Showing posts with label telephone company. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Telephony Magazine article on our Solution (June 2009)

RE: Telephony Magazine article on our Solution (June 2009)

I am proud to say that we had an article published in this month's Telephony Magazine, (page 20). I have attached a photo I made from a fax a good friend sent to me yesterday.

I believe now is the best time to get involved. We are working with Telco's in 27 states on field tests prior to their signing our agreement. We are available to do the same with your rural customers. One email to your employees and/or rural customers can literally tell if there is demand or not.

Will you have time this week to discuss next steps?If so, call us at 1-800-761-9149

With Telephony Magazine actively watching and reporting on our rural efforts, USDA still considering our solution for RUS loans and our alternative financing almost ready to go, we have the solution which will help maintain and grow your rural exchange high speed Internet business and beyond.

Have a great day.

Regards,

Thomas William
Vice President of Partner Solutions
Broadband in a Box
1302 Clear Springs Trace
Louisville Kentucky 40223
(800) 761.9149 : office
(502) 426.2067 : local
(502) 263.9879 : my mobile
(502) 515.3710 : fax

:email:::::::::::::::::::::::: tomw@bbinabox.com
:web::::::::::::::::::::::::::: www.bbinabox.com
:skype::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: bbinabox
:chat::::::::::::::::: broadbandinabox@gmail.com
:icq:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 562727303
:blog::::::: http://broadbandinabox.blogspot.com
:network: http://linkedin.com/in/broadbandinabox

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Concept of the geostationary communications satellite

Have you ever wondered how satellite communications got its start? Thanks to Wikipedia, we have the story. Also, please download the companion piece written by Arthur C. Clarke, the father of satellite Technology - HERE. (Special thanks to the Clarke Foundation)

From Wikipedia

Geostationary orbit

Main article: Geostationary orbit

Clarke's most important scientific contribution may be his idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays. He described this concept in a paper titled Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?, published in Wireless World in October 1945.^[68] The geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour.

However, it is not clear that this article was actually the inspiration for the modern telecommunications satellite. John R. Pierce, of Bell Labs, arrived at the idea independently in 1954 and he was actually involved in the Echo satellite and Telstar projects. Moreover, Pierce stated that the idea was "in the air" at the time and certain to be developed regardless of Clarke's publication. In an interview given shortly before his death, Clarke was asked whether he thought communications satellites would become important; he replied

"I'm often asked why I didn't try to patent the idea of communications satellites. My answer is always, ‘A patent is really a license to be sued.' "^[69]

Though different from Clarke's idea of telecom relay, the idea of communicating with satellites in geostationary orbit itself had been described earlier. For example, the concept of geostationary satellites was described in Hermann Oberth's 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen^[70] (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) and then the idea of radio communication with those satellites in Herman Potočnik's (written under the pseudonym Hermann Noordung) 1928 book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums — der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor) sections: Providing for Long Distance Communications and Safety^[71] and (possibly referring to the idea of relaying messages via satellite, but not that 3 would be optimal) Observing and Researching the Earth's Surface^[72] published in Berlin. Clarke acknowledged the earlier concept in his book Profiles of the Future.^[73]

Thursday, February 5, 2009

News For Today

I added our solution to an old blog post from 2006 at VSatUS.blogspot.com. The author nails a lot of the hurdles customers have to overcome to get reliable broadband.

Regards,
Thomas William
Vice President of Partner Solutions
Broadband in a Box
1302 Clear Springs Trace
Louisville Kentucky 40223
Direct: (502) 426.2067
Toll Free: (800) 761.9149
Cell: (502) 263.9879
Fax: (502) 515.3710
Email: tomw@bbinabox.com
Download: www.bbinabox.com
Blog: broadbandinabox.blogspot.com
Chat: broadbandinabox@gmail.com
Network: linkedin.com/in/broadbandinabox

Monday, January 19, 2009

Technology Clothing Store into Booming Online Success

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Thomas William Vice President of Partner Solutions Broadband in a Box 1302 Clear Springs Trace Louisville Kentucky 40223 Direct: (502) 426.2067 Toll Free: (800) 761.9149 Cell: (502) 263.9879 Fax: (502) 515.3710 Email: tomw@bbinabox.com Download: www.bbinabox.com/docs Blog: broadbandinabox.blogspot.com Chat: broadbandinabox@gmail.com Network: linkedin.com/in/broadbandinabox

# # # # # # # #

…While Allowing it to Maintain its “Mom and Pop” Sentiment

Dresden, TN - When E.T. Reavis first started his small clothing store on the Dresden town square back in 1890, the words “World Wide Web” didn’t quite have the same significance that they do today.

