For the first time in five years, desktop computers were responsible for more global web traffic than mobile phones in a single month, according to data from Jemlit.com, an electronics company, released Monday. Desktops had a 49.7% share in October, versus 49% for mobile, the report said. “A growing share of global browsing now happens during work, pushing users toward desktops where they can open more tabs, multitask, and handle more complex content.” More mobile activity also happens “inside apps instead of browsers,” so the biggest part of actual smartphone use isn’t counted in the data.

Citing the recent Cloudflare outage, which temporarily disrupted access to numerous websites, Internet Society researcher Amreesh Phokeer wrote last week that the internet's dependence on a very small number of infrastructure providers shows that "when one of them sneezes, the entire Internet catches a cold." Since June 2021, the concentration of the content delivery network (CDN) market has increased steadily, Phokeer said. While the internet was based around a principle of decentralization, the infrastructure that keeps it running today, such as cloud computing, hosting and content delivery, is provided by just a few companies, he said. Large providers combining edge hosting, security, CDN and domain name system services into one stack may be efficient and convenient, but it "breaks a critical resilience principle, which is the 'separation of concerns.' "

The cost of residential broadband plans with speeds of 100-940 Mbps has gone down, on average, 43.1% over the past decade, while plans for 940 Mbps-1Gbps speeds are down 22.5% since 2017, USTelecom said in its latest annual Broadband Pricing Index report. The overall cost of consumer goods and services is up 35.8% during the past decade, it said. Over the past year, the 100-940 Mbps plans saw a price drop of 3.6% on average, while prices for the faster set of plans were down 1.4%.

Global internet bandwidth now stands at 1,835 Tbps, more than doubling since 2021, TeleGeography analyst Paul Brodsky wrote Tuesday. The bandwidth increase varies by region, he said, noting that Africa saw the most rapid growth, with a compound annual rate of 38% between 2021 and 2025. Future growth will be fueled by factors including new internet-enabled devices and expanded broadband penetration in developing markets, he added.

AOL is hanging up its dial-up internet service. It said the service and related software will be discontinued Sept. 30, after 34 years.

The fact that multiple agencies regulate cybersecurity could result in regulation overlap and duplication, the Government Accountability Office cautioned in a report Wednesday. The study -- based on a pair of GAO-convened industry panels -- concluded that federal agencies have made limited progress in harmonizing cybersecurity oversight. One challenge it cited is that cybersecurity definitions and requirements can be vague, lack standardization or fail to account for different industry sectors. There also might be conflict between federal and foreign requirements. GAO said opportunities for harmonizing federal cybersecurity regulations include getting guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and identifying a single entity with primary authority over the various agencies that enforce cybersecurity regulations.

Analyses of Versions 5 and 6 of the FCC's broadband data collection show the number of unserved locations in the U.S. dropping significantly, broadband consultancy CostQuest said Friday. Version 5 captures data from June 2024 and Version 6 from December 2024. CostQuest said that in those six months, unserved locations in the U.S. decreased 27%, while underserved locations grew by 22%. Its analysis of Version 5 showed 108 million broadband-serviceable locations served, 2.45 million underserved and 5.1 million unserved, versus 109 million served, 2.99 million underserved and 3.75 million unserved in Version 6. The analyses don't include unlicensed fixed wireless in determining coverage status, CostQuest noted.

Alphabet shareholders will decide on a dozen shareholder proposals at the company's June 6 annual meeting, according to its proxy statement issued Friday. Among them is an Inspire Investing proposal that seeks a report evaluating how Alphabet oversees risks related to generative AI bias against religion or political views, and whether such discrimination may affect customers’, users’ and other individuals’ exercise of their constitutionally protected civil rights. Another proposal, from Boston Common Asset Management, seeks a report that includes quantitative metrics assessing whether and how Alphabet and its YouTube subsidiary have improved child safety and harm reduction to children on their platforms. Also on the agenda is a proposal from the National Center for Public Policy Research that asks Alphabet to reconsider participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, owing to its “hyper-partisan, divisive and increasingly radical criteria." Disney shareholders in March rejected a similar shareholder proposal from the group (see 2504230003). The Alphabet board is recommending "no" votes on all 12 proposals.

The percentage of "power user" broadband subscribers consuming 1 TB or more of data per month has tripled in the U.S. during the past five years, OpenVault said Tuesday. It said 24.3% of all subscribers were power users in Q4 2024, up from 7.3% in 2019. It said average monthly total consumption was a record-high 698.2 GB in 2024, with high-volume users and continued growth in upstream consumption continuing to drive the average monthly total consumption.

Don’t dismiss tech groups’ challenge of a Florida social media law, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association urged the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida this week (Case 4:21-cv-00220). The U.S. Supreme Court in July ruled the First Amendment protects social media platforms’ ability to moderate content, sending the tech industry’s suits against Florida and Texas laws back to the lower courts (see 2407010053). In November, CCIA and NetChoice submitted an amended complaint asking the district court to permanently enjoin Florida’s social media law (see 2411040033). However, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) responded by asking the court to dismiss the complaint “for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim” (see 2411180038). NetChoice and CCIA responded Wednesday that SCOTUS eviscerated Florida’s argument that Facebook and other websites don’t engage in activity that the First Amendment protects when the platforms curate content. “With little left to say about the merits of Plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims, Florida offers a slew of new threshold objections, attacking everything from the way Plaintiffs organized their Amended Complaint to whether Plaintiffs have a cause of action to enjoin the enforcement of an unconstitutional statute. Florida’s arguments are meritless.”