Third Undersea Cable Damaged in Mideast
The Middle East has been suffering from Internet and phone outages ever since two cables were cut offshore from Egypt. Now there are reports that a third cable is cut.Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.There were widespread Internet access problems in India, Dubai and Egypt. Some of the Internet traffic may improve by rerouting traffic but these two cables carry a lot of the bandwidth between Europe and the Middle East. News of a third cut line (near Dubai) is going to raise concerns that intermittent web access may plague the MidEast for weeks or months.
FLAG Telecom, which owns one of the cables, said repairs were expected to be completed by February 12. France Telecom, part owner of the other cable, said it was uncertain when repairs on it would be repaired.
Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the cables off Egypt were likely damaged by ships' anchors.
The loss of the two Mediterranean cables -- FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies -- has snarled Internet and phone traffic from Egypt to India.
Posted on February 1, 2008
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Time Warner to Test Tiered Internet Access Charges
The Associated Press is reporting that Time Warner Cable is going to experiment with a new pricing structure for its high-speed Internet access where heavy bandwidth users will be charged more. Those "lucky" enough to live in Beaumont, Texas will be the first to experience the trial.
Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed at improving the network performance by making it more costly for heavy users of large downloads. Dudley said that a small group of super-heavy users of downloads, around 5 percent of the customer base, can account for up to 50 percent of network capacity.Time Warner may see this as a way of "improving the network performance" but customers are going to see it as nothing more than a way to charge them more money.
Dudley said he did not know what the pricing tiers would be nor the download limits. He said the heavy users were likely using the network to download large amounts of video, most likely in high definition.
It was not clear when exactly the trial would begin, but Dudley said it would likely be around the second quarter. The tiered pricing would only affect new customers in Beaumont, not existing ones.
Posted on January 18, 2008
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AOL Launches Open Ride Software
AOL has launched new software for using the Internet called Open Ride.
One cool feature is the multi-tasking Dynasizer tool. The Dynasizer is a display that keeps four windows open on the screen at one time for email, IMs, browsing, etc. The windows automatically resize to your current activity. GigaOM has an explanation of the new software.
OpenRide is essentially a browser that is split into four panes - one each for e-mail (including accounts that are from non-AOL domains,) instant messaging, video and general Web browsing. The software also has a search box, which is tied to AOL search engine. You can playback entertainment content such as videos as well. These panes resize depending on what you are doing - if you are browsing, the browser dominates, and when checking mail, well mail pane takes up a big portion of the screen.More discussion of Open Ride can be found at Toasted Bread, Newsfactor and The Last Podcast.
You can take a tour of the new Open Ride software here. There is also a useful FAQ here that explains the service and answers questions for people that have other AOL software already installed on their PC.
Posted on October 6, 2006
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Broadband Via Natural Gas Pipes?
USA Today reports that a company called Nethercomm wants to deliver broadband using natural gas pipes using Broadband-in-Gas technologies.
Now the relentless pursuit for faster, cheaper broadband is leading to perhaps the last unclaimed conduit to your house: natural gas pipes.Some are calling it a "pipe dream" while others think the idea could work. Here is how the concept would work.
Nethercomm, a San Diego-area start-up, says it has developed technology to send lightning-fast broadband and TV services via wireless signals through the pipes that deliver the fuel used to heat homes and fire up stoves.
Gas pipes serve 62% of U.S. households, says the American Gas Association. Broadband in Gas, or BIG, could give consumers a third high-speed option at low costs and speeds that far surpass today's phone and cable offerings. It also could bring fast Internet to unserved rural areas. But, so far, the idea has been met with both excitement and skepticism.
Broadband in Gas would require installation of an ultrawideband transmitter that's linked to an Internet backbone or pay-TV facility at a gas company's network hub. A receiver would be placed at a customer's gas meter. Build-out costs are about $200 per household, Nethercomm says. By contrast, broadband over power lines costs about $600 per household, while phone and cable TV networks each cost well over $1,000 per home to build, says West Technology Research Solutions.If it provides cheap super-fast broadband connections there will be consumer interest.
Posted on September 14, 2006
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Higher Fees for Heavy Bandwidth Users?
An article from MediaChannel.org says the Internet is probably going to become a toll road with high bandwidth users charged higher fees.Tom Copeland knows first-hand about the additional costs. Copeland is the chairman of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, and owns Eagle.ca, an ISP in Cobourg, Ont. Copeland purchases his high-speed services from a third party that charges him a per-customer rate as well as a per-gigabyte rate for what his customers download. Copeland says he has one customer who uses $250 of bandwidth monthly.That would be a step backwards toward the days when ISPs like AOL and Prodigy used to charge hourly usage fees except this time it would be based on bandwidth overages instead of hourly overages. Downloading large files like movies and games uses considerably more bandwidth than browsing the Web and reading email.
The problem isn't that Copeland has to deal with that one customer, it's that he has to maintain the bandwidth to deal with that high volume -- regardless of whether it's being used.
"Certainly the bandwidth costs do have an impact on our bottom line," he says.
The same issues impact carriers large and small. Telus spokesman Shawn Hall says three factors come into play: the size of the Internet pipe and access speed, amount of data being downloaded in a month and priority access during high-demand periods.
"The industry has to move toward different charges for Internet customers with diverse needs," he says.
Posted on February 1, 2006
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