Telecoms Tech

As part of an initiative to get cat videos – I mean the internet – out in developing countries; Google has ambitious plans to deliver access in these locations by balloons, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Bear with me on this; this is a strange thing to write about as well as read I’m sure.

New applications are increasing bandwidth needs in fiber optic networks. In addition, cloud computing leads to greater variability in traffic destinations. Customers need new technologies to support communications and dynamic network reconfiguration at higher speeds.

TelecomsTech has previously reported about Google’s “Fiber” initiative, bringing high-speed broadband and TV packages to select areas of Kansas City. As part of the TV service a mobile app had been released on Android – and now a similar app has just been unleashed on the iPad.

Three of the largest Belgian internet service providers (ISPs) have not been paying “copyright levies” according to authors’ association Sabam, whilst still offering access to protected materials.

The tech press has been abuzz last week when it was first leaked and later announced that Deutsche Telekom would soon apply data caps to their wireline broadband offers (see this Fierce Telecom article for details.) Unlike AT&T style caps, heavy users will not be charged overage, they will be throttled to service levels marginally higher than what we’d get in the days of dial-up.

The last few weeks for both BT and TalkTalk have been interesting for UK telecoms - some may say slightly pathetic - but a lot is at stake for the broadband companies’ financial future.

Last month, Neelie Kroes used her MWC 2013 speech to call for a single Telecoms market, which as Vice President of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda holds some amount of weight, so how has the industry reacted?

Ask a telecom service provider’s CTO, “Would you prefer to operate network infrastructure based on fiber optics or a copper-based network?” These CTOs snap back in a second, “Fiber!” Now ask a CIO or IT manager, “Would you prefer a local area network (LAN) based on fiber optics or copper?” and you may hear 100 questions.