Fast forward nearly 120 years, and those three words have helped his quaint family-owned business reach beyond the 2,800 people that live in Dresden to the more than 300 million people that live across the United States.

These days, the store is run by E.T.’s great-grandchildren, Tom, Martha and Carol. Tom admits taking the family business online originally started as just a sideline to the store itself, but when they saw how their hard-to-find and specialty items caught the attention of Internet shoppers, an entirely new business was born. “People’s shopping habits have changed dramatically over the last five years,” says Tom. “A few clicks and two or three minutes and a person can have just about anything they want.”

One particularly popular item E.T. Reavis and Son has to offer is, in grand Southern tradition, overalls. The store features unique styles and sizes (sizes range from 6 months to a 74 waist) that the larger, well-known department stores don’t carry anymore. “I get calls all the time from people saying ‘Wal-Mart used to carry these, but they changed to another brand,’” says Tom.

The store’s distinctive items have caught the attention of everyone from the History Channel to the Minnesota Timberwolves. And with 90% of their revenue now coming from online sales, the company shows no signs of slowing down. Transitioning with the times by moving his business to the Internet literally changed the course of Tom’s entire business. “The Internet has relieved me of competition locally,” he says. “Instead of having to rely on the local economy for sales, I rely on the whole United States.”

And the United States delivers. “We have customers from Maine to California, Alaska to Hawaii,” says Tom.

Their popularity comes as no surprise. Just one visit to the E.T. Reavis and Son website and their number one motto is clear:

“If you are ever in the Dresden area of Northwest Tennessee, please come by and visit. We would love to meet you.”

LINK

Friday, January 16, 2009

Economic stimulus package: $6 billion for broadband

January 16, 2009 — 12:27am ET | By Doug Mohney

Monday, January 5, 2009

Tom... BBinaBox ROCKS... Installation was smooth, even the little compass works well... dish is extremely well made, kit is all-inclusive. I had my doubts about the little beeper -- it too, worked like a dream. I had nightmares about old [OMITTED] tweeking, twisting, pounding, praying and the like, and calling a support line that just rings and rings... your product is like a Cadillac -- not one single glitch.

Now that your head is swollen, and your ego larger than life -- this report is only going to get better. Your signal is (like you said it would be) is HUGE in this area. And at 47 degrees, it's above the trees -- and we have lots of those. 'Worked flawlessly with IKANO dialup, even on a crappy phone line. 'Ran it wireless on a Cisco elcheepo router -- once again -- flawless. 'Tried it with UBUNTU Linux latest version -- it just smoked... and that's a real plus -- most of the Linux versions out there don't support modems very well... if at all.

I'm sold. Let me gather my thoughts on our pricing in our neck of the woods -- and what the little weekly newspapers are going to charge for ads. And let me munch on this for a day or two -- OH, and by the way, I showed it to my daughter Jane on her laptop -- and she thought is was DSL -- how 'bout them apples.

Talk to you soon...

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Internet Providers Move to Shape Broadband Push

By AMOL SHARMA

President-elect Barack Obama's call to improve the nation's broadband infrastructure has cable and phone company lobbyists maneuvering to get a leg up.

Lawmakers in Congress want a plan that will create jobs over the next two to three years while also tackling the longer-term goal of improving the availability and quality of high-speed Web access in the U.S. The U.S. has slipped to 15th from fourth place since 2001 in broadband penetration, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Advocates say broadband deployment is critical to the competitiveness of the U.S. economy.

Among the issues are what speed Congress should define as broadband and whether government money should be funneled only to areas that have no broadband access, or if it should also subsidize upgrades to existing networks.

Policies under serious consideration are corporate tax credits to build new wireless or landline infrastructure, government-backed broadband "bonds" and grants to companies or local governments, legislative aides and lobbyists close to the process say. There also is strong agreement that low-income consumers need to be encouraged to sign up for broadband -- for example, through vouchers to purchase computers or discounts on monthly service.

Senate Finance Committee and Commerce Committee members are drawing up a few options, as are House members such as California Rep. Anna Eshoo and Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee. The Obama transition team's point person has been former Federal Communications Commission chief of staff Blair Levin.

"There aren't any quarrels about the need for more broadband," says Ms. Eshoo, who outlined a series of broadband stimulus options in a memo to the House leadership in October. "It's a matter of how we're going to do it and the actual language."

The Obama transition team declined to comment.

