httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23r6G9QUV08 Before you join the rush of people who are shedding their AT&T iPhone for the Verizon iPhone (oh wait, no one is actually doing that) you should do some research and see what dumping "the nations largest 3G network" and getting on "America's most reliable network" will get you. Mostly, slower Internet speeds. A lot slower, actually. Well, that, and no simultaneous voice and data network. What you also won't get, as 9to5Mac has pointed out, is the ability to swap between multiple calls. Also, if you're used to having more than a couple person in a conference call, you'll want to stick with AT&T. That is, assuming you can make calls on their network. While your mileage may vary, I'm sticking with AT&T. video and images via Tipb.com

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQjIsaf3S2A Verizon is now offering FiOS customers a 150 Mbit down and 35 Mbit up connection. Honestly, I'd be happy with just more uplink on my broadband, but this will work.

While Verizon here in the United States is playing around with somewhat unrealistic 10Gbps Internet connections they'll never be able (or willing) to offer to consumers at a reasonable price, Virgin Media in the UK announced that in December their going to begin offering 100Mbps download speeds (with a very respectable 10Mbps upstream) for £35 (roughly $55 USD) per month with a bundle, and £45 ($71 USD) for standalone service. Virgin claims this is 20x as fast as the average British household. Further more, they intend to expand the service with faster speeds later on. They claim their infrastructure can support up to 400Mbps in the near future. According to Virgin:

... research has shown the service will truly come into its own when more than one person in a household is using the service at the same time. Following trials of 100Mb and 200Mb speeds, the company found internet usage increased exponentially ...

Duh. Virgin is also throwing in an energy efficient modem and wireless-N router to the package. They estimate the service will be available to 13 million homes at launch, with more on the way as they expand the reach of their network. Meanwhile, after I post this using my AT&T U-Verse connection in the states, which is about a 10th as fast as what Virgin is offering, and about twice as expensive, I'm going to be looking up flights to the UK around the end of this year. Hope my wife is ready to move.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99sRhMdJqqI I can't think of anyone person who could fully saturate a 10gb fiber Internet connection for much of anything... legally... for very long, but Verizon seems to think it's important enough to show off that it can be done. They recently gave the Elks Lodge in Taunton, Massachusetts the chance. Using the FiOS infrastructure, a desktop with a 10Gbps network card and some fancy optical magic, they were able to push a 2.3GB file between the Lodge and their network switching center in around four seconds. Since the connection was symmetric, they were able to push huge amounts of data in both directions. While it will be a long time before this type of connection is available to consumers, if ever, it's great that Verizon is continuing to research and push the limits of their network. via Ars Technica

According to Craig Labovitz at security company Arbor Networks, Google's domination of the network that is the Internet is now averaging at about 6.4% of all traffic. This is up a full 1% since the start of the year. As Labovitz  says:

If Google were an ISP, as of this month it would rank as the second largest carrier on the planet. Only one global tier1 provider still carries more traffic than Google (and this ISP also provides a large portion of Google’s transit).

According to Arbor, Google is actually growing faster than the Internet itself.

Easing the minds of network and content providers around the world, the U.S District Court in New York has issued a order for LimeWire to immediately cease operations, granting a request by the Recording Industry Artists of America (RIAA). Users of the LimeWire client software will immediately be notified within the client that it will no longer function. Network administrators everywhere breathed a sigh of relief, but their packet shapers can only relax for about three days, as their less technically savvy users are now trying to figure out how to use BitTorrent.

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Sandvine has released a report outlining what exactly is using all the bandwidth from major ISPs around the world. If you through services like iTunes were curbing the use of P2P networks for downloading content then you're sadly mistaken. Sandvine’s research reveals that on an average day, 53.3% of all upstream traffic can be attributed to P2P applications. In addition:

• The Asia-Pacific region ramps up their Internet usage at 5 a.m. and their median monthly data consumption is close to 12 gigabytes per household compared to 4 gigabytes in North America. In North America the average time a fixed connection is active is 3 hours, whereas in Asia-Pacific it's closer to 5.5 hours.
• In the United States, Netflix represents more than 20 percent of downstream traffic during peak times and is heaviest between 8-10 p.m.
• P2P is less dominant on the downstream side. It is currently at 13.2%, following real time entertainment (45.7%) and web browsing (24.3%).

via TorrentFreak