About half of all European Union households can buy high-speed Internet access of at least 30 Mbps, a study conducted by Point Topic, and commissioned for the European Union, finds.
Docsis 3, generally capable of providing 30 Mbps service, reaches 37 percent of homes. VDSL, which is included in the DSL figures, is available for purchase by 21 percent of homes, while fiber to the home is available to 12 percent of homes.
The study also estimated that 95.7 percent of EU homes can buy service of at least 2 Mbps. Digital subscriber line (DSL) networks reach about 92 percent of households. Cable modem service reaches 42 percent of homes. Fixed wireless (WiMAX) has reach of under 15 percent.
As you would expect, rural areas are much less likely to have the ability to buy access of at least 30 Mbps. About 78 percent of rural EU homes have access to standard broadband at 2 Mbps but only 12 percent have access of at least 30 Mbps.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Half of EU Homes Can Buy 30 Mbps or Faster Internet Access
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Triple-Digit Mobile Broadband Growth to 2016, Globally
Qualcomm provides one way of illustrating mobile broadband growth, in terms of subscribers and connections: triple digit growth between 2011 and 2016.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Consumer Time Spent with Mobile Apps Grows 120%, Year over Year
Nielsen has released new statistics on social media usage and other matters. Mobile app usage is up 120 percent since 2011, though time spent with mobile Internet is an order of magnitude less than time spent interacting with the Internet from a PC.
People do spent significantly more time using social apps from their mobiles and tablets, though.
People do spent significantly more time using social apps from their mobiles and tablets, though.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Wi-Fi Will Have to Get Faster
According to some estimates, 90 percent of the tablets sold in the United States use Wi-Fi connections rather than cellular.Today, the average user carries three mobile devices, and by 2016, they will carry closer to seven, according to ZK Research. Wi-Fi networks will have to get faster, it is reasonable to assume. And most studies show a clear preference by users for Wi-Fi access when using their e-readers, notebook PCs, tablets and smart phones.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
What Will Apple Do "After" iPhone?
Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray says Apple's history of cannibalizing its own businesses will lead Apple even to cannibalize the iPhone and iPad, its current and apparently next big revenue drivers.
Munster predicts consumer robotics, wearable computers, 3D printing, consumable computers, and automated technology might someday be the products Apple is known for creating.
Munster predicts consumer robotics, wearable computers, 3D printing, consumable computers, and automated technology might someday be the products Apple is known for creating.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Text messaging turns 20
The first SMS was sent as a Christmas greeting in December 1992, the Guardian notes. Adoption took a while, and was not terribly widely used in all markets. In fact, text messaging began to get serous traction around the year 2000. So it was eight years before lots of people started to use the new too..
That's worth keeping in mind: even the most-useful consumer innovations can take some time to become widespread.
As a rule of thumb, an innovation that becomes widely used starts to grow much faster once it reaches about 10 percent penetration. But how long it takes to reach 10 percent can vary widely.
Looking only at AT&T, you can see that text messaging volumes did not actually begin to build until after 2007, for example, despite having been available for more than a decade prior.
And even in the United Kingdom, where consumers adopted the text messaging habit earlier, you can see that dramatic growth happened sometime around 2000.
Roughly the same trend can be noted for global usage. Growth accelerated only around 2000.
That's worth keeping in mind: even the most-useful consumer innovations can take some time to become widespread.
As a rule of thumb, an innovation that becomes widely used starts to grow much faster once it reaches about 10 percent penetration. But how long it takes to reach 10 percent can vary widely.
Looking only at AT&T, you can see that text messaging volumes did not actually begin to build until after 2007, for example, despite having been available for more than a decade prior.
And even in the United Kingdom, where consumers adopted the text messaging habit earlier, you can see that dramatic growth happened sometime around 2000.
Roughly the same trend can be noted for global usage. Growth accelerated only around 2000.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Will Service Providers Integrate Public Hotspot Access in a More Active Way?
Up to this point, Wi-Fi has been important for high-speed access providers mostly in an indirect way. Generally speaking, public hotspots have been an amenity offered to paying customers (either fixed or mobile broadband). The business value then is “stickiness,” as the perceived value of a particular offer is higher.
