th, Comcast's new services will be available to residential homes (and beginning November 5th to all businesses) in the following cities and areas:

Acampo, Altaville, Angels Camp, Armona, Arnold, Atwater, Avery, Ballard, Big Trees, Buellton, Camp Connell, Chowchilla, Clovis, Corcoran, Crows Landing, Del Rey, Dinuba, Dorrington, Dos Palos, Douglas Flat, Firebaugh, Fowler, French Camp, Fresno, Friant, Goshen, Grangeville, Grayson, Gustine, Hanford, Hardwick, Hathaway Pines, Jackson,Kerman, Kingsburg, Lathrop, Laton, Lemoore, Lemoore NAS, Linden, Lockeford, Lodi, Lompoc, Los Banos, Los Olivos, Madera, Manteca, Mendota, Merced,Modesto, Mokelumne Hill, Mountain House, Murphys, Newman, Oakdale, Orcutt, Parlier, Patterson, Pinedale, Planada, Plymouth, Rancho Calaveras, Reedley, Riverdale, San Andreas, San Joaquin, Santa Maria, Santa Ynez, Sanger, Selma,Solvang, Stockton, Stratford, Sutter Creek, Tracy, Tulare, Vallecito, Valley Springs, Victor, Visalia, Wallace, Winton, and Woodbridge.

Waterloo, Iowa - Mediacom is preparing to give local customers the speediest Internet service in the nation.

Company officials have chosen Waterloo to launch a new residential broadband product providing download speeds of 105 megabytes per second.

"That will make it the fastest Internet service in North America," said Lee Grassley, Mediacom's senior manager of government relations. "We want to use Waterloo as a showcase for this." The "Ultra 105" package is expected to be available for residential customers by the end of December, with a similar business service launched within six months.

Mediacom's current home broadband service, allowing downloads at 20 Mbps and uploads at 2 Mbps, will still be available. The company is using new DOCSIS 3.0 technology to launch the 105 Mbps down and 10 Mbps upload package, and a 50-by-5 Mbps product will also be available.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) conditionally approved California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants for two broadband projects as part of its ongoing to commitment to increasing broadband access in the state.

The CPUC conditionally approved $2,247,308 in CASF funding for Inyo Networks, Inc.'s Last Mile Project in Mono, Inyo, Kern, and San Bernardino Counties. The CPUC also conditionally approved $225,918 in CASF funding for Citizens Telecommunications Co. of California's Alturas Middle Mile Project extending fiber for 74 miles along State Highway 299.

These construction grants, which represent 10 percent of the total costs of the projects, are contingent upon approval for 80 percent matching grants from the federal broadband stimulus portion ($7.2 billion) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

"A new survey by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) reveals that small rural communications providers are deploying fiber at an impressive pace, bringing faster high speed broadband service to America's rural communities.

NTCA's 2009 Broadband/Internet Availability Survey found that nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents with a fiber deployment strategy intend to offer fiber to the node to more than 75% of their customer base by 2011. Fifty-five percent plan to offer fiber to the home to more than half their customers in that same time frame-more than doubled from just 26% last year.
Rural areas are seeing significant gains in broadband speeds, primarily due to the increased fiber availability in their communities, according to the survey. Fifty-three percent of respondents indicated their customers can now receive broadband service of between 3 and 6 Mbps (up from 46% last year), and 39% can receive service in excess of 6 Mbps-an increase from just 25% one year ago. Survey respondents indicated an increase in take rates for the higher broadband speed tiers as well."

Nowism

"Consumers' ingrained* lust for instant gratification is being satisfied by a host of novel, important (offline and online) real-time products, services and experiences. Consumers are also feverishly contributing to the real-time content avalanche that’s building as we speak. As a result, expect your brand and company to have no choice but to finally mirror and join the ‘now’, in all its splendid chaos, realness and excitement.

*In the end, just like all our other trends, NOWISM represents a case of consumers jumping on something the moment they actually can. So, the need is never new, the new ways to fulfil it are."

As part of the task force efforts in putting together a National Broadband Plan, the FCC developed a list of challenges. They include:

1) The Universal Service Fund does not support broadband deployment and adoption.
2) Broadband adoption rates vary widely across demographic groups.
3) Consumers lack information about actual performance of their broadband service compared to the advertised speeds.
4) The spectrum gap frustrates mobile broadband growth.
5) "Middle Mile" deployment costs can limit availability.
6) The television set-top box gap results from the convergence of tv, video and IP-based technology.
7) Users have little control over their personal information.

"Sandvine, (TSX:SVC; LSE AIM:SAND) a leading provider of intelligent broadband network solutions for cable, DSL, FTTx, fixed wireless and mobile operators, released an Internet traffic trends report, entitled "2009 Global Broadband Phenomena", based on data from more than 20 cable and DSL service provider networks, totaling 24 million subscribers, spanning five regions worldwide including, North America, Europe, Caribbean and Latin America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa.

The 2009 report findings include a dramatic increase in consumer behavior towards real-time 'experience now' applications and away from bulk download 'experience later' applications. Compared to last year’s results, real-time entertainment traffic (video and audio streaming, Flash media, peercasting, placeshifting) accounts for 26.6 per cent of total traffic in 2009, up from 12.6 per cent in 2008. Overall, the "experience now" applications (real-time entertainment and real-time communications, such as social networking, VoIP and gaming) continue their domination of peak evening hours, with usage growing substantially from 17.7 per cent in 2008 to 32.8 per cent in 2009."

Ruckus Wireless has a new way to extend Wi-Fi for rural use with a combination of antenna arrays and smart mesh networking.

from the Daily Yonder (Keeping It Rural) for November 12, 2009:

"The Department of Energy last month announced 100 stimulus grants totaling $3.4 billion for smart grid projects. You may not be familiar with smart grids, but if your community hopes to build its own broadband network you should be. The companies now poised to build these new utility systems could be invaluable partners in supplying high-speed Internet."

California ARRA funding awards include: San Diego Gas and Electric, City of Glendale Water and Power, Western Electricity Coordinating Council, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Burbank Water and Power, the City of Anaheim, and Modesto Irrigation District.

$13 a month for 100 Mb synchronous broadband?! That is the rate from City Telecom in Hong Kong. The Chief Financial Officer stopped by the offices of Fortune Magazine in San Francisco for an interview recently.

This conference covered a lot of vendors and topics which have the potential to affect broadband in libraries.