Google will be giving residents of Kansas City another chance to sign up for Google Fiber. The second chance to both the Kansas and Montana versions of Kansas City is accompanied by more details about the company's rollout to surrounding areas, as well as its fiber network construction project due to start in Austin, Texas.
Citizens of Los Angeles could receive broadband or even a gigabit connection in the future, according to new plans. The Los Angeles City Council is drafting a request for proposals from companies to develop the network, which will require "fiber to be run to every residence, every business, and every government entity within the city limits of Los Angeles."
A court in Germany has ruled that Deutsche Telekom cannot throttle its home broadband service to a lower speed when a customer exceeds data allocations on a flat-rate package. Plans due to come into force in 2016 that would force customers down to a significantly slower connection than one they had originally paid for once they reach a data limit can no longer take place.
Gogo's in-flight Wi-Fi is heading to Japan, with the entire Japan Airlines (JAL) fleet of domestic planes set to offer the service. The move, following Delta Airline's adoption of Gogo on its international fleet, will see all 77 JAL domestic aircraft start offering the Ku-band satellite Internet service to customers beginning in the summer of 2014, writes Engadget.
Aereo, a cloud-based DVR company, has announced the upcoming availability of its television services in the Detroit metropolitan area, beginning October 28, 2013. Using web browsers, iOS devices, Android devices, and more, Aereo allows users to access 'over-the-air' television channels via an internet connection, that could once be attained with 'bunny ear' antenna over top of one's TV. Aereo's antenna are located in data centres for serviceable areas, which also include a remote DVR. Users control both with an Internet-connected device, and can view, record, pause, fast-forward and rewind as one would with a cable or satellite DVR.
Google has announced that it has teamed with other tech companies, government agencies and nonprofit organizations to advocate for cheaper Internet across the globe. The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) believes policy change is necessary to encourage innovation and reach the UN Broadband Commission's goal of entry-level broadband access priced at less than five percent of monthly income worldwide.
AT&T is following through with its plans to spoil Google Fiber in Austin, as it starts to deploy its own fiber network in the city and surrounding area. The 100-percent fiber Internet from the carrier will be preceded by a deployment of its U-verse with GigaPower service, complete with "more advanced TV services and features," starting this December.
The government of Sudan has reportedly cut off access to Internet service, as protesters continue to riot in the capital city Khartoum. Internet intelligence firm Renesys confirms that the country has been essentially disconnected from the Internet, observing a partial interruption around 10:00am UTC and a near total disconnection before 1pm UTC, according to a Washington Post report.
Inflight Wi-Fi provider Gogo will be upping the speed of connections offered to its customers in the future, once it begins using satellites. The current Air-to-Ground system will be supplemented by satellite connections in the Gogo GTO or Ground-to-Orbit service, which could lead to passengers being able to share connections as large as 60Mbps per plane.
A group of technology companies have grouped together to launch a new initiative to bring Internet access to parts of the global population that do not have it. The collective, consisting of Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung and led by Facebook, launched Internet.org and will work together on projects to provide access to those without an Internet connection.
Google has been prevented from potentially using the URL http://search in the future, thanks to a new ruling by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). A resolution from the organization prohibits the use of "dotless domain names" for web addresses, something that could considerably affect the future plans of generic top level domain (gTLD) applicants.
Cloud storage service Box has updated its Android app with a number of changes. The new updates feed in version 2.2 includes a document preview area for recently-uploaded items as well as recent activity, something viewable in the new resizable home screen widget, while offline file support has been enhanced. Multiple accounts can now be accessed in the same app, and a new navigation drawer and viewing options are also included.
Comcast is said to be working on its own alternative to the Copyright Alert System (CAS) anti-piracy system, also known as "six strikes," operated by the Center for Copyright Infromation (CCI). The rumored system would see Comcast providing users identified as downloading infringing content links to buy or rent the content legally.
Redbox Instant by Verizon is now available to use on the Roku set-top box. Downloadable through the Roku Channel Store and usable on Roku 3, 2, HD, and LT models as well as the Roku Streaming Stick, the Redbox service provides access to over 5,500 streaming movies and more than 1,500 movies at 43,000 Redbox kiosks. Redbox Instant with four DVD credits costs $8 per month.
Google has seemingly changed its mind over net neutrality, based on a response to a complaint made to the FCC. The search giant believes that it can ban servers from its Google Fiber service as it is something practiced by other Internet Service Providers, and does not go against the net neutrality rules that it has championed in the past.
Google has made an agreement with Starbucks to provide the coffee house chain free Wi-Fi throughout the United States. The deal, which will apply to all 7,000 branches, will allow customers to access the Internet through their tablet, notebook, or smartphone through the new connection, which is claimed to be up to ten times faster than previously available in-store.
