The future of broadband in Canada is happening out in British Columbia right now where the province’s advanced network and shared IT services, also known as BCNET, has been doing some serious pushing of the high speed envelop.

Along with Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Network (Canarie) and the University of Victoria they have successfully transmitted one petabyte of particle physics data over an optical connection in just 24 hours. To put this in perspective what they have done by pushing this one petabyte of data would be the equivalent of transmitting 13 years of HDTV video along that fiber optic cable.

while this was primarily just a demonstration of what is possible they did it to showcase the province’s ability to build one of the fastest and most advanced networks in the world.

Here’s a few more points to highlight just how big this one petabyte would be:

• 13.3 years of HDTV video
• 10 million yards of books on a shelf
• 20,000,000 four drawer filing cabinets filled with text
• 250 million MP3 songs

Additionally if you could maintain 100 gigabits download speed on your pitiful home network connection to the Web you could download 6 movies per second.

via TechVibes

Canada is pumping some massive high speed broadband that no one can use yet is a post from: The Inquisitr

When you hear cries and rants against bandwidth caps, which are becoming more popular in the US but standard in Canada, it is usually from people like myself and others that depend on web access; and lots of it, on a daily basis. The argument used by the ISPs to back up this ridiculous state of affairs is that they are just trying to protect their networks from undue congestion caused by the bandwidth hogs.

As cute as that argument might be it is also a fallacious argument that unfortunately is swallowed by the majority of people, so it was really nice to read this smack down of ISPs by Mark Rubin, executive producer at Infinity Ward; one of the video game companies responsible for the Call of Duty video game franchise.

In the post at Huffington Post Rubin says that ISPs are holding back innovations with their predatory practices.

Mark Rubin, executive producer at Infinity Ward, the studio behind the ‘Call of Duty’ series, says Internet service providers are holding back innovation with restrictive practices. Both usage-based billing, where customers receive monthly download limits, and throttling, where certain applications are slowed down, are proving to be obstacles to the games industry’s advancement.

“We’re trying to progress and move into those new areas of downloading content and full games and streaming live. We’re pushing forward and it seems like they’re going backwards,” Rubin said in an interview at this past weekend’s inaugural Call of Duty XP fan convention in Los Angeles.

“I don’t know what they’re afraid of that they have to do all this capping. If they have serious problems with bandwidth, they need to solve that because society is moving forward.”

It is one thing for people like myself and other tech writers to decry things like caps but it is another thing altogether when the man responsible for one of the most successful game franchises, and part of a company that makes billions of dollars due to people being able to access the web, says it.

‘Call of Duty’ chief smacks down ISPs says they are moving society backwards is a post from: The Inquisitr

In Canada there are three or four major players when it comes to mobile and broadband access and it would seem that one of them is not happy just gouging its customers for that access but now wants to become a bank as well.

With over 7 million customers Rogers Canada is one of the biggest in the country and it announced today that it has applied to the federal government to open a bank called Rogers Bank.

According to the official filing on September 3rd the application stated that “Notice is hereby given, pursuant to subsection 25(2) of the Bank Act (Canada), that Rogers Communications Inc. intends to apply to the Minister of Finance for the issue of letters patent incorporating a bank under the Bank Act (Canada) primarily focused on credit, payment and charge card services.”

Rogers spokesperson Carly Suppa stated “We have no plans to become a full-service deposit-taking financial institution… The license, if granted, would give us the flexibility to pursue a niche credit card opportunity to our customers should this make sense at a future date”.

via MobileSyrup

Now anyone who thinks that this is a good idea is short a few bricks in my opinion. Rogers already controls wireless, broadband, cable, and telephone service; plus they are planning a heavy move into NFC (near field communication) payments.

So the idea that they want to become a bank as well should be raising the hairs on the back of our collective necks.

Rogers Canada not happy just gouging wireless and Internet customers it now wants to be a bank is a post from: The Inquisitr

Imagine just for a second my American readers if Comcast sent you an email one day to let you know that while they still have caps in place you can still watch all the NBC online content and Xfinity content that you wanted because that won’t count against your caps; but things like Netflix will.

I’d be willing to bet that within minutes of that email hitting inboxes around the US the roar would start. There would be screaming to high heaven and calls to the FTC and anyone else that could make hay off of the move vote wise would be calling for investigations left right and center.

