State of the Internet, Q1 2015
Wednesday’s Internet events illustrate the importance of the Akamai “State of the Internet” quarterly reports. Because of failures at the New York Stock Exchange, United Airlines, the Wall Street Journal…
Can LTE Unlicensed Steamroll Wi-Fi?
A recent article in Washington Post seems to be confusing people. In “The future of mobile data pits cellphone carriers against cable giants,” Brian Fung claims, among other things, that…
Internet Use Nears Saturation
Here’s a rosy picture: the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s data shows that Internet use is effectively universal for some very significant US population groups: 96% of young adults (aged…
GTT’s Growing Pains Behind Over-Hyped Congestion Claims
Last Wednesday, I filed a story on claims by Free Press’s “Battle For the Net” that AT&T and other ISPs were causing massive Content Delivery Network (CDN) slowdowns at several…
5G: A Revolution in Networking
A couple of weeks ago I went to the ATIS 5G Symposium in Chicago held in conjunction with the Light Reading Big Telecom Event. ATIS is the chief organization of…
The Internet Goes Mobile
One of policy wonkdom’s annual milestones is the publication of Mary Meeker’s slide deck on Internet trends (2015 Internet Trends.) Meeker’s slide deck is a massive overview of national and…
Networks on Demand: The Promise of Software-Defined Networking
This is an exciting time for the Internet. You already know some of the reasons for this: Internet use is shifting from desk-potato systems and applications to mobile ones; mobile…
Engineers Can Policy Too: ETAP 2015
Recently I was invited to take part in a conference put together by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the “IEEE Experts in Technology and Policy Forum on Internet Governance,…
No Way to Run a Railroad
Spectrum is valuable, that much is certain. Exactly how valuable it is is a matter for economic analysis at a level that exceeds my knowledge of economics by an enormous…
Why LTE Unlicensed Outperforms Wi-Fi
The hottest issue in unlicensed wireless spectrum policy is the conflict between Wi-Fi and LTE Unlicensed (“LTE-U”). Some advocates are pressing for restrictions on LTE-U, even going to far as…