broadband

Korean broadband bound for Iran

The Korea Herald reports that KT -- the country's biggest telecom company -- will help build a broadband infrastructure in Iran (thanks to Om Malik for the link). The $26 million deal will see 100,000 broadband lines rolled out in Iran's 20 biggest cities by 2005, the paper says.

Another sign that South Korea is getting props for being leagues ahead of most of the rest of the world in making broadband part of everyday life. We wrote about the country's lessons for the U.S. here, and News.com editor Michael Kannellos visited the country … Read more

Don't get caught in the flash crowd

Vint Cerf, one of the Net's original creators, stopped by the Intel Developer Forum today to chat about future infrastructure headaches. One serious problem will be "flash crowds," he says ?? essentially localized traffic jams resulting from intense and sudden (and often unpredictable interest) in a particular node on the Net.

Companies like Akamai have been helping deal with these traffic jams for a while, and peer to peer software helps distribute content in efficient ways that evade bottlenecks. But as more and more devices get connected ?? think everyone wearing a Dick Tracy Internet watch, carrying a 3G … Read more

SBC: We're fiberlicious. Really.

MSNBC is carrying a piece about SBC Communications building a fiber-to-the-premises project in Pabst Farm, Wisc. Video on demand, fast connections--everything you could want from the broadband of the future, right?

Maybe. In San Francisco's Mission Bay development, SBC also provides fiber directly to apartments. But when Jim Hu and I visited, we were surprised to find that consumers still only had the option to get Internet download speeds equivalent to DSL--for the same price as DSL. To the consumer, the fiber made no difference at all. There might be video-on-demand services, but the technology's blazing broadband potential … Read more

No more seeing red?

Newsweek has a nice scoop on TiVo and Netflix trying to team up to offer movies on-demand through the TiVo service and a broadband connection. No more waiting a pesky two days for that lovely red envelope to come.

Sure, that's progress. Who wouldn't want convenience? But part of the reason I love Netflix is forgetting what I put on my list, getting the DVDs in the mail and tearing them open to see what came. It's the same reason I would sign up for every free catalog I could find when I was 8. Yeah, that'… Read more

DSL putting on blinker, looking into fast lane

Verizon Communications said today that it's offering 3-megabits-per-second DSL speeds for $40 a month, hoping to attract those gamers and other speed demons who are salivating over cable's recent speed hikes.

Part of the good news here is that the market price point for the lower 1.5mbps tier appears to be locked in at about $30--even if SBC Communications pretends that that's a special, one-time-only offer that just happens to be renewed every time.

iTunes crack

This is getting dangerous. I was up late last night on an iTunes binge, and by the end of my streak I was down $30. It's too easy to click, click, click your way through tracks that you haven't listened to since high school.

This reminds me of the heady days when Napster thrived. It was the first site I visited when I logged on in the morning, a song list scribbled out the night before in my hand. I hoarded hundreds of songs. Thankfully, the RIAA and CNET's IT watchdogs cut me off.

The latest generation … Read more

Disney puts MovieBeam on ice

Check out Stefanie Olsen's scoop on Disney delaying MovieBeam, its digital video service. MovieBeam broadcasts data signals to a set-top box that stores films on a hard drive. Users can then watch the movie when they want after paying between $1.99 and $3.99 for the work.

Disney prides itself as the world's most powerful content provider. While it can count on ABC to broadcast its wares into homes, Disney remains fearful of being shut out of digital distribution. Just look at how hard the company pushed to throw a monkey wrench into the proposed America Online-Time … Read more

States lagging in broadband

Has the United States missed the broadband boat? Several articles have been published recently, by Reuters, BusinessWeek and Broadbandreports.com saying it has.

The doom and gloomers refer to figures from a report published by the Organization for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2003 that states the U.S. has dropped from third to tenth in broadband penetration--behind countries such as South Korea, Japan, Belgium and Canada.

These articles argue that even though carriers in the United States are starting to sign up more subscribers, their services' speeds are much slower--and yet more expensive--than in other countries.

So … Read more

GOP's broadband agenda

Delegates at this week's Republican National Convention spelled out their domestic policy on broadband, setting a goal of giving all Americans affordable access by 2007, according to IDG News Service.

The document circulating around the convention advocated a moratorium on broadband access taxes to spur growth as its central pillar. It noted that the amount of spectrum for wireless broadband nearly doubled since the Bush administration began its term, IDG said.

For a perspective on where Bush and Kerry stand on broadband, I'll point again to John Borland's detailed breakdown in a recent CNET News.com special … Read more