Network management

The White House is working to “improve Wi-Fi connectivity,” according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. According to The New York Times, it’s using Starlink to address the issue, which White House officials blame on the property’s spotty cell service and “overtaxed” Wi-Fi infrastructure. Huh.

AT&T ran a wavelength that carried two 800 Gigabit Ethernet circuits across 296 kilometers of its commercial long-distance fiber network, creating "a full, uninterrupted data path utilizing a single light frequency across the entire fiber length between two points.” Practically speaking, this means AT&T can brace itself for the incoming barrage of network traffic, which is set to double by 2028. Importantly, AT&T's trial took place “with other customers’ live traffic alongside it,” said Dell’Oro Group analyst Jimmy Yu.

Network performance is never more front-of-mind than when a natural disaster strikes and connectivity is a lifeline to first responders, family and friends. But many service providers operate in regions where extreme heat or cold can create year-round challenges to managing their network infrastructure. Kim Bowman-Scott, VP of field operations, west; and Ron Wilson, director of network service operations for Optimum, say extreme heat can cause the most network management headaches.

There is an interesting trend of internet service providers selling broadband products that are not always guaranteed to be at the same speed and quality as other customers. I've especially noticed this practice in recent years from big fixed wireless providers that sell home broadband using cellular spectrum. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have all reserved the right to throttle customers any time that the network gets too busy. It’s easy to understand why cellular companies would throttle home broadband customer first—they are protecting their cellular customers.

Comcast has pushed ahead with a new mobile offering aimed at customers who take one of the operator's higher-end home broadband speed tiers. Comcast combined that announcement with a wave of free speed upgrades—including faster upstream speeds—across its prepaid and postpaid home broadband services. On the mobile end, Comcast is now offering new and existing home broadband customers an unlimited line of Xfinity mobile for a year when they subscribe to broadband speeds of 400 Mbit/s or faster.

This paper examines the parallels between historical telecommunications regulation and current proposals for increasing competition in technology markets, focusing on three key market characteristics the sectors share: network effects, economies of scale, and switching costs. Regulators have addressed these issues in telecommunications markets through mandatory interconnection among telephone networks, compulsory asset sharing, and number portability requirements.

US cable operators have been struggling to regain their footing in broadband as they try to grow subscribers again in the midst of an array of pressures including fiber and fixed wireless access competition, a slow housing move market and the impact of the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program. Several US cable operators are responding by leaning into convergence.

It’s been a strange year for internet performance in the United States. Data from the HighSpeedInternet.com speed test indicates the overall improvement of internet speed in the country has slowed by more than 50%, an unexpected development as both cable and fiber internet have seen substantial technological advances. Are internet service providers dragging their feet with the next wave of internet tech? Thankfully, the disappointing trend isn’t present in the data for all providers.

There is a new network tool that’s starting to be eased into networks that can significantly lower latency. The new standard L4S (Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput) was released in January 2023. Comcast has started to work L4S into their networks in some of its major markets. They report that the technology can cut load latency at least in half, in some cases bringing the latency under load to close to the ping latency. The real key to making this work is to have the largest content providers build L4S into their networks.

OpenVault released the Broadband Insights Report for the fourth quarter of 2024. Highlights include: