Outage caused by corrupted data, which was mirrored to backup—making it useless.
by Sean Gallagher - Jun 23, 2015 11:14am PDT Ars Technica
Thanks to the failure of a system used to collect and transmit fingerprints and photos, the US State Department has been unable to issue visas to travelers or guest workers for the past two weeks, The New York Times reports. While some of the systems related to visa processing have been restored, biometric information is still not being processed, leaving many travelers from outside the US and hundreds of agricultural "guest workers" stranded.
State Department officials told the Times that the issue was related to a hardware failure. In an e-mail to the paper, Consular Affairs spokesperson Ashley Garrigus said that there had been data corruption caused by a hardware failure, which had been replicated to the biometric database's backup system. “While switching to the backup system," Garrigus wrote, "we discovered that the data was damaged and unusable. We deeply regret the inconvenience to travelers and recognize the hardship to those waiting for visas, and in some cases, their family members or employers in the United States.”
The State Department normally processes about 50,000 visa applications a day, according to astatement on the outage on the agency's website. But that number surges seasonally as employers bring in laborers (mostly from Mexico) to harvest crops. On top of that, the overall number of visas annually has grown. Earlier this year, the State Department put out a "sources sought" call for a new facial recognition service because of the huge growth in visa requests, especially those driven by the H2-A and H2-B visa programs. "At present, the Visa and Passport face galleries contain over 275 million images combined, which are among the largest face recognition datasets in the world and growing annually at an anticipated rate of 23 million images per year," the State Department's procurement officer wrote in the procurement announcement . "Every passport and visa application requires a face recognition search of the legacy and watch-list galleries."
The guest worker visa program itself is a tangled web of systems. First, employers apply through the Department of Labor with candidate workers. Then the US Citizenship and Immigration Service at the Department of Homeland Security screens the individuals petitioning through the employer for visas. USCIS next sends approved petitions to the State Department’s Kentucky Consular Center to be entered into the visa database. And that in turn allows consular and embassy offices outside the US to see that the individuals are authorized to apply for a visa, thus submitting biometric data back to the Kentucky Consular Center's database to check against watch lists and other image and fingerprint data that might catch attempted visa fraud.
Because of the system failure, the State Department has delayed visas for over 1,500 guest agricultural workers in Mexico. "Last week, nearly 1,250 temporary or seasonal workers who had been issued visas in the past were issued new visas in Mexico," a State Department official said in a statement on the outage. "We have issued more than 3,000 visas globally for urgent and humanitarian travel."
According to a Reuters report, the outage is having real economic impact—especially in Washington, where cherry growers have been unable to get workers out to pick before fruit becomes unsellable. The blueberry crop may be affected next, as workers usually stay to harvest them after cherries. Washington Farm Labor Association Director Dan Fazio told Reuters, "Our farmers are all in for the guest worker program, but the government isn’t. We have a lot of cherries that are ruined and it looks like a lot of blueberries are going to be lost.”
Showing posts with label ICT Infrastructure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICT Infrastructure. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
CETF 2015 Annual Survey of California Digital Divide
www.cetfund.org
The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) is pleased to share with you the results of the
2015 Annual Survey on broadband adoption in California that was released yesterday. The Annual Survey is sponsored by CETF and conducted by the Field Research Corporation in 6 languages with a sample size in excess of 1,600 randomly-selected households (50% by cell phone and a margin of error + 2.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level). The results show that progress is being made in closing the Digital Divide with 79% of all California households now having high-speed connections at home to the Internet (8% by smart phone only), but there is still much work to be done because unacceptable percentages of disadvantaged populations remain offline—35% of low-income households (below $20,000 annual income); 30% of Latino families (37% Spanish-speaking); and 41% of people with disabilities. It is important to keep in mind that the Digital Divide is just another manifestation of the Opportunity Divide and Economic Divide, and that those who are stuck on the wrong side of the Digital Divide—urban low-income neighborhoods and remote rural communities—are faced with a multitude of challenges in daily life that CETF calls the “wall of poverty” that must be tackled with strategic interventions to improve education coupled with workforce preparation and economic development.
The Annual Survey information is very timely as the Federal Communications Commission takes up tomorrow the issue of a Broadband Lifeline Program, State policymakers continue to explore how best to tackle poverty, and local governments continue to struggle to balance budgets and generate jobs. The data underscores the need to incorporate Digital Inclusion into all major initiatives to promote economic prosperity and quality of life in California.
Please feel free to distribute the results of the 2015 Annual Survey, post it on your own website and/or link to the CETF website http://www.cetfund.org/progress/annualsurvey, and reference the data as you find useful. We look forward to continuing to work together to close the Digital Divide in California. Thank you for your commitment and leadership.
Sunne Wright McPeak
President and CEO
California Emerging Technology Fund
Monday, May 11, 2015
AOL: 2.1 million people still subscribe to dial-up Internet
BY BRANDON RUSSELL | MAY 9, 2015 TechnoBuffalo
AOL on Friday revealed that 2.1 million people in the U.S. still subscribe to its dial-up service, an astonishing and surprising number in the year 2015. A large majority of Americans have ditched the comatose service as faster broadband has become more accessible. But, either through ignorance, stubbornness, or sheer unavailability in certain areas, people are still clinging to the good old days of the early Internet.
Back in 2010, AOL revealed it had about 4.6 million dial-up users, so usage is on the decline, but it’s a slow, slow process, not unlike the service these people still get.
CNN Money notes that over 70-percent of Americans are connected through faster broadband, with an average speed of 11.4 Mbps, which is lighting quick compared to AOL’s 56k speeds. Compared to what the Internet looked like 20 years ago, 56k connections probably wouldn’t even be able to load a modern day website, much less stream a video on YouTube or Netflix.
Without fast Internet, online tech journalism just wouldn’t exist in the way it does today. And there would be no Twitch or Spotify. It would be a cruel, apocalyptic world.
The most shocking thing of all? Customers are paying AOL $20 a month for dial-up access, which means the company is still making a killing each year from these subscriptions. If you or someone you know is still using dial-up, it might be time for an intervention.
I get it: not everyone can afford broadband Internet, and there’s a minuscule chance they don’t have access to the faster speeds in their remote part of the wilderness. But 2.1 million is a hefty figure, and so long as people subscribe, AOL will continue to be an enduring time capsule of despair.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Connect America Fund Offers Carriers Nearly $1.7 Billion to Expand Broadband to Over 8.5 Million Rural Americans
Carriers Have Four Months to Accept or Decline Offers on
State-Level Basis | FCC PressRelease
Thursday, April 23, 2015
NYT: Google Introduces Wireless Service Called Project Fi
By CONOR DOUGHERTY APRIL 22, 2015 New York Times
Google's new phone service, Project Fi, will be available only to people using Google’s Nexus 6 phone. Credit Google, via Associated Press
Now you can Google a phone call.
On Wednesday, Google unveiled its long-awaited phone service, called Project Fi, putting the search giant in competition with Verizon, AT&T and other wireless service providers. In addition to new turf, the service is an attempt to blend several communication tools and the multiplying ways of calling people — cellular calls, online calls like those offered by Skype — into a single phone number and service.
For now, Project Fi could be considered an experiment. It will be available only to people using Google’s Nexus 6 phone, limiting its reach.
Analysts see the new service as a bid to reimagine phone calls so that they have greater overlap with Google’s expanding world of devices and services.
Unlike your typical cell service, Project Fi will mix traditional wireless technology, where calls are routed through cellular towers, with the wireless Internet service found in Starbucks, airports and elsewhere. Google has teamed with Sprint and T-Mobile to provide the traditional wireless service, and said it had about a million wireless hot spots for the rest.