Large cable operators are seeking to increase the FCC's definition of broadband download speed to about five megabits per second, about 6½ times as fast as the current definition, according to people familiar with the situation. Internet-service providers building out "unserved" regions, where service of that speed isn't available, would be given the full benefit of tax incentives or grants.

The big cable providers also want to target "underserved" areas, where there is only one broadband provider or the service isn't widely available. In those markets, companies would get incentives to build out next-generation services. The download speed that would qualify as next-generation would likely be in the range of 40 to 50 megabits per second, people involved in the discussions say.

The cable plan would disadvantage phone companies, especially smaller ones whose digital-subscriber-line services are slower than cable modems. The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, which represents midsize phone companies, is pushing for a slower broadband standard, in the range of 1.5 to three megabits per second. Curt Stamp, the group's president, says the federal largesse should be used to subsidize carrier investments in rural areas rather than to finance upgrades to their existing networks.

Wireless services will likely be able to qualify as broadband at a slower download speed than landline services. But if the mark is set above two megabits per second it could be a boost for Clearwire Corp., a start-up operator that is rolling out a WiMax network capable of download speeds of two to four megabits per second. Other carriers weren't planning major wireless upgrades until at least 2010.

Equipment makers such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Motorola Inc. stand to benefit if carriers undertake massive upgrades. Carl Russo, CEO of Calix, which supplies equipment to phone and cable providers, says Congress should define broadband as 10 megabits per second so the networks it builds now will be able to support bandwidth-hogging applications of the future, such as high-definition video.

"Remember, you only get to do this once, so you want to build the widest highway possible," Mr. Russo says. The Telecommunications Industry Association, which represents equipment makers, is pushing for a $25 billion grant program for Internet service providers. Under another proposal that is being discussed, grants could go to state and municipal authorities, which would build high-speed networks and then open them up to competing service providers. That would likely meet with considerable resistance from large carriers like Verizon Communications Inc., which have challenged attempts by local governments to build and operate their own wireless or high-speed fiber networks.

Steve Davis, senior vice president of policy for Qwest Communications International Inc., says the big phone company wouldn't object to public broadband projects in areas that currently have no high-speed Internet service, provided private operators have a right of first refusal in building the networks. "The first place the government should look is to the industry," Mr. Davis says.

Meanwhile, outside groups are offering various proposals to Congress. Consumer advocacy group Free Press released a 31-page broadband-stimulus proposal that calls for a $44 billion investment in Internet services over three years, much of which would be funneled through the FCC's existing Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes telephone services in rural areas and for low-income people.

Public-interest groups are clamoring for conditions to be imposed on carriers that receive tax credits, such as pledges not to degrade any Internet traffic, a principle referred to as "net neutrality."

—Vishesh Kumar and Amy Schatz contributed to this article.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

To our non-USA readers: Broadband/IPTV Questions

Out of town Friends,

As a former Online ShoutCast Radio provider (500,000 unique sessions from 1999 to 2004) I have had my eyes and ears on the development of IPTV. I've watched how the cost of online digital distribution of multimedia content have progressed over the past 4 years. Now that IPTV has started to rear its wonderful head here in the US (see VIPTV, IP-Prime, Sky Angels, P2P, BT and all of the major Cable/Satellite-delivered networks, etc.) PLUS many of us metropolitans are getting pretty fat pipes to the 'net, we're are still literally 2-3 (or more) years behind you all!

How do your communities overcome the bandwidth bottle-necking due to such large bandwidth consumption by us consumers?

I know that if all my neighbors would watch as much streaming online HiDef programming as my family does each day we'd all be completely unsatisfied! We are just now starting to see/hear reports about ISP's, Telco's, WiFi providers and Cable companies here in the U.S. are beginning to throttle (i.e slow down) their subscriber's broadband access due to high individual consumption, rather large consumption I must say. Satellite broadband providers have been doing this for years, from its inception in fact, seeing satellite bandwidth delivered via the Clarke Belt is 10X more expensive than terrestrial bandwidth.

HDTV downloads and especially streams all take a large pipe, a rather large pipe to feed the 100's or even 1,000's of people at any given moment, on demand like they do. The move here in the U.S. is for Telco's to get into the act. There are dozens of them who have already secured OC192 (or higher) connections just to serve their customers. That's a lot of bandwidth by today's standards BUT it's going to keep getting worse for them (and better for us). Are the costs associated with starting up such a venture realistic for your local bandwidth provider? Will this open up opportunities for new companies who don't have the burden of an established infrastructure to maintain/upgrade?

