The humble RFID tag could be the homing device leading us to a new, much greener economy, argues a major new report released from the nonprofit Carbon War Room and AT&T, a company conveniently highly invested in the so-called "Internet of Things." The report forecasts the current world of 108 million wireless connected devices and sensors growing by 23% a year over the next seven years to hit $948 billion annually by 2020.
[Commentary] There are many reasons to think the Internet’s future will be brighter than Susan Crawford fears, and that her preferred, government-run future wouldn’t turn out so well. Here are just ten:
Recent decisions from city councils in Murray and Tremonton (Utah) denying more funds for the UTOPIA fiber-optic network is leading some to question the willingness of member cities to bankroll the company's operations.
"The right decision was to reject their request for funding, because we have money that has to be spent in other places," Murray City Councilman Dave Nicponski said. "We've got road needs, public safety needs. We've got demands on parks and recreation, and the money has to go elsewhere. … I'm not going to throw good money after bad so far as UTOPIA goes."
By the end of July, officials say, the Massachusetts Broadband Initiative will have connected all unserved Berkshire County towns with high-speed Internet service.
This phase of the project is known as "middle mile" -- stringing the fiber-optic cable into towns. It is the infrastructure needed to allow independent service providers to connect homes and businesses to broadband in the "last mile" phase of the project. So far, 27 service providers have signed on to offer last mile connections. As a part of the $76 million middle mile effort, more than 1,200 police and fire stations, town halls, medical facilities, schools and libraries across the state will be connected. The project, known as MassBroadband123, will bring broadband within reach of 333,500 homes and 44,000 businesses covering about one-third of the state and more than 1 million residents. The funding came from a combination of federal and state funds, including more than $45 million in federal stimulus dollars. Judy Dumont, director of the Massachusetts Broadband Initiative, described the project as "essential infrastructure" that will allow for advances in communication, education, economic development and public safety that will allow residents, businesses and agencies to operate on a level playing field with the rest of the planet. "A lot of opportunities become available when you have that broadband capability," Dumont said.
Once complete, workers will have strung more than 1,200 miles of fiber-optic cable to more than 120 communities in Central and Western Massachusetts. This month, the first towns to receive broadband are Alford, Egremont, parts of Great Barrington, Monterey, Mount Washington, New Marlboro, Otis, Sandisfield and Sheffield. The May rollout will include Adams, Cheshire, Dalton, parts of Hinsdale, parts of North Adams, parts of Pittsfield, Savoy and Windsor.
The potential benefits of a much-maligned broadband-expansion project funded largely with taxpayer dollars, as well as its shortfalls, are on display in the ski-resort town of Steamboat Springs (CO).
For years, CenturyLink has charged the city's school district $100 for each megabit per second of Internet connectivity, at least 10 times the price that Denver-area schools pay. Enter EAGLE-Net, the quasi-governmental entity that secured $100.6 million in federal stimulus funding 2½ years ago to expand broadband coverage across Colorado, promising to connect every school district to its high-speed network. The mere threat of an additional fiber-optic backbone reaching the mountain community helped the city negotiate lower fees with CenturyLink, said Tim Miles, technology director for the Steamboat Springs School District.
"Because of EAGLE-Net coming into town, bringing the competition, CenturyLink has come down on price," Miles said. Problem is, EAGLE-Net isn't there yet. It is months behind schedule and facing mounting criticism about its spending and network build-out.
The Chinese government will soon require all new homes constructed where public fiber-optic telecom networks are available to be equipped for access to those networks.
Residents will be required to have equal access to services from available telecom companies. The new policy from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will go into effect April 1, 2013. The Chinese government wants to connect 40 million families to fiber networks by 2015 — according to the Economic Information Daily Journal, as cited by China Daily — and fiber connections grew by 10 million families in 2012. The cost of deploying fiber networks is driven in large part by the “last mile” phase — the process of actually connecting homes and businesses to the fiber network. China’s policy puts the onus on builders to deal with the last mile.
The man behind the petition to re-legalize unlocking of cellphones now has a broader target: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act itself.
Workshop on Gigabit Network Deployments
Federal Communications Commission
March 27, 2013
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2013/db0304/DA-1...
On January 18, 2013, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski issued the Gigabit City Challenge, challenging broadband Internet providers and local and state governments to bring at least one gigabit-speed Internet community to all 50 states by 2015. Communities and providers across the nation are deploying gigabit broadband networks and leveraging these new capabilities to drive innovation, grow their economy, and benefit schools, health care systems, and anchor institutions.
To help communities achieve this goal, Chairman Genachowski announced that the Commission would host workshops designed to analyze successful gigabit network deployments, and to provide information on how industry, local, and state leaders can meet the goals of the Gigabit City Challenge.
On March 27, 2013, the Wireline Competition Bureau will host the first of these workshops. The goal of this workshop is to explore how current gigabit communities deployed their networks, the economic and social benefits that accrue to gigabit communities, ways communities can aggregate demand in order to make a gigabit network deployment more economically appealing, and how communities can leverage their assets to incent an ultra-fast network. The workshop will be free and open to the public.
Thank you for sharing your views on cell phone unlocking with us through your petition on our We the People platform. Last week the White House brought together experts from across government who work on telecommunications, technology, and copyright policy, and we're pleased to offer our response.
The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties. In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren't bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It's common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers' needs. The Obama Administration would support a range of approaches to addressing this issue, including narrow legislative fixes in the telecommunications space that make it clear: neither criminal law nor technological locks should prevent consumers from switching carriers when they are no longer bound by a service agreement or other obligation. We also believe the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with its responsibility for promoting mobile competition and innovation, has an important role to play here. FCC Chairman Genachowski today voiced his concern about mobile phone unlocking, and to complement his efforts, NTIA will be formally engaging with the FCC as it addresses this urgent issue. Finally, we would encourage mobile providers to consider what steps they as businesses can take to ensure that their customers can fully reap the benefits and features they expect when purchasing their devices.
Some larger metros are starting to flirt with the idea of municipal broadband with public-private partnerships.
"Seattle and Chicago are looking around and basically saying, 'If we’re the last ones to get really high-quality access to the Internet, then we’re really going to be screwed,'" says Christopher Mitchell, who directs the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. So why aren’t big cities like Seattle, Chicago or Philadelphia already in this game when 340 smaller communities are? "I feel like big cities have this arrogance," Mitchell says. "They thought, 'We’re so great, we are so cosmopolitan.' They never thought they’d have to worry about competing with Chattanooga over jobs." For the most part, cities have been better served by telecom giants than many smaller communities (although there are plenty of urban pockets with poor Internet service). Big cities haven’t been forced to build their own networks in the way some rural mountain towns have. But Mitchell also chocks up the difference to what he calls “a matter of sociology:” namely, that there’s a lot less trust in government and connection to elected officials in large cities, a necessary ingredient when you’re talking about building an entirely new public utility. In Tennessee, on the other hand, most households have been familiar with the notion of government-run utilities since the construction of the TVA.
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