Recent Headlines
October 2, 2009
Be Sure to Read Part One: Astroturf Overload — Broadband for America = One Giant Industry Front Group for an important introduction to what this super-sized industry front group is all about. Members of Broadband for America Red: A company or group actively engaging in anti-consumer lobbying, opposes Net Neutrality, supports Internet Overcharging, belongs to […]
October 2, 2009
Astroturf: One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is “Astroturf lobbying” – creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s to […]
September 27, 2009
Hong Kong remains bullish on broadband. Despite the economic downturn, City Telecom continues to invest millions in constructing one of Hong Kong’s largest fiber optic broadband networks, providing fiber to the home connections to residents. City Telecom’s HK Broadband service relies on an all-fiber optic network, and has been dubbed “the Verizon FiOS of Hong […]
September 23, 2009
BendBroadband, a small provider serving central Oregon, breathlessly announced the imminent launch of new higher speed broadband service for its customers after completing an upgrade to DOCSIS 3. Along with the launch announcement came a new logo of a sprinting dog the company attaches its new tagline to: “We’re the local dog. We better be […]
September 23, 2009
Stop the Cap! reader Rick has been educating me about some of the new-found aggression by Shaw Communications, one of western Canada’s largest telecommunications companies, in expanding its business reach across Canada. Woe to those who get in the way. Novus Entertainment is already familiar with this story. As Stop the Cap! reported previously, Shaw […]
September 22, 2009
The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, may be forced to consider American broadband policy before defining Net Neutrality and its role in Canadian broadband, according to an article published today in The Globe & Mail. [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s] proposal – to codify and enforce some […]
September 21, 2009
In March 2000, two cable magnates sat down for the cable industry equivalent of My Dinner With Andre. Fine wine, beautiful table linens, an exquisite meal, and a Monopoly board with pieces swapped back and forth representing hundreds of thousands of Canadian consumers. Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw drew a line on the western Ontario […]
September 11, 2009
Just like FairPoint Communications, the Towering Inferno of phone companies haunting New England, Frontier Communications is making a whole lot of promises to state regulators and consumers, if they’ll only support the deal to transfer ownership of phone service from Verizon to them. This time, Frontier is issuing a self-serving press release touting their investment […]
September 7, 2009
I see it took all of five minutes for George Ou and his friends at Digital Society to be swayed by the tunnel vision myopia of last week’s latest effort to justify Internet Overcharging schemes. Until recently, I’ve always rationalized my distain for smaller usage caps by ignoring the fact that I’m being subsidized by […]
September 1, 2009
In 2007, we took our first major trip away from western New York in 20 years and spent two weeks an hour away from Calgary, Alberta. After two weeks in Kananaskis Country, Banff, Calgary, and other spots all over southern Alberta, we came away with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Good Alberta […]
August 31, 2009
A federal appeals court in Washington has struck down, for a second time, a rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission to limit the size of the nation’s largest cable operators to 30% of the nation’s pay television marketplace, calling the rule “arbitrary and capricious.” The 30% rule, designed to keep no single company from controlling […]
August 27, 2009
Less than half of Americans surveyed by PC Magazine report they are very satisfied with the broadband speed delivered by their Internet service provider. PC Magazine released a comprehensive study this month on speed, provider satisfaction, and consumer opinions about the state of broadband in their community. The publisher sampled more than 17,000 participants, checking […]
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Monroe County should look into this. If Time Warner, Frontier, or even Verizon can’t provide fast, cap free fiber optic then our government should step in. I have no doubt large corporations would try and stop it.
I’m also in favor of heavy government regulation of cable and internet providers. It is obvious they are only interested in very high profits for their shareholders.
Seems like a better use of money than the Ren Square theater.
A few years ago Bill Moyers had a feature about how Philadelphia was developing a municipal internet service. It worried the industry enough to strongarm the Pennsylvania politicians into writing legislation that would ban such a thing anywhere it wasn’t already in place. I don’t recall whether it actually became law in PA or not , but if we don’t keep up the pressure too many politicians will be only too willing to be bought.
While watching the video, I was struck by how similar Wilson is to the Rochester, NY area. We also have historic buildings, valuable waterways (including a river, waterfalls, and a large bay connected to a lake big enough to drown Connecticut), several big high-tech companies, and strong links to other nearby major cities. Wilson doesn’t, however, have over a million residents and several colleges and universities within its metro area. Given Rochester’s density and relatively tech-savvy population, why are we stuck with such crappy internet service? If Wilson can do it, why can’t we? I say we tell the city… Read more »
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=14934
My region in California has a local ISP called sonic.net, Sonic rolled out city wide free high speed wi-fi. It was great, the city people were so happy with the service. People had the power of the internet.
AT&T and Comcast threaten to shut down its network to the city’s large business if Sonic.net did not shut down its free wi-fi, needless to say the free city wide wi-fi was removed.
Sad to see small ISP’s shut out by the large ones.
This was a very good video. Kudos to Wilson, NC. I am interested in moving from Greensboro and am glad this popped up on my radar screen. Thanks for sharing.
I am looking forward to following this story.
I would like to know how they got started on this plan; If they can do it what would a city like ours have to do to get something like that started. . . I would love to start something like that and i am 100% serious, I am going to email them and ask.
If I had to guess… the leaders came up with the brilliant idea that if they provided better representation to their constituents, and if the town made some smart investments in technology, businesses would begin flocking to their town, and these leaders, along with the people that make up the town, would benefit and prosper. How rare and awesome an idea!!!
Craig… I wouldn’t hold my breath on this sort of thing being replicated elsewhere. Unless people in your town are already pushing for this sort of thing… you’re gonna be waiting a long while.
wow. This city is awesome. I wish all other cities follow what Wilson did.
There were argument about whether internet is an utility or not, and in the case of Wilson, they make it a public utility. Can someone tell me if they are based on usage (aka cap) like other utilities? I’m 99% sure it’s uncapped though.
And since this is a city owned company, can they give out the detail of cost/revenue details? This will show a more concrete proof of how much profit margin the rest of the cables company have been getting from Americans.
The little town that roared perhaps because they use their public money for projects for their people and are not saddled with TW owning them. A question that needs to be asked is why they need to charge $1.00. Is rent on the big pipes going up or is it just a nice round number to work with. Good luck finding that out. Around here we waste 100’s of million of dollars on things that people neither asked for and do not want or support, they never have except the few the proud the local politicians and most will not… Read more »