“Wherever you’re connected to Wi-Fi — whether that’s at home, your favorite coffee shop or your Batcave — you can talk and text like you normally do,” wrote Nick Fox, Google’s vice president of communications products, in a blog post. “If you leave an area of Wi-Fi coverage, your call will seamlessly transition from Wi-Fi to cell networks so your conversation doesn’t skip a beat.”
In addition to changing networks, the service will move users’ phone numbers between screens, so they can talk and text on phones, tablets or laptops. And as with most things Google does, the service is meant to be cheap.
Traditional cellphone carriers like AT&T and Verizon charge customers upward of $100 a month for their services, including phone calls and mobile data. Google’s service will be $20 a month for basic voice and text service, along with a flat $10 per gigabyte of cellular data.
“Since it’s hard to predict your data usage, you’ll get credit for the full value of your unused data,” according to the blog post. “Let’s say you go with 3GB for $30 and only use 1.4GB one month. You’ll get $16 back, so you only pay for what you use.”
In many ways, the wireless service is similar to the Google Fiber Internet service that has been introduced in a handful of American cities, including the Kansas City area and Austin, Tex.
Google is piggybacking on giant physical networks that are owned by other companies, creating a barrier that, for now at least, limits Google’s competitive threat to traditional carriers. But Google has a long history of trying to cut out middlemen — including Internet service providers, online stores and delivery businesses — that stand between the company and users.
With the wireless service, Google will be operating on what is called a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, which provides a service on other mobile carriers’ networks.
“It’s always an interesting business because you are dependent on the companies who you are trying to compete with,” said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research. “And they will only support you if they think you’re targeting a niche they can’t target themselves.”
Over the last few years, Google has been reshaping itself around mobile devices that have become the primary way people use the Internet.
On Tuesday, the company adjusted its bread-and-butter search engine in such a way that websites that are optimized for mobile phone screens will get a boost in mobile search rankings. It also has been working with mobile application developers to create new services that allow mobile users to seamlessly bounce between the traditional web and the apps on their phone.
But Google has remained two steps away from mobile users. Unlike Apple, which makes its own phones and essentially dictates the terms of its service to mobile carriers, Google’s Android mobile software is distributed to phone manufacturers, who adjust it to their liking, and then through wireless carriers, who bundle their own services on top.
Nexus devices, which are made for Google and run a “pure” form of Android, brought the company one step closer to the user, but their sales are much smaller than those of other Android smartphone makers, like Samsung.
The new service gives Google “freedom and more control over the experience, and can offer something like Apple offers, where they control the whole package,” Mr. Dawson said.
Now you can Google a phone call.
On Wednesday, Google unveiled its long-awaited phone service, called Project Fi, putting the search giant in competition with Verizon, AT&T and other wireless service providers. In addition to new turf, the service is an attempt to blend several communication tools and the multiplying ways of calling people — cellular calls, online calls like those offered by Skype — into a single phone number and service.
For now, Project Fi could be considered an experiment. It will be available only to people using Google’s Nexus 6 phone, limiting its reach.
Analysts see the new service as a bid to reimagine phone calls so that they have greater overlap with Google’s expanding world of devices and services.
Unlike your typical cell service, Project Fi will mix traditional wireless technology, where calls are routed through cellular towers, with the wireless Internet service found in Starbucks, airports and elsewhere. Google has teamed with Sprint and T-Mobile to provide the traditional wireless service, and said it had about a million wireless hot spots for the rest.
“Wherever you’re connected to Wi-Fi — whether that’s at home, your favorite coffee shop or your Batcave — you can talk and text like you normally do,” wrote Nick Fox, Google’s vice president of communications products, in a blog post. “If you leave an area of Wi-Fi coverage, your call will seamlessly transition from Wi-Fi to cell networks so your conversation doesn’t skip a beat.”
In addition to changing networks, the service will move users’ phone numbers between screens, so they can talk and text on phones, tablets or laptops. And as with most things Google does, the service is meant to be cheap.
Traditional cellphone carriers like AT&T and Verizon charge customers upward of $100 a month for their services, including phone calls and mobile data. Google’s service will be $20 a month for basic voice and text service, along with a flat $10 per gigabyte of cellular data.
“Since it’s hard to predict your data usage, you’ll get credit for the full value of your unused data,” according to the blog post. “Let’s say you go with 3GB for $30 and only use 1.4GB one month. You’ll get $16 back, so you only pay for what you use.”
In many ways, the wireless service is similar to the Google Fiber Internet service that has been introduced in a handful of American cities, including the Kansas City area and Austin, Tex.
Google is piggybacking on giant physical networks that are owned by other companies, creating a barrier that, for now at least, limits Google’s competitive threat to traditional carriers. But Google has a long history of trying to cut out middlemen — including Internet service providers, online stores and delivery businesses — that stand between the company and users.
With the wireless service, Google will be operating on what is called a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, which provides a service on other mobile carriers’ networks.
“It’s always an interesting business because you are dependent on the companies who you are trying to compete with,” said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research. “And they will only support you if they think you’re targeting a niche they can’t target themselves.”
Over the last few years, Google has been reshaping itself around mobile devices that have become the primary way people use the Internet.
On Tuesday, the company adjusted its bread-and-butter search engine in such a way that websites that are optimized for mobile phone screens will get a boost in mobile search rankings. It also has been working with mobile application developers to create new services that allow mobile users to seamlessly bounce between the traditional web and the apps on their phone.
But Google has remained two steps away from mobile users. Unlike Apple, which makes its own phones and essentially dictates the terms of its service to mobile carriers, Google’s Android mobile software is distributed to phone manufacturers, who adjust it to their liking, and then through wireless carriers, who bundle their own services on top.
Nexus devices, which are made for Google and run a “pure” form of Android, brought the company one step closer to the user, but their sales are much smaller than those of other Android smartphone makers, like Samsung.
The new service gives Google “freedom and more control over the experience, and can offer something like Apple offers, where they control the whole package,” Mr. Dawson said.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Comcast to Launch 2-Gig Broadband in CaliforniaAlso Launching DOCSIS-Based 250-Meg Tier
4/17/2015 4:00 PM Eastern Last updated at 4/17/2015 5:00 PM Multichannel
By: Jeff Baumgartner
Comcast said it will roll out Gigabit Pro, its new residential, fiber-based 2 Gbps service, in California in June, and also introduced a new DOCSIS 3.0-based tier, called Extreme 250, that will pump out downstream speeds of up to 250 Mbps and be delivered via the HFC network.
Also in California, Comcast said it is raising the downstream speeds of the following tiers at no additional cost:
-Performance: From 50 Mbps to 75 Mbps
-Blast: From 105 Mbps to 150 Mbps
Those speed bumps will go into effect starting in May and continue throughout the year, the MSO said.
California is the second area identified by Comcast for Gigabit Pro. The operator will launch that symmetrical 2-Gig service in Atlanta sometime next month.
Gigabit Pro, which Comcast expects to make available to 18 million homes this year, will be deployed on a targeted basis using fiber-to-the-premises technology (fiber and the other requisite premises-facing gear will only be deployed to homes that decide to subscribe to the service). On that note, Comcast has said it will make the symmetrical 2 Gbps service available to residential customers who are within “close proximity” (about one-third of a mile) of Comcast’s fiber network.
In California, Comcast will offer Gigabit Pro in Chico, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba City, Merced, Modesto, Monterey, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara County, Stockton and Visalia metro areas. Comcast has been offering up to 10-Gig fiber-based Ethernet service to businesses in the state since 2011.
