The Podium
Blog posts tagged with 'Broadband Speed'
Monday, December 21
By Bruce
With 58 days to go before the FCC presents its national broadband plan, Rep. Rick Boucher [D-Va] has megabit speed on the mind. Reports Media Post:
As the Federal Communications Commission readies its national broadband plan, a leading lawmaker is urging the agency to aim to ensure that the vast majority of U.S. residents have speedy connections.
“The commission should explicitly endorse a goal for minimum broadband speeds of at least 50 megabits downstream and 20 megabits upstream for 80 percent of the population by 2015,” Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) wrote last week in a letter to the FCC. “Without committing to such ambitious, but achievable, levels of speed and service, the promises of telemedicine, distance learning and telecommuting may remain a far-off dream rather than a near-term reality.”
Rep. Boucher’s full letter to the FCC is available here.
Thursday, September 24
By Brad
Online gaming is big — and getting bigger all the time. And now a new startup is hoping to make a splash in the lucrative gaming market by doing away with pesky discs and taking everything online. Reports Ars Technica:
MIT is playing host to Technology Review’s EmTech conference, which focuses on up-and-coming companies and the new technology they’re bringing to market. Steve Perlman, the founder and CEO of the OnLive gaming service, was given the chance to demonstrate his company’s cloud gaming service, and took some time to explain the technology backing it. OnLive is gaming’s answer to cloud computing: the applications run on hardware in a server farm, while users only need low-end hardware (including OnLive’s own mini-console) and broadband Internet to connect in and play.
While the service certainly has the potential to revolutionize the gaming industry, streaming games over broadband isn’t without it pitfalls — namely, pipes capacious enough to make the experience smooth and, well, playable.
Friday, September 11
By Brad
Think your broadband speed could be faster? I could be worse. You could live in South Africa. Via Reuters:
A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom, the country’s leading internet service provider.
The pigeon, named Winston, carried a data card 50 miles in one hour and eight minutes. As for the service provider:
Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds—the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.
Yikes.
Monday, June 29
By IIA
Between 2000 and 2008, residential broadband subscribers grew to 80 million from 5 million. Adding to this expansion of connected households was a substantial increase in the quality, robustness, and speed of the broadband connections themselves.
Swanson, Bret. “Bandwidth Boom: Measuring U.S. Communications Capacity from 2000 to 2008.” Entropy Economics, June 24, 2009.
More facts on broadband adoption.
Wednesday, June 10
By Brad
Over at App-Rising, Geoff Daily offers his list of the “top ten applications for bettering healthcare through broadband.” Check it out.
Daily concludes his list with this word of caution:
In terms of what we need from next-generation broadband networks to enable all these applications to establish themselves and evolve the answers simple: we need everyone to have access to the best broadband. We need broadband networks with limitless capacity so as demands increase so can the supply needed to support them. We need broadband networks that we can rely on to always work. We need broadband networks with low latency to enable as close to real-time delivery as possible.
And while the benefits of next-generation broadband to how we administer medical care are profound, they’re only the tip of the iceberg.
As the Obama administration aims to reform health care and bring broadband to every person in America, the two issues can easily become one.
Friday, May 22
By Brad
Via GigaOm, it seems Amazon Web Services—- the company’s popular “cloud” storage service—has turned to the United States Postal service due to painfully slow Internet pipes:
Werner Vogels, Amazon’s CTO, explains in a blog posting that it would take up to 13 days to sling a terabyte of data across a 10 Mbps network, which is pretty darn slow. So Amazon is offering customers the chance to store their data on an external device, ship it via post, and Amazon will load it into S3. I outlined this problem of needing fat pipes to transfer our increasing loads of data back in April, but was hoping that instead of using FedEx, we’d have faster networks. Interestingly, Vogels doesn’t think our networks will keep up with our data generation — a feeling common also in the supercomputing and cloud storage world.
If cloud computing is indeed the future…well, it seems the future is a ways away.
Thursday, May 07
By Brad
Last January, the state of Hawaii—which ranked 49th in broadband speed—wanted to create a Communications Commission that would boost the state’s broadband speed. It was an ambitious plan and, as Forbes reports, too ambitious for its own good:
A proposal meant to speed up Hawaii’s Internet speeds has died in the state Legislature.
Disagreement among lawmakers, Internet providers and regulatory agencies caused the measure to stall out in its conference committee last week.
Legislators say it will be reconsidered next year.
Wednesday, March 18
By Brad
Expanding the reach of broadband to rural areas won’t just take dollars, it will take innovation. Enter researchers at the University of Melbourne, who are using existing technologies to bring broadband to people out of reach of traditional cable and DSL:
People who live close to cities can choose from DSL and cable broadband sources, but those living in rural areas often only have fixed wireless or satellite broadband to choose from, both of which are less reliable than DSL or cable and cost more. The high cost means that many rural dwellers can’t afford broadband.
The researchers have developed a method to boost the distance that gigabit passive optical networks (GPON), like those used by Verizon’s FiOS network, to provide high bit rates over long distances. Lee says that the roughly 19 miles that GPON networks are capable of reaching now would still leave many rural locations in Victoria without coverage. He and his team have conducted experiments using a device called a Raman amplifier to send signals over 37 miles.
The amplifier is a powerful laser that is installed in the central office of a network provider and feeds the optical signal that carries information with energy as it heads out over fiber optic cables. The laser is able to increase the reach of the broadband signal by a factor of close to ten times.
In experiments, the team of researchers was able to build a mock system with a signal transmitter, simulated splitter, and a receiver at the other end. The experimental setup was able to transmit error free data at a speed of 2.5Gb/s over single mode fiber 37 miles long.
Lee estimates that a distance of 37 miles would allow the existing central offices of providers to service 99% of those living within the Victoria province. Not only would rural customers be able to access broadband data speeds, Lee says that the technology could also help urban areas as well.
Tuesday, March 17
By Brad
Last week, Saul Hansell of the New York Times ran a three part series on the state of broadband in America. The response to his reporting—both pro and con—was overwhelming, and yesterday he posted some of the many responses.
Monday, February 02
By Brad
While the U.S. House and Senate differ over how fast next generation broadband should be (is it 45 mbps or 100 mbps?), South Korea is leaping ahead. As Gizmodo reports, the Korea Communications Commission is promising 1 Gbps broadband by the year 2012. How fast is that? Downloading an entire movie in 12 seconds fast.
Friday, January 30
By Brad
The state of Hawaii, currently ranks a lowly 49th when it comes to broadband speed. Now state government leaders are trying to change that:
As set out this week in proposed legislation before Hawaii’s Senate and House, the plan calls for the establishment of a Hawaiian Communications Commission that would be a combination regulatory agency and consumer-industry advocate. The plan would be to create broadband access at speeds comparable to Japan’s and Korea’s blistering speeds. Japanese broadband users can get speeds up to 1,000 Mbps, while Hawaiian users are lucky if they can get 10 Mbps from their broadband access.
Ironically, the University of Hawaii created Aloha Net in 1970, which proved to be a foundation for Ethernet technology.
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