CIO Lars Rabbe says in a blog post that a set of support servers responsible for Skype instant messaging became overloaded, and as a result sent delayed responses. A bug in the latest Windows version of the Skype desktop software failed to process these delayed responses, causing them to crash. About half of the world’s Skype users who were signed on at the time the problem began were using that version of the software, and of those, about 40 percent crashed. Among them were users whose machines were serving as supernodes. Rabbe says as many as 30 percent of the Skype network’s supernodes were among the crashed machines.

Losing those supernodes increased the load on other still-functioning supernodes, which was compounded by all the crashed Windows users trying to restart their software and get back on the network. He says traffic to these supernodes surged to 100 times normal volume for that time of day.

What he doesn’t go into great detail about was why the instant messaging servers became overloaded in the first place. Was this another bug in the server software? It’s a little unclear from this explanation.

Rabbe says Skype is trying to learn from the incident and has instituted new procedures to try to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. But this can’t help but hurt its reputation as it looks for ways to diversify its base beyond the millions of free users it has and make some actual money.

The whole reason Skype is supposed to work as well as it usually does is the strength and resilience of the network, and the fact that the network gets stronger as more people are signed on to it. To say that two bugs in a strange confluence of events could bring that entire network down raises a lot of fundamental questions about Skype.

Rabbe says an investment program to increase capacity to support paid consumers and enterprise customers is underway and will continue into 2011. I’m betting Skype will speed it up.

Without actually saying AT&T (T), that is.

Asked a question about miserable call quality in Houston, Jobs said phone calls aren’t Apple’s (AAPL) area of expertise. But he said he’s been told “by people I trust” that the carrier is working hard to fix its capacity problems. Still, he said half-jokingly, experts tell him that “things, when you start to fix them, get worse before they get better. That’s what I’m told. And if you believe that, things should start getting a lot better soon.”

Okay, but more practically, when can iPhone owners expect relief? “I’m told that a lot of places are going to get a lot better by the end of the summer.”

More Coverage on the Steve Jobs D8 Speaker Page »

So says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who doesn’t expect the WWDC to have much in the way of big “Oh, One More Thing” moments. According to Munster, Apple will probably announce a fourth-generation iPhone at the conference, and the device will probably look a lot like the prototypes we saw earlier this spring.

“Consistent with recent media reports, we expect the new iPhone to feature a front-facing camera for video conferencing, along with a new, thinner design, an improved rear camera, and better battery life, with higher capacity (32GB/64GB) at the current $199/$299 price points,” Munster writes. “We expect the new version to be popular among current iPhone 3G owners (a 2 year-old device) with a significantly different design and feature set (unlike the 3GS).”

The company is also likely to offer an update on iPad sales. Since that device’s launch in April, Apple (AAPL) has announced iPad sales figures three times. WWDC would be a perfect time to do so again.

And Apple may offer a peek at the next version of Mac OS. “Apple may choose to provide a limited demo of the next version of Mac OS X (10.7) at WWDC,” Munster says.

“Software is a key differentiator for Apple but the Mac OS has not seen the same level of innovation as iPhone software in recent years,” the analyst adds. “With the next version of Mac OS X, we expect Apple to bring some of the same innovation to the Mac platform. Multi-touch technology, for example could be a key feature of Mac OS 10.7.”

But beyond these offerings, don’t expect much. As for rumors that WWDC will see the announcement of a Verizon (VZ) iPhone: Don’t pay them much heed.

Certainly, Munster doesn’t put much faith in them. “We believe it is unlikely that the next generation iPhone will be available at Verizon (or Sprint) at launch,” he says. “Rather, it is more likely that it remains exclusively available at AT&T in the US at launch.”

“iPad yields should improve dramatically throughout the year even if the launch starts out capacity constrained,” Reitzes wrote in a research note to clients today. “These developments support upside to consensus forecasts for the iPad, should demand materialize like we think it can. We estimate Apple will sell almost 5 million iPads for CY10; including 1.2 million in the June quarter–which could prove conservative.”

As for the iPhone, the analyst says, “Also, we have increased confidence that Apple will make a big splash this summer with a new iPhone form factor. We believe that the new model will launch with considerable fanfare and expect unit expectations to rise in turn.”