Yet here in Canada, well western Canada right now, this is exactly the move that has taken place thanks to Shaw Media announcing that they were exempting their own Movie Club content from counting against Shaw Media broadband customers data caps but services like Netflix would still count.

Now it should also be pointed out that all the major broadband providers, with the notable exception of Cogeco Cable, all own television networks, both standard and cable based networks. Rogers owns a large number of cable based television networks including OLN, OMNI, and CityTV along with being one of the countries largest wireless and cable companies, Bell Canada owns the CTVglobemedia network, Shaw Media owns the Global Television Network.

All the major broadband players in Canada have a vested interested in having data caps and traffic shaping practices, none of which benefit the consumer. Of course one would think that the Canadian governmental oversight agency; otherwise known as the CRTC, but the reality is that the CRTC is made up of hand picked commissioners who all have worked at one time or another for the very companies that they are suppose to be overseeing.

Instead nothing could be further from the truth and this is why Canadians have some of the highest cell phone rates in the world, the most onerous data caps next to maybe Australia, and now thanks to Shaw Media we are seeing a total manipulation of the Internet to benefit an individual company.

Only in Canada you say? Pity.

via electronista and GigaOM

Oh those crazy Canucks, trust it to be them to show why Net Neutrality is important is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’ll throw this one in the I’ll believe it when I see it category but the CBC is reporting that the Canadian Radio-Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) is telling the country’s broadband providers that they are expecting all Canadians to have access to speeds of 5 megabits per second download; and 1 megabits per second, by 2015. Additionally these speeds must be actual speeds rather than the scam of advertised speeds that we have to deal with today.

This all comes out of a review of basic telecommunication services across the country and rather than make access to the internet a basic service the CRTC is going to rely on market forces and that regulatory intervention wasn’t needed at this point.

The CRTC also reported that more than 80 percent of households have access to the internet that already meet or exceed the CRTC’s expected minimum broadband speed and is targeting the remaining 20% using a variety of means.

More than 80 per cent of households already have access to download speeds of at least five megabits per second or higher, the CRTC reports.

The commission anticipates that the target will be reached for the remaining households through a combination of private investments, government funding and public-private partnerships. It says it will monitor the industry’s progress.

“This activitywill allow the commission, in future, to determine whether regulatory intervention may be needed,” it said.

via CBC

I might exceed the expected download speeds with my Bell DSL account but the upload speed doesn’t come close to what is proposed as the minimum.

Of course this won’t mean crap really if the CRTC continues to allow the current crop of broadband providers to institutes draconian usage based billing.

Canada-wide Internet Speed Targets Set By CRTC is a post from: The Inquisitr

Okay this isn’t something we are going to see happening tomorrow, especially if you live the US and Canada with their increasing draconian attitudes about users getting the best broadband experience at a reasonable price, but New Scientist is reporting that NEC scientists have achieved 101.7 Tbs speeds.

They did this by cramming the light from 370 lasers into 165 kilometers of fiber, only to be out done by NICT researchers who achieved 109 Tbps by using a special fiber with seven cores.

At the Optical Fiber Communications Conference in Los Angeles last month, Dayou Qian, also of NEC, reported a total data-sending rate of 101.7 terabits per second through 165 kilometres of fibre. He did this by squeezing light pulses from 370 separate lasers into the pulse received by the receiver. Each laser emitted its own narrow sliver of the infrared spectrum, and each contained several polarities, phases and amplitudes of light waves to code each packet of information.

At the same conference, Jun Sakaguchi of Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Tokyo also reported reaching the 100-terabit benchmark, this time using a different method. Instead of using a fibre with only one light-guiding core, as happens now, Sakaguchi’s team developed a fibre with seven. Each core carried 15.6 terabits per second, yielding a total of 109 terabits per second. “We introduced a new dimension, spatial multiplication, to increasing transmission capacity,” Sakaguchi says.

Oh to dream of the day. SIGH

Holy Crap – 100 Terabyte Broadband [Gulp] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Back at the beginning of March 2011 we let you in on the news that AT&T was going to start instituting data caps for all of its customers – well that day has come.

