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How fast is your broadband? M-Lab, a partnership between the New America Foundation and Google meant to measure Internet connections, has given Google two years worth of actual broadband connection data, as measured by users. That's more than 300TB of data, which Google has imported into its Public Data Explorer for easy viewing and analysis. The results are remarkable.
Measuring Internet access has been tricky for years. Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation told Ars back in 2009, when M-Lab got underway, that detailed network data about speeds, latency, jitter, and more used to be in the public domain until the government-run NSFnet was privatized in the earlier 1990s. Today, though, it's hard to know what speeds ISPs are actually offering (knowing what speeds they advertise, by contrast, is simple). M-Lab has distributed testing tools for two years now and its servers have recorded data on the results. One of the most basic measurements is pure speed, measured in megabits per second. When these real-world speeds are charted on a map, they make Internet speed differences obvious in a way often obscured by simple lists and numbers. For instance, the two images below compare Internet download speeds in US states to Internet download speeds in European countries (many of which are the same size as US states). Speeds are medians.
Google maps 300TB of real-world Internet speed data
The folks at Bandwidth.com, which offers wholesale voice services to many application providers, launched a website with a broadband map that will offer people insights about the quality of service, the speeds of service and the price others have paid for broadband available in their area.
The map borrows from the National Broadband Map – launched last month by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration — in the form of an API call that takes some of the data shown on the federally funded map, but it also adds true crowdsourcing and machine learning to deliver a greater variety of information. David Morken, the CEO of Bandwidth.com, says his map, found at broadband.com, uses information pulled from a variety of other broadband services in addition to the broadband map. For example, it uses data from Ookla as well as information carriers provide to Bandwidth.com in order to sell their services to the small and medium-sized businesses. Generally, carriers have been reluctant to deliver the level of detail in their mapping data that Bandwidth.com will deliver, but Morken is confident carriers will see the benefits form greater transparency through greater sales. He added that having a level of accountability that high-quality data will provide is a benefit as consolidation continues across the wireline and wireless industry.
Bandwidth.com Launches a Better Broadband Map
After talking to more than 1,000 mobile phone consumers in the United States, Oracle released information about how people today use mobile devices for shopping and commerce-related activities, as well as what they hope to do with mobile devices in the future.
In the study, it became apparent that consumers increasingly rely on their mobile devices to do comparisons and research before purchasing products or services. About 48% of consumers conceded they use their mobile devices to look up product ratings or to find promotions. One of the more surprising findings in the survey was that the 35-to-54 year old segment is the age group with the fastest rate of growth in terms of researching and transacting online. While the 18-to-34 segment still dominates for actual use, the usage in the 35-to-54 bracket nearly tripled. For those older than 35, it was twice as likely they'd leverage a mobile device to research products and services than their younger brethren (growing from 19% to 36% for users aged 55 and older and 23% to 44% for those aged 35-54 from the previous year’s research). Of the younger respondents in the18-34 bracket, 60% said they use their mobile device to research products and services (up from 41 percent the previous year). In addition, more than two times as many consumers aged 35 and older have made a purchase via a mobile phone since 2009, compared to a 74% increase for consumers aged 18-34.
Oracle survey reveals people of different ages experience mobile differently
The use of traditional phone service has dropped to the point that broadband connections now exceed the number of landlines in Illinois.
Figures released by federal and state regulators showed that high-speed Internet connections outnumbered landlines in 2010 for the first time. Landline usage in the state dropped 31 percent from 2001 to 6.2 million, while the number of high-speed connections jumped from 423,000 to 6.4 million in that period. Landlines have trailed mobile wireless connections since 2005. Illinois had about 11.6 million wireless subscribers last year. “We expect to see these same trends continue going forward,” said Jim Zolnierek, director of telecommunications for the Illinois Commerce Commission. Not all high-speed connections are substitutes for traditional phone lines. But the accelerating shift from landline phones to wireless and Internet-based services was a major reason behind a rewrite last year of the state’s 26-year-old telecommunications act. Gov. Quinn (D-IL) signed the reforms into law last summer. In return for more regulatory freedom to set rates and invest in new technology, the major telecommunications carriers agreed to “safe harbor” packages of basic landline service that cannot increase in cost. “The last figure we saw, a little over 20 percent of households (nationwide) are cell only,” said David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board.
High-speed Internet connections outnumber landlines in Illinois
The cash-strapped BBC World Service has a new patron: The United States State Department. The State Department has made an informal arrangement to send hundreds of thousands of dollars to the BBC in order to develop high-tech anti-jamming tools for television and Internet services.
It appears the money is being spent to help the BBC World Service circumvent China's "Great Firewall." At the moment, the BBC World Service is being jammed in China, Libya, Iran and a host of other nations. While the amount of money -- described by The Guardian as a “low six-figure sum” (in British pounds?) -- might sound small, the BBC World Service is currently in financial shambles following austerity measures and defunding. Fast Company has previously reported on how the BBC was forced to cut Arabic-language services in the midst of the Egyptian revolution by budgetary concerns. The State Department will be sending the money from Washington to London to pay for multiple high-tech anti-jamming services.