“Big splash,” “considerable fanfare”: That’s certainly been the case with iPhone launches to date. No reason to expect things will be any different this time around.

As for iPad sales, there’s really no telling yet, though “people familiar with the matter” have told The Wall Street Journal that Apple has sold hundreds of thousands of units via pre-order and could end up selling more iPads in the first three months than it sold iPhones in the three months after that device’s debut.

“The AT&T and iPhone combo turned in the fastest average speeds–downstream and upstream–of the four carrier/smartphone combinations we tested, outperforming its rivals in more than three-fourths of the cities we sampled,” PC World explained it its study.

“AT&T connected the iPhone at an average download speed of 1259 kbps, and an average upload speed of 215 kbps over the 13 testing cities,” the study notes. “The iPhone clocked download speeds of at least 1000 kbps in more than 60 percent of our testing locations, with burst rates often exceeding 3000 kbps, and we managed to obtain a reliable connection in 91 percent of our AT&T/iPhone tests.”

The PC World study confirms results of a similar 12-city 3G performance study by Gizmodo last year.

A remarkable improvement, although it should be noted that San Francisco is still plagued by reliability issues. PC World found just 55 percent of connections made on AT&T’s network in the city to be successful. Bay Area users can only hope that the additional cell towers, cell site upgrades and increased back-haul capacity the carrier is said to be rolling out will improve this metric in short order.

PREVIOUSLY:

• AT&T: “We’re Closing the Gap” in New York and San Francisco
• Apple COO: Leave AT&T Alone
• If You Think AT&T Has Network Problems Now, Just You Wait
• AT&T 3G Improving–If You Can Get a Signal
• Admitting You Have a Problem Is the First Step, AT&T
• Usage-Based Data Pricing: The Solution to AT&T’s iPhone Problems?
• AT&T Ranked Last in Consumer Reports’ Best Cellphone Service Survey
• Apple Joins AT&T/Verizon Spat With New iPhone Ads
• AT&T Awarded Hug and a Box of Tissues in Verizon Ad Case
• Time to Cut AT&T Some Slack, iPhone Users?
• Thanks, iPhone: 2,000 Percent Increase in Bay Area Data Traffic Since 2008, Says AT&T
• Verizon to AT&T: Do Yourself a Favor and Shut Up
• Frosty’s Winter Litigation Wonderland: AT&T Demands Verizon Pull Holiday iPhone Ads
• Verizon Banishes iPhone to Island of Misfit Toys
• Verizon on AT&T Suit: There’s a Word for That. “Junk
• Verizon to iPhone Users: “Want Five Times More 3G Coverage? There’s a Map for That.”
• iPhone Owners Would Like to Replace Battery, AT&T

In an official statement this morning Wikimedia said it will use the new funds to “support core operational costs…including investments in technical infrastructure to support rapidly-increasing global traffic and capacity demands.”

So what’s in this for Google? Search traffic. Google is a top referring site to Wikipedia. Indeed, according to a 2008 study from comScore (SCOR)–the most recent I could find–(see table below; click to enlarge) Google was the top referring site to Wikipedia. With its own social encyclopedia effort, Knol, failing to gain the sort of traction it had hoped for, it seems Google has taken a new tack and begun backing the incumbent.

Wikimedia Foundation announces $2 million grant from Google

Donation will support capacity investments in Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects

SAN FRANCISCO, CA February 17, 2009 — The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia, today announced that it has received a $2 million (USD) grant from the Google Inc. Charitable Giving Fund of Tides Foundation. This is the Wikimedia Foundation’s first grant from Google. The funds will support core operational costs of the Wikimedia Foundation, including investments in technical infrastructure to support rapidly-increasing global traffic and capacity demands. The funds will also be used to support the organization’s efforts to make Wikipedia easier to use and more accessible.

“Wikipedia is one of the greatest triumphs of the internet,” offered Google co-founder Sergey Brin. “This vast repository of community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is online.”

Wikipedia founder and Wikimedia Foundation board member, Jimmy Wales, also commented on the Google gift. “We are very pleased and grateful. This is a wonderful gift, and we celebrate it as recognition of the long-term alignment and friendship between Google and Wikimedia. Both organizations are committed to bringing high quality information to hundreds of millions of individuals every day, and to making the Internet better for everyone.”