Can you tell us how things are progressing in your neck of the woods, countries, cities and towns so we can prepare here is the U.S.? How are Internet providers coping? How are they handling things? What are the new developments to overcoming bottle-necking? Are you satisfied? Are there any new trends we need to look out for? Are there some producers/web sites that stand out for you?

Please link to stories, reports and message board posts to help us make sense of all of this, OK?

Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,

Thomas William
Vice President of Partner Solutions
Broadband in a Box
1302 Clear Springs Trace
Louisville Kentucky 40223
Direct: (502) 426.2067
Toll Free: (800) 761.9149
Cell: (502) 263.9879
Fax: (502) 515.3710
Email: tomw@bbinabox.com
Download: www.bbinabox.com/docs
Blog: broadbandinabox.blogspot.com
Chat: broadbandinabox@gmail.com
Network: linkedin.com/in/broadbandinabox

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Here it is. We went with your suggestion.

Friday, August 29, 2008

The Sad State of U.S. Broadband

The U.S. has a dismal showing among nations in terms of broadband availability, with no easy solution to bridge the gap

by Catherine Holahan

Although the Internet was started here, the U.S. can't seem to catch up with other developed nations when it comes to giving citizens access to high-speed connections.

For the second year running, the U.S. ranked 15th among the 30 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development in terms of broadband availability. Denmark ranked first again in the annual OECD survey, followed by a host of European and Asian nations. Indeed, while the number of Americans with access to broadband service rose 20% last year, to nearly 70 million people, the most in the OECD, that amounted to just 23 of every 100 residents. By contrast, the top five countries in the OECD ranking all sport per-capita penetration rates of better than 30%.

Why isn't the U.S. up to speed online? The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is quick to point out differences in population and geography that have made it more difficult for the nation to catch up with smaller countries. It is easier, after all, to deliver broadband in densely populated areas where the same cables can serve hundreds, if not thousands, of subscribers, giving phone and cable TV companies the financial incentive to upgrade their networks. The U.S. has rural areas where the revenue to be made from laying down fiber-optic cables to reach scattered households hasn't proven alluring to many providers. "It's easier to achieve a high penetration in Manhattan than Mississippi," said FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate in an Apr. 30 speech at the Broadband Properties Summit in Dallas.

Little Competition

But challenges of wiring remote communities don't tell the whole story. The OECD also found that U.S. broadband providers charge more than those in many developed nations. Broken down by megabit per second of download speed, U.S. rates ranged from $2.83 to $38.41 in late 2007. Rates in Japan started as low as 13¢ for one megabit per second, while France, Sweden, Korea, Finland, Australia, and others all start off at lower prices than the U.S. Furthermore, residents of European and Asian countries tend to have access to far speedier broadband options than Americans.

Consumer advocacy groups blame what they see as a market with little competition. They say the ability of major telephone and cable operators, such as Verizon Communications (VZ), AT&T (T), Time Warner Cable (TWX), and Comcast (CMCSA), to dominate their markets without sharing their lines with rivals has kept out new competition, enabling the companies to keep prices high and investments in faster technologies low. "All of these countries that are outpacing us have much more competitive broadband markets than we do," says S. Derek Turner, research director at Free Press, a media policy group. "You don't have the head-to-head competition like you do overseas where they have embraced open-access policies."

Turner and other consumer advocates are calling for the FCC to spur competition by requiring providers in certain regions to lease their high-speed lines at regulated prices to other providers. Otherwise, Turner says, would-be rivals will never enter the market, as they can't afford to tear up streets and run their own lines into households already wired long ago by cable and phone companies. Verizon, for example, is spending $23 billion to replace its copper wires with fiber-optic lines for its new high-speed FiOS broadband and TV services (BusinessWeek.com, 1/30/07). It hopes to have 7 million FiOS customers by 2010 in return for that hefty investment.

The FCC has rejected the argument that such measures are needed, saying Verizon and others would never invest that sort of money in network upgrades or in extending broadband to new communities if they were forced to then lease those lines to competitors. The government's role, says Commissioner Tate, is to have a "light regulatory touch," easing restrictions for broadband requirements to encourage competition and cracking down on acts that stifle competition, such as exclusive service deals between broadband providers and apartment building owners.

"Critical Role"

Regulators also hope that recent auctions of new wireless spectrum licenses will introduce new broadband competition over the airwaves. The problem with that argument, as consumer groups see it, is that broadband titans AT&T and Verizon were the auction's biggest winners (BusinessWeek.com, 4/21/08). "We fully expect that AT&T and Verizon will push things complementary to their existing services like mobile TV," says Turner. "We think there was a big opportunity missed."

