Broadband Bytes: February 21-27, 2009

Sorry about the late post, folks. I had family in town over the weekend and, well, you know how that goes. Cable’s been trying to make some waves with online video announcements as The Pirate Bay continues to dominate the prosecution in their trial. There’s also allegations that the US… Continue reading

Broadband Bytes: 2008 Wrap-up Edition

Happy New Year! This Broadband Bytes covers from December 20 through the end of the year. The end of 2008 saw even more retransmission battles (in particular the 11th-hour showdown between Time Warner and Viacom), Qwest trying to unplug a rival that’s suing it for racketeering, and the pending launch… Continue reading

Broadband Bytes: December 13-19, 2008

I think 2009 is going to end up being the year of broadband. Advocates are very well-organized and the new administration is putting a lot of post-election emphasis on telecom policy, an issue that’s typicaly given only election-cycle lip service. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin decided to up and cancel a… Continue reading

Broadband Bytes: December 6-12, 2008

This week was kind of a slow news week. Most of the telecom world has been focused on President-Elect Obama’s plans for broadband stimulus and the continuing bad economic news from providers, programmers and manufacturers. Yes, there’ still even more layoffs and bad economic news. Level 3 is planning to… Continue reading

Broadband Bytes: November 8-14, 2008

Here’s a quick list of what’s going on in the telecommuncations market for the week of November 8-14: Cable’s move to digital signals is resulting in higher prices and reduced channel selection for many video customers. While it will ultimately improve their HD and VOD offerings, customers on the lowest-prices… Continue reading

The Need for Speed: Comcast's Plans to Squeeze More Bandwidth From Aging Copper

In the quest to prepare for DOCSIS 3.0 without undertaking the necessary step of replacing aging coax with fiber, Comcast has been playing around with several solutions designed to postpone the inevitable and squeeze more bandwidth from their copper turnip. The end result? Freeing up anywhere from 25% to 50%… Continue reading