Merry Christmas!

Here’s some holiday music to spread some cheer!

 

 

Christmas Classics from mykim on 8tracks Radio.

It’s A Wonderful Christmas! from Kashiyar on 8tracks Radio.

A Classic Christmas from Justinsideyourmind on 8tracks Radio.

Tags: A Classic Christmas, Christmas Classics, holiday music, Merry Christmas, Wonderful Christmas

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Ontonagon County Telephone Company Hosts State Representative Matt Huuki

Economic Development, Increased UP Investment, Rural Broadband Access Discussed

Ontonagon, MICH – The Ontonagon County Telephone Company hosted State Representative Matt Huuki (R-Atlantic Mine) in July for a tour of their facility, a chance to meet with employees and discuss ongoing efforts to increase access to fiber optics and broadband service in rural U.P. communities.

“Providing the latest in technology to rural customers – particularly when it comes to broadband internet access –must be a central part of Michigan’s economic development plans,” said Ontonagon County Telephone Company General Manager Craig Immonen. “We were very pleased to be able to show State Representative Matt Huuki how our fiber network continues to contribute to the economic development of the region and helps to create and retain jobs.”

Despite Michigan’s difficult economic conditions, Ontonagon County Telephone Company is still making significant annual investments in technology upgrades to provide its customers with the latest in technology and high-speed internet access.

In addition, Ontonagon County Telephone Company discussed with Rep. Huuki their on-going efforts with parent company Hiawatha Communications, Inc. (Munising, MI) to develop the Peninsula Fiber Network. Headquartered in Marquette, PFN now provides in excess of 1200 route miles of fiber in the Upper Peninsula. The PFN is currently working to connect all Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP’s) in the U.P., working with wireless carriers to connect cell towers with fiber optics, and connecting U.P. health care providers.

“I want to thank Craig Immonen and all the employees at Ontonagon County Telephone Company for their hospitality – and for all they are doing to improve quality of life for U.P. communities,” said Rep. Matt Huuki. “Ontonagon County Telephone, Hiawatha Communications and PFN are wonderful examples of businesses in the U.P. that, despite adverse economic conditions, are taking pro-active steps to remain competitive. They are investing in better, faster service for their customers, significantly expanding broadband access and providing leadership in bringing and integrating the latest in technology to U.P. communities.”

 

Tags: Matt Huuki, Ontonagon County Telephone Company, Ontonagon County Telephone Company Hosts State Representative Matt Huuki, State Representative Matt Huuki

Streaming the Olympics: A Game-changer for Online Video

Did you use the 2012 Summer Olympics apps that were embedded on the jamadots.com community website for following and viewing the games? Although initial reports and blogs were reporting that content and streaming video was either hard to access or too sluggish to watch, those reports quickly diminished. We tried the live streaming service here in the office and were pleased with the quality we experienced over our jamadots high-speed internet connection; no hitching, lag, freezing…overall, we loved it.

2 billion pageviews and 159 million video streams

The numbers are in: The 2012 Olympic Games were not only the most watched television event in U.S. history, with 219.4 million total viewers and an average of 31 million viewers each day; they also set records for online viewing, recording nearly 2 billion pageviews and 159 million video streams of events during the Games.

If reports from independent research firms such as Pew Research hold weight, it’s possible that eight out of ten Americans (about 78 percent) “watched or followed Olympic coverage either on television, online or on social networks.”

The numbers are impressive, and the Olympics may have had a game-changing effect on the online video space.

What did Olympics streaming do for online video?

Live streaming of the Olympics by NBC Sports led to a temporary shift in what the majority of Americans were watching online.

Online viewers of both live and recorded Olympic events not only shattered previous event viewing records but even set Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) back on its heels, for at least one day. According to DSL Reports, Netflix viewing on Sunday, July 29 was down 25 percent.

However, that first Sunday’s big drop didn’t continue into the week, according to network policy enforcement and analytics provider Procera.

“(W)e are finding that there are regional as well as size variances with the peak Netflix consumption,” noted Procera Vice President of Global Marketing Cam Cullen. “An East Coast site showed a significant drop in Netflix peak rates (the totals show are the peak rates for each day). However, a West Coast site showed very little variance in Netflix during the entire Olympics run. The interesting fact about both sites is that the total video consumed across all sites does not increase at all, with all types of video (Netflix, YouTube, HTTP Media Streaming) remaining proportional across all sites.”