The two organizations have a long-standing working relationship. Most recently, Google and the Wikimedia Foundation have partnered to support translation of Wikipedia content into key languages with relatively small Wikipedia editions. Google’s Translation Toolkit supports direct online translation of Wikipedia articles, and has been used by Google in Wikipedia translation pilot projects with speakers of Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili.

Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, offered: “It is wonderful that Google has stepped forward as a major supporter of a global, non-profit information commons. With this generous grant, we will be able to fund additional operations and development work to increase access and contributions to our free knowledge projects globally.”

Wikimedia’s support comes primarily from individual donations made by regular users of Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation completed its 2009-10 fundraiser in January. During the drive, 240,000 individuals donated more than $8 million, representing three quarters of its planned revenue for the fiscal year.

“Given our high smartphone numbers, double our closest peer, in both markets, we have large population centers, very sophisticated users with high expectations, and very high volumes,” John Stankey, president and CEO, AT&T Operations said during the call.

“For example, in the dense areas of New York City, there are periods during the week when nearly 70% of the devices active on the network are data-intensive handsets. So, raising performance levels in these two markets is the organization’s top priority. We’re putting all the resources available against the issue and we’re closing the gap.”

Okay, great. What does that mean? Between $18 billion and $19 billion in 2010 capital expenditures–approximately $2 billion of it for additional wireless network and back-haul investment, for one thing. For another, 2,000 new cell sites. Finally, the company is upgrading existing cell sites with fiber for better 3G speeds.

Now, a few more NYC-SF specifics from Stankey:

We’re adding third and fourth radio network carriers to maximize capacity on available spectrum. In Manhattan specifically, now that we have scalable cell site controllers in place throughout most of the island, we’re intensely focused on putting more radio capacity on the street. We’ll increase the amount of 3G spectrum and radio capacity by one-third in high volume areas of the island by the end of the first quarter.

While we are through the majority of our zoning challenges in the Bay area, we’ll continue to work the remaining issues we have in parts of the Financial District and a handful of other locations to final resolution. We’re adding cell towers; and over the coming months, we’re building and upgrading high-capacity antenna systems to boost performance in high-traffic areas like stadiums, convention centers, and public transportation routes.

So will be see significant improvement in both markets in the coming months? Perhaps. Certainly, AT&T is suggesting we can expect one. And, as Stankey noted this morning, “Today a dollar in wireless investment yields twice the capacity than it did a year ago.” Let’s hope so–especially in markets like New York and San Francisco.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Apple COO: Leave AT&T Alone
• If You Think AT&T Has Network Problems Now, Just You Wait
• AT&T 3G Improving–If You Can Get a Signal
• Admitting You Have a Problem Is the First Step, AT&T
• Usage-Based Data Pricing: The Solution to AT&T’s iPhone Problems?
• AT&T Ranked Last in Consumer Reports’ Best Cellphone Service Survey
• Apple Joins AT&T/Verizon Spat With New iPhone Ads
• AT&T Awarded Hug and a Box of Tissues in Verizon Ad Case
• Time to Cut AT&T Some Slack, iPhone Users?
• Thanks, iPhone: 2,000 Percent Increase in Bay Area Data Traffic Since 2008, Says AT&T
• Verizon to AT&T: Do Yourself a Favor and Shut Up
• Frosty’s Winter Litigation Wonderland: AT&T Demands Verizon Pull Holiday iPhone Ads
• Verizon Banishes iPhone to Island of Misfit Toys
• Verizon on AT&T Suit: There’s a Word for That. “Junk
• Verizon to iPhone Users: “Want Five Times More 3G Coverage? There’s a Map for That.”
• iPhone Owners Would Like to Replace Battery, AT&T

Welcome news for long-suffering AT&T (T) subscribers, who recently ranked the carrier dead last in the annual Consumer Reports survey of wireless customer satisfaction. But the carrier’s improvements only apply to cities where additional back-haul connections have been added to support those higher speeds.

Sadly, for New York City and Bay Area residents, neither region qualifies. As AT&T head of operations John Stankey told attendees of a Citigroup (C) conference Tuesday, those cities present particularly challenging density and zoning issues.

