Broadband

Network Management Restrictions May Harm Rural Wireless Internet Service Consumers May 2, 2008

The American Consumer Institute today released a ConsumerGram noting that the debate over the network management practices of ISPs has largely overlooked the impact of potential legislation on rural wireless consumers. The report concludes that even the best-intentioned policies produce unintended consequences, and network management prohibitions could threaten the existence of small, rural wireless ISPs, thereby harming their customers. Read More.

Articles

A Flashy Facebook Page, at a Cost to Privacy
Add-Ons to Online Social Profiles Expose Personal Data to Strangers, Washington Post, June 12, 2008

By Kim Hart
Facebook fanatics who have covered their profiles on the popular social networking site with silly games and quirky trivia quizzes may be unknowingly giving a host of strangers an intimate peek at their lives.

Those mini-programs, called widgets or applications, allow users to personalize their pages and connect with friends and acquaintances. But they could pose privacy risks. Some security researchers warn that developers of the software have assembled too much information — home town, schools attended, employment history — and can use the data in ways that could harm or annoy users.

“Everything requires you to give access to personal information or it forces you to ask your friends to do the same — it becomes a real nuisance,” said David Dixon, 40, an information technology consultant in Columbia who recently deleted most of the applications he had downloaded to his Facebook profile after reading on a blog that developers may have access to his information. “Why does a Sudoku puzzle have to know I have two kids? Why does a postcard need to know where I went to college?”

Even private profiles, in which personal details are available only to specific friends, reveal personal information, said Chris Soghoian, a cyber-security researcher at Indiana University. And they’re allowing access to their friends’ information — even if their friends are not using the application. That’s because MySpace and Facebook, the largest online social networks, let outside developers see a member’s information when they add a program. Read More.

How Internet Video Is Clogging the Pipes
How Diners of Internet’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet Get in Each Others’ Way Over Video, Associated Press, February 11, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) — Why are our Internet lines in danger of jamming up?

One way of looking at it is this: Internet service providers have been serving us an all-you-can-eat buffet for years. That has worked great, because they’ve had more food than they knew what to do with and we’ve enjoyed the simplicity of a flat price and our pick of the dishes.

But every year, our appetites have been growing. Some of us have turned into real gluttons, taking advantage of the pricing to eat 10 times as much as the majority of customers. The food is running out, and diners are starting to get in each other’s way at the table.

Now, Internet service providers are starting to limit the availability of dishes that are popular with the big eaters (controlling traffic). They’re also considering telling us to stick to two helpings per person (limiting monthly downloads). They might end up doing both. Read More.

U.S. Internet Traffic Projected to Grow 50-Fold by 2015
New Study Shows Required Network Expansion Could Cost $100 Billion Over Next Five Years, Staff-Discovery Institute, January 29, 2008

Washington, D.C. – New technologies are dramatically transforming the Internet and could boost IP traffic in the United States more than 50-fold within the next decade, according to “Estimating the Exaflood: The Impact of Video and Rich Media on the Internet,” a report released today by the Discovery Institute.

“Innovations like YouTube, IPTV, high-definition video and mobile phone cameras are driving this new wave of data—or exaflood—of Internet and IP traffic,” said Bret Swanson, an adjunct fellow at the Discovery Institute and co-author of the report. “Many of the new online opportunities we can’t even imagine today. But these exciting applications and services will only be possible if we make large new investments in broadband fiber-optic and wireless networks.” Read More.

Pay Per Gig,Washington Post, January 30, 2008

If you are an Internet-crazy movie lover in Beaumont, Tex., life may soon take a miserable turn for you.

Time Warner Cable, which also sells broadband via its Road Runner service, has chosen your city for a pricing experiment. If you have plans to sign up and watch lots of high-definition flicks using, say, the new iTunes digital rental program announced last month, start saving now, because Time Warner is going to tally up those gigabytes. You know that feeling that mobile phone users get when they exceed their allotted minutes and get a heart-stopping tariff for overage charges? Some Beaumont cinephiles could get the same infarction from their Road Runner bills.
Read More

Survey: Nearly half of Americans have home broadband access
Network World, July 5, 2007

Nearly half of all Americans have broadband Internet connections in their homes, largely because of increasing use among minorities and the poor, according to an annual survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The number of home broadband users nationwide now equals the total number of Americans with any type of Internet connection in 2000, the first year the survey was conducted. Four out of 10 African-American adults have broadband access at home, compared to 15% two years ago. Nearly one-third of rural Americans have home broadband connections, compared to about one-half of Americans living in urban areas and the suburbs. Read More

Research Papers

Network Management Restrictions May Harm Rural Wireless Internet Service Consumers May 2, 2008

The American Consumer Institute today released a ConsumerGram noting that the debate over the network management practices of ISPs has largely overlooked the impact of potential legislation on rural wireless consumers. The report concludes that even the best-intentioned policies produce unintended consequences, and network management prohibitions could threaten the existence of small, rural wireless ISPs, thereby harming their customers. Read More.

Advancing Healthcare Through Broadband: Opening Up a World of Possibilities by Neal Neuberger, Health Tech Strategies LLC, Internet Innovation Alliance, October 2007

The spread of broadband can help improve the quality of health care in America, as well as reduce the cost of care through a number of advanced health technology applications. The paper notes the range of medical uses for broadband is very broad, adding that “at the most basic level, broadband enables enhanced information sharing among medical facilities, practitioners and patients.” IIA urges Congress to establish a National Commission on Telemedicine to help “accelerate the deployment of telemedicine; provide financial incentives … and remove regulatory or statutory barriers to telemedicine programs.” IIA also stresses the importance of expanding the reach of affordable broadband services across the country to spread cost-effective health care. Read More

Home Broadband Adoption 2007 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, June 2007

The latest home broadband study by the Pew Internet Project finds that 47 percent of all adult Americans have a broadband connection at home, a five percentage point increase from early 2006. Also noteworthy, “the percentage of African-American adults with a home broadband connection has nearly tripled, from 14 percent in early 2005 to 40 percent in early 2007.” Read More

The Exabyte Internet The US Internet Industry Association, May 1, 2007

“Recent research reports have suggested that he growth of data created by humans…may create a situation in which it becomes impossible for the Internet infrastructure to handle the capacity demands for data, particularly video,” according to a recent study by the US Internet Industry Association (USIIA). USIAA notes that continuing high levels of investment in the Internet backbone and related subsystems will be necessary to ensure consumers and businesses have access to new services, applications and opportunities. Read More

The Effects of Broadband Deployment on Output and Employment: A Cross-sectional Analysis of U.S. Data by Robert Crandall, William Lehr and Robert Litan

Economists Robert Crandall, William Lehr and Robert Litan calculated new estimates of the effects of broadband penetration on both state economic output and state employment, finding that their “empirical investigation of state data on broadband penetration, employment and output thus suggests that employment is rather strongly related to broadband deployment, particularly in certain service sectors, such as finance, education, and healthcare.” In Texas, the paper estimates that a one-percent increase in Texas broadband penetration would bring the state 21,100 new jobs, while a three-percent increase would result in 63,300 new jobs. Read More

Broadband is booming in Texas
As of December 2005, there were 3.5 million broadband subscribers in Texas – an 80 percent increase since 2003. Broadband subscribership in Texas has grown from 152,518 in December 1999, to more than 3.4 million as of December 2005. Texas has the fourth-highest number of high-speed lines in the country. Read more… [pdf]