Orange, a UK ISP and mobile phone company, is reportedly close to signing a deal with an ad-supported mobile virtual network called Blyk that would offer certain Orange customers credits on their service in exchange for receiving text-based ads on their mobile phones. According to an article in New Media Age, Orange has been in […]
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The two national agencies responsible for allocating $7.2 billion in broadband grants as part of the stimulus bill today released the rules governing the process and said the government would provide about $4 billion in loans for the first of three funding rounds. That money will start flowing to projects in November. It’s a […]
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Globalstar today closed on $738 million in financing, while rival satellite operator TerreStar launched its new bird, TerreStar-1. Globalstar plans to use its money to fund operations and launch a new generation of satellites in 2010 that will deliver all IP-based voice and data to its customers through 2025. Before celebrating, know that Globalstar’s new […]
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CenturyTel and Embarq today announced the completion of their $11.6 billion merger, which results in a phone company that will serve 7.5 million customers in 33 states. The combined company will now be known as CenturyLink — and the aging copper-based DSL lines it offers to most of its subscribers will certainly act as a […]
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Only 2 percent of the world lives in a country where broadband penetration has exceeded 80 percent, according to a report out today from TeleGeography. The report noted that worries over broadband saturation are really only appropriate in 10 countries out of the 127 the firm tracks, and the U.S. isn’t even one of those […]
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Mushroom's PortaBella device
Good things come in threes, and any triptych of services is the basis for a journalist to declare a trend, so when I met three different companies last week that offered a way to bundle a variety of mobile broadband connections into one fat pipe, I was compelled to pull together an article […]
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Eight-two percent of home buyers who have had broadband service over fiber all the way to the house rank it as the leading real estate amenity, the Fiber-to-the-Home Council said today. A national study of U.S. broadband consumers by RVA LLC Market Research and Consulting shows that fiber-to-the-home ranks higher than green spaces, […]
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Comcast, the largest US cable company and one of the biggest broadband service providers in the country says it has started to sell a new wireless broadband service, High-Speed 2go across cities in its cable footprint. Here are some facts:

