A frequent refrain in US political circles is that there is a dearth of competition among broadband providers. This thinking typically stems from the fact that most consumers have a choice of two broadband providers: the telco and the cableco. This, in turn, is a result of the inconvenient fact that those two businesses are the only ones that have built networks that connect to consumer homes. It’s kind of hard to compete with broadband network operators if you don’t have a broadband network.

Read Full Article

The other day I was asked “What’s the point of managing traffic in a fiber-to-the-prem network?” Surely 50Mbps to the home will address any possible delivery issues for any variety of services. I thought for a moment and replied, "Why would you offer 50Mbps? Who do you suspect will end up monetizing that big dumb pipe?" Surely not the broadband operator.

Read Full Article

Continuing on this thread…

I have frequently heard the argument that while most consumers do not understand what a gigabyte is, neither did they understand what a kilowatt hour was, and no one is claiming that electric utilities have it all wrong.

Read Full Article

The subject of capping and metering bandwidth currently occupies the thinking of many broadband marketing executives. This is completely understandable. Usage continues to grow and shows no signs of abating.

Read Full Article

The recent FCC Order instructing Comcast to cease and desist from network management practices that involved blocking or throttling of certain applications actually contains a glimmer of hope for service providers contemplating premium service “channels” as a better way to manage traffic (and make money in the process).

Read Full Article