Up to 16 million broadband users on the AT&T network will, starting today, restrict the amount of of data, that’s downloading and uploading, they user per month. For the DSL customers that data cap will be 150 GB and then 250 GB for UVerse customers.

Of course this is happening just as video is being pushed as the ultimate case use for the average internet user. The thing is that even moderate use of Netflix will eat up the majority of caps long before the end of the month. For video content producers this is even worse because all that video you are uploading to places like YouTube is going to be counted against your data caps.

Now toss in all these cloud based services like Pandora, cloud backup services, and multiple gadgets that are accessing the web. All that activity is going to take ever increasing bites out of your data caps.

Of course the companies like AT&T that are trying to foist these data caps on their customers are crying the blues over the cost of providing their broadband service as the reason for going this route. However as Ryan Singel at Ars Technica points out this is a ridiculous argument

The drive to cap usage is ostensibly a way to reduce costs. But in reality, it’s not about the cost of data—bandwidth costs are extremely low and keep falling. Time Warner Cable brought in $1.13 billion in revenue from broadband customers in the first three months of 2011, while spending only $36 million for bandwidth—a mere three percent of the revenue. Time Warner Cable doesn’t currently impose bandwidth caps or metering on its customers—though they have reserved the right to do so—after the company’s disastrous trial of absurdly low limits in 2009 sparked an immediate backlash from customers and from DC politicians.

The real problem ISPs want to fix is congestion due to limited infrastructure. Cable customers share what are known as local loops, and the more that your neighbors use their connection, the less bandwidth is available to you—-a situation that becomes painfully clear in the evening when cable users see their throughput fall.

The blunt force approach of a bandwidth cap does have the advantage of making users think twice about streaming HD movies from Netflix. That is, perhaps not coincidentally, doubly to the advantage of most big ISPs because they’d rather have you spending money on their video services than a third party. Bandwidth-intense services threaten to turn the likes of Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner Cable into utilities—a dependable business, but not one that has the huge profit margins these companies have come to enjoy.

In the end the whole idea behind data caps is nothing more than trying to maximize profits while doing a little as possible to improve the customer experience; but it is thinking like that which is seeing the US slide down the rankings of broadband providers worldwide.

An AT&T Customer PSA: You Have Caps Effective Today is a post from: The Inquisitr

Ya, I thought you did.

Pigeon broadband is a post from: The Inquisitr

Broadband speed disclosures can be quite confusing, especially for users who are not necessarily tech savvy, that’s why the FCC is calling for the standardization of broadband speeds by all ISPs.

The FCC’s major concern is that the definition of “performance” is vague, allowing company’s to create their own standards, thereby marketing products as superior, when in fact the performance of those services may be less than stellar. In fact the word “broadband” is often used for services that offer slower than FCC termed speeds.

In a public notice the FCC writes:

“Some broadband providers advertise that their offerings support certain applications, but consumers lack standardized tools to determine which speeds and other features they need for a range of services,” while adding, “The lack of such information hampers consumers’ ability to compare services offered by and among broadband providers.”

While the FCC has not stated what type of disclosures they would require, they are asking consumers and other agencies to help them define how internet speeds can be advertised to consumers.

Currently the FCC has raised broadband terminology to 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream, a number most users reading this article were probably unaware of, mostly because as stated there is currently no standardization.

FCC Calls For Standardized Broadband Speed Disclosures is a post from: The Inquisitr

Most Canadians signing up for broadband service will automatically have data caps slapped on them ranging from 25GB for some of the stupid lite plans up to the maximum in Canada of 150GB with one of the cable providers (mind you Cogeco wants $100 for you to get the plan).

In the U.S. though, while there has been rumblings of stiffer caps coming, most of the broadband providers where staying away from any serious talk of caps although Comcast currently has one set at 250GB. That however is going to change starting May 2, 2011; at least for AT&T customers.

DSLReports has the scoop on this, and has confirmed it with AT&T but starting March 18 and up to March 31 AT&T will be sending notices out to their customers notifying them of the new 150GB usage cap on DSL accounts and 250GB caps on U-Verse account.

AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom confirmed the news to Broadband Reports after we initially contacted him last Friday concerning a leaked copy of the upcoming user notification. According to Bloom, the cap will involve overage charges. However, only users who consistently exceed the new caps will have to deal with these charges.

