Tag: NATIONALBROADBANDPLAN

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration just unveiled the National Broadband Map, a $200 million tool under development for the past five years that lets you explore, compare and analyze broadband availability and connection speeds across the country. The minimalist homepage offers a Google-esque search for targeting a state, ZIP code and street, as well as a map tool for ...

The final details surrounding the Obama administration's auction of wireless spectrum, potentially doubling that available for broadband, were announced by the president at a speech in Michigan on Thursday. The plan could net up to $27.8 billion dollars over the next ten years, with roughly a third of it going to reduce the budget deficit. It's the rest of the plan, though, where the really ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... MySpace continues to roll out site alterations in preparation for its "full relaunch" this fall, and the latest upgrades include a streamlined home screen and a more pronounced user stream. But will all this be far too late? [From: Boston.com] Sony Ericsson may drop the essential mobile for gamers this fall -- in the body of an ...

Starting today, July 1st, broadband Internet is the legal right of all Finnish citizens. Last October, Finland passed a law that guaranteed all citizens access to Internet connections of at least 1Mbps. Today, that law went into effect, requiring the nation's service providers to cover the few remaining Net-deficient households. With an estimated 96-percent of the population covered (in a country ...

With hopes of keeping Internet service providers honest (and hopefully improving consumer broadband education), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is asking broadband customers to help test connection speeds. According to the AP, as part of a study, the FCC wants to install routers that measure broadband speeds in the homes of 10,000 volunteers across the country, part of the large-scale ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... It has only taken 12 years, but 'StarCraft II' seems finally set to arrive in the video game marketplace. Activision announced that the follow-up to perhaps the "quintessential realtime strategy (RTS) title of all time" will touch down July 27th. According to Daily Tech, another enormously popular title is now available, as MekTek ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... When considering schisms and rivalries, the fractured relationships between cats and dogs, Israelis and Palestinians, Yankees and Sox fans and PC and Mac owners seem irreparable. But, Justin Long of the 'Get a Mac' ads told the AV Club recently that the long-running campaign may soon come to a close, and that he is disheartened ...

The National Broadband Plan, Net neutrality and consumer advocates around the country took a major blow today when a federal appeals court ruled that the FCC had no authority to regulate how service providers manage network traffic. The ruling was handed down in favor of Comcast following a 2008 challenge leveled by the FCC against the cable provider for blocking and throttling P2P file-sharing ...

It's no longer news that the U.S. has slower and more expensive Internet connections than most of the world. Being the place where the Web was invented makes that quite sad, of course, but there are legitimate reasons why a country like South Korea (which has the fastest speeds on average) is beating us in the broadband race. For one, most countries have much more competition in the broadband ...

Facebook's population officially outnumbers that of the entire United States, and Twitter has obviously become firmly established within pop culture. That being the case, the creation of specifically marketed social networks capitalizing on the online networking boom should be completely expected. Some of the demographically geared services cater to white collar professionals and others to nerdy ...

As part of its push for the adoption of its National Broadband Plan, the FCC has continually argued that Internet access, in today's economy, has become a necessity for anyone seeking to climb the rungs of society. Now, a newly published study shows just how important it is for the poorest American populations, in particular. The report, based on the first large scale study of public library ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... Since 2008, Facebook has been embroiled in a legal dispute over its Beacon advertising program, and a judge has finally put an official end to the case. A District Court judge in San Jose, California has approved a class action settlement that will force Facebook to pay $9.5 million. [From: The Washington Post] Two senators have ...

We knew that, under the Obama administration, the FCC would be undertaking a massive overhaul of our nation's broadband policies and systems. We're in desperate need of it, too. Recent studies have shown that most of Europe and Asia have drastically faster connections than the U.S. Even Latvia averages more than twice the download speed of the typical American "broadband" connection. To make ...

The FCC won't unveil its long-awaited National Broadband Plan until next week, but it has already hinted at what would be one of its most intriguing items: free wireless access. As Reuters reports, the Commission was pretty mum on details, but did say in a statement that offering a "free or a very low cost wireless broadband service" to specific swaths of the population may significantly boost ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... The FCC is expected to present its national broadband plan to Congress this month, and the program will reportedly cost $25 billion. The FCC is hoping to help finance the proposition by auctioning frequencies, or "underutilized spectrums," to various wireless broadband services. [From: Yahoo! News] Twitter users tweeted more than ...