“I thought by the time we’d closed 2009 we would be in a better place in New York City than we were,” Stankey said. “But New York City is a little bit of a different animal and it’s a good example of having to scale in this data environment, where not only do we have a lot of capacity issues to deal with but physically there is network equipment and network elements that are needed to be changed out.”

Elaborating, Stankey added, “They just flat-out have hit their capacity levels and we have to replace them with new ones. And as a result of that, those transitions and that work has taken us a little bit longer and it’s been a little dicier than what we had hoped it would be.”

And evidently, the situation is equally dicey in San Francisco.

“Our challenges [in San Francisco] are largely zoning-oriented,” Stankey explained. “It’s a little bit tougher in places in San Francisco to do adjustments to antennas that we need to do in areas like the Financial District, where we had antenna structures that worked really well in a 2G environment. They need to be replaced to support 3G services and it’s just taking time to get the zoning ordinances square to replace those antennas and clean up the portions of the city that we are dealing with.”

Okay. So New York City and San Francisco upgrades are tough going–that’s understandable. They’re both big, tech-savvy markets with high data demands. Still, it’s a travesty that a carrier like AT&T still can’t reliably connect calls in either of them when the company is raking in 80 percent more wireless data revenue than it did in 2007.

Live in New York City? Want to buy an iPhone? Don’t try ordering one from AT&T’s Web site: The wireless carrier, at least for now, won’t sell New Yorkers a new phone online, citing “increased fraudulent activity.”

But residents of Manhattan and the city’s other four boroughs can buy an iPhone directly from AT&T (T) stores. And the city’s five Apple (AAPL) stores will sell you one, too.

So what gives?

An initial report from Consumerist.com, quoting an AT&T online service rep, suggested that the carrier shut down online sales because “New York was not ready for the iPhone” and that the city doesn’t “have enough towers to handle the phone.”

That answer might strike a chord with New York iPhone owners who gripe about the carrier’s capacity. But it strains credulity: Would AT&T really try to resolve its iPhone problem by hampering iPhone sales–and not tell anyone in advance? And if so, why not choke off online sales in San Francisco and the Bay Area, where heavy iPhone use also strains the carrier?

New story: Since the Consumerist story appeared Sunday afternoon, AT&T service reps have been telling New Yorkers like me that it won’t sell us the phone online because of fraud problems.

What does that mean? Sean, the pleasant AT&T rep I talked to tonight, told me he could sell me a refurbished, 8-gigabyte 3G iPhone online or over the phone. But if I wanted a new iPhone, he said, I’d have to go to a retail store.

Why? “There’s actually been a problem in that area with fraud for the iPhone. It’s kind of a high-risk area.” Sean then reassured me that he was “not saying there’s bad neighborhoods anywhere. That’s not what that means.” But he couldn’t offer any more details.

Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, in an online chat with a service rep, got a similar answer. As John points out, this answer also doesn’t make a lot of sense. If New York really is beset by a plague of scammers, why is AT&T selling other expensive smartphones, like Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry line, over the Web? (Click text below to enlarge.)

There are other things that don’t line up here: The AT&T PR rep I talked to tonight knew nothing about this. And shutting off online sales of the company’s most high-profile phone to the biggest city in America seems like the kind of thing a corporate spokesman would have an inkling about.

Likewise, AT&T’s Google (GOOG) ad campaign sends New Yorkers searching for iPhones directly to this page, which doesn’t mention that you can’t actually buy an iPhone online. If you click on the “Buy Now” and give the site a New York zip code, you get the following nonsensical message: “We’re sorry, there are no Packages & Deals available at this time. Please check back later.”

My hunch: This is a decision that didn’t get run all the way up the chain of command. And it’s one that’s going to get reversed sooner than later. I’ll update when I hear back from AT&T.

UPDATE: This won’t clear anything up: “We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels,” says AT&T PR guy Fletcher Cook, via email.

According to its 10-K, the company “anticipates utilizing approximately $1.9 billion for capital asset purchases during 2010, including approximately $400 million for Retail facilities and approximately $1.5 billion for corporate facilities, infrastructure, and product tooling and manufacturing process equipment.”

