Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been a few years since we’ve heard about O3b’s mission to provide affordable internet access where it’s not currently available, and for a while we thought we’d never see it happen. Thankfully, the company’s plans didn’t fall by the wayside: O3b is finally slated to launch its first four satellites on June 24, with the next four shooting into orbit sometime in September. The company aims to send a total of 16 medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellites to space that small ISPs in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Africa can tap into. Once they’re operational, O3b claims the previously unconnected can experience max download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps, giving Google Fiber a run for its money. The satellites will begin their journey from French Guiana, but you don’t need to fly there to be part of the event — just kick back and monitor it live online via Ariane Space.

[Thanks, Vicki]

Filed under: Internet

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Speed. It’s a movie. It’s a drug. And it’s also something that throngs of internet users the world over cannot get enough of. Thankfully, the wizards at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology have figured out a way to satisfy the unsatisfiable, announcing this week a world record in the area of wireless data transmission. Researchers were able to achieve 40Gbit/sec at 240GHz over a distance of one kilometer, essentially matching the capacity of optical fiber… but, you know, without the actual tether.

The goal here, of course, isn’t to lower your ping times beyond where they are already; it’s to give rural communities across the globe a decent shot at enjoying broadband. Distances of over one kilometer have already been covered by using a long range demonstrator, which the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology set up between two skyscrapers as part of the project “Millilink”. There’s no clear word on when the findings will be ported over to the commercial realm, but given the traction we’re seeing in the white spaces arena, we doubt you’ll have to wait long.

Filed under: Science, Internet

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Via: Physorg

Source: Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics

It looks like the slow and steady fiber-fication of Missouri is well underway, as the Gladstone City Council has voted to bring Google’s speedy broadband service to the city. This comes just a few days after the Mountain View company welcomed Grandview into the fold, and we’re sure the Show Me state will soon see even wider Fiber adoption just like neighboring Kansas. Of course, Gladstone’s induction is merely honorary at this point; there’s still plenty of work to be done before its citizens can surf the fastest internet waves in the Midwest.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Google Fiber

Competition is a good thing in any market. The more businesses you have working for the consumer’s dollar, it tends to lead to better prices and service. Google announced not long ago that it would be rolling out its Google Fiber Internet service in Austin, Texas.

The announcement from Google has existing Internet providers within Austin scrambling to try and keep customers on their service.

For starters, Internet provider Time Warner Cable has announced that it will be offering all of its subscribers free access to Wi-Fi hotspots within the city. Time Warner says that its existing customers with standard cable packages or above can now get free access to the citywide Wi-Fi network that the company is building.

Time Warner went so far as to specifically point out Google Fiber as the reason it is speeding up the deployment of its Wi-Fi network. Still, I suspect that Time Warner will be unable to compete on pure performance and a lot of its customers will still defect to Google Fiber when it’s available.

[via Gigaom]

In an effort to update the FCC’s long-running Lifeline program that helps put telephone access in low-income homes, a new piece of legislation has been introduced to the House of Representatives that would aim to give low-income homes the opportunity for unsubsidized broadband internet access.

The bill is backed by Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA), and it’s being called the Broadband Adoption Act of 2013, which would instruct the FCC to modify the Lifeline program in order to include broadband internet. Matsui says that the Lifeline program is fantastic, but it needs to be updated and modernized to fit within the 21st century.

Lifeline is funded by the “Universal Service” system, which helps low-income Americans pay for their landline phone, but this new bill would see Universal Services also helping pay for broadband internet access. In addition to subsidizing services, the Universal Service also helps pay for telephone service in rural areas around the country.

However, the discussion of whether or not to provide low-income households with cheaper broadband internet has been up and down in Washington for several years now, with a 2010 government report showing up that recommended the addition of broadband internet to the existing Lifeline program. Plus, Matsui introduced similar legislation in 2011, but it quickly faded away.

[via Ars Technica]

New legislation aims for subsidized broadband in low-income homes is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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