Tag Archives: Internet

4G LTE Internet services costs too much, can come down

More people would buy 4G LTE if the price was lower,
which we know is possible because it is 2 to 10 times lower in Europe.
And then a lot more people around here would have fast Internet service.

Kevin J. O’Brien wrote for the NYTimes 15 October 2012,

Americans Paying More for LTE Service


Vodafone LTE
A comparison by Wireless Intelligence, a unit of the GSM
Association, suggests that being in the biggest LTE market has not
brought low prices to U.S. consumers.

According to the study, Verizon Wireless, which is a joint venture
of Verizon and Vodafone, charges $7.50 for each gigabyte of data
downloaded over its LTE network. That is three times the European
average of $2.50 and more than 10 times what consumers pay in
Sweden, where a gigabyte costs as little as 63 cents.

Standard business practice:
sell a new service for as much as the market will bear,
and come down in price over time.
Except in the U.S. there isn’t much of a market,
with only 2 or 3 wireless carriers offering 4G LTE,
as the article notes:

Continue reading →

Industrial Authority goes solar, broadband, and conversational!

The Industrial Authority apparently listened to its focus groups,
and discovered that broadband and solar energy are important
to attract industry.
Andrea Schruijer even recommends conversation,
which has been sorely lacking in recent years.
Congratulations, Industrial Authority!

Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT today,

Authority analyzes Valdosta business:
Broadband, solar power, professional services targeted for growth,



The Authority also plans to work toward the availability of more
broadband Internet service and solar power in Valdosta and
surrounding communities. These amenities would help support local
industries as well as draw new ones to the greater Valdosta area for
the creation of new jobs.

That’s a good start. Although it’s not clear from the writeup that VLCIA quite got it about
Internet access.

As part of presenting Valdosta as an attractive package for


prospective industries, the Authority attempts to ready the land set
aside for development before beginning the recruitment process. This
means investing in infrastructure, including broadband internet.

“It’s not that we don’t have broadband,” Schruijer said.
“What we’re looking at is the technology behind the broadband.
We have it in certain areas, but in order for us to grow some of
these core targets, such as professional services, we need that
infrastructure.”

Well, actually, no,



we don’t have broadband.
6Mbps is the fastest most people can get around here,
and 30Mbps is the slowest you can even buy in many countries.
Plus, it’s not just fast Internet to industrial sites that’s needed:

it’s fast Internet access everywhere knowledge-based employees
may want to live.

But they’re on the right track:

Because the Authority can’t “buy” industries into coming
to Valdosta—though it can offer tax abatements—it is
necessary to make sure that new businesses have what they will need
before ground is even broken, Schruijer said. To this effect, the
Authority will “stimulate the conversation” to actively
attract more broadband companies to the area.

A conversation!
Now there’s something we’ve been needing around here.
And it’s a refreshing change from only
a year ago when all we heard was



“Debate is not allowed.”

Maybe the Industrial Authority will be the organization that will show the
rest of us how to hold civil discussions about things that affect all of us!

The VDT’s writeup skips quickly over another big change:

Continue reading →

VZ 4G vs. AT&T DSL, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2012-09-08

It turns out you can’t yet buy

Verizon’s HomeFusion Broadband 4G wireless Internet service

in Georgia.
(You can buy it in Tennessee.)
However, in Georgia, you can buy one of several 4G LTE devices
that have most of the same capabilities.
For example, I have here a

Verizon Jetpack™ 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi©,
which is about the size of a pack of cards.
A few minutes ago I compared its speeds directly with AT&T 3Mbps DSL.
Here are the results.