Comcast, which is in the process of acquiring Time Warner Cable, also intends to offer residential gigabit speeds on its more widely deployed HFC network using DOCSIS 3.1.
Comcast has not announced pricing on Gigabit Pro. It was not immediately known how the new 250 Mbps D3 service will be priced.
“This is Comcast’s 15th speed increase in 13 years. We are proud to boost our existing speeds and most importantly introduce new Internet tiers like the Extreme 250 and Gigabit Pro that will allow our California customers to do more online, across multiple devices,” said Hank Fore, regional SVP of Comcast Cable’s California Region, in a statement. “We will continue to look for opportunities to increase speeds to not only stay ahead of customer demands, but also to provide a wide range of options that meet customer needs.”
The MSO noted that the new speeds announced today for California won’t launch in the following areas: Arbuckle, Coalinga, Cool, Gustine, Huron, Isleton, Le Grand, Lodi, Maxwell, Planada, Rio Vista, Santa Cruz, Santa Nella, Scotts Valley and Williams.
- See more at: http://www.multichannel.com/news/technology/comcast-roll-2-gig-broadband-california/389868#sthash.v0IuU7CN.DiUaWfTH.dpuf
The numbers behind the broadband ‘homework gap’
APRIL 20, 2015
BY JOHN B. HORRIGAN Pew Research Center
Since the dawn of the internet, there’s been much talk about the digital divide – the gap between those with access to the internet and those without. But what about the “homework gap”?
In recent years, policymakers and advocates have pushed to make it easier for low-income households with school-age children to have broadband, arguing that low-income students are at a disadvantage without online access in order to do school work these days. Later this year, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to begin a rule-making process to overhaul the Lifeline Program, an initiative that subsidizes telephone subscriptions for low-income households, so that it would also cover broadband.
In 2013, the Lifeline program provided $1.8 billion worth of telephone subsidies for qualified low-income people. The FCC has not yet provided estimates of how much it would cost to add broadband subsidies to the program, but the debate will undoubtedly focus on overall program costs and how many households would be covered.
How big is the homework gap? A new Pew Research Center analysis finds most American homes with school-age children do have broadband access – about 82.5% (about 9 percentage points higher than average for all households). With approximately 29 million households in America having children between the ages of 6 and 17, according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data, this means that some 5 million households with school-age children do not have high-speed internet service at home. Low-income households – and especially black and Hispanic ones – make up a disproportionate share of that 5 million.
Pew Research analysis of the Census data finds that the lowest-income households have the lowest home broadband subscription rates. Roughly one-third (31.4%) of households whose incomes fall below $50,000 and with children ages 6 to 17 do not have a high-speed internet connection at home. This low-income group makes up about 40% of all families with school-age children in the United States, according to the bureau’s American Community Survey. (The survey asked questions on home internet use for the first time in 2013.)
By comparison, only 8.4% of households with annual incomes over $50,000 lack a broadband internet connection at home. In other words, low-income homes with children are four times more likely to be without broadband than their middle or upper-income counterparts.
The other notable difference in home broadband adoption pertains to the race and ethnicity of the householder. Lower-income black and Hispanic households with children trail comparable white households with children by about 10 percentage points.
Asian Americans, by contrast, outperform the other groups in broadband adoption for households with children, regardless of income level. A likely explanation is that Asian Americans have the highest educational levels of any racial group in the United States, which is a characteristic strongly associated with having broadband at home.
Note: The author is currently a senior researcher at Pew Research Center. Prior to joining the center, he served on the Federal Communications Commission team that developed the National Broadband Plan.
BY JOHN B. HORRIGAN Pew Research Center
Since the dawn of the internet, there’s been much talk about the digital divide – the gap between those with access to the internet and those without. But what about the “homework gap”?
In recent years, policymakers and advocates have pushed to make it easier for low-income households with school-age children to have broadband, arguing that low-income students are at a disadvantage without online access in order to do school work these days. Later this year, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to begin a rule-making process to overhaul the Lifeline Program, an initiative that subsidizes telephone subscriptions for low-income households, so that it would also cover broadband.
In 2013, the Lifeline program provided $1.8 billion worth of telephone subsidies for qualified low-income people. The FCC has not yet provided estimates of how much it would cost to add broadband subsidies to the program, but the debate will undoubtedly focus on overall program costs and how many households would be covered.
How big is the homework gap? A new Pew Research Center analysis finds most American homes with school-age children do have broadband access – about 82.5% (about 9 percentage points higher than average for all households). With approximately 29 million households in America having children between the ages of 6 and 17, according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data, this means that some 5 million households with school-age children do not have high-speed internet service at home. Low-income households – and especially black and Hispanic ones – make up a disproportionate share of that 5 million.
Pew Research analysis of the Census data finds that the lowest-income households have the lowest home broadband subscription rates. Roughly one-third (31.4%) of households whose incomes fall below $50,000 and with children ages 6 to 17 do not have a high-speed internet connection at home. This low-income group makes up about 40% of all families with school-age children in the United States, according to the bureau’s American Community Survey. (The survey asked questions on home internet use for the first time in 2013.)
By comparison, only 8.4% of households with annual incomes over $50,000 lack a broadband internet connection at home. In other words, low-income homes with children are four times more likely to be without broadband than their middle or upper-income counterparts.
The other notable difference in home broadband adoption pertains to the race and ethnicity of the householder. Lower-income black and Hispanic households with children trail comparable white households with children by about 10 percentage points.
Asian Americans, by contrast, outperform the other groups in broadband adoption for households with children, regardless of income level. A likely explanation is that Asian Americans have the highest educational levels of any racial group in the United States, which is a characteristic strongly associated with having broadband at home.
Note: The author is currently a senior researcher at Pew Research Center. Prior to joining the center, he served on the Federal Communications Commission team that developed the National Broadband Plan.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
5 Sad Facts About America's Ridiculously Slow Internet
3/31/15 6:00pm Gizmodo
Anyone who’s ever stared glass-eyed at a Netflix video that won’t load or stuttered through a glitchy Skype call knows that the United States leaves its citizens starving for bandwidth. But the latest data in Akamai’s annual “State of the Internet” report presents some prettypretty depressing statistics about America’s slow, shitty internet.
Why America's Internet Is So Shitty and Slow
You may have heard that the internet is winning: net neutrality was saved, broadband was redefined…Read more
In case you’re not familiar, Akamai is a cloud services company that counts giants like Apple, Facebook, and Twitter as clients. Those relationships yield data about internet traffic all over the world, including the details of connection speeds, cyberattacks, and network penetration. The latest report tells a tale of how far behind the US is in terms of upgrading infrastructure and ensuring internet faster speeds. And the US invented the damn thing.
America’s not even in the top 10 worldwide
If you want fast internet, you’d be better off moving to Latvia than settling down in middle America. Or South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Czech Republic, or Finland. The US isn’t even in the top 10 countries with the fastest average connection speeds worldwide.
In fact, Akamai only mentions the US in this part of the report to note that broadband adoption had dipped slightly (a “negligible 0.3 percent drop”) and to point out that “in the United States, 50 million people—or roughly 16% of the population—are not connected to the Internet.” Later in the report, Akamai points out that the global rank for the US is number 16.
The top slots this year, yet again, belong to Asia. South Korea’s internet is probably the best in the world. It ranks at the top of every list, namely the list of countries with average broadband speeds above 10 Mbps. A rollicking 79 percent of South Koreans enjoy speeds of 10 Mbps or greater. The US didn’t even make the list.
Anyone who’s ever stared glass-eyed at a Netflix video that won’t load or stuttered through a glitchy Skype call knows that the United States leaves its citizens starving for bandwidth. But the latest data in Akamai’s annual “State of the Internet” report presents some prettypretty depressing statistics about America’s slow, shitty internet.
