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While reading about the competition for broadband in South Korea .. I wondered ...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-national-broadband-plan Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 16, 2010 Statement from the President on the National Broadband Plan America today is on the verge of a broadband-driven Internet era that will unleash innovation, create new jobs and industries, provide consumers with new powerful sources of information, enhance American safety and security, and connect communities in ways that strengthen our democracy. Just as past generations of Americans met the great infrastructure challenges of the day, such as building the Transcontinental...

The Federal Communications Commission has begun to benchmark Internet service speeds across the United States to allow consumer to compare the real world performance of their ISP with its advertised speeds. Consumers may visit the agency's Broadband.gov Web page to run the rest from their PCs or download the FCC Broadband Test app for Android and the iPhone.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of high-speed Internet. Perhaps a case could be made for health care reform, i.e. death panels, single-payer, long waiting room lines, a Michael Moore proctology exam – but perhaps the government thinking everyone should be entitled to high-speed Internet access is really the beginning of the path to socialism.

Ever get that feeling your wireless data connection is s-l-o-w, or that your PC isn’t getting the high-speed Internet access advertised by your local cable or phone company? The Federal Communications Commission, which plans to release its national broadband plan next week, thinks plenty of people would answer yes. Today, the FCC released tools that consumers can use to test their wireless or landline broadband connection.

WASHINGTON -- Google plans to build experimental, ultra-fast Internet networks in a handful of communities around the country. The search company said Wednesday that its fiber-optic broadband networks will deliver speeds of 1 gigabit per second to as many as 500,000 Americans. Google Inc. says those systems will be more than 100 times faster than the networks that most Americans have access to today. In a blog post, the company said the networks will let consumers download a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes and allow rural health clinics to send 3-D medical images over the Web.

Verizon Communications Inc., the second-largest U.S. phone company, plans to cut more than 10,000 jobs at its fixed-line unit this year after posting fourth- quarter sales that missed analysts’ estimates. The company plan to keep cuts at the same level as last year, when it reduced 13,000 positions, or about 9 percent of the unit’s workforce, Chief Financial Officer John Killian said on a conference call today. The business had about 117,000 workers at year-end. Sales rose 9.9 percent to $27.1 billion, missing the $27.3 billion average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue at Verizon’s fixed-line service dropped 3.9 percent,...

While rumors of a possible Verizon-compatible iPhone in 2010 persist, one analyst has predicted that Apple will instead bring the iPhone to another GSM-based carrier in the U.S.: T-Mobile. In a note to investors released this week, Doug Reid of Thomas Weisel Partners said his firm believes that T-Mobile, and not Verizon, will be the beneficiary when Apple's exclusive agreement with AT&T expires next year... AT&T's exclusive contract with Apple for the iPhone is due to expire in 2010... While the iPhone in its current iteration is compatible with T-Mobile's network, it is not capable of connecting to its high-speed...

For the inspiration behind the next generation of avionics, just look around you; it is to be found in the consumer electronics we use every day. The touchscreen interactivity and broadband connectivity of today’s smart phones and laptops is poised to enter the flight deck. The signs are already here. Garmin International has introduced touchscreens with its G3000 integrated flight deck, selected for the HondaJet and PiperJet light business jets. In addition to wide-screen liquid crystal displays, the G3000 has a pair of vehicle management system controllers with touch-sensitive screens and desktop-like menu icons. Garmin says the user interface draws...

People who unlawfully download copyrighted material could be disconnected from their internet accounts as part of the Digital Economy Bill, a major overhaul to the UK's technology legislation. The bill, unveiled on Friday, will oblige ISPs to send notifications to customers who are suspected of infringing copyright. ISPs will also be forced to record the number of notifications a user has received and send this data to rights holders, such as record companies, so they can apply for a court order for the user's name and address. The rights holder can then launch civil proceedings against the infringer. The minister...