This is how it will work: only users who exceed the new usage cap three times – across the life of your account, not per month — will be forced to pay these new per byte overages. Overages will be $10 for every 50GB over the 150 GB or 250GB limit they travel.

AT&T claims their average DSL customer uses around 18GB a month, and these changes will only impact about 2% of all DSL customers — who the company states consume “a disproportionate amount of bandwidth.”

I’d like to say that I feel the pain of my U.S. friends on AT&T but I’m still grandfathered in on my unlimited DSL account.

AT&T users now get to share their Canadian neighbors pain – 150GB Caps for all is a post from: The Inquisitr

As Canada slides down into tech oblivion thanks to a government that continues to put big business ahead of the consumer it is interesting to see that in the US you have a president who apparently gets the fact that technology is a major road forward for the country.

In his recent State of the Union address President Obama talked about rebooting American innovation

Now it’s our turn. We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future. And tonight, I’d like to talk about how we get there.

The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation.

Immediate following his speech the most asked questions from both sides of the political poles was how was this innovation going to be paid for. The obvious point being that all hell would break loose if the government was planning on footing the bill.

Well we got our answer, in part anyway, today with the announcement of the Startup America campaign and some of the companies that would be involved with the campaign. According to Bloomberg this will be a private-sector lead initiative with AOL co-founder Steve Case leading the campaign. Some of the companies that have said they will support the initiative include: Facebook, Intel – with a $150 million pledge, and TECHStars.

On the surface this sounds like a great idea, except, there’s one glaring omission in the list of companies. You see not a peep has been heard from any of the broadband providers.

Why is this important?

Well, regardless of what sector of our lives we are talking about the Internet is playing an ever increasing role, and no where more than in the tech sector. You can’t even think of a tech company these days without some connection to the Web being an integral component of that business.

And we aren’t talking about your run of the mill Web either. We are talking about a big fat pipe broadband Web for both companies and consumers. We are talking about needing to have the very best broadband connectivity in the world. We are talking about a connectivity that is ubiquitous and has the lowest bar to access in the world.

But America doesn’t have that. It has an Internet controlled by companies that are increasingly adding data or time caps on connections. It has an Internet where a small minority of companies are consolidating in order to be able to control a larger part of the Web.

You can have all the tech companies in the country contributing all the money they want but it will mean bupkis as long as the broadband providers hold the keys to accessing the Web.

These are companies that have no interest in innovation but would rather continue on with the current status quo, and will only changed when absolutely forced to. Unfortunately though no-one has the balls to stand up to them so we continue along the same path of apathy.

The president can make all the swell speeches he wants about how America does big things when in fact nothing gets done unless Wall Street wants it to. Lobbyists continue to pad politician’s retirement funds; and of all of them the broadband providers will pay what ever it takes to stifle innovation because to do otherwise would mean giving up control and money. They will continue to make record profits while expending as little money as possible on the back of the consumer and those companies that truly do want to make America great again.

Hey America – Good luck with that Startup America Partnership thing is a post from: The Inquisitr

How convenient.

Video over the internet gaining in popularity; with a huge marketing push of course, just as broadband providers start to implement caps of various kinds. The common argument it that this will ensure that those who use the web the most pay more while those who don’t get a fair deal.

On the surface that makes a lot of sense and if there wasn’t this continual push for people to want their video over the Internet there wouldn’t be much of a problem with the idea of caps. The problem is; and I have been saying this for a long time now, all that video takes bandwidth. It takes bandwidth that you aren’t expecting it to because none of these providers are coming right out and telling you it will.

Instead they use marginally misleading terms like streaming when in fact you are downloading that video. The streaming part comes in because what you are really doing is downloading the video file at such a pace that the software can play it at the same time.

So as great as something like Netflix, or Hulu, or any video service is it is also going to be a subscriber’s biggest hit against bandwidth or download caps. This is going to lead to people suddenly finding themselves being slapped with overage charges and not understanding where they are coming from.

In Canada this is going to be a very expensive proposition for the consumer. We already pay some of the highest wireless rates in the world but along with that we have some of the most anti-consumer caps in place; both for wireless and wired access.

In a recent study by Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang, dubbed Project Canada, they wanted to find out what affect “consumption pricing” would have. Now the US doesn’t have this pay for what you use type of pricing with their providers but that is changing so consider this a possible lesson for your future.

