Email Outages: Gmail and Otherwise

What are the odds? On the same day that Gmail has a major outage, so does our company email server. For this particular problem, redundant and diverse access network connections, devices and carriers do not help. Hazards of connected life....

T-Mobile @Home Might be Getting Some Traction

T-Mobile's site for @Home, the dual-mode service allowing use of the home broadband access service as the connection for T-Mobile mobile service, was the fastest-growing Web site in the month of July, growing at a 4447 percent rate, according to Compete.

It looks like T-Mobile's @Home service is getting some interest.

More Wireless than Wired Broadband Accounts

Some observers think wireless broadband accounts will outnumber wired broadband accounts at some point.

If you assume a significant percentage of wireless subscriptions are of the broadband variety, that is possible. If there are about 350 million wired broadband lines, then about 19 percent of wired lines are of the broadband variety. If that ultimately grows to about half of all lines in service, then there might be a billion or so wired broadband lines in service.

If just 30 percent of the world's wireless accounts are broadband, then there will be more than 1.5 billion wireless broadband accounts in service at that point.

In 2007, third generation and fourth generation wireless network subscriptions grew 94 percent. By the end of 2012, 3G/4G subscriptions are expected to rise to 1.4 billion, say researchers at In-Stat.

CableVision Passes 25% Residential Voice Share

CableVision Systems Corp. now finds that more than 37 percent of its customers buy a voice product. If CableVision has 68 percent penetration of homes in its market, that means it has gotten more than 25 percent share of the voice market.

20 Mbps Services Get Traction in U.K.

Virgin Media's 20-Mbps U.K. broadband service seems to be seeing strong consumer interest. Over the last 12 months, Virgin Media has seen an 82 percent increase in the number of subscribers taking the 20 Mbps service, up to this point the fastest tier of service available, though Virgin Media now is adding a 50 Mbps service as well. About 9.3 percent of Virgin Media's broadband access subscribers buy the 20 Mbps service. Virgin Media also has found increasing numbers of customers upgrading from 2 Mbps to 10 Mbps levels of service.

Search Emerging as Internet's Second Killer App

The percentage of Internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one third of all users in 2002 to a new high of just under one half (49 percent), say researchers at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. To the extent that email has been the closest thing to an Internet killer app, search is emerging as the second.

The number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60 percent of Internet users who use email on a typical day. The percentage of internet users who search on a typical day grew 69 percent from January 2002 to May 2008.

During the same six-year time period, the use of email on a typical day rose from 52 percent to 60 percent, for a growth rate of just 15 percent.

3:1 Margin of Mobile to Fixed Lines Globally

There now are three times more mobile subscribers than access line subscribers worldwide in 2007 (3.3 billion vs. 1.1 billion), say researchers at Infonetics Research. The firm also expects continued strong growth in mobile subscribers, mainly driven by basic voice service needs in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China).

The number of mobile subscribers jumped 31 percent in 2007 over 2006, while access line subscribers declined five percent.

The number of worldwide mobile subscribers will reach 5.2 billion by 2011, Infonetics further suggest, while mobile broadband subscribers grow at a 104 percent compound annual growth rate from 2007 to 2011. At that point, there will be one cellular mobile broadband subscriber for every four wireline broadband subscribers.