Broadband

Akamai might not be a household name but between 15 to 30 percent of the world’s Web traffic is carried on the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company’s Internet platform at any given time. Using data gathered by software constantly monitoring Internet conditions via the company’s nearly 100,000 servers deployed in 72 countries and spanning most of the networks within the Internet, Akamai creates its quarterly State of the Internet report. The report provides some interesting Internet-related facts and figures, such as regions with the slowest and fastest connection speeds, broadband adoption rates and the origins of attack traffic.  Read More

Happily, the days of painfully slow dial-up internet speeds are now but a distant memory to many city and town dwelling broadband users throughout Europe. But for the estimated 13 million households living beyond the reach of ADSL or the even greater number who suffer from slow broadband connection speeds, waiting a good while for web pages and media to load into a browser is still the source of daily angst. One solution for surfers eager to grab more bandwidth is to install a satellite service and Eutelsat has just announced that its new KA-SAT high throughput broadband satellite launched in December of last year has just gone into service.  Read More

Economies of scale mean that densely populated cities have generally been the ones to benefit from the roll out of superfast broadband networks, while those in rural areas have missed out. Following Google's recent announcement that it will build and test 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks in selected cities with between 50,000 to 500,000 residents in the U.S. starting with Kansas City, Kansas, Fujitsu has unveiled plans to create a similar superfast FTTH broadband network for five million homes and businesses in rural Britain to bridge the digital divide between city and country.  Read More

Last year Google announced plans to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the U.S. that will deliver Internet speeds of one gigabit per second (1 Gbps) via a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service. After receiving submissions from nearly 1,100 cities, the Internet giant has now revealed it will build its first ultra high-speed network in Kansas City, Kansas.  Read More

During the first decade of the 21st century, information and communication technologies (ICTs) came within reach of most of the world's people. As part of World Statistics Day, the United Nations commissioned the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for current data and statistics on ICTs. The resulting report: The World In 2010: ICT Facts and Figures provides an insight into just how phenomenal the growth of ICTs have been over the past few years.  Read More

Just when the future of broadband appears to be tipped towards the mass roll-out of optics, Nokia Siemens Networks proves that there's still life in the old copper wires yet. Using a virtual channel to supplement physical copper wire, data transmission speeds of 825 Mbps were recorded. Okay, so it was only over a distance of 400 meters (just over 1,312 feet) but the circuit managed to sustain 750 Mbps when the distance was increased to 500 meters (about 1,640 feet), with the technology promising broadband speed increases of between 50 and 75 per cent over existing bonded copper lines.  Read More

Passengers boarding either a Cathay Pacific Airways or Dragonair jet in 2012 will be able to make use of broadband connectivity. This week, the airline confirmed an agreement with Panasonic Avionics Corporation to provide broadband access across its entire fleet with download speeds of up to 50Mbps (to the aircraft – not individual passengers), as well as call and data access for cell phones.  Read More

Accessing the Internet while away from the home or office has never been easier. When there’s no Wi-Fi available users can jump on 3G broadband to get their online fix. And that’s the way it has generally been, with the two main mobile communications technologies acting as complementary services. But with the advent of Wi-Fi based municipal wireless networks some experts say there is a strong possibility that Wi-Fi will compete with the 3G cell phone network in city areas and perhaps even become a substitute.  Read More

The developed world is fast heading towards a globally networked information economy. Any government that fails to recognize that high-speed Internet access is fundamental to future economic growth and prosperity runs the risk of quickly ending up on the wrong end of a digital divide. While this applies to countries as a whole it also apples to residents within a country, with some spoiled for choice when it comes to broadband access while others in more remotes areas are left wanting. In a bid to ensure broadband access to all people in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has set a 4Mbps download target for universal broadband with its National Broadband Plan. The undertaking will cost US$23.5 billion.  Read More