Even if new rivals do emerge from the recent auction or another one being mulled to sell unused "white space" airwaves between TV channels (BusinessWeek.com, 3/24/08), wireless Internet access tends to be slower than a wired connection, says Turner. "It will make a difference," says Turner. "But, in the end, wireless spectrum just can't compete on a speed basis with fiber optics and hard-wired lines."

The U.S. has good reason to figure out some way to gain on the other OECD countries. A broadband connection is increasingly necessary to take advantage of the Web's interactive and rich media features, and is instrumental for e-commerce. "Broadband not only plays a critical role in the workings of the economy, it connects consumers, businesses, governments, and facilitates interaction," wrote OECD report authors Taylor Reynolds and Sacha Wunsch-Vincent. "Governments need to actively look for ways to encourage investment."

Check out the BusinessWeek.com slide show to see which countries claimed the top 15 spots in the OECD's ranking.

Holahan is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York.

[source]

Monday, July 28, 2008

EarthLink returns to dial-up for its future

With over 10+ Million (possibility 20+ million) homes and businesses still left un-served in last mile DMA's, the dialup business is going to remain vibrant for years and years, until terrestrial broadband providers build their terrestrial DSL, FTTH, wireless, etc. infrastructures out to them.

This all reminds me of how the analog C-band satellite television industry was considered 'dead' back in 1994, when Ku-band mini-dish players like PrimeStar, DirecTV and DishNet started. Today C-band technology is still a reliable viable and cost effective solution for several hundred thousand homes and businesses.

How long will Dial-up survive? 10 years? 15 years?

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free: (800) 761.9149

Fax: (502) 515.3710

Email: tomw@bbinabox.com

# # # # #

By KRISTI E. SWARTZ
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/28/08

EarthLink invested for years in potential replacements for its once-thriving dial-up Internet business: a mobile phone service aimed at teens, citywide wireless high-speed Internet and broadband that runs over utility power lines.

None of them worked.

Plagued by an eroding customer base, EarthLink has managed to stay afloat — and even turn a profit in the first quarter after losing $135 million in 2007 — by slashing its work force in half and abandoning two failed ventures. Now, it's crunch time. CEO Rolla Huff is banking the company's future on the very thing that has caused trouble in the first place: dial-up.

Hello?

Huff has been saying for months he is serious. He has argued that he can't stop losing customers to broadband but what he can do is buy dial-up subscribers from other companies that don't want them and build a critical mass.

It's unclear whether that strategy will work.

"The old core Internet service provider business that was central to EarthLink and AOL is really fading away and drying up," said Lydia Leong, an analyst for Gartner, an information technology research company in Stamford, Conn. "They are a company with declining fare and declining brand equity."

EarthLink is scheduled to release its second-quarter earnings Tuesday . Executives declined to be interviewed saying the company was in a quiet period and could not speak to the media ahead of the earnings announcement. The company made a small profit of $54.4 million during the first quarter, and executives raised their full-year forecast to between $245 million and $260 million.

Analysts are hoping for some answers Tuesday on EarthLink's strategy for the long haul.

"What's the long-term solution to the challenging business model? I don't think they have figured it out, and it may not exist," said Mike Paxton, an analyst with In-Stat, a technology and communications market research firm based in Scottsdale, Ariz. "Relying solely on dial-up Internet access is not a good story for their customers, their employees or Wall Street."

A recent addition to EarthLink's board may provide a clue about the company's intentions: telecom industry veteran M. Wayne Wisehart has been either chief financial officer or CEO of a number of phone, wireless or Internet business that eventually were bought by larger companies, giving him plenty of experience in navigating through an acquisition.

Though troubled companies are often prey for prospective buyers, analysts said none would probably be interested and that EarthLink has time to pursue the purchases Huff seeks.

"We see EarthLink as an acquirer," said Scott Kessler, an analyst with Standard & Poor's in New York. "If you think about what they've done, they've basically gotten out of these other businesses and have done that so they can focus on dial-up."

EarthLink rose and fell with the Internet boom, but while major telecom companies such as AT&T and Comcast were throwing money into high-speed Internet, the company tried branching out into other ventures as a way to survive. It dabbled in Internet telephony, partnered with Duke Power to launch broadband over power lines, or BPL, on a trial basis and paired up with satellite TV providers DISH and DirecTV to market its Internet services.

Then EarthLink and SK Telecom invested about $440 million into Helio, a wireless company aimed at teens, with the hopes of capturing 3 million subscribers by 2010. Virgin Mobile bought the joint venture — and its 170,000 customers — in June for about $39 million in stock.

