Hasta La Gadget!

If Internet.org ever hopes to be successful with its goal of bringing affordable internet to the next 5 billion people, the cost of delivery will need to be much cheaper than it is today. Today, members of the coalition — which includes Facebook, Qualcomm, Ericsson and others — released a substantial 70-page white paper that outlines some of the initial steps that are on the drawing board. According to the group’s estimates, data delivery is currently 100 times too expensive to execute the vision of Internet.org, but all of that could change within the next decade.

To accomplish this, Internet.org is seeking ways to bring a tenfold improvement to the cost of delivering data, along with apps that are 10 times more efficient. For Facebook’s part, it highlights technologies such as HipHop for PHP and the HipHop virtual machine, which allows its existing servers to accommodate 500 percent more traffic than before, and its Air Traffic Control system, which allows it to simulate different mobile networks and congestion systems around the world. Similarly, Facebook is looking to compression technologies such as WebP — currently in use on its Android app — to replace image formats such as PNG and JPEG, which alone could reduce network traffic by 20%.

Another challenge is looming, however, as Qualcomm estimates that the demand for data will double each year over the next 10 years, ultimately increasing 1000 fold over where it is today. To meet that demand, it’s lobbying for a substantial spectrum reallocation, along with technologies such as carrier aggregation, LTE-Broadcast and LTE Direct. Combine this with more unconventional approaches that it’ll reveal at a later date, and you begin to appreciate the massive undertaking that lies ahead for the partners of Internet.org.

Filed under: Internet, Mobile, Facebook

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Source: Facebook, Internet.org (PDF)

San Francisco has been striving for city-wide internet access since 2007, and with a little help from Mountain View, it’s now one step closer to achieving that lofty goal. After receiving a $600,000 donation from Google, 31 public parks in one of the world’s most tech-savvy cities will have free WiFi for at least two years. Google’s gift will cover installation and maintenance of all necessary equipment for the project, which builds upon the the city’s existing public WiFi hotspots like San Francisco International Airport and City Hall. While blanket coverage for the entire city is still a ways off, offering free internet access in places like public parks is a giant step forward in making the web accessible for all.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Via: SF Gate

It wasn’t all that long ago that the phone company was the source for internet access, first with traditional dial-up and later with DSL. That quickly began to change as cable companies started offering their own alternative, though, and the AP is now reporting that the second quarter of this year saw something of a milestone. According to its tally, the eight largest phone companies in the US lost a collective 70,000 broadband subscribers in Q2 (DSL or otherwise), while the four biggest cable companies continued to grow with 290,000 new subscribers. As it notes, AT&T is the main culprit for that overall decline, with it losing 96,000 broadband subscribers while the other phone companies all saw modest growth. It also notes that second quarter is a generally weak one for all broadband providers, what with college students cancelling their subscriptions before heading home — but, then again, this is the first time that the phone companies haven’t seen at least some growth during the period. Of course, this is also just home broadband we’re talking about — mobile broadband is another matter altogether.

Filed under: Internet

Phone companies see loss of broadband subscribers for first time in Q2, cable continues to gain originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hefty price tags haven’t exactly made cellphones ubiquitous in cash-strapped Myanmar. According to AFP, an estimated 96 percent of the nation’s 60 million inhabitants don’t own a mobile handset, but that might soon be changing. A new reform plan announced by Myanmar’s Post and Telecommunication Minister, Thein Tun, lays out a strategy that could finally give said folks a crack at affordable cellular and internet services. If succesful, the initiative will start a bidding process for international telcos to set up shop in the country, allowing the companies to partner with the state-owned telephone provider and the ISP Yatanarpon Teleport. There’s no word on when the partnerships may coalesce, but here’s to hoping that $200 SIM card registration fees in Myanmar soon become a thing of the past. Full details at the source link below.

[Photo credit: Soe Than Win, AFP]

Filed under: Internet

Myanmar plans to open doors to foreign telcos for affordable cellular, internet service originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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