Comcast Offers Super-Fast Internet Speeds 50mbs … in MN

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Comcast Offers Super-Fast Internet Speeds

Comcast is launching a new premium service that offers download speeds starting at 50 mbps.

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Yinka Adegoke, Reuters

Thursday, April 03, 2008 7:00 AM PDT

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Comcast Corp. the largest U.S. cable television operator, said on Wednesday it has started offering a super-fast Internet service that allows customers to download a high-definition movie in 10 minutes.

The new premium service was launched in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and marks a leap in connection speeds for Comcast. The new service offers speeds starting at 50 megabits per second, compared with the previous fastest connection speeds of 16 mb per second.

Comcast said the new service is aimed at residential and business customers. But at $149.95 a month, compared with about $50 a month for its usual service, it is likely to attract businesses or very heavy residential users, such as video game players or movie download fans.

It shares the Twin Cities market with regional phone company Qwest Communications International Inc.

Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts unveiled plans for the new super-fast service at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, describing it as “wideband,” and the company said it plans to reach around 20 percent of its subscriber base with the service by the end of the year.

The company plans to increase speeds on the service, eventually offering speeds of 100 mb to 160 mb per second.

The technology that enables Comcast to increase download speeds is called ‘channel bonding’ and uses cable pipes more efficiently to deliver video, Internet and voice.

Comcast’s plans came less than a week after the company said it would change the way it manages its network and cooperate to resolve critics’ claims it interferes with Internet file-sharing services.

File-sharing services are normally used to distribute content more efficiently by people trying to move large files such as music and movies.

Cable operators are increasingly concerned with improving the efficiency of their cable plants to be able to push more content through their pipes at faster speeds to rival growing competition from telephone companies like Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc.

Verizon is rolling out a new high-tech fiber-optic service (FiOS) both for digital video and super-fast Internet connections up to 30 mb a second.

(Click on http://blogs.reuters.com/category/themes/mediafile/ to see Reuters MediaFile blog)

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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HughesNet … just a thought

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008 Long-Distance Wi-Fi

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Long-Distance Wi-Fi

Intel has found a way to stretch a Wi-Fi signal from one antenna to another located more than 60 miles away.

By Kate Greene

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Message received: This Wi-Fi router from Intel uses specialized software to send data to a receiving radio more than 60 miles away. The goal is to connect sparsely populated rural areas with urban cores. Credit: Intel

Intel has announced plans to sell a specialized Wi-Fi platform later this year that can send data from a city to outlying rural areas tens of miles away, connecting sparsely populated villages to the Internet. The wireless technology, called the rural connectivity platform (RCP), will be helpful to computer-equipped students in poor countries, says Jeff Galinovsky, a senior platform manager at Intel. And the data rates are high enough–up to about 6.5 megabits per second–that the connection could be used for video conferencing and telemedicine, he says.

The RCP, which essentially consists of a processor, radios, specialized software, and an antenna, is an appealing way to connect remote areas that otherwise would go without the Internet, says Galinovsky. Wireless satellite connections are expensive, he points out. And it’s impractical to wire up some villages in Asian and African countries. “You can’t lay cable,” he says. “It’s difficult, expensive, and someone is going to pull it up out of the ground to sell it.”

Already, Intel has installed and tested the hardware in India, Panama, Vietnam, and South Africa. Later this year, the company will sell the device in India, with a target price below $500. The point-to-point technology will require two nodes, which could provide “full back-end infrastructure” for less than $1,000, Galinovsky says.

One node is usually installed at the edge of an urban area, wired to a local-area network cable, he explains. Using a directional antenna, the device shoots data to a receiving antenna as far as 60 miles away. Any farther away, and the system encounters problems due to the curvature of the earth. Practically, most links will be set up less than 30 miles away from one another. Once a node is installed in a village, the connection can be dispersed using standard cables and wireless routers, Galinovsky says.

