September 2011

Google 1Gbps network near Stanford is live

Some residents near Stanford University in Palo Alto (CA) are getting the first taste of Google's 1-gigabit-per-second broadband service.

The service has been live in the market for about a month, and it will continue to be rolled out to homes in the community, where mostly Stanford professors and faculty live. The service is free to residents for the first year. Google is building the Stanford fiber-to-the-home network and a larger network in Kansas City, Kansas, as sort of test beds for ultra-high speed broadband. So far, residents in the Stanford community are the first to get access to the high-speed networks that Google is building.

(Aug 23)

Some States May Be Vulnerable In Phone Fund Overhaul

An attempt by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to overhaul a major telecom fund could yank cash away from various states, and while the winners and losers are still hard to call, the reform effort already has state officials worrying.

The Universal Service Fund, an $8 billion fund that subsidizes phone service in rural and low-income areas, is being redesigned this year as the FCC attempts to shift the money from traditional voice service. Certain companies, including rural phone firms, may wind up getting less cash than before, while others could make out like bandits. That also means a change in how much government-collected cash flows to certain states. Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Mississippi) -- whose state received the largest cut of the rural section of the fund -- is already trying to slow the overhaul. Gov Barbour wrote to the FCC this week urging officials not to rush the reform process and praising the current configuration of the fund. The reforms under consideration by the FCC “threaten to undermine competition, stifle access and slow broadband adoption (wireless or otherwise) in Mississippi and other rural parts of the United States,” Gov Barbour wrote.

(Aug 25)

Libya, BART and tethering: Understanding the web’s weak points

If access to broadband is a human right, or even a First Amendment right, then it pays to understand where those rights can't be taken for granted. From the news over Libya’s battle to access the web to the drama over San Francisco’s public transportation agency shutting down wireless access during a protest, knowing where the web is at its weakest can help citizens and consumers agitate for change or protect their rights. We may think of Internet communication as this global network without borders, but there are still plenty of geographical borders in place thanks to how countries broadcast IP addresses and who owns the ISPs.

(Aug 22)

Is broadband the gateway drug for the web or the drug itself?

When Google deploys a fiber-to-the-home network in Kansas City, Kansas. (and later in Kansas City, Missouri) its success for the project will not be measured in dollars but in users.

And in promoting this view of broadband Google shows a keen understanding of how broadband has the potential to disrupt everything — the value isn't in delivering broadband — it’s in delivering services over broadband. That doesn't mean that broadband isn't valuable, but it’s also not the highest value — much like electricity is valuable, but it’s the air conditioning or refrigeration that it enables that people spend more money on. Which runs somewhat counter to the argument put forth by ISPs, especially those keen to meter broadband — that the value is in the access itself. Instead of viewing broadband as a gateway to the web, and trying to capitalize on that by offering faster speeds that people will eventually pay more for as Verizon is doing with FiOS, many ISPs view broadband as something that’s valuable in and of itself– and as such it might make sense to charge people by the byte.

(Aug 22)

The Dutch love their fiber

The Netherlands, a country that wants to have 1 Gbps connections everywhere now has 269,000 fiber-based broadband subscribers. It’s pretty cool to see fiber grow so fast in a country which has been pushing the edge when it comes to broadband.

The country has a total of 6.29 million broadband subscribers including 2.66 million who use cable broadband. According to Akamai’s State of the Internet report, the boom in fiber helped the average connection speed register a 25 percent year-over-year gain during first quarter of 2011 to 7.5 Mbps. Peak speeds during the Q1 2011 were 22 Mbps, Akamai data shows. Like South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Sweden, I like to keep an eye on what the Dutch are doing when it comes to broadband.

(Aug 18)

Updated: Barnes & Noble Gets $204 Million Investment From Liberty Media

It is not the outright buy that Barnes & Noble was hoping for, but Liberty Media is making a strategic investment of $204 million in the company, making it B&N’s third largest shareholder after Leonard Riggio and Ronald Burkle. Shares are up about 3.5 percent.

