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Analyst: News Corp.'s Google saber rattling really about MySpace
News Corp.'s alleged dance with Microsoft's Bing and Rupert Murdoch's big plan to de-index from Google is likely to be nothing more than saber rattling to secure a semi-respectable MySpace... Continued »
Category: Broadband
November 16th, 2009
Who needs WiMax, LTE? Ruckus Wireless sees opportunities in WiFi
When it comes to wireless broadband, all of the excitement is centered around next generation technologies such as WiMax and LTE. But there are still some who see opportunities in WiFi - well, a smarter WiFi that allows service providers to offer a broadband service that has lower costs of entry and the ability to scale more efficiently.
For the most part, the model - which is being announced today by Silicon Valley’s Ruckus Wireless - has its eyes on emerging markets and rural American markets, places where traditional carriers likely won’t be targeting anytime soon with advanced 4G technologies.
The thing to remember about wireless broadband is that there has to be wired backhaul system in place somewhere. In some markets, that could be a train station or an airport or government center. But getting that connection to neighborhoods or surrounding areas can be an expensive and slow process. But Ruckus has a system that it says will reduce costs for the provider, who can deliver broadband connections for a fraction of the price in a fraction of the time. The company explains it like this:
October 7th, 2009
Are you a mobile broadband hog? Should that be your problem?
Should mobile broadband be preserved, much the same way people are interested in conserving energy and saving the environment?
During a keynote speech at CTIA, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega spoke about the state of the wireless industry and the trends that we’re seeing in mobile. For the most part, he focused on growth in things like investments, data usage and the projections for coming years.
But he also chimed in with a message that we’ve all heard repeatedly - some people are mobile bandwidth hogs and, unless the broadband is better managed, a few heavy users will crowd out other users who want to connect, as well.
In his speech, de la Vega noted that, among AT&T smartphone users, the top 3 percent of the users are using 40 percent of the data. But, unlike fiber, which has a much greater capacity (25 million mbps) than even the forthcoming 4G LTE broadband capacity (100 mpbs). That means that the broadband needs to be managed so that everyone can take advantage of it.
I’ve heard this before but still have a hard time coming to grips with it.
Specifically to AT&T, I have issues with a company that has gained so much through its lucrative exclusivity with Apple and the iPhone. AT&T continues to sell the iPhone and sign up new customers for an unlimited data plan - but then cries about its network being stretched thin.
What did you expect? Your partner there - Apple - is pushing apps of all kinds, music streaming, video, online gaming and now VoIP. Of course it’s stretched thin. Now, you’re facing a data crunch. The network was ill-equipped before and now, as more and more people are being exposed to the things that can be done over the mobile network, you want to highlight the heavy users as the bad guys? That’s not very fair.
The mobile carriers are offering unlimited data plans to get those customers to sign those two-year contracts. Now, it sounds like they don’t want us to use them. If I stream Pandora all day or catch NFL Mobile video clips on Sunday afternoons or upload photos to share with my Facebook friends, I shouldn’t have to worry about being labeled a mobile broadband hog. I pay my bill every month for unlimited usage. Repeat: unlimited.
If AT&T or any other carrier is feeling the pinch, then it probably needs to fast-forward its plan to increase capacity. Don’t expect me to pay for an unlimited access plan and then feel bad about using it.
Also see:
- Gallery: Sights from CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment Show
- AT&T plans 3G upgrade; Promises ‘considerably’ faster mobile broadband speeds
- Android sucks oxygen from mobile broadband room
October 1st, 2009
Comcast plus NBC Universal creates a Web juggernaut
If Comcast did manage to gain control of NBC Universal it would be have an aggregation of Web sites that would make it a top 10 player in comScore’s top 50 rankings.
According to CNBC, General Electric is talking to Comcast about a deal that would spin off NBC Universal and combine it with the entertainment assets of the cable giant. In the end, Comcast would control NBC Universal. Talks are fluid and may fall apart, but Comcast, which tried to buy Disney before, appears to be serious about NBC Universal. GE certainly wants to unload the network.
