A deep dive into digital marketing

Your bits are better then mine

Posted by Chris under Broadband, Comcast, Security, Technology, Uncategorized

Yesterday CNET reported on the latests over the the FCC 3-2 ruling on Friday to “declare that Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent traffic last year was unlawful, marking the first time that any U.S. broadband provider has ever been found to violate Net neutrality rules”

Big news right except that there were not fines, penalties or even a slap on the wrist, and Comcast’s comment from a company spokeswomen: “We believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices,” isn’t really one of apology.

Remember this is the same Comcast that denied in August 2007 that it was filtering BitTorrent traffic. But when experts showed a few months later that Comcast really was throttling BitTorrent after all, and the company was forced to concede to the FCC that it blocks only “excessive” traffic.

Now I’m a Comcast subscriber. I’ve been using their highspeed broadband for almost 10 years and their broadband and TV for over four. It’s fast, reliable and for the most part like the electricity in my house, it just works. Clearly their are network bandwidth issues, some of which along with some solutions are pointed out in the recent MIT Technology Journal. As a side note I’d suggest you add this magazine or the website to your regular reading.

The FCC needs to get it’s act together to work with ISP’s and create solutions to packet/data management as the problem is going to get worse before it gets better.

Broadband speed survey

Posted by Chris under Broadband, Technology, Uncategorized

Pew’s Internet research has done past reports on US broadband usage. This year they want to add to the data and you can help. How?

Well, they want to see the speeds that the American population is using for their internet connections. And with the recent premium/metered pricing tests by Comcast and others it’s even more important to see if we’re getting what we’re paying for.

So if you are interested participate in the the Broadband Census, which is being overseen by Drew Clark, a telecommunications and technology journalist. Visit BroadbandCensus.com . Once you are on the census page, you’ll be asked to give some information about your broadband connection and then have your connection’s speed tested.

After you participate you can also see what other people are reporting for their speed, so you give and get.

Questions on the study can be directed to Lee Rainie, Director - Pew Internet & American Life Project.

As a side note I’d recommend signing up for their email list. The research that Pew provides is free, quite relevant and helpful.