This report suggests to me that it is a tactical decision to get businesses onto broadband, either copper or fiber - (moving faster) but it is still a strategic decision to invest in fiber infrastructure (what method has greatest future potential). | “Our estimates show that all these productivity gains can be attributed to adoption of slow relative to no broadband, with no discernible additional effect arising from a shift from slow to fast broadband.” |
| The report’s authors, which include NZ Reserve Bank chair Dr Arthur Grimes, wrote that despite well-articulated pleas for upgraded internet access, reference to rigorous research that quantifies benefits actually accruing from network upgrades is generally absent in supporting materials. Read more at computerworld.co.nz |
Finland makes broadband access a legal right |
The Finnish government has become the first in the world to make broadband internet access a legal right. |
According to local reports, the Ministry of Transport and Communications in Helsinki has pushed through a law that will force telecommunications providers to offer high speed internet connections to all of the country’s 5.3 million citizens. |
The agreement means that by July next year, telecommunications companies will be obliged to provide all Finnish residents with broadband lines that can run at speeds of at least 1 megabit per second. |
Finland is already one of the world’s most connected countries, with 96% of citizens online - but the communications minister, Suvi Linden, said that the mandate was necessary in order to improve the availability of internet in Finland’s remote rural areas. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
Gartner predicts Australia will lag NZ in broadband penetration. Australia to hit 69% household broadband penetration by 2013:Gartner But Australia will still lag behind New Zealand, the US and Canada |
Australia is expected to add about 1.7 million household broadband connections between 2008 and 2013, lifting its penetration rate from about 55 per cent in 2008 to 69 per cent, according to new research from Gartner.
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The growth will see Australia move from its ranking as the 19th highest nation for household broadband penetration up to 14th, outpacing Germany and Belgium, but trailing New Zealand, the US and Canada.
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While consumers were watching their household expenditure during the global financial crisis, dropping their broadband connections was not top of their agendas as a way to help reduce household expenses, the report found.
Read more at www.computerworld.com.au |
Researchers continue to push the boundaries of optical technology. Alcatel-Lucent claims cable speed breakthrough |
Alcatel-Lucent researchers say they have figured out how to multiply the speed of the fastest undersea cables by a factor of 10. |
The telecomms and networking equipment vendor says researchers at a Bell Labs facility in Villarceaux, France, became the first to achieve the speed of “100 petabits per second.kilometer”. The measurement takes into account both speed and the ability to maintain it over distance, by multiplying the network’s speed by its distance in kilometres. In this case, a network with an aggregate speed of 15.5T bits per second (Tbit/s) was able to maintain that speed over a distance of 7,000 kilometers (4,349 miles). One petabit is equal to about 1 million gigabits. Read more at computerworld.co.nz |
Lets get some of these for our broadband rollout  Time Lens Speeds Optical Data |
An energy-efficient silicon device compresses light to make ultrafast signals. |
Researchers at Cornell University have developed a simple silicon device for speeding up optical data. The device incorporates a silicon chip called a “time lens,” lengths of optical fiber, and a laser. It splits up a data stream encoded at 10 gigabits per second, puts it back together, and outputs the same data at 270 gigabits per second. Speeding up optical data transmission usually requires a lot of energy and bulky, expensive optics. The new system is energy efficient and is integrated on a compact silicon chip. It could be used to move vast quantities of data at fast speeds over the Internet or on optical chips inside computers. Read more at www.technologyreview.com |
There has been a lot of talk about getting broadband to people. What is not so obvious, is what they will use it for. This article is an example of how user behaviour will change - why store media locally - if broadband is reliable, and your right to the media is assured, store it in the cloud, and stream it anywhere, knowing it is reliably backed up as part of the service. Spotify for iPhone and Android |
Spotify is the legal online music service I’ve imagined for a decade. And Spotify for iPhone, which was (finally) released last week, has turned it into the music service to which I’ve just become a paying subscriber. Why? |
| Even so, this is a triumph. Streaming playback over both 3G and Edge is great – just four seconds from search to play – and, while synching for offline play can be slow, playlist changes or track deletions made with the desktop application are reflected almost instantly on the mobile version. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
In the US, 3G mobile data traffic is challenging the industry. Insatiable demand for mobile data challenges industry |
Mobile data traffic is doubling every nine months, according to Cisco Systems. By 2013, mobile traffic will hit 2 exabytes–2 million terabytes–per month.
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According to that same Cisco study, the problem goes well beyond iPhones. A 3G-equipped laptop “can generate as much traffic as 450 basic-feature phones” and 15 times the traffic of an iPhone or BlackBerry. Read more at news.cnet.com |
Too narrow a definition of broadband can have unintended consequences. The FCC is reconsidering the definition of broadband. This will affect the broadband provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. It could also affect what is provided to broadband ISP subscribers. |
| One of the industry groups is the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). The TIA’s comments can be found here (PDF). This filing is a successor to a previous filing by the TIA in 2007. |
The TIA comments covered many aspects, several of which I had not considered. The TIA recommends “as it has in previous filings, that the Commission not limit itself to one narrow and arbitrary definition of broadband.” |
| The TIA reasserts that the broadband definition include two way transmissions. |
| A second major point is that the TIA wants wireless technologies included in the definition, especially the minimum speed. Read more at www.nojitter.com |
U.S. lags other nations in Internet speed |
The average Internet download speed in the U.S. is slower than that in 27 other countries, according to a new report by the Communications Workers of America. |
Web surfing in the U.S. averages around 5.1 megabits per second (mbps), lagging far behind top-ranked South Korea, where speeds average more than 20 mbps. In 2007, the U.S. download speed was 3.5 mbps, inching up only 1.6 mbps since then. At that rate, notes the report, it will take the U.S. 15 years to catch up with South Korea. Read more at news.cnet.com |
Having used an iPhone, I can see the point in this article; if you are a consumer, or only use email, then a mobile phone is probably enough. Less so, if you are a knowledge worker who creates documents, presentations, etc. Mobile phones are enough for Japan’s Net users |
Recent data from japan.internet.com (translated by whatjapanthinks.com) suggests that Japan’s mobile phones offer users enough functionality that 49 percent of the respondents to a recent survey say a “mobile phone is enough” when asked what kind of mobile device they would most like to carry.
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It’s no secret that Japan has better mobile phones than the rest of the world. The country has also had access to better phone-based Internet services since the launch of NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode service all the way back in 1998.
Read more at news.cnet.com |
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Report: Faster broadband does not equate to greater productivity