On the old media side, Comcast would own content and distribution in a combination that would either be a boon or a bane. Time Warner had the content-distribution mojo, but decided it was better to separate its distribution (Time Warner Cable) from content (HBO, TBS and other properties).
While the Internet ramifications are likely to be overlooked it’s worth noting that Comcast-NBC would have a bevy of assets. To wit:
- Comcast has the broadband network (distribution).
- Comcast-NBC would have the No. 22, No. 41 and No. 43 properties in comScore’s top 50 for August.
- Comcast would have a stake in Hulu via NBCU that delivered 488 million video streams in August.
- Comcast would have a large women’s network (iVillage via NBCU).
- Comcast would continue with its TV Everywhere initiative.
Wrap it all up and Comcast-NBCU’s Web ranking would fall in about No. 6 or No. 7 on comScore’s scorecard. With a little push, Comcast-NBCU would nudge out News Corp.’s interactive properties.
Here’s a look at comScore’s ranking with Comcast-NBCU’s potential reach highlighted:
For now, the chatter will revolve around big media, Comcast’s penchant to own a network, earnings dilution and questionable logic. But don’t forget the Web reach: Comcast-NBCU would be a big player in an instant.
September 29th, 2009
Akamai aims to bring HDTV to the Web
Akamai on Tuesday unveiled a network for high-definition video designed to deliver content via Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight and Apple’s iPhone. The goal: Deliver an HDTV experience online.
The company, which delivers video and applications, via a 50,000 server network that moves content closer to Internet users, said Akamai HD will support live and on-demand HD streaming with personalization features.
Akamai’s HD platform, which will be demonstrated later today, will be designed for what the company calls “the most popular runtime environments”: Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight and the iPhone.
Among the key features of Akamai HD:
- Adaptive bitrate streaming: The network adjusts its HD bitrates and monitors bandwidth levels for uninterrupted playback.
- Immediate response: Viewers can interact with the video player and shift times instantly.
- HD video player: Akamai is offering an open standards player.
- Player authentication: Ensures only authorized players can access content.
In a statement, Paul Sagan, CEO of Akamai, said that the Internet is quickly moving to HD-quality video and needs to hit broadcast-size audiences quickly.
September 22nd, 2009
FCC's Net neutrality push: Is wireless access different?
The Federal Communications Commission forged ahead with its Net neutrality proposals and invited industry players to comment on six principles. It didn’t have to wait long. The big question: Would Net neutrality regulations hamper the wireless industry?
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday outlined six Net neutrality principles including two new ones focused on network management transparency and non-discrimination against content and applications (Techmeme, FCC speech).
The reaction from Comcast, AT&T and Verizon was mixed. To wit:
- Comcast says: “Before we rush into a new regulatory environment for the Internet, let’s remember there can be no doubt that the Internet has enjoyed immense growth even as these debates have gone on. The Internet in America has been a phenomenal success that has spawned technological and business innovation unmatched anywhere in the world. So it’s still fair to ask whether increased regulation of the Internet is a solution in search of a problem.”
- AT&T says: “We are concerned, however, that the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America, wireless services.”
- Verizon also raised the wireless issue, according to CNet News’ Maggie Reardon: “Our customers want an open experience,” David Young, Verizon’s vice president of regulatory affairs. “They want more choices, which is why we allow third-party developers and are providing developers complete access to our network. But our concern is that these new regulations, which apply regulation to the Internet for the first time, could have unintended consequences.”
- The CTIA, a wireless industry group, says: “As a justification for the adoption of rules, the Chairman suggested that one reason for concern ‘has to do with limited competition among service providers.’ This is at the core of our concerns. Unlike the other platforms that would be subject to the rules, the wireless industry is extremely competitive, extremely innovative, and extremely personal. How do the rules apply to the single-purpose Amazon Kindle? How does it apply to Google’s efforts to cache content to provide a better consumer experience? How about the efforts from Apple and Android, Blackberry and Nokia, Firefly and others to differentiate the products and services they develop for consumers? Should all product and service offerings be the same?”
Reading the tea leaves it appears that the big network providers aren’t going to fight a whole lot over landline access. Wireless will be a different story entirely.