East coast vs. West coast peak rates, July 22-Aug. 9. (Images courtesy of Procera)

Procera measured usage on specific networks participating in its measurement survey.

For a content provider that takes up well over 30 percent of all U.S. bandwidth, the drop is notable–but it’s unlikely that another online video event will challenge Netflix’s dominance of the pipes this year or next so dramatically.

How did the numbers stack up?

Some 153.4 million videos and 20.4 million hours of video were streamed across computers and smartphones, doubling the amount of streaming video during the Beijing Olympics. More than 64 million of those videos were live streams, a 353 percent increase over 2008.

By Sunday, Aug. 12, during the closing ceremonies, 9.9 million mobile devices had been verified by NBC–perhaps the most device verifications for a single TV Everywhere event so far, NBC speculated in its official release.

NBC offered free access to some Olympics clips, but authenticated cable subscribers could view the entire event live through either their PC or their smartphone.

Charts provided by NBC Sports.

How people used online video

Procera noted on July 31 that over the first two days of the Olympics, including the opening ceremony, online network traffic peaked as high as 34 percent of several providers’ overall bandwidth, while volume soared over 100 percent. However, the number of subscribers jumping onto streaming events didn’t increase as dramatically.

“The percentage of subscribers consuming the Olympics streaming from NBC seems to be holding steady at ~2%,” Procera’s Cullen blogged on Aug. 2. “On several cable networks, Wednesday’s peak levels for streaming were 50% higher than Tuesday or Thursday (with the key events on Wednesday being a Michael Phelps-Ryan Lochte matchup and the men’s gymnastics completion).”

In an earlier post summarizing the first weekend’s numbers, he wrote: “Since we did not see a huge rise in the percentage of subscribers participating in the streaming events, this translates into longer streaming sessions and more sessions for each subscriber.”

That early observation appeared to hold true throughout the Games. NBC’s final tally of online video viewing noted that users averaged 111.4 streaming minutes per viewer on the Web, and 94.3 streaming minutes per viewer over one of its two streaming apps: Live Extra or NBC Olympics. And PC users spent an average of 30 minutes per visit on NBCOlympics.com, well up from 2008, when 12.3 minutes was the norm.

Will the Games pay off financially for NBC?

Possibly. According to Bloomberg, NBC revised its projected $200 million loss, saying it now expects to break even. Either way, the network will end up ahead of where it was after the Beijing Games, where it recorded a $223 million loss.

NBC says it was the much-maligned tape delay broadcasts to U.S. audiences that brought up revenues, thanks to increased ratings. That’s hard to argue, with final ratings in.

NBC paid $1.18 billion for the rights to broadcast the Games in the United States. It shelled out an estimated $100 million in production costs as well, bringing its costs to $1.3 billion. With approximately $1 billion in ads booked by the start of the Games, AdWeek speculated on Aug. 13 that the broadcaster would even see a small profit.

Technology and tectonic shifts

Beyond the raw numbers lay some interesting tidbits about how NBC was able to deliver its online video without melting down the Internet, as some critics predicted would happen. While some viewers complained of slow connections and lag, many had no complaints about the quality of the video being streamed to their PCs or devices.

YouTube’s partnership with NBC to deliver live and recorded video streams may have been a coup for the Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)-owned service. It also partnered with the International Olympic Committee to stream events to 64 additional countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Both presented a huge technical challenge for YouTube, which clearly can parlay that experience into future large-scale live streaming ventures.

IPv4 access vs. IPv6 access (the red sliver at top) to NBCOlympics.com via ISPs monitored by Procera.(Image source: Procera)

Also of interest was Cisco’s (Nasdaq: CSCO) efforts during the Games. The manufacturer, whose Videoscape platform was in use by NBC to deliver live and on-demand programming from the event, supplied Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPads to key NBC customers who were attending the Games in London, as a way to showcase Videoscape’s multiscreen capabilities. The hope, clearly, was that customers–some of whom may have been executives from major cable operators–would get a firsthand look at Videoscape’s capabilities.

Online users also accessed the streaming Games via IPv6, Procera noted. “It is interesting to know that a small percentage of the streaming traffic (less than 1%) is IPv6, which is consistent with the levels we saw in the World IPv6 Day in June. The fact that the streaming is available via IPv6 is a big step forward, and the fact that at least some users are consuming video over IPv6 is also a big win.”

