Items tagged with Broadband
Some of you reading this may not find it shocking that Comcast is being fined millions of dollars for running afoul of consumer protections. Comcast is a major ISP, after all, and there are no shortages of customer complaints to be found on the web. But would you be surprised to learn that it broke the law hundreds of...
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The U.S. is far behind other counties when it comes to broadband internet speeds and availability. Much of the rural U.S. lack access to broadband, or only has speeds that don't qualify as broadband. The Trump Administration wants to change that and is putting big money into a fund that aims to ensure that rural...
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The Federal Communications Commission would have us believe that everything is hunky-dory in the land of broadband, that speeds and availability are improving at a steady clip in the United States, and that 'only' around 25 million Americans lack access to high-speed Internet. Microsoft is calling BS on the data...
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If you are itching to be one of the first on the block with 5G wireless connectivity, AT&T is getting ready to turn on its network in a few select cities. Unlike Verizon's 5G service, which is using proprietary technology -- at least initially -- AT&T says that its 5G network is "standards-based".
At the moment...
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The FCC upset a lot of people when it voted to repeal net neutrality rules. The Commission then wanted to reduce the speed that is considered to be broadband in some areas, however, the backlash to that move saw the FCC step back and stop its attempts to reclassify broadband speeds in some areas. The FCC has worked to...
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Alphabet says that going into the ambitious rollout of its Google Fiber internet that it knew things would be costly, hard to pull off, and slow-going. What the search giant didn’t expect going into Google Fiber rollout was how hard it would be to gain timely access to space on a utility pole to install its equipment...
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Over the past week, we've reported quite a bit about the rise of cord-cutting and how big cable and satellite TV companies are adapting to the changing landscape. Comcast in particular lost 96,000 customers last quarter, and is looking for new ways to stop defectors from moving to cheaper alternatives.
Last week...
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Google at one point has aspirations of ushering in a new era of broadband connectivity, and specifically high-speed connections of 1Gbps and higher. This initiative was given a name, Google Fiber, with roll outs in select parts of the country. For a period of time, it was not difficult to imagine a future in which...
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Just a little over a week after making history with the successful launch of Falcon Heavy, SpaceX is once again in the news. This time around, the company has gained FCC approval to lay the groundwork for a satellite-based internet service called Starlink.
When we think of satellite internet, problems with latency...
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The FCC has been catching heat in its current form for making changes to existing regulations governing broadband internet access. The big change the FCC made was to eliminate the net neutrality rules that forced ISPs to treat all traffic equally, no matter the service or application. Another place where the FCC was...
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It's our job to be impartial and report on the news from an unbiased perspective, but boy does the Federal Communications Commission and its chairman Ajit Pai make that difficult. Apparently it was not enough that the FCC voted 3-2 to erase net neutrality regulations, ignoring popular opinion as well as pleas from the...
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AT&T is testing out a new way of delivering ultra-fast Internet connectivity to customers that is on par with fiber-optic networks, only AT&T's solution is over the air. Called "Project AirGig," this first-of-its-kind system consists of a contraption that clamps onto existing power poles, negating the need to build...
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For Australians, access to truly high-speed broadband isn't exactly easy to find. We Americans might complain about broadband monopolies and slow internet speeds (especially in rural areas), but the United States still ranks 11th in the world with average download speeds of 74.68 Mbps. Australia, on the other hand...
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Microsoft is celebrating now that that its undersea cable between the United States and Spain has been completed. The cable is called the Marea subsea cable, with Marea being the Spanish word for tide. Microsoft and partners ran the cable between the US and Spain to help upgrade the global internet infrastructure to...
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The only people who think data caps are a good things are the ISPs that make huge amounts of money by charging customers each month for overages. While ISPs with data caps are in the minority, new research from a company called BroadbandNow has surveyed every internet provider out there and found that out of all the...
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One of the biggest challenges that major technology firms have committed to solving is extending broadband Internet service into remote areas. Facebook and Google are both actively involved in connecting the world, and now Microsoft is joining the fray with a unique solution. What Microsoft wants to do is utilize the...
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The space above Earth is about to get a little more crowded. The FCC has recently granted approval to OneWeb to launch over 720 Internet-beaming satellites into orbit. OneWeb is “the first satellite constellation of its kind to receive approval from the full commission.” The low-Earth orbit satellites will employ...
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AT&T is putting the word out that it is "creating a 5G network that will change the world," only it's not really a 5G network. It is more like a rebranded 4G network that AT&T is calling 5G Evolution, a fancy marketing term that is supposed to make customers think of real 5G, the next generation successor to 4G LTE...
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Living far away from a major city center can offer a huge number of perks (like peace and quiet), but quality Internet access is rarely one of those perks. While many of us might curse at our meager 50Mbps connections from time to time, there are many others who are still at the mercy of latency-ridden satellite or...
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The future of Google Fiber is anything but crystal clear. It was reported in October of last year that Google Fiber had put a halt on its plans to expand in 10 cities and that job cuts loomed as it looked to make a shift from ultra high-speed wired broadband service to wireless deployments. It was mostly quiet after...
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Our neighbors to the north are looking to make sure that all of its citizens have access to high-speed internet. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) this week announced that it is investing an additional $750 million (which will complement existing and future commitments) to upgrade...
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Google has taken a small but potentially important step towards improving Internet speeds in Cuba. To that end, the Mountain View firm announced today that it has signed an agreement with Cuba's state-run telecommunications company to deploy servers in the region to boost speeds to Google's services, such as Gmail and...
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