Fiber-Wired City Attracts Managed Services Businesses

By Geoff Daily (12.27.06)
http://www.killerapp.com/content/publish/article_275.shtml

Does municipal broadband really make a difference to local business? And do higher network speeds have proportionally higher impacts? The evidence is still anecdotal, but it’s mounting. This is one of those anecdotes.


The Jackson Energy Authority, a publicly owned utility, recently built a fiber-to-the-premises system in its home town of Jackson, Tennessee and surrounding areas, and opened the system to service providers who sell telephone, Internet access and cable television to local residents and businesses.

And the dynamic bandwidth allocation on the fiber network gives companies the tools they need to support continued growth.

With the capacious bandwidth of fiber, companies like Xpert Systems Integration are free to dream up new ways to build their businesses. Beck says he’s considering several possible new services: “We’re looking at … moving further into the Microsoft direction with applications like Exchange 2007, as well as exploring some VOIP add-ons. We’re also considering offering document management services where companies can save images to the network from copy machines. And we’re investigating things like video for surveillance.”

YouTube generation needs more broadband

Robert Mullins, IDG News Service (12.27.06)

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;727534747

The increasing popularity of high bandwidth sites means a larger push for higher quality high speed broadband access.


Technology industry experts meeting in Silicon Valley recently said broadband Internet access in the U.S. needs to improve for the "YouTube generation" to really flourish.

An improved broadband network will better serve users of sites such as YouTube.com, at which millions of videos from the general public are shared online. YouTube was acquired earlier this year by Google, and Verizon Wireless announced in November plans to offer YouTube videos over its wireless phone network.

Although the U.S. broadband penetration rate topped 75 percent of households in September and is expected to reach 80 percent by the end of 2006, according to WebSiteOptimization.com, China is expected to surpass the U.S. as its broadband base grows rapidly. But more importantly, says Mossberg, U.S. broadband networks are generally slower than those in other countries. Faster connections will be needed to deliver full-motion video to portable devices. Services that deliver as little as 768 kilobits per second (Kbps) are considered broadband in the U.S., while services in Europe and elsewhere are much faster.

Panelists said 2007 will see more growth of on-demand content, such as music videos, television shows and movies, and more demand for easier connectivity between devices.

The growth of sites like YouTube is creating "massive amounts of content and there is going to be a continuing need to take and distribute that content. That will spur innovation of more consumer devices," said Chad Hurley, cofounder of YouTube.

IPTV vs. Internet TV: How they Stack Up

David Cotriss (12-18-06)
http://www.dailyiptv.com/news/iptv-vs-internet-tv-121506/

What is the best way to deliver TV services? The pros and cons of Internet TV vs. IPTV


IPTV is a way of bringing in the stability of a network with the internet's endless content capabilities.

Given the much larger amount of content available online cable and telecom providers will likely embrace Internet video as a complement to their own IPTV offerings rather than position themselves as direct competitors. Best-effort Internet video can be subject to delays due to lower bandwidth, high traffic or poor connection quality,” he said. The end result of IPTV delivery is a higher quality, more reliable, and more consistent viewing experience, he added.

Both Internet TV and IPTV have positions in the marketplace, but IPTV meets the demands of high-quality video content delivered to consumers’ television screens, and the service will continue to improve as companies find innovative ways to take advantage of the opportunities an all-IP platform provides for integration across services and platforms.

The Internet accelerates while U.S. trails behind

Charles H. Giancarlo (12.14.06)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/14/EDGOULJ5TB1.DTL

US internet speeds continue to fall behind the rest of the world.

Household bandwidth demand continues to increase and is expected to reach approximately 1.1 terabits per month per household by 2010 in the United States. For comparison, 20 of these homes would generate more traffic than the entire Internet of 1995. However, the demand is not being met by increasing supply.

The United States now ranks 12th in the world in the total percentage of citizens that subscribe to broadband access, lagging behind such countries as Iceland, Korea, Sweden, Belgium and Canada. The trend line is even worse. The United States ranks 17th for the growth of these high-speed connections, outpaced by nearly all of our economic peers. Our broadband speeds don't measure up either. Korea's citizens, for example, have access to 50 megabits per second connections, making Internet services at typical U.S. speeds "broadband lite," at best.