No matter how one looks at it, online video’s part in presenting the Olympics changed from being an accessory to primary television coverage, to an almost-essential part of the viewer’s preferred experience.

“This was the beginning of a tectonic shift in TV viewing,” wrote Jim Barthold in a FierceIPTV commentary. “Everybody has talked about TV Everywhere but it’s been limited to what TV content owners wanted to show everywhere and what platforms were available. The Olympics were, literally, TV Everywhere. They showed that if you sufficiently hype an event and throw it on every available media the public will come and watch.”

Will NBC and other content providers take the baton and continue the forward momentum that 17 days of Olympics coverage brought to the online video world? That remains to be seen, but we shouldn’t have to wait too long to find out.

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Tags: netflix, Olympics, the Olympics

The 15 Most Disliked Companies in America

We find it amazing that people continue to choose providers with poor ratings, like those found in the latest cycle of ratings from the  American Customer Satisfaction Index. While we can understand that price is an important factor to consider, we also believe that quality and reliability of service play major parts; as well as do local employees with a vested interest in your experience and satisfaction. When local options exist for products and services, we believe it best to choose the company that receives outstanding ratings from their customers. (For example: A whopping 91% of our customers are satisfied with the service they receive from us!)

The most disliked companies in America once again include airlines, utilities and banks, according to the latest cycle of ratings from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Service industries typically score worse than manufacturing because of limited competition and the difficulty of interacting with customers.

“Where companies have little or no competition or where customers encounter barriers to switching among competitors in terms of cost and/or convenience, companies may not need to satisfy their customers to the same degree in order to keep them,” ACSI’s David VanAmburg says.

This opens an opportunity for some companies like JetBlue, however, that can excel in unpopular industries.

ACSI’s customer satisfaction rating has been shown to be strongly related to financial performance.

The biggest gainers this year include Pepco rebounding 28% after a significant infrastructure overhaul; and Delta rising 16% after working the kinks out of the Northwest merger. The biggest losers include Northeast Utilities and Long Island Power Authority which plunged after power outages during massive storms.

#1 Long Island Power Authority

Rated 58/100. Seven point decline from last year.

The Long Island Power Authority is currently ranked the lowest in the energy utilities sector. The score plunged 11 percent in April alone.

Common complaints include rate hikes and overbilling mistakes linked to listing homes as commercial instead of residential. Hurricane Irene also led to widespread outages last August.

In January, a bill was passed requiring the utility to “undergo comprehensive and regular management and operations audits” and creating a new way for customers to file complaints.

#2 Northeast Utilities

Rated 59/100. 16-point decline from last year.

The company’s reputation was severely damaged after two major storms at the end of 2011 caused massive power outages.

A destructive snow storm last October left hundreds of thousands of homeowners and businesses sitting in the dark without heat for up to two weeks. The extensive outages ultimately led to the resignation of the president of Northeast’s subsidiary Connecticut Light & Power in November 2011.

New England’s largest utility company is also at the center of a dispute with federal regulators over complaints by several states that it, along with other utilities, “are making excess profit,” the AP reported.

#3 Charter Communications

Rated 59/100. The worst TV company.

Poor customer service and unfair billing practices are common complaints about the fourth-largest cable company in the country.

One customer explained, “The sales rep originally promised us a $42.95 a month for services, with an introductory price of $24.95 for the first 3 months (a savings of $18 a month). After the introductory period ended, the company started charging me $56.95, when I finally caught on that they were charging me $14 more per month than what is said on the Work Order (could provide at anytime for proof), he never once mentioned that there will be a $10 more per month, and now the company says if you have no other cable service with us (Charter Communications), you are to be charged $10 more per month!!”

#4 Comcast (Television service)

Rated 61/100. The second-worst TV service.

Ever-unpopular media conglomerate Comcast has been blasted for early withdrawals, faulty equipment and unprofessional service technicians. One customer complained that a repairman lied about arriving 15 minutes late, another said a Comcast employee left equipment, including plastic wires and clips, all over his front lawn.

ASCI lists Comcast as a cable company (61/100) and a telephone company (67/100).

#5 United Airlines

Rated 62/100. The worst big airline.