The MiFi I’ve got is a slightly older model of the one pictured
above, because for years


AT&T DSL: 2.66Mbps down 0.31Mbps up

AT&T DSL

VZ 4G: 10.88Mbps down 7.14Mbps up

Verizon 4G

I’ve been using it and its predecessors
on road trips, for Skype, web browsing, blog posting, etc.
It’s also come in very handy as a

plan B home Internet access method
on the many occassions when AT&T’s DSL has flaked out.
Mostly I did not use it for uploading videos or watching them much,
because until recently it was relatively slow,
using

EVDO technology at about 1Mbps down and 0.7Mbps up.
Suddenly, the MiFi has gotten much much faster, ten times faster,
because Verizon has turned on their 4G LTE service in Lowndes County,
at least for mobile access.

The tables show results using

SpeakEasy Speedtest a few minutes ago.

Megabytes/sec Megabits/sec
down up down up
AT&T DSL 2.66Mbps 0.31Mbps 322KB/sec 38KB/sec
Verizon 4G 10.88Mbps 7.14Mbps 1360KB/sec 893KB/sec

Verizon’s 4G LTE is way faster,
as in

Continue reading →

4G data caps and prices

It may be

fast,
but there are some drawbacks to

4G wireless Internet access,
namely data limits and significant prices.
Here’s

Verizon’s table for their
HomeFusion Broadband.


Monthly Data Allowance Monthly Access
10GB $60
20GB $90
30GB $120

I would bet the other companies’ caps and prices are pretty much the same.
For web browsing, you’ll probably never run over that lowest 10GB/month limit.
So if you want to tweet or facebook or tumblr or email with your friends,
4G probably will work fine for you.

If you do a lot of Skype or listening to music over the net,
you might run over.
If you watch a lot of videos, or you want to do video conferencing,
you can definitely run over.
Here’s Verizon’s

table of estimates, and they have a calculator along with that:

Email (Text Only) = 10 KB



Typical Web Page Lookup* = 1MB

Audio Streaming = 51 MB/hr

Video Streaming (Standard Def) = 500MB/hr

Video Streaming (HIgh Def) = 1.6GB/hr

Digital Photo Download/Upload (Hi-Res) = 5 MB

4G VoIP = 67MB/hr

4G VoIP with Video = 254MB/hr

1 MB = 1,024KB

1 GB = 1,024MB

Videos of a single VLCIA meeting can run 2 gigabytes,
and there are lots of other meetings going on around here.
Not every local elected or appointed board has 5 minute meetings
like the Lowndes County Commission.
Many run for an hour or more.

Even though I’m a pretty intensive Internet user, I’m considering getting
4G home service.
Someday AT&T may get around to running fiber for their uverse service
out here in my sparsely populated area of the county,
and then we might be able to get

3-24Mbps down (and unknown speeds up)
for $38 to $63/month.
Some year.
Or never, if wireless speeds continue to leapfrog even fiber speeds.
OK, real fiber speeds such as in Finland, Japan, France, Korea, or dozens
of other countries are 100Mbps or up, but U.S. telcos and cablecos
are not going to offer speeds like that
until they’ve milked every penny they can get out of slower speeds first.
Not to mention what the U.S. carriers are really selling with fiber is TV,
which is a dying broadcast medium, fast being left in the dust by the
participatory social Internet.
Who do you know under 30 who gets their news from TV anymore?

Anyway, I don’t know whether 4G Internet service would work for you,
but at least it’s another option.

-jsq

4G wireless Internet speeds

How fast is

4G wireless Internet, anyway?
Mark Sullivan wrote for PCWorld 7 May 2012,

3G/4G Performance Map: Data Speeds for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon,



We saw three major patterns in our 4G test results. In five cities
(Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco), AT&T
swept the 4G upload and download competitions; in four (Denver, New
Orleans, San Jose, and Seattle), Verizon swept both; and in the
remaining four (Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Washington, D.C.),
AT&T won for downloads and Verizon prevailed for uploads. Notably,
in two of the cities where Verizon ruled (Denver and Seattle), AT&T
doesn’t offer 4G LTE service.

