This may offer a bit of comfort to some with slower broadband connections. For US internet users, your tax dollars have now proven that the speed of broadband is 50% slower than what it’s claimed to be.

For those that would say, "Did we need to spend a bunch of tax money to figure something out everybody already knew?" In fact, yes. The problem needed to be identified in absolute fashion so plans can be made to actually do something about it. Saying something is slow and proving it as such are two different things. And now it’s proven.

A few other things have been proven as well.

First, what ISPs claim to be "fast" really doesn’t sound believable anymore due to the fact more and more US customers are saying, "I paid for ‘fast’ internet and I’m not getting it." When you download web pages, files and so on at the same speed you did with your "slow" broadband, you feel cheated. And you are being cheated. Fast should be legitimately fast, and it isn’t.

Second, internet today is no longer a luxury. For many it’s increasingly becoming a necessity. While it’s true you can go through daily life without it, it is becoming more difficult to do so and in the long run can cost you.

A simple example of this is paying bills online instead of mailing them out. The current cost of a US stamp is 44¢, and this doesn’t include the cost of envelopes. If you mail out 10 letters a month, that costs you $4.40 each time. Sending out bill payments online is completely free, and for payments that you cannot pay electronically, the bank will cover the cost of the postage and mail it for you.

This is just a single example as there are obviously many more.

The US is grossly behind the times when it comes to our broadband speed. The last time I wrote about this, the US ranked 15th in the world, with an extremely poor last-mile average download rate of 2.3mbps.

Thank the FCC for at least identifying our slow broadband as a legitimate problem. Plans to improve the network in the US will start soon in 2010. This is very late to the party concerning other countries are beating the pants off us right now in the broadband dept., but at least the problem has been identified and steps will be taken to resolve it, hopefully in short order.

Does your ISP make "fast" claims that they can’t deliver?

You pay good money for speed concerning your internet connectivity. Are you getting it? Post a comment and let people know.

As everyone (and I mean everyone) has been hearing for about, oh, a year’s time is that analog television will cease transmissions on February 19, 2009 and switch to digital – so if you receive TV via rabbit ears (pictured) you’ll have to throw those out and buy a new set that can receive digital.

But now the soon-to-be CINC is suggesting that this date should be pushed back until summer. The FCC chair disagrees and says the Feb 19 date should go forth as planned to avoid confusing the crap out of people. And to be honest I agree.

Why is the date at this point being suggested to be pushed back?

One reason, money.

The deal is that there was supposed to be some funding provided by the US government in the form of coupons to help people buy new digital antennas (which some of you out there may have received – but many didn’t), and the consensus from the powers the be is that money could be better spent elsewhere at the present time.

Furthermore the plan to bring everyone over to digital has been anything but smooth. Said honestly, it’s all botched up. You can stamp a big ol’ FAIL on the US gov for this one.

Personally I feel the plan should go forward regardless. There isn’t a single person I know who isn’t aware of the switchover date. And in every major department and electronics store there are signs both big and small explaining to people that yes, if you receive via antenna you have to get digital. These signs have been up for over six months.

Concerning the coupons, yeah they’re a nice idea and all that, but digital antennas are as cheap as 15 bucks!

What will the decision be come February? Nobody knows yet. But hopefully we’ll either get a solid YES or NO concerning the switchover to avoid further confusing everybody.

Almost everyone has a wireless phone. And sure enough you’ve probably seen that “Universal Service Fund” (or something similar to that) on your bill. You’ve probably thought to yourself What IS that charge for?

The USF was created in 1997 by the FCC in order to meet the goals of Universal Service as outlined in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. You can read more about USF here. Is it easy to understand? Not really. It’s supposed to protect the public interest (more on that in a moment.)

A subsidy program concerning rural wireless phone coverage was capped in a 3-2 vote recently. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean you’ll lose any existing service if you’re in a rural region. What it does mean is that the cap was put in place so that funds can be examined to make sure they’re being spent correctly.

Congress is going to re-work the USF into something a bit more modern-day because in all honesty it’s seriously dated.

USF is supposed to be used so that everyone everywhere can have wireless telecommunications available to them in the US. This is currently not the case. Granted, a whopping 80% of the US subscribes to some type of wireless phone service, but 20% is still a huge chunk left out. That 20% literally can’t subscribe because the coverage is nonexistent wherever they are.

Hopefully with the re-worked USF will direct cash where it’s needed, get the towers in place and the network expanded like it’s supposed to be.

There are times when the FCC has to step in and smack around the wireless carriers every so often to make sure they’re spending money correctly. This is one of those times.

You can expect better coverage in “dead” areas in the next few years once the USF is re-done and the cap lifted. This should not take long to complete.

[Source: c|net Tech News Blog]