It’s no surprise that United Airlines has been dubbed the “the worst airline in America.” In March, the carrier generated an unusually high amount of aggravation after a computer switchover following the airline’s merger with Continental caused widespread flight delays.

Poor customer service, flight cancellations and lost baggage are other common gripes. One customer wrote, “It’s unbelievable! I was charged twice, and I had to wait over an hour on the phone to talk about the overcharge on my credit card. This company has a serious problem. I will never fly United Airlines again!”

#6 Time Warner

Rated 63/100. A four-point improvement from last year.

Although the cable provider improved marginally since 2011, slow internet speeds, cable outages, disastrous customer service and high rates continue to cause frustration among users.

One customer vented, “TWC has destroyed my business and doesn’t give a damn: I first complained five weeks ago about outages and miserable upload speeds. I need to send large files to clients. I’ve had two technicians visit, who both found it was in the neighborhood. Today, I found the situation has not changed and am told there’s no further work order.”

Customers also complain about being stuck with Time Warner because there are no competing services in the area.

#7 Cox Communications (Television Service)

Rated 63/100. Four-point decline from last year.

According to ACSI, “higher rates and fees for many Cox customers are sapping customer satisfaction.”

One customer said the Atlanta-based company demanded money after changing the contract: “I setup 2yr service w/Cox —1st yr @ $29.99, 2nd @ $49.99. Now after 6mon they changed it to 1st 6mon @ $29.99, 2nd 6mon @ $49.99, and 1 year @ 79.99.”

#8 American Airlines

Rated 64/100. The second-worst big airline.

The legacy airline, whose parent company, AMR Corp. filed for bankruptcy in November 2011, has done a worse job of pleasing passengers than small, low-cost airlines such as Spirit or Frontier.

In a recent study, American ranked last among 10 major airlines at keeping customers informed, leaving them on hold for an average of 1 hour and 32 minutes and failing to respond to to questions on Twitter.

One traveler explains her frustration: “American Airlines canceled our flight one day before traveling to Mexico. We had to call and wait for over 30 minutes just to find out our refund will take one to two days. We needed our refund quick to make other arrangements to travel over Easter since they just screwed up our Easter travel. I will never use them again. No wonder they filed bankruptcy.”

#9 US Airways

65/100. Four point improvement from last year.

Regular complaints include inaccurate billing, failing to notify passengers of flight delays and terrible service. One customer says he saw a crew member on a Charlotte to Toronto flight bullying a disabled elderly woman for asking to get her belongings out of a carry-on bag.

In November 2011, the airline was at the center of a PR nightmare after forcing a passenger to stand for seven hours because of an overweight man seated next to him. In the same month, the company was attacked for initially denying a ticket refund to a terminally ill cancer patient.

Meanwhile, the Arizona-based carrier is pushing for a merger with American Airlines, which experts note could result in less flights for some cities and higher airfares.

#10 Delta

Rated 65/100. Nine-point improvement from last year.

Most of the complaints include customer representatives not responding in a professional manner.

Since acquiring Northwest airlines in 2008, Delta’s consumer satisfaction score decreased rapidly and was at its lowest last year. The airline seems to have worked out some of the kinks last year.

#11 CenturyLink

Rated 66/100. Four points worse than last year. The worst fixed line telephone company.

Most common complaints include billing issues and customer representatives not being knowledgeable or helpful enough.

On Complaints Board, one user recently called the company “the devil,” and said that “they lie about everything and do nothing. I have been having issues with my Internet for a year and they have yet to help,” whereas another customer wrote that they’ve “had issues with century link employees flat out lying to about the bill.”

#12 Facebook

Rated 66/100.

The social site’s common complaints include users’ privacy and child safety.

One user wrote: “I had to change everything. I have not ever done anything. Customer support is non-existent. These people think we can’t fight back. I’m talking to an attorney now. Facebook, you’re not God.”

When the company launched its Timeline feature, there was even greater concerns about its privacy settings. Zack Whittaker of Zdnet said that the new tool has made Facebook “stalking” even easier.

#13 Aetna

Rated 67/100. The worst health care provider.

The most common complaints include prescriptions co-pay being too high, withdrawing funds without authorization from clients and not being organized. One physician called the company “a big mystery” because (s)he can’t get anyone to call him(her) back.

The consumer wrote: “I can’t give up, because if I do, hundreds of my Aetna Patient’s will have to find a new physician.”