There is nothing particularly innovative in the antenna technology and the router hardware, he says. The trick, he explains, comes in the software that the radios use to communicate with each other. “If you take standard Wi-Fi and focus it,” Galinovsky says, “you can’t get past a few kilometers.” The reason is that one radio will send out data and wait for an acknowledgment from the other radio that the data was received. If the transmitting radio doesn’t receive the acknowledgment in a certain amount of time, it will assume that the data was lost, and it will resend it.

Intel’s RCP platform rewrites the communication rules of Wi-Fi radios. Galinvosky explains that the software creates specific time slots in which each of the two radios listens and talks, so there’s no extra data being sent confirming transmissions. “We’re not taking up all the bandwidth waiting for acknowledgments,” he says. Since there is an inherent trade-off between the amount of available bandwidth and the distance that a signal can travel, the more bandwidth is available, the farther a signal can travel. (See a video with a technical explanation of the RCP here.)

Importantly, the devices require relatively little power. Running two or three radios in a link, Galinvosky says, requires about five to six watts. This makes it possible to power the radios using solar energy.

The Intel project and forthcoming product “sound like a huge step forward” in terms of usable bandwidth over long-range lengths, says Deborah Estrin, professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Estrin develops technology for sensor networks in remote areas that monitor seismic activity, among other things. She says that these sensors are spread out over large areas and need to transmit large amounts of data. Previous low-power, inexpensive wireless communication technologies could only stretch a few kilometers, she says. “What’s important is that Intel is getting much longer distances.”

Galinvosky says that the RCP is alluring to markets beyond India. “We’re seeing a lot of interest in the industry,” he says. “Every time we talk about this, they say, ‘We need this yesterday.’”

[1]

Comments

• Video is very helpful – 2 sets of Wi-Fi are used nekote on 03/18/2008 at 8:31 AM

  Comments: 93 Avg Rating:

  The video: http://blogs.intel.com/research/2008/03/rural_connectivity_platform_be.php Was very helpful. This web article photo does *NOT* show the point-to-point directional dish antenna, rather just the 2 standard Wi-Fi antennas, giving a mis-leading initial impression. There are 2 distinct Wi-Fi “networks” – the point-to-point directional long distance link and the more familiar area Wi-Fi Access Point. Quite a while ago, various “hacker” communities achieved such long distances without even altering the Wi-Fi protocol, using directional parabolic antennas (eg: http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/) Would seem even higher bandwidth could be achieved by having full duplex continuous transmissions (using different send / receive frequencies?  using 2 separate directional parabolic anntennas, one for send, one for receive?).  Of course, there’d be an opportunity to improve the protocol, possibly using some sort of large (MBs?) sliding transmit / acknowledge window that also re-sent individual missed packets (“holes”). Rate this comment: (Reply)

• 	oldi idea demarco on 03/18/2008 at 9:02 PM
  Comments: 3 Avg Rating:	This product uses an old idea (ACK timing)which has been implemented in many software product, such as RouterOS form Mikrotik. The true novelty is the introduction of a TDMA-like frame in a CSMA protocol. I ask myself if this product will host also mesh capabilities. If yes, a true low cost urban mesh network will possible. Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • Re: oldi idea makevuy on 03/19/2008 at 2:48 AM

    Comments: 1 Avg Rating:

    In Essence the original idea was developed for research group DGP (Kampur, India) http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/braman/dgp.html#dgppubs. On the other hand I don’t know if this solution is capable to implement PtMp links in infraestructure mode. Finally I don’t know if will be possible to get quality of service….because this solution only improve the throughput but I don’t know if can get differentiation between classes of traffic very important in the case of using VoIP or IP video. Sandra. Thanks! Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • 	Re: oldi idea METRA on 03/25/2008 at 4:08 PM
    Comments: 1	Demarco, Could you please elaborate on the reason why you think this system would be good for mesh WMAN?  I’m asking because if this product is capable of a mesh topology setup then it would really come in very handy on a couple of projects I’m working on.  I just don’t have all the specs on this product just yet. Thanks Rate this comment: (Reply)