But that might change, with public Wi-Fi possibly becoming a “for fee” service, according to Monica Paolini, owner of Senza Fili Consulting. The extent of end user demand for such changes is unclear. Much would depend on new additional value.
But a number of developments might propel the change. Increased use of VoIP applications over Wi-Fi means low latency and jitter performance is more important, and “best effort” public hotspots might not work well enough to suit all users. A quality-assured approach would help. That might create a new level of value that service providers might be able to charge for.
Business customers might be logical customers, as has generally been the case for other third-party public Wi-Fi networks. Among other advantages, shifting traffic to Wi-Fi hotspots would help enterprise information technology managers avoid expensive data overage charges.
Business Wi-Fi provider iPass, for example, projects it will offer a vastly-bigger network by 2015.
The advent of fourth generation Long Term Evolution networks might have other unintended consequences. Up to this point, people generally have understood that a public hotspot will offer access speeds greater than 3G.
That might not generally be true for 4G networks. That might limit the amount of traffic offloading, which, in turn, might increase congestion on the LTE networks.
Also, some lighter users, and that is likely a clear majority of smart phone users, don’t necessarily have any incentives to switch to Wi-Fi hotspot access.
Heavier users will have incentives, as use of Wi-Fi preserves data allowances. So some think a quality-assured access, even for a fee, might be feasible and perhaps necessary. By 2015, Cisco projects that as much as 46 percent of all Internet traffic will use a Wi-Fi connection.
The value could be that the service provider mixes and matches acces to provide the best performance. Part of the value might also include applying such mechanisms only when the subscriber is not in danger of exceeding a mobile data allowance. Alternately, such access decisions could be set by the consumer to apply only when the user is on a business trip or requires absolute best performance.
Users might also see value if they are allowed to apply their own policies, such as watching video only on Wi-Fi, but IP voice always over the best available connection.
Price-sensitive subscribers might also want an automatic switch to Wi-Fi access at all times.
The point is that there are growing reasons to integrate and manage public Wi-Fi, private Wi-Fi and mobile network access in a more deliberate way.
But that might change, with public Wi-Fi possibly becoming a “for fee” service, according to Monica Paolini, owner of Senza Fili Consulting. The extent of end user demand for such changes is unclear. Much would depend on new additional value.
But a number of developments might propel the change. Increased use of VoIP applications over Wi-Fi means low latency and jitter performance is more important, and “best effort” public hotspots might not work well enough to suit all users. A quality-assured approach would help. That might create a new level of value that service providers might be able to charge for.
Business customers might be logical customers, as has generally been the case for other third-party public Wi-Fi networks. Among other advantages, shifting traffic to Wi-Fi hotspots would help enterprise information technology managers avoid expensive data overage charges.
Business Wi-Fi provider iPass, for example, projects it will offer a vastly-bigger network by 2015.
The advent of fourth generation Long Term Evolution networks might have other unintended consequences. Up to this point, people generally have understood that a public hotspot will offer access speeds greater than 3G.
That might not generally be true for 4G networks. That might limit the amount of traffic offloading, which, in turn, might increase congestion on the LTE networks.
Also, some lighter users, and that is likely a clear majority of smart phone users, don’t necessarily have any incentives to switch to Wi-Fi hotspot access.
Heavier users will have incentives, as use of Wi-Fi preserves data allowances. So some think a quality-assured access, even for a fee, might be feasible and perhaps necessary. By 2015, Cisco projects that as much as 46 percent of all Internet traffic will use a Wi-Fi connection.
The value could be that the service provider mixes and matches acces to provide the best performance. Part of the value might also include applying such mechanisms only when the subscriber is not in danger of exceeding a mobile data allowance. Alternately, such access decisions could be set by the consumer to apply only when the user is on a business trip or requires absolute best performance.
Users might also see value if they are allowed to apply their own policies, such as watching video only on Wi-Fi, but IP voice always over the best available connection.
Price-sensitive subscribers might also want an automatic switch to Wi-Fi access at all times.
The point is that there are growing reasons to integrate and manage public Wi-Fi, private Wi-Fi and mobile network access in a more deliberate way.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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