Now that President Obama has signed the $787 billion economic stimulus package into law, the real hard work begins: using that money to create jobs. To accomplish its many goals, the country needs the infrastructure to support them. That’s why the funding for broadband was so vital.
During a long career as a television and technology executive, Mitch Berman has tried to sell several different iterations of TV, often in their formative stages. Now, Berman is onto the next new thing, delivering TV through the Internet.
What does the contemporary self want? The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies converge–broadband tipping the Web from text to image, social-networking sites spreading the mesh of interconnection ever wider–the two cultures betray a common impulse. Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known.
Worried that your broadband provider is slowing down your Web traffic?
If so, you might want to download the aptly named “Switzerland”–a tool that tests whether your Internet provider is violating the principles of so-called “network neutrality.”
Network neutrality, which prevents carriers from blocking traffic or manipulating the speeds of traffic from certain Web sites, became a hot-button issue several years ago when carriers suggested they should be allowed to charge content providers more for using faster lanes on their networks.
Just a few weeks ago, we warned that, while the thought of increasing broadband is a good idea, the details of any sort of “broadband stimulus” plan were important–especially if it just looked like giving money to the same old incumbent players who have a long, and rather disgusting, history of accepting tons of public money and then not delivering.
Comcast’s earnings get announced before tomorrow’s opening bell, but the company has a couple of things going for it that might be helping analysts predict what those numbers will look like. First, 70 percent of consumers prefer bundling, and currently only cable can offer it. Second, even as we head into a recession, broadband and video are considered “no more discretionary for most families than running water.”
CenturyTel (CTL) will acquire Embarq (EQ) for $11.6 billion in stock and assumption of debt. Combined, the two companies have two million broadband customers and eight million access lines. The deal should generate savings of $400 million in the first three years–notably in elimination of duplicate function, increased operational efficiency and reduced overhead. The combined entity does not yet have a name.
Major speed enhancements are rumored to be coming soon from Comcast, which has been spending serious cash to upgrade its network to the DOCSIS 3.0 standard.
At first they demurred, saying the cabin crew could and should handle it.
Then, following the lead of many libraries, schools and workplaces, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines announced that each will ask AirCell, the provider of their in-flight wireless service, to filter the content. The goal: to block passengers from surfing Web sites that may offend those seated nearby.
If there’s a candidate for the worst future violator of your privacy, look no further than the company you pay for broadband.
$61 million (market cap) broadband modem maker Westell Technologies (WSTL) this evening reported that since July 28, the company has purchased 963,481 of its shares on the open market, about 2 percent of its float of 41.8 million shares.
Four years ago, Verizon Communications embarked on an ambitious and expensive plan to run fiber optic cables, which can deliver ultra-fast Internet service and dozens of high-definition video channels along with old-fashioned telephone service, past 19 million homes, roughly half its territory. When it was announced, Verizon’s $23 billion planned investment in the service, called FiOS, was met by a chorus of skeptics, both on Wall Street and among rivals.
Comcast Corp. rightfully received a smackdown from the Federal Communications Commission last week for not telling customers that it was blocking some of them from using peer-to-peer services to download videos and other content off the Internet.
The Federal Communications Commission’s order last Friday in the Comcast-BitTorrent dispute should help ensure that today’s broadband networks remain open platforms to the Internet. But more broadly, the recent attention on Comcast–and on Time Warner’s recently launched trial of “consumption-based billing”–raises the question: what is a reasonable approach for broadband networks to manage their Internet [...]
Unless you’re using Enron math, BT’s new plan to connect 10 million homes — roughly 40 percent of the United Kingdom — with fiber networks at a cost of £1.5 billion doesn’t quite add up. At today’s conversion rate, that’s about $3 billion — or $300 to wire up each of these proposed 10 million homes.
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