Why America's Internet Is So Shitty and Slow
You may have heard that the internet is winning: net neutrality was saved, broadband was redefined…Read more
In case you’re not familiar, Akamai is a cloud services company that counts giants like Apple, Facebook, and Twitter as clients. Those relationships yield data about internet traffic all over the world, including the details of connection speeds, cyberattacks, and network penetration. The latest report tells a tale of how far behind the US is in terms of upgrading infrastructure and ensuring internet faster speeds. And the US invented the damn thing.
America’s not even in the top 10 worldwide
If you want fast internet, you’d be better off moving to Latvia than settling down in middle America. Or South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Czech Republic, or Finland. The US isn’t even in the top 10 countries with the fastest average connection speeds worldwide.
In fact, Akamai only mentions the US in this part of the report to note that broadband adoption had dipped slightly (a “negligible 0.3 percent drop”) and to point out that “in the United States, 50 million people—or roughly 16% of the population—are not connected to the Internet.” Later in the report, Akamai points out that the global rank for the US is number 16.
The top slots this year, yet again, belong to Asia. South Korea’s internet is probably the best in the world. It ranks at the top of every list, namely the list of countries with average broadband speeds above 10 Mbps. A rollicking 79 percent of South Koreans enjoy speeds of 10 Mbps or greater. The US didn’t even make the list.
Don’t blame size
A lot of people blame slow US internet speeds on the size of the country. The internet does demand a physical infrastructure to carry packets of data from one side of the nation to another, and in more isolated areas, that infrastructure is more sparse, making it tougher to offer high-speed connections. It means that the whole country’s average speed gets brought down by these dead spots.
But the data tells a different story. Ironically, some of the most remote states in the country enjoy some of the fastest internet speeds. Utah’s internet is number six in the nation, followed by Washington, Oregon, and North Dakota. North Dakota!
Meanwhile, Virginia is only slightly larger than South Korea, but its internet is almost 25 percent slower on average.
US speeds are tragically far from “broadband”
Uncompetitive internet speeds is hardly news to US officials. Acknowledging the massive gaps in access to high-speed internet across the country, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently redefined broadband in an effort to compel internet service providers to build faster networks. It used to be 4 Mbps. Now it’s 25 Mbps.
Guess what? Not a single state can boast anything close to widespread speeds greater than 25 Mbps. In fact, none of them can even claim full broadband coverage according to the old definition.
So if you want to move to a state with pretty good internet, Delaware is the state for you. It’s alsoa great place to incorporate a tech company.
A lot of people blame slow US internet speeds on the size of the country. The internet does demand a physical infrastructure to carry packets of data from one side of the nation to another, and in more isolated areas, that infrastructure is more sparse, making it tougher to offer high-speed connections. It means that the whole country’s average speed gets brought down by these dead spots.
But the data tells a different story. Ironically, some of the most remote states in the country enjoy some of the fastest internet speeds. Utah’s internet is number six in the nation, followed by Washington, Oregon, and North Dakota. North Dakota!
Meanwhile, Virginia is only slightly larger than South Korea, but its internet is almost 25 percent slower on average.
US speeds are tragically far from “broadband”
Uncompetitive internet speeds is hardly news to US officials. Acknowledging the massive gaps in access to high-speed internet across the country, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently redefined broadband in an effort to compel internet service providers to build faster networks. It used to be 4 Mbps. Now it’s 25 Mbps.
Guess what? Not a single state can boast anything close to widespread speeds greater than 25 Mbps. In fact, none of them can even claim full broadband coverage according to the old definition.
So if you want to move to a state with pretty good internet, Delaware is the state for you. It’s alsoa great place to incorporate a tech company.
Mobile internet is even worse
So all the above statistics refer to terrestrial broadband. Surely, the US must be better on the mobile front? Nope. Akamai’s findings for the fastest mobile connections in the five major continental regions, ranked:
America is home to a ton of hacker activity
Nevertheless, the US is second only to China as the biggest exporter of attack traffic. This isn’t necessarily related to speed, and it’s hard to draw conclusions from Akamai’s data about internet security. But one thing stands out: A sizable proportion of cyberattacks worldwide originate in the US.
China accounts for 41 percent of global attack traffic, while the US accounts for just 13 percent. There’s not really a third place. Taiwan and Russia are neck-and-neck with 4.4 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. The report doesn’t offer much detail about the attacks themselves, but the data doesn’t lie. If you wanted to pick the top two belligerents in the ongoing global cyberwar, they would be China and the straggling United States.
[Akamai]
Contact the author at adam@gizmodo.com.
So all the above statistics refer to terrestrial broadband. Surely, the US must be better on the mobile front? Nope. Akamai’s findings for the fastest mobile connections in the five major continental regions, ranked:
- Europe: United Kingdom, 16.0 Mbps
- Asia Pacific: Japan, 8.3 Mbps
- South America: Venezuela, 6.3 Mbps
- North America: United States, 3.2 Mbps
- Africa: Morocco, 3.0 Mbps
America is home to a ton of hacker activity
Nevertheless, the US is second only to China as the biggest exporter of attack traffic. This isn’t necessarily related to speed, and it’s hard to draw conclusions from Akamai’s data about internet security. But one thing stands out: A sizable proportion of cyberattacks worldwide originate in the US.
China accounts for 41 percent of global attack traffic, while the US accounts for just 13 percent. There’s not really a third place. Taiwan and Russia are neck-and-neck with 4.4 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. The report doesn’t offer much detail about the attacks themselves, but the data doesn’t lie. If you wanted to pick the top two belligerents in the ongoing global cyberwar, they would be China and the straggling United States.
[Akamai]
Contact the author at adam@gizmodo.com.
U.S. Internet users pay more and have fewer choices than Europeans
Areas of service rarely overlap between Internet providers
By Allan Holmes
email Chris Zubak-Skeesemail 5:00 am, April 1, 2015 Updated: 5:00 am, April 1, 2015
More than a quarter of Americans cannot go online at home to check their children’s grades at school, apply for jobs, pay bills or research health issues. They don’t have what has become a crucial service for participation in modern society: Internet service at home.
The proportion of households with Internet service had been rising steadily for decades, according to the Pew Research Center, until the past few years when the adoption rate slowed.
One reason? The high cost of broadband and the lack of competition that leads to those high prices.
A Center for Public Integrity analysis of Internet prices in five U.S. cities and five comparable French cities found that prices in the U.S. were as much as 3 1/2 times higher than those in France for similar service. The analysis shows that consumers in France have a choice between a far greater number of providers — seven on average — than those in the U.S., where most residents can get service from no more than two companies. The Center’s analysis echoes the findings of several studies on Internet pricing disparities worldwide.
By mapping the service areas of U.S. providers, The Center for Public Integrity also found that telecommunications companies appear to carve up territory to avoid competing with more than one other provider.
Higher broadband prices don’t just mean fewer dollars in Americans’ wallets at the end of every month. They make it difficult for low- to middle-income families to afford fast Internet service, which has become a necessity for job training, education, health care.
According to data in a report by the U.S. National Technology and Information Administration, more than 8 percent of U.S. households say they cannot afford broadband. President Barack Obama this year called for faster, more affordable Internet service for everyone.
