High Speed Communications

Businesses Still Pay More For Speed and Likely Always Will

2010-09-03T08:34:00.001-05:00

From the 2nd Quarter Global Broadband statistics report from Point Topic and a little bit of leg work of my own (ok no leg work, only finger work) some of the latest broadband prices per megabit in the US were encouraging.
For DSL service, they still offer the lowest monthly rate but it works out to the highest per megabit price - 1mbps download at $20/month or $20 per meg of bandwidth speed.
The best DSL price was $40/mo for up to 7 mbps speed or about $5.70/meg
For Cable offerings, Comcasts best deal was 50mbps for about $115/mo (for the first 6 months): that works out to an amazing $2.30/meg!
Fiber technology still growing with the main supplier in the US being Verizon Fios whose top matching plan is 50mbps at about $140/month for and average $2.80/meg, a big drop from when it first rolled out.
Note: Being the speed freak I am, of course I am focusing on the top available speed plans of the three and please note these are also the residential options only.
The business internet plans are still pricier from the three main technology sources, but here is what is interesting and also what most business customers don't know: The higher prices businesses often pay for their service, is used to offset the carrier costs of the residential offerings!
Shocker, I know!

Actually this is common practice, and is a strategic business plan to be able to focus on the bulk of their customer base which are residential consumers.

What Point Topic's global Q2 report shows however, is that the cable suppliers have been able to bring the costs for their business clients down much closer to that of the residential broadband customers. That cost for businesses is roughly 1.5 times that of home owners, while business DSL is 3.9 higher and Fiber is 4.7 times higher than their comparable residential services.

Rest assured, those ratios will change. DSL, I do not expect will change much as providers just are not able to gain the numbers of residential clients needed to balance with the smaller amount of business clients. Fiber however is the broadband highway to the future. What is being laid out now in terms of fiber lines, has such longevity and capacity that providers costs will drop as the service becomes available to more and more clients. That 4.7 ratio is sure to drop as the service becomes available in more countries, and across more areas within existing fiber countries.

Samsung is doing it right, why don't the others?

2010-08-30T15:08:00.002-05:00

credit Samsung

Samsungs decision to release the Galaxy S series of smartphone over all the major carriers is showing to be a very smart decision. Since its launch in mid July over just two of the carriers, Samsung has shipped over one million of the devices.

credit: T-mobile

The two carriers Samsung started their launch with was AT&T with the Galaxy S Captivate, and T-mobile with the Galaxy S Vibrant. For T-mobile users this was fantastic news indeed. The T-mobile phone offerings of late have truelly lagged far behind other providers such as Verizon and AT&T, the exception being the retooling of the My Touch into the My Touch Slide ( a phone this author was seriously considering for personal and business use ). Given all of the amazing features in the Galaxy S series on T-mobile, the Vibrant is sure to be the top selling smartphone of all of T-mobiles current offerings. Some of its more attractive features include : a 4" Super AMOLED touch screen, 16gb of memory (with slot for micro SD card), 5 megapix camera, GPS, Wi-Fi enabled, Android based with all the apps available, Swype typing, 1Ghz processor and more!

The next releases in the Galaxy S line from Samsung, are the Epic 4G from Sprint tomorrow, and this fall from Verizon look for the Samsung Fascinate.

Samsung is doing it right, for the consumers, for their business model, for the carriers. I hope that the other phone manufacturers take note, a broad release over all the carriers is what we want now. Let the carriers battle it out for customers by modifying their contracts and offering perks, and not make it about who has the better stuff.

Opening The Windows Wider, Mobile Phone 7 Models Leaked

2010-08-23T18:49:00.001-05:00

Some not so new information in that we had already heard of these phones being in development and testing for Windows Phone 7. But as we rush towards the fall release of the operation system, we have some goodies in the way of leaked ( or released ) photos and video care of engadget. We thank http://www.engadget.com/ for being the source of the photos. We certainly weren't surprised by the form and factor, since the internal technologies are much on par with what is on the market now, however the gravy is the Phone 7 operation system.

From LG two phones, the c900 and e900 ( the former having a full keyboard and the latter is completely touch screen ). From Samsung, the i917 tips it's elegant hat, and HTC's full touchscreen enabled Mozart.

While some photos are not great quality, as you can see, the shape of phones are taking on a cloned shape, with either full touch screen or sliding keyboard, it now becomes a battle between the applications and operating system software to lure customers to their latest toys.

Look for the winds to start blowing more and more models in the open windows this fall!

NFC East, West, North, South, Up and Down!

2010-08-17T16:10:00.000-05:00

"Where's my bluetooth headset"? I wonder aloud, "I need to let everyone know about the newer but not so new field communication doohickey"...

And that would be NFC ( Near Field Communication ), for those who don't know of it already. You have all heard of the smartcards/readers which are RFID,proximity card, and likely have daily seen them in use. At gas station pumps as people pass a Chiclet in front of a symbol to pay for the gas. At a department store where one waves their credit card over a reader to make a purchase. The field is small, but the connection between the devices transfers data in a tenth of a second! (max is 464kbd/second at the current time for NFC). NFC is an extension of this type of communication but geared for cell phone/ smartphone use. The buzz is as the phone acts as a reader it could receive news, advertisements, and stats from stationary transmitters on billboards, movie posters, i-cafe etc. When the phone acts as transmitter, it will be used to pay for items, schedule and pay for public transportation (right on the train!), or instantly configure devices with preassigned bluetooth setups to save time. Two like NFC devices can share contacts, datebooks, etc by simply passing the devices near each other. (with appropriate security and safety protocols set).

Near Field Communication is a technology currently being tested in quite a few countries, the majority of which are in Europe (no surprise there), but there are several Asian, Latin American, United States, and Canadian test sites as well. I won't go into the list here of what cell phones are currently being tested with the technology as these are likely to change with each keystroke that I type. Suffice to say, current gossip is that company A is working on their NFC enabled phone that rhymes with "shmy shmone 5" ( a depressing thought for those of you who shelled out money happily for your "shmy shmone 4".

[ On a side rant, if we are asked to pay $500 plus for a smartphone, can it at least go a year before we are told it is no longer good enough, by it's own manufacturer none the less! ]

For more in depth information visit the NFC forums at http://www.nfc-forum.org

2010-08-16T15:20:00.002-05:00

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Help for gzip_detect.php on Facebook August 13, 2010

2010-08-13T09:44:00.005-05:00

Many Facebook users are encountering an unusual announcement upon logging into their accounts today. They are being prompted to download the file named gzip_detect.php . As many users contemplate whether this is an action of their computer for an update, an unwanted virus, a patch from Facebook itself, or the beginnings of the awakening conscience of HAL within their own desktop, many other users are blissfully unaware of any issue at all.

Since the file download is apparently an issue that is arising when users of Internet Explorer log into Facebook is conflicting with the Facebook code itself. There is no official announcement yet as to the source of the file, only that common reaction is to cancel the download and try again.

If you want to ensure that you do not see gzip_detect.php announcing its arrival on your PC or laptop again or for the first time, follow these steps:

1. Ensure that you have your computer up to date with Microsoft Updates, especially the Internet Explorer files.
2. Clear your cookies. This one can hurt, because those same cookies surely make logging into all of our favorite sites so much smoother. For instructions on how to clear cookies, go here.
3. Reboot. A hard reboot of our computer is something we forget about and take for granted, but on a Microsoft based PC or laptop, it is a necessary action to do regularly!
4. My friends would, as a last resort (or perhaps a first?) , would advise me to get a Mac and avoid all these issues. I am not ready to take that step yet however.

If none of these actions seem to help, you can temporarily log into Facebook using another browser such as Google Chrome or Firefox until Facebook can work this out.

Fios? Sounds like something my doctor wants me to take.

2006-10-12T22:22:00.000-05:00

FiOS (pronounced Fy-Os) is coming! Why am I excited? Because it is coming to my area...(or so I have heard). FiOS is the latest broadband product being rolled out in a multi-million dollar gamble by Verizon. Verizon's fiber optics uses true fiber strands that carry laser generated pulses straight to the home (see picture in upper right corner of this page). Though not new technology, as mentioned earlier this year, it is just gaining a foothold now in the US. Because of the inherent lack of resistance to energy travelling along these hair thin, fiber optic strands, a much larger and faster amount of data can be transmitted digitally in light pulses. This also lends to a lack of degradation in the signal, whether it be voice, data/internet, or video. Yes! Video! Verizon is moving into the arena that cable companies have been greedily gobbling up by offering TV, High speed internet, and phone service to their customers. Verizon will now be able to also offer all three services providing, in this writers opinion, some much needed and long overdue competition in the cable television market.
Something that the cable companies should be worrying about, quite frankly, is the ability that Verizon will have to offer high quality phone and Television service, but broadband internet speeds that they will be unable to compete against. Here is a preliminary pricing packages from Verizon's webpage (speeds ate Download/Upload and Mbps=Megabytespersecond):

The "low end package" at a cost of what I pay for my DSL of just $34.95/month will give you 5Mbps/2Mbps
The "mid range package", coming in at what the cable companies charge for their broadband service, is $44.95/month and serves 15Mbps/2Mbps. (cable can only provide up to 6Mbps max!)
Finally, the mother load and quite obviously for business, $179.95/month gives you a whopping 30Mbps/5Mbps!!!