#14 DirectTV

Rated 68/100. Actually one of the higher scoring companies in an unpopular industry.

The most common complaints for DirectTV are related to billing issues. On the Consumer Affairs forum, thousands of customers complain about how the company changes contract details without notifying customers and therefore, hiking prices without authorization.

One customer wrote: “DirectTV raised the price for 30% after one year and said that they told me about this verbally, which is not true. My agreed price with Saha on the phone, a DirecTV employee, was $56.99 including two receivers and one HD/DVR receiver. DirecTV overcharged me on my first bill. When I complained, they said they forgot to give me my 30% discount. So over the next six months, they kept revising my bill but never got it right.”

#15 Bank of America

Rated 68/100. The worst big bank.

The bank was a major focus for the Occupy Wall Street movement and had to discontinue its $5 debit fee in November — only after adopting it for two months — following public outrage.
The bank is America’s largest mortgage servicer and most of its complaints come from the mortgage division.

One customer wrote: “I completed a loan modification one year ago. However, BOA has botched up their system and does not post my payments. They have no problem collecting the money and reporting late payments to the credit agencies. Attempts to correct this for the past year have been fruitless. No one at BOA bothers to return calls or correct the problem with their electronic systems.”

Rating provided by ACSI. Customer comments gathered from Consumer Affairs and other consumer forums.

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Tags: American Airlines, american customer satisfaction index, Comcast, Long Island Power Authority, United Airlines

Speedy Broadband Services Outpace the Internet

Over the past five years, Daniel Sofer has signed up for every boost in Internet speed offered by Verizon Communications Inc., his home service provider.

But when he got Verizon’s newest high-speed service, it was “the first time I’m not feeling that thrill of exhilaration when I connect,” said Sofer, a photographer and website designer in Hermosa Beach, Calif. The problem: The extra speed made no difference.

In the highly competitive cable market, broadband speed is a major selling point for Verizon and broadband rivals like Comcast Corp.’s Xfinity service. Carriers frequently boost the broadband speeds they offer in their relentless pursuit of new subscribers. But while the extra speed can pay off for households with multiple users, it can be overkill for many consumers.

FiOS Quantum, the ultra-swift broadband service that Verizon launched in June, offers Internet download speeds of up to 300 million bits per second for a price of up to $209.99 a month. The company says that’s fast enough to download a high-definition Hollywood movie in about two minutes. “That’s like driving a Porsche or a Ferrari,” said Roger Entner, an Internet analyst for Recon Analytics LLC in Dedham. “You know it can go really fast. But does it really make a difference in the real world? No.”

The problem is that most of the Internet isn’t transmitting data fast enough to take advantage of such rapid broadband speeds, Entner said. If a server computer transmits an Internet video at, say, 20 million bits per second, having a 300-million-bits-a-second connection won’t make any difference. “The website you are connecting to is the bottleneck,” he said.

The Federal Communications Commission, responding to reports that the United States lags behind other major countries in Internet speed, is also encouraging cable providers to introduce superfast broadband services, Entner said. “At least we can quote it in our studies . . . and say, ‘Hurrah, the US has the fastest Internet,’?” he said. “It’s actually a game of bragging rights.”

Verizon officials were unavailable for comment, although a spokesman said Quantum will be available to most of the 5 million people who use FiOS Internet service in Massachusetts, 13 other states, and the District of Columbia.

Catherine Avgiris, executive vice president and general manager of communication and data services at rival Internet provider Comcast, said her company’s premium online offerings are mainly intended for homes where multiple family members engage in heavy Internet use.

“The average household has a laptop, has a gaming system, they have a tablet,” said Avgiris. “The more devices there are in the home, the better performance you get by having greater speed.”

Avgiris wouldn’t say how many customers sign up for Comcast’s Xfinity fastest broadband service, which tops out at 105 million bits per second. But she did say that about a quarter of Comcast’s 18.6 million Internet subscribers choose speeds of 25, 50, or 105 megabits. Most subscribers choose speeds of three, six, or 20 megabits. At about the same time Verizon announced FiOS Quantum, Comcast said that 30-megabit subscribers would get a free speed increase to 50 megabits, while existing 50-megabit users would be bumped up to 105 megabits, at no extra charge.

