Virgin Media plans to start rolling out a broadband service providing speeds of up to 100Mbps to homes in the UK by the end of this year.
The high-speed service, announced on Thursday, is aimed at "tech-savvy" customers, the company said. Virgin's network will provide "very close to advertised headline speeds" due to its use of cable, rather than the more widespread ADSL technology used by competitors, it added.
The Australian federal government has released exposure draft legislation on how the National Broadband Network Company should operate.
The National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 establishes ownership, governance and sale arrangements for NBN Co. The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures - Access Arrangements) Bill 2010 covers access arrangements that reflect NBN Co's wholesale-only status. "These bills deliver on the Rudd Government's commitment to change the competitive dynamics of the telecommunications sector by ensuring NBN Co will operate as a wholesale-only company, offering open and equivalent access," Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said.
Cyber attacks, such as spam emails and computer hacking, cost businesses around the world during 2009 an average of £1.2 million, according to new research. Forty-three per cent of the 2,100 businesses surveyed, as part of computer security firm Symantec's 'State of the Enterprise Security Report', all lost confidential or proprietary data during 2009. The report, which was published today, also found that 75 per cent of the businesses polled all experienced some type of cyber crime in the last 12 months.
The explosive growth of mobile broadband has been due to the popularity of 3G enabled devices such as phones and notebooks but now the technology has a new domain to rule: the car. Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Qualcomm all exhibited different flavors of Internet-connected cars at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, showing the capabilities for not just consumers but the automobile industry too.
Federal Communications Commission
Friday, March 19, 2010
9:00 A.M. to 4:00
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-10-315A1.doc
The Committee is expected to ratify a recommendation regarding truth-in-billing to be filed in CG Docket 09-158, CC Docket 98-170 and WC Docket 04-36 (In the Matter of Consumer Information and Disclosure, Truth-in-billing and Billing Format, IP-enabled Services, Notice of Inquiry), which was provisionally adopted at its February 12, 2010 meeting. Further amendments to the TIB recommendation may also be considered. The Committee is also expected to receive briefings, or consider recommendations regarding, the National Broadband Plan, the Consumer Information and Disclosure NOI, and the open internet proceeding. The Committee will receive reports from its working groups and may also consider other matters within the jurisdiction of the Commission. A limited amount of time on the agenda will be available for oral comments from the public attending at the meeting site. Meetings are open to the public and are broadcast live with open captioning over the Internet from the FCC Live web page at www.fcc.gov/live/.
For Further Information Contact: Scott Marshall, Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, 202-418-2809 (voice) or 202-418-0179 (TTY), scott.marshall@fcc.gov (e-mail).
House Commerce Committee
Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet
Thursday, March 4, 2010
10am
INVITED WITNESSES:
FCC Broadband Strategy National Purpose Team
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Thursday, March 11, 2010
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
http://www.itif.org/rsvp/event.php?id=4
Congress has insisted that a national broadband plan specifically address "national purposes" - job creation and economic growth, consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety and homeland security, health care, energy independence and efficiency, and other issues.
ITIF is pleased to host the team from the Federal Communications Commission spearheading the development of recommendations to integrate broadband into key components of society - and people's daily lives. They will discuss changes in health care reimbursement systems, the creation of a nationwide broadband wireless public safety network, and other recommendations. The National Purposes recommendations promise to set an ambitious agenda for policy change across government and into the private and not-profit sectors.
Join us for a discussion of these innovative ideas for the broadband's future in daily life.
Moderator:
Robert Atkinson
President, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Participants:
Kristen Kane
National Purposes Director, FCC
Nick Sinai
Energy and Environment Director, FCC
Eugene Huang
Government Performance Director, FCC
Dr. Mohit Kaushal
Healthcare Director, FCC
Steve Midgley
Education Director, FCC
Elana Berkowitz
Economic Opportunity Director, FCC
Jennifer Manner
Public Safety and Homeland Security Director, FCC
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski highlighted some of the FCC's working recommendations related to public safety and homeland security that will be addressed in the National Broadband Plan.
He said the FCC's goal is to develop the best short-term and long-term plans for America's first responders. Public safety must have consistent and prompt access to secure, robust networks of the highest quality and first responders should be equipped with state-of-the-art devices and applications that are 100 percent interoperable and easy to use. The top priority, he said, is ensuring that public safety has nationwide access to interoperable broadband wireless communications. The public safety portion of the National Broadband Plan will address three general areas relating to public safety and homeland security.
The Plan will:
1) Recommend concrete steps for the deployment of a nationwide interoperable wireless broadband network for public safety.
2) Focus on increasing cybersecurity and critical infrastructure survivability of broadband networks.
3) Propose measures to advance Next Generation 9-1-1 services and new public alerting initiatives that leverage broadband technology.
The Plan:
The Plan recommends:
[Commentary] How much bandwidth does a business need? As the Federal Communications Commission considers a national broadband plan, it's an important question.
Do we really need the gigabit broadband that Google is planning to experiment with, or are the speeds already commonly available fast enough? Coursey suggests 5Mbps, which is a fairly common speed that is available today, typically from cable modems. 5Mbps Internet connection could be shared by a 40 or more users, provided they aren't all watching video (or downloading it) at the same time. It wasn't so long ago that companies with 50, 60 or even more users commonly shared a single 1.544Mbps T-1 connection and thought its performance was spectacular. Today, with the advent of VoIP telephone systems, video conferencing, streaming audio, and other bandwidth-intensive desktop apps, more bandwidth is required. Getting 5Mbps Internet to every business (and home) in America will be a lofty achievement. While cable modems and other fast connections are common in many areas, much of the nation remains unconnected.
[Commentary] Currently in the broadband stimulus program, the pressure of a Congressionally-imposed funding deadline is once again causing best practices for technology deployment to be sacrificed on the altar of political necessity. The potential damage, financial and otherwise, is huge.
Conversely, a viable solution is simple. The monumental bind we're in is that it's highly unlikely NTIA and RUS can push all of the Round 1 stimulus funds out the door by Sunday, February 28. However, all applications for Round 2 funding are due 15 days later. By the rules for Round 2, applicants' proposals will be rejected if they propose to build broadband in areas already funded. To use a Metro subway analogy to understand this problem's implications, it's not good to bring your train barreling into the station if you don't know if the previous train is still there or has safely pulled away. The Round 2 process is about to crash headlong into Round 1. Round 2 will become a tangled mess. If Congress' goal is to facilitate the quick delivery of broadband to stimulate economic recovery and lay a foundation for economic advancement, prepare to be disappointed. The simple solution is to extend the deadline for Round 2 applicants.
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