For the study Wang tested Netflx Canada streaming service of Rogers, a primary provider in Canada, cable system and this is what they found:

Not surprisingly, our case study finds that an [over-the-top] service like Netflix can lead to a material increase in broadband data usage–in this case roughly 20 gigabytes of data for the month or roughly 1 GB per hour of standard definition online viewing. Based on Rogers Communications’ data pricing structure, this would have resulted in a $12 per month increase in broadband for our test home. To offset this, the household would need to trade down to a lower subscription video package, at the expense of fewer linear channels.

via Forbes

What people are failing to realize is that with all this video that has to be downloaded … err … streamed …. is that these files are extremely big. So when I hear companies extolling the virtue of stream HD to your mobile device, or even your home screen, I laugh because I know the exective at the cable and wireless companies are just rubbing their hands together and high-fiving each other and you her cha-ching, cha-ching going off in the background.

To give you an idea, a very basic and simple idea of just what you are looking at. I do a lot of video work over at WinExtra where a single 15 minute video show can end up being a 500MB file. That is just a 15 minute show of YouTube HD quality. A 30 minute Daily Brief show can end up being a 1.2GB file that ends up getting streamed.

Remember that for a second – 1.2GB for 30 minutes.

I know from experience that a one hour television, which actually works out to about 35 to 40 minutes, of HD quality can range around the 1 GB mark. A movie of 90 minutes can reach sizes of over 3GB  to 4GB depending on the quality.

Now let’s just take a look at Rogers’ competition – Bell and their average 25GB per month cap. If you had this type of account you would be limited to less than 25 television shows in a month from Netflix and you haven’t even watched a movie yet or downloaded any music you bought.

Of course all these companies want you to hop on the video bandwagon because they are going to make a bloody fortune, especially once people start seeing overages show up on their bills.

Right now I’m not overly concerned when it comes to my bills because I’m lucky enough to still be on an old unlimited plan but if I ever want to move to fibre when it comes available, or move to cable I’ll be in the same boat as everyone else – watching my bill so I don’t go over.

What a wonderful way to enjoy your Internet.

Video gaining speed, Canadians maybe the first to bleed money. is a post from: The Inquisitr

The term “broadband” according to the FCC isn’t a solid definition, thanks to ever increasing internet speeds and changes in other technologies the term can change more quickly then we can memorize it, however under the current definition the FCC claims that 68 percent of US connections are not in-fact broadband connections.

Under current FCC rules, broadband is defined as 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream.  Interestingly enough, there are no plans to warn or fine company’s who claim to have broadband connections, when in fact there connections do not meet federal criteria as there is no specific law in place to govern such naming criteria.

Another interesting finding in the FCC study comes in the form of mobile usage. The FCC found that mobile users with “data plans for full internet access” has increased to 48% of the market or approximately 52 million users (second half of 2009 numbers), while connections over 200 kbps made up 39.4 percent of the market, that’s more than cable modems at 32.4% and ADSL connections at 23.2%. If connections over 3 Mbps are considered, cable modems gobble up a huge 70 percent share.

You can find more order from the study at the FCC

FCC Report: 68% Of U.S. Broadband Connections Aren’t Really Broadband is a post from: The Inquisitr

I am pretty sure that anyone with a sane thought in their head could have deduced that mobile users would much prefer having unlimited plans but it took research firm Sanford Bernstein asking 800 smartphone users to find this out.

One other thing the research found out is that it is more about device loyalty rather than carrier loyalty – yet another DUH! moment. As equities analyst Craig Moffett was quoted as saying in an Ars Technica post:

“The new conventional wisdom is that carrier loyalty has been replaced with loyalty to the device. But high inclination to switch carriers and phones to maintain an unlimited plan suggest that perhaps the plan itself is more important than either one,”

He goes on to say in the post:

Moffett said that carriers who retain an unlimited option could definitely attract more customers, but also warned that it could be a blessing in disguise. “Unlimited data plans could become a major source of differentiation, attracting customers and giving still-unlimited carriers a subscribership boost,” Moffett said. “At the same time, however, carriers who maintain unlimited pricing in the face of AT&T’s move to usage based pricing could self-select to the heaviest users, impairing future profitability.”