Comcast will offer its own wireless laptop cards and the service will not have any […]
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Cablevision today got further blessings from the Supreme Court, which decided not to hear an appeal in the networked DVR-related litigation. We have been following this story pretty closely, and frankly, it is good to see an end to litigation around this technology. Many studios and TV networks such as Paramount, Disney, CBS and […]
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Nokia plans to launch an ARM-based netbook that relies on the Google-pioneered Android mobile operating system in 2010, writes Lazard Capital Markets analyst Daniel Amir in a research note issued this morning. In the same note, he predicts that the total number of netbooks sold worldwide will reach 25 million in 2009 vs. 10 […]
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The congratulations are rolling in after the Senate today confirmed Julius Genachowski as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The Senate also confirmed Robert McDowell for his second term, leaving only two spots remaining to be filled on the five-member commission. The confirmation by the full Senate came one week after the Commerce […]
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Most technology vendors agree that multiple mobile networks create a lot of complexity for users trying to figure out how they should connect when Wi-Fi or 3G networks are available. Add WiMAX and LTE to the picture and things get even more complicated, according to Barbara Nelson, CTO of iPass.
Creating an easy user experience through […]
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The demand for ubiquitous web access and a scarcity of bandwidth on wireless networks are driving the technology world to try to figure out how to build the equivalent of a bandwidth cloud composed of a variety of available networks, from cellular to Wi-Fi and WiMAX. Various speakers at a Portable Computer and Communications Association […]
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Back in 2006, when Wi-Fi was all the rage, we saw many startups paint a future in which we’d be able to hop from one hot spot to another seamlessly, sharing the bandwidth for free when we could and buying it when we had to. Well, the future turned out to be entirely different. […]
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While on the conference call to announce the TV Everywhere initiative being promoted by Time Warner and Comcast, I asked Comcast CEO Brian Roberts if the content being streamed as part of this new effort would be free from the 250GB-a-month bandwidth quota his company has started imposing on this customers.
His answer: No. […]
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The other night I watched “Corpse Bride.” The Tim Burton flick was streamed from Netflix via my Time Warner broadband subscription, though my Linksys router to my Roku box, and from there through an HDMI cable to my television. But I could have watched a different movie on my TV using Time Warner’s video-on-demand […]
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Sometime tomorrow, Comcast and Time Warner will announce a partnership to promote the concept of TV Everywhere. Jeff Bewkes, chairman and CEO of Time Warner and Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast will have a joint media conference tomorrow in New York. The deal makes it painfully obvious that everything cable companies do — […]
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Ivan Seidenberg, the CEO of Verizon, appeared on “The Charlie Rose Show” yesterday talking about the communication company’s plans for global growth, network neutrality and the role of government. For the record, Verizon plans to build out its wireless business internationally within the next 5-10 years, and about one-third of that growth will be through […]
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In the battle over consumer privacy, it looks like information gleaned from deep packet inspection may be under fire, according to a post on Perkins Coie’s law blog. Deep packet inspection tools can review the content of each packet of information traversing the web. The post, written by Barry Reingold, a partner with the law […]
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Verizon today boosted its upload speeds across its FiOS fiber-to-the-home broadband packages, which leads me to wonder if upload speeds are the new download speeds in a saturated market for broadband. Om and I both have complained about anemic upload speeds, which are becoming more of a handicap in today’s world of video uploads and […]
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During the dot-com boom, so many undersea cable delivering the Internet traversed the bottom of the ocean between the U.S. and Europe that bandwidth prices plummeted and providers of submarine cables filed for bankruptcy. But those cables may soon no longer be enough to satisfy the global demand for bandwidth between the two continents, according […]
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Gigle Semiconductor said today that consumer device maker Belkin is using its chip in an adapter that allows for home networking of up to 1Gbps using a home’s power line infrastructure. Such speeds are a huge boost for power line networking. A consumer buys the adapter, plugs it into an electrical outlet, and then can […]
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Wi-Fi on planes isn’t just a threat. It’s here, as evidenced by this recent video chat between our earthbound colleague Kevin Tofel and Paul Walborsky, our fearless leader, who was crossing the country on a Virgin America flight. What’s better (or worse, depending on your point of view) is that by 2011, in-flight broadband service […]
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Wireless carriers have had a busy two days in Congress, today getting grilled over exclusivity agreements and yesterday over the high cost of texting. In reading Ars Technica’s coverage of the texting hearings, I was struck by the attention paid to the cost of sending a text on a per-megabyte basis. We’ve looked at […]
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The more broadband providers a consumer has to choose from, the less they pay, according to the latest Pew Internet & American Life Project poll on U.S. broadband trends. Other findings: Home broadband adoption as of the end of May stood at 63 percent, up from 55 percent in May of last year; more Americans […]
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Rep. Eric Massa (D-Corning) today introduced legislation that would force Internet Service Providers that want to implement usage-based pricing plans to go through several regulatory hurdles, including public hearings, to determine if such pricing is anti-competitive. Such usage-based plans may involve tiered pricing or caps based on the amount of data downloaded.
Massa is one of […]
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Rep. Eric Massa (D-Corning) today introduced legislation that would force Internet Service Providers that want to implement usage-based pricing plans to go through several regulatory hurdles, including public hearings, to determine if such pricing is anti-competitive. Such usage-based plans may involve tiered pricing or caps based on the amount of data downloaded.
Massa is one of […]
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Rep. Eric Massa (D-Corning) today introduced legislation that would force Internet Service Providers that want to implement usage-based pricing plans to go through several regulatory hurdles, including public hearings, to determine if such pricing is anti-competitive. Such usage-based plans may involve tiered pricing or caps based on the amount of data downloaded.
Massa is one of […]
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Rep. Eric Massa (D-Corning) today introduced legislation that would force Internet Service Providers that want to implement usage-based pricing plans to go through several regulatory hurdles, including public hearings, to determine if such pricing is anti-competitive. Such usage-based plans may involve tiered pricing or caps based on the amount of data downloaded.
Massa is one of […]
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The iPhone  has sure brought a lot of whiners out of the woodwork. Today Sen. John Kerry joined them by publishing a blog post on the Save The Internet blog arguing against exclusivity of certain phones on some wireless networks. Yesterday, Kerry sent a letter to the FCC in preparation for hearings scheduled tomorrow that […]
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At his confirmation hearing this afternoon, Julius Genachowski, the nominee for the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, spoke out in favor of using spectrum creatively for providing mobile broadband. In response to questions by Sen. Maria Cantwell on how he planned to handle decision-making around white spaces broadband, Genachowski said he “applauds the creative […]
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Western Europe had the most broadband subscribers and Asia-Pacific the slowest broadband growth during the first quarter of 2009, according to a report today from The Broadband Forum. Global broadband grew by 16.6 million lines in the first quarter of 2009, and total IPTV subscribers approached 24 million, said the report, which was prepared for […]
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Clearwire launched its Clear WiMAX service in Atlanta today, providing 3 million people across 1,200 square miles in the home of Coke and the Braves with 4G wireless download speeds of 4-6 Mbps. WiMAX service is available in several packages, including home Internet service plans for $20 per month, mobile Internet plans starting at […]
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We have long talked about it, and now there are numbers to back it up: global economic downturn has taken its toll on the telecom business. The entire telecom ecosystem – from broadband providers to equipment sellers are in a world of a hurt. The fact that many large markets in the western world […]

