The connection between the network of a service provider and its customers is made by a private high performance circuit, leased by a common carrier. It is rented out on yearly basis; it usually transfers data or voice, or both.

Verizon and Google’s newfound romantic entanglement appears to be facing a new obstacle: namely, a giant bag of Microsoft money. According to The Droid Guy , Verizon may be pulling Google as the default search option moving forward, replacing it with Droid on all future Verizon Android releases. According to the report, users can switch back to Google via some phones — but not…

The UK’s communications regulator has announced that it is allowing the mobile network operators in the UK to boost the performance of their 3G services by increasing the power on their 3G base stations. Being able to access 3G broadband services has become vital to many casual and business consumers in the UK, and for many mobile broadband services using 3G networks have become an invaluable tool. The popularity of mobile broadband has increased over the past couple of years, and whilst the increased interest in this technology is good news for providers it has resulted…

Free Broadband? Image by @boetter Connecting candidates, voters remotely When Charles Rudnick, a candidate for the Massachusetts state senate, held a recent town hall meeting with residents in the Newton, Mass. area, he did so from the comfort of his home office thanks to a large-scale conference calling service known as a tele-town hall meeting. For about 90

One of the masterminds behind the $9 million hack into RBS WorldPay received a six-year suspended sentence in Russia, according to local reports Wednesday. Viktor Pleshchuk, 29, who pleaded guilty to his role in the heist, also got four years of probation and was ordered to pay $8.9 million in restitution. He received a reduced sentence for cooperating with authorities. Pleshchuk, of St. Petersburg, was a graduate of Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics and worked as a sales manager for an e-commerce company when he participated in what the U.S. has called “perhaps the most sophisticated and organized computer fraud attack ever conducted.” The sentencing hearing was held behind closed doors out of security concerns, according to Fontanka . The defendant’s family …

Verizon has made no secret of their interest in expanding beyond broadband and eventually becoming a company that offers you, well, everything — including home automation and security services. To that end, Verizon this week has invested in home automation outfit 4Home , and in January at CES, Verizon and 4Home will be showing off home automation services that will work over Verizon’s upcoming LTE wireless broadband network. Of course maybe before Verizon gets into smart refrigerators they can offer FiOS users that 802.11N-capable router they told us was supposed to arrive last month? We’ve asked for an update on that, but in the mean time you can check out some of what 4Home offers here

BCE Downgraded to Neutral We are downgrading our recommendation for BCE Inc. to Neutral from Outperform on increased concerns about the entrance of additional wireless carriers. Read more on Zacks.com via Yahoo! Finance Comtech deal to acquire CPI International nixed Comtech Telecommunications Corp. and CPI International Inc. said Tuesday they were calling off their plan to combine and Comtech

The federal agency in charge of protecting other agencies from computer intruders was found riddled with hundreds of high-risk security holes on its own systems, according to the results of an audit released Wednesday. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US-CERT , monitors the Einstein intrusion-detection sensors on nonmilitary government networks, and helps other civil agencies respond to hack attacks. It also issues alerts on the latest software security holes, so that everyone from the White House to the FAA can react quickly to install workarounds and patches. But in a case of “physician, heal thyself,” the agency — which forms the operational arm of DHS’s National…

Minneapolis and St. Paul local paper The Star Tribune this week was shocked to learn that the two cities are the eighth and first fastest U.S. cities respectively, at least based on speedtest data from speedtest firm Ookla . According to the paper, “some local experts” aren’t buying Ookla’s numbers, given that data collected by controversial mapping organization Connected Nation suggests much slower regional speeds: The local experts suspect that Ookla’s survey of residential Internet speeds is flawed because it accidentally included some high-capacity corporate Internet connections, whose speeds far exceed anything available to consumers. In response, Ookla, which makes a living …

Binyam Mohamed, a British resident, is among five plaintiffs who claim CIA torture Citing the Obama administration’s evocation of the state secrets privilege, a divided federal appeals court agreed Wednesday to toss a lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary accused of helping the CIA transport detainees to secret foreign prisons where they allegedly were tortured. Ruling 6-5, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was bound by a 1953 Supreme Court precedent requiring judges to dismiss cases if litigating them could expose government secrets and imperil national security. “This case requires us…

Sam Gustin reporting in DailyFanance : “As Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX) and Google forge ahead with highly publicized new plans to stream high-speed content like movies and TV shows to your living room, smartphone, telecom and cable giants like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast (CMSCA) have been intensely lobbying to maintain control over the broadband pipes they spent billions to build. Comcast is going so far as to buy a rich content factory, NBC Universal, a deal that would create a $35 billion media and delivery juggernaut.”

There is little that can compare to hitting the open road and traveling in the comfort of an RV. In fact, the only thing that might be missing is the internet. But travel just got even better even better now that RV satellite internet service is available.

We’ve explored how Australia is planning to build a nationwide fiber to the home network providing 100 Mbps speeds to 93% of the population, with the other 7% getting 12 Mbps service via satellite or wireless (it even required paying $11 billion for an incumbent opponent). Ars Technica explores how this network was a key debate topic during the recent Australian elections, and helped the Labor Party to a 76-74 win. In other words, Australia’s national FTTH network has been greenlighted: The move means that the government will proceed with its plan to pay incumbent telephone company Telstra AU$11 billion to hand over most…

Although money is tight for many households in the UK a recent poll has found that more than ninety percent of Brits would not give up their broadband connection in order to save money. Over recent years money has been tight for many households in the UK, with the global credit crisis and the recession taking their toll on consumers and leaving many people struggling to make ends meet when it comes to their finances. As a result of this many households in the UK have been looking for ways to cut back on their outgoings and save money. However, it appears that households are only willing to go so far when it comes to saving money, with a recent poll revealing that over ninety percent of consumers in the UK would not be willing to …

Another recent report has suggested that many people are missing out on big savings on their broadband , television, and phone services by failing to bundle them into one package from a single provider. Another report that was released recently has suggested that there are many people in the UK that are wasting money each year on their broadband, phone, and television services because they are failing to look out for low cost bundles and instead are taking and paying for these services individually through separate providers. The report claims that close to half of consumers in the UK are not taking advantage of the discounts available to them through low cost bundles that combine services such as broadband, television, and phone. The Communications Market Report from Ofcom showed…