That’s a wide range of potential applications–wider, in fact, than it has been in years past, as Caris & Company analyst Robert Cihra notes. “Interestingly…this year’s 10K added wording for purchases of ‘product tooling and manufacturing process equipment’ which could imply Apple reversing course to actually build certain products/components in-house,” Cihra said in a note to clients today. “Beyond that are signals of Apple investing in massive new data center capacity (e.g., North Carolina) that could support anything from iTunes/iPhone Apps through new ‘cloud computing.’”

Sounds plausible. After all, there’s a lot a company like Apple could do with an additional $1.9 billion in capital expenditures. Certainly, an iTunes TV subscription service would require some investment. A tablet/slate device might as well. Whether that’s where this money is headed–if it’s headed anywhere at all–remains to be seen. Who knows, perhaps Apple intends to blow it all on CEO Steve Jobs’ dream of the “ultimate computer factory.”

“It’s very obvious that we are pushing the limits of the amount of capacity we have,” Jacobs said, adding that network neutrality regulations should not restrict operators’ ability to manage their networks.

“Operators should have the ability to say: ‘let’s be fair, this person’s moved a lot of data, this person’s used a little’, if they’re paying the same amount, then the person who’s used less will get more access….We are on the side of, yes, you have to be able to do something to manage your network, but it’s not the right thing to go in and say one service or another is OK.”

In other words, Qualcomm (QCOM) favors usage-based throttling. In theory, this should ensure that all customers get their fair share of bandwidth every hour of the day. In practice, however, it has meant something else entirely. So the question remains: If data traffic is to be shaped (and I am not saying that it should be), who will determine how it will be shaped and, more importantly, who can be trusted to make that determination fairly?

Jacobs’s remarks come a day after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski reiterated the Obama administration’s call for network neutrality.

But there’s a dirty little secret about removable-battery laptops owned by average consumers: Hardly anybody buys extra batteries. Research firm NPD estimates that fewer than 5% of consumers buy a spare. So, a small trend has begun in the industry: More electronic products are being designed with their rechargeable batteries sealed inside. For instance, Dell’s (DELL) new high-end laptop, the Adamo, has a sealed battery, as does the excellent Flip pocket video camera.

The leading proponent of this idea is Apple (AAPL), which has often led the industry in introducing or removing components from computers. This month, Apple unveiled two revised MacBook Pro laptops with higher-capacity, sealed-in batteries. In fact, Apple’s entire line of laptops now uses sealed batteries, except for one low-end MacBook model from last year’s series.

Apple says this makes sense because sealing in the batteries lets the company make them larger, without adding heft to the laptops. Apple says the two models are the same size and weight as their predecessors, yet their battery capacity has grown by 33% and 46%, respectively.

And, Apple asserts, it has come up with some software technology that allows these sealed batteries to last up to five years in typical use. The company claims that is almost triple the industry average for removable batteries and is longer than the typical time consumers keep the computer, thus making it far less likely you’ll need to replace a dead battery. Apple says it is able to seal in bigger batteries without making the machines larger because the company can compensate by shedding the casings, internal housings and other components needed by replaceable power packs.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro

I’ve been testing these two new Apple laptops, the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the 15-inch MacBook Pro, using my own harsh battery test, which I apply to all laptops I review. The results were excellent. These two new Apple laptops scored among the highest battery lives between charges of any laptop I have ever tested with a battery that fits entirely inside the machine’s dimensions, without sticking out of the back or bottom and adding weight.

The smaller of the two machines lasted a few minutes shy of five hours in my test. And the larger one lasted five hours and 21 minutes. I estimate that, in a more normal usage scenario, both machines would come close to Apple’s claim of around seven hours between charges—essentially a full workday of unplugged use. Those numbers are likely to obviate the need for spare batteries for the majority of average consumers.

There are some important caveats. I was unable to verify Apple’s claim that these sealed batteries can be fully recharged up to 1,000 times, and thus, last around five years. Second, if and when the sealed batteries do become unable to hold an adequate charge, the entire computer must be returned to Apple for a new battery. The company says that, if you do this at an Apple store, it’s a same-day process and, at least on the 13-inch model, the price of a new battery is the same as what Apple formerly charged for a new removable battery. But it’s still more of a hassle.