• 	Latency rfwrangler on 03/20/2008 at 3:37 PM
  Comments: 1 Avg Rating:	I am interested in the latency issues that would be had over distances described.  This would be a factor for VoIP and Video transmissions as well.  They already address this in the description in the fact that the time-out is reached with regular Wi-Fi equipment.  Continuous send/receive signals would help this but there would still be a latency issue. Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • 	Re: Latency wirelesh on 04/03/2008 at 4:10 PM
    Comments: 1	The only alternative for voice communications in many places where this could be used is satellite.  Talk about latency!  I don’t think 100 km is a concern. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• 	alternative wifi aryawidura on 03/22/2008 at 6:23 AM
  Comments: 1 Avg Rating:	It will become alternative wifi device in my country, im interesting to test this device if its already launch Rate this comment: (Reply)

Intel (r) Rural Connectivity Platform becomes a reality

posted by Cheryl Miller on March 10, 2008I have followed this project over the past few years as it has moved from an exploratory project in the Intel Research lab, to testing in such remote places as Vietnam, India, South Africa, Panama and…Berkeley.

The demo that was presented at the Berkeley Lab open house had two antenna transmitting video via WIFI connection. One of the antenna was on top of the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) at the UC Berkeley campus which is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from the lab in downtown Berkeley.

Learn more: Intel RCP product brief Download file (pdf)
Overview Poster Download file (pdf)

But what is the real world application of this project?

One of the research projects connected rural villages in India with the Aravind Eye clinic to provide medical eye exams via the wireless antenna relay system. In Panama, it is bringing the interent to a remote village in the rain forest.

The technology behind this research was developed by personnel in the Intel Research Berkeley lab. The Intel (r) RCP is a low cost, low power and low touch solution designed to bring connectivity to remote areas.

The technology behind the project is a wireless long distance back haul solution that operates on non licensed spectrums to provide the perfect product for emerging markets. Applying a TDMA modification to the MAC layer of standard 802.11, Intel (r) RCP is able to achieve connection distances of up to 100 km unobstructed line-of-sight. Additionally, the relay and fork modes of operation allow for more complex topologies. So even if there are mountains or rough terrain, the connection between the base station and the rural end point can be maintained.

And now the Intel (r) Rural Connectivity Platform is targeted to become a commercial product in the second half of 2008. This is an excellent example of how long range research can find a solution to a real world problem.

Editor’s Note: Intel’s Emerging Markets Platform Group has currently partnered with an OEM design manufacturer (ODM) to build RCP and bring it out to market sometime in Q3 of 2008. Intel will not be selling RCP as Intel is not a system company – this ODM will be manufacturing and selling RCP. Our target price is sub-$500 for a single unit – or sub-$1000 for a point to point pair.

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tagged: 802.11, Berkeley, Intel (r) RCP, Intel Research, long distance WiFi, Rural Connectivity Platform

Long-range Wi-Fi

Long-range Wi-Fi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Main article: Wi-Fi

Long-range Wi-Fi is used for low-cost, unregulated point-to-point connections, as an alternative to cellular networks, microwave or satellite links. The use of the term “long range wifi” as depicted on this page for extreme ranges is not in any way endorsed by the Wi-Fi Alliance and is not in any way tested or certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance for interoperability or performance.

Contents [hide] 1 Introduction 2 Applications 2.1 Business 2.2 Residential 3 Large-scale deployments 4 Increasing range in other ways 4.1 Specialized Wi-Fi channels 4.1.1 802.11n (MIMO) 4.2 Power increase or receiver sensitivity boosting 4.3 Higher gain antennas and adapter placement 4.4 Protocol hacking 5 Obstacles to long-range Wi-Fi 5.1 Landscape interference 5.2 2.4 GHz interference 6 Longest unamplified Wi-Fi link 6.1 Abstract 7 References

//

[edit] Introduction

Since the development of the Wi-Fi radio standard, great leaps in the technology’s abilities have been made. In one area, range, Wi-Fi has been pushed to an extreme, and both commercial and residential applications of this Long Range Wi-Fi have cropped up around the world. It has also been used in experimental trials in the developing world to link communities separated by difficult geography with little or no connectivity options.

