Who will replace FCC Chair Julius Genachowski? TIME ignores theNot sure but per the Raddatz Corollary, the person selected by President Obama to take over at the Federal Communications Commission will likely have a spouse or ex-spouse who -coincidentally- is a network TV anchor, correspondent or executive that is much better-known than themselves. But TIME story ignores that angle of the story...
Raddatz Corollary; Pretending to fix the digital-divide, via federal grant program to extend high-speed Internet, is a great money-making opportunity for some to feed off taxpayers; Broadband Technology Opportunities Program
TIME
As FCC Chief’s Term Nears End, Speculation Grows Over Possible Successor
By Sam Gustin
February 21, 2013
http://business.time.com/2013/02/21/as-fcc-chiefs-term-nears-end-speculation-mounts-over-possible-successor/
One on One: Susan P. Crawford, Author of ‘Captive Audience’
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/one-on-one-susan-p-crawford-author-of-captive-audience/
The question of Internet connection speed and customer service is a matter of more than academic interest to me, in that I live very close to the oldest commercial road in South Florida, U.S.-1, a road that is quite literally chock full of wires and cable for everything technology under the sun.
I could hardly be more centrally-located and yet...
Though I'm supposed to get a certain level of service from AT&T for my U-Verse Internet connection, I've never received anything close to it, and neither do people I know in the neighborhood who chose COMCAST.
Meanwhile, the new hotel I stayed at in downtown Stockholm last month, a nice bargain hotel but not a four-star hotel with pricey bells and whistles, had a speed of between 13 and 21 when I was online with my laptop watching videos of the ABC News Nightline episodes I was unable to watch.
The sped was so fast that it was like getting a direct feed from Sveriges Television (SVT) -no interruption, no flutter, just a super-sharp, clean transmission.
I was almost dizzy with the quality of the service!
I'm more than willing to pay a reasonable price for consistently "great" Internet service.
Right after I finally get a couple of months of the "good" service I was promised many years ago.
Meanwhile, to their credit, the New York Times, in the person of reporter Edward Wyatt, did a great job two weeks ago uncovering more damning information on one of the most un-reported news stories of the past several years -one that highlights the problems associated with too many well-intentioned people in authority over-reacting to legitimate concerns about the digital-divide and leaping before they look, leaving federal taxpayers on the hook and resulting in both waste and mis-allocated resources.
New York Times
Waste Is Seen in Program to Give Internet Access to Rural U.S.
A fiber optic installation in Flagler, Colo. Some rural towns have no broadband, and some are getting more than they want.
By Edward Wyatt
Published: February 11, 2013
AGATE, Colo. — The bank is gone from this once-thriving ranching and farming community on Colorado’s windblown eastern plain, as are the dairies, the hotel and the Union Pacific depot. The post office remains, at the corner of Main Street and First Avenue, the intersection of the town’s two paved streets.
There is not much that is modern in Agate, except at the 11-student elementary school, which has three high-speed fiber optic Internet connections — more than nearly every school in Denver, 70 miles to the west, and, for that matter, just about any school in the country. And it is something, the school says, that it doesn’t need.
Read the rest of the article at:
