Items tagged with Bandwidth
In the broadband-testing world, Ookla's Speedtest dominates with copious amounts of useful data being compiled every day. According to its latest US broadband report, the company says that there are a staggering 8 million tests conducted worldwide each and every day. Those numbers mean one thing: we can get a very accurate picture on what broadband speeds are like across the globe. Speedtest has produced such reports in the past, and ultimately it has never painted the prettiest pictures for US broadband performance. Even with this latest report, the country's broadband landscape has been improving, but the United States still ranks 20th in the world. Considering the fact that the US is...
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The problem is that in heavily populated areas, the shared mobile wireless bandwidth gets badly congested by all the concurrent users; the solution, allegedly, is personal cell (“pCell”) technology that’s being developed by Steve Perlman and his Artemis Networks startup. Current mobile wireless technology works by setting up individual towers that spit out an LTE wireless signal, with the idea that each tower’s signal will gently overlap, creating a seamless coverage area. Anyone within range can use the shared bandwidth, but of course performance can become problematic with too many users on one network. Steve Perlman With pCell technology by contrast, the network equipment...
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Things are about to get faster. The USB Promoter Group announced that it has completed the USB 3.1 specification, which will enable SuperSpeed USB performance of 10Gbps. This, of course, rivals Intel and Apple’s blazing fast 10Gbps Thunderbolt interface, and the new USB connection will make use of more efficient data encoding, and it will be compatible with earlier USB specifications (USB 3.0 and 2.0). USB 3.1 will offer double the effective data throughput of current SuperSpeed USB offerings. Developers will be able to learn technical details of the new spec this summer and autumn at three developer conferences, one each in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. One will be on August...
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Intel’s Thunderbolt interface technology is not yet ubiquitous, although it’s common among Macs and slowly catching on in the PC industry, but the company is already plowing forward with a new controller called “Falcon Ridge” that promises to double Thunderbolt’s already impressive 10Gbps. The technology is being called “Thunderbolt 2” and offers a whopping 20Gbps of bandwidth. The way it works is that two previously-separate 10Gbps channels are combined into a single, bi-directional channel, and that new channel can handle both data and display. On its face this is a big deal, but Thunderbolt 2 is important because it will help unlock 4K video; additionally,...
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When highways get clogged, one solution is to build more lanes, and by that same token IEEE has put together a study group to explore the development of a 400Gbps Ethernet standard to support the exponential growth in network demand. "Traffic is growing everywhere—more Internet users, more ways to access the Internet more quickly, higher-bandwidth content, new applications enabled, etc.—and it’s critical that we move now to create a plan for the Ethernet ecosystem to evolve beyond today’s capabilities, in order to accommodate the burgeoning bandwidth tsunami," said John D’Ambrosia, chair of the new IEEE 802.3 400 Gb/s Ethernet Study Group and chief Ethernet evangelist,...
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Data consumption is on just about every mind in the mobile realm these days, and increasingly, on the minds of people with ISPs who have data tiers. Streaming Netflix whenever, wherever sure sounds fun, but it eats up gobs of data. Now, there may be a solution to help you use less. EyeIO has announced a new commercial agreement with Netflix in order to lower the amount of bandwidth people use while streaming. "eyeIO provides a straightforward solution for accommodating the rapidly growing demand for video delivery around the world by alleviating the overwhelming bandwidth currently required to stream video," said Rodolfo Vargas, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of eyeIO. "Our future could...
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For Comcast customer Andre Vrignaud, the internet is an important part of everyday life. Vrignaud, a 39-year-old gaming consultant in Seattle and a former Microsoft technology evangelist for Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE, has a lot of data: he has a 12TB basement server that he uses to store all of his music, which is ripped into lossless FLAC format and amounts to about a gig per CD. He saves all of his photos in RAW format, which can run over 10MB per picture. He uses the Carbonite online backup system, he uploads his music to the Amazon cloud music service, and he even does a little bittorrenting. All of this, on top of a roommate who is quite fond of multimedia...
