According to the new “Global Internet Phenomena Report” from broadband solutions provider Sandvine, North Americans have officially embraced the “post-PC” era.
The report suggests that for the first time, U.S. consumers are using their gaming consoles, smartphones and tablets more than PCs for entertainment.
“[We have] entered a post-PC era, in which the majority of real-time entertainment traffic on North America’s fixed access networks is destined for devices other than a laptop or desktop computer,” Sandvine reports. “Game consoles, settop boxes, smart TVs, tablets, and mobile devices being used within the home combine to receive 55 percent of all real-time entertainment traffic.”
Interesting stats from the “Beyond Bytes” infographic: 96 percent of broadband subscribers use real-time entertainment each month, 83 percent of broadband users access YouTube videos each month (compared to 20 percent for Netflix), and real-time entertainment as a percentage of peak period downstream traffic has doubled since 2009.
Sprint announced it will replace its unlimited 4G mobile broadband for mobile hotspots and devices with three new tiered data plans.
Starting in November, “users of mobile hotspots, USB modems, tablets and notebooks will pay $45 for 3GB of combined 3G and 4G, $60 for 5GB and $90 for 10GB of combined data,” where before only 3G data had limits.
“Sprint was already showing signs that it couldn’t keep up the unlimited game forever,” reports GigaOM. “It announced last month that it was doing away with unlimited data for its smartphone hotspot feature and was capping data at 5GB a month.”
Some are concerned that this prefaces the end of Sprint’s unlimited data plans for smartphones, a differentiating factor from other providers and a selling point for the Sprint iPhone.
A study released last week by the FCC reports that broadband Internet speeds in the U.S. are within 80 percent of the speeds advertised by Internet Service Providers. The study calls this a “significant improvement” from just two years ago, when some ISPs were delivering Internet at less than half the advertised speed.
The study looked at 13 U.S. broadband providers delivering Internet over cable, DSL, and fiber-optic services. Overall, Verizon’s service was best at meeting or exceeding advertised speeds, while Cablevision’s was the worst.
There are currently no sanctions or enforcement mechanisms in place to punish ISPs for advertising faster Internet than they deliver, a situation that some public interest groups insist must change.
The study comes as the FCC is promoting its National Broadband Plan, a roadmap expanding Internet speed and availability nationwide.
A full copy of the report, as well as the raw data from the study, are available at the FCC website: fcc.gov.
A group of 29 American universities have teamed together in an effort to build ultra-high-speed computer networks.
The Gig.U project hopes to provide Internet service speeds of up to 1Gbps (several hundred times faster than what is now commercially available).
The plan is intended to draw high-tech start-ups from the energy, telecommunications and health care sectors to these university regions.
According to The New York Times: “By offering one-gigabit network connections — fast enough to download high-definition movies in less than a minute — not just to scientific researchers and engineers but to the homes and businesses that surround universities, the group aims to create a digital ecosystem that will attract new companies, ideas and educational models.”
Additionally, the project includes members from the heartland (such as Missouri, Montana and West Virginia), with midsize communities that would greatly benefit by the ultra high-speed broadband.
