Are Internet Providers Looking to Improve or just Merge?: [2nd Jun 2011]

As part of their condition of their merger with NBC, Comcast has started to offer the $10 broadband packages as it was required to do. The packages need to be offered to any household with an income of less than $20,000 a year. The Internet Essentials package will be available from this fall and every home where children are allowed free school lunches will qualify. The package will offer the Comcast Xfinity Economy broadband option which is usually worth $25. They will also be able to buy a PC for $150 and get training in how to use it. The program will run for three years and the household will remain eligible as long as the children continue to live at home.

A deal between LightSquared and Sprint appears to have reached a conclusion this week. Reports suggest that LightSquared is about to pay $2 billion each year to rent space on the Sprint network. This will allow LS to launch their own high speed services. Sprint could also do with the money as they are hoping to upgrade their network over the next few years and require $5 billion to do so. It is believed that Sprint are planning a move to LTE and LightSquared are an LTE operator. However LightSquared have also been linked with AT&T and have been rumored to be buying capacity from them. In addition to all of this, LightSqueared have been testing their network to make sure that it does not affect GPS signals. They say that they are committed to resolving any issues which come up during testing.

T-Mobile are continuing to forge ahead with their upgrade plans despite the upcoming deal with AT&T. They now offer HSPA in more than fifty markets which are capable of 42Mbps. The will also be expanding their 21Mbps service into a number of cities. This is ahead of the release of the HTC Sensation mobile phone which will be running on this network.

AT&T have been asked to prove that they have a spectrum shortfall by the FCC. The company has used this as the reason why they want to buy T-Mobile and now they are being asked to show all analysis, plans and reports which back up this claim. AT&T have claimed that their network constraints are worse than any other carrier and that they need more capacity. AT&T have said they will provide the FCC with everything they need and that this is standard procedure. Those against the merger are pleased that the FCC is taking an in depth look into the proposal and the fact that they want proof that the plan will create jobs. AT&T have used this as leverage as well.

An analysis of the government released broadband map by ID Insight has shown it to be full of problems. Comparing the map to their own data, the research company claims that the map failed to use its huge $300 million budget wisely. In some cases the map shows that there is service availability where there is none. In addition the speed estimates are significantly higher than actual speeds. ID Insights say that the map is useful and a good starting point, however the map needs to be continually improved to allow consumers to make more informed decisions.

The Visual Networking Index Global IP traffic Forecast by Cisco has discovered that global IP traffic will reach 968 exabytes by the end of 2015. In addition wi-fi will take over wired traffic in the same year. It is thought that video will be the driver behind this huge growth and will make up 62% of Internet use in 2015. Mobile Internet will use up just 8%. It is also thought that the average US household will consume 61GB a month in 2015 compared to just 17GB at the moment.