The number of new broadband connections in the U.S. declined in the second quarter to the lowest level in seven years according to the Leichtman Research Group.

There were 887,000 new connections in the quarter among the top 20 cable and phone providers. The top broadband providers now account for 65.1 million subscribers with cable companies having 35.3 million broadband subscribers, and telephone companies having over 29.7 million subscribers.

Testing at the Federal Communication Commission will determine whether or not Google and its fellow backers of wireless broadband within unused spectrum reaches the marketplace.

Delta Air Lines announced today that it will offer broadband Wi-Fi access onboard the airline’s domestic fleet.

Delta has partnered with Aircell to install the company’s Mobile Broadband Network on the carrier’s domestic fleet. The system, Gogo, will allow Delta passengers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs to access the Internet. The service will be available to customers for $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights more than three hours.

UK based BT said today that it plans to invest $3 billion in super fast broadband providing access to 10 million homes by 2012.

BT says the new broadband will have speeds of up to 100 Mb/s with the potential for speeds of more than 1,000 Mb/s.

The company says its broadband plan will only be rolled out if regulator Ofcom allows it to receive a good return on its investment.

That possible sanction for Comcast’s admitted use of traffic shaping software to interfere with customer broadband accounts when using peer to peer software apparently evaporated after further review.

Over half (55%) of all adult Americans now have a high-speed Internet connection at home, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The percentage of Americans with broadband has increased from 47 percent in early 2007 and 42 percent in early 2005. Of those who access the Internet at home, 79 percent have a high-speed connection and 15 percent use dialup.

Adults who live in households whose annual incomes are less than $20,000 a year, home broadband adoption was at 25% in early 2008, compared to 28 percent in 2007.

With a fundamental patent in file swarming secured, and a new adaptive bit rate streaming technology opened for work, Swarmcast CEO Justin Chapweske told WebProNews his firm wants to be the next TV infrastructure.

Would you like free wireless broadband? Sure you would. As you might guess, though, free broadband is bad for the broadband provider business. In a weird twist of logic, broadband providers argue free broadband is bad for consumers, too.

Beaumont, TX, earned the distinction of being the testing ground for metered Internet service for the heaviest users of network capacity.

The Network Neutrality debate is, to understate it, heated. On one side are ideals, on the other side is money, which is not a new dichotomy in any sense, and both can be equally powerful motivators*. Also, while passion tends to color an issue (sometimes incorrectly), economic theory tends to mire subscribers in stubborn dogma.

Neither side wants to budge for fear of losing, or for fear of the embarrassment of choosing the wrong team.

More than half of Europeans are now regular Internet users, 80 percent of them have broadband connections and 60 percent of public services are online according to a new report from the European Commission.

In 2007, the Internet attracted close to 40 million new regular users in the EU (now 250 million in total). More than 96 percent of European schools are now connected to the Internet, two thirds of which have broadband.

Broadband penetration has increased more than 300 percent since 2002, according to a new analysis from Scarborough Research.

In 2002, 12 percent of U.S. adults had a broadband connection in their household. Now, close to half (49%) have broadband. DSL connections have grown more than cable modems, but both have seen significant growth. Since 2002, cable modem penetration increased 188 percent and DSL connections increased 575 percent.

Comcast CTO Tony Werner gets the last laugh on the most ardent BitTorrent users on his network, as the company plans to slow down all Internet traffic for them.

When a company receives money, you’ve got to consider questions of "how much" and "who from" to figure out what sort of attention it’s owed.  In the case of broadband service provider Open Range Communications, the answers are "a lot" and "a branch of the U.S. government."

Just a reminder: Traffic prioritization and management won’t matter much once we realize the full potential of fiber and other technologies on the near horizon. Second reminder: Those in control of the networks plan on gouging you the whole way via controlled, incremental upgrades in speed and capacity.

Charging 40 times bandwidth? Sure if it’s still 2005. The network providers are looking at a much better rate than that, at least for the foreseeable future, so long as the future can be delayed long enough to maximize profit.

With Google’s purchase of GrandCentral Communications in July 2007, the company set up a way to pull people away from their relationships with wireless phone carriers.

Rivalry with Microsoft takes a backseat to working with them as part of a group lobbying the FCC for the spaces inside analog TV spectrum next year.

In order to stimulate economic growth top regulators of the European Commission said they want to increase broadband coverage in the European Union from 20 percent to 30 percent by 2010.

Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said eight of the EU’s 27 member states have surpassed the United States in broadband penetration, with Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden leading the way with penetration rates over 30 percent at the end of 2007.

A proposal from non-profit firm EDUCAUSE suggested a way to improve broadband speed and availability in the US, to better match what other developed nations have to offer.

As one major broadband provider prepares to test a pay by usage Internet scheme, we are reminded of the old days of online access.

Those (derogatorily or not) considered on the left side of the political spectrum seem to be turning on Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, especially in regard to her plan for expanding broadband access.