WebProNews

Tag: bandwidth

  • Google Offers ‘Optimize For Bandwidth’ Tool

    Google Offers ‘Optimize For Bandwidth’ Tool

    Google is offering webmasters a way to optimize their sites for bandwidth on Apache and Nginx.

    As the company notes, there are a lot of obstacles on the web when it comes to using less bandwidth, and sites contribute to the problem for a variety of reasons including non-minified code and images that weren’t saved for the web, to name a couple.

    Google offers an optimizing proxy for Chorme, but is now utilizing the same technology in its PageSpeed tool. Google’s Jeff Kaufman writes:

    With Optimize for Bandwidth, the PageSpeed team is bringing this same technology to webmasters so that everyone can benefit: users of other browsers, secure sites, desktop users, and site owners who want to bring down their outbound traffic bills. Just install the PageSpeed module on your Apache or Nginx server [1], turn onOptimize for Bandwidth in your configuration, and PageSpeed will do the rest.

    If you later decide you’re interested in PageSpeed’s more advanced optimizations, from cache extension andinlining to the more aggressive image lazyloading and defer JavaScript, it’s just a matter of enabling them in your PageSpeed configuration.

    Google’s John Mueller notes in a Google+ post, “Setting this up isn’t always trivial, but if your site gets a lot of traffic, looking into optimizations like this can result in noticable performance improvements.”

    More info about setting things up is available here.

    Image via Google

  • Facebook Lets Advertisers Target Based On Network Connection

    Facebook announced that it is giving advertisers a new feature that allows them to target people based on the network connection they most often use when accessing Facebook. Options are: 2G, 3G, or 4G.

    The idea is that this will help businesses better reach users in developing countries with more varied connections, so simpler ads can be targeted to lesser connections, making for an all around less annoying experience.

    “Facebook already offers the option to reach people based on the type of device they use (smart phones, feature phones and tablets), as well as device model and operating system,” the company said in a blog post. “However, advertisers also told us that having the ability to segment based on network connection type would help them create better ad experiences.”

    “Targeting by mobile network type helps advertisers choose creative that will run smoothly on any given device and connection speed,” it added. “For example, serving a video ad to people in Indonesia with 2G connections may mean wasted impressions if people are unable to load the video or it buffers for minutes when clicked. Optimizing the creative — for instance, targeting a video campaign to people with high-speed connections, and swapping in an image or link ad for people with slower connections — means ads can perform more efficiently for the people seeing them.”

    The company also suggests that advertisers will be able to create more compelling localized campaigns using the feature. Vodafone has already been doing this with good early results, it says.

    Bandwidth targeting is immediately available to advertisers around the world with the Ad Create Tool, Power Editor, and the API.

    Facebook revealed in its most recent earnings report that it had 654 million mobile daily active users on average during the second quarter, up 39% from the same period last year. It had 1.07 billion mobile monthly active users.

    Image via Facebook

  • Is Cord Cutting Really Happening?

    With consumers continuing to be unhappy with cable providers, a trend known as “cord cutting” has quickly risen up. The concept has gained a lot of attention over the past couple of years especially since more Internet alternatives have become available.

    Is cord cutting actually a trend or is it simply a threat that consumers are sending to cable companies? What’s your take? Please share.

    According to a report from ISI Group, cable went from having more than 53 percent of the video market in 2010 to less than 50 percent in 2011:

    While it appears that cord cutting is a growing trend, a couple of other reports actually indicate the opposite. Bernstein Research found that pay-TV subscribers grew last quarter. Although the increase (0.2 percent) wasn’t significant, it’s enough to raise some questions about the so-called trend of cord cutting.

    What’s more, Business Insider Intelligence found that there was “no meaningful evidence to bolster the much-heralded ‘decline of TV.’” (Emphasis not added.) Alex Cocotas explained that, while cable has lost some subscribers, bundled Internet, telephone, and TV packages have grown.

    Bryan Gonzalez, Director of Social Entertainment Labs at the Entertainment Technology Center at USC It’s clear that a lot of consumers are unhappy with cable options, but these recent reports can’t help but make one wonder what is actually happening. According to Bryan Gonzalez, the Director of Social Entertainment Labs at the Entertainment Technology Center at USC, there are many challenges to cord cutting.

