Politics

The WSJ has a piece comparing the Bush and Kerry broadband plans (subscription required). It's a little like our broadband policy package (here), noting that both candidates are promising universal broadband access, without offering a lot of tangible details.

The WSJ article focuses on the question of how to pay for this, wondering aloud if maybe one or both of the candidates isn't really thinking about subsidies. What I think it misses is the fact that both candidates' plans do nothing to address the demand side, which is the real soft spot in getting to universality.

Bush is … Read more

The BBC is carrying a story about concerns that using power lines to carry broadband signals could interfere with an emerging digital radio standard called Digital Radio Mondiale.

Power line data transmission emits signals in the shortwave and AM radio bands, and ham radio operators in the U.S. are already up in arms over the potential loss of their technology. Digital radio services are also moving forward in the U.S., but haven't settled on the Mondiale standard. New evidence of interference ?? particularly if it prompts AM radio spectrum owners to lobby the Federal Communications Commission ?? could slow … Read more

Or not even then, since Hell, Mich. does get pretty cold in the winter. The Detroit News has a piece on the troubles that rural areas like Hell are having in getting broadband of any kind. ??We essentially don??t have Internet access,?? the paper quotes one frustrated resident, who calls long distance for a dial-up account, as saying. ??It??s for emergency use only.??

Policymakers have to make a choice. Do we leave places like Hell out? Or find a way to get them on the Net?

Wired News has a piece on municipalities getting into the broadband fiber optics business, focusing most heavily on the project in Truckee, Calif. It talks about some of the hurdles these projects are running into, as a result of opposition from local telecommunications companies and a recent Supreme Court ruling.

Early this year, the Court ruled that states can block local utility districts from getting into the telecom business. A few states already do this, and the big Bell and cable companies are lobbying others to go down this path. Wired notes that the legislature in Pennsylvania is considering a … Read more

Remember how exciting it was the first time you went online to check out that new car or shirt you were thinking about buying? Now you can do it with the surgery you??re scheduling next month too.

The Hartford Courant has a piece (registration required) on how patients are increasingly tapping into doctors?? broadband Webcasts in order to get a taste of what??s waiting for them on the operating table. Many are finding it doesn??t look as bad as they feared, and are going ahead with procedures they were leery of.

This is a good example of … Read more

American company WebSky says it will set up a WiMax network in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the last decade we've seen cell phone networks leapfrog wired phones in countries that never laid a lot of copper wires. It's a good bet that we might see the same thing with broadband, as countries that are behind in cable and DSL penetration jump straight into WiMax.

The Korea Herald reports that KT -- the country's biggest telecom company -- will help build a broadband infrastructure in Iran (thanks to Om Malik for the link). The $26 million deal will see 100,000 broadband lines rolled out in Iran's 20 biggest cities by 2005, the paper says.

Another sign that South Korea is getting props for being leagues ahead of most of the rest of the world in making broadband part of everyday life. We wrote about the country's lessons for the U.S. here, and News.com editor Michael Kannellos visited the country … Read more

Vint Cerf, one of the Net's original creators, stopped by the Intel Developer Forum today to chat about future infrastructure headaches. One serious problem will be "flash crowds," he says ?? essentially localized traffic jams resulting from intense and sudden (and often unpredictable interest) in a particular node on the Net.

Companies like Akamai have been helping deal with these traffic jams for a while, and peer to peer software helps distribute content in efficient ways that evade bottlenecks. But as more and more devices get connected ?? think everyone wearing a Dick Tracy Internet watch, carrying a 3G … Read more

NASA has video of the Genesis space probe crashing into the desert after a parachute failed to open. (Requires Apple Computer's QuickTime). The mission was supposed to bring back solar particles for study. Here's hoping that something survived. At least nobody was hurt.