Avgiris said Comcast’s data network is quite capable of matching FiOS Quantum’s 300-megabit speed, adding that the Xfinity system delivered data at 1 billion bits per second in a demonstration in Chicago last year. But she said that for now, there’s no sign that consumers are interested in such massive bandwidth. “I’m not sure there’s a market today for one gigabit,” she said. “In five years, 10 years, who knows?”

Even skeptics like Entner predict that consumers will eventually need superfast Internet connections. For example, TV companies are beginning to develop “4K” technology, a new video standard that would make TV images far sharper than today’s high-definition sets. Streaming 4K programs over the Internet would require a big speed boost, and could lead to surging demand for snappier connections.

But for most consumers today, the fastest Internet services are solutions to a nonexistent problem. “It’s one of those nice things where technology has progressed faster than our need for it,” said Entner.

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Tags: Comcast, Verizon, Verizon Communications Inc.

By the Numbers: Equal and Connected?

The lack of access to high-speed broadband has often been cited as one of the reasons why Australia is so far down the league table of internet users. Compare, for example, the 76 per cent of Aussies who use the internet (according to 2011 World Bank data) to usage levels in northern Europe: Iceland (96 per cent), Norway (93 per cent), the Netherlands (91 per cent), Luxembourg (90 per cent) and Sweden (90 per cent). Why are these countries so far ahead? Cold winters and dark nights might be part of the answer, but I suspect that there’s another factor at play here.

Economic health is certainly another part of the equation, but it’s not the sole reason, either; Norway is ahead of the pack when it comes to GDP per capita, but the other countries mentioned fall well behind the US. And yet, internet usage in the US is at just 74 per cent.

Let’s look at another indicator: the Gini Index is used to compare income inequality within a country; the higher the figure, the greater the inequality. Iceland’s Gini Index is just 28, and all the Scandinavian countries have a rating in the 20s. In the United States, the figure is 45, which is not far behind countries like Thailand, Uganda and Costa Rica.

Look at the graph: one would expect, given the relatively high GDP of the US, that internet penetration would be high. Now look at the high Gini Index score; it stands to reason, doesn’t it? If a significant segment of the population is struggling financially, they won’t be able to afford to pay internet fees.

The diagram also shows how Australia’s internet penetration is lower than you’d expect. We have an income per capita and Gini index on par with Canada and Holland. Despite that, internet usage is much lower here (76 per cent), compared to Canada (81 per cent) and Holland (91 per cent). So, perhaps infrastructure is the inhibiting factor here. When that gap is bridged, hopefully take-up will increase to be on a par with both of these nations. That would be a big step forwards for our local digital economy.

It’s a less rosy prospect for the US. While Australia’s Gini Index is improving (from 35.2 in 1994 to 30.5 in 2006), the US is getting worse (from 40.8 in 1997 to 45 in 2007). If a widening rich-poor gap is inhibiting internet take-up, could that result in even greater income separation? The internet, it’s often said, levels the playing field — but only for those who use it.

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Tags: Australia, Gini Index, internet usage, Scandinavian countries

Is Broadband Must-Have Resource for Economic Recovery?

The global economic recovery has been anything but uniform—discriminating in many cases from country to country and more closely to home between states and cities.

Ting Hoo | Taxi | Getty Images

Economists and politicians are working diligently to identify characteristics that are driving this disparity.

One key element that does not get the attention it is due is broadband access.

The Internet has become an important resource with real economic impact: every 10 percent increase in broadband penetration within a country drives a 1.3 percent additional growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to a recent UNESCO/ITU Broadband Commission report.

While access to Internet connections has grown dramatically, it has been outpaced by advancement of applications including more rich content, video, voice and other features that demand a high speed connection that require broadband speeds, making broadband access critical.

Broadband Access Impacts Core Uses of the Internet Tied to Economic Benefit

While slow speed connections suffice for basic email or other limited activities some key uses of the Internet—education, health and commerce—are largely dependent on high speed access.  Let’s consider the disparity between broadband haves and have-nots.

In education, a student with broadband access can use the Internet to learn about the world from school recommended sources, to participate in online tutoring, and to obtain advanced skills (like coding). Those without broadband access must rely on schools’ limited resources (i.e. the book, or a spot in the class) and have a reduced ability to teach necessary modern skills.