Also, there are users—like people who work on very long flights—for whom replaceable batteries will always be a necessity. These users will want the option, unavailable on the new Macs, to pop in an extra-strength battery.

Finally, while Apple has cut the prices of these two new laptops, they are still pricey compared with similar-sized models from other companies. The 13-inch model starts at $1,199, and the 15-inch model starts at $1,699. Like all Macs, these computers have, in my opinion, a better operating system, better built-in software and better security than their Windows competitors. But you can get competing machines for hundreds of dollars less.

In my battery test, I turn off all power-saving features, leave the Wi-Fi network on, crank up the screen to 100% brightness, and play a continuous loop of music. That maximizes some of the biggest power hogs on a laptop. In normal use, a typical owner would likely use the power-saving features, turn the screen down a bit, have Wi-Fi off some of the time, and wouldn’t be running the hard disk constantly.

Neither of my test machines used the energy-saving, but costly, solid-state drives that are slowly replacing mechanical hard disks. And my test models both used integrated graphics chips, which suck less power than the more potent discrete graphics offered on the 15-inch model.

Still, I believe that these new MacBook Pros prove that sealed batteries can result in a very good experience for average users.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090624/new-mac-laptops-use-batteries-sealed-for-power/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090513/att-we-crippled-slingplayer-tv-app/ http://allthingsd.com/20090513/att-we-crippled-slingplayer-tv-app/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 10:55:48 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=7324 Mystery solved, sort of: AT&T is taking the blame for crippling the SlingPlayer iPhone app.

The program, created by Echostar’s (SATS) Sling group, is designed to let users watch TV shows, beamed from their own sets, on the  iPhone. It goes on sale for $29.99 today via Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes store–but without the ability to work over AT&T’s 3G network.

That’s our decision, says AT&T (T). The company’s rationale: The iPhone’s too powerful, and our network isn’t powerful enough.

That’s the gist of its argument, which both makes sense and confuses. AT&T says the Sling app could consume lots of network capacity, which is straightforward enough. But you can already use Sling apps for other handsets, like the BlackBerry, on AT&T.

The difference, AT&T says, is that the iPhone really isn’t a phone at all, but a PC that happens to make phone calls. “We consider smartphones like the iPhone to be personal computers in that they have the same hardware and software attributes as PCs.”

No argument there, either. But again, given that you can use the SlingPlayer over AT&T’s spectrum using different devices, it seems as if AT&T is really making a different argument: Just because you can watch TV on other devices doesn’t mean you will. But if we give people the chance to watch TV on iPhone, they’ll flock to it–and our network can’t handle that.

See for yourself. Here’s AT&T’s full statement, via Engadget:

Slingbox, which would use large amounts of wireless network capacity, could create congestion and potentially prevent other customers from using the network. The application does not run on our 3G wireless network. Applications like this, which redirect a TV signal to a personal computer, are specifically prohibited under our terms of service. We consider smartphones like the iPhone to be personal computers in that they have the same hardware and software attributes as PCs.

That said, we don’t restrict users from going to a Web site that lets them view videos. But what our terms and conditions prohibit is the transferring, or slinging, of a TV signal to their personal computer or smartphone.

The Slingbox application for the iPhone runs on WiFi. That’s good news for AT&T’s iPhone 3G customers, who get free WiFi access at our 20,000 owned and operated hot spots in the U.S., including Starbucks, McDonalds, Barnes & Noble, hotels, and airports. AT&T is the industry leader in WiFi.

[Image credit: Markhillary]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090513/att-we-crippled-slingplayer-tv-app/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080418/cicconi/ http://allthingsd.com/20080418/cicconi/#comments Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:42:00 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080418/cicconi/ Sen. Ted Stevens was right: The Internet is not a big truck. It’s “a series of tubes”–tubes that can be filled to capacity by “enormous amounts of material.” And, according to AT&T, that’s going to happen about two years from now.

In remarks at the Westminster eForum on Web 2.0 this week in London, Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T (T), said the Internet will hit its capacity in 2010. “The surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting the Internet today,” Cicconi said. “In three years’ time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today. We are going to be butting up against the physical capacity of the Internet by 2010.”

