Tag archive: broadband

This week the FCC is working on overhauling its Lifeline service, which is a program that currently provides discounts to low income households so they can have access to cheap phone service. One of the FCC's main goals in the new order is fraud reduction and better accountability, but there is also a push to modernize the program with the inclusion of making broadband available for those in the low income bracket. Lifeline is part of the… Read More

Earlier this week, up-and-coming wireless service operator LightSquared was rocked by reports that government testing found that its proposed LTE service caused significant interference with three-quarters of general-purpose GPS receivers; today, the report from the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing has been officially released, and finds LightSquared's service interferes with something more… Read More

The broadband gap continues to plague much of the country, leaving vast stretches of America with limited or no Internet connection. And these Internet oases are becoming more than just a frustration for consumers: They are beginning to seriously affect academic and professional lives. Internet access was recently determined to be a human right, and the fact that a third of U.S. citizens go without high-speed connections is somewhat shocking.… Read More

Most people have a long list of things they'd rather not deal with — and many people would put cable companies near the top. Yet, thanks to local utility monopolies and the paucity of over-air broadcast service in many areas of the United States, cable companies occupy center stage in many Americans' lives. Sure, satellite operators have offered alternatives for years, but as broadband has become more ubiquitous in the United… Read More

The Federal Communications Commission rolled out plans today to provide broadband service to over 18 million Americans that are without hi-speed Internet access. This plan calls for a change in the Universal Service Fund (USF), a government fund originally setup over 14 years ago to provide all Americans with access to phone service. The new proposal would create the Connect America Fund (CAF) and shift approximately $15.5 billion over the new… Read More

In the race to make sure you’re connected to the Web, able to download game demos, and stream high-def video to your desktop, there’s always a mix of fantasy and reality. (How much fantasy depends on exactly which games you play and which videos you watch.) Broadband providers routinely quote specs about download speeds, always careful to include an asterisk about your location and equipment. Well, we decided to take the asterisk and blow it to… Read More

Even in 2011, finding broadband Internet access in rural areas can be difficult. In rural America, 40 percent of homes either use dialup or have no Internet access at all, a figure that's ten percent higher than in urban areas.  In the U.K., mobile carrier Three has decided to help change that. The firm has decided to give free 3G access to communities around the nation. It seems a noble pursuit, yes, but critics say it's a… Read More

A new FCC report looks at the state of broadband Internet access in the United States and generally finds that providers are improving on actually delivering the upload and download bandwidth they advertise to their customers—but, as a group, they aren't there yet. The FCC's Measuring Broadband America report finds that providers are generally delivering 80 to 90 percent of advertised capacity to consumers, with a small… Read More

A group of U.S. universities has banded together in an effort to bring ultra high-speed broadband access to their respective surrounding communities. The project is called Gig.U, is 29 Universities strong and aims to provide speeds of up to 1Gbps to researchers as well as residents in the vicinity of these higher learning hubs. The plan, announced Wednesday, is to draw high-tech start-ups to these university areas. The target sectors are… Read More

The Pew Internet Project completed a survey of 2,277 U.S. adults and found that 35 percent of respondents owned a smartphone. Twenty-five percent of smartphone owners preferred using the phone for browsing the Internet over a personal computer. However, one third of smartphone owners do not have access to high-speed broadband at home. Fifty-nine percent of households that earn an income of $75,000 or more had at least one smartphone user and 48… Read More

As evidenced by the Facebook Revolutions and ensuing Middle East turmoil, the Internet is a powerful tool and one capable of change. Of course, its eliminating citizen use of the Web under oppressive regimes has also yielded consequences. Perhaps inspired by these effects, the UN has declared the Internet a human right. A recent report titled “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and… Read More

Networking giant Cisco has released its fifth annual Visual Networking Index Forecast, and predicts that by the year 2015 there will be more than 15 billion devices connected to the global Internet—that's more than double the planet's human population. What's more, Cisco also forecasts that the total amount of Internet traffic carried by the Internet in a year will quadruple by 2015, totaling up to 966 exabytes. A… Read More

Netflix streaming video accounts for more peak-hour Internet traffic going into homes in the US and Canada than any other source, according to a study published Tuesday by Sandvine Inc. The streaming video now accounts for nearly 30 percent of all peak downstream traffic, a jump from last year's count of 21 percent, reports TechCrunch. Only about one quarter of homes with a broadband Internet connection subscribe to Netflix, but those… Read More

Cloud storage and performance-boosting provider Akamai has published its State of the Internet report for the fourth quarter of 2010 (registration required), including year-on-year results comparing 2010 to 2009. Among the report's highlights: average Internet connection speed increased in 162 countries year-on-year, with the United States seeing a 9.2 percent year-on-year improvement in average measured connection speed. Akamai also saw… Read More

U.S. cable operator Comcast is the largest broadband Internet provider in the United States—and consistently rates as offering real-world performance that actually comes close to its advertised capabilities. Now Comcast is taking the notion of home broadband one step further, announcing its new Extreme 105 broadband package taht brings download speeds of up to 105 Mbps to customers in selected markets—and introductory pricing… Read More