Of course all this implementation of tiered pricing is coming at a point when we are increasingly being urged to use our smartphones for more and more data intensive purposes – like watching TV and movies.

chalk this up in the “Well DUH!” category: mobile users want unlimited plans is a post from: The Inquisitr

So you think your Internet connection is fast eh. Well most of the time it is pretty good but it can also depend on where you live.

It’s one thing to live in the city and have your pick of high speed broadband providers to pick from but it is another thing entirely when you live in the country. It is so bad in some places that people have taken to pulling all kinds of stunts to show the world just how bad it can be.

This is what Trefor Davies from Yorkshire England did recently when he set the pigeons loose – carrier pigeons to be exact. The idea was to have two of Trefor’s carrier pigeons, Rory and Tref, fitted with microSD memory cards containing server hundred megabytes of video and then release them from a farm about 60 miles away from home.

At the same time at the pigeons were released the farmer would upload the same files to YouTube via his Internet connection.

The stunt was designed to have the pigeons win, of course, just as it was in South Africa. On his personal website, Davies said this week that he was “expecting a convincing avian victory.”

Davies isn’t just a concerned citizen; he’s also the chief technical officer of a UK ISP called Timico, and he’s upset about the state of UK broadband outside of urban areas, especially when it comes to upload speeds. He told the BBC today that “the farm we are using has a connection of around 100 to 200 Kbps (kilobits per second)… The kids need to do school work and the farmer has to submit online forms but the connection is not fit for purpose.”

The test doesn’t show much—why not have the pigeons fly to YouTube’s servers for a more accurate comparison?—but pedantic questioning misses the point, which is clearly that the media loves ridiculous stories involving animals that slow upload speeds can easily keep people from anything like full participation in online social life and that rural users are on the wrong side of a digital divide

Source: Ars Technica

Needless to say this was a stunt and the pigeons did win the race but you still got to admit it’s a fun way to illustrate just how bad broadband connectivity can be.

Carrier Pigeon faster than the Internet is a post from: The Inquisitr

Our current Internet addressing system which relies on what is commonly referred to as IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) was never intended to support the number of people, and hardware (also referred to as The Internet of Things) that it currently does. Neither was it intended for the projected growth of the Internet.

This has been known for the last decade and even though the next version, IPv6, has been available for implementation for many years the only thing that seem ready to switch over is the software we all run on a daily basis.

Where the real problem lies is the hardware used by companies like our broadband suppliers, they all need to be upgraded to make us of IPv6. For the most part though they are all dragging their feet and given the dire nature of the situation – running out of IP addresses – one has to wonder why.

The fact that IPv4 address blocks are in danger of running out could actually mean an even more profitable revenue stream for broadband providers. After all as Miha Kralj, director and chief technology officer for Microsoft’s office of services, points out - scarcity means more money.

On future trends, Kralj also said net neutrality would become an issue as the supply of IPv4 addresses begin to dry up, if the industry didn’t move to IPv6.

“If you can’t afford the whole IPv4 address because it’s a scarcity, your internet service provider will probably just start giving you two ports instead of the whole IPv4,” he said. “The moment you have a scarce resource, you can seriously monetise it and unless industry moves to IPv6, depletion of IPv4 will create an unfair market for internet providers so net neutrality will become an issue.”

The whole net neutrality argument aside the fact still remains why employ a more advanced and better IPv6 addressing system that is going to cost a lot of money to bring online when you can stick with the status quo and charge more for even lesser access?

It’s not like these companies haven’t known for at least ten years that this was going to happen. Even Microsoft, since Windows XP, and Apple have made sure their software could handle the change.

As much as one would like to think that the broadband providers would understand the importance of changing over to IPv6 as quickly as possible they don’t seem to be in any rush. It is not a case of the software or the hardware, things like routers, being ready – they are and have been for sometime.

Everyone can say they are IPv6 ready but is seems more and more that the broadband providers have found yet another way to hold the Internet hostage and increase their profits at the same time.

Are broadband providers intentionally dragging their feet on IPv6 implementation? is a post from: The Inquisitr

It would be hard for a cynical person to not question the sudden announcement of a major speed improvement of a national broadband initiative, even before it has started to be built, just 10 days before a national election; but this is the case in Australia.

