Scientific American: US Broadband is Awful

Holy Heisenberg! Scientific American, the magazine better known for writing about dark holes and gene splicing, has editorialized earlier this month on the state of US broadband. While SA has in recent years taken on more topical subject matter, there opinionating on broadband was a bit of a surprise to this long-time reader.

Referring to a study from Harvard’s Berkman Center—I believe it’s the “Next-Generation Connectivity” report, which we’ve written about—and no doubt informed by pretty impressive advisers (over 140 Nobel laureates have written for SA), the editors point out the sorry state of US broadband.Continue reading

Mapping Fun with FCC Data

I wanted to get this post out before we close up shop for a small business-related trip. We’re taking off to study social networking issues in a beloved southern European country noted for its incredible contributions to art, culture,  food, and civilization as we know it. We’ll be back on October 10.

To the matter at hand … mapping FCC competitive data. I had been looking for a better way to show and share this regulatory agency’s “477” records on ISP competition. I then discovered the potent Google Maps Data APIs, which let you send and receive geo data as a feed. With access to the feed and using Google mapping software, data can be viewed, analyzed, and even updated by large distributed groups.  It’s really an amazing tool.

So with a little bit of effort I loaded competitive ISP data for suburban NJ into a shared Google Map. I’ve conveniently embedded it into this post.Continue reading

FCC: 14 Million Americans Without Adequate Broadband

On Tuesday, the FCC released its sixth annual report, as required by law, on the state of US broadband. Their conclusion:”… broadband deployment to all Americans is not reasonable and timely.”  This differs from the five preceding reports.

The reason for this agency’s change of mind?  The FCC decided— justifiably— to set the benchmark for high-speed Internet access from a piddling 200 Kbps to a somewhat more meaningful 4 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads.Continue reading

Verizon's Good Deal: 1 Mbps for $20/month, forever

Carriers have always loved to meter. They are utilities after all.  Of course, then came the Internet,  dirt cheap bits,  and a generation of consumers brought up on free.  Wanting to charge on a piecemeal basis but fearful of consumer outrage on being nickel-and-dimed, the telecom industry has been adopting pricing tiers (see AT&T) as a compromise solution.

With tiers, the meter isn’t running. Instead, customers pay a fixed amount for a given level of service (speed, capacity, quality, etc.)   This has traditionally been the arrangement in business telecom—of course, in that world you’re protected by service level agreements that pay out for disruptions, excessive latency, and packet errors.

I was excited to learn about an interesting variation on the pricing tier model that was revealed in a  letter from Verizon.  In its latest  marketing campaign, Verizon promises to lock in a  stingy 1 Mbps broadband for its subscribers at $19.99 per month, forever: “...low price you can count on, month after month, year after year.”
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