FCC radically changes the broadband game

30 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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The FCC made it official: the benchmark for acceptable broadband service is 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. FCC chair Tom Wheeler’s unctuous endorsement of the new standard at CES earlier this month turned into the new national standard yesterday…

Reflecting advances in technology, market offerings by broadband providers and consumer demand, the FCC updated its broadband benchmark speeds to 25 megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads. The 4 Mbps/1 Mbps standard set in 2010 is dated and inadequate for evaluating whether advanced broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a timely way, the FCC found.

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Surprise, Google's fiber announcement didn't make everyone happy

29 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Maybe if they threw in some free beer?

Tuesday’s formal announcement that Google Fiber is heading for 18 cities in four southeastern U.S. metro areas is getting a generally warm and happy reception. But not universally. Grumbles are coming in two flavors: the who in the world needs all this sort – relatively rare so far – and the why not me variety, which is more common.

It has to be frustrating to want fiber to the home service and live in the next city over from one of the blessed.… More

Answers to the three big questions Google Fiber ducked on the way south

28 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Along with a posse of elected officials, Google held four press events in southern states yesterday to formally announce the metro areas and cities picked for fiber to the home builds:

  • Atlanta, Georgia and the nearby cities of Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs and Smyrna.
  • Charlotte, North Carolina.
  • The Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina metro area, including those two cities plus Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Garner and Morrisville.
  • Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee.

The next step is to do the necessary, detailed engineering work, a process that’s expected to take several months to complete.… More

Stay rational and deliver on broadband promises if you want more

28 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Not everyone feels a need for broadband.

There are two things rural communities in California have to do, to ensure broadband development efforts meet both current and future needs: focus the conversation on concrete, rational needs and demonstrate that existing resources are well and enthusiastically used.

That was the message from Eric Brown, CEO of the California Telehealth Network, at last week’sEastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium’s conference in Ridgecrest. He was one of many state and local broadband leaders – and users – who talked about the future of eastern California’s economy, now that the Digital 395 fiber route is fully lit and increasingly serving businesses, organisations and consumers from Barstow to Reno.… More

Video of Google's North Carolina press conference is online

27 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina covered this afternoon’s press event there. Which included governor Pat McCrory, seven mayors from the area and Google representatives. The video is available here.

Lots of good words were spoken about fiber, gigabits, Google and North Carolina. The prepared announcement read by Google exec Michael Slinger pretty much tracked with the press release Google posted earlier today. He cited the “passion, commitment and dedication” that the seven Raleigh-Durham area cities brought to the process as key reasons for chosing them.… More

Google confirms fiber in South Carolina, Nashville, Atlanta, other cities told to wait

27 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s confirmed: Google has decided to build out fiber to the home systems in four metro areas: Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte in North Carolina, Nashville and Atlanta.

The remaining five metros under consideration – Silicon Valley, Portland, San Antonio, Phoenix and Salt Lake City – are still officially in the maybe column. All Google will say is that they’re “continuing to explore” those areas and will have something more to say “later this year”.

Google Fiber hops to the southeast, no word for the west

27 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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The west end of an eastbound rabbit.

Today looks like the day we’ll find out where Google Fiber’s next cities will be. Rumors have been swirling for a couple of days and went from fuzzy to sharp yesterday when Google sent out invitations for press events in several cities, with no particular purpose stated. So far, it looks like the winners are going to be in the southeastern U.S.

Newspapers and websites in the Atlanta, Georgia area report receiving a message saying “You’re invited to join city leaders and Google for a press conference tomorrow, January 27 at 1 p.m.… More

FCC needs to recognise that paying for knowledge isn't the same as buying service

26 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Negative results can be a positive benefit.

Thirty-seven companies and other organisations were on the list of winning bidders vying to take part in the FCC’s rural broadband experiments. Of those, six are already off the list because they “either withdrew from consideration for rural broadband experiments funding or did not submit the required information by the Friday, December 19 deadline”, according to the FCC.

Another 15 have asked the FCC to waive some of the rules, in particular one that requires certification of technical plans by a professional engineer and another that asks for audited financial statements.… More

Eastern California businesses challenged by booming bandwidth demand

25 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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You got a job to do.

“Five of you can take out my Internet and I have 93 rooms”, Dan Spurgeon, general manager of the Marriott Springhill Suites in Ridgecrest said. That’s despite his recent 50 Mbps upgrade, which he will soon need to re-double. He was one of several local leaders speaking at the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium conference in Ridgecrest on Thursday.

Rapidly growing demand for more bandwidth – 40% year after year according to Spurgeon – is a major challenge for businesses and government agencies in eastern California.… More

Microsoft doesn't offer a plausible proposition to the mobile world

24 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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The’s more to mobility than moving around the conference room.

This week’s coming out party for Windows 10 confirmed Microsoft’s slow shift from a shrink wrapped products company to a service provider.

The company will not execute that strategy quickly enough or effectively. To be a universal platform for desktop and mobile computing means mobile telecoms carriers and manufacturers will have to make a major shift away Android and adopt the Windows operating system and all the cloud services that surround it.… More