And you’ll notice a pattern right away: they only tested big cities.
So your mileage may vary around here.
However, PCWorld’s observed average 4G speeds for
Verizon were 7.35 Mbps down and 5.86Mbps up,
and for AT&T 9.12Mbps down and 4.91Mpgs up.
Verizon’s
HomeFusion Broadband
web page claims:

HomeFusion Broadband* is a residential Internet solution that uses Verizon’s 4G LTE network to bring reliable, high-speed Internet service to customers with limited broadband options.

Features

  • Fast Internet access with average speeds of
    5-12 Mbps download and 2-5 Mbps upload
  • Wi-Fi connectivity for up to 20 devices
  • Wired (Ethernet) connectivity for up to 4 devices
  • Up to 5 email accounts included

That’s faster than Mediacom and
way faster than AT&T’s alleged 3Mbps DSL I’m using at the moment,
which shows 3.5Mbps down and 0.38Mbps up.
Prices start at $60/month,
the same as for Verizon’s Mobile Broadband 5G, which

with EVDO typically does
around 1Mbps down and 0.7Mbps up
and

with 4G typically does 5Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

Why do these speeds matter?
Well, for video blogging, videos of a one hour meeting can take
8 hours to upload at 0.38 Mbps.
At 5Mbps they should take less than an hour.
That makes it a lot easier for LAKE to get you coverage of local events.

If you’re not video blogging, you still might like to be able to see
George Rhynes’ excellent video coverage of events in Lowndes, Brooks,
Lanier, and other counties.
And nevermind video:
a lot of people around here have no Internet access at all.
This would be one way to get it.
Some people around here already use Verizon’s mobile devices at home,
because otherwise they’re stuck with dialup.

Then there’s reliability.
I, for one, would like not to see ATM Cell Header Errors anymore,
nor the “page not found, retry?” errors every few minutes.
If you don’t know what those are, you probably don’t have AT&T DSL.
It’s sad that wireless might be more reliable than copper.
But I’m also glad about that because wireless doesn’t require running wires.
And did I mention 4G wireless appears to be faster?

-jsq

Verizon or AT&T 4G in Lowndes County?

Maybe one solution to county-wide fast Internet access is 4G wireless?
According to their online coverage maps, both AT&T and Verizon
now offer 4G in Valdosta and almost all of Lowndes County and
many surrounding counties.

IT News Online PRNewswire 15 August 2012

Verizon Wireless Introducing High-Speed 4G LTE Data Network In Valdosta,

ALPHARETTA, Ga., Aug. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Verizon Wireless
customers will be able to experience the blazing fast speeds and

Verizon 4G coverage map
capabilities of the company’s 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network
in Valdosta when the service launches there on Thursday, Aug. 16.
The introduction of the company’s 4G LTE network is part of Verizon
Wireless’ announcement today introducing its 4G LTE network in 34
new markets, including Valdosta, and expansion in 38 other markets.
The nation’s largest 4G LTE network will be available in a total of
371 markets and cover more than 75 percent of the U.S. population,
including major metropolitan areas, small cities and many suburbs.

Customers who live in or visit areas including Valdosta, Lake Park,
Hahira, Morven, Moody Air Force Base as well as along I-75 from Lake
Park to Hahira and along State Road 125 from Moody Air Force Base to
Barretts now will have access to the nation’s fastest 4G network.

Verizon’s

4G coverage map
does seem to indicate the same thing.


AT&T 4G coverage map
I see no announcement from AT&T, but

their online map
does indicate coverage here.
My AT&T Android phone has a 4G light that sometimes lights up in Valdosta,
but I sure don’t see it out here on the edge of the county.
Maybe they just haven’t gotten to it here.

Sprint and T-Mobile do not seem to offer 4G around here.
Still, 2 out of 4 would be more choice than we’ve had before.

-jsq

The sun came up on a different world —Julian Assange

Julian Assange of Wikileaks spoke from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London today (video, text):

The next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend the rights we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark outside the Embassy of Ecuador, and how, in the morning, the sun came up on a different world, and a courageous Latin American nation took a stand for justice.

