July 11, 2009
What’s new in the world of cable? I’m a little closer to updated with help from Tim Finnerty who recently sent me some interesting articles.
First – Cable Braces for IPv6. It seems as if I’ve been hearing about IPv6 forever – certainly in 1994 – it also seem as if eventually we will need to move to IPv6 as more and more devices get online. (IPv6 is Internet Protocol version 6 – the next generation addressing scheme.) Apparently guestimates for a timeline for running out of numbers are as soon as two years from now. According to Cable Digital News, Comcast has already has its backbone outfitted for next-gen IPv6 and could begin residential tests as early as this year. With DOCSIS 3.0, they expect to be able to run IPv6 to businesses and homes by the end of next year.
Second – Cable Crafts Turbo Option. Apparently the cable industry is brainstorming an invention to allow customers to supercharge their connections for short spurts of time. Here’s the scoop from Cable Digital News:
As described (PDF) by CableLabs, that invention — dubbed the “Method for dynamic control of per-flow bandwidth preemption” [Ed. note: Catchy!] — will let a customer request that the cable operator provision (mostly likely through the cable modem and the cable modem termination system) a temporarily faster and higher-priority level of service.
It’s not here yet – but they’re working on it.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
December 19, 2008
Big crowd at the Task Force meeting today. Loads of people joining via phone. I have not seen so many suits since I quit working at law libraries.
I have included my notes, such as they are. Please forgive any typos. Thanks to the Task Force for sharing the PPT presentations.
I usually try not to give too much of my opinion, but… I think it was great for so many providers to come in to talk. But I think it might have been more helpful to give each 90 seconds to speak and then let the board ask questions. I think that would have helped get beyond the party lines for each business and into more heated issues.
Here are the notes… Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ann Treacy
September 20, 2008
It’s a beautiful day in Minnesota – and I know our days are numbered – I read through all of my headlines and said I’d only pause if I saw something really good or really bad. Well, I paused…
Comcast sent their network management maps and plans to the FCC – as required. I guess that’s the good news. The bad news is that they are planning to “manage” downstream traffic as well as upstream traffic. So they are widening their focus. Now they’ll be managing not only the P2P folks but anyone who downloads a lot – such as movies or TV shows.
The good folks at IP Democracy (such a great name) have really looked into the issue.
I’m pretty surprised by this. So many more people download and now the management has the potential to reach so many more people – and not just the geeks. I think it’s a strategy that might backfire as word gets out. Well as people run into bandwidth issues. Apparently they have tested it and so far no issues – but have they tested in the dead of winter in Minnesota when the whole family has nothing to do and 4 computers to do it on.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
August 1, 2008
When it rains, it pours. For the past two weeks it’s been all I could do to keep up on Minnesota broadband happenings. Off in the ether, I’ve been getting glimpses at the FCC’s activity but I haven’t been tracking it too closely. Well the news broke today on FCC ruling on the Comcast/BitTorrent case and I want to thank Jim Baller for not only tracking the news but allowing me to post his comments here. (Jim maintains a great daily email list of telecommunications policy news.)
The big news is that the FCC just ruled, as widely expected, that Comcast’s treatment of BitTorrent traffic violates the FCC’s broadband policies.
According to Commissioner Michael Copps, who joined with Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to form a 3-2 majority, “This is a landmark decision for the FCC—a meaningful stride forward on the road to guaranteed openness of the Internet.”
The decision does not attempt to lay down rules for all situations but focuses on the specific Comcast practices at issue. The FCC emphasizes the need for a balance between preserving the openness of the Internet and permitting essential network management.
A written order is not yet available. The FCC’s press release and the statements of Chairman Martin and Commissioners Copps and Adelstein are available at www.fcc.gov. They are well worth reading.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
February 27, 2008
On February 25, the FCC held a hearing on broadband network management practices. (You can download audio and video of the meeting.) IP Democracy did a nice write up of the meeting. (A big thanks to them for saving me the effort!) The short description – the got together to talk about allegations of Comcast over-managing their network to the disservice of certain applications.
My super short notes – everyone recognized that providers need to be able to manage their networks to keep them running. But we need to know that network management is reasonable – that consumers will be able to do what they want and need to do. (So long as it is legal.) As Rep Markley said – Internet freedoms are consumer-centric.