And that makes a lot of sense. Think about it: There’s limited bandwidth in wireless; there’s unlimited data plans in theory; and wireless networks aren’t nearly as developed. If the FCC goes too heavy on new regulations there could be unforeseen wireless repercussions. Meanwhile, the FCC’s take on transparent network management requirements may be more of an issue in the wireless industry. Simply put, network management—and making sure there’s enough access to go around—is really the entire game in the wireless industry.
Smart Planet: Net neutrality: When does transparency collide with competitive edge?
September 21st, 2009
FCC lays out Net neutrality framework: Transparency of network management eyed
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday outlined a Net Neutrality framework to prevent Internet providers from discriminating against content and applications while requiring them to be transparent about their network management practices.
Those two items—non-discrimination and transparency—are new requirements Genachowski added to the FCC’s four open Internet principles (Techmeme, FCC statement, Genachowski speech, OpenInternet.gov).
Add it up and there’s a six-item Net neutrality framework the FCC is pushing. Genachowski said he will seek to codify these six principles through a notice at the FCC’s October meeting. The FCC will ask for input and feedback and then proceed. One key item: How to determine whether network management practices are reasonable and what information broadband providers should disclose about their practices.
The Net neutrality principles now include:
September 10th, 2009
In South Africa, carrier pigeon faster than broadband
There’s no denying the power of effective broadband service, but in South Africa, the fast data delivery that it promises has yet to materialize.
So much so, in fact, that a carrier pigeon can beat it.
An IT company based in Durban, South Africa sponsored a 60-mile data transmission race between an 11-month-old pigeon carrying a 4GB memory stick and the ADSL service from the country’s biggest web firm, Telkom.
‘Winston’ the pigeon took two hours to carry the data 60 miles.
In that same amount of time, the ADSL had sent 4 percent of the data.
September 9th, 2009
Comcast's Burke: TV Everywhere trials going national in 30 to 60 days
Comcast has built a TV Everywhere site that’s “complicated technically,” but will roll out nationally as a pilot in the next 30 to 60 days, said Stephen Burke, chief operating officer of the cable giant.
Burke, speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2009 Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference, gave the quick update on Comcast’s TV Everywhere rollout. TV Everywhere is a partnership with Time Warner to extend cable subscriptions online and other providers are following suit. In a nutshell, cable subscriptions would be portable to the Web.
The technical details are complicated due to the authentication required for a user to get the online video. Comcast’s challenge is to make that authentication easy enough for widespread adoption. “Anyone who subscribes to cable should get a lot of that video as long as they first prove they are subscribers,” said Burke, who noted the TV Everywhere has 22 content providers lined up.
The stakes for Comcast and other cable providers are high—especially as consumers demand their video be on more screens. “I think we have a model here that if we do it right will allow us to get ahead of the inevitable,” said Burke.
On other topics Burke said:
August 27th, 2009
TV Everywhere: (Almost) everyone is at least trying it
Verizon and Time Warner Cable are the latest to hop on board the “TV Everywhere” bandwagon. Comcast and Time Warner already have trials going.
The concept behind TV Everywhere, which made a splash with Time Warner and Comcast in June, is simple enough: Make your cable subscription portable to any Internet accessible device. Time Warner and Comcast have started limited trials with participation from Time Warner’s TNT and TBS networks. CBS, parent of ZDNet, HBO, Cinemax and Starz are some of the other content providers participating in the trial.
And now it’s time for Verizon and Time Warner cable to give it a go (Techmeme).
Details about the Verizon trial are a bit sparse. In a statement, Verizon said that FiOS TV subscribers will be able to checkout TNT and TBS programming on demand over broadband or wireless video. Since I’m a Verizon FiOS subscriber I’ll be interested to see how the trial goes. Authentication between services will be the big hang up. Verizon said it will add other content providers shortly.
Time Warner Cable’s attempt at TV Everywhere is much more developed. Time Warner Cable’s TV Everywhere trial will include: TBS, TNT, HBO, CBS, Syfy, BBC America, AMC, WE tv, IFC, Sundance Channel, Discovery Communications and Smithsonian Channel. The first trials will reach about 5,000 Time Warner Cable subscribers, according to a statement.
Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes has championed the TV Everywhere concept for much of 2009. On a conference call announcing the Time Warner-Comcast trials, Bewkes said TV Everywhere could be more successful than YouTube and Hulu.
Other groups such as Public Knowledge and the Media Access Project have criticized TV Everywhere as an attempt to preserve the cable business model.
You bet cable providers are trying to preserve their models, but is that such a bad thing? If I’m already subscribing to cable channels I should be able to view them online. And if that’s more of a convenience for me I’m all for it. If TV Everywhere flops there are always other online video outlets.
Also see: Knowledge@Wharton on TV Everywhere
August 24th, 2009
Wireless: Examining the race to the bottom
The wireless industry is facing quite a conundrum: Subscriber growth is faster than the relatively pokey video business, but revenue per subscriber is falling.
Toss in the movement by Apple, Google and others to make wireless carriers mere dumb pipes and there’s turbulence ahead.
Stat of the week came from Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett. In a research note, Moffett said that the U.S. video business (think cable) is growing 50 percent faster than the wireless industry. Video (cable) aggregate revenue growth is up 5.3 percent in the last 12 months compared to 3.6 percent for wireless.
Moffett’s big takeaway is that there are two many wireless players relative to the cable industry. He writes:
There are plenty of explanations for the troubles of the Wireless industry. The Wireless industry, like most Telecommunications businesses, is characterized by high fixed and low variable costs. Networks are increasingly undifferentiated. Handset makers (à la Apple) are gaining market power. The service is expensive; for a family of four, a bill of $200 per month is not unusual. Scale is everything… and growth is slowing. Worse yet, management teams appear to have wildly inflated views of their ability to grow in an industry that is no longer growing. But what really makes the Wireless industry so unstable is much simpler. There are just too many cooks in the kitchen.
Simply put, Moffett argues that the dumb pipe is meeting the price war. And it’s deadly for the wireless industry, which still has a bevy of players.
To wit:
- Sprint cuts its Boost Unlimited price from $100 to $50 and screws over T-Mobile.
- Leap and MetroPCS cut prices to be lower than Sprint. Virgin Mobile, which is being acquired by Sprint, also cut prices.
- Tracfone is wholesaling the networks of AT&T and Verizon at $45 a month.
- Now everyone is having trouble justifying a premium.
Moffett adds that this industry dismemberment has been expected in the video industry for years. However, the downfall hasn’t happened yet. Why? There just aren’t enough players. Cable companies have a structural advantage and the broadband business is solid. In fact, Moffett convincingly argues that broadband service will become the primary business of cable companies, which will be the only modem in town for most locales.
Also see: U.S. national broadband strategy: Funding is the elephant in the room
August 6th, 2009
Comcast rakes in the dough; Continues to poach voice customers
Comcast reported stronger than expected profits as more customers transitioned to digital cable and the voice and Internet services that often ride shotgun.
In the second quarter (statement), Comcast reported earnings of $967 million, or 33 cents a share, on revenue of $8.94 billion, up 4.5 percent from a year ago. A year ago, Comcast reported net income of $632 million, or 21 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 26 cents a share on revenue of $8.86 billion.
Like Verizon and AT&T, Comcast has managed the economic downturn well. Comcast ended the second quarter 46.2 million total customers. Here’s a snapshot of the customer trends. As you can see, Comcast is gobbling up voice customers yet losing video customers.
Some of the more notable charts:
And Comcast is talking more about its wireless initiatives.
July 9th, 2009
The United States of broadband: All of the speed is on the east coast
Akamai’s state of the Internet report for the first quarter illustrates the distribution of broadband speeds in the U.S. The real speed appears to be on the east coast.