State Department to Pay for BBC's Anti-Jamming Campaign in China, Iran
An analysis of NPR’s connections on Twitter shows it has the sort of network you'd expect to see from a left-of-center person or institution.
That conclusion comes from researchers at Duke University, who set out to see if they could use the social graph to accurately plot the ideological affiliations of political candidates. Using the voting networks of politicians to establish a liberal-to-conservative gradient, the researchers then analyzed the candidates’ Twitter networks — ie. who they followed and who followed them — and found the results described a curve that matched that of the voting records. Next, the researchers looked at the Twitter networks of a variety of individuals and brands in the media business. The results were pretty much what you'd expect: A curve with right-wing people and outlets like Michelle Malkin and The Weekly Standard at one end, left wingers like Ezra Klein and The Nation at the other end, and BBC News and C-Span near the center point. The only surprises were how far to the left some mainstream entities, such as Katie Couric and the Washington Post, fell (although that would be no surprise at all to those who think the entire mainstream media is shot through with liberal bias).
Of course, the results don't directly get at the ideologies of the entities themselves, only at the makeup of the networks that surround them. “We would say that our estimates relate to the perception of a given entity,” says David Sparks, one of the Duke researchers. “However, for the purposes of our paper and possibly for thinking about the media, perceptions may be what is actually important.”
Science Settles It: NPR’s Liberal, But Not Very
MetroPCS, the upstart cellular company, is now poised to take over T-Mobile's spot as America's fourth largest carrier, has fundamentally changed the antitrust dynamic in the wireless industry.
MetroPCS founder and CEO Roger Linquist has long pursued a strategy of targeting markets with dense populations that are cheap to serve -- namely big cities. MetroPCS will make a roaming agreement to use a competitor's networks in a mid-tier city, but it doesn't open stores to offer local residents service, nor does it build its own towers there. That lets MetroPCS keep the large majority of its traffic on its own dirt-cheap urban network while Linquist lets others serve expensive suburban and rural communities. Net result: MetroPCS has rock-bottom costs and impressive profit margins. Last year it cost the company just $18.49 a month to provide wireless service to an average customer. (AT&T, Verizon and Sprint don't release comparable figures, perhaps because they would be much higher.) MetroPCS's low costs lets the company have healthy margins even as it underprices the rest of the market for service. MetroPCS's basic package of unlimited talk, text and Web runs $40 per month, and that's including taxes. AT&T cites MetroPCS and its smaller peer, Leap Wireless as key examples of robust competition.
The upstart company that made the AT&T-mobile merger possible
CTIA-The Wireless Association announced a mobile app rating initiative that is expected to be available by end of year 2011. The program was developed based on CTIA’s Guidelines for App Content Classification and Ratings, which call for voluntary self-certification of apps. In addition, this initiative is a part of the wireless industry’s continued commitment to empowering consumers since the app ratings will offer the information parents need to determine which apps are appropriate for their children. Participating CTIA member app stores have agreed to adopt the Guidelines. CTIA is also issuing a request for proposal (RFP) to build and maintain an online questionnaire and database system for the purpose of rating app content. This system will allow developers to enter information about their app’s content, during the on-boarding process at participating app storefronts. Based on the information supplied, an age-appropriate content rating is applied to each app.
CTIA Launches App Rating Initiative CTIA Launches App-Rating Initiative (B&C)
Data traffic on the nation’s wireless networks jumped by 110 percent in 2010, CTIA, the wireless industry’s lobbying group, reported in a finding that it says underscores the urgency of its calls for regulators to free up more spectrum for wireless broadband.
The big jump in wireless data use was matched by a 64 percent rise in MMS messaging, which involves sending data files, music, video, or pictures, CTIA found in its biannual survey of the wireless industry. The survey found a 57 percent jump in the number of Americans with smart phones such as the iPhone or Droid. Texting also remains popular, with 31 percent more sent. Overall, the report found that 96 percent of Americans had some kind of mobile phone at the end of 2010, compared to 91.2 percent in 2009. The number of wireless subscribers increased by 6 percent to 302.9 million.
New Wireless Data Likely to Fuel Spectrum Debate CTIA (survey results)
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski delivered a speech to CTIA Wireless 2011, noting that spectrum is at the top of his agenda. There are four core reasons why: American competitiveness, opportunity, the enormous dollar benefits of freeing up spectrum, and the enormous costs of delay.
"Always challenging ourselves; always adapting; always looking to the next horizon. That's the American way," Chairman Genachowski said -- and then he challenged the audience to apply that same spirit to our broadband challenges. "The bottom line," he said, "mobile broadband is being adopted faster than any computing platform in history, and could surpass all prior platforms in their potential to drive economic growth and opportunity. But there's a catch. This explosion in demand for mobile services places unsustainable demands on our invisible infrastructure - spectrum. Spectrum is the oxygen that allows all of these mobile innovations to breathe."
Genachowski Visits CTIA Wireless 2011 FCC's Genachowski defends data roaming, harps on spectrum crunch (Fierce) Genachowski Pushes for Swift Movement on Spectrum During CTIA Show (B&C) CTIA: FCC's Genachowski on AT&T, 5G and spectrum (Connected Planet) Highlight reel: Genachowski at CTIA (The Hill) Spectrum Fact Sheet (FCC)