Access to the Internet is an increasing problem in many areas of the world. As the popularity and usefulness of the Internet increases on a daily basis, lack of access to the technology is putting many groups at a disadvantage in terms of better education, better jobs and even in terms of higher levels of civic participation. However, creating a network infrastructure to serve outlying communities and sectors of the population is not straight-forward. This book brings together all the aspects of the problem – technical, regulatory and economic - into one volume to provide a comprehensive resource. It describes the latest technological advances that allow cost-effective network infrastructures to be built, and places them in the context of the applications and services that the infrastructure will deliver. A section on business models and case studies from North American and Europe demonstrate that the solutions are economically and practically viable. This book is essential for anyone looking to gain an understanding of the issues and technology surrounding the access debate. It will be of particular relevance to network engineers/designers/planners at the incumbent operator companies charged with delivering broadband access to as yet unconnected regions. Governments and regulatory bodies will also find this a useful guide to the problems that they may face.

Focusing on the most promising broadband applications and services and the business strategies that are most viable to ensure favorable return on investment, this report is authored by industry professionals and examines the current and potential markets for a range of broadband applications and services and offers business strategies that providers can adopt to help ensure profitability. Detailed case studies from service providers around the world also provide invaluable insights into the challenges and opportunities present in today's global broadband industry. This report is an important resource for any communications company that hopes to profit from the evolutions in broadband applications and services.

An oft-repeated adage among telecommunication providers goes, “There are ve things that matter: reliability, reliability, reliability, time to market, and cost. If you can’t do all ve, at least do the rst three. ” Yet, designing and operating reliable networks and services is a Herculean task. Building truly reliable components is unacceptably expensive, forcing us to c- struct reliable systems out of unreliable components. The resulting systems are inherently complex, consisting of many different kinds of components running a variety of different protocols that interact in subtle ways. Inter-networkssuch as the Internet span multiple regions of administrative control, from campus and cor- rate networks to Internet Service Providers, making good end-to-end performance a shared responsibility borne by sometimes uncooperative parties. Moreover, these networks consist not only of routers, but also lower-layer devices such as optical switches and higher-layer components such as rewalls and proxies. And, these components are highly con gurable, leaving ample room for operator error and buggy software. As if that were not dif cult enough, end users understandably care about the performance of their higher-level applications, which has a complicated relationship with the behavior of the underlying network. Despite these challenges, researchers and practitioners alike have made trem- dous strides in improving the reliability of modern networks and services.

Optical networks, undersea networks, GSM, UMTS The recent explosion in broadband communications technologies has opened a new world of fast, flexible services and applications. To successfully implement these services, however, requires a solid understanding of the concepts and capabilities of broadband technologies and networks. Building Br

The access network is expected to be one of the major battlegrounds of telecommunications network operators, since upgrades of the existing narrowband access network will be the critical factor in supplying multimedia broadband services in a competitive market. The future broadband access network architecture needs to be flexible enough to efficiently support the provision of a full set of broadband and narrowband services with a wide range of capacity demands. A wide range of broadband access technologies are available. Furthermore, the key issues in the upgrading of the very cost sensitive access network are financial as well as technological, both for incumbent and new entrant operators. Thus, in order to identify minimum-risk introductory strategies the economic viability of access network broadband upgrades needs to be carefully assessed. However, despite the definite need for techno-economic evaluations, very few books have been published in this field. One of the reasons might be that broadband access network upgrading only very recently gained wide recognition as a key challenge for broadband delivery. Secondly, this kind of strategic work and these studies tend to be considered rather sensitive by operators, and thus both results and methodologies are not usually readily available. Thirdly, the work reported in this book in many respects was a major pioneering effort, which quite ambitiously aimed at modelling the whole life-cycle costs and revenue streams of access network upgrades, as opposed to several other efforts, which often are limited to pure investment cost comparisons.

High-speed Internet access: the definitive "how-to" guide! Covers cable, DSL, and next-generation wireless high-speed Internet connections, this handbook also Includes Windows, MacOS and Linux coverage.

Broadband Satellite Communications for Internet Access is a systems engineering methodology for satellite communication networks. It discusses the implementation of Internet applications that involve network design issues usually addressed in standard organizations. Various protocols for IP- and ATM-based networks are examined and a comparative performance evaluation of different alternatives is described. This methodology can be applied to similar evaluations over any other transport medium.

"This book covers the principles of both wired and wireless communications of voice, data, images, and video and the impact of their business values on the organizations in which they are used"--Provided by publisher.

An introduction to theories and applications in wireless broadband networks As wireless broadband networks evolve into future generation wireless networks, it's important for students, researchers, and professionals to have a solid understanding of their underlying theories and practical applications. Divided into two parts, the book presents: Enabling Technologies for Wireless Broadband Networks—orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing and other block-based transmissions; multi-input/multi-output antenna systems; ultra-wideband; medium access control; mobility resource management; routing protocols for multi-hop wireless broadband networks; radio resource management for wireless broadband networks; and quality of service for multimedia services Systems for Wireless Broadband Networks—long-term evolution cellular networks; wireless broadband networking with WiMax; wireless local area networks; wireless personal area networks; and convergence of networks Each chapter begins with an introduction and ends with a summary, appendix, and a list of resources for readers who would like to explore the subjects in greater depth. The book is an ideal resource for researchers in electrical engineering and computer science and an excellent textbook for electrical engineering and computer science courses at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

This book examines the reasons why various groups around the world choose not to adopt broadband services and evaluates strategies to stimulate the demand that will lead to increased broadband use. It introduces readers to the benefits of higher adoption rates while examining the progress that developed and emerging countries have made in stimulating broadband demand. By relying on concepts such as a supply and demand gap, broadband price elasticity, and demand promotion, this book explains differences between the fixed and mobile broadband demand gap, introducing the notions of substitution and complementarity between both platforms. Building on these concepts, ‘Driving Demand for Broadband Networks and Services’ offers a set of best practices and recommendations aimed at promoting broadband demand. The broadband demand gap is defined as individuals and households that could buy a broadband subscription because they live in areas served by telecommunications carriers but do not do so because of either economic, limited awareness, or lack of digital literacy reasons. This grouping represents a range from 30% of the population in the US, 40% in Germany, and over 80% in most emerging countries. Research indicates that broadband usage is critical for social development, economic performance, and overall welfare and so it behoves governments to encourage demand. This study is the first of its kind to address the demand side of broadband diffusion, incorporating an economic analysis while offering real world examples of policies and initiatives that have successfully spurred demand in developed and emerging markets alike. This book is intended for policy makers, managers of telecommunications and other technology companies, as well as academics and graduate students in the areas of public policy, economic development, and technology management. This book is an eye-opener for policy makers. Traditionally ICT policy has focused on the supply side. Katz and Berry develop great ideas to leapfrog Internet penetration from the demand side, where the value of the Internet is. - Diego Molano Vega, Minister of Information Technologies and Communications of Colombia This book is an instant classic. It brilliantly and convincingly lays out the case why dealing with inadequate internet penetration has moved from the creation of supply to one of encouraging demand. It provides an information-rich and well-written presentation of the factors holding back people from becoming users, and offers a hugely valuable survey of the various programs around the world to make the broadband internet truly useful to people everywhere. It is the kind of book writers in this field will use constantly. - Eli Noam, Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School This new study by Katz and Berry examines the rationale for national broadband plans and the evidence for their success in driving demand. It presents the latest data on broadband in a range of case study countries, and provides best practice advice for policy-makers and development practitioners. - Dr Tim Kelly, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, World Bank