Clearly, some bigger tubes are in order here–$55 billion worth of them, according to Cicconi, who was quick to note that it will be companies like AT&T footing the bill for them. “There is nothing magic or ethereal about the Internet–it is no more ethereal than the highway system,” he said. “It is not created by an act of God, but upgraded and maintained by private investors.”

Ah yes, private investors. Like the ones who promised in the mid-1990s to provide fiber-optic connections to millions of households across the country in exchange for some $200 billion in tax cuts? The ones who never delivered on that promise, content to pocket direct tax credits of, on average, $2,000 per subscriber, without fulfilling their end of the bargain? Those investors?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080418/cicconi/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080418/cicconi-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20080418/cicconi-2/#comments Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:42:00 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080418/cicconi/ Sen. Ted Stevens was right: The Internet is not a big truck. It’s “a series of tubes”–tubes that can be filled to capacity by “enormous amounts of material.” And, according to AT&T, that’s going to happen about two years from now.

In remarks at the Westminster eForum on Web 2.0 this week in London, Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T (T), said the Internet will hit its capacity in 2010. “The surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting the Internet today,” Cicconi said. “In three years’ time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today. We are going to be butting up against the physical capacity of the Internet by 2010.”

Clearly, some bigger tubes are in order here–$55 billion worth of them, according to Cicconi, who was quick to note that it will be companies like AT&T footing the bill for them. “There is nothing magic or ethereal about the Internet–it is no more ethereal than the highway system,” he said. “It is not created by an act of God, but upgraded and maintained by private investors.”

Ah yes, private investors. Like the ones who promised in the mid-1990s to provide fiber-optic connections to millions of households across the country in exchange for some $200 billion in tax cuts? The ones who never delivered on that promise, content to pocket direct tax credits of, on average, $2,000 per subscriber, without fulfilling their end of the bargain? Those investors?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080418/cicconi-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080418/ddv20080418/ http://allthingsd.com/20080418/ddv20080418/#comments Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:00:56 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080418/ddv20080418/

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080418/ddv20080418/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080207/solid-state-drives-challenge-hard-drives-in-speed-but-not-value/ http://allthingsd.com/20080207/solid-state-drives-challenge-hard-drives-in-speed-but-not-value/#comments Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:01:00 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080207/solid-state-drives-challenge-hard-drives-in-speed-but-not-value/ The hard-disk drive is so common that most computer users take it for granted as a natural part of a personal computer. But now, the hard drive has a challenger for its longtime role as the principal storage device in computers. It’s called the solid-state drive, or SSD, and it has begun to show up in some big-name notebook computers.

Hard-disk drives, or HDDs, are mechanical devices. They work by recording data on a spinning magnetic platter or platters. By contrast, solid-state drives are made of chips and have no moving parts. They are close cousins to the so-called flash memory used in digital cameras, cellphones and smaller-capacity music players. They record data to special memory chips that retain their contents even when the device is turned off.

Solid-state drives have some key advantages. Because they lack moving parts, they are faster, draw less power, are harder to damage and are quieter than hard drives. Unfortunately, today’s early versions of SSDs for laptops also have two big drawbacks when compared with hard drives: They offer much lower capacity and have much higher prices.

For instance, on the newly announced Apple MacBook Air ultrathin laptop, the HDD version costs $1,799 and stores 80 gigabytes. The SSD version costs $2,798, but actually stores less — just 64 gigabytes. On the Toshiba Portege R500 subnotebook, the basic hard-drive version costs $1,999 and stores 120 gigabytes. The cheapest SSD version is $2,699 and also stores just 64 gigabytes.

Despite these limitations, I believe SSDs are likely to become more common and more popular as their capacities increase and their prices drop. Samsung, which makes the 64-gigabyte SSDs in both the Apple and the Toshiba, has already announced an SSD with twice the capacity that costs much less per gigabyte of storage.

I’ve been testing the SSD models of the Portege R500 and the MacBook Air to see how they measure up to their HDD counterparts. My verdict is that the SSD does deliver on its promises, but, in some cases, just barely.

