Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
By Lou Carlozo, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com
CHICAGO, November 18, 2009 - The title of Wednesday’s panel at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners sounded militant enough: “Broadband Plan of Attack.” Yet the speakers on hand gave the distinct impression that across public, private and academic sectors, conclusive battle plans remain to be drawn.
Regulators from Washington, telecom providers and researchers agree that the push forward for wider broadband access remains both a certainty and an imperative. Yet not everyone seems to be dancing the same step just yet—a fact reflected in the frank appraisal of Robert Curtis, director of deployment for the national broadband plan at the Federal Communications Commission.
While the FCC is closing gaps in its broadband plan, “There’s a heavy push to get from where we are to where we want to be in the next couple of months. I’d encourage anyone who has any input to get involved now,” said Curtis. “There’s evidence of a significant economic bottleneck, particularly between the second mile and middle mile. And there’s a middle mile gap, particularly in rural areas, where we might have broadband available, but not everyone has access to it.”
Curtis added: “There’s also a last mile gap in the...
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Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Editor’s Note: Next Tuesday, October 27, 2009, the Federal Communications Commission is preparing to hold Auction 86, for the use of radio-frequencies being deployed through WiMAX technologies. The presence of two major carriers in the band – Clearwire and Sprint – makes this auction crucial for the success of WiMAX in the United States.
Last week, BroadbandCensus.com began offering for sale a major report on “The ‘WiMAX Band’: Characteristics, Technology, Major Spectrum Holders in the BRS-EBS Service and Prospects for Auction 86.” BRS-EBS stands for Broadband Radio Service-Educational Broadband Service. Click here for further information about the report – including an extensive series of detailed and searchable auction tables in spreadsheets.
BroadbandCensus.com Reporter-Researcher Christina Kirchner interviewed Gregory Rose, the author of the report, to provide a layman’s guide to what’s happening in the auction – and why it matters for the future of broadband. Below are edited excerpts from the interview:
Q: What prompted you to research this information and compile this comprehensive report in anticipation of this auction?
A: I have been working on spectrum issues for many years and I have contacts with the principal players. Also this is available in terms of [press] releases from these companies. They...
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Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
By Winter Casey, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 21, 2009 - As the Federal Communications Commission nears the
monthly meeting slated for Thursday to consider new regulations regarding Net neutrality, e-mail boxes across Washington are being flooded by all manner of interest groups staking their claim over neutrality and freedom on the Internet.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s decision to take steps toward formal Net neutrality regulations is not surprising, particularly given President Barack Obama’s
campaign pledge was to “strongly support the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.”
Businesses and interest groups have taken hard-line stances for and against Net neutrality. The term deals with how broadband providers may charge differential rates for preferred business customers.
“The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads,” Genachowski said in a
September speech at the Brookings Institution. “We could see the Internet’s doors shut to entrepreneurs, the spirit of innovation stifled, a full and free flow of information compromised. Or we could take steps to preserve internet openness, helping ensure a future of opportunity, innovation, and a vibrant marketplace of ideas.”
Internet companies such as Amazon, Google, and...
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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
By Rahul Gaitonde, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 9, 2009 - The Federal Communications Commission workshop on economic issues in broadband competition on October 9 brought together regulators and academics, who agreed that regulation of the broadband market would be difficult and different compared to old-style telecommunications.
Judith Chevalier of Yale University, explained that while economic models do exist and can be useful they are not perfect. “There are big gaps between these models and the world we see.”
She said that there are too many variables for a truly perfect model to be created. Hence one must look at the market to predict the outcome of any regulation – and not just rely on a result from an econometric model. Echoing a refrain of almost every workshop, Chevalier said that in order to create a better model, “we need more and better data”.
In answer to the question of whether “there a duopoly in the broadband market,” almost everyone said yes.
However this duopoly in the wireline market may soon be losing its bite, as incumbent telecommunications carriers begin to compete more aggressively with cable companies. Additionally, panelists said, mobile broadband is becoming more of a substitute than a complement to the wireline options.
Looking at...
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Thursday, October 15th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
Public Knowledge's sixth annual "IP3 Awards" - which celebrates information policy, intellectual property, and internet protocol - drew a crowd of Washington's technorati to the Sewell-Belmont House in Washington on Thursday evening.
Among the guests dropping by the event included White House science and technology policy aide Susan Crawford, the Obama administration's designee to be intellectual property czar Victoria Espinel, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, Office of Science and Technology Policy chief of staff Jim Kohlenberger, NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn recommitted her organization to the principles of Net neutrality and to "balance" in the copyright wars. "Public Knowledge will not rest until we have an open internet," she said, and "universally accessable and affordable broadband."
On copyright, she said, the non-profit group was "locked in a constant battle with Hollywood," including a fight over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement -- truly an intellectual property treaty -- which she said continues to be under seal and hidden from public disclosure.
Sen. Warner introduced one of the awardees, Karen Jackson, the Deputy Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Jackson received the "information policy" award "for leading the Commonwealth’s broadband mapping...
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Sunday, October 11th, 2009
By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com
Comcast recently announced a new security program soon to be released to their costumers, dubbed Comcast Constant Guard. This automated message service informs the consumers if Comcast believes that their internet connection is infected by malware, specifically “bots.”
If so, a message will is sent to consumer about a possible virus infection, together with a link there to Comcast’s security web site – and instructions for removing the malware from the consumer’s computer. Comcast is also offering a toolbar with “spyware detection and removal, a pop-up ad blocker, anti-phishing software and anti-spam protection for email.”
The trial run for this program began on Thursday. Such internet notifications are expected to replace phone calls to...
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Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is the one of a series of panelist summary articles that BroadbandCensus.com will be reporting from the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, September 25-27, at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Va.
By Rahul Gaitonde, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
ARLINGTON, Va., September 26, 2009 - Fiber to the home (FTTH) has been touted by many as the next great leap in broadband connectivity, and was discussed at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference here on Saturday.
In Japan this service has already become the leading method of broadband connectivity, with speeds reaching 1 Gigabits per second (Gbps), and a seemingly endless potential for application development. Professor Masatsugu Tsuji from the University of Hyogo presented an analysis on how FTTH has become the dominant connection method in the country.
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation is the dominant corporation in the FTTH market with a market share of nearly 70 percent. The cost of these services is also much lower in Japan versus the United States: in Japan, a 1Gbps connection costs less than $40.
Because some individuals still prefer to keep their older digital subscriber line connections, NTT must maintain two networks, a copper network for DSL and a fiber network. Japan does...
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Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is the one of a series of panelist summary articles that BroadbandCensus.com will be reporting from the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, September 25-27, at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Va.
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
ARLINGTON, Va., September 26, 2009 - Whether internet service providers will accelerate early efforts to prioritize bandwidth, and what impact such measure might have upon the open internet, were actively discussed by panelists at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference here.
Traditionally, internet traffic has been managed by the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), the engineering standard for almost all internet transmissions. When there is a great demand for internet content than is available to flow over the network at any given point in time, "each flow of the network gets a roughly equal share of the bottleneck capacity," according to Steve Bauer, a professor of computer science at MIT.
Bauer was presenting a paper on "The Evolution of Internet Congestion," with Professor David Clark and William Lehr, also of MIT.
Such a standard for routing internet traffic has been dubbed "TCP Fair," and this approach remains the standard for dealing with congestion. However, a variety of internet providers, including Comcast - which was punished by...
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