    Services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV can be very effective, but there is a downside to some Internet options. For instance, with March Madness in full swing, basketball lovers may not be able to find all their favorite games online. In addition, a lot of the Internet services don’t have current content, which is a problem for some consumers.

    As Gonzalez explained, many consumers are trying to get away from cable and are looking to Internet and satellite options instead. However, some appear, as the above charts suggest, to be going back to traditional content even though they aren’t completely happy with their choice.

    Time Warner’s CEO Glenn Britt, in a move to counter some of the negativity from consumers, recently laid out a plan for a low-cost package of channels to offer. This experiment has yet to be implemented but some, including Gonzalez, believe that it could be effective.

    “By creating these smaller, cheaper packages, you’re really gonna bring back some of the folks who might have gone away for a little bit,” he said.

    Another challenge to cord cutting is bandwidth issues. Unfortunately, this is a problem that is expected to increase as more devices such as the new iPad come out. With these types of devices combined with growing families, consumers are going to need more bandwidth.

    Britt also discussed a second experiment that Time Warner is working on that addresses bandwidth issues. According to him, Time Warner is testing a metered-usage Internet subscription plan in Texas, which means that tiered data cap could be proposed in the future.

    “As soon as you start to limit that, I think that they’re gonna run into that wall pretty quickly,” said Gonzalez.

    “You’re gonna see a lot of consumer pushback on that,” he added.

    Over on InverstorPlace, Anthony John Agnello issued a warning to Time Warner in regards to this experiment:

    “Time Warner needs to tread very carefully, though, or it will lose more than just cable subscribers. For years now, Web users have been vocal opponents of usage-based billing and attempts to cap data. Time Warner attempted to introduce usage-based billing in 2009, but consumer outrage prompted the company to abandon its plans. The same thing happened to competitor Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) when rumors swirled that it intended to start billing based on usage, but Comcast gave up those plans by December 2010. As reported by Stop the Cap, a consumer advocacy group devoted to blocking usage-based data plans and data caps, Comcast applauded Time Warner’s announcement but shied away from saying whether or not it would follow suit in the future.”

    In an effort to solve some of these challenges and bring cable and Internet streaming together, Netflix attempted to partner with Comcast but was rejected. According to FierceCable, Comcast issued this response to the offer:

    “We have no plans to offer access to Netflix to our customers through our Xfinity TV service, no matter what device,” said Comcast spokeswoman Alana Davis.

    The marriage of the companies was a puzzle to many since Netflix has, for a long time, distinguished itself as an alternative to cable. Gonzalez told us that, even though the companies did not reach an agreement, it was encouraging that an attempt was made. Furthermore, without Netflix’s existence, products such as TV Everywhere would probably not be around either.

    “Before Netflix, Comcast and Time Warner would have never offered that or thought about that,” he said.

    In other words, the advent of Internet alternatives has brought more choices to consumers. While the issue of cord cutting is still being debated, it is clear that these services will play a large role in the future of pay TV. In fact, Avner Ronen, the CEO of Boxee, told WebProNews that the trend toward viewing content online would increase going forward.

    “The transition toward more video over the top that’s coming over the Internet such as Netflix and Hulu and iTunes is inevitable,” he said.

    (Here’s the full interview:)

    Gonzalez agrees that Internet options will be significant but believes that consumers will ultimately gravitate toward some sort of combination of online and traditional services.

    “In the short term, I think cable and satellite and broadcast are still… the most effective way and efficient way to distribute video,” he said. “However, I see the future more as a hybrid.”

    What would you like to see going forward? Are online services the answer, or, do you still need what cable and satellite operators offer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

  • New Light Tech Could Speed Computing, Phones 1000X

    Communication technologies including smartphones and laptops could now be 1,000 times faster.

    A University of Pittsburgh team has generated a frequency comb with more than a 100 terahertz bandwidth as a means to process communications data at a remarkably rapid speed.

