US Government "National Broadband Plan" Failing Half of American Households: [26th May 2011]

A new study has indicated that almost half of all US households do not meet the broadband goals as set out by the National Broadband Plan. The study from Connected Nation is based on a tool known as The Broadband Readiness Index which assesses the infrastructure for the entire US. The National Broadband Plan states that there should be 98% mobile broadband availability and 85% access to 50Mb fixed networks. In addition there should be an download speed 3Mps for all. However the index has pointed out that just 46% of the US currently falls short of these goals. The index will track these points over the next few months to see if improvement is made.

Verizon customers can expect that their unlimited data plans will come to an end in the near future as tiered pricing and family data plans come into force. While it may be the end of unlimited data for new customers, those with several devices in their home may be able to benefit from family plans for data. Families will be able to share a bucket of minutes and data services between them. Currently Verizon charge around $10 per extra GB used and this move towards a family plan is considered to be a step in the right direction.

AT&T have revealed the first cities which will receive its LTE mobile broadband service. They will be Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, San Antonio and Chicago. In total, AT&T hope to have 15 markets covered by the end of this year, which will mean 70 million people will have access to the faster broadband. In addition there will be 20 new devices released this year which will be capable of running the 4G service. Speeds with the AT&T LTE service are expected to be 28 Mbps according to initial tests.

AT&T have been the subject of a new lawsuit which alleges that the company has been inflating the actual data usage of iPad and iPhone users by as much as 300%. In addition the company has been charging customers when the phone is disabled or unused. AT&T have refuted the claims and says that background applications are eating up the data.

AT&T Mobility has asked the FCC to approve their plans to purchase more 700 Mhz spectrum. They want to buy two additional licenses which cover Kansas and Massachusetts. This is in addition to the spectrum they purchased from Qualcomm last year and the current T-Mobile deal which is yet to be approved. AT&T have said that they intend on using the spectrum for its LTE network.

Comcast have stated that they will not be charging their customers for any overages and that their current cap of 250GB on all their tiers and this is enough for even their heaviest of users. The CFO Mike Angelaki has stated that they have deployed the instrumentation required to check how much each customer is using each month and admits that they could change to consumption billing if they chose. But they have no plans to do so. It has been pointed out that the company has invested heavily in networks which are designed to avoid congestion, so this would not be a good reason for introducing caps or overage charges.