“Just like we today expect clean running water, sewage and electricity as essential, so is broadband necessary to partake in society, to interact with government, to learn, to inform and be informed, to be a fully functioning member of society,” said Rudolf van der Berg, a telecommunications and broadband policy analyst who studies policy at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Many studies have been conducted looking at price and competition. The Center’s research isn’t as comprehensive. Rather, it’s a snapshot meant to show the state of broadband for some American cities. The high prices and lack of competition and in towns like these — and there are many — add to a growing divide between the connected and unconnected. And for the unconnected, the increasing gap will be measured in fewer economic opportunities, less access to healthcare and other inequities.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Digital Technologies Will Soon Add $1 Trillion-Plus To Global Economy
Forbes
The increased use of digital technologies could add $1.36 trillion to total global economic output in 2020, according to a recent study by Accenture and Oxford Economics. This may be only a fraction of a percent of the total global gross world product (currently sized at about $87 trillion), but it’s a substantial contribution to growth. To put it in perspective, moving forward full-force with digital would add an economy the size of South Korea to the global market (current GDP at $1.3 trillion).
The growth spurred by digital will occur across all countries and regions, and contribute even greater gains in emerging markets. Accenture and Oxford calculate a 10-point improvement in digital density (on a 100-point scale) over five years would lift GDP growth rates in advanced economies by 0.25 percentage points, and by 0.5 percentage point in emerging economies. The United States alone would see a GDP uplift of at least $365 billion in 2020. Emerging economies, such as Brazil, India and China could see rises of between $97 billion and $418 billion.
Accenture and Oxford define digital through a variety of initiatives, including the volume of transactions conducted online, the use of cloud or other technologies to streamline processes, the pervasiveness of technology skills in a company, or an economy’s acceptance of new digitally driven business models. Going digital means organizations place “digital at the heart of their strategy and enterprise to transform every part of their operations, including R&D, supply chains, and the use of cloud, analytics and CRM technologies.”
What this tells us is the digital phenomenon has legs, and promises to deliver real gains to companies and countries alike, beyond the hype and buzz. Digital engagements are delivering value on several levels. Here is the progression of changes digital promises to deliver:
Organizations have to be ready for — and embracing of — digital disruption, of course. And many aren’t. They may have corporate cultures that don’t reward, or even discourage, innovative behavior. They may have issues with going to their shareholders to state that they are throwing away established high-margin business lines to adopt lower-margin digital business models. They may find it difficult to re-imagine themselves as digital, softtware-centric and data-centric enterprises. They may also have skills issues with finding or competing for the talent that can help them make the move to digital. They may not have an IT infrastructure capable of handling huge quantities of data.
While the Accenture-Oxford report is quite optimistic, it’s notable that it qualifies these numbers with the word “could” — as in, “increased use of digital technology could add as much as US$1.36 trillion.” What’s at issue? A lack of collaboration between business and government may hold back these potential gains, the report states. Accenture and Oxford urge governments not to get in the way, but to encourage digital entrepreneurship, as well as providing help with innovation and skills training. “Although infrastructure, such as super-broadband and mobile broadband remain important to digital growth, governments should also focus on making it easier for entrepreneurs to use digital technologies to launch businesses, streamlining the regulatory environment, finding innovative ways to create the right skills in the workforce, and supporting trust and confidence in citizens and business.”
What’s telling about Accenture and Oxford’s analysis is the acknowledgement that looking at digital as just another IT tool will not take things far enough. As the report’s authors observe, organizations need to transform their operations to compete in digital environments, rather than “simply automating key business processes to boost efficiency and productivity.” That’s where most of that additional $1.4 trillion will come from.
The increased use of digital technologies could add $1.36 trillion to total global economic output in 2020, according to a recent study by Accenture and Oxford Economics. This may be only a fraction of a percent of the total global gross world product (currently sized at about $87 trillion), but it’s a substantial contribution to growth. To put it in perspective, moving forward full-force with digital would add an economy the size of South Korea to the global market (current GDP at $1.3 trillion).
The growth spurred by digital will occur across all countries and regions, and contribute even greater gains in emerging markets. Accenture and Oxford calculate a 10-point improvement in digital density (on a 100-point scale) over five years would lift GDP growth rates in advanced economies by 0.25 percentage points, and by 0.5 percentage point in emerging economies. The United States alone would see a GDP uplift of at least $365 billion in 2020. Emerging economies, such as Brazil, India and China could see rises of between $97 billion and $418 billion.
Accenture and Oxford define digital through a variety of initiatives, including the volume of transactions conducted online, the use of cloud or other technologies to streamline processes, the pervasiveness of technology skills in a company, or an economy’s acceptance of new digitally driven business models. Going digital means organizations place “digital at the heart of their strategy and enterprise to transform every part of their operations, including R&D, supply chains, and the use of cloud, analytics and CRM technologies.”
What this tells us is the digital phenomenon has legs, and promises to deliver real gains to companies and countries alike, beyond the hype and buzz. Digital engagements are delivering value on several levels. Here is the progression of changes digital promises to deliver:
- Increased efficiency and energy savings, as manual, duplicated or calcified processes are replaced with software-defined and analytics-driven processes.
- Increased market responsiveness, with businesses able to respond to consumer demand through social media, and anticipate future trends through analytics.
- Higher levels of collaboration, as members of organizations are able to work together and share information with each other almost instantaneously, as well as with customers.
- Greater innovation, as businesses have greater access to pools of knowledge and resources outside their walls.
- More entrepreneurial energy and opportunity, as teams or individuals are able to take advantage of an abundance of cloud and social media resources to launch new businesses or business lines with minimal startup capital required.
Organizations have to be ready for — and embracing of — digital disruption, of course. And many aren’t. They may have corporate cultures that don’t reward, or even discourage, innovative behavior. They may have issues with going to their shareholders to state that they are throwing away established high-margin business lines to adopt lower-margin digital business models. They may find it difficult to re-imagine themselves as digital, softtware-centric and data-centric enterprises. They may also have skills issues with finding or competing for the talent that can help them make the move to digital. They may not have an IT infrastructure capable of handling huge quantities of data.
While the Accenture-Oxford report is quite optimistic, it’s notable that it qualifies these numbers with the word “could” — as in, “increased use of digital technology could add as much as US$1.36 trillion.” What’s at issue? A lack of collaboration between business and government may hold back these potential gains, the report states. Accenture and Oxford urge governments not to get in the way, but to encourage digital entrepreneurship, as well as providing help with innovation and skills training. “Although infrastructure, such as super-broadband and mobile broadband remain important to digital growth, governments should also focus on making it easier for entrepreneurs to use digital technologies to launch businesses, streamlining the regulatory environment, finding innovative ways to create the right skills in the workforce, and supporting trust and confidence in citizens and business.”
What’s telling about Accenture and Oxford’s analysis is the acknowledgement that looking at digital as just another IT tool will not take things far enough. As the report’s authors observe, organizations need to transform their operations to compete in digital environments, rather than “simply automating key business processes to boost efficiency and productivity.” That’s where most of that additional $1.4 trillion will come from.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Why America's Internet Is So Shitty And Slow
You may have heard that the internet is winning: net neutrality was saved
An Economy Built on Wires
When I say "fundamentally broken" I don't just mean that it's slow and shitty, though there is that. It's also broken as a paid service.
The internet is a tangible thing, a network of infrastructure pulsing with light, winding its way into and beneath buildings. It's also a marketplace. There is the physical location where the fiber-optic cables full of data cross, and then there are the financial deals that direct the traffic down each specific set of wires. This combination of physical wires and ephemeral business transactions will shape the future of the digital world.
In order to comprehend just how broken internet service is, you first have to understand how the physical infrastructure of the internet works. Former Gizmodo contributor Andrew Blum
In the basest terms, the internet is made of pulses of light. Those pulses might seem miraculous, but they're not magic. They are produced by powerful lasers contained in steel boxes housed (predominantly) in unmarked buildings. The lasers exist. The boxes exist. The internet exists...