    Many of the communication tools of today rely on the function of light or, more specifically, on applying information to a light wave. Up until now, studies on electronic and optical devices with materials that are the foundations of modern electronics—such as radio, TV, and computers—have generally relied on nonlinear optical effects, producing devices whose bandwidth has been limited to the gigahertz (GHz) frequency region. Thanks to research performed at the University of Pittsburgh, a physical basis for terahertz bandwidth—the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwave light—has now been demonstrated.

    In a paper published March 4 in Nature Photonics, Hrvoje Petek, a professor of physics and chemistry in Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and his colleague Muneaki Hase, a professor of applied physics at the University of Tsukuba in Japan and a visiting scientist in Petek’s lab, detail their success in generating a frequency comb—dividing a single color of light into a series of evenly spaced spectral lines for a variety of uses—that spans a more than 100 terahertz bandwidth by exciting a coherent collective of atomic motions in a semiconductor silicon crystal.

    “The ability to modulate light with such a bandwidth could increase the amount of information carried by more than 1,000 times when compared to the volume carried with today’s technologies,” says Petek. “Needless to say, this has been a long-awaited discovery in the field.”

    To investigate the optical properties of a silicon crystal, Petek and his team investigated the change in reflectivity after excitation with an intense laser pulse. Following the excitation, the team observed that the amount of reflected light oscillates at 15.6 THz, the highest mechanical frequency of atoms within a silicon lattice. This oscillation caused additional change in the absorption and reflection of light, multiplying the fundamental oscillation frequency by up to seven times to generate the comb of frequencies extending beyond 100 THz. Petek and his team were able to observe the production of such a comb of frequencies from a crystalline solid for the first time.

    “Although we expected to see the oscillation at 15.6 THz, we did not realize that its excitation could change the properties of silicon in such dramatic fashion,” says Petek. “The discovery was both the result of developing unique instrumentation and incisive analysis by the team members.”

    Petek notes the team’s achievements are the result of developing experimental and theoretical tools to better understand how electrons and atoms interact in solids under intense optical excitation and of the invested interest by Pitt’s Dietrich School in advanced instrumentation and laboratory infrastructure.

    The team is currently investigating the coherent oscillation of electrons, which could further extend the ability of harnessing light-matter interactions from the terahertz- to the petahertz-frequency range. Petahertz is a unit of measure for very fast frequencies (1 quadrillion hertz).

    This research was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

    For more information on Petek’s research, visit www.ultrafast.phyast.pitt.edu/Home.html.

  • The Internet Archive Needs Your Help

    The Internet Archive Needs Your Help

    Just because a site is free to use and features a comprehensive database of accessible content doesn’t mean they don’t need money to keep going. In fact, the opposite is true.

    Just ask the Internet Archive.

    Much like Wikipedia, the folks at Archive.org are also looking for funding, but they aren’t going about it with creepy images of editors that stare at you for the duration of your visit. Sure, there are prompts over at the Internet Archive asking people to donate, but the manner in which they go about asking isn’t anywhere near as intrusive as other sites. To put it another way, the way in which the Internet Archive is asking for donations has not become a Reddit meme where people poke fun at the monetary requests.

    While I mention bandwidth in the article’s lede, it’s not the only reason for the donation requests, something the Internet Archive blog post reveals quite well:

    In the last year, the number of people using the Internet Archive has increased to two million people every day, and our collections of free books, music, video, and web pages have also grown by twenty to twenty-five percent. This is great news, but we are doing it all on a shoestring budget.

    This year we need your help.

    The word “help” is linked and when clicked, visitors are taken to a donation page where you can contribute as much or as little as you can. Considering the role the Internet Archive provides, asking for a little funding is perfectly acceptable, especially for a site/service that offers this description as its primary goal:

    We digitize books, collect video, music and the World Wide Web, and take contributions of digital media from anyone who would like their materials preserved.

    We provide access to these vast collections to millions of people each day. All for free. {Emphaisis added]

    So yeah, asking for donations to keep bringing such content to the masses is understandable, especially when the service is free. With that in mind, perhaps Archive.org could look into official sponsorship, or, who knows, maybe sell themselves to Google or Microsoft. Considering their massive amount of content, there could be some great opportunities for targeted advertisements.