The British government made a stunning mistake in throwing away the worldwide goodwill just gained through the London Olympic Games, by actually beginning to storm a sovereign embassy in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that was observed throughout the Cold War. How could they be so foolish? This man, this reporter and publisher, they think is somehow more dangerous to them than the armed might of the Soviet Union was? This is as if JFK arrested MLK after John Glenn’s first orbital flight (a step which JFK fortunately did not take).


There is something you can do,
even when the world is turned upside down:

Continue reading →

Will electricity demand increase?

Back in April Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning gave yet another version of his stump speech that we saw at the shareholders’ meeting in May and that he’s video blogging on YouTube now. In April he emphasized a huge assumption with no evidence; an assumption that may just not be true.

National Energy Policy – Part 5 of 7 (30 April 2012)


This much we know: demand for electricity will increase. The Energy Information Administration projects an 18% increase in electricity demand nationally and in the southeast, we’re as expecting as much as a 25% increase over the next 20 years. So we know the need is real, immediate, and critical.

Really? Here’s recent electricity use and nearterm forcast by the
U.S. Energy Information Administration:

Sure looks to me like there was a big dip in 2009, and projected use in 2013 is no higher than in 2007. What was that about “immediate”?

Now you may say, of course, that’s a recession. But what about this?

Continue reading →

Why Energy Matters to You —Thomas A. Fanning

Since our coverage of the Southern Company (SO) shareholders meeting in May, SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning has started his own YouTube video series, “Why Energy Matters to You”, in which he tries to head off a real energy policy by advocating SO’s nuclear and coal strategy instead.

SO PR 28 June 2012, Southern Company Chairman Launches CEO Social Media Video Series,

Southern Company SO today unveiled the first in a series of CEO Web videos examining issues critical to the electric utility industry. The video series, “Why Energy Matters to You,” is available on YouTube and features Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO Thomas A. Fanning. Fanning announced the Web series during an appearance at the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo.

Here are his two episodes so far. His theme:

“I believe that every American deserves a supply of clean, safe, reliable, and affordable energy.”

Who could argue with that? It’s just SO’s ideas of how to do it that provoke some argument.

Here’s Part 1 of 2:

Why Energy Matters to You —Thomas A. Fanning Part 1 of 2

His question:

“How can better energy create more economic freedom for the American people?”

His answer is in Part 2 of 2:

Continue reading →

Internet speed and access —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 2012-05-08


At a recent Lowndes County Commission meeting, I said:

I was interested to learn two weeks ago that my neighbor

Timothy Nessmith was interested in getting DSL on Hambrick Road.

He said you can get it as close to him as Quarterman Road.
I can attest to that because I have 3 megabit per second DSL,
due to being just close enough to Bellsouth’s DSL box on Cat Creek Road,
but most of Quarterman Road can’t get DSL due to distance.
There are some other land-line possibilties, involving cables in the ground
or wires on poles.



Then there are wireless possibilities, including EVDO, available from Verizon,
with 750 kilobit per second (0.75 Mbps) wide area access from cell phone towers.

Verizon’s towers could also be used for WIFI antennas,
for up to 8 Mbps Internet access, over a wide scale.

Then there’s metropolitan-area Internet.

Chattanooga has the fastest such network, with 1 Gbps (1,000 Mbps).
But

hundreds of communities around the country have such networks,
including (continued after

the video)…


Internet speed and access —John S. Quarterman

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 May 2012.

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

…Lafayette, Louisiana,
Bowling Green, Kentucky,
Lagrange, Georgia,
and

Thomasville, Georgia.
They use it for
public safety,
education (Wiregrass Tech, VSU),
and

It attracts new industry.
If you want knowledge-based industry,
they’re going to be expecting Internet access not just at work,
but at home, whereever they live.

Other uses include

Continue reading →