broadband

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a new report allowing the use of improved satellite antennas on commercial aircraft. The new hardware will significantly improve in-flight wireless Internet (WiFi) service on many US airline ... flights. Right now, few US airlines have outfitted their planes with hardware capable of offering their passengers fast and reliable wireless Internet service. For many passengers, the result is significantly reduced productivity during the time they spend in the air. FCC: Americans Want Better In-Flight WiFi Apparently, that's about to change. A ... (view more)

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) now says it will help bring broadband Internet service to 400,000 Americans who currently don't have access to high-speed Internet. The program to subsidize networks in rural areas will cost $115 ... million in public funds. The aim of the Connect America Fund is to subsidize the installation of high-speed Internet cables in remote places where doing so is not profitable for private firms. The money will come from the Universal Service Fund. In the past, this fund was spent on subsidies to make sure every American home had telephone service, but ... (view more)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says it has found a solution to legal road-blocking of its powers over broadband providers. It will use a technicality to enforce the " net neutrality " principles, but relax its controls over other ... aspects of broadband. The legal saga involves Comcast intentionally slowing down Internet access to customers who were using peer-to-peer filesharing services such as those based on the BitTorrent system. Many people using BitTorrent do so to share copyrighted files without permission, but the system itself is not illegal and can be used just as easily ... (view more)

At least five cities have already said they are interested in taking up Google's offer to build broadband networks running at a staggering 1 Gigabit per second (1Gbps). The comments come as analysts try to figure out what Google gains from the ... scheme. The firm says it will help fund networks serving between 50,000 and 500,000 customers. Cities whose officials have already said they are looking into the proposals include Winston, North Carolina; Peachtree City, Georgia; San Francisco, California; and Greensboro, North Carolina. Officials in Ontario County, New York have also shown an interest ... (view more)

AT&T is testing a system that uses home broadband to solve poor home cellphone reception. If successful, it would lead to the biggest audience yet for the technology, though consumers may not be impressed with the proposed pricing scheme. The ... technology involves a device known as a "femtocell," which AT ... (view more)

A telecommunications firm in Great Britain has received full regulatory permission to build a national fiber-optic network for broadband. It could mean speeds of up to 100 Mbps for those in cities, with rural dwellers left behind. The company ... concerned, British Telecom (BT), was once the monopoly provider of phone services in the country. Today it competes with others, but still controls the phone network itself, meaning phone users must either rent a line from BT or use a cable service. At the moment the fastest cable service belongs to Virgin Cable, which has just launched a premium 50Mbps ... (view more)