The company shut down another troubled venture, a municipal wireless network in Philadelphia, one month before. The $17 million effort that was part of a larger nationwide project, which is being phased out.

During EarthLink's first-quarter conference call in April with analysts, Huff acknowledged that while the company continues to lose dial-up subscribers, he sees a "long and profitable tale" in that market by buying those customers from other companies.

Huff was optimistic, telling investors that he considers such acquisitions one of EarthLink's core competencies. In fact the company has bought more than 120 groups of dial-up Internet subscribers since 1999.

During the conference call he said there is a "constant list of people that we are talking to on a consistent basis," but would not give any names. Analysts, including Jim Friedland at Cowen & Co., say the ones being courted are Time Warner's AOL and Microsoft's MSN.

Huff told analysts that AOL, MSN and United Online each have to determine how important the dial-up business is to them.

"At some point, scale will matter as much to them as it does to us," Huff said. "And we're better positioned all around to be that consolidator. We're going to try really hard to continue to acquire dial-up customers. We just want to make sure we're going to make money off of them."

Friedland, an analyst with Cowen & Co., is skeptical.

"We continue to believe that the company's dial-up base, which generates the majority of its (earnings), will decline to zero in five to six years," he wrote in a research note based on the company's first-quarter earnings.

Other analysts are less dramatic.

"While dial-up Internet access is a dying business, it is hardly a dead business," Kessler said. Companies such as EarthLink, however, have to work hard at maintaining a critical mass of customers to stay profitable, he said.

Huff has said he is bullish about the company's long-term prospects.

"I believe we can make our company better than it is today," he told analysts.

[source]

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Can't Argue, when you're right you're right Stephen!

Another great write up, this time by our friends at EzineArticles.com

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free: (800) 761.9149

Fax: (502) 515.3710

Email: tomw@bbinabox.com

# # # # # # # # #

One Way Satellite Internet Service
By Stephen Long

It can be nearly impossible to get good high speed Internet access if you don't live near a city. When you do find that access, it often turns out to be far too expensive. If you feel like you're being punished with lack of access, just because you happen to live in a rural area, you're not alone. Over 25 million Americans living outside the range of DSL and cable feel the same way.

The good news is that a growing number of providers also agree with you. They think that every rural American deserves to have reliable access to broadband speed Internet services, including affordable, efficient satellite Internet access and a service that's friendly and helpful.

You should have the high speed satellite Internet access you've waiting for, no matter who you are and where you live. Even if you're one of the twenty-five million people living outside the DSL and cable service area, you can have access to all your favorite pages without the wait.

One way satellite Internet service uses satellite technology to download data to all 48 contiguous states at high speeds. You'll get your equipment cheaply, too - there's no need to pay the high prices for equipment and installation that come with two-way satellite access.

Equipment purchases start at forty-nine dollars, and annual plans for services are less than thirty dollars each month. That's cheaper than many cable plans, and comparable to a number of DSL service plans. Installation can be done on your own, and takes only a few hours. Otherwise, you can use some of the installers offered by your network. This reliable, affordable service is the solution to your high speed Internet woes.

One way satellite Internet access is a simpler system that offers a better online experience than two way satellite Internet systems. Unlike two-way services, these systems use your phone line as the request path. You won't need complicated, expensive equipment for two way transmissions, that way. This type of system gives you the ability to install the system on your own, lower latency, and significantly reduced rain fade.

Unlike two-way satellite Internet service, one way systems almost never go down. Don't worry about rain or heavy cloud cover - you'll have access to the sites you love. This service is reliable and affordable, and available in all of the lower 48 - no American will have to go without access to broadband speed Internet.

You'll enjoy on-demand movie downloads, streaming video and music, and the ability to do remote study for school. You can watch online TV and enjoy an interactive experience - much more than you can do with dialup! Don't wait any longer for your high-res images, flash animations, video, or updated software. DSL and cable have left you behind, but you don't have to go without Internet service just because of where you live.

Can't get cable or DSL. Set up your home with Skyway's high speed Satellite Internet Access. Skyway USA offers affordable satellite Internet access plans to rural America. Get the speed that you deserve for as low as $29.95 PER month!

[source]

Friday, January 25, 2008

Dial-Up Internet Isn't Going Away--For Now

Here's a little update on the state of the diaup industry from our friends at PCWorld.com, enjoy!

