August 2009

Calix has raised $100 million in new funding in part to help the privately held access equipment vendor take advantage of the federal government's broadband stimulus program. The new capital consists of $50 million in new equity and $50 million in debt from Silicon Valley Bank. Calix has been involved to some degree with over 100 projects submitted for the first round of funding and suspects the second and third rounds could draw far more participation.

A full fiber future represents the ultimate realization of the Internet's full power and potential. When it comes to bandwidth, fiber's unbeatable as it's already delivering 100Mbps and even 1Gbps to homes today, and we still don't know how much data we can fit through a fiber pipe as in the labs today a single hair-thin strand of fiber can support all the world's Internet traffic. But fiber's advantages aren't just limited to bandwidth, fiber also features the lowest possible latency, which is important for real-time applications to not suffer from lags and delays, as well as unmatched reliability since there are fewer electronic components in the field that could break, plus fiber can handle more simultaneous usage than anything else.

The Federal Communications Commission has released its an assessment of the current state of the marketplace with respect to: the existence and availability of advanced blocking technologies; methods of encouraging the development, deployment and use of such technologies that do not affect the packaging or pricing of programming; and the existence, availability and use of parental empowerment tools and initiatives already in the market. The FCC concludes that no single parental control technology available today works across all media platforms. Moreover, even within each media platform, these technologies vary greatly with respect to the following criteria: (i) cost to consumers; (ii) level of consumer awareness/promotional and educational efforts; (iii) adoption rate; (iv) customer support; (v) ease of use; (vi) means to prevent children from overriding parental controls; (vii) blocking content/black listing; (viii) selecting content/white listing; (ix) access to multiple ratings systems; (x) parental understanding of ratings systems; (xi) reliance on non-ratings-based system; (xii) ability to monitor usage and view usage history; (xiii) ability to restrict access and usage; (xiv) access to parental controls outside of the home; and (xv) tracking. Interested parties told the FCC that there is the need for greater education and media literacy for parents and more effective diffusion of information about the tools available to them. They also urge the government to play a more substantial role in meeting this need.

Verizon Wireless plans to roll out a lightning-fast data network next year in Chicago, part of a continued push to grab more money from customers who want the Internet anywhere, anytime. The company will test its long-term evolution, or LTE, service in Boston and Seattle later this year, and Chicago will be among the first 25 markets to get the service in 2010. The new network ultimately will put Verizon in competition with Internet providers such as Comcast and AT&T, in the same way wireless carriers have competed with traditional phone companies as more customers have dropped land lines in favor of their cell phones. Demand for data services is growing dramatically: Verizon's data revenue grew 33% in the second quarter, pushing revenue per user up 28%. Initially, Verizon's upgrade will allow customers to receive data at about 7 megabits per second, compared with about 1.5 megabits on its current third-generation network. The biggest benefit promises to be in reduced wait times, or latency, between clicks while surfing the Web, particularly for video. It will be available first for computers via a plug-in device called an air card. Wireless phones that can use the service won't hit stores until 2011.