News roundup March 2016

A final round-up of March’s news and developments:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University have developed a system that decreases web page load times by 34 percent: the “Polaris” framework determines how to overlap the downloading of a page's objects so that the overall page requires less time to load.

BBC News reported on the continuing growth and impact of online video, in particular, how online video has become a crucial part of the sales and marketing programmes for most business-to-business (b2b) organisations.

CircleID published details of analysis of direct measurement of Internet interconnection points, in recognition that the overall user online experience is dependent not only upon access bandwidths but also upon internet infrastructure and interconnectivity upstream of ISPs’ access networks. Ofcom’s recent Connected Nations report also includes research investigating this area.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced new proposals to  ensure consumers have the tools they need to make informed choices about how and whether their data is used and shared by their broadband providers (further information here), together with new rules to help make broadband more affordable for low-income Americans.

The Broadband Commission for Digital Development acknowledged the need for new global targets to drive broadband investment and adoption to help achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

BusinessWire reported that ADTRAN (“a leading provider of next-generation open networking solutions”) has several 10Gbit/s broadband customer trials underway: “A wide range of service providers from new market entrants to municipal/utility providers to international Tier 1 carriers are all currently evaluating Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) services based on XGS-PON architecture.” (More on 10Gbit/s residential services here.)

Comcast announced the rollout of gigabit internet services in Atlanta using DOCSIS 3.1 technology (more background here).

Finally, Hyperoptic-commissioned research revealed that the average UK resident now spends 10.5 hours a day online.