AT&T has updated its Wireless Home Phone service to include data access to the carrier's LTE network. The new service, building upon the prepaid options introduced in May, will provide a home phone service over the AT&T cellular network, similar to versions offered by Verizon, US Cellular, and Rogers, except that it will also provide its users Internet access.
One of the adult content filtering systems being used at a large Internet service provider (ISP) in the UK has come under fire in reports, due to close ties with the Chinese government. Homesafe, the filtering system used by TalkTalk and praised by Prime Minister David Cameron in his online child protection proposal speech earlier this week, is being managed by Huawei, a company that has been accused of being a security risk by authorities in both the United Kingdom and the United states.
Verizon is updating its FiOS broadband service with a new high-speed package for customers to buy. The new package will provide Internet users on the FiOS Quantum Internet Service a top download speed of 500 megabits per second, accompanied by an upload speed of 100 megabits per second, an increase from the previous top tier's 300Mbps download speed.
New Internet connections in the United Kingdom will have adult content filters applied to them before the end of the year, unless account holders opt out, according to Prime Minister David Cameron. The move is accompanied by a number of other similar measures, including requests for search engines to take more responsibility for filtering content, and proposed changes to existing laws.
The offices of three major carriers in Europe have been raided by European Union officials as part of an investigation into the practice of bandwidth throttling. The headquarters of Orange, Deutsche Telekom, and Telefonica all received visits from the government officials, trying to find evidence that the three are restricting the bandwidth for companies specifically requiring such high levels.
The average American consumer does not need gigabit Internet access at this moment in time, according to the Vice President of Comcast. David Cohen claims the issue of gigabit speeds to end users is "really more about demand than supply," suggesting that high-speed Internet services such as Google Fiber are not required.
Following yesterday's unexpected disappearance of Syria from the Internet, service to the war-torn country seems to be completely restored with no feared large-scale attack by the Syrian government against the rebels. Both the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency and Google's real-time reporting have demonstrated that traffic is increasing in the country.
Google has officially announced that Grandview, Missouri is next in line for the search engine-provided Gigabit Fiber Internet service. No timetable for deployment has been announced, with the company saying that "it will still be a while" before the fiber deployment begins and customers can subscribe to the services.
Google is expanding the coverage of its existing gigabit Internet offering from Kansas City into another area of Kansas. The city of Shawnee, just outside of Kansas City, will gain Google Fiber in the future, and joins the high-speed connection construction waiting list alongside Olathe in the same state, Austin in Texas and Provo, Utah.
An Internet service provider has announced the launch of its fiber-based Internet service in the Vermont area, but this time it isn't Google. Vermont Telephone Company (VTel) has started to offer its customers gigabit Internet speeds over its new fiber optic network, and is managing to do so at half the price of Google Fiber.
An Internet service provider based in California is offering residents connections using white spaces. Cal.net is using unallocated spectrum, left over after the transition from analog to digital television in 2009, to allow rural customers in areas without 4G LTE and land-based connections a wireless Internet connection.
Google has officially announced it will be building its fiber Internet service in Austin, Texas. The expansion, leaked over the last few days, will see Austin become the second city after Kansas City to get the Gigabit Internet and TV service through Google Fiber, with the company hoping to "start connecting homes" to the network by mid-2014.
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has issued orders to its regulatory bodies to ensure that communication tools like Skype and Whatsapp comply with the government's stringent requirements governing Internet communications. The kingdom's Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) announced last week that it had "become evident that some communication applications through (the) Internet don't meet regulatory requirements." The regulatory body did not, though, specify which laws certain apps might be violating.
The Internet is reportedly slowing down due to a large-scale online attack against an anti-spam organization, with the attack itself being declared the largest public denial of service attack in history. Non-profit Spamhaus is believed to be under attack from criminal gangs based in Russia and Eastern Europe, in a dispute that has escalated to a level that other services, such as Netflix, are feeling the impact.
North Korea is stopping tourists visiting the country from accessing the Internet over 3G wireless connections, reversing what some believed was a major step forward for the secretive region. The change comes just one month after the regime opened up its digital borders, with carrier Koryolink launching its mobile Internet service for visitors, as well as international calling, texts, and MMS messaging.
The Chinese government hopes to cover more than 70-percent of Internet users in the country with a 4M broadband service by the end of 2013. The announcement from Miao Wei, a minister working for China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is part of an initiative to increase the number of households with fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) options by over 35 million.
British cable service provider Virgin Media has been acquired by Liberty Global. The deal, worth $23.3 billion in cash and stock, gives Liberty a bigger stake in European businesses, as well as providing both companies the chance to save around $180 million per year after regulatory and shareholder approval and the acquisition closes.
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed the creation of "super Wi-Fi" networks across the US. The networks, in theory would be powerful enough to allow people to access the Internet through them without needing separate coverage via a carrier, has seen a number of parties within the wireless industry lobbying against such a proposal.