For the small slice of users who are deeply and constantly worried about hard-disk failures, it may be worth it to pay a huge premium today for an SSD that stores less. Because SSDs aren’t subject to mechanical failures, your data are probably safer on them. But for mainstream users, my conclusion is that it’s too early to take the plunge on SSDs, and the best strategy is to wait for prices to drop sharply and for capacity to rise.

In my tests, I focused solely on comparing the hard-drive and SSD models of each machine, which I had had already reviewed in earlier columns. On the same computer, I wondered, would the SSD make a significant difference in speed and in battery life?

To measure battery life, I conducted my usual harsh test, where I turn off all power-saving software, set screen brightness to maximum, turn on the Wi-Fi and play an endless loop of music.

In this test, the SSD made little difference in the MacBook Air and, in fairness, Apple is making no claims of any significant battery-life gains on its SSD model. The SSD MacBook gave me just five more minutes of battery life. Apple says this is because its hard-drive model already uses a very low-power drive.

On the Portege R500, my first battery test with the SSD model actually yielded significantly less battery life than the hard-drive model. The reason: Toshiba ships the base SSD model with a battery with only half of the capacity of the hard-drive model.

When I swapped in the normal battery, which costs $117 extra, the SSD model gave me an added 1 hour and 21 minutes of battery life, about a 36% increase. That extra battery life likely would translate to nearly 2½ hours in more normal usage. It may be worth the huge price premium for some folks.

On both computers, the SSD was faster than the HDD models. The SSD version of the Apple booted up from a cold start, and rebooted with several programs running, about 40% faster. But the gain isn’t as impressive as it seems because even the hard-drive versions of the MacBook Air booted up in under a minute and rebooted in just a little over a minute.

On the Toshiba, which was running Windows XP, the SSD model knocked about 40 seconds off a cold boot time on the HDD version of 2 minutes and 7 seconds. On my reboot test, starting with several programs running, the SSD model was 80 seconds faster. I imagine that on laptops with the slow-booting Windows Vista, the improvements might be more meaningful.

I also tested launching Microsoft Word and Excel, and opening a couple of hefty PDF files on both machines. The SSD versions were faster. But in most cases, the gains were just a few seconds or even fractions of a second.

All in all, the SSD is a promising improvement over the hard drive, but now is not the time for most users to buy it.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080207/solid-state-drives-challenge-hard-drives-in-speed-but-not-value/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20050421/easy-repartition/ http://allthingsd.com/20050421/easy-repartition/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2005 00:01:00 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20050421/an-easier-way-to-repartition/ There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about laptops sans serial ports, repartitioning hard disks and expanding storage capacity.

If you have a question, send it to me at mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg’s Mailbox.

Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

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I notice that Dell sells some laptops without parallel and serial ports. Is it OK to buy a laptop without them?

For the vast majority of average consumers, the answer is yes. Parallel and serial ports were, for years, the primary way to connect Windows computers to printers, scanners and other devices. But they have been replaced in the past five years by faster and more flexible USB ports, and, to a lesser extent, by FireWire, or 1394, ports.

Some corporate-computer departments still maintain equipment that uses the archaic parallel and serial ports, which is why IBM, Dell and others include such ports on some laptops aimed at the big-business market. But the only consumers who need these ports are the tiny minority that are still trying to use ancient printers or other peripherals.

I want to repartition my hard disk to transfer capacity from the D drive, which is empty, to the C drive, which is full. When I called tech support, I was told that the only way to do this is to perform a system restore, which includes reinstalling all the software on my system. Is there an easier way?

Yes. You can use a very handy program called Norton PartitionMagic, which can change your hard-disk partitions without disturbing or deleting any of your installed software or data files. The program is made by Symantec, and costs about $70. More information is at www.symantec.com/partitionmagic.

I’ve been dabbling in creating home videos with iMovie and iDVD on my iMac. I find I need more disk space to store all my clips and such. Is there a way to expand the hard-disk storage?

You might be able to bring the computer to a dealer and have a larger hard disk installed internally, and your data transferred. But a simpler solution would be to buy an external hard disk that hooks up to the iMac through its FireWire or USB port.

In most cases, these drives just plug in and work immediately, without any software installation or configuration. You can buy these external drives at most computer stores, physical and online. They vary widely in capacity and price.

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Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

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