Here’s the distribution of broadband in the top 10 states:
Akamai reports:
In looking at the ten states with the highest levels of high broadband connectivity, we find that the distribution of connection speeds above 5 Mbps generally follows a similar pattern. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the high broadband connections measure between 5-10 Mbps, with the next largest grouping between 10-15 Mbps. After that the faster ‘buckets’ struggle to achieve even 3% of connections, as shown in Figure 18. This distribution of speeds is not surprising, as most residential broadband options offer connections in the 5-15 Mbps downstream range, with higher speed options available only in limited areas or at significantly higher prices. We expect that as the adoption and rollout of DOCSIS 3.0 technology by cable Internet providers, as well as other FTTH initiatives by telecom providers, become more widespread that the percentage of connections in the highest ‘bucket’ will grow over time, and that competitive market pressures will drive providers to price the highest speed tiers of service at a level that subscribers find affordable.
Jason Perlow: Optimum Ultra: So how fast is it?
Here’s a look at the states with the highest percentage of speeds topping 25 Mbps.
And here are the slowest states in the union.
Globally, however, the U.S. trails in broadband ranking at No. 33 in Akamai’s first quarter tally. The good news: That’s up from No. 35 in the fourth quarter.
June 30th, 2009
Comcast to bundle WiMAX in home + mobile Internet package
Comcast will partner with Clearwire to offer a new Internet package that will bundle Clearwire’s WiMAX mobile broadband with Comcast’s cable Internet, according to a report from CNET’s Maggie Reardon.
This isn’t a surprise. Last year, Comcast was part of the consortium of companies that invested in the big Sprint-Clearwire WiMAX deal, so lots of commentators (including this one) have assumed that part of Comcast’s deal would be to help bring WiMAX to market in bundled Internet deals.
Clearwire has launched WiMAX in four markets: Portland (OR), Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Baltimore (which originally launched under the Sprint Xohm brand). Comcast will launch its WiMAX bundle in Portland first and then in the other three cities by the end of the year.
Reardon explains how Comcast will be selling the bundles:
Comcast will be selling 4G [WiMAX] wireless access as part of an Internet bundle to Comcast subscribers. To entice new subscribers, Comcast is offering the new 4G wireless with its 12 Mbps download cable modem service, plus a free 802.11g router for $50 a month for the first 12 months. The data card used for the 4G wireless, which fits into a laptop, costs $99. But subscribers who sign up for the package with a two-year commitment get the data card for free. After the first 12 months, subscribers will then pay $43 per month for the 12 Mbps broadband service and $30 extra per month for 4G wireless service. The 4G wireless service is only available in Comcast’s cable territory, but subscribers who travel to other cities where Clearwire’s network is operational will be able to access the network at no additional cost.
New customers signing up for Comcast’s triple play bundle of TV, phone, and Internet can add the 4G wireless component for $30 extra a month. So with the introductory price of $99 a month for the first year, the total would be $130 a month. After the first year, that bundle increases to $130 per month, so it would cost subscribers with the 4G wireless service $160 a month.
For subscribers who want more ubiquitous coverage, Comcast is offering a 3G/4G service that provides wireless connectivity on the Clearwire 4G network when it is available and on Sprint Nextel’s 3G wireless service in other areas where 4G is not available. The cost of this service is an additional $20 per month. Existing Comcast customers can add the new service for $30 more a month to their existing packages. And they can add the nationwide access with 3G access for $20 more per month.
The 3G/WiMAX bundle is a nice deal since it costs $50/month and the standard 3G mobile broadband plans from AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint typically cost $60/month. The WiMAX 4G service is advertised at speeds of 4 Mbps upload and 500 Kpbs downloads — which is about double the usual 3G speeds. When I tested the WiMAX network in Baltimore at its launch last fall, I got speeds of about 5 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, but that was before lots users were on the network.
For now, the WiMAX bundle will be most useful to those who do a lot of traveling around their local area, such as real estate agents and local sales people. Next year, it will become a lot more interesting to nationwide travelers.
Clearwire’s WiMAX build-out will include six more cities in 2009: Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle. But, 2010 will be the year that mobile WiMAX truly spreads across the U.S. with Clearwire promising to light up WiMAX in more than 50 additional cities, including New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area. In fact, the Clearwire WiMAX deployments are already underway in most of those big metros.
