US backing for two-tier internet
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The US Justice Department has said that internet service providers should be allowed to charge for priority traffic.
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The Story: Some technologies always seem to be ?just around the corner.? Seven years ago, there was a big flurry of interest in end-to-end Ethernet (aka metro Ethernet) as a brace of new ventures promised to cut through the complexities of wide area networking.[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    They didn?t deliver. One big reason: building a new network that will reach into offices and homes costs beaucoup bucks. As IDC analyst Boyd Chastant puts it, ?Digging a whole in the ground never gets cheaper.?Laying fiber is still expensive, but now telcos ? including AT&amp;T, Verizon, and Qwest ? plus cable companies such as Optimum LightPath, Cox, and Time Warner that already have fiber in the ground are offering Ethernet services. LightPath, for example, boasts of 2,500 miles of fiber in the ground and says it has lit more than 2,000 buildings in its service area in the northeast.End-to-end Ethernet offers a very affordable way to connect LANs to a wide area network. After all, every router has an Ethernet interface, you don?t need much special hardware, and the technology is very familiar. So most IT staffers will have little trouble adapting, says Burton Group analyst Jeff Young. That is, if you can get it: Pricing depends on your need for speed, and not all of the providers offer it throughout their service areas.Raw bandwidth isn?t Ethernet?s big advantage. It?s not necessarily much faster than private lines. However, says Chastant, it is more scalable. Conventional private-line services offer speeds near the bottom (around 10Mbps) and the near top (around 10Gbps), but not much in the middle. End-to-end Ethernet solves that. And it can be tied to Internet access, bumping up access speeds appreciably.Availability is on the upswing too, says Boyd. In the past, carriers worried that end-to-end Ethernet service would cannibalize other data services. But now that demand has reached critical mass, that concern appears to have faded. Meanwhile, providers and equipment manufacturers are ironing out incompatibles and clarifying service definitions in the Metro Ethernet Forum, Chastant says.It looks like we?ve turned the corner and end-to-end Ethernet is right in front of us.The Bottom Line: If your carrier doesn?t provide end-to-end Ethernet, another provider likely does. It?s worth the trouble to look: End-to-end Ethernet will give you the performance you need and because it?s a familiar technology you won?t have to retrain or replace your IT staff.Complete list of 2007 underreported stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
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In 2004, President Bush pledged that all Americans should have affordable access to high-speed Internet service by 2007. A report to be released Thursday by the administration says it has succeeded Â mostly.
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Internet service providers have to walk a fine line between fairness and profitability. Users want maximum service, and are entitled to honest contracts. Maybe there's a way to help everyone at once.
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Two former MCI executives, Joyce Dorris and Paul Erickson, want to bring Internet phone service to mainstream America. "We're in the beginning of a wholesale transformation to have communications run over Internet technology," said Erickson, chief executive of SunRocket, a start-up in Vienna. "If you have broadband, you'd be silly not to put your phone service on the Internet."
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is taking the middle ground in the net neutrality debate.
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A year ago, it seemed like just about every major U.S. city was drawing up ambitious plans to build wireless Internet networks so more people, both rich and poor, could have online access wherever they wanted. Now, economics is blurring the Utopian vision as city leaders and the companies proposing to build the Wi-Fi networks haggle over whether the projects make financial sense.
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WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators on Thursday adopted rules aimed at tempting electric utilities to offer broadband services -- a move officials hope will someday enable US consumers to jack in to the web from virtually any power outlet.
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Opinion: There are only two Web servers that matter. While two-thirds of domains run Apache, Web server share numbers show that Microsoft&#39;s IIS is also a respectable choice.
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A coalition of big technology companies wants to bring high-speed Internet access to consumers in a new way: over television airwaves. Key to the project is whether a device scheduled to be delivered to federal labs today lives up to its promise.
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A study by the American Hotel &amp; Lodging Association says half of US hotel rooms now offer broadband Internet access. By Eric Chabrow.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has cleared the way for Internet access over the same infrastructure that carries electricity to homes and businesses in America.