There's also wireless data of course, but even those signals need physical towers to send and receive them.
Those pulses of lights-which are packets of data-travel through the internet's wires, taking wrong turns, finding faster routes, and eventually reaching their destinations. But each of those routes is owned and maintained by somebody. If you think of the wires as roads, the setup is something like city streets, state highways, and interstates. In internet terms, those different kinds of roads are called tiers, and there are many network tiers stacked up across the US's continent-spanning network.
Tier 1 is the most powerful as it more or less makes up the backbone of the internet. These are the networks that span the entire globe, sending data under the ocean to far-flung places, the ones that never need to connect to another network to deliver a packet of content. There are only a handful of such networks, run by global corporations like AT&T and Verizon.
The smaller, tier 2 networks connect with each other and with the internet backbone to make it more efficient for those packets of data to reach their destinations. This is the level where a lot of corporate handshake deals to direct traffic take place. And then there's the so-called "last mile." You've probably heard a lot about this idea, and how traffic gets across it.
The last mile is the part of the data's voyage that takes it from local utility poles or underground tubes, into your house, and through the cable that plugs into your computer. It's literally the last stretch of infrastructure that data must traverse on its long journey from the server where it's hosted, to your web browser or email client or whatever. It's the physical infrastructure that connects individual homes to the rest of the network. This is the part of the internet that the new Federal Communications Commission's rules regulate
The Decaying Last Mile
In the US, the last mile of internet infrastructure is an enormous problem. There are two reasons for this: technical restraints holding back the bandwidth needed to support modern-day internet traffic, and a lack of competition between the major carriers selling internet service to the end user.
Most of America's telecommunications infrastructure relies on outdated technology, and it runs over the same copper cables invented by Alexander Graham Bell over 100 years ago. This copper infrastructure-made up of "twisted pair" and coaxial cables-was originally designed to carry telephone and video services. The internet wasn't built to handle streaming video or audio.
When your streaming video reaches that troubled last mile of copper, those packets will slam on their brakes as they transition from fiber optic cables to copper coaxial cables. Copper can only carry so much bandwidth, far less than what the modern internet demands. Only fiber optic cables, thick twists of ultra-thin glass or plastic filaments that allow data to travel at the speed of light, can handle that bandwidth. They're also both easier to maintain and more secure than copper.
As consumers demand more bandwidth for things like streaming HD movies, carriers must augment their networks-upgrade hardware, lay more fiber, hire more engineers, etc.-to keep traffic moving freely between them. But that costs big money-like, billions of dollars in some cases
And here's the kicker. The last mile infrastructure is controlled by an oligarchy-three big cable companies: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. You know this well. One in three Americans only have one choice for broadband service
Without competition, there's no incentive for internet providers to improve improve infrastructure.These massive telecom companies create a bottleneck in the last mile of service by refusing to upgrade critical infrastructure
So your internet is shitty and slow and expensive.
The Network of Bureaucracy
If you want to load a webpage or watch a movie on Netflix, it's not just the last mile of infrastructure that slows down your internet, however. It's also the tier 2 networks, where the weird web of business connections starts tangling things up.
Like last mile infrastructure, there's only a small handful of companies controlling much of the backbone of the internet. Including, once again, telecom giants AT&T and Verizon. AT&T and Verizon not only control tier 1 network, they're also the big players on tier 2, which gives them a huge amount of bargaining power, and a huge amount of bureaucratic control over your slow and shitty internet.
The other carriers that operate tier 2 networks are companies you probably haven't heard of-Cogent, Level3, and Zayo are a few-and they're integral to the internet's success as a global network. These are the networks that manage the crossroads of the internet, making deals that dictate how traffic travels between networks.
A rough sketch of how the internet works. On the left, you have end users-homes and business. On the right, you have the networks making the deals that dictate how internet traffic flows around the globe. Note how content providers (Netflix, YouTube) peer directly with carriers.
Regardless of the physical infrastructure, data can only travel as fast as its predetermined route allows. If tier 2 networks don't strike the right agreements with other networks, that could mean that your data will take a longer route to its destination.
Broadly speaking, a tier 1 network can reach every part of the internet without paying for transit on another network; these are the internet's biggest power brokers. But each of the lesser-known tier 2 middleman carriers must depend on other networks to provide their customers with access to all of the content on the internet.
So picture a map of the internet. If every single network agreed to let other networks use its infrastructure data would flow freely between all points. Unfortunately, not all of the tier 2 networks cooperate.
An illustration of first and second tier networks, a sprawling 180,000 miles of fiber. The yellow lines are wholly owned and operated by top tier carriers, and the orange ones are shared with other carriers.
To keep traffic moving between networks, the carriers have to make interconnect agreements. One type is called a peering agreement, where two carriers exchange traffic freely for mutual benefit. The other is a transit agreement, exchanging traffic for a fee. The economics of these agreements are quite complex-here's a great explainer-but suffice it to say the larger the network, the fewer transit agreements it must pay for.
Tier 2 carriers also forge peering and transit agreements with content providers like Google, Amazon, and Netflix to provide more direct routes to consumers.
This gets complicated because you have a countless number of different networks relying on a limited amount of infrastructure. While fixing the decaying last mile means monopolistic telecom firms shelling out to upgrade copper wires, fiber optic cable is already the industry standard on tier 2 networks-so your internet speeds are affected more by how well these tier 2 carriers are getting along. When these deals go wrong, carriers end up in locked in negotiations that mean you'll wait longer for webpages to load.
The Fiber Future Relies on Competition
In a climate without sufficient competition, American carriers can refuse to improve infrastructure and augment capacity without the fear of losing customers. Where are they going to go? They can either pay a high price for bad service or pay nothing for no service. This has been the status quo in the USA for years, and companies like Verizon have worked hard to keep this status quo
That's also why carriers like Verizon are going straight to content providers like Netflix
This is where the net neutrality debate comes from. The FCC is finally getting aggressive
This is going to require some radical approaches, like the bootstrapped ISPs and experimental municipal broadband networks we're starting to see.
While laying fiber is wildly expensive, startups could take a different tack. A San Francisco local ISP called Monkeybrains is using roof-mounted wireless connections and direct fiber access to data centers to offer high speed wireless internet. It costs about $2,500 to set up the equipment to join Monkeybrains' innovative network, but after that, you can get "insane speeds" for just $35 a month.
There's also the option of building a network from the ground up, like the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee did a few years ago. Starting this year, the federal government is funneling more moneytowards municipal broadband projects
President Obama has applauded this path forward
At the end of the day, America's broken internet isn't going to fix itself. Monopolistic problems deserve capitalistic solutions. In this case, it's competition-pure and simple. The alternative isn't just frustrating.It's dysfunctional
Illustrations by Jim Cooke
Friday, February 20, 2015
BBC: UK parliament calls for Internet to be classified as a public utility
A world-class country should have world-class Internet access.
by Sebastian Anthony - Feb 18, 2015 6:13am PST BBC
The chamber of the House of Lords
UK Parliament
A new report published by the upper house of UK parliament—the House of Lords—has called for Internet access to be reclassified as a public utility. Further, the report says that the UK is falling behind other countries when it comes to both high-speed Internet access (i.e., new fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-node deployments) and universal Internet access—two factors that could significantly affect the UK's ability to compete in the still-rapidly-growing international digital economy.
The House of Lords' call for UK Internet access to be reclassified as a public utility is very similar to the conversation surrounding Title II reclassification of ISPs in the US. "We conclude that the Government should define the Internet as a utility service, available for all to access and use," reads the summary ofthe House of Lords report. The report stops short of discussing how this will actually work in a legal sense—that's probably up to the next UK government—but it does mention Estonia, which was the first country to add Internet access to its list of human rights, as a very good example to follow.