(Pardon me while I catch my breath) Though the speed demon in me salivates at that last speed rating, the economist cannot argue that option #2 is by far the best deal of the three for the home consumer. 15 Mbps is fast enough to satisfy any gamer, any media user, any home business, any..etc..

I applaud Verizon for taking this chance to invest in the roll out (there are trucks on multiple streets in my county) and lay out the Corning fiber optic cabling to take back some of the market share that is being strangle held by the cable companies today. And who wins?

We do....we win on speed, on cost (even if you stay with cable...competition drives price wars which means lower prices), and on choices. I say..keep it up...who is next? Bring it on!!

Sorry cable, DSL still comes out on top.

2006-09-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

Well, price wise that is. A recent study was performed on the costs of high speed internet access services in three major international markets. The study was designed to calculate the cost drop in these services within the specified markets. The study, done at Point Topic, came up with some startling results as far as cost was concerned in the broadband market.
The study concerned the cost of three popular services: DSL, Cable, and fiber optic (FTTx where x=Home or Business) in the United States (US), The Asian Pacific (SEA), Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The competition of these three types of service has grown fervent over the last year, as each one has attempted to provide additional services on the line besides internet access, including telephone and video service. That competition it seems has driven the costs down for the consumer to a more acceptable level, while at the same time the service at that level has improved in speed.
The resulting average costs per market were:

DSL US-$24.77 SEA-$19.61 EMEA-$31.64
Cable US-$36.21 SEA-$32.46 EMEA-$30.47
FTTx US-$39.95 SEA-$31.69 EMEA-$47.06

After vendor investigation, it was found that DSL rates were cut by vendors the most out of all three services. With only two cable providers cutting their prices since 2002. Only in one market was Cable on average cheaper than DSL, the EMEA. Frankly, looking at the above prices and living in the US myself, I cannot help but wish I lived in Japan with the fiber optic service at under what cable service costs here in the United States. None of the services in the US won the price war. tsk, tsk, tsk.

And my parting word to the cable service providers....look at the numbers, friends. You had better find a way to reduce the cost of services, and I am not just talking broadband internet either.

So that's what it is like to have back surgery!

2006-08-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

That's right, just when you thought I fell off the face of the earth, it turns out a series of unfortunate events were the culprit. Those events of course are what we here on Earth call Life! I won't go into all the details of what has been happening since last November (my last post) but I will let you know that the last of these events was something called surgical micro-diskectomy or some such nonsense. All it really means is that the docs went in under a micro scope and removed parts of my L3-L4 and L4-L5 disks in my back because those loose bits were herniated out and pinching off a nerve, which caused me great leg and buttock pain. How's that for being a pain in the butt? The operation has a 70-80% success rate, so I will have to wait and see if the pain completely leaves. Wish me luck!

That isn't all of course, my daughter left for her first year at college this fall. Attending Eastern University to major in Elementary Education, bless her heart. But it is through this process that I was not only driven to poverty, but I also got to pick up a couple of nifty toys to help her in her scholastic endeavors and still keep in touch with us:
The first was of course a laptop. "I could never get a laptop at their prices", bah! humbug! You haven't seen what has been happening these days have you? With Intel's release of their new Core 2 Duo chip that packs a huge wallop in power, but carries a low price tag, Desktop computers and laptops are at ridiculously low prices! Why? Because as fantastic as this new chip is, the average user at home, college, businesses, military, just don't need that much power. Not to mention that there won't be software out that fully utilizes that power for the average user for some time. Plus the competition from AMD means their chip prices have dropped dramatically. Do a search on Google...laptops below $500...desktop systems under $400! With Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 driving them, they are very fast systems that don't break your wallet! They have DVD drives and burners, wireless networking, big screens, graphics and sounds to make any gamer happy, and all for a fraction of what you thought it would cost.
I prefer to do the whole system customize thing myself rather than walk into an "electronics store" or "computer store" where you are often hit with high prices from the get go, then you are pressured to add everything under the sun to the package that you just don't need.
Check out BuyXG.com. They are a great, easy to use custom system place that no matter what price a system starts at, you can configure it down to meet your budget.

well, gonna go pop a pain pill....Will let you know about my new cell phone next time!

Attack of the Giants!!