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission began to lay the groundwork for a bigger federal role in the broadband business Wednesday, outlining the hurdles the U.S. needs to overcome to improve the availability of high-speed Internet access. The FCC identified a number of issues the government should address, including the high cost of laying new broadband lines in rural areas, a lack of airwaves for wireless Web access and ill-informed consumers. "This focus on broadband is a reflection of a recognition that the U.S. is lagging behind," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday at the agency's monthly meeting.

The naming of winning bidders in the broadband stimulus grant/loan program will be delayed by a month or so, according to the heads of the relevant government agencies. The self-imposed deadline had been early November, but NTIA head Larry Strickling said Tuesday: "We're going to take a few more weeks here to get this right...I will not fund a bad application." That came in a Senate Commerce Committee's Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing on the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) and Rural Utilities Services' (RUS) broadband stimulus grant and loan programs under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The committee heard...

First Amendment: Diversity czar Mark Lloyd's FCC votes Thursday on the issue of net neutrality. Advertised as providing access to all, it will do to the information superhighway what Lloyd proposed for talk radio. Not much was said when $7.2 billion was included in the stimulus bill "to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits." The administration has big plans for the Internet — like controlling it. Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet czar, told the Wall Street Journal in April that the broadband billions...

Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications has made 1-megabit broadband Web access a legal right, YLE, the country's national broadcasting company, reported on Wednesday. According to the report, every person in Finland (a little over 5 million people, according to a 2009 estimate) will have the right of access to a 1Mb broadband connection starting in July. And they may ultimately gain the right to a 100Mb broadband connection. Just more than a year ago, Finland said it would make a 100Mb broadband connection a legal right by the end of 2015. Wednesday's announcement is considered an intermediate step. France,...

Starting next July, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection, says the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Finland is the world's first country to create laws guaranteeing broadband access. The government had already decided to make a 100 Mb broadband connection a legal right by the end of 2015. On Wednesday, the Ministry announced the new goal as an intermediary step. Some variation will be allowed, if connectivity can be arranged through mobile phone networks.

Broadband task force status report says current government funding won't be enough to achieve universal adoption The FCC says 3 million to 6 million people are "unserved" by basic broadand service, and that current government funding won't be enough to get broadband to all of them. "[C]urrent mechanisms, such as Universal Service and stimulus grants, are insufficient to achieve national purposes," according to a status report Tuesday from members of the FCC's broadband task force. The government has allocated $7.2 billion in stimulus grants and loans for broadband, while the FCC is considering expanding the Universal Service Fund (which telecom...

SNIPPET: "When including about $10.5 billion in matching funds committed by the applicants, the total price tag for the proposed broadband projects topped $38 billion. The Recovery Act provided a total of $7.2 billion to the two agencies to expand broadband services, of which NTIA will use $4.7 billion, largely to deploy broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas, and RUS will invest $2.5 billion to facilitate broadband deployment in primarily rural communities. Approximately $2.4 billion from RUS and up to $1.6 billion from NTIA is available in this first grant round."

The federal government is spending $7.2 billion over the next year to bring better broadband to the masses, a lofty goal by any measure. But the feds are making it loftier than it needs ...

One gets the feeling that if Dallas Mavericks owner and HDNet CEO Mark Cuban wasn't absolutely terrified of broadband video, he wouldn't be constantly ranting about how broadband video is going to fail. Cuban's spent the last five years urging ISPs to block P2P, supporting the cable industry's vision of net neutrality (as in: none), insisting the Internet is dead, lamenting broadband video's shortcomings and generally pouting a lot. Apparently, Cuban believes that if he scares his readership enough, the inevitable advertising revenue losses cable TV will someday feel from online video won't actually happen. This week on the Mark...

StimulatingBroadband.com 07/09/09 A federal agency program first announced online on Monday, July 6, to recruit volunteer reviewers to make approval and denial decisions on the first round of approximately $ 1.6 billion in Recovery Act broadband stimulus competitive grant applications has set-off a firestorm of protest. The program is being launched by the National Information and Telecommunications Administration (NTIA), of the US Department of Commerce. A description of the volunteer reviewer solicitation program was posted at: Call for Reviewers Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, part of the joint federal agency site BroadbandUSA.gov. NTIA states its its Call that the agency "...is...