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Napster's revenge, or how courts boost P2P

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal said today that file-sharing software is legal, as long as the developer doesn't have any control over the trades like Napster did. That's terrible news for record companies and movie studios, which still see millions of songs and movies traded every day.

But it might be welcome news for broadband companies and subscribers. If you talk to ISPs, they'll privately tell you that most of the traffic that flows over their networks (by volume) is still peer to peer swaps. And a lot of porn, but that's another story. The … Read more

Oh, Ma, where art thou?

Ma Bell today struck deals with all the big name cable conglomerates in hopes of dealing its CallVantage VoIP (voice over IP) service to broadband customers. The company is pinning its hopes on broadband as a last-ditch effort to say in its bread-and-butter voice services business.

I can't help noticing the irony in this. AT&T under C. Michael Armstrong went on a cable acquisition spree during the boom years, sweeping up TCI and then MediaOne to become the largest cable provider. Armstrong went for broke, and in retrospect he had the right idea, but ate crow because … Read more

Telcos buying a new FCC chair?

The NYT writes that telephone companies and other utilities are pouring money into the congressional campaign of Becky Armendariz Klein, a Texas Republican who is widely expected to lose.

Why all the money? If Bush wins re-election, apparently she's on the short list of candidates to replace Michael Powell as head of the FCC. Failing that, a seat on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may be in the works.

Klein, who recently stepped down as chair of the Texas Public Utility Commission, dismisses this interpretation. "I don't think that's the reason at all," she told … Read more

VDSL2 on the way, and line sharing's return

The latest issue of Dave Burstein's DSL Prime is out (though not online yet), and he's got some tidbits on a few companies saying they'll ship pre-standard VDSL2 chips this year. Most chips are expected in 2005 and 2006. His take is that carriers (I think mostly overseas) need to compete with cable's higher speeds, and so are looking at this technology as a possible savior. In the States, the big carriers are concentrating more on fiber optics, it seems.

There's also a good item on the possible return of line sharing, which Covad in … Read more

Broadband passes dial-up in U.S.

According to Nielsen/ NetRatings, more people now log on to the Net through broadband connections than over dial-up. The company says home high-speed Net connections represent 51 percent of the market now, compared to 38 percent a year ago. That's despite a recent plateau in subscriber growth, apparently.

There's still a lag in what people do on broadband networks, though. Our recent poll results showed that most people mostly used broadband for things they could do with dial-up connections ?? read Web sites, send email, etc. People are trickling into real broadband services like streaming audio and video on … Read more

Broadband taxes to rise?

A group of telephone companies trying to reach detente on the network interconnection fees they charge each other has come up with a plan that could effectively involve hiking broadband taxes. It's short on specifics, but says that DSL and cable Net subscribers (which are treated differently today) should both pay into the Universal Service Fund. That's the money that helps subsidize phone connections (but not broadband service) in rural areas, and has helped wire schools for the Net.

Teletruth, a group that has long criticized the phone companies for wasting money and imposing hidden fees that are … Read more

Rural India goes wireless

Rural India has entered the broadband revolution. Yesterday, Akshaya, a rural community in India launched a wireless broadband network that will serve geographic regions that otherwise couldn't even get access to traditional telephone lines or cellular service.

Wireless supporters have long talked about how the technology could be used to link the most remote regions of the world together. Thanks to technology advancements and falling prices on networking gear, building a network like this in a sparsely populated region has become economically feasible. As a result, areas like Akshaya can finally get access to phone and high speed Internet … Read more

Stuck in the slow lane

Remember this, gamblers: Vegas is not automatically lucky, at least on the Internet. Cox confirmed last week that some 200,000 cable Net subscribers in Las Vegas, Gainsville, Fla., and smaller markets missed out on its recent speed increases. Those customers will probably have to wait until the end of the year for their turn.

The lagging customers are apparently on older cable networks, purchased by Cox recently, that can't yet support the higher speeds.

File-swapping on Internet2

The i2hub project that I wrote about last spring is expanding. This is a file-swapping network similar to Kazaa or Gnutella, but running on the Internet2 campus network. That means students can download whole movies in half an hour or so, instead of a day or longer.

I'm a little surprised the network has lasted as long as it has, but it shows universities are genuinely conflicted on this issue. They aren't happy about copyright infringement, but they do support innovation by their students and free expression of ideas. I suspect schools will crack down on it this … Read more