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As it stands, there's almost twice as much bandwidth across the Atlantic as there is across the Pacific. But with new U.S. FCC approval for the first ever China-U.S. fiber link, this is all about to change.
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(InfoWorld) - Two members of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission called for the federal government to create a wide-ranging national broadband strategy to help small businesses compete on a global level. Too many U.S. small businesses have no access to broadband, and many others can't afford it, said Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, Democratic members of the FCC. The cost of consumer-level broadband per megabit in the United States is about seven times the cost in Japan, Adelstein told the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. Small businesses "typically pay too much for a service that is too slow," Copps said. "It's not just a matter of national pride we're talking about -- it's a business issue." A survey in 2005 found that small businesses paid an average of $720 per month for a T1 line, added Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a media reform advocacy group. In Chicago, customers pay $80 to $90 a month for 1MbpsÂ of broadband, but in smaller Urbana, Ill., the cost is about $300, Scott said. In Greenup, Ill., a city with about 1,500 residents south of Chicago, the monthly cost of a 1Mbps connection is $1,300, Scott said. Small businesses in small towns and rural areas lack the same technological edge that many overseas competitors have, Scott said. "The head start we're giving our global competition is taking it just a bit too far," he said. Senators John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, complained that President George Bush set a policy goal in 2004 for all U.S. residents to have broadband available by this year, but didn't back it up with policies. "We had the goal but not the tactics," Snowe said. A national broadband policy should include better data about where broadband service is lacking, said the FCC's Adelstein. The FCC still says a postal zip code has broadband if one customer there does, he said. Congress should provide more money for broadband build-out in rural areas, and the Republican majority at the FCC should stop a deregulatory approach that has led to few broadband competitors, he said. Adelstein also called for a national summit on broadband that would bring together customers, providers, members of Congress and the Bush administration, and others to address broadband availability. "We should make broadband the dial tone of the 21st century," he said. Not everyone at the hearing complained about the state of broadband in the United States. There's little evidence of a broadband problem in the United States, said Scott Wallsten, director of communications policy studies at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank. "Telephone, cable, and wireless companies are investing billions in new high-speed infrastructure, and consumers and businesses are adopting broadband at remarkable rates," Wallsten said. Verizon CommunicationsÂ alone is planning to spend $23 billion on its fiber-optic network by 2010, he said. People calling for government solutions "fail to provide solid analysis showing that their proposals would actually benefit consumers or small businesses," Wallsten added. Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, laid the problems back at the feet of Copps and Adelstein. The FCC has the power to encourage more broadband competition through anÂ upcoming auction of radio spectrum, he said. Several companies want to provide nationwide wireless broadband if the January auction is set up right, he said. "It seems like to me you have the tools at the FCC," he said.
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A progressive Washington think tank Tuesday blasted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Bush administration for failing to invest in and develop a robust broadband network in the U.S. that can support consumers as well as first responders and anti-terrorist teams.&quot;The policy of relying on market forces that the Bush administration claimed for seven years would propel broad access is irresponsible and insufficient,&quot; Mark Lloyd, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), said in a statement on the CAP&#39;s Web site.&quot;The result of administration neglect, industry intransigence and the incompetence of the Federal Communications Commission ... has left the American people and most policymakers with no clear idea where broad services are deployed in the U.S.,&quot; said Lloyd, who is also an affiliated professor at Georgetown University&#39;s Public Policy Institute.Although it&#39;s a nonpartisan organization, the CAP is headed by John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton when he was president. P.J. Crowley, CAP&#39;s director of homeland security, served as Clinton&#39;s special assistant for national security and joined Lloyd in a call with reporters Tuesday.Lloyd and Crowley urged policymakers, including the presidential candidates, to find government funds to support the building of a 10Gbps, redundant and ubiquitous broadband network. They also urged current leaders to create a commission to implement that goal.