[edit] Applications

[edit] Business

• Provide coverage to a large office or business complex or campus.
• Establish point-to-point link between large skyscrapers or other office buildings.
• Bring Internet to remote construction sites or research labs.

[edit] Residential

• Bring Internet to a home if regular cable/DSL cannot be hooked up at the location.
• Bring Internet to a vacation home or cottage on a remote mountain or on a lake.
• Bring Internet to a yacht or large sea-faring vessel.
• Share a neighborhood Wi-Fi network.

[edit] Large-scale deployments

The Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) project at University of California at Berkeley, in collaboration with Intel, utilizes a modified Wi-Fi setup to create long-distance point-to-point links for several of its development projects in the developing world. This technique, dubbed Wi-Fi over Long Distance (WiLD), is used to connect the Aravind Eye Hospital with several outlying clinics in Tamil Nadu state, India. Distances range from five to over fifteen kilometers with stations placed in line of sight of each other. These links allow specialists at the hospital to communicate with nurses and patients at the clinics through video conferencing. If the patient needs further examination or care, a hospital appointment can then be scheduled. Another network in Ghana links the University of Ghana, Legon campus to its remote campuses at the Korle bu Medical School and the City campus; a further extension will feature links up to 80km apart.

[edit] Increasing range in other ways

See also 802.11 non-standard equipment

[edit] Specialized Wi-Fi channels

In most standard Wi-Fi routers, the three standards, A, B and G, are enough. But in long-range Wi-Fi, special technologies are used to get the most out of a Wi-Fi connection. The 802.11-2007 standard adds 10 MHz and 5 MHz OFDM modes to the 802.11a standard, and extend the time of cyclic prefix protection from 0.8 µs to 3.2 µs, quadrupling the multipath distortion protection. Some commonly available 802.11a/g chipsets support the OFDM ‘half-clocking’ and ‘quarter-clocking’ that is in the 2007 standard, and 4.9 GHz and 5.0 GHz products are available with 10 MHz and 5 MHz channel bandwidths. It is likely that some 802.11n D.20 chipsets will also support ‘half-clocking’ for use in 10 MHz channel bandwidths, and at double the range of the 802.11n standard.

[edit] 802.11n (MIMO)

Preliminary 802.11n working became available in many routers in 2008. This technology works by using multiple antennas to target one or more sources to increase speed. In tests, the speed increase was said to only occur over short distances rather than the long range needed for most point to point setups.^[1]

[edit] Power increase or receiver sensitivity boosting

A rooftop 1 Watt WiFi amp,feeding a simple antenna

Another way of adding range uses a power amplifier. Commonly known as “range extender amplifiers” these small devices supply usually around ½ watt of power to the antenna. Such amplifiers may give more than 5x the range to an existing network. Each 6dB gain doubles range, and in the case of the popular Linksys WRT54G The RadioLabs 2.4 GHZ range extender amplifier this increases the stock power of the WRT54G from +18dBm (63 mW) to +27dBm (500 mW), a 9dB (8x) increase – enough for perhaps tripling the range.^[2] These power amplifiers offer a tempting enhancement that can easily be added to existing networks in places where law allows. Aside from legal issues (significant in some countries),they however may cause interference and channel swamping to other WiFi users. The alternative techniques of selecting a more sensitive WLAN adapter (some are quite “deaf”)and more directive antenna should hence be initially considered.

[edit] Higher gain antennas and adapter placement

Specially shaped antennas can be used to increase the range of a Wi-Fi transmission without a drastic increase in transmission power. High gain antenna may be of many designs,but all allow transmitting a narrow signal beam over distances of several kilometers,usefully often nulling out nearby interference sources. A popular low-cost home made approach increases WiFi ranges by just placing standard USB WLAN hardware at the focal point of modified parabolic cookware (see “www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/rvwifi.jpg”). Such “WokFi” techniques typically yield gains of 12-15dB over the bare system- enough for line of sight (LOS) ranges of several km and improvements in marginal locations. N.B. Although often low power,cheap USB WLAN adapters suit site auditing and location of local signal “sweet spots”. As USB leads incur none of the losses normally associated with costly microwave coax & SMA fittings,just extending a USB adapter (or AP etc) up to a window,or away from shielding metal work and vegetation,may dramatically improve the link.(See “www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/wifiledge.jpg”)

[edit] Protocol hacking

The standard 802.11 protocol stacks can also be modified to make them more suitable for long distance, point-to-point usage, at the risk of breaking interoperability with other Wi-Fi devices and suffering interference from transmitters located near the antenna. These approaches are used by the TIER project (see “Rethinking Wireless in the Developing World”).

