broadband

South Korea continues to maintain its leadership in cutting edge broadband services. Hanaro Telecom, Korea's second-biggest broadband player, said Wednesday that it plans to launch a new broadband TV service. Subscribers of ??Broadband TV" will get regular local TV programming in addition to games over a high-speed connection. A pilot program integrating data access, telephony and TV service will be launched through an xDSL network in Seoul by the end of the year. The carrier also hopes to provide Internet video phone service in October.

Video over broadband connections is nothing new for South Koreans, who already can … Read more

Big day at the FCC. The feds also said today that telcos wiring apartment buildings with fiber optic connections won't have to share those with rival ISPs.

This is a bit of a loophole fill. The FCC already said last year that telcos could keep their fiber off limits to rivals, but hadn't been specific about apartment buildings. SBC in particular had used this oversight as part of its reasoning for holding off on fiber investments ?? until it finally gave way this summer and said it was going ahead with fiber projects after all. But today's decision … Read more

Our wireless reporter Ben Charny just spent a few minutes showing me AT&T's new broadband wireless service on a laptop. (Variously called UMTS or W-CDMA. If you don't have 16 acronyms, you're not cool in the wireless world). It wasn't bad. Between 220 kbps and 340 kbps connections, depending on where we were walking in the building.

The service costs $80 a month for unlimited business use. That's a lot compared to my $26 SBC connection, and it's a lot slower. But if I was moving around with a laptop a lot, … Read more

FCC Chairman Michael Powell is trying to revive rules that helped lower broadband prices from small competitors like Covad, according to USA Today. The issue is "line sharing," which forced the big phone companies to let the Covads of the world use customers' existing phone lines to offer DSL (the same way SBC or Verizon would) instead of buying an expensive extra line.

The FCC phased this out as part of its sweeping Triennial Review last year. That massive ruling was deeply contentious even within the regulatory body itself. Congress is looking at reopening telecommunications regulations next year, … Read more

It looks like RCN is beta testing higher speeds for its cable broadband service, bumping some Boston subscribers up to 7 mbps downloads. A tech explains the service over in the forums at Broadband Reports.

Don't trust that DSL, Tony Soprano. The Federal Communications Commission voted 5-0 today that broadband networks and Internet voice calls should be subject to federal wiretapping provisions. That will mean that cops can ask companies like Vonage to listen in on phone calls the same way they do with ordinary phone lines. The provisions won't apply to instant messaging or services that never actually use the public phone network, however.

Cox and BellSouth (and other big network companies) hate the idea that local governments or utilities ?? say, in Lafayette, La. -- might set up shop to offer their own fiber networks to local residents. No surprise in that. The two companies invited a panel of experts to Lafayette this week to opine on the local utility district's plans to enter the high-speed network and ?? again, big shocker ?? all three experts said it wasn't a good idea .

We've written a bit about this, and think municipal districts are a good idea. They may not be perfect, but the … Read more

The Finnish Army is sending recruits home for being addicted to the Internet. I guess all those online shooter games aren't as good at making people violent killers as some people think.

According to Reuters: "For people who play (Internet) games all night and don't have any friends, don't have any hobbies, to come into the army is a very big shock," said Commander-Captain Jyrki Kivela at the military conscription unit. "They get sent home for three years and after that they have to come back and we ask if they are OK. They … Read more

Doom 3 came out today, and was immediately purchased by everyone who hadn't already downloaded it from one of the myriad Bittorrent feeds that had it available all weekend. I checked last night, and there were about 5000 people at once downloading the game (a 1.7 gig file, I think) just in the one place I was looking.

It's different, but not that different from a decade ago. I co-wrote a book last year looking at the history of video games, and we started one chapter talking about the huge traffic jam of people in 1993 waiting … Read more