Internet use in China has gone up in China, with mobile user numbers increasing in tandem. New figures in a governmental report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) estimates that 51 million people joined the Internet in 2012, a 10-percent increase to 564 million users, a figure larger than the populations of the United States, Canada, and Mexico combined.
The Chinese Communist Party could begin requiring Chinese citizens to register their real names in order to sign up with Internet service providers. This according to a recent statement from the Party, which says that the new requirement would be aimed at cutting down on the incidence of "rumors and vulgarity." Currently, China requires that Internet service customers present providers with identity papers when signing up for service, but the new law under discussion would presumably solidify that requirement, even though how exactly it would differ from the current policy is not quite clear.
Time Warner Cable has boosted connection speeds for its Standard Internet customers for no charge. The free upgrade sees connections offered going from a downstream speed of 10Mbps to 15Mbps, an increase of 50 percent, with many customers already able to use the higher speed, though some neighborhoods will still have to wait for it to be rolled out.
Google has announced the next areas to get gigabit Internet access in Kansas City. Five more "fiberhoods" will see the high-speed connection rolled out in early 2013, with the search giant setting deadlines for residents requesting installation in those areas to choose their package before construction work begins.
Representatives of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom are refusing to sign a treaty relating to Internet governance. The three countries all objected to the International Telecommunications Union treaty, refusing to sign anything that would allow "all states to have equal rights to the governance of the Internet."
The US House or Representatives has voted unanimously to keep the Internet "free from government control." The passing of a Senate resolution to oppose United Nation control of the Internet comes while the International Telecommunications Union conference, to decide the Internet's future regulation, is in progress in Dubai.
As Syria enters its second day of being cut off from the Internet, Google has reintroduced its voice-based Twitter update service, in an effort to allow Syrian users to contact the rest of the world. In collaboration with the microblogging service, Speak2Tweet lets users make a phone call to an international number, with the resulting voice recording posted on a dedicated Twitter feed.
Syria is cut off from the Internet, according to an access monitoring firm, in what is being seen as a bid for censorship by the local government. All 84 of Syria's IP address blocks are currently unreachable, "effectively removing the country from the Internet," and appears to be linked to the current battle between the country's armed forces and Syrian rebels.
Objections have been made to a number of generic top-level domain (gTLD) applications. The ICANN Government Advisory Committee, consisting of 50 countries, has posted an initial list of 250 objections where member countries claim there to be an issue with the gTLDs being registered. Rejected applications will receive 80-percent of their $185,000 application fee.
Skype is offering free Wi-Fi access across the UK and Ireland through its app. A deal signed with hotspot provider Wicoms will let customers connect at no charge at various “high street venues and businesses” across the country, in a move that sees the service offer free Internet connectivity for far longer than previous short-term special events, such as in New York City during New Year's Eve.
Televisions are the primary screen for viewing free and paid video streamed from the Internet, according to the NPD. A recent survey suggests that 45-percent of Americans primarily use their TVs for online streaming, while 31-percent used personal computers instead. This is the first time that the TV has overtaken computers for web-based video.
Broadband caps in Canada are too low and too costly, according to a Netflix executive. Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos called out the Canadian Internet service providers at the Merrill Lynch Media, Communications and Entertainment conference earlier this week, echoing other bandwidth-related comments against the country's ISPs earlier this year.
Most neighborhoods in the initial Google Fiber cities have met their pre-registration targets. At least 180 of the 202 "fiberhoods" defined by Google in both Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri, have signed up enough households for the high-speed Gigabit Internet service to be switched on, with only one fiberhood showing no interest whatsoever.
Data has been sent over a pair of undersea fiber optic cables between China and Taiwan. Traffic between the two countries flowed through the cables for four minutes as part of a completion ceremony, with some commentators suggesting the first data connection between the two countries as having some political significance.
The largest oil company in the world, Saudi Aramco, has acknowledged that it has been struck by a malware infestation on nearly all its user workstations. The breach is said to be similar to the attack on Iranian systems in April, but oil-production industrial equipment was not affected. The company disconnected its entire network from the Internet as a precautionary measure, and anticipates full recovery of its IT systems before the end of the week.
CenturyLink is accepting $35 million from the FCC's Connect America Fund. The donation will go towards helping the telecommunications company connect around 45,000 homes in rural locations to the Internet, as part of an FCC plan to roll out high-speed connections to areas not typically covered by broadband providers due to prohibitive associated costs.
MacNN Sponsor
MacNN Newsletter
Most Popular
MacNN Sponsor
Recent Reviews
STM Studio for iPad Air
STM is one of those companies that seems to fly under the radar when it comes to iPad accessories. They're better known for their ge ...
Velodyne vBold headphones
Headphones make a statement. Whether the listener is an unabashed audio fiend or someone that cares more about the outer coolness than ...
Snugg Robust Case for iPad Air
Snugg's Distressed Brown Leather Case was something of a pleasant surprise when I reviewed it last year. I didn't expect much at fi ...
Most Commented
Popular News