[edit] Obstacles to long-range Wi-Fi

Methods that stretch the range of a Wi-Fi connection may also make it fragile and volatile, due to mundane problems including:

[edit] Landscape interference

Obstacles are among the biggest problems when setting up a long-range Wi-Fi. Trees and forests degrade the microwave signal, and rolling hills make it difficult to establish line-of-sight propagation.

In a city, buildings will impact integrity, speed and connectivity. Steel frames partly reflect radio signals, and concrete or plaster walls absorb microwave signals significantly, but sheet metal in walls or roofs may efficiently reflect Wi-Fi signals, causing an almost total loss of signal.

[edit] 2.4 GHz interference

Microwave ovens in residences dominate the 2.4 GHz band and will cause “meal time perturbations” of the noise floor. There are literally hundreds of other sources of interference that aggregate into a formidable obstacle to enabling long range use in occupied areas: baby monitors, wireless cameras, remote car starters, DECT and residential wireless phones, Bluetooth products to name just a few.

Phones

Many cordless phones in the US and Canada use the 2.4GHz frequency, the same frequency at which Wi-Fi standards b, g and n operate. This can cause a significant decrease in speed, or sometimes the total blocking of the Wi-Fi signal when a conversation on the phone takes place. There are several ways to avoid this though, some simple, and some more complicated.

• Buy/Use wired phones.
• Buy 5.8GHz or 900MHz phones, commonly available today.
• Use VoIP/WiFi phones; these share the WiFi base stations and participate in the WiFi contention protocols.
• Test several different Wi-Fi channels to avoid the phone channels.

The last will sometimes not be successful, as numerous cordless phones use a feature called Digital Spread Spectrum. This technology was designed to ward off eavesdroppers, but the phone will change channels at random, leaving no Wi-Fi channel safe from phone interference.

Car alarms

Certain car manufacturers use the 2.4GHz frequency for their car alarm internal movement sensors. These devices broadcast on 2.45GHz (between channels 8 and 9) at a strength of 500mW. Because of channel overlap, this will cause problems for channels 6 and 11 which are commonly used default channels for Wi-Fi connections. Because the signal is transmitted as a continuous tone, it causes particular problems for Wi-Fi traffic. This can be clearly seen with spectrum analysers.

[edit] Longest unamplified Wi-Fi link

279 km Wifi link with DD-WRT and openwrt Read here

Achieved by: Fundación Escuela Latinoamericana de Redes, Latin American Networking School

[edit] Abstract

• Pico del Águila- El Baúl Link.
• Central frequency: 2412 MHz
• IEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), channel 1, 22 MHz. bandwidth
• Wireless routers: Linksys WRT54G, OPEN-WRT firmware at el Águila and DD-WRT firmware at El Baúl.
• Length: 279 km.
• Parabolic dish antennas were used at both ends, recycled from satellite service.
• At El Aguila site an aluminum mesh reflector 2,74 m diameter, center fed, at el Baúl a fiberglass solid reflector, offset fed, 2,4 x 2,74 m. At both ends the feeds were 12 dBi Yagis.
• Linksys WRT54g routers fed the e antennas with short LMR400 cables, so the effective gain of the complete antenna is estimated at about 30 dBi.
• As far as we know, this is the longest range attained with this technology, improving on a previous US record of 125 miles achieved last year in U.S. The Swedish space agency attained 310 km but using 6 watt amplifiers to reach an overhead stratospheric balloon

[edit] References

1. ^ Wireless Networks. Radiolabs (2006-07-14). Retrieved on 2007-01-05.
2. ^ 2.4 GHz Wireless Range Extender Amplifier. Radiolabs (2006-03-05). Retrieved on 2007-01-05.