Beyond universal Internet access, the report also discusses how the United Kingdom lags other countries in terms of high-speed access. In January 2015, an Ookla report placed London in 26th place out of 33 European capitals. There are also a large number of "not-spots" in urban areas, where Internet providers decided that it didn't make economic sense to deploy new infrastructure (usually fiber). In both cases, the House of Lords is worried that these problems will affect the UK's long-term international competitiveness.
The current government has been fairly good at investing in both fixed-line and wireless coverage across the UK, but clearly other countries are investing more—or at least investing more wisely. The incoming UK government will hopefully be formed in May, following a general election. With some awesome new technologies coming down the pike—LTE Advanced, "5G," and gigabit G.fast DSL over copper wires—there's an opportunity for the new government to play a big role in encouraging commercial ISPs to deploy universal, high-speed Internet access.
Sebastian Anthony / Sebastian is the Senior Editor of Ars Technica UK, covering just about every aspect of science and technology. Starting in spring 2015, he and his ragtag crew of tea-drinking, scone-scoffing writers will take the UK tech scene by storm.@mrseb on Twitter
by Sebastian Anthony - Feb 18, 2015 6:13am PST BBC
The chamber of the House of Lords
UK Parliament
A new report published by the upper house of UK parliament—the House of Lords—has called for Internet access to be reclassified as a public utility. Further, the report says that the UK is falling behind other countries when it comes to both high-speed Internet access (i.e., new fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-node deployments) and universal Internet access—two factors that could significantly affect the UK's ability to compete in the still-rapidly-growing international digital economy.
The House of Lords' call for UK Internet access to be reclassified as a public utility is very similar to the conversation surrounding Title II reclassification of ISPs in the US. "We conclude that the Government should define the Internet as a utility service, available for all to access and use," reads the summary ofthe House of Lords report. The report stops short of discussing how this will actually work in a legal sense—that's probably up to the next UK government—but it does mention Estonia, which was the first country to add Internet access to its list of human rights, as a very good example to follow.
Beyond universal Internet access, the report also discusses how the United Kingdom lags other countries in terms of high-speed access. In January 2015, an Ookla report placed London in 26th place out of 33 European capitals. There are also a large number of "not-spots" in urban areas, where Internet providers decided that it didn't make economic sense to deploy new infrastructure (usually fiber). In both cases, the House of Lords is worried that these problems will affect the UK's long-term international competitiveness.
The current government has been fairly good at investing in both fixed-line and wireless coverage across the UK, but clearly other countries are investing more—or at least investing more wisely. The incoming UK government will hopefully be formed in May, following a general election. With some awesome new technologies coming down the pike—LTE Advanced, "5G," and gigabit G.fast DSL over copper wires—there's an opportunity for the new government to play a big role in encouraging commercial ISPs to deploy universal, high-speed Internet access.
Sebastian Anthony / Sebastian is the Senior Editor of Ars Technica UK, covering just about every aspect of science and technology. Starting in spring 2015, he and his ragtag crew of tea-drinking, scone-scoffing writers will take the UK tech scene by storm.@mrseb on Twitter
Friday, January 30, 2015
Google's Fiber network grows again
Summary:Google is set to expand its 1Gbps Fiber network to four of the nine new metro regions it slated last year for launch.
By Liam Tung | January 27, 2015 -- 12:58 GMT (04:58 PST) ZDNet
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Google is preparing to launch its blazing fast one-gigabit-per-second Fiber broadband service to a handful of states in the coming week, according to numerous reports.
The search firm will reportedly announce the launch of the product in Atlanta, two locations in North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee in the coming week. Google hasn't announced the launch but has invited local media outlets to attend an event this week, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The four locations were earmarked for "possible expansion" last year and will join existing locations in Provo, Austin, and Kansas City, where Fiber launched in 2012.
With Fiber residential subscribers can get a free 5Mbps service if they pay a $300 construction fee, or they can buy a gigabit internet service for $70 a month. Google also offers a gigabit service with TV for $130 per month.
Google has previously announced that it's in talks to bring Fiber to 34 cities in nine metro areas. The five additional areas are Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; Portland, Oregon; and San Jose, California.
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, Google's Fiber project is seen by Wall Street as an effort to convince other network operators to invest in their networks. Following the Fiber launch, AT&T promised to roll out its own GigaPower service, which matches Google's pricing, to 21 metro areas last year.
At the same time Google does consider Fiber to be a real business. Google bills its service as "100 times faster than basic broadband", which is not far off the roughly 14Mbps average speeds available to residents in many states in the US, according to Akamai's most recent broadband report.
Analyst firm Ovum previously forecast that DOCSIS 3.0 broadband subscribers will grow from 54 million in 2014 to 60 million in 2019, while fibre and VDSL subscribers will grow slightly over the coming four years to 18 million and 9 million, respectively.
Besides Google and AT&T, some municipalities and local broadband providers, as well as CenturyLink are rolling out gigabit internet to locations across the US.
The Fiber expansion comes as Google prepares to shake up the mobile network market via a new MVNO piggybacking the networks of Sprint and T-Mobile.
Google's mobile service will reportedly seek out the best signal from the providers to determine where to route calls, texts, and data, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the plan. The idea is to deliver users the fastest wireless connection without them needing to deal with the hassle of switching carriers.
About Liam Tung
Liam Tung is an Australian business technology journalist living a few too many Swedish miles north of Stockholm for his liking. He gained a bachelors degree in economics and arts (cultural studies) at Sydney's Macquarie University, but hacked (without Norse or malicious code for that matter) his way into a career as an enterprise tech, s... Full Bio
By Liam Tung | January 27, 2015 -- 12:58 GMT (04:58 PST) ZDNet
Get the ZDNet Insights newsletter now
Google is preparing to launch its blazing fast one-gigabit-per-second Fiber broadband service to a handful of states in the coming week, according to numerous reports.
The search firm will reportedly announce the launch of the product in Atlanta, two locations in North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee in the coming week. Google hasn't announced the launch but has invited local media outlets to attend an event this week, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The four locations were earmarked for "possible expansion" last year and will join existing locations in Provo, Austin, and Kansas City, where Fiber launched in 2012.
With Fiber residential subscribers can get a free 5Mbps service if they pay a $300 construction fee, or they can buy a gigabit internet service for $70 a month. Google also offers a gigabit service with TV for $130 per month.
Google has previously announced that it's in talks to bring Fiber to 34 cities in nine metro areas. The five additional areas are Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; Portland, Oregon; and San Jose, California.
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, Google's Fiber project is seen by Wall Street as an effort to convince other network operators to invest in their networks. Following the Fiber launch, AT&T promised to roll out its own GigaPower service, which matches Google's pricing, to 21 metro areas last year.
At the same time Google does consider Fiber to be a real business. Google bills its service as "100 times faster than basic broadband", which is not far off the roughly 14Mbps average speeds available to residents in many states in the US, according to Akamai's most recent broadband report.
Analyst firm Ovum previously forecast that DOCSIS 3.0 broadband subscribers will grow from 54 million in 2014 to 60 million in 2019, while fibre and VDSL subscribers will grow slightly over the coming four years to 18 million and 9 million, respectively.
Besides Google and AT&T, some municipalities and local broadband providers, as well as CenturyLink are rolling out gigabit internet to locations across the US.
The Fiber expansion comes as Google prepares to shake up the mobile network market via a new MVNO piggybacking the networks of Sprint and T-Mobile.
Google's mobile service will reportedly seek out the best signal from the providers to determine where to route calls, texts, and data, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the plan. The idea is to deliver users the fastest wireless connection without them needing to deal with the hassle of switching carriers.