Today Prime Minister Julia Gillard, along with Communication Minister Stephen Conroy, were on hand at the official launch of the Australian national fibre-optic broadband network where Senator Conroy revealed that the $43 billion plan will now be able to deliver 1 gigabit speed rather than the original 100 Mbps as planned.

When questioned about the radical speed increase Senator Conroy stated that he only informed of the increase last night. There were also questions about this all happening just ten days before the national election and has become a contentious point between the the current government and the opposition lead by Tony Abbott.

Ms Gillard used the NBN launch to attack the Coalition’s decision to scrap it.

“I am completely determined that we will build the NBN,” she said.

“I will build the NBN. Mr Abbott, if he is elected as PM will not. That decision would cost Australia jobs.”

The Government says the NBN will provide fibre-optic connections to 93 per cent of the population. The remainder would receive wireless or satellite technology.

The Coalition also revealed its broadband policy this week, pledging to spend $6 billion to deliver internet speeds of up to 100Mbps to 97 per cent of Australians through a range of technologies.

The Coalition has vowed to dump the NBN because it says it is too expensive and it does not support a nationally owned network.

Source: ABC News (Australia)

image courtesy of AAP: Alan Porritt

Internet access speed become political carrot in Australian election is a post from: The Inquisitr

At some point telecoms and cable companies begin to look more like the highway robbers of the past as they continually find new ways to make more money for what is essentially a dumb pipe service. If they aren’t triple dipping on their service charges to subscribers they are doing everything they can to provider lower services via caps and metering for more money.

Well word is, via Janko Roettgers at GigaOM, that T-Mobile wants companies like Google and Apple to start paying T-Mobile for carrying those company’s video and music offering.

T-Mobile is planing to ask companies like Apple and Google to pay for their mobile offerings, according to an interview that René Obermann, CEO of T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, gave the German Manager Magazin. Obermann said the company could charge more for offering better quality of service or high transfer rates for mobile video or music, which should be “priced differently.”

He added that well-produced and successful online platforms should not be able to use the mobile Internet for free. Deutsche Telekom is already in discussions with Google about this very subject, according to Obermann.

If you are surprised by this move then you need to take off those rose colored glasses because this effort by T-Mobile is just the opening salvo. What is even less of a surprise is that these types of moves are happening right at the point when video is set to explode on the web, mobile or otherwise.

T-Mobile wants Apple and Google to start showing them the money is a post from: The Inquisitr

More than once I have said that broadband providers need to stop being content providers and become dumb pipe providers. The moment that you mix the two together you automatically have a conflict of interest where, in the long run, the consumer loses.

The Internet is provider agnostic, as it should be, but when companies like Comcast, TimeWarner, AT&T Uverse, or any of the other big players start having a say over what will go over their pipes and at what speeds the two services are diametrically opposed.

As frustrating to the consumer as this can be there is another answer for broadband service and it is one that is really starting to spread.

The answer: your hometown broadband provider.

While there have been efforts in the past of the creation of local broadband services it has faced incredibly stiff, and well lobbied, opposition from the big incumbents in the business. They have even gone to the courts to try and protect their lock on the broadband landscape. Then if the courts don’t play nice you act like TimeWarner and lobby state legislatures like they did in North Carolina.

Interestingly enough though this time around TimeWarner lost and little ol’ Wilson N.C. can continue building out its own broadband service that is 10 times faster than TimeWarner’s own top tier service of 10Mbps. In a move to add insult onto injury Wilson N.C. basic service of 10Mbps is cheaper than anything TimeWarner offers.

From Craig Settles at GigaOM we hear about the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and their citywide service of 150 Mbps

Chattanooga, Tenn. is rolling out a citywide network that delivers 150 Mbps to customers. Today. Not five or ten years down the road. “Our employees designed the network,” said Lacie Newton, spokesperson for EPB, Chattanooga’s public utility. “Along with contracted employees from private companies they are building and operating the network. No doubt there are others capable of providing advanced communication services. But unless we did it ourselves, we didn’t believe that others would bring these type services to every home and business in our community.”

Then we have Santa Monica, who with no money in the budget but with cannibalized saving from updating old technology, where they upgraded their fiber system, sold local businesses broadband services the big competitors couldn’t (or wouldn’t) match, and are now expanding with the help of a $2.5 million capital fund they built up.

