Glasnost in graphics: UK, Spain, Poland, Nl, Serbia shape majority of IP traffic

From EDRi: darker colours denote more throttling (note dictatorships often even darker)

Virgin Media UK Fails to Get Sky Totally Unlimited Broadband Claim Banned - ISPreview UK

Virgin Media UK Fails to Get Sky Totally Unlimited Broadband Claim Banned - ISPreview UK:
"ASA Assessment (REF: A12-191871)
We noted that there were inherent limitations in any network, which would limit a consumer’s actual broadband speed and therefore the amount of data that a consumer could download over a particular period of time. Some of these limitations, such as signal attenuation, resulted in a greater loss of speed for DSL services compared to fibre-optic services. However, we considered that consumers would understand that the claim “totally unlimited” referred to provider-imposed limitations, especially traffic management policies.
We did not consider that the average consumer would infer that “totally unlimited” meant the broadband service was free from the inherent limitations found in the network."
Or: you canna mess with the laws of physics and that's not false advertising....'via Blog this'

The Challenges of Adaptive Streaming

BBC - Research and Development: The Challenges of Adaptive Streaming: "Adaptive streaming works by encoding the same media file at a number of different bit-rates, which produces multiple ‘representations’ of the content, each at different qualities. As the quality of the internet connection varies, the streaming client can switch between the different representations to provide a smooth viewing experience. When the connection is good, a high bit-rate representation will be requested, resulting in a good quality picture. If the connection worsens, the client will request a lower bit-rate, resulting in a slight decrease in picture quality but a better overall experience since it avoids freezing and rebuffering.
The BBC is already using adaptive streaming (e.g. for Wimbledon and the Olympics), however there is still work to be done to understand how the technology can be optimised for different network environments e.g. characteristics of residential broadband networks, and looking into how we can produce and test different algorithms that decide which representation to request based on the network environment."
'via Blog this'

The story of the digital Olympics: streams, browsers, most watched, four screens

BBC - BBC Internet Blog: The story of the digital Olympics: streams, browsers, most watched, four screens: "peak audiences for Team GB's medal moments were bigger than anything we've ever seen. Over a 24 hour period on the busiest Olympic days, Olympic traffic to bbc.co.uk exceeded that for the entire BBC coverage of FIFA World Cup 2010 games. On the busiest day, the BBC delivered 2.8 petabytes, with the peak traffic moment occurring when Bradley Wiggins won Gold and we shifted 700 Gb/s. BBC Sport Online's most requested live video stream was of the Tennis Singles Finals"
'via Blog this'

The most expensive iPhone5 plan in the world....£5100 in the UK

Twitter / internetthought: The most expensive iPhone5 ...: "The most expensive iPhone5 plan in the world. @orangeuk charges £5100,00 per month for 24 months. Pic as proof. pic.twitter.com/gdl0NBeE" 'via Blog this
P.S. The more usual price is about £1000 - see http://www.reghardware.com/2012/09/14/iphone_5_pay_monthly_tariffs_compared/

AT&T: Pay Me, Screw Net Neutrality - a frog's tale

Craig Aaron: AT&T: Pay Me, Screw Net Neutrality: "History makes it quite clear that carriers and ISPs will consider all sorts of ridiculous things in the name of propping up declining revenue streams like voice and text.
Today AT&T blocks FaceTime unless you pay their toll, but tomorrow it will be Skype, Google Voice or iMessage. And that's why users everywhere need to speak out against AT&T's harrowing vision for our wireless Internet future.
You know the story about boiling a frog. If you put it in the pot and slowly turn up the heat, the frog won't know it's being cooked. That's exactly what AT&T's doing here. Only the amphibians in question are its customers.
If you're one of them, look out. The water is starting to bubble." 'via Blog this'

Goodbye Mr Hunt, missing you already

UK should have fastest broadband network in Europe by 2015: "“In my very first speech as a Minister I said that I wanted us to have the “best” superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015,” said Jeremy Hunt in a recent speech. “In defining ‘best’ you include factors like price and coverage as well as speed. But over the past two years it has become clear, as Usain Bolt wouldn't hesitate to say, to be the best you need to be the fastest. So I am today announcing an ambition to be not just the best, but specifically the fastest broadband of any major European country by 2015. Indeed we may already be there.”"
What he meant is that the UK can't compete with the Netherlands so he is excluding them from his Olympics - oh, and Asia, the Americas...he's now Health Secretary, I do hope no-one gets sick on his watch 'via Blog this'

Global Internet growth is driven by flexible governance, not restrictive regulation

New report illustrates global Internet growth is driven by flexible governance, not restrictive regulation - Press releases - News | Analysys Mason Group: "The report, 'Internet global growth: lessons for the future', authored by Michael Kende, co-head of Regulation at Analysys Mason, examines the impact of proposals that seek to apply the antiquated settlement system for terminating international voice calls over the legacy telecommunications network to Internet traffic.
The proposals addressed in the paper are to the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), which are being readied for the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) to be held in Dubai this December by the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU). In the report, Kende assesses the proposals by focusing on the following areas:
the success and growth of the Internet under the current model
the negative impact of applying rate models developed for an obsolete telecoms system to the modern Internet.
Kende concludes with recommendations for governments in developing countries on fostering a robust Internet while avoiding rate regulations.
The report highlights the Internet as a driver for growth and opportunity, noting its increasingly central role to consumers, businesses and governments alike." 'via Blog this'