With health care broadband access can support economic growth primarily through reducing costs. Individuals can increase knowledge and make better decisions about choosing to go to the hospital, visit a doctor or choose a treatment type.

This reduction in costs leaves consumers more money to spend in other places, and it helps reduce governments’ contributions to healthcare freeing budget that can be used elsewhere.

Source: Ciena.com Steve Alexander, CTO Ciena

Finally, commerce is greatly bolstered through broadband access. Beyond being informed and making decisions before leaving home, those with broadband access can evaluate a much larger group of suppliers to make the most effective decision.

And this is true from the stay-at-home mom buying household goods to large corporations sourcing materials.

Embracing Responsibility and Collaboration Critical to Advancing Broadband Access

The case for greater broadband access is clear, but the process for achieving it is more challenging. To succeed, countries need to support a broadband-for-all business model that engages all key stakeholders, including governments, private enterprises, and the public.

Governments have a particularly essential role in driving broadband throughout their nation. They need to look at their telecommunications policy, eliminate taxation and restrictive or technology biased policies and ensure healthy competition within their national telecommunications infrastructure.

They also need to look at how Internet content is taxed and encouraged and should actively consider investment that drives innovation in Internet-based content.

Private institutions should also be expected to shoulder some of the burden. The current mode of operations where content providers drive massive bandwidth requirements without incurring significant costs and rely on service providers to deliver the infrastructure for this massive bandwidth growth without any significant revenue growth is an untenable business model.

Service providers have and will continue to respond by restricting and/or passing on costs to the general public which places Internet innovation at risk as we sort out who pays and for what and perpetuates the broadband divide based on who can and who can’t pay for it.

Finally, the public needs to become more aware of the benefits of broadband and see the incrementally higher costs of high-speed access as a small investment to make in total savings, much like buying a membership to a bulk retailer.

There are already examples of these three groups coming together to expand broadband access in communities that lag.  Recently, government, private enterprise and community came together in Washington to launch The DC Community Access Network (DC-CAN) to bring affordable, value-added broadband services to over 250 health, educational, public safety, and other community anchor institutions in DC.

Acceptance of Broadband Value Is the First Step; Establishing a Plan is the Critical Next Step

In summary, governments need to embrace broadband access as an important economic driver and work with private industry and the public to implement a broadband for all business models.

There are models for success and general acceptance of the importance. Now all constituents need to work together to create a plan and take action to use broadband access as an economic growth driver.

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Tags: broadband access, economic growth

2012 London Summer Olympics on jamadots.com

We’re excited to announce that we will be providing our customers with 2012 London Summer Olympics online widgets. A widget (or control) is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box. This new interactive tool has been added to the jamadots.com community website so that we can now deliver you even greater and more in-depth Olympics coverage that is available on-demand and on your terms.

The Olympics is such an important sporting event, that is watched by so many people throughout the world, for so many different reasons, that we believed an enhancement of this magnitude would be a terrific addition to the jamadots.com website. This will allow you to watch, track and interact with the 2012 Games in a new and personally relevant way that offers greater flexibility and customization which molds to your lifestyle and individual preferences.

We invite you to check out the new widget by clicking on any of the multiple links to be found on the jamadots.com community website. Just look for the word 2012 London Summer Olympics. Try the widget out today to see qualifying rounds and to get involved in the Countdown to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games which officially begin this July27th.

 

http://littleurl.info/2012olympicsonjamadots

Tags: 2012 London Summer Olympics, 2012 London Summer Olympics online, community website, graphical user interface, London Summer Olympic Games

Reminder: DNSChanger Malware Clean-Up Deadline is July 9

Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 2:20 pm

US-CERT encourages users and administrators to ensure their systems are not infected with the DNSChanger malware by utilizing tools and resources available at the DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG) website. Computers testing positive for infection of DNSChanger malware will need to be cleaned of the malware in order to maintain continued internet connectivity beyond July 9, 2012.

On November 8, 2011, the FBI, NASA-OIG, and Estonian police arrested several cyber criminals in “Operation Ghost Click.” The criminals operated under the company name “Rove Digital,” and distributed DNS changing viruses, variously known as TDSS, Alureon, TidServ, and TDL4 viruses.

Additional information about Operation Ghost Click and the DNSChanger malware is available at the FBI website.

Tags: administrators, DNS Changer Working Group, DNSChanger Malware, FBI, malware