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi“

Categories: Wi-Fi

Telcombrokers

Telecom News Telcombrokers Acquires Telogic Telcombrokers Announces Contract Roll-ups Telcombrokers Acquires TLC Custom Cmmunications Telcombrokers Acquires Fine Telecom Telcombrokers Aquires Tru     Choice Communications Telcombrokers Begins     Buying Spree “The In Crowd” Telcombrokers Partnering with ISOs AT&T Raising Rates

Who We Are: Telcombrokers is an agency of telecom professionals representing 40+ Carriers in the US and Canada. With our industry relationships and expertise we offer a one-stop source for unbiased advice, plus the best prices on services from major providers of Local, Long Distance, Internet and Data. Why You Need Us: Direct representatives of carriers can only sell products from their division of their carrier, usually do not have access to the lowest prices, and provide biased information. (They will all tell you their carrier is the best for you.)  We shop multiple carriers for you and give recommendations based on experience not quotas.  In addition, we are able to sell the products from different divisions of carriers including wholesale.  Our extensive portfolio includes the full range of telecom products from analog lines to T1, DS3, OC, GigE, and VoIP connections. Our Solution: When you are ready to review costs or design a network put Telcombrokers to work for you! Save Time and Money by giving your business a single point of contact for all of your services – even if multiple bids and/or carriers are needed. Receive unbiased information and get the best deals your company qualifies for. Let us manage your RFP and get better results with less effort.  We can even show you how to combine carriers that are complementary, creating Best-Of-Breed solutions which provide both Least Cost and Redundancy. Classic Examples: Small Carriers and ISPs vs. Fortune 1000 Enterprise Accounts Dedicated Long Distance: Carriers like Calling Card companies are able to buy wholesale Tier 1 long distance from us at sub penny rates.  The average Fortune 1000 type company spends more money on long distance than a pre-paid calling card company spends, but they typically pay 200% – 400% higher prices because they buy retail rate plans from Enterprise Account Reps.  Telcombrokers can sell our Enterprise customers the same plans that we sell to our Wholesale Carrier Clients like Pre-Paid Lata Based Sub Penny Long Distance. Internet Bandwidth: Internet Service providers buy large bandwidth connections from us like DS-3 (45 Meg) to GigE (1,000 Meg) connections.  Our wholesale bandwidth prices go as low as only $20 per meg.  For the retail cost of 9 Megs you can buy a 45 Meg connection from one of our wholesale providers.  Full DS3 (45 Meg) connections start at only $2,000 per month.    Your company can do RFPs until you are blue in the face, but by sending those RFPs to Direct Carrier Enterprise reps you will never get the prices that we can give you by just making a few phone calls.  Why pay retail prices when you are doing wholesale volumes? The Bottom Line: We use our knowledge and experience in the telecom industry to give your company advice you can trust.  As your telecom agent we shop multiple carriers for you and are here for the life of your account.  It is our goal to build long-term relationships and become your one-stop telecom resource.

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Telcombrokers 6 Hutton Center, Suite 1230 Santa Ana, CA 92707 Tel: (888)-853-9664, Fax: (714)556-8186

Japan launches high-speed Internet satellite

Japan launches high-speed Internet satellite

Japan has launched a satellite that is able to provide high-speed Internet connections to homes and offices at speeds rivaling those of today’s fiber optic connections.

Martyn Williams

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:35:00 UTC

Japan has launched a satellite that is able to provide high-speed Internet connections to homes and offices at speeds rivaling those of today’s fiber optic connections.

The satellite launched Saturday, called Kizuna, is part of the government’s e-Japan project and its modest aim is the creation of the world’s most advanced information and telecommunications network.

It will be able to provide broadband Internet connections to homes with download speeds of up to 155M bps (bits per second) and upload speeds of 6M bps. The services will be delivered via 45-centimeter dish antennas, which are about the same size as those used for digital direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV services in many countries.