Liberty Media purchased about 12 million shares of preferred stock, roughly 16.6 percent of the company’s stock, at a price of $17 per share. The investment was approved by Barnes & Noble’s board of directors and “the parties have ceased discussions regarding Liberty’s previously announced acquisition proposal.” Under the terms of the investment, Liberty will be allowed to nominate two members to Barnes & Noble’s board of directors, bringing the total number of board members to eleven. Liberty and B&N agreed in advance that the nominees would be Maffei and Liberty SVP Mark Carleton.

What Google Gobbling Motorola Mobility Means For The Way We Think About Smartphones

Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility means the people who decide what happens when you push a button on your smartphone will now also decide where that button goes. The same way Apple does. And RIM. And HP with WebOS.

It's a step toward making mobile devices synonymous their operating systems. We say, "I have an iPhone," and not, "I have an iPhone running iOS." With Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility, "I have a Google phone" might become a common phrase -- it certainly rolls off the tongue easier than, "I have a Motorola phone running Android." Especially if Google ever becomes the primary maker of Android smartphones and tablets. We're not quite there. And, in fact, the biggest consequence yet determined of Google's acquisition is whether handset makers such as Samsung, HTC, and others will choose to stick with Android and compete with Google's now in-house brand (Motorola Mobility). If not, they could develop their own, niche operating systems instead. Or, more likely, expand to Windows Mobile.

ISPs Could Make More Money by Offering Multiple Service Plans

With just a handful of different pricing packages, Internet service providers (ISPs) can increase profits and better meet demand, says a new paper by Nick Feamster, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's college of computing, and colleagues.

Tiered pricing is not new -- several ISPs already implement it -- but Feamster's team analyzed the effectiveness of tiers using models built from real-world ISP data. "The research addresses the fundamental tension between the desire for simple billing models ... and the economic efficiency of the resulting flow of traffic," says Jennifer Rexford, a professor in Princeton's department of computer science. Simple models, like the blended rates based on megabytes of information per second per month that most ISPs use today, are easy to understand and enforce. However, blended rates disregard other factors, such as the distance the packets of data travel, that can influence the costs of providing service. Ideally, says Feamster, ISPs would offer an "infinite" number of tiers in which the price precisely reflected the costs of the service provided. But how much benefit do tiers offer compared to the bundled pricing used in today's systems? And how many tiers does it take to approach the optimal results?

(Aug 24)

NSTIC director: 'We're trying to get rid of passwords'

The federal government's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) program, set up this spring, is making progress against its goal of identifying and supporting more secure alternatives to simple passwords that the government as well as anyone else might use in authenticating to online applications.

"We're trying to get rid of passwords. It's time for something better," says Jeremy Grant, senior executive adviser at the National Program Office for NSTIC, located at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The federal government, he says, can lead in working with industry on better types of authentication for large-scale use that may be deemed preferable to passwords. The next step in this project involves setting up a steering committee with industry to foster consensus on standards and guidelines, with a slew of pilot projects expected next year, based on current budget expectations. Though the budget process is not complete, the Obama administration has $25 million allotted for the NSTIC program, and out of that, "$17.5 million is for pilots," says Grant, adding, "We haven't published yet what the criteria will be." However, the idea at present is to conduct about half a dozen pilot projects for strong authentication, making the funds available perhaps through a grants process.

Campaign Coverage in the Time of Twitter

No longer do reporters slog elbow to elbow with presidential contenders vying for votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. No longer do they get to know the candidates in a way that voters do not – up close and personal, with their feet up, their guard down and, perhaps, a drink at the ready. No longer do they have the luxury of weeks or days or even hours to gather string and dig deep and analyze before they write a story. Heck, many reporters scarcely have time to write stories, so busy are they thumbing 140-character tweets, tapping out blog posts and shooting or appearing in video.

Benton

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