Right now the FCC is is trying to promote its vision of 100Mbps service to  100 million homes by 2020 the problem is that they are trying to do it either by government intervention or by twisting the arm of the broadband incumbents. As we have seen in the past this doesn’t work as companies like Comcast or TimeWarner have no qualms of throwing massive amounts of money at the problem and in most cases come out on top.

Given that there are already a large number of communities that are currently, or in the planning stages of running their own broadband services it would make much better sense for the FCC to throw its weight behind them. After all taking on the big company incumbents who will fight them all the way is not an inexpensive proposition.

More importantly though is the support, both in money and time, that we could give our local providers since it is in both our interests to have access to better service at a reasonable price. So since we aren’t, and will likely never get it from the big boys maybe its time to switch tactics and take the fight to them.

Broadband in America: Is it time to think small? is a post from: The Inquisitr

It would be the biggest geek impossible dream but it is an idea I had that could potentially stop the current crop of broadband providers dead in their tracks.

In light of the news that the FCC lost in court to Comcast there is a big fear, and well justified in my opinion, that this will now open up the floodgates of consumer abuse by Comcast and other providers. After all it’s not like that haven’t asked us to pass the Vaseline before.

This got me thinking if there were any alternatives for keeping these companies in check and actually doing things to make access to the Internet less of an increasing expense and at the same time remove any threats of favoritism aka payola for some sites over others.

Unfortunately the next part of this post is pure and utter fantasy because as much as such an idea actually come to fruition is unlikely to happen it sure would shake up the broadband provider business.

I have said on more than one occasion that for real net neutrality broadband providers have to be providers of the dumb pipe. Nothing more and nothing less. The moment you add in any other kind of profit oriented business that depends on the web there is an inherent prejudice and need to constantly increase prices.

So who could provide that dumb pipe?

Well truthfully anyone of the current big boys of the broadband business could be but chances are they would face a shareholder revolt. It’s okay to screw the consumer as long as the shareholders are getting their pound of flesh and the top management is getting their multi-million dollar payouts.

Who has the most to gain from a cheap and ubiquitous Web?

Let’s see .. how about Microsoft? Or Google? And let’s not forget Apple.

These three giants of computing have the most to gain .. and to lose .. from a possible preferential and expensive Web. Just as companies like Comcast have no compunction in giving the consumer the shaft they won’t have any problem holding web companies hostage. A good hint at this was the recent spat between ABC and Cablevision where the television network wanted more money and Cablevision said no. Guess who blinked first?

In the case of the Web it could just as easily happen that Comcast or anyone, or all for that matter, says to Google or Apple that they want money from the companies in exchange for preferential service . The threat being that if they don’t pay up those companies could find themselves with increasing bottlenecks and other related network problems.

Think that this wouldn’t happen? Think again.

Now between the three companies they have a total of $89 Billion sitting in their warchests (MS – $45B, Apple – $25B, Google – $22B – figures based on 2009 and 2008 information). That kind of money tends to talk volumes and even the threat of utilizing part of it to fund an alternative to our current choices of broadband providers would be enough to give Comcast and the others great pause.

This kind of project can’t work if only one company decides to give it a shot regardless of what Google thinks. It also can’t work if only two companies decide to go down that road. No, this would require all three (or possibly more if you throw in Intel or say HP) to work in unison to even get the idea off the ground. It would also have to be a case of where all participants in such an idea would always be on equal footing with the other members.

At some point for the Internet to truly be a world changer access has to be dirt cheap and available from anywhere in the world on any kind of device. There are a lot of countries that believe this but unfortunately neither the US or Canada is one of those countries. If we really want to see transformative technologies like we have never seen before the time of treating Internet access as an endless ATM machine has to come to an end.

Unfortunately none of the major broadband providers in the US or Canada so any inclination to this into consideration. The end result of this is that both countries are inevitably going to find themselves sliding down the ladder of technology and the ability to contribute to real change in the world.

It doesn’t have to be this way and maybe it will take companies like Google, like Microsoft and like Apple joining together to even have the possibility of this happening.

But like I said .. it’s a pipe dream. A nice delusional dream but a dream all the same.

One possibility for true net neutrality is a post from: The Inquisitr