Even faster connections at download speeds of around 1.2G bps will be offered to commercial users via 5 meter antennas.

There are two antennas on the satellite, one serving Japan and one aimed at the Asia Pacific region as a whole. These multibeam antennas efficiently divide up the satellite’s signal into multiple beams so the limited frequencies available can be reused in many different areas.

To help route signals between beams the satellite carries an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switch onboard.

The domestic Internet services will be primarily aimed at rural areas that are not served by fiber-optic Internet services.

Fiber Internet connections are pervasive in built-up areas of Japan and a 100M bps connection costs around $40 per month, but in rural areas slower DSL (digital subscriber line) connections are typically as fast as the Internet gets.

The satellite will also serve as an Internet back-up network should terrestrial communications be disrupted by a major earthquake.

The satellite’s Asian beam will be used to provide high-speed Internet connections between Japan and other nations in the region, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology said in a joint statement.

The launch from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center, delayed from earlier in February, took place at 5:55 p.m. local time (8:55 a.m. GMT) on Saturday.

…hmmmm

Apple Professional Services

When companies purchase Apple products, they receive basic pre- and post-sales support. Some organizations have requirements that go beyond basic installation services and are looking for expertise in fulfilling a turnkey solution.

To meet those needs, we have established Apple Professional Services, staffed by experts who will help you assess your technology needs, provide onsite deployment, best practices, and integration services.

Two core practices that work together

Apple Professional Services is comprised of two core offerings. Each is a highly effective, complete offering and each is designed to complement the other. Companies using our services together benefit from the program’s efficiency and synergy.

Apple Professional Services can also guide you to other Apple resources, such as AppleCare support plans that can help maximize the ROI on your solution.

Apple Rapid Deployment

Need to build an Xsan environment to take your video workflow to the next level or integrate Apple server and storage solutions into your heterogeneous computing infrastructure? Want to tighten up your organization’s authentication and security practices? Or bring older networks up to date with the latest features of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server? The Apple Rapid Deployment Team can help you deploy these business-critical tasks and ensure you understand your technology investment at every step of the process.

The Apple Rapid Deployment Team is comprised of an agile group of highly skilled engineers. These seasoned professionals provide onsite consulting for large-scale deployments or can help with smaller complex jobs — whether you need a presales assessment, a migration or integration plan, or hands-on configuration of Xserve and Xserve RAID systems. The Apple Rapid Deployment Team can also build custom solutions to meet the specialized needs of your network and organization.

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The Apple Rapid Deployment Team offers one- to three-day onsite assessments. Based on your objectives, they’ll audit your computing environment and deliver written recommendations for your specific project and solution. At that point, you can choose to engage the Apple Rapid Deployment Team for further assistance.

Management Services, Project Management, and Custom Services

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• Project planning and management
• Custom QuickTime Streaming solutions
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Clients will also benefit from our leading-edge technologies and standards that ensure the highest level of performance, flexibility, and interoperability.

Whatever your challenge — migrating from a legacy system, growing market share, improving customer service, reducing operational costs, streamlining business processes, publishing information securely, or other critical organizational needs — Apple will develop the technical solutions that meet and exceed your goals. We have experience in building all types of solutions:

• Asset management
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“Apple Professional Serves; the quintessential team to strategize and engineer your IT infrastructure. There’s nothing like having the pro’s in your corner, I use them for all my mission critical projects, because in my business I only have time do it right once!”— James Christopher Roe, Chief Technology Officer, Avrett Free Ginsberg’, ‘

“Apple has obviously concentrated on elegance when it comes to their product line. When dealing with Apple Consulting\/ Pro Services I was pleasantly surprised to find their services to be equally elegant. From the very early stages of planning to the final stages of implementation, Apple Consulting Pro Services was able to guide us through a very large XSAN setup with relative ease and peace of mind, this is the sort of elegeance we’ve all come to expect from Apple and I was pleased to see them deliver!”— Billy Yu, J. Walter Thompson Co., New York’, ‘