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free: (800) 761.9149

Fax: (502) 515.3710

Email: tomw@bbinabox.com

# # # #

Virtually every Internet service provider uses dial-up networking to connect individuals to the Internet. Most recognizable are the larger, national information services and ISPs. Companies such as America Online, EarthLink, AT&T WorldNet, and MSN have become household names in the past ten years, and offer nearly universal service in the United States (and often provide international access as well). Each of the big guns offers its own brand of interface, built on dial-up networking, with varying levels of customization and proprietary features.

But there are often a few gotchas if you use an information service's customized interface: Some limit the user's access to Internet resources that are not part of the service's offerings. America Online, for instance, boasts the greatest number of subscribers among ISPs and information services. AOL offers those subscribers a wide range of clubs, user groups, and file libraries. There's so much to do that many AOL subscribers know only how to use those features and services exclusively within AOL's borders, rendering them unable to "leave the nest," so to speak.

On the other hand, more and more subscribers would prefer to use such subscriptions only to connect to the Internet. You can, for instance, simply use AOL as an ISP, but few users do that.

Small ISPs Provide Big Service

Smaller, local ISPs frequently offer more competitive rates, less restrictive interfaces, and a different selection (and usually a higher standard) of service options. "Local," though, doesn't necessarily mean their use is geographically limited. Often they use the same "head-end" network, such as the GRIC Alliance, as the largest providers do, and this can give local ISPs nationwide (or even worldwide) access numbers. EarthLink and MSN, for example, use the same dialing network; so can the little ISPs with big aspirations.

There are free Internet service providers, too, which offer basic connections through their user interface. The trend has been for the free ISPs to serve up a lot of ads in that interface, and little or no tech support if something goes wrong. More recently, these services have begun charging fees for services.

Rosy Future for Dial-Up Networking

Dial-up networking is a mature technology; over the past few years, incremental technology improvements have improved performance, but not by a significant amount. The last major improvement in dial-up was the release of the V.90 standard, which allowed modems that used either of two previously incompatible standards to connect to each other. As a result, most modems are able to connect at or near their rated maximum of 56 kbps.

(The 56-kbps modem specification actually translates to a real-world cap of about 52 kbps, and a realistic maximum throughput averaging about 40 kbps. The quality of the copper phone wire and the phone jack being used, the distance from the user to the phone company's central office, and the Internet's and individual Web sites' level of traffic all factor into the apparent performance.)

A new standard, tentatively named V.92, promises to improve upstream rates by using pulse code modulation, a more efficient method of grabbing and packaging data for transmission. This standard also adds convenience features. With V.92, users who subscribe to a call-waiting service from their phone company will be able to initiate or take a voice call without losing an established data connection to the Internet--long the bane of analog modem users. Another V.92 feature, called QuickConnect, remembers handshake information between your modem and dial-up service, cutting the connection time almost in half.

With new compression technologies on the horizon that promise to improve performance by using a smaller share of the wire to transfer given data, and V.92's convenience features, it looks like the demise of dial-up networking, at least for now, has moved further out on the horizon.

Nathan Garcia is a freelance technology writer based in the San Francisco area and the host of On Computers, a radio call-in show that helps listeners fix computer problems.

[source]

Dial-Up Networking 101

Millions of us have used a dial-up account to get online right? So do you know how it works? Do you really? Here is a very nicely written primer on how it all takes place. by our friends at: PCWorld.com

Thomas William

VP Partner Solutions

Broadband in a Box

1302 Clear Springs Trace

Louisville Kentucky 40223

Direct: (502) 426.2067

Toll Free: (800) 761.9149

Fax: (502) 515.3710

Email: tomw@bbinabox.comWe explain the method most people use to connect to the Internet.

Nathan Garcia, special to PCWorld.com

Dial-up networking: the set of protocols and software used to connect a computer to an Internet service provider, an online service, or a remote computer through an analog modem and POTS (plain old telephone system).

Dial-up networking is the most widely used type of computer connection to the Internet. By the end of 2000, over a quarter of a billion subscribers were dialing in to the Internet--more than four times the number of users of other popular access methods, namely broadband DSL, cable, and ISDN modems. Here are the facts you need to know:

Dial-up networking uses a modem as the interface between a single PC and a network such as the Internet; the modems are typically capable of speeds up to 56 kbps.
Dialing up with a modem is still the cheapest and most widely available way to connect to the Internet, but because it offers comparatively slow connection speeds, graphics-intensive Web sites can take a long time to load.
The maximum speed at which you can download data using dial-up networking is limited by the telephone system's analog bandwidth, the line quality, and the Internet traffic load.
Dial-up networking usually communicates with the ISP using the Point to Point Protocol standard.

