Many attempts to supply broadband to US students, on- and off-campus, have been imperfect at best: they either leave gaps in coverage or carry woefully inadequate bandwidth. The White House is aiming for much, much better service through its ConnectED initiative. The proposed five-year program would rework the FCC's E-Rate subsidies to offer at least 100Mbps broadband (and ideally 1Gbps) to 99 percent of American students. Schools could also use their funding to set up WiFi, although they would have to pay for any computing power themselves. ConnectED would add about 40 cents a month to phone bills, but it could put most schools on an equal plane -- and keep pace with increasingly faster connections at home.
[Image credit: Johan Larsson, Flickr]
Filed under: Networking
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Via: White House Blog
Source: White House (PDF), FCC
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Canalys is back with its latest worldwide estimates of mobile device shipments, and while the analyst group has a divisive way of combining figures, there's plenty of insight to discover in its breakdown of the smartphone and tablet realms. First off, Canalys reports that Android accounted for 75.6 percent of all smartphone shipments during Q1, which is an increase from the 69.2 percent it reported for the previous quarter. As a whole, Canalys estimates that 216.3 million smartphones were shipped during Q1, which is roughly steady when compared to the three months prior. It should come as no surprise, but Samsung is said to lead the category with nearly a third of all smartphone shipments, while Apple accounted for roughly 17 percent of the pie. Meanwhile, Huawei, LG and ZTE are next in line, each with less than 5 percent of the market.
Given the prevalence of the iPad, you could just as easily guess that Apple continues to dominate the tablet category and still be right. Here, Canalys estimates that Apple holds a 46.4 percent market share, but qualifies that win, as that the company is losing ground to its Android-based rivals. On the upside, Canalys reckons that the tablet market has more than doubled from the previous year, which means there's plenty of pie to go around.
[Image credit: Jon Fingas, Flickr]
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets
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Source: Canalys
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T-Mobile USA has been making a big push for pre-paid customers since it launched its Uncarrier plans in March, and it seems to be working -- unfortunately, at the expense of more lucrative post-paid clients. While pre-paid revenue bumped to $503 million over $474 million last quarter, post-paid revenue fell to $3.2 billion, a drop of 4.7 percent, and overall revenue dropped by about the same amount to $4.7 billion from $4.9 billion in Q4 2012. Overall, however, the company did pick up 579,000 customers in total, and claimed its lowest client turnover rate, 1.9 percent, since way back in 2008. Another bright spot has been the addition of the iPhone, as the company has already pushed around 500,000 of the 4, 4S and 5 models out the door since it launched at the Uncarrier event -- perhaps due to the very attractive pricing.
Filed under: Mobile
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Although Netgear was one of the quickest out of the gates with 802.11ac WiFi hardware, that doesn't mean its hardware is the quickest today: without beamforming to optimize the signal, it risks trailing behind newcomers who've had more time to prepare. Starting with the R6300 router and A6200 USB adapter, the company will soon catch up through a firmware update that rolls in support for the beamforming standard. The upgrade targets wireless signals at devices' specific locations, offering a big speed boost at shorter distances -- Netgear estimates up to a 60 percent improvement at a 50-foot range. R6300 and A6200 owners can swing past the source links today for their tune-up, while those using Netgear's other 802.11ac devices should expect brisker speeds around the early summer.
Filed under: Peripherals, Networking
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Source: Netgear (1), (2), (3)
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The internet is often renowned for its amazing bargains, but in the uncharted waters of cyberspace the best deals are usually too good to be true. This isn't one of those times. Recently, a bogus coupon for 90 percent off at Razer's UK store went viral, which resulted in a frenzy of online purchases. While internet scams are all too common, the company's response to this matter is somewhat shocking. Instead of canceling the shady orders, Razer has decided to honor them, but with some limitations. The company will uphold the discount on individual purchases for different products, but void repeat transactions on the same item. Due to some back-ordered items, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan warned that it'll take a few months to fulfill all the orders, and professed that his outfit would incur "an insane amount of losses" in doing so. Good form, Mr. Tan, but we can't help but cringe when trying to fathom how many of these were sold for around £11.
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
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Source: Min-Liang Tan (Facebook)
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