broadband

Broadband Funding Round-Up

June 15, 2009

Everyone has some plan to spend money for broadband now that the BTOP is out there. Much of the broadband problem revolves around lack of fiber. There's no conduit and no fiber, so what do you do?

This one blog post explains the conduit and fiber access dilemma and how if it is not addresses will create problems down the road.

Then you have a couple of Congresspeople pushing a bill to build conduit into any highway expenditures. Except the Highway Trust Fund is broke.

Maybe we need to stop looking at the federal government for broadband deployment and start looking at the business plan for after you sink all those assets in the ground. Need we forget that there is plenty of fiber in the ground from companies that have long been forgotten that lies unused (because no one knows where it is, where it goes or who owns it).

At the end of the day, there needs to be a business plan that allows for sustainable broadband.

Posted in broadband, telco, telecommunications

What About AOL?

April 29, 2009

Tonight, Steve Case was on twitter tweeting, "Sad AOL went from being Internet pioneer/leader to also-ran. But still more there then most understand; hopeful can return to greatness." My replies were as follows: what they need are some young, hungry start-up execs, but what they will get is a stodgy exec that wants to cost cut and ride it out.

Why do I say that? Look at Embarq. Hesse had a couple months to pick a team and formulate a plan for the soon-to-be spun off Embarq.

Posted in Internet, Web 2.0, apps, broadband, im/chat

When Will Level3 Pull the Trigger?

April 28, 2009

Speaking with some industry channel folks today, we got to discussing Level3. Rob Powell says it best, "The Economy Takes a Big Bite Out of Level 3". This is a company with $6B in debt compared to $4B in revenue and negative free cash flow. Everyone wondered when the BK filing woud happen.

Level3 is as much at fault as Cogent and Hurricane Electric in leading the way to pricing underwater. Plus with operational challenges they aren't creating happy customers or agents.

Posted in Internet, broadband, economy, telecommunications

Broadband is Productivity

April 28, 2009

I think that broadband has made some people "too connected". Between twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, text messages, etc. When do you get a recess? But for those that can in fact walk away from the tech and live a normal life, broadband allows for increased productivity.

If you think I am making this up, Broadband Properties magazine has a nice article with supporting facts.

Posted in broadband, economy

Nothing but Headlines: DPI, Caps, Clearwire

April 24, 2009

I'm seeing a lot of news in our space but not enough time to cover it all or analyze it, so here's just the headlines:

DPI (deep packet inspection) by cable being investigated by Congress. It scares the crap out of Boucher (ARS). Cox, Comcast, NebuAd = new privacy law being debated (NYTimes).

Broadband download caps: in the news all week because apparently TWC said that without caps, they won't upgrade any more. Well, I have news for them: if they don't upgrade they will lose customers.

Posted in Yahoo, bandwidth, broadband, cableco, politics, privacy, telecommunications, wimax, wireless

FCC Broadband Policy Beginnings

April 9, 2009

As the FCC, USDA, and NTIA get set to disburse $7.2 billion in moneys to telecommunications companies for broadband deployment, penetration, and mapping along with E-Rate type services and tele-medicine, the FCC has to actually come up with a National Broadband Strategy.

"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act charged the FCC with creating a plan to give all Americans access to broadband. The FCC began the effort, which will include a series of hearings and meetings, on Wednesday by asking for public comment. The FCC must present the plan to lawmakers by Feb. 17, 2010." [Infoweek]

One would have thought that former FCC Chairman Martin would have put a national policy in place, but all he had was a chalk board with "ideas" or guidelines that the telcos could ignore. Now acting FCC Chair Copps has been tasked and he takes this seriously.

"This commission has never, I believe, received a more serious charge than the one to spearhead development of a national broadband plan," FCC Chairman Michael Copps said in a statement Wednesday.

Posted in FCC, Internet, broadband, politics

Are You Still an ILEC Agent?

April 7, 2009

This from Telephony online and the Convergence Consulting Group:

The latest in an annual study of the bundled services market shows US telecom service providers are losing wireline voice customers at a faster pace and being transformed in the process into companies that will look very different from their traditional telecom roots. The Battle for the American Couch Potato: Bundling, TV, Internet, Telephone, Wireless, released this week by the Convergence Consulting Group, shows maintaining a broadband connection is increasingly important to telecom providers, as wireline voice services become much less important.

If you look at the numbers in that PDF report and you still think that the QBPP is a viable option or that the last 400K businesses in the BellSouth region will somehow see the light and convert, I have some land for you in South Florida.

I have written about this in years past: the telcos have finally hit the wall. Everything is flat or down now: TV, wireline, cellular, and broadband.

Posted in Internet, agents, bellsouth agent, broadband, cableco, cellular, channel, duopoly, telco, video, wimax, wireless, wireline

Duopoly against the City

April 6, 2009

CircleID has the story of ILECs and Cable companies once again fighting municipalities, like BellSouth and Cox fought LUS.

With President Obama determined to promote the development of open network telecommunications and smart grid networks we can expect the incumbents to step up their legal battles to stop this from happening.

In relation to the recent $7 billion stimulus package AT&T made a statement that it didn't need the money, but that it would launch a defensive campaign against any competitors using the money to encroach on its territory.

To me, it's anti-American for the Duopoly to fight the city. It's more taxpayer money that could be used for something useful that gets used to fight against two enemies of progress and innovation.

Posted in broadband, cableco, duopoly, economy, fiber, politics, telco, telecommunications

Will the Dial-Up Trend Affect VoIP?

March 31, 2009

Ars technica doesn't believe the articles in CNET and AOL-Tech about people switching back to dial-up. Well, info from dial-up aggregators indicate that dial-up is on the uptick. As some angry comments mention not everyone needs broadband.

Last year we saw the plateau of broadband subscriber numbers.

Posted in broadband, economy, saas, voip

FCC is 75 Years Old

February 24, 2009

Acting FCC chief Michael Copps celebrated the 75th anniversary of both the FCC and the Communications Act of 1934 that birthed the agency. In a speech, Copps said, "How do we take this 75 year old agency, charged with implementing our formative communications law, and make sure it is up to the challenges of the 21st century? Born in the world of primitive radio sets, raised on plain old telephone service, now trying to manage high-speed broadband and orbiting satellites, can we make it an agency for all seasons? I'm glad you're thinking about this."

After that Copps kind of digs at Martin's feral grasp on the communications and free flow of information.

Posted in FCC, Internet, broadband, communications, politics

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