December 2007 Archives

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a paper opposing [.pdf] Europe's latest plan to make life tough for ISPs.

Broadband Reports notes that a court in Europe recently ruled that filtering is not "overly burdensome or expensive, or causes problems for regular services to the ISP's customers."

All of which is untrue.

The quality of regulation varies from state to state. All too often, regulators sympathize with the companies they regulate. Some even hope to move from government jobs to jobs at those companies, and when they do, they can return in an expensive car and make a big impression in their former place of work.

Employees of Vermot's PSB were unpersuaded by this sort of argument, or any other argument that Verizon and Fairpoint put before them. Instead, in a momentous decision, the PSB denied Verizon's right to sell off networks to Fairpoint.

When Glen Fleishman recommends an article on Wi-Fi this strongly, you know it's worth reading. Doubly so if it clearly explains what's going on with Philadelphia's Wi-Fi project.

You cannot say this often enough: we're falling far behind in broadband, and it's not just the number or percentage of people connected -- it's the speeds we're getting.

At ISP-Planet, we're publishing our quarterly market research, covering the state of the industry as of September 30, 2007 (Q3). Today, we ran the ISP rankings (top 23 ISPs in the U.S., all with over 100,000 subscribers). Tomorrow, we run Subscriber Values, and on Monday, we'll run the VoIP rankings.

The ISP and VoIP rankings are linked in the right margin of every page of ISP-Planet. They're popular content, because in a competitive industry, everyone wants to know how everyone else is doing.

Unfortunately, competition is being strangled.

Unfortunately, just because you can doesn't mean you will. Numerous sources are reporting that Rogers Cable (of Canada) has been posting status messages on websites like Google. Although they have not posted ads at this time, the company whose technology they are using, San Antonio, Tex.-based PerfTech, clearly sees the marketing potential.

In a recent press release highlighting a Portuguese cable ISP, the company writes:

A promotional message delivered through Bulletin System will display no matter which site or portal the subscriber browses, and will reach every subscriber who browses the Internet during the promotion's scheduled time window—without altering or interrupting the subscriber's requested page.

As the screen shot [.jpg] from Lauren Weinstein's blog shows, the technology does indeed alter the web page by shifting content downward and occupying the most valuable real estate, the top of the page.

There are alternatives

Broadband Reports recently claimed that the bandwidth glut is over, citing the buildout plans of backbone providers like XO Communications and even technology laggards AT&T. Verizon's building too.

Today comes more concrete evidence of bandwidth demand.