Another big point was transparency. Consumers need to know the rules as the providers maintain them. As Michael Copps alluded, decisions on how the Internet works (and info flows) are currently being made by providers and other vendors. (He gave some great examples.)
Copps suggested that the FCC create a process for future allegations against broadband providers.
Several speakers mentioned a bill of rights for online citizens.
Gilles BianRosa gives a nice demo of Vuze (a Peer to Peer application) in explaining how traffic throttling by a network provider affects the service. He also estimated that the upload capacity of a US connection is 10-20 percent of the download speed – whereas in the rest of the world upload is generally equal to download.
Comcast votes for letting the market set the rules and encouraging the FCC to tread lightly on regulation.
(You can get a list of upcoming meetings on the FCC site.)
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Posted by Ann Treacy
April 25, 2007
I have tried (not really hard) to find the testimony from the Statewide Cable Franchising hearing on April 13. It wasn’t televised. There was no video archive. So tonight I listened to the audio archive. (I have blogged about previous hearings.)
I was urged to follow up for 2 reasons. First I emailed the Committee Administrator (Elizabeth Emerson) who kindly sent me the following update:
HF2351 was heard in the Telecom Committee over the course of 3 weeks, the last being April 13. On April 13, the Telecom Division moved to pass HF2351 with no recommendation to the Committee on Commerce and Labor. Over the interim, I will be working with the author and Telecom Chair (Sheldon Johnson) to put together a working group that will dissect the bill and hammer out details.
Second, I ran into Mike Wassenaar from St Paul Neighborhood Network at the Minnesota Council on Nonprofit conference yesterday. (More on that conference in a later blog post.) It was great to see him and he was able to fill me in a bit. He told me that AT&T suddenly came out against the proposed bill – which was a turn around from the first hearing I saw! It was enough to drive me to listen to the audio archive.
OK my usual stipulation – I’ve done my best to take notes. Readers are asked to please correct me where they can. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ann Treacy
April 16, 2007
I got DSL in 1998. I was working for a project called Web, White & Blue and they pretty much said we can’t pay our going rate until you have broadband. The work would simply be too slow on dialup. Friends at the time wondered how I could have remained a modem person for so long.
I am always interested in why someone moves to broadband today. The post below comes from a friend, Roger Sween who recently upgraded to dialup. Roger and his wife are retired. They were nominated for a Minnesota Coalition of Government Information award this year. So they are librarian friends of mine. I was surprised their conversion to broadband was so recent.
Here’s their story:
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ann Treacy
April 8, 2007
SeiHere’s another great upcoming seminar:
Community Broadband Seminar
Thursday, April 26, 2007 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Sponsored by: MACTA, the League of Minnesota Cities, and the City of St. Louis Park
Location: Recreation Center Banquet Room, 3700 Monterey Drive, St. Louis Park, MN Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ann Treacy
April 8, 2007
I just got an email from the Center for Democracy and Technology about a case in NY where a U.S. District Court issued a ruling blocking the cable television provider Cablevision from rolling out a “remote storage” digital video recorder (DVR) system.
DVR is the “on demand” service that allows you to watch previously recorded shows. I don’t have it because TV-wise I’m stuck in the Twentieth century (and not the last decade) but I know it’s a popular service because like TiVo it allows you to store up a bunch of programs until you have time to watch. The difference with the DVR that has been blocked is that normally the saved programs are stored on the customer’s location; remote DVR would save programs on the servers at the provider’s location.
The television and cable producers (such as Twentieth Century Fox, The Cartoon Network, and others) were the ones who didn’t like the idea of remote storage. Again the distinction is who is recording the programs and where it is stored and whether DVR is considered a device (as is the case when it locally stores programs) or a service. (You can learn more on the Center for Democracy and Technology web site.)
This reminds me a lot of the common carrier issues that faced Internet service providers in the 1990s. The issue back then was any issues of censorship and culpability of the service providers. The decision back then was to think of ISPs as being akin to phone providers. They just provided the forum not the format or content for information.
What I think is difficult in these situations is that the nuances are lost on the consumer but are big issues to the providers. In the short term it makes sense to the consumer to want to remotely store programs or to blame the ISP for censoring or not censoring materials – but in the long term these are big issues about civil liberties and intellectual property.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