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As more and more wireless carriers impose caps on data plans, customers are becoming increasingly aware of how much data they are consuming on their mobile devices. Recognizing that streaming video can quickly gobble up one’s monthly allotment, Netflix is working to help users with a new feature that lets you change video quality. Although you might not get as good of quality video if you turn the settings down, you will save bandwidth from your mobile data plan. The feature is appropriately called “Manage Video Quality” and is specifically aimed at 3G and 4G users who don’t have an unlimited data plan. Netflix has rolled out this feature over the last week or so in the...
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A faster Internet has been a dream for many, and it has been a continually changing dream as broadband speeds got faster and faster. When 56k was the norm, just getting an ISDN line was a huge step-up. From there, ADSL or cable was another leap forward. Today, we need fiber to get things even faster, and while many universities and companies have tons of bandwidth on tap, we all yearn for something even quicker. Leave it to one of the brightest institutions in the world to find a way. A group of MIT researchers led by Vincent Chan, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has recently showcased "new way of organizing optical networks that, in most cases,...
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The residents of Portland, Oregon are the first lucky Comcast users in the country to get the chance to try out Comcast's newly deployed (and long expected) data usage meter. For users who have long been trying to guesstimate how close they are to their allotted 250GB limit and the overage charges that could result from using too much bandwidth, the meter should come as a welcome tool. The meter is designed to be pretty simple to use. According to the Comcast Blog, the data is refreshed about every three hours. The median usage for most users is somewhere around 2-4GB each month. Portland users can access the meter by logging in to Customer Central at https://customer.comcast.com and clicking...
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If you haven't heard of "Internet throttling" by now, you will soon in all likelihood. Major cable-based ISPs are considering (if not implementing) hard bandwidth caps on their users each month, which is really putting devout Netflix streamers and Hulu watchers in a bind. After all, if you get all of your TV/entertainment from the web, it doesn't take long to suck down an incredible amount of bits and bytes.While Netgear certainly can't make those guys have a change of heart, it can help users stuck behind those walls keep tabs on how much they've used. Many people have argued that the companies enforcing the caps should provide consumers with a way to monitor throughput, but until that happens,...
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Time Warner is still on the bandwidth cap crusade and believes that customer education is what is needed to convince customers to see it their way. Time Warner identified Rochester, New York as a hot spot for customer dissatisfaction and negative media coverage. Their remedy for this, send customer service representatives to homes for one on one "education". Stopthecap.com reader Corrine in Rochester writes; Hi, Phil. A very nice TWC “Residential Account Specialist” stopped at my house this evening. She said she was visiting the customers in her area to make sure everything is ok with their service. She obviously had a printout of what we subscribe to from TWC and took...
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After Time Warner proposed what would amount to a $150/month unlimited Internet plan, the company has received a massive influx of complaints from customers. As a result, Time Warner has decided to delay the rollout of the tiered pricing plan in both Texas cities by a few months. Originally, Time Warner planned to roll out tiered pricing tests in San Antonio and Austin this summer. As a result of customers’ reactions, Time Warner now plans to delay the meter program until October. San Antonio and Austin customers should expect to see changes to their bill sometime in January after the three-month grace period that is intended to help customers monitor their usage. Time Warner still plans to continue...
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Time Warner's planned implementation of a bandwidth cap on broadband usage has received negative reactions nationwide and now may be the impetus of new legislation limiting such measures. U.S. Representative Eric Massa of New York was none too pleased when Time Warner announced that it would be rolling out the new tiers in his district. Massa said he would draft new legislation to prohibit Internet Service Providers from implementing unfair tiered pricing structures, especially in areas where they hold a monopoly. "I am taking a leadership position on this issue because of all the phone calls, e-mails and faxes I've received from my district and all over the country," Massa said in an April 10...
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