See also: Beyond mobile broadband, WiMAX is about blowing up the wireless business model
June 11th, 2009
U.S. CTO: Infrastructure growth needs private sector investment
The technology backbone of the United States needs a major overhaul and government alone can’t do it, the nation’s first chief technology officer said today. It’s going to take a cooperative effort, including a massive influx of “hundreds of billions” of private capital dollars, for the U.S. to catch up to its global peers.
CTO Aneesh Chopra delivered a keynote address this morning at the Consumer Electronics Association’s Digital Downtown event in New York City. The U.S., he said, is “dead last” on the global stage when it comes to the tech infrastructure and yet bandwidth usage in the U.S. is expected to increase five-fold by 2013.
“We’ve stood still while the rest of the world has caught up or exceeded us,” he said.
The U.S. is going to have to bring “all stakeholders to the table” for this discussion, he said. “We want equity, growth, application value…we have multiple public priorities, and the bulk of capital [investment]…will be a private sector endeavor.”
In his keynote, Chopra outlined the four areas, or “pillars,” of growth in need of attention: harnessing the potential for economic growth; innovation and policy reform in areas such as energy and education; increasing secure connectivity across the nation; and using “retail 2.0″ strategies in government efforts, such as in employment and social services.
June 10th, 2009
Barry Diller: The Internet 'Absolutely' Will Become a 'Paid System'. Time Projection: Within 5 Years
The days of the free Internet will draw to a close over the next five years, according to the chairman and chief executive of IAC, the interactive services company which operates a collection of more than 30 Internet sites which produce $1.5 billion a year in revenue.
The only missing link, according to Barry Diller, who cut his teeth building up over-the-air and cable TV networks: a good billing system, akin to Amazon’s “one-click” button or the Apple iPhone’s slick downloading of paid applications.
“I absolutely believe the Internet is passing from its free days into a paid system. Inevitably, I promise you, it will be paid,” Diller said in a keynote discussion opening up the Advertising 2.0 conference held at his company’s futuristic glass building alongside the Hudson River in Manhattan. “Not every single thing, but anything of value. “
The fact that content and services on the Internet so far have been largely supplied for no charge is “an accident of historical moment that will be corrected,” he said, in an era of “creative chaos” that will span the next three to five years.
So far, news, content and service suppliers were “afraid of not being dinosaurs and slapped everything up on the Internet for free,’’ he said, in an interchange with BusinessWeek media columnist Jon Fine.
But, that will be change. The New York Times, for instance, likely will have to go beyond the “pay wall” in order to cover the cost of its worldwide reporting corps, even if it means having 1, 2 or 3 million paid subscribers, instead of 20 million unique visitors a month. And people will pay – if it is quality they’re buying.
“People have paid for content,’’ he said. “They always have.”
IAC’s Match.com, a dating service, already charges subscription fees. IAC also operates Ask.com, the search service, UrbanSpoon, one of those iPhone apps, Citysearch, a local information service, and The Daily Beast, a content site headed by former New Yorker editor Tina Brown.
Inevitably, Diller said, the “base model” of the Internet will be paid, at the end of the chaos. The forms will include not just subscriptions and individual one-time purchases, but rapid-fire micropayments and other mechanisms.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 2nd, 2009
Should we share our Wi-Fi in the name of cloud?
Novel idea of the day: Allow Wi-Fi routers to share bandwidth with the outside world via a side channel.
Dana Blankenhorn over at our latest addition—SmartPlanet.com—makes the following suggestion:
Give each router its own on-off switch, so that it will remain on after the computer it is tied to is turned off. Then provide software in the router to allocate bandwidth, between the local network it’s linked to and the outside world.
This “side channel” would consist of those bits not being used by the home network. If you’re home and downloading software or a movie, in other words, you take all that bandwidth. When you’re away, however, when the computer is off, that bandwidth becomes available to others.
This is the opposite of what happens now. Right now I can only use others’ routers while their PCs are turned on. I am stealing their bandwidth while they are using it. With a side channel, I can share their bandwidth when they are out.
