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Verizon 5G Fixed Wireless Home Broadband Review!
This was WAY better than I was expecting it to be. Test driving Verizon’s 5G fixed wireless broadband out in the suburbs, it’s not the right fit for OUR needs, but it MIGHT rock YOUR socks!
Here are some thoughts on using it for a month! Continue reading “Verizon 5G Fixed Wireless Home Broadband: Sending it back…”
Home to one of the most successful experiments in municipal funded broadband, Tennessee is working diligently to prevent that experiment from improving data and energy infrastructure throughout the rest of the state. Now a new bill will fund ISP’s through tax payer funds, instead of expanding on city funded fiber? Why?
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Continue reading “Tennessee approves $45 Million for Broadband, but no Gigabit Fiber? Why?”
Competition folks. I want more competition. AT&T is pushing forward with their GigaPower fiber internet roll out, and it looks like a major ISP finally has their sights on the Los Angeles Metro area.
“Fast, affordable Internet is essential for today’s cities,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “Having high-speed digital communications infrastructure is as important as ensuring that we can efficiently deliver electricity, transportation, clean water, and lighted streets to Angelenos. The ultra-fast AT&T Gigapower service will help L.A.’s students, entrepreneurs, and families succeed and help our city’s economy grow.”
Starting with West Palm Beach, Big Blue will be expanding their gigabit footprint over 2016 for businesses and residential areas. This expansion follows their merger with DirectTV which U-Verse customer can subscribe to for multimedia content.
It’s exciting news for those of us in Southern California. Hopefully soon we’ll have more competition for faster broadband services. You can read the full press release below. Continue reading “AT&T to Launch Gigabit Internet Service in Los Angeles”
The times they are a changing.
We’ve gone years with “Unlimited” plans which have restrictions on data usage or speed throttling based. In light of recent concerns facing AT&T and T-Mobile unlimited plans, Sprint reacted quickly to customer complaints regarding their new All In plan, which offers unlimited talk, text, and web for $80 a month.
The issue? A video streaming throttle of 600Kbps. With more consumers streaming high quality video, watching Youtube and Netflix, or broadcasting with apps like Periscope, it makes sense why the nation’s fourth place carrier would want to put some limit on the bandwidth people might use. However, we’re all a bit more sensitive about what the word “unlimited” means. We’ll have to see how Sprint might manage potential network congestion issues moving forward…
You can read Sprint’s brief press release below.
Continue reading “Sprint Removes Video Streaming Limit on ALL IN Unlimited Plans”
The FCC’s new rules protecting Net Neutrality go into effect today.
The rules were published in a 400 page document back in March, detailing all of the web protections. To oversimplify, reclassifying the Internet as a utility means carriers and ISPs will no longer be able to prioritize some services over others. Nor can they degrade a service for the benefit of another.
Internet Service Providers are challenging these new rules, claiming they overstep the FCC’s authority and violate federal law. The United States Telecom Association requested a hold on implementing these rules as they try to fight them in court, but a three judge panel Appellate Court in DC denied their stay. We will see an accelerated time table for litigation however, in two weeks the Telecom Association and the FCC will present schedules for additional briefing.
In the meantime however, Net Neutrality will be the law of the land. The real test will come from this first year of implementation, to see if any of the doom and gloom predictions of the Telecom industry come true.
The FCC’s announcement that they would be reclassifying the Internet and regulating it as a utility came with a five page summary detailing the commission’s plans.
Yesterday the FCC quietly released the full set of rules to the public, and including the dissenting opinions from the Republican members, the document is 400 pages long.
We’re currently reading through the rules now to see if there are any surprises, but so far no red flags or severe changes from the initial summary. The rules seem focused on preventing ISP’s from throttling services, and blocking any actions towards creating a tiered internet with “fastlanes”.
There’s also a pretty healthy section on Forbearance, detailing all the things that the FCC wont be enforcing like public utility pricing. Still, even though this resembles the situation we found ourselves in when the cell phone industry was reclassified, which ultimately provided for more competition and better consumer experiences, we can expect the ISP’s and carriers to start mounting an attack now that the rules are available.
You can read the rules for yourself, instead of just accepting pundit’s opinions, at the link below.
It was a landmark day yesterday for the FCC and advocates of a free and open internet. Two major rulings were delivered. One defending Tennessee and North Carolina efforts to build tax payer funded broadband, and the second reclassifying the entire Internet as a utility under Title II regulations. If you have questions about the announcements, Enobong Etteh from Booredatwork and I are here to answer them!
Read the FCC’s Statement on the new Broadband Internet Rules.
This has been a crazy trip.
From Verizon suing the Government over the Open Internet Order, to proposed “Fast Lane” rules, to now. The FCC has been busy today. First, announcing it will preempt state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina which were preventing community funded broadband efforts.
Second, approving rules which will reclassify broadband internet as a common carrier utility under Title II regulations. Thankfully, unlike the OIO, these new rules will also apply to mobile networks, not just wired ones. The vote was 3-2 in favor, on party lines with the Democrat majority winning the day.
“While I see no need for net neutrality rules, I am far more troubled by the dangerous course that the Commission is now charting on Title 2 and the consequences it will have for broadband investment, edge providers and consumers,”
-Republican FCC member Michael O’Rielly, who voted against the new rules.
We can also expect much crying and gnashing of teeth from the GOP in the House and Senate, with tired FUD and scare tactics, even though companies like Sprint have already pointed out that light touch regulation can be incredibly beneficial to a market as stagnant as our telecommunications industry. You would not have carriers like T-Mobile today, if the cell phone industry hadn’t been reclassified as Title II in the mid 1990’s. You can lead an elephant to water…
It’s a day many supporters of Net Neutrality thought we’d never see, and while there will still be a number of battles to fight over who regulates the internet, and what those actions should resemble, we can at least call today a victory for pretty much anyone who uses any kind of commerce or data driven service online.
The FCC has a five page write up, detailing the new rules.
FCC ADOPTS STRONG, SUSTAINABLE RULES TO PROTECT THE OPEN INTERNET