While broadband services such as DSL, cable modems, and satellite Internet are rapidly becoming available to more areas around the nation, dial-up networking continues to grow. It's estimated that wireless connectivity will pose the biggest challenge to dial-up networking in terms of subscribers sometime in the future. But analysts predict that, as of the end of 2001, more than twice as many people will continue to use dial-up networking than will use broadband services to connect to the Internet. In 2003 the gap will close, but dial-up networking will still be the most popular method by one and one-half times.

What's in a Handshake?

Dial-up networking is the simplest way to connect to the Internet: You just connect over the phone line using your modem, once you've subscribed to an ISP. For the most part, the software tools you need come built into Windows; some ISPs, such as EarthLink, furnish a user interface that makes setup even easier. Whichever method is used, dial-up customers usually only need to enter a user name and password, as well as the ISP's phone number, into a dialog box. The dial-up networking software uses that information to make the connection with the ISP and does all the rest of the work. After the initial setup, all that most customers need to do to make a connection is double-click an icon.

When you initiate the process, dial-up networking first directs your modem to dial the ISP's phone number, which is answered by another modem at the other end. For a few seconds the modems send control signals back and forth to determine how fast each can connect. The familiar screeching you hear when your modem first connects is the sound of your modem and the ISP's modem harmonizing the connection and deciding on a speed to use.

Once the connection is established, your modem silences its internal speaker, and dial-up networking sends your user name and password to the ISP using a process called CHAP--the challenge handshake authentication protocol. At the ISP's end, a computer checks your user name and password against a database of active customers. Once the ISP authenticates your information, the dial-up networking status window disappears, and you are free to surf, check and send e-mail, download files, and so forth. The process can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to complete.

PPP: Slightly Slower, but More Fault-Tolerant

Dial-up networking also breaks down your data into chunks, encoding and packaging the data before it goes on its way.

Dial-up networking uses a method called PPP (Point to Point Protocol) to package data for transmission over phone lines. As with ethernet, the PPP data packet, often called a frame, includes several parts. There are beginning and ending flags (called "wrappers") that bound the packet. Just like ethernet packets, PPP frames contain wrapper upon wrapper. The wrappers help direct the data within the packet to its destination using different protocols, such as TCP/IP, and also determine the type of data compression used on the packet.

One important distinction between PPP frames and ethernet packets is the capacity of damaged PPP packets to be recovered using a process called the frame check sequence. A packet occasionally gets lost or damaged en route; when it arrives at its destination, a damaged ethernet packet gets thrown out and a request goes back to the computer that sent the packet to resend it--a very time-consuming process if you use a dial-up connection, which is much slower than broadband.

In contrast, one part of a PPP wrapper contains a chunk of data called the validation value, which is verified at the destination. In some cases, a damaged PPP frame can be restored through the validation value, so it does not need to be resent.

While this process saves valuable time that would otherwise be used to resend every damaged packet, PPP's error-recovery features tend to make PPP run a bit more slowly than the simpler protocols that lack such error correction. But the Internet is a dangerous place for a data packet; errors or other problems can cause dozens of packets to drop each second. In the long run, PPP is far better suited to use over the Internet than other, less stringent protocols, so it has survived and flourished.

[source]

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Event to celebrate 13 'hot' local companies (Louisville Kentucky)

Congratulations to our retail partner.

Thomas
800 761 9149
tomw@bbinabox.com
www.bbinabox.com

# # # # # #

Business First of Louisville

Enterprise Corp. and the High Impact Program will hold an event this week to celebrate the success and potential of 13 area companies.

The event, called The Hot Dozen Holiday Showcase, will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 12, at the Old National Bank in Preston Pointe, 333 E. Main St.

The companies that will be recognized are: 3DR LLC, Conexxus, Dormbuys.com, Fulfillment Concepts, Genscape, Maximum ASP, Modern Gigabyte, Nomad Innovations, Peptides International, Resonant Vibes, Skyway USA, Smoothstone IP Communications and ZirMed.

Louisville Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson and the clients and partners of Enterprise Corp. and the High Impact Program will be in attendance.

The Hot Dozen Holiday Showcase is free to attend, but an RSVP is required by Monday, Dec. 10.

The High Impact Program is a public-private partnership formed by Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government and GLI that identifies and serves fast-growth companies. The Enterprise Corp. is a division of GLI that supports entrepreneurship.

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Here's a little update on the state of the diaup industry from our friends at PCWorld.com, enjoy!

Small ISPs Provide Big Service

Rosy Future for Dial-Up Networking

What's in a Handshake?

PPP: Slightly Slower, but More Fault-Tolerant

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Business First of Louisville

Monday, July 23, 2001

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