April 2011

Comcast is expected to announce a new, fast residential broadband service, called Extreme 105, available to consumers in more than 40 million homes in San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington (DC), and Miami, among others.

The service delivers data at 105 megabits per second — more than 60 times faster than a T-1 line, which most businesses rely on, Comcast says. The new service can download a high-definition movie in 8 minutes, compared with 2 hours and 15 minutes for a standard, 6-mbps Internet connection at home. A TV show would take 20 seconds, instead of 7 minutes. Comcast hopes to whet the public’s insatiable appetite for high bandwidth as more consumers use Internet-connected devices such as televisions, tablet computers, smartphones and gaming consoles at home. The Extreme 105 mbps service, which also offers uploadable speed of up to 10 mbps, is available for new or existing customers at an introductory price of $105 for 12 months, part of a triple-play bundle. Service also comes with a wireless home-networking gateway that turns a house into its own Wi-Fi hot spot. Comcast, which offers its estimated 17 million U.S. Internet customers a variety of broadband speeds, will also offer Extreme 105 on a stand-alone basis.

As more Americans learn how to shop with their cellphones, Washington is trying to figure out who should answer the call to regulate this new form of commerce.

A variety of competing business sectors — from telecoms to financial institutions to Internet companies — are launching pilots of new technology they hope will replace consumer reliance on credit cards with the wave or tap of a mobile phone. The problem is, no one knows which agency should regulate. “They want to make your mobile phone akin to your wallet,” said Suzanne Martindale, an attorney and associate policy analyst in Consumers Union’s San Francisco office, who recently co-authored a white paper about mobile payments. “But the laws haven't necessarily caught up to the state of the payment technology.” In particular, Martindale said, banking laws and policies governing private data and consumer protection may need to be extended to cover mobile payments. Mobile payments may cross regulatory domains covered by many different federal agencies. The Federal Reserve Board, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and other agencies regulate banking. The Federal Communications Commission has authority over wireless carriers. The Federal Trade Commission, meanwhile, protects consumers from fraud and privacy violations.

The Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Boston have been trying to address this issue — among other questions surrounding mobile payments — in a working group of wireless carriers, issuing and acquiring banks, credit card brands, payment processors and trade associations. The group has met five times over the past 16 months. In a report issued March 25, the group concluded that members want “to understand sooner rather than later the regulatory focus and oversight regimen of each agency in the mobile payments world, as well as the applicability of current regulations and laws to the mobile environment, in order to avoid potential missteps as they proceed to develop mobile payments solutions.”

Fujitsu has taken much of the UK telecoms industry by surprise by announcing plans to build a high-speed broadband network that would reach 5 million homes in rural Britain.

Few had anticipated that the Japanese information technology services group would seek to solve the problem of providing superfast broadband in rural areas. BT and Virgin Media are rolling out high-speed broadband networks, but they are largely focused on urban areas. This is where the companies have the best chance of securing a return on their large investments. Fujitsu’s planned £2bn high speed network, based on optical fibre cables, would cover 5m homes in countryside areas scattered across England, Scotland and Wales. Those communities have been at serious risk of never receiving superfast broadband because of the greater cost of building high-speed networks in the countryside compared with towns and cities. Fujitsu’s plans are contingent on it securing at least £500m of the £830m of public funds that the government last year said could help pay for superfast broadband in rural areas. Andy Stevenson, managing director of network solutions at Fujitsu’s UK operations, said that “without government subsidy it becomes extremely difficult to make a case” for the company’s planned high- speed network. Fujitsu’s plans are also dependent on it being able to run fibre through BT’s underground ducts, as well as string cables between telegraph poles. Fujitsu wants to build a fibre network that extends to homes and businesses. Its “fibre to the home” plans mean that broadband download speeds could be faster than on large parts of BT’s high speed network. However, after rolling out its network, Fujitsu is not proposing to supply consumers and businesses with broadband. Instead, the Japanese company is pursuing a wholesale business model.

"There are a lot of wolves at the door when it comes to spectrum," House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) said, but he conceded there was a huge demand behind all that huffing and puffing.