In their most recent report on the status of broadband internet in the US, the FCC has finally admitted “broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”
Although this is the sixth Broadband Deployment Report to be issued by the agency since 1999, it is the first to reach this conclusion. Previous reports have been widely criticized for both the benchmark by which broadband was defined and the methodology for determining service areas.
For example, in the last report, from 2008, 200kbps downstream (download) speed was still considered broadband. Additionally, a single address capable of broadband service was equated to the entire zip code being served.
In the current report notes, “Our examination of overall Internet traffic patterns reveals that consumers increasingly are using their broadband connections to view high-quality video, and want to be able to do
so while still using basic functions such as email and web browsing.”
In order to more accurately reflect that reality the standard for broadband has been raised to 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Service areas were based on numbers from the National Broadband Plan, published earlier this year.
Using the new metrics resulted in a determination that 14 million Americans live in areas where broadband internet service isn’t offered.
More information on these changes can be found in Chapter 3 of that plan.
National Broadband Plan Chapter 3 Current State of the Broadband Ecosystem
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Result for: current state
According to Mobile Crunch, a release candidate of Mobile Firefox is coming next week, finally giving users an in-depth look into the browser.
Says Mozilla’s VP of Mobile Jay Sullivan, as indexed by the source:
* Release candidate next week, final release within a few weeks
* Adblock Plus and around 30 other extensions are already playing friendly with Mobile Firefox, though they need some tweaking for the smaller screen
* Firefox won’t be the default browser on Maemo 5, though Nokia is considering the switch for Maemo 6 (which is coming in late 2010. We scooped the details and screenshots of Maemo 6 back in May.
* While they need pretty beefy hardware to make Mobile Firefox tick, the N900 isn’t the bottom line. “Everything now on the mid- to high-end is fine.”
* The Windows Mobile build is 3-4 months behind the Maemo build
* They’re focusing on webapp features. In its current state, web apps in Mobile Firefox can pull data from the accelerometer and GPS, and store data in memory for offline use
* In 2010, they plan to add multitouch support, haptic feedback, camera usage, WebGL, and improved Javascript support.
Result for: current state
According to his latest blog post, The Pirate Bay founder and spokesperson Peter Sunde is stepping down from his position, hoping to move along with his life, one that has been under media scrutiny for years now.
Says the post:
“The past years I’ve been very active in the discussion of the current state and the future states of the internets. It’s an important cause and I will not give the fight up.
However, I have decided to not be the spokes person for The Pirate Bay anymore. The reasons are many but most importantly it takes too much of my time. I want to build something new and I want to focus my energy in a different direction. I have projects waiting to be finished, a book is waiting to be finalized and many more books are waiting to be read.
Our issues has been raised to another level and it’s time for biological dispersal. At the same time, I have a feeling of being sessile when I need to be the most motile creature ever. The regeneration will continue with me in another place.
Today marks the end of a small era for me, but I am simply leaving a role in order to be a person instead.
Sometimes when you draw on the foggy insides you find what you’re after.”
The Pirate Bay is currently under a bundle of lawsuits from all types of trade groups and media groups and is under acquisition by a software company that wants to take it legal.
