The Internet is a complex series of networks, applications and connected devices and I’ve talked a lot about its evolution over the last couple of years. Various facilities make up the Internet’s physical networks including the backbone, local facilities and high capacity lines connecting businesses, web sites and large companies to each other and the backbone. A variety of technologies – wired and wireless – make up the high capacity networks including what are sometimes called private...
Read MoreIf there was any doubt that the role of broadband in American life is at a tipping point, consider this: Home buyers are more interested in whether a home has an all-fiber-optic Internet hookup than whether there’s a community pool. Or a daycare center. Or a nearby convenience store. In new surveys just reported, even people who have never had a fiber link rank an ultra-fast connection tops out of five key options. This news tells us two things: First, Internet hookups really matter inside...
Read MoreMore FiOS HD? Yes, it’s for real. Verizon FiOS TV is getting six new HD channels – and we’re letting readers of this blog know about it first. We’re launching HD channels from Viacom – MTV, VH1, CMT (Country Music Television), Nickelodeon, Spike TV, and Comedy Central. They’ll be available in all FiOS TV markets by the end of next week. This is most-watched content and it’ll be even more popular in HD. Depending on the number of local and regional HD channels available in your market,...
Read More Time magazine carries and intriguing story about the emergence of Twitter as a new communications tool. It lauds the service as providing more evidence of the innovativeness of the U. S. economy pointing to the emergence of a host of online services and applications such as Facebook, Google, Blogger and Wikipedia as evidence that the U. S. remains one of the most innovative countries in the world. I think an untold part of this story however is role broadband deployment and connectivity...
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