2005-11-08T11:05:00.000-05:00

That title reminds me of those old 50's, 60's horror movies. Not really scary by today's standards, but still enjoyable in their own way. However, this post is not about those movies, but about some actual giants being created right here in the United States even as I type this out. I am of course talking bout the mergers of both Verizon - MCI and SBC-AT&T. If you haven't heard about it yet, here is a short update:
Back in October both SBC and Verizon (both huge local phone service providers) announced their plans to acquire AT&T and MCI respectively. Verizon's deal has a current price tag of $6.7 Billion with a potential of several billion more (due to the need to upgrade MCI systems after the deal). SBC is shelling out a paltry $16 Billion in their offer. What the acquisition does for both parties is to grab up the two largest long distance service providers in the states, National and global IP based networks and growing voice over internet protocol or VoIP. For the long distance companies being purchased, they gain a strong local presence and dominating wireless service division to compliment their already strong long distance share.
Ok, financial and big business mumbo-jumbo aside... What does it mean for you and me? It actually means fewer choices in just the plain old local and long distance service providers.
And what can that mean? It could mean the prices would start to rise in an area that has been heading lower and lower for several years, long distance rates.
On the plus side, part of the FCC approval regulations are stating that each merger must provide access to their networks by competitors who could offer lower long distance rates simply due to the fact that they are not Mega companies with huge overheads and operating costs.
Another plus of the mergers are larger coverage by your wireless providers, stronger networks and quality, simplified billing procedures (more services from one company) and more access to high speed internet in a market that cable is quickly engulfing.

2005-10-09T15:09:00.000-05:00

Microsoft and Palm, together again for the first time.
Look at it...just look at it! It is an amazing, beautiful piece of technology. In yet another wacky twist in partnerships, Microsoft and Palm have joined forces to bring you the Windows Mobile based Treo700? (at this time the name is yet to be announced) I feel that those who would benefit the most from this little beauty are corporations who use a Windows platform in their business. Now this thing does not hit the shelves until early next year, but let's take a peek at some of the features. Windows Mobile 5 gives you Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and Powerpoint Mobile. Using Microsoft Active Sync you can receive your tasks, appointments, Outlook emails, and contacts because of the push e-mail support. There is talk of persistent storage memory which would mean your vital data would remain intact even in critical powerloss. The EV-DO network provided by Verizon Wireless will boost download speed to 700Kbps. You can add memory via a slot and many of the same features that the Palm based Treo offered. See a complete review on it at Everything Treo Now guess who will be providing the cellular service for this sweet piece of technology meat? I mentioned it above briefly, Verizon Wireless, giving this provider yet another foothold in the marketshare that could possibly give it the boost to pursue a merge with.......well let's save that for a future post!

2005-10-05T18:06:00.000-05:00

Will WiFi Be the Straw that Broke The Internet Camel's Back?
Philadelphia announces it's plans to move forward with a city-wide wifi network provided my Earthlink (based in Atlanta). Here is the kicker...almost half the homes in Philadelphia have NO internet access. Earthlink plans to offer low income plans, budget plans with prices as low as $10 per month for access (not certain yet what the speed would be) and the majority of residents paying $20. Earthlink plans on this being a WiFi backbone that other internet access providers can sell access to as well. It seems their goal is not to take over the city, but to break up the growing monopolies of cable and DSL internet. In these "speedworthy surfing seas" however, the speeds they will be able to offer remains to be seen. But I for one am all for it, it will allow a whole new group of folks who never could access the internet, to use it now for working at home, schooling, entertainment, news updates, and more! With Google offering to provide San Francisco with a Free WiFi network, and free access, it seems that those gaps in internet access around the country will soon be filling up! What do you think this means for dial up ?

2005-10-04T09:38:00.000-05:00

If DSL is the White Cat, and Cable internet is the deer..... Ok a bit of a stretch here, but from the picture here and the statement above, what do you think is happening? Is DSL trying without hope to catch cable internet, in a race it cannot hope to win? Or is DSL hunting, chasing, and going for it's prey...cable. Right now the technology that is in place is really what is limiting both of these competitors when it comes to speed. Old copper lines, whether phone or cable is one of the biggest hurdles. But when you look at recent CNET reports on bandwidth averages taken from their online bandwidth test, you can see that the gap is about what you see in this photo. For DSL from Telus an average download speed of 6.1 Meg and Shaw Cable at 7.3 Meg. (Interestingly both companies are in Canada) Believe it or not, speeds this high are actually overkill for most people who would find that the 768 Kilobyte download speed of the low end DSL providers would be more than they needed at 14 times faster than dialup. So does the cat catch the deer? or the deer outrun the cat? I will bet we won't have to wait long to see.

2005-09-29T22:11:00.000-05:00

What’s the deal with wifi?
Anyone out there use it more that just on vacation? I know I used it for the first time with the very laptop I am writing this on. I don’t know if it was just the laptop hardware itself, but I found it quite easy to use and very helpful in passing time in airports. You need to be near enough to a wifi “hotspot” and unfortunately they are not all created equal. I found most hotspot access services wanted some sort of fee paid to use it, and I was not prepared to pay in one airport only to be unable to use it in another. But all in all, I found the whole wifi internet experience fun! How about you?