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Six organizations sent a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee today with a list of questions that they believe should be asked of the potential nominees to the Federal Communications Commission. Following a delay in May, the Commerce Committee plans to open confirmation hearings on Tuesday for two of the potential commissioners. Some worry those […]

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Global revenue growth from mobile phone subscriptions has slowed, according to data released today by research firm Telegeography. The firm notes that the top 20 global service providers generated $251 billion during the first three months of 2009, which was only up 3 percent from the same period last year. Part of the slowed growth […]

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Twice in the last week, I’ve received images of  broadband speed tests from my colleagues that show how fast their networks are, especially on the upload side. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of envy when I checked out Kevin’s symmetrical 20 Mbps FiOS connection and the 50/10 Mbps speeds offered by Jordan Golson’s […]

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Cablevision’s offer of free (with Wi-Fi for its Optimum Online high-speed Internet customers service has proven to be hugely popular. The service has logged 2 million sessions since its launch last year, and is currently averaging more than a million minutes of use per day. The company noted in a press release that the second […]

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As many in the U.S. rush to snap up the Palm Pre that runs on Sprint’s 3G network or the new iPhone 3G S coming on June 19, it may be hard to realize that we’re still living in a world where most people aren’t on third-generation wireless networks. A research report out yesterday […]

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BT, the largest broadband provider in the U.K., has said it plans to charge video content providers for the amount of bandwidth they consume on BT’s network, according to a story in Thursday’s Financial Times. The paper quotes John Petter, managing director of BT Retail’s consumer business, saying, “We can’t give the content providers a […]

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Virgin Mobile today announced its contract-free pay-as-you-go mobile broadband plan, dubbed “Broadband2Go.” The service, which runs on Sprint’s 3G network, offers a variety of data plans without a yearly contract or credit check, for much more money than comparable contract-based plans. So, is the service too expensive to be useful? Definitely not, and here’s why.
Contract-based […]

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The Senate Commerce Committee set a hearing yesterday to consider the nomination of Julius Genachowski as the next Federal Communications Commission chairman for June 16. At that time, it will also consider reappointing Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell. This is great news, given that the current administration is spending billions on broadband in the next 15 […]

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Two-thirds of U.S. homes subscribe to broadband today, up from one-fifth five years ago, according to data released today by the Leichtman Research Group. The firm found that the more money a household has, the more likely it is to have a computer and broadband access (see chart). The study also revealed that only 4 […]

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Comcast will drop the price of its ultrafast 50 Mbps up/10 Mbps down broadband to $99.99 per month with the purchase of one other Comcast service. That’s almost 30 percent less than the original price of $139.95 per month. The new pricing takes effect on June 15. For those who prefer to go naked, and […]

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Cisco said today that the web will continue its breakneck rate of growth to hit 56 exabytes of data per month by 2013. In 2008, IP traffic accounted for 9 exabytes per month, according to the company’s second annual visual networking index.
Cisco, which stands to profit by selling its communications gear to ISPs and businesses […]

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Apple unveiled the new iPhone today, and once again the device is inspiring lust while the network inspires loathing. While a lot of sites are hacked off that AT&T will not support tethering (using your phone as a modem) and MMS picture messaging on the iPhone 3G right away, owners of older 3G iPhones in […]

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Intel has invested $43 million into Japanese WiMAX provider UQ Communications, as the chip giant continues its efforts to boost the mobile wireless broadband technology around the world. Compared with other forms of wireless broadband, such as the current 3G networks and coming Long Term Evolution networks provided by the cell carriers, WiMAX is […]

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Qwest may be desperately looking for a way to ignite growth in the face of its stagnating land-line business, but it’s not yet desperate enough to accept a too-low offer for its long-distance network. The company said today that it’s completed the strategic review of its long-distance network — and that it’s keeping those cables. […]

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Over the weekend, I stumbled upon Speakeasy, a newish blog from the editors of The Wall Street Journal. It covers off-business subjects such as art and film. One of the posts that caught my eye:  ”Panting After Slumdog.” The grimace-inducing headline notwithstanding, the post talks about how some companies are looking to cash in on […]

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These days, as the slowdown in broadband adoption increasingly hampers revenue growth, the consumer broadband business is searching for new ways to boost its bottom line. Some Internet Service Providers are experimenting with tiered pricing, while others are trying to deliver advertising or new content. While it’s not yet clear if these efforts will work, on […]

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