bandwidth

The last panel sessions for day two of the Web 2.0 Expo just wrapped up. One of my favorites was global design trends, a panel discussing the Web design around the world. In my less than two years of tracking Web apps, I've seen a huge shift in the look and feel of mainstream sites, as well as seeing a slew of services that have pushed what I thought was possible on the browser.

There can, however, be huge differences between two versions of the same site in different countries. A good deal of what's important is … Read more

It's been all go for the BBC's iPlayer service this week. First ISPs once again got their knickers in a bandwidth-related twist over the service swallowing all of their network capacity, then Nintendo announced that the streaming service will be available through the Wii. This is a fantastically exciting piece of news and is certain to severely upset some of the U.K.'s more highly strung Internet providers.

With support for the Wii being added, it can surely only be a matter of time before the Xbox 360 and PS3 can access the content too. And it'… Read more

Just about everybody who uses the Internet these days has broadband access. Whether it's DSL, cable, or a direct high-speed LAN connection, most people choose a faster connection to make files download faster, videos stream smoother, and online gaming much more enjoyable. But what if something is eating up bandwidth that you don't know about? Particularly when you have a superfast connection or Wi-Fi, how do you know there isn't something or someone leeching off your bandwidth when everything seems to be working smoothly?

Though I have my Big Three security apps running on every Windows machine … Read more

The existing bandwidth between Asia and North America is crowded. Following FCC approval of a U.S.-China link last month, Google and five other companies have announced a Japan-U.S. link to be completed in early 2010.

The $300 million fiber-optic cable will stretch approximately 10,000 km (6,214 miles) under the Pacific. "Google's partners in the consortium, dubbed Unity, comprises Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI, Pacnet, and Singapore Telecommunications," Yahoo News reported.

Internet users in East Asia are familiar with sometimes sluggish speeds on transpacific transmissions. In my experience, connections are for some reason … Read more

As it stands, there's almost twice as much bandwidth across the Atlantic as there is across the Pacific. But with new U.S. FCC approval for the first ever China-U.S. fiber link, this is all about to change.

The score right now: 5,547 to 2,726. That's the current Atlantic vs. Pacific bandwidth score in gigabits per second, according to TeleGeography. The Trans-Pacific Express "will initially provide capacity of up to 1.28 terabits per second, and the system will have a design capacity of up to 5.12Tbps to support future Internet growth and … Read more

Listpic, the visual searching and browsing tool for Craigslist has been blocked from the service as of yesterday. Craigslist creator Craig Newmark posted on the Craigslist user forums to alert the community to the shutdown last night, citing bandwidth drains and Listpic's attempts to "monetize" Craigslist by piggybacking off its services and using its own advertising. Newmark claimed that so much bandwidth was being used by the third-party service that it was "making it harder for the vast bulk of people who visit our site."

Listpic provided its users with a fairly simple way to … Read more

At last week's Interop shindig, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers' annual walk-about keynote presentation focused on "Web 2.0 creep" and its impact on the network. According to Chambers, enterprises will adopt Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis and Web video and bring today's networks to their knees in the process.

While I believe that the enterprise Web 2.0 trend is in its early genesis phase, I tend to agree with Mr. Chambers' hypothesis.

Enterprise networks have grown organically over the past 15 years--a switch here, more port capacity over there, add a wireless … Read more