Sounds great, but I see problems ahead. Firewalls aside, I smell a security risk. Yes, I know my WEP key is a joke, but there’s a perception gap at work.
If enough folks and routers took advantage of this proposal we’d have a Wi-Fi cloud lickety-split. Thoughts?
May 22nd, 2009
Long live the Sneakernet: Computing's most resilient network
When Amazon Web Services’ latest—and arguably most valuable—service is a system that allows you to ship terabytes of data to the cloud via snail mail you just have to chuckle. Yes folks, for all the fancy talk of cloud computing, terabytes—not to mention petabytes—of data and technological advancement the Sneakernet is alive and kicking.
The Sneakernet, where someone puts data on a disk, flash drive etc. and runs it to another computer, is arguably one of our most enduring networks. I still use it all the time. I’m sure I could network my home devices together, but the Sneakernet works just fine.
Multiply the Sneakernet on a grand scale and you understand why Amazon is launching a service called Import/Export. There’s too much data to move to the cloud and not enough bandwidth to get it there quickly. Why take five days to move data—and hog up all your bandwidth—when you can toss it on a storage brick of some sort and just overnight it?
May 22nd, 2009
The time is now for Mozy and cloud backup services
Here’s my top three reasons why I’m considering a cloud offering to backup my most valuable data - my personal digital music and photo collections.
- The cloud won’t fall off the desk and become damaged.
- Kids can’t spill their juice on the cloud.
- In case of fire, those files on the cloud will still be safe when the smoke clears.
I started thinking about this when I met with Steve Fairbanks, director of Product Management for Mozy, at the EMC World conference earlier this week. Mozy, which is now owned by EMC, is an online storage and backup-and-recovery product that’s mostly targeting consumers but also attracting some interest from business customers.
The idea isn’t new. Yahoo had a product called Briefcase (which has since folded) and AOL had a similar service called XDrive (also shuttered now). Those products were probably ahead of their time - before consumers had confidence in online services and well before the broadband pipelines were fat enough to handle big uploads.
But times have changed. These days, customers pay bills online and freely type in their credit card numbers on online shopping sites, confident in the security measures that are in place. They’ve also become comfortable with online - aka cloud - services such as Web mail and social media sites.
With EMC - known for its storage offerings - as the parent company behind Mozy, there’s a level of comfort in knowing that it’s not a startup that could potentially fold if it burns through all of its VC funding. There are competitors in this space, though - such as box.net, as well as up-and-comers that have some interesting approaches, such as dropbox.
It’s not just music and photos, though. Important documents - from insurance policies to tax returns - can also be scanned and uploaded to a modern day safety deposit box on the Web. For Mozy, that opens the door wider to potential business customers as consumer products continue to influence business operations, just as it did for instant messaging services to social networks.
Mozy offers consumers 2 gigabytes of storage for free or unlimited storage for $4.95 per month. Business users have monthly, per-user and per-gig prices.
May 13th, 2009
Cisco, Clearwire announce WiMax partnership
Clearwire and Cisco today announced a deal that would make Cisco the main supplier of infrastructure equipment that will power the new WiMax technology, called Clear 4G, across the United States.
In addition, Cisco will work to introduce the first mobile WiMax device later this year.
The companies didn’t provide financial terms of the partnership or details about new products. But Cisco told CNET that the devices will be sold under the Linksys brand and are expected to be introduced later this year.
April 30th, 2009
Comcast's broadband subs shine: First quarter better than expected
Comcast’s triple play of video, broadband and phone service proved to be a winning formula in the cable giant’s first quarter.
The company delivered first quarter earnings of $732 million, or 27 cents a share, on revenue of $8.38 billion, up 5 percent from a year ago. Those results were 4 cents better than Wall Street expected.
More importantly, Comcast added more subscribers than expected in most metrics. For instance, Comcast added 329,000 high speed Internet subscribers and Credit Suisse projected 257,000. Digital video subscriber additions of 288,000 were also better than expected. Meanwhile, Comcast added 298,000 phone subscribers. The company lost 78,000 basic video subscribers, but that was better than expected too.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.
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