“The team at Apple Professional Services exceeded our expectations. Planning, implementation, testing, design, whatever we threw at them they delivered. They will play a vital role in all our future IT needs. “— Craig Hall, MudBrick Media Inc., AL’, ‘

“Apple’s Professional Service is a great resource. A lot of times we’ll find that we’re being pulled in a 100 different directions and getting the implementation done on time is going to be a problem. We’ll turn to Apple. With Apple we don’t have to worry about whether or not the people are overselling themselves just to get the bid. It’s their software… It’s their hardware. They have the technical resources behind them to overcome on site issues as they present themselves. We know we’re getting Apple’s expertise. It’s almost like an extension of my technical team.”— Bill Heese, MIS Manager: Global Creative Services, Certified xSAN Administrator, Apple Certified HelpDesk Specialist, — Conair Corporation’, ‘

“I have utilized Apple Professional Services for three very critical projects. Each time they have not only met and exceeded the key deliverables on the project, but ensured that my team was adequately trained to assume responsibility for the work they performed. I would highly recommend Apple Professional Services to anyone who not only has OS X related issues, but mixed environments (Windows\/Mac\/Linux) as well.”— Anthony M. DeCanti, V.P. Analysis & Information Systems, Werner Enterprises, Inc.’ ); //–>

“I have utilized Apple Professional Services for three very critical projects. Each time they have not only met and exceeded the key deliverables on the project, but ensured that my team was adequately trained to assume responsibility for the work they performed. I would highly recommend Apple Professional Services to anyone who not only has OS X related issues, but mixed environments (Windows/Mac/Linux) as well.”

— Anthony M. DeCanti, V.P. Analysis & Information Systems, Werner Enterprises, Inc.

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Apple Professional Services Portfolio

The Apple Rapid Deployment Team can help you with a wide variety of migration, integration, and deployment projects. Examples include:

SAN and Storage Deployment:

Whether it is deploying Xsan for your video workflow, helping build nearline storage backup units, or connecting Xserve RAIDs into a heterogeneous Fibre Channel environment, Apple Consulting Services brings the best solutions with the most diverse deployment experience to ensure the right solution for your environment.

Integration:

Integration with existing enterprise IT infrastructures including Active Directory (with single sign-on support), LDAP, Microsoft Exchange, all with the power and flexibility to manage your OS clients and provide policy management and centralized services.

Deployment, Monitoring, and High Availability:

Bringing best practices and efficiency to help ensure the best management and deployment of Mac OS X desktops, Apple Consulting Services can help customize and create a wide variety of deployment scenarios.

Need help setting up a Mac OS X server to provide DNS, DHCP, LDAP, even Failover capabilities or Security Monitoring? Apple Consulting Services can help you get going and bring expertise and innovative solutions to help maximize your investment in Mac OS X Server.

Migration:

From Mac OS 9 to the latest version of Mac OS X, or from Windows-based architectures to more open formats (including Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange, and file, web, and print services), or from other UNIX backends, Apple Consulting Services can help.

Collaboration and Mobility:

Need a QuickTime Streaming Server for distributing video and audio content over your intranet or extranet? QuickTime Streaming Server is included at no additional charge with Apple Xserve and Mac OS X Server.

Disaster Recovery:

Apple Professional Services can help you deploy custom site-to-site and disk-to-disk-to-tape disaster recovery solutions. Thanks to our low cost Apple Xserve RAID, this is a perfect fit for Apple’s Pro services to help you build this solution and meet your contingency disaster recovery plans within a reasonable budget.

Custom Enterprise Video Podcasting Solution:

Thanks to Mac OS X Server, Xsan, Xserve, and Xserve RAIDs, Apple Professional Services can help you deploy a scalable intranet podcasting solution for your business. This solution allows you to make available video and audio content to your employees through subscriptions to internal podcasts via iTunes (Mac and Windows compatible). This allows marketing, HR, training, and sales to communicate easily with employees. This content may also be synched up to an iPod.

Learn More

For more information about Apple Professional Services, or to schedule an appointment, email:

• Canada
• USA
• Europe
• Japan
• Other

Or call, 1-800-480-4686 Ext. 50001