Hadopi - Millions of Notices, Few Disconnections or Court Cases

Hadopi - Millions of Notices, Few Disconnections or Court Cases | GamePolitics: "According to a report from TorrentFreak stats released yesterday by Numerama show that during the last two years Hadopi has been very busy. Since October of 2010, copyright owners identified a total of 3 million French IP addresses. Of that 3 million Hadopi considered 1.15 million (or 38.3 percent) legitimate enough to use the first strike notice. From there, just 102,854 (or 8.94 percent) went on to receive a second notice via registered mail. Finally a total of 340 individuals received a third strike. But here's something you probably didn't know: none of those individuals got kicked off the internet because there is a apparently a fourth strike." 'via Blog this'

WCITLeaks: Policy Analyses

WCITLeaks: "Input into the WCIT process has been dominated by member states and private industry. Together with our partners across civil society, we are providing a centralized resource bank with links to research and analysis of WCIT proposals, advocacy and mobilization materials, and multimedia resources. If you'd like to suggest a link for inclusion, please submit it using the form below" 'via Blog this'

Tim Berners-Lee: the internet has no off switch

Tim Berners-Lee: the internet has no off switch | Technology | The Guardian: "The global league table, launched on Wednesday by the World Wide Web Foundation, showed Sweden as the top country for its use of the web, with the US second and the UK in third place. Nepal, Cameroon and Mali were the bottom three of 61 countries measured using indicators such as the political, economic and social impact of the web, connectivity and use. The league table, which will be updated annually and will also try to measure absolute as well as relative improvements, uses data from the past five years, and compares elements such as the extent to which relevant and useful content is available to citizens; the political, economic and social impact of the web; the speed of connections; and levels of censorship. The UK's scores were lowest for web usage and social impact. China, despite having the world's largest internet population, ranked 29th, and was 42nd in terms of political impact out of the 61 countries examined."

'via Blog this'

Big Brother on a budget: How Internet surveillance got so cheap

Big Brother on a budget: How Internet surveillance got so cheap | Ars Technica: "One failed DPI-based effort comes from a company called NebuAd. It tried to sell ISPs on this advertising idea, signing up Charter Communications and some smaller providers for a trial of a service that not only monitored the content of users’ Web traffic to target ads, but even injected data into packets, adding JavaScript that dropped tracking cookies into users browsers to do even more thorough behavior-based targeting of advertisements. NebuAd went bankrupt after it drew the attention of Congress, and Charter and the other ISPs in the trial dropped the “enhanced online advertising service” the company provided. Other behavior-based marketing companies, such as Phorm, continue to offer “Web personalization” services that include discovery of users’ interests integrated with DPI-based Web security to block malicious sites.

Another firm, Global File Registry, aims to go further, by injecting ISPs’ own advertisements into search-engine results through DPI and packet forging. The company has combined file-recognition technology from Kazaa with DPI to make it possible for ISPs to re-route links to pirated files online to sites offering to sell licensed versions of them. Comcast has already tested the anti-piracy waters with DPI, running afoul of the FCC’s efforts to enforce network neutrality. The company’s ISP business, which uses Sandvine’s DPI technology, moved to block peer-to-peer file sharers using BitTorrent as part of its traffic management. The FCC ordered Comcast to stop (primarily because Comcast was injecting forged packets into network traffic to shut down BitTorrent sessions), but that order was later struck down by a Federal appeals court." 'via Blog this'

Cisco Survey: Users Want Video Calling Interoperability

Cisco Survey: Users Want Video Calling Interoperability | PCWorld: "Cisco wants the video-calling marketplace to work more like the telephone network or the wider Internet, but the market is "fractured right now, where many video services cannot connect with each other," Hsieh said. He pointed to Skype's proprietary video calling service as one reason for the lack of interoperability. The Microsoft-owned service controls about 80 percent of the consumer video-calling market."
Neutrality is a many-edged sword?
 'via Blog this'

The Internet A Decade Later: 2002 to 2012 (or why net neutrality and innovation matter)

The Internet A Decade Later (via PanGloss): "This infographic will take you on a journey to the past, where web pages had no pictures (slower internet speeds back then) and where everything looked like it was just copied and pasted onto the website." 'via Blog this'

Verizon Challenges the FCC's Net Neutrality Rules

Citizen Media Law Project: "While challenges to the FCC's net neutrality rules make their way into court once again, the FCC, companies, organizations, and individuals alike are rallying for preservation of their interests in the Internet. There is a new Declaration of Internet Freedom, a movement to "save" the Internet, and the FCC has even established a new Open Internet Advisory Committee to "track and evaluate the effects of the FCC's Open Internet rules, and provide any recommendations it deems appropriate to the FCC." In the meanwhile, the FCC has until September to reply to Verizon's complaint." 'via Blog this'