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Latest DSL Primes

March 3 The Results of the Plan The constraints that held back results Expected but not yet announced The Basics: By 2013, 90% covered 50 ... more

Bravo, Verizon: "No Bandwidth Caps. Period!"

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Customers hate bandwidth caps, Verizon's market research shows, so "No Bandwidth Caps. Period!" is the highlight of their latest DSL ad campaign. ... more

No B-52's in My Backyard

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AT&T's customers have long hated the unfortunately named B-52's cabinets and now British Telecom is facing civil disobedience over the ugly 6 ... more

The Broadband Plan, Early March

The U.S. broadband plan accomplishes very little for affordability, quality, speed, or availability of broadband in the U.S., although it has other ... more

Featured

Moore's Law Rolling to 25 Nanometer NAND

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For the last decade, every year someone quotable says Moore's law is dead. It just ain't so. Chip innovation is continuing, with Intel/Micron's new 25 nm flash memory pointing the way not just to smaller iPod nanos but predictable price/performance ... more

Verizon: Voice is Dying

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Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon CEO, saying “voice is dying” is a defining moment in telecom history. He didn't use those words, but his comments at Goldman Sachs are clear “we have to pivot and make a shift from the voice business ... more

Google's Gigabit Could Cost $700/home

At Best Buy a gigabit switch costs less than $50/port, so any geek can tell you even carrier-reliable gigabits just aren't very expensive any more. Sergey Brin, who personally inspired Google gigabit plans, is right on target for any network ... more

Occam's Vela: We've shipped 100,000 full gigabit ports in the U.S. Upstream gig included

Most customers are only selling the service at 50 or 100 megabits, but the added cost for a true gigabit of active Ethernet is modest. Many of his customers are simply ordering the gigabit now rather than upgrade later, and ... more

Latest DSL Primes

March 3 The Results of the Plan The constraints that held back results Expected but not yet announced The Basics: By 2013, 90% covered 50 meg by land, 95% 5 meg wireless Definitely Included: “Lifeline” Broadband Congressman Serrano Low Speed Lifeline "Absolutely Unacceptable" Simple, ... more

More Bandwidth For Bhutan

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“Your current bandwidth reading is 953.60kbps” the speedtest at Bhutan Telecom informs me. That's not bad from New York, and is likely to get better with the new deal with Bharti for international connectivity. Bhutan has DSL in Thimphu, Phuentsholing, Damphu, ... more

Save Half on Broadband Subsidies: Don't Pay Retail for a Million Lines

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If the government buys 500,000 broadband connections through the USF Lifeline program, they can and should get a “wholesale” price. The carriers would sacrifice some margin but will still be very profitable because of the volume. Broadband is a ... more

Absolutely No Wireless Spectrum Shortage in 2010

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 Sure the iPhone has problems, but John Stankey of AT&T thinks restoring a $2B capex cut will fix them. It may take a little more money than that, but Glen Campbell of Merrill Lynch has confirmed he's on track. In ... more

Rural France, Ireland, Australia, U.S.: You Get Satellite

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France's Natalie Kosciusko-Morizet has allocated 250M euros to satellite while Jonathan Adelstein at RUS has added a dedicated round of stimulus funding. Using satellite for about 1% of homes cuts the cost of universal U.S. "broadband" from $20-35B by about ... more

Editorial: Thank you Commissioner Clyburn

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Mignon Clyburn is staying out of the limelight but providing thoughtful comments. She was particularly cogent at MMTC addressing what really affects broadband costs for poor people. There's a lot of lobbyist's lies circulating in D.C. on this, and she ... more

Internet & Television

Microsoft: IPTV Doesn't Need QOS, Works on Xbox

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"TV/video services powered by Mediaroom 2.0 can be delivered to any broadband consumer, not just to customers on a managed-QoS IPTV network," Microsoft's Scott Rowe ... more

"Hollywood Seized by 3D Mania" but ...

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When I wrote After Avatar, You Must Move On 3D Channels, I had no idea just how powerful the movie would prove. As I write, ... more

After Avatar, You Must Move on 3D Channels

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Jim Cameron's Avatar premieres December 18 and it will open eyes about what 3D can be. The film inevitably won't live up to the hype, ... more

NBC ex-Honcho: Future of TV is Product Placement and Advertiser Conte

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Ben Silverman left the NBC cochair job for a new company designed to let advertisers take even more control over media. His money comes from ... more

Policy

Unproven claims about broadband

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40,000 people losing their jobs at Verizon know the job impact of broadband can be negative as well as positive. Verizon has the most advanced ... more

Simple, cheap way to deliver broadband to half of those without

I didn't believe it until I ran the numbers, but 20% of annual USF/ICC spending is enough to reach easily half of the 35M ... more

The Constraints that held back results

The first constraint: No moneyBy August, Blair was saying publicly that they needed to look at existing resources. I remember December 2008, the economy was ... more

Columbia CITI Summary

One principal conclusion that can be drawn from this report is that by 2013‐4, broadband service providers expect to be able to serve about 95%2 ... more

Dave's questions on the plan

I asked the chairman for any data that refutes: 100 squared is no more than we'd get without the plan (Cable's building anyway) The incremental wired homes ... more

Dave's note to the planners

I believe strongly in open process, so I'm posting this on DSL Prime although it is far too rough to be an article. A leader ... more

Great Things Possible in the Plan

The last 2-5%: Obama promised to bring broadband to all Americans, a good thing. There are about 5% of homes that can only get satellite, ... more

Editorial: Thank you Commissioner Clyburn

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Mignon Clyburn is staying out of the limelight but providing thoughtful comments. She was particularly cogent at MMTC addressing what really affects broadband costs for ... more

Coming in the U.S. Broadband Special issue

Congressman Serrano Low Speed Lifeline "Absolutely Unacceptable""Is it acceptable that the proposed lifeline broadband program only offer low speeds," I asked Jose Serrano, pointing our ... more

Nellie Kroes' weak stand on broadband almost lost EU Commisionership

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Broadband for all is the goal of the EU, but “the commissioner-designate didn't speak concretely on the social challenge for a guaranteed development of Internet, ... more

US Rules for Australian Unbundling?

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Although the U.S. FCC has killed most unbundling, Primus wants the U.S. Trade Representative to demand stronger DSL unbundling rules in Australia. They are probably ... more

Cheat sheet on the broadband plan (Draft)

I have pulled part of this for the moment. Someone I've known to be reliable for years tells me there are important things I am ... more

High speed affordability dropped from Obama Broadband

I have pulled this for the moment. Someone I've known to be reliable for years tells me there are important things I am missing. I ... more

Blind Leading the Blind

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In D.C. they call it "Beltway Blindness" but the affliction is common elsewhere as well. Folks - especially paid advocates - who don't know the ... more

Rob Curtis' Promise: We Will Get the Facts

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"You might as well help us getting the information," Rob Curtis said to the companies at a broadband workshop. "We're going to get the facts ... more

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