US Average Downstream Speed up 71% Thanks to Comcast and Verizon Upgrades: [17th Feb 2011]

The latest data from Instat has shown that the average broadband connection in the US is now 9.54 Mbps. This compares to 3.8Mbps is 2007 and 7.12Mbps in 2009. Despite this increase in performance, the cost of subscribing to these connections increased by just 4% between 2009 and 2010; however this does not take into account the fees and extras which often end up on a broadband package bill. When cable and other technologies were taken into account, the average downstream speed increased by 71% in the last two years. It is thought that the upgrades carried out by Comcast and Verizon drove much of this increase in speeds.


A study by ComScore has found that 83% of all US Internet users watched a web video in January of this year. This represents more than 171 million people. The average video lasted five minutes, 24 seconds of which was devoted to ads. Google provided most of this video through YouTube with 144 million viewers and 1.9 billion clips watched. Those who watched YouTube spent an average of 283 minutes watching it during the month. Vevo took the second spot with 51 million people watching, while Yahoo came in third with 49 million viewers. Hulu came in tenth with 25 million viewers, but those who used this site tended to stay longer and watched more minutes than all of their rivals except Google. Those who use Hulu are subjected to more ads, however.


The Department of Justice and Homeland Security announced this week that they had seized domains which were related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. Unfortunately it seems that one of the domains which was closed down was done so incorrectly and 84,000 website owners were delivered a warning about child pornography and a redirection from their site to a statement. The websites in question were all sent a message warning them they may be liable to huge fines and up to 30 years in prison. The domain in question was Mooo.com which is owned by FreeDNS. It took three days for the sites to be up and running again.


Comcast has revealed their fourth quarter earnings which show that the company earned $1.02 billion during the quarter. This is a jump in sales of 7%. In addition they have increased their subscribers by 292,000 customers, but lost 135,000 video subscribers. The company has also had impressive phone growth with another 257,000 customers being added. Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast has pointed out that the NBC merger is likely to add to the growth of the company and an exciting new beginning. Comcast is now the third largest phone company in the US and dominates the ViOP market.


Verizon has seen lower than expected sales of the iPhone after its release last week. This is despite the initial pre-orders breaking Verizon single day sales records. Online sales amounted to 550,000 units. 30% were Android users, 25% were blackberry users and 14% were coming from AT&T. The figures came from an Apple insider. It seems that fewer people than expected moved from AT&T to Verizon.


T-Mobile have changed their policy on their early termination fee this week. An internal memo has suggested that customers can no longer cancel a service without an ETF if they move out of a T-Mobile coverage area. The new policy took effect from February 8. This does not apply to anyone who has to move overseas due to a military deployment. This also does not apply to customers who canceled before the announcement.