On the Road to 10G, Alaska Looks More Like the ‘First Frontier’
In a huge step forward for Alaskan connectivity, GCI announced this week it will double the internet speeds it currently offers and plans to deliver 2 gigabit internet access to 77% of Alaskans in 2022. GCI CEO Ron Duncan also noted that the ISP is on track to provide 10 gigabit speeds to its footprint in the next five years as the cable industry continues its work towards getting Americans to next generation connectivity through the cable industry’s 10G initiative. "When I started GCI more than 40 years ago, Alaska lagged far behind the rest of the nation in basic connectivity," said GCI CEO
How the Semiconductor Chip Shortage Could Delay Broadband Connectivity
Over the past year, the devastating COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the urgent necessity of robust internet connectivity. When millions of Americans were sent home during lockdowns and schools closed, broadband networks provided the lifeline that allowed people to continue working and learning from home, attend telehealth appointments, and connect with family and friends. As internet traffic surged, people around the world began to update their home networking equipment and associated devices to receive the full benefits of a broadband connection. But while American broadband networks were able
Americans Highly Satisfied With Broadband Service
Recent polling by Morning Consult shows that Americans are overwhelmingly satisfied with their home internet service and are confident that broadband providers will continue to improve their networks to meet future needs. Consumers also favor targeted solutions to closing the remaining broadband gaps including dedicating government funding first to areas without any broadband service and permanently funding a subsidy to help low-income Americans purchase broadband service.
As Upstream Consumption Increases, Cable Networks Are Ready
With millions of people working and learning from home (via the internet) last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, America witnessed its biggest ever surge in internet traffic with spikes of 60% in some markets. Since last March, NCTA has tracked and published data showing how online usage has changed during the pandemic and how cable’s broadband networks have risen to the challenge of these traffic spikes. Not surprisingly, a new study by OpenVault found that upstream traffic consumption hit an all-time record in 2020, increasing by 63% between December 2019 to December 2020. This growth rate
Cable's Future Ready Network Accomplishes Another Tech Milestone on the Road to 10G
In a groundbreaking milestone demonstrating that cable’s broadband network is ready for whatever the future brings, Comcast announced last week that a new technology will enable it to deliver symmetrical upstream and downstream speeds greater than 4 Gbps over its hybrid-fiber coaxial (HFC) network. The result is a significant step forward in the cable industry’s 10G vision, a global initiative to deploy new technology that will dramatically increase both upload and download speeds and capacity over existing networks already available in hundreds of millions of homes. Just over two years ago
New Report Finds Network Performance During COVID-19 Was a Success
A new report by the expert Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG), a multi-stakeholder organization composed of engineers and technologists from various sectors across the internet ecosystem, highlights how the internet rose to the challenge of huge traffic surges during the pandemic and continues to perform well as millions of Americans continue to learn and work from home. The report, "2020 Pandemic Network Performance," co-edited by NCTA Vice President of Broadband Technology Matt Tooley and DISH Network Senior Engineering Program Manager Kate Landow, examines from a holistic
Observations on Network Performance One Year into the NCTA COVID-19 Dashboard
It's been more than a year now since COVID-19 forced Americans into lockdown and sent many of them straight to their homes to continue their lives online. In their reflections on the one-year anniversary of COVID, chief technology officers from America's leading internet service providers concurred that the ability of their networks to perform so well over the past 12 months, despite significant surges in internet traffic, comes down to several factors. Those include years of investment, planning and looking ahead, combined with the incredible hard work of their employees to accelerate network
CTOs Share Insights on Network Performance Over the Past Year, Part Two
Last week, on the one-year anniversary of COVID in the United States, chief technology officers from America's leading internet service providers (ISPs) offered reflections on the internet usage trends they observed over the past year and how their networks were able to handle the unprecedented surges in internet traffic. This week, in part two of NCTA's special Q&A series, the CTOs from Charter, Comcast, Cox and Midco relayed the massive undertaking it took to ensure that their customers' new remote needs were met when more people than ever before connected online to continue working
The Asymmetric Nature of Internet Traffic
Since the beginning of the internet, residential broadband traffic has been asymmetric in nature, as users generally receive far more information (streaming for instance) than they send (uploading photos to Facebook for instance). Network engineers early on recognized that residential customers were primarily consumers of information, not producers of information, and designed broadband service to favor this consumer behavior. In fact, over the last decade the average downstream-to-upstream traffic ratio has grown from 3:1 in 2010 to over 14:1 by the beginning of 2019. In 2020, as the pandemic
On COVID Anniversary, CTOs from America's Leading ISPs Reflect on Network Performance
One year ago, the entire world practically shut down when the COVID-19 pandemic became widespread. In the United States, lockdown orders went into effect and millions of Americans turned to the internet for telehealth visits, remote work and virtual schooling. It was then that broadband showed its true power to connect people during a time when more people than ever before went online to continue their lives in the only way they knew how. Fortunately, cable internet service providers (ISPs) had planned ahead to ensure that their networks had the capacity to withstand the significant spike in