Tag: broadband

Fiber Penetration Hits 42.5 Percent in U.S.

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Spinning Optical Fiber

Spinning Optical Fiber (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BOSTON, MA — Business fiber penetration of commercial buildings in the U.S. increased to 42.5 percent in 2014, according to latest research from Vertical Systems Group. This compares to a penetration rate of only 10.9 percent in 2004. These statistics measure fiber availability at company-owned and multi-tenant buildings with twenty or more employees, which covers more than two million individual business establishments.

“Accessibility to fiber-based business services in the U.S. nearly quadrupled between 2004 and 2014, with hundreds of thousands of sites newly fiber-connected during this time period. As a result of this growth, our fiber penetration benchmark now exceeds 40 percent for the first time,” said Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group. “Looking forward, the high stakes endgame for network operators is to deepen and broaden their service infrastructures around fiber – the future of wireline.” Continue reading

Princeton to seek new broadband partner – News – telegram.com – Worcester, MA

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Union Station in Worcester, MA, USA.

Union Station in Worcester, MA, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PRINCETON — The Princeton Broadband Municipal Light Plant has terminated its contract negotiations with Matrix Design Group, ending a joint effort to establish high-speed Internet service for the town.

Selectmen in their roles as commissioners for the broadband light plant signed a memorandum of understanding in October with Matrix to negotiate toward an agreement to design, build, operate and maintain a fiber-optic network for high-speed Internet service. Town meeting approved borrowing $1.2 million for the make-ready work that needs to be done before the network installation. Continue reading

Financing Public-Private Fiber Networks Becoming a Reality, Say Experts at Broadband Communities Summit

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AUSTIN, April 27, 2015 – Raising funds to build high-speed internet infrastructure through municipal debt financing is finally becoming a reality, according to a panel of financiers and broadband builders speaking earlier this month here at the Broadband Communities Summit.

Members of the panel, “Municipal Debt Financing and Public-Private Partnerships,” surveyed the landscape of typical municipal bond financing — traditionally used to build transportation infrastructure — and discussed how it applies in the broadband space. Continue reading

Google says: Net Neutrality ensures right to equally slow content

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As telecoms trade groups file briefs in Federal courts, objecting to the FCC’s classification of ISPs at “common carriers,” (as they did with the railroads, long ago, when Rockefeller was hustling the lines to screw his competitors), Google pointed out that all Net Neutrality means is the right for all content to be served equally slowly.

Milo Medin, a VP at Google Fiber, highlighted some of the ways in which policy could improve access to abundant broadband. His comments were reported on Fierce Telecom. Continue reading

Dark fiber should fill residential broadband holes

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I am delighted to read articles like this even if they do not get every detail right. What the author is advocating is open-access fiber infrastructure not “dark fiber.” In a sense I’m mincing words because the two are essentially the same but the author is implying that the consumer could do something with that fiber when actually a service provider needs to add electronics to it so the customer could interface to the network. Also “dark fiber” alone does not guarantee low latency. It is the network elements that have a greater impact on latency. Still I am glad to see people talking about increasing residential competition instead of adding regulation to keep the status quo.

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With broadband speeds newly defined as starting at 25 Mbps, as opposed to the archaic 4 Mbps definition, what happens if you now no longer have residential broadband? And what do you do if, to add insult to injury, your ISP ups its prices? Continue reading

US Telecom: FCC’s Move Has Global Implications

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Logo of the United States Telecom Association.

Logo of the United States Telecom Association. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CAROL WILSON

The FCC’s decision to reclassify broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service will now subject the Internet to international telecom rules, as governed by the United Nations and the ITU, and could prompt other countries to implement similar regulations, claims the head of the major lobbying organization for telecom companies. (See FCC Adopts Title II Internet Regs for Net Neutrality.)

Walter McCormick, president and CEO of United States Telecom Association (USTelecom) , says his organization will be filing a court appeal as soon as details of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ‘s new rules are made public, claiming the federal government is overstepping its authority in a way that is “unnecessary and unwise.” Continue reading