Ars Technica

Netflix performance on Comcast, which had been deteriorating for months, finally got a little better in February according to Netflix's latest speed rankings.

The latest Netflix data shows some Internet service providers (ISPs) struggling, while Google Fiber soars. Netflix streamed at an average of 1.68Mbps on Comcast in the US in February, up from 1.51Mbps in January. The average on Comcast was above 2Mbps as recently as September, but it had gone down each month until Netflix decided to pay Comcast for a direct connection to its network.

Netflix requires at least 0.5Mbps to stream video, but it recommends at least 1.5Mbps. 5Mbps is recommended for HD quality and 7Mbps for "Super HD" quality. Netflix on Verizon FiOS continued to decline, going from 1.82Mbps in January to 1.76Mbps in February, while Verizon DSL dropped from 0.97Mbps to 0.93Mbps.

[March 10]

Tennessee is one of 20 states that have restrictions on municipal broadband networks, enacted to protect private Internet service providers from competition.
Bills limiting municipal ISPs in Kansas and Utah continue noble tradition.

Now, though, there are four bills in the Tennessee House and Senate that would "un-do some of the restrictions previous legies put in place several years ago," broadband industry analyst Craig Settles wrote. "This kind of reversal is practically unheard of," he wrote. "What’s more surprising? Republicans lawmakers, typically the party that leads the charge against public-owned networks, are taking the lead on many of these bills in Tennessee!" Internet service providers aren't happy about this, naturally.

"We are particularly concerned about four bills that have been introduced this session," Tennessee Telecommunications Associations chief Levoy Knowles said in an announcement. The TTA claimed to be presenting "concerns of rural consumers" but are more worried about the potential of losing customers. "These bills would allow municipalities to expand beyond their current footprint and offer broadband in our service areas. If this were to happen, municipalities could cherry-pick our more populated areas, leaving the more remote, rural consumers to bear the high cost of delivering broadband to these less populated regions," Knowles said. [March 7]

In a speech before the RightsCon conference in San Francisco, deputy assistant secretary of State Scott Busby expressed official approval for the President’s January 2014 policy that established clearer guidelines about state-driven bulk data collection and surveillance.

Busby said that the US “continues to support strong cybersecurity, including strong encryption protocols.” Busby presented the government’s case as to how, why, and under what conditions American government officials should be allowed to conduct digital surveillance. His speech was approved by all branches of the US government, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“US signals intelligence collection follows the principle that surveillance should not be arbitrary. The new Policy Directive states that signals intelligence activities shall be as tailored as feasible,” Busby added. “We prioritize obtaining data through public sources, as opposed to non-public signals intelligence collection. When decisions about surveillance are made, we assess whether the benefits of surveillance outweigh its risks, and whether there are other, less-intrusive alternatives that might accomplish our foreign intelligence requirements.”