    If you’d like to donate to the Internet Archive’s cause, you can do so here.

  • AT&T Says Goodbye To An Uncapped Internet

    AT&T Says Goodbye To An Uncapped Internet

    And the battle against a truly open Internet where service providers do not interfere with the usage rights — look it up in the service contract: long ago, in the BNNN (before no net neutrality) days, an uncapped Internet means you can use as much bandwidth as you please as long as you are a paying customer — continues, and folks, it’s pretty clear the customer is the one losing.

    Worse yet, apparently, he/she doesn’t seem to mind one bit. From AT&T’s perspective, their customers want the higher bandwidth users to pay more, therefore, “justifying” the upcoming cap rule.


    Oddly enough, I noticed “be tricked into believing unjustifiable bandwidth caps are good for you” was left out of their look-to-the-future commercial.

    Forgive the aside here, but why is it up the heavy bandwidth user to foot the bill for the mysterious cost of bandwidth usage when the company’s infrastructure may not be adequate enough to handle their rapidly increasing customer base? As more and more users enjoy the conveniences and pleasures of streaming video in high definition, high-end PC gaming, and other robust Internet tasks, the company needs to adapt in order to support this growth, instead of resorting to punishing its power users, or “hogs” for lack of a better term.

    Another consideration is, as pointed out by Wired.com, there isn’t a great deal of information concerning the congestion issues these caps are supposed to prevent. In other words, there’s no proof AT&T or Comcast even need these caps to begin with.

    Different subjects for a different day, apparently. As for the upcoming AT&T cap, the details are as follows: DSL customers will have a 150 gigabyte per month usage limit. Those that exceed the cap will be penalized an extra $10 for every 50 gigabytes they go over.

    Needless to say, reaction to AT&T’s wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing approach to such a sensitive subject has set off a firestorm of reaction around the Internet. Endgadget’s post has over 3000 comments and Reddit’s is somewhere around the 600 mark by now. As one might expect, there aren’t many supporters of the upcoming cap.

    Though the vitriol is fast and fierce, the first comment on Reddit’s thread stood out to this writer:

    “I love it when people who use the services they paid for and were promised are referred to as “hogs”. Kills me every time.“

    (via enderpanda)

    Too bad such negative reaction won’t impact AT&T’s decision in anyway, shape or form. At this point, only a mass exodus would reverse this particular course. That being said, it would be nice to actually meet some of these ubiquitous customers AT&T keeps referring to.

    The new cap makes its long-awaited debut on May 2nd, in what will no doubt be a red letter day… at least for AT&T

  • Usage Cap And Overage Fees Coming for AT&T DSL and U-Verse Internet

    Usage Cap And Overage Fees Coming for AT&T DSL and U-Verse Internet

    News is beginning to circulate that AT&T will implement a 150GB monthly cap on landline DSL, as well as a 250GB cap on subscribers to U-Verse beginning on May 2.

    Will this affect you and your Internet usage? Let us know your thoughts.

    DSLReports has learned that AT&T users will start receiving notices, about the change to the terms of service, sometime between March 18 and March 31. AT&T customers who exceed their usage cap will be charged a fee of $10 for every 50GB. (It should be noted is that the AT&T U-Verse TV Service WON’T count towards the GB cap).

    Engadget has an interesting statement from AT&T…

    “We are committed to providing a great experience for all of our Internet customers. Less than 2 percent of our Internet customers could be impacted by this approach – those who are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. We will communicate early and often with these customers so they are well aware of their options before they incur any additional usage charges.

    The top 2 percent of residential subscribers uses about 20 percent of the bandwidth on our network. Just one of these high-traffic users can utilize the same amount of data capacity as 19 typical households. Lopsided usage patterns can cause congestion at certain points in the network, which can slow Internet speeds and interfere with other customers’ access to and use of the network. Our new plan addresses another concern: customers strongly believe that only those who use the most bandwidth should pay more than those who don’t use as much. That’s exactly what this does – and again, 98% of our customers will not be impacted by this.”

    What are your thoughts on AT&T’s cap? Tell us what you think.