&quot;We should not wait for another Katrina or 9/11 for this to happen,&quot; Lloyd said. The CAP said the broadband network could be wired and wireless. The organization also said the network must provide enough components so that if one system fails, another is available and the network can quickly repair itself.The FCC has created an elaborate system to&#160;auction off 700MHz wireless spectrum&#160;starting Thursday, including a special D Block that would be shared by first responders and commercial users.But even the plans to use that portion of the spectrum for public safety imperiled, since the sole known bidder, Frontline Wireless LLC, failed to submit a $128 million down payment to the FCC to qualify to bid. On Jan. 12, the company issued a short statement saying: &quot;Frontline Wireless is closed for business at this time. We have no further comment.&quot;&quot;The bidding on the D Block is a perfect example of the challenge the FCC faces,&quot; said Lloyd, who urged Verizon Wireless or Google Inc. to consider bidding on the D Block. &quot;We need somebody to step up to the plate and if not, the feds must. We cannot rely on market forces alone.&quot;Lloyd said all branches of government need to work with service providers in a &quot;necessary and forced partnership&quot; to bring about a broadband network.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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U.S. communications regulators on  Thursday insisted the United States was making progress in  rolling out high-speed Internet service, despite falling  further behind other countries.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. government should launch a new program that provides grants and loans for broadband providers to extend service to rural areas, a top executive at Verizon said Monday. The U.S. should use as a model a state program called ConnectKentucky, which has provided 94 percent of Kentucky residents with broadband options, said Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president for public affairs, policy, and communications. Kentucky, a state with large rural areas and chunks of hilly terrain, expects to provide about 99 percent of its residents with a broadband carrier by the end of the year, Tauke said. The rest of the nation likely won't reach U.S. President George Bush's goal of universal broadband access by the end of 2007, Tauke said. The U.S. needs to look at broadband incentive programs "sooner rather than later," he said. Broadband access can have a large impact on local economies and services such as health care, Tauke said. The new program proposed by Verizon could use some existing funding, including redirecting some funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), which had a 2006 budget of $6.1 billion, he said. The RUS now subsidizes several types of utilities, including broadband, electricity, distance learning, and telemedicine. New funds may also be needed, Tauke said, although he didn't provide specific numbers at a press briefing. Part of the problem is there's no good measure of how many U.S. residents have access to broadband, Tauke said. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission released a report Jan. 31 saying 99 percent of all U.S. postal codes had at least one broadband provider, but critics have noted that the FCC would count a postal code if a provider offered service to just a handful of residents. Tauke called for a comprehensive study of what broadband gaps exist. "We just don't know today who has broadband and who doesn't," he said. Verizon has not yet pitched the idea to most lawmakers, Tauke said. The telecom giant also called on the U.S. Congress to make changes the Universal Service Fund program, a $4 billion program that subsidizes telephone access in rural and poor areas. Instead of providing USF funds to multiple carriers, the U.S. government should cap USF at its current funding levels, and require carriers to bid to provide service in areas where subsidies are needed, Tauke said. "Reverse auctions" forcing carriers to compete to provide service would end the current system in which multiple carriers, sometimes five or more wireless voice providers, receive USF money to provide service in the same territory, Tauke said. Verizon does not currently take USF money, he said. "If you have multiple carriers offering service in a territory, that would seem to suggest you don't need Universal Service Fund support," he said. "[Carriers say] 'If somebody's going to hand out money, why not take it?'" The tax on telephone service to pay for USF has risen from about 3.2 percent in 1998 to 9.7 percent currently, Verizon noted in a proposal to the Federal-Sate Joint Board on Universal Service, filed Friday. "The level of fees is becoming staggeringly high," he said. "The system is broken, it's not working, and it's unfair." Several rural lawmakers have opposed changes to USF. Tauke didn't address net neutrality, an issue that dominated telecom debates in Congress last year, until asked about it. Verizon expects efforts that would prohibit broadband carriers from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors to fail in Congress this year, partly because the FCC and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission are monitoring providers, he said. The two agencies "are watching the issue like hawks," he said.