About Liam Tung
Liam Tung is an Australian business technology journalist living a few too many Swedish miles north of Stockholm for his liking. He gained a bachelors degree in economics and arts (cultural studies) at Sydney's Macquarie University, but hacked (without Norse or malicious code for that matter) his way into a career as an enterprise tech, s... Full Bio
NYT: F.C.C. Sharply Revises Definition of Broadband
By STEVE LOHR JANUARY 29, 2015 12:42 PM January 29, 2015 12:42 pm New York Times
The F.C.C. chief, Thomas Wheeler, had proposed the faster speed standard earlier this month.Credit Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday sharply revised its benchmark definition of broadband Internet service. The new definition increases download speeds to more than six times faster than the previous standard, set more than four years ago.
The commission’s move was expected, after Thomas Wheeler, the chairman, had proposed the faster speed standard earlier this month. The impact of the new definition is uncertain, but the standard does guide policy on matters like the national deployment of broadband service, particularly in rural areas.
The new benchmark standard on speed could also spill over into the current weighing of new rules intended to maintain an open Internet, or net neutrality — the concept that Internet traffic should be open and treated equally. How access speeds can be managed and priced by the major Internet service providers — cable television and telecommunications companies — is the central issue in the open Internet policy debate. The commission is scheduled to vote on open Internet regulations on Feb. 26.
The new broadband benchmark sets downloads at a speed of 25 megabits a second and uploads of 3 megabits a second. The previous standard was a download speed of 4 megabits a second and an upload speed of 1 megabit a second.
The faster standard, according to a report led by Mr. Wheeler, is needed to keep up with the rising demands of American households. They increasingly use several Internet connected devices and use data-streaming video services like Netflix. The report found that 53 percent of rural Americans — 22 million people — do not have Internet access at the 25-3 level. By contrast, only 8 percent of urban Americans lack access to 25-3 broadband.
The debate over a new speed standard for broadband service mirrors the lobbying battle lines over net neutrality. The big Internet content companies including Google, Facebook and Netflix favor strong action by the F.C.C., while the cable and telecommunications companies want the F.C.C. to refrain.
In a filing with the commission last week, Matthew A. Brill, counsel for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, called the 25-3 standard “arbitrary and capricious.” He termed the assumptions behind the new standard as “hypotheticals” that “dramatically exaggerate the amount of bandwidth needed by the typical broadband user.” Mr. Brill also urged the commission to make sure a new benchmark would not have a wider regulatory impact.
Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association, whose members include the major Internet content companies, took a very different stance in his recent filing with the commission. The appropriate policy goal, Mr. Beckerman wrote, was “broadband abundance — the expansion of truly high-speed broadband services across the country.”
Higher access speeds, he wrote, led to a “virtuous circle” of innovation, new services and fresh demand from customers, which in turn fuels economic growth. Revenue from streaming videos, according to Mr. Beckerman, citing industry research, jumped by 175 percent between 2010 and 2013, from $1.86 billion to $5.12 billion.
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday sharply revised its benchmark definition of broadband Internet service. The new definition increases download speeds to more than six times faster than the previous standard, set more than four years ago.
The commission’s move was expected, after Thomas Wheeler, the chairman, had proposed the faster speed standard earlier this month. The impact of the new definition is uncertain, but the standard does guide policy on matters like the national deployment of broadband service, particularly in rural areas.
The new benchmark standard on speed could also spill over into the current weighing of new rules intended to maintain an open Internet, or net neutrality — the concept that Internet traffic should be open and treated equally. How access speeds can be managed and priced by the major Internet service providers — cable television and telecommunications companies — is the central issue in the open Internet policy debate. The commission is scheduled to vote on open Internet regulations on Feb. 26.
The new broadband benchmark sets downloads at a speed of 25 megabits a second and uploads of 3 megabits a second. The previous standard was a download speed of 4 megabits a second and an upload speed of 1 megabit a second.
The faster standard, according to a report led by Mr. Wheeler, is needed to keep up with the rising demands of American households. They increasingly use several Internet connected devices and use data-streaming video services like Netflix. The report found that 53 percent of rural Americans — 22 million people — do not have Internet access at the 25-3 level. By contrast, only 8 percent of urban Americans lack access to 25-3 broadband.
The debate over a new speed standard for broadband service mirrors the lobbying battle lines over net neutrality. The big Internet content companies including Google, Facebook and Netflix favor strong action by the F.C.C., while the cable and telecommunications companies want the F.C.C. to refrain.
In a filing with the commission last week, Matthew A. Brill, counsel for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, called the 25-3 standard “arbitrary and capricious.” He termed the assumptions behind the new standard as “hypotheticals” that “dramatically exaggerate the amount of bandwidth needed by the typical broadband user.” Mr. Brill also urged the commission to make sure a new benchmark would not have a wider regulatory impact.
Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association, whose members include the major Internet content companies, took a very different stance in his recent filing with the commission. The appropriate policy goal, Mr. Beckerman wrote, was “broadband abundance — the expansion of truly high-speed broadband services across the country.”
Higher access speeds, he wrote, led to a “virtuous circle” of innovation, new services and fresh demand from customers, which in turn fuels economic growth. Revenue from streaming videos, according to Mr. Beckerman, citing industry research, jumped by 175 percent between 2010 and 2013, from $1.86 billion to $5.12 billion.
CENIC Annual Conference ‘Shaking Things Up’
WRITTEN BY CRISTA SOUZAFRIDAY, 23 JANUARY 2015 TechEDge
Catherine K. Sandoval, California Public Unilities Commissioner
The Keynote Speaker for Tuesday, March 10, will be Catherine J. K. Sandoval, California Public Utilities Commissioner.
Sandoval was appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission in 2011 by Governor Jerry Brown. She has worked as an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law since 2004, and served as undersecretary and senior policy advisor for housing with the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency from 2001 to 2004.
Program Details To Come
Additional details about the conference program will be posted at a later date at cenic2015.cenic.org/, but those who register by Feb. 19 will receive a discounted hotel rate of $174 per night, as well as a discounted daily rate on hotel Internet access.
For conference pricing and to register, visit the conference registration page. Questions about the program may be addressed to CENIC via e-mail at cenic2015-info@cenic.org.
Online registration is now open for the 19th Annual Conference of the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), being held March 9 through March 11, 2015, at University of California, Irvine.
With a theme of “Shaking Things Up,” the conference will highlight the varied uses of technology and network bandwidth through three days of programming, demonstrations and sponsor talks, as well as provide opportunities to interact with peers. Presentations by the winners of the 2015 Innovations in Networking Awards will also be featured.
With a theme of “Shaking Things Up,” the conference will highlight the varied uses of technology and network bandwidth through three days of programming, demonstrations and sponsor talks, as well as provide opportunities to interact with peers. Presentations by the winners of the 2015 Innovations in Networking Awards will also be featured.
Catherine K. Sandoval, California Public Unilities Commissioner
The Keynote Speaker for Tuesday, March 10, will be Catherine J. K. Sandoval, California Public Utilities Commissioner.
Sandoval was appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission in 2011 by Governor Jerry Brown. She has worked as an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law since 2004, and served as undersecretary and senior policy advisor for housing with the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency from 2001 to 2004.
Program Details To Come
Additional details about the conference program will be posted at a later date at cenic2015.cenic.org/, but those who register by Feb. 19 will receive a discounted hotel rate of $174 per night, as well as a discounted daily rate on hotel Internet access.
For conference pricing and to register, visit the conference registration page. Questions about the program may be addressed to CENIC via e-mail at cenic2015-info@cenic.org.
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