High-Speed Internet Passing Up Rural W.Va.
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By Brian Farkas  Rural West Virginians would love to take advantage of the Internet, but with access for many limited to dial-up service, residents aren't able to use business, educational and entertainment opportunities dependent on high-speed connections, according to a recent study.
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AN AGRICULTURAL chemical company has started up a website it says will help farmers and other people in rural communities connect online.
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Number of users with high-speed connections has tripled in the last three years.
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By Nichole Monroe Bell, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.  Jun. 22--AT&T has quietly rolled out a $10 high-speed Internet plan that's the cheapest it has offered -- but it comes with strings attached, and tracking it down can be tricky.
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Postmidnight buyers -- who include insomniacs, night owls and people who like to work late -- seem to be taking advantage of high-speed Internet access in the home.
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By Kevin Smith, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Calif.  Jun. 13--MONROVIA, Calif. -- In the world of Internet data transfers,  speed is king.    Slow downloads can be both frustrating and costly for businesses that  want to remain efficient.
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If you&#39;re already paying for high-speed Internet service, why not make the most of your money? Those cables aren&#39;t just good for downloading sports scores, they can digitally transmit and receive phone calls, too.
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Corning Inc. is finding its way around very tight corners to help high-speed Internet service reach high-rise apartments and condominiums.
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By Heather Newman, Detroit Free Press  Jun. 22--People who take their high speed Internet access on the road just got a boost from Verizon.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. is lagging behind other industrialized nations in the availability and use of high-speed broadband connections according to a report released today by the Washington-based Communications Workers of America. The report, based on aggregated data from nearly 80,000 broadband users, found that the median real-time download speed in the U.S. is 1.9 Mbps, compared with 61Mbps in Japan, 45Mbps in South Korea, 17Mbps in France, and 7Mbps in Canada. The report is based on data collected through the speed test at SpeedMatters.org, a CWA project launched last September "to help bridge the digital divide and keep America competitive by encouraging the government to adopt national policies to bring about universal, affordable high-speed broadband access for all Americans, no matter where they live." The CWA is a labor union with a membership of more than 700,000 in fields like telecommunications, media, manufacturing, health care, and aviation. According to the report, the U.S. is 16th in the world in deployment and availability of high-speed networks. "Speed defines what is possible on the Internet. Speed determines whether we will have the 21st century networks and communications necessary to grow our economy and jobs," said CWA President Larry Cohen. "It's clear that other nations -- all of our economic competitors, in fact -- have made the decision to promote true high-speed networks. The longer we delay, the more we put our economic growth at risk." The CWA said it supports many of the provisions in the Broadband Data Improvement Act, a bill introduced in May by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). The legislation would require the collection and evaluation of data on broadband deployment, an upgraded definition of "high speed," and grant programs for states and local communities to conduct their own broadband mapping. "The first step in an improved broadband policy is ensuring that we have better data on which to build our efforts," Inouye said at the time. "In a digital age, the world will not wait for us. It is imperative that we get our broadband house in order and our communications policy right. But we cannot manage what we do not measure." The CWA report also ranks individual states based on average Internet download connection speeds. The state with the fastest connection speed is Rhode Island, at 5.011Mbps, followed by Kansas at 4.167Mbps, New Jersey at 3.68Mbps, New York at 3.436Mbps, and Massachusetts at 3.004Mbps. The states ranking at the bottom are Wyoming at 1.246Mbps, Iowa at 1.262Mbps, West Virginia at 1.117Mbps, South Dakota at 0.825Mbps, and Alaska at 0.545 Mbps. That means that it would take 15 seconds to download a 10MB file in Rhode Island and nearly two and a half minutes to download the same file in Alaska, the CWA report found. The voluntary speed test was conducted online at SpeedMatters.org between September 2006 and May 2007. Most of the people who took the test had either a DSL or cable modem connection. Because 30-40 percent of Americans still use a dial-up connection, the median speeds in the report were higher than if dial-up users had also participated, the report said. In May, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, held a hearing on draft legislation to address broadband mapping and data collection in the U.S. Markey said at the time that the current data-collection methods used by the Federal Communications Commission are "inadequate and highly flawed." He said that according to the FCC, a single broadband subscriber in a certain ZIP code area could indicate that the entire ZIP code area has broadband availability, even if the sole subscriber is a business and not a residential consumer. Such interpretations could result in inaccurate measurements of broadband availability and use, Markey said. He also said that the federal Telecommunications Act compels the FCC to assess the nationwide availability of "advanced telecommunications capability," which Congress defined as having "high speed" capability. However, he said, the FCC defined "high speed" in 1999 as meaning 200Kbps. Markey said the draft bill proposes increasing the definition tenfold to 2Mbps. Markey also said that the U.S. lags behind other nations when it comes to cost of broadband access. He said speeds of 50Mbps, which are not available to residential consumers in this country, are available to Japanese consumers for roughly $30 per month. U.S. consumers typically pay $20 for about 1Mbps service and $30 to $40 for about 4Mbps service.
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A satellite due to launch in three years promises to expand high-speed Internet services to rural Americans who cannot get access through cable or phone companies.
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By Sarah Watson, The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.  Feb.
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Verizon announced Thursday it is digging up streets and stringing wire in six states, including Maryland and Virginia, to deliver high-speed Internet service and cable-style television to customers.
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In many ways, Brambleton looks like any of the new housing developments that have popped up near Dulles Airport in the past several years. Except coursing under its crisp green lawns and treeless streets is a fiber-optic network that supplies some 600 homes with Internet access at speeds once reserved for the largest corporations.
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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., June 11  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Commonwealth of Kentucky last week tested the first traffic on its new high- capacity, digital wireless information network designed to support public safety communications and a wide range of voice, video and data services.
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By Tom Breen  Downloading a large file off the Internet in West Virginia? If so, don't make any other plans; it could take a while.  A new national study says Internet connection speed in the Mountain State is slower than every other state except Alaska.
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You plug a cell phone-size adapter into any electrical outlet in your house and you've got 3M bit/sec. Internet service. Look out, AT&T and Time Warner, here comes the local power company.