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The Internet Age is here.  The effective use of this technology and all that it can provide is a key to success for businesses and individuals.  Knowing this, the Obama Administration seeks to ensure that all Americans have affordable access to broadband Internet services.  Accomplishing that goal, however, requires a set of facts about Internet use that can underpin and guide this policy objective. In Exploring the Digital Nation: Home Broadband Internet Adoption in the United States, the Commerce Department fulfills its promise to provide authoritative, nationally-comprehensive data on access to the Internet throughout the United States.  This new study follows the February 2010 NTIA research preview, Digital Nation: 21st Century America's Progress Toward Universal Broadband Internet Access. Both studies draw on the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey Internet Use Supplement, a survey of approximately 54,000 households conducted over one week in October 2009.  The Census data show increases in adoption of broadband services at home over time for virtually all demographic groups.  The data also reveal that demographic disparities among groups have tended to persist. Persons with high incomes, those who are younger, Asians and Whites, the more highly-educated, married couples, and the employed tend to have higher rates of broadband use at home.  Conversely, persons with low incomes, seniors, minorities, the less-educated, non-family households, and the nonemployed tend to lag behind other groups in home broadband use. The new study takes the analysis to another level.

ational nonprofit Connected Nation today released a comprehensive report detailing the key role broadband plays in business performance and the implications for a continuing economic recovery. Connected Nation research shows that U.S. businesses generate $411.4 billion in online sales to consumers or other businesses, yet an estimated 1.8 million businesses remain unconnected to broadband.

Connect2Compete is a national nonprofit organization bringing together leaders from communities, the private sector, and leading foundations. Through our programs and the power of technology, we will improve the lives of Americans - regardless of their age, race, geography, income, or education level. The use of technology to access educational content is necessary to ensure future generations can compete in the global economy and to prepare them for the 21st century workforce. Connect2Compete will help Americans access technology through three exciting offers: free digital literacy training, discounted high-speed Internet, and low-cost computers. To promote the work, Connect2Compete will create a national outreach campaign focused on the importance of technology to develop digital skills and find new opportunities.

Google may be rolling out 1Gbps Internet access to Kansas City, but there are about 19 million American households and businesses that still lack any access to broadband, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Most of them are in rural areas, and some will soon benefit from broadband projects financed by one of the last pillars of the FCC's National Broadband Plan: the Connect America Fund. "I'm pleased to announce today that nearly 400,000 residents and businesses in rural communities who currently lack access to high-speed Internet will gain access within the next three years," declared FCC Chair Julius Genachowski on Thursday.

The National Audit Office has just published its verdict on the UK government's open data project. Find out what the report said - and get the indicators here:

"Today the UK government published its Digital Government Strategy, a vision for how it will deliver government services online. Why, you may ask, should anyone care? It is a good question. Governments have been talking about how they will deliver services online for over two decades. (Anyone up for some e-government?) The sad truth is, at the national level, few users of online government services believe governments have succeeded - most citizens' experience with government websites are marked with frustration, a sense of loathing, and pretty much the opposite of whatever we imagined e-government would be."

"August and September, in partnership with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), I conducted a national survey of IEDC members and others affiliated with IEDC. The primary goal was to get a snapshot of how broadband impacts local economic outcomes. A secondary goal was to gather some insights to leveraging broadband as an economic development asset. This is the only survey that goes directly to the people who work in the trenches daily impacting local economic outcomes. Here is where I separate some of the hype surrounding broadband's power to transform local economies with some reality checks. Some of the findings from this year's survey include: only 11% of economic developers believe broadband's biggest economic benefit to individuals is helping them find jobs; 18% of respondents have insufficient speeds to produce economic outcomes listed and have given up hope for a solution; another 13% do not have enough speed to get the job done, but are actively trying to find or create a solution; 43.5% of respondents' jurisdictions exist under duopoly conditions, 15.5% are in communities that live with a broadband monopoly; about 12% of respondent' say their communities plan to start building broadband networks in the next 18 months, another 22% hope to build a network at some point in the future; 64% of respondents reject convention broadband remedies for urban areas to say "faster speeds, cheaper services" will have the biggest impact on economic development (value of computing centers compromised by crappy infrastructure in poor communities); fiber continues to outshine wireless in terms of expected impact on economic outcomes, with the biggest gap in expectations in the areas of attracting businesses to a community and making local companies more competitive; and 41% - 48% of respondents believe broadband can increase the number of home-based businesses; and significant percentages of respondents say broadband adoption doesn't mean j

CORPORATE RESISTANCE to publicly-owned internet networks dates back to the fabled days of dial-up. In 1995, companies lobbied successfully for Texas to enact a law barring municipal entities from providing certain telecommunications services. In response, a number of national organizations lobbied Congress to include a provision in the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996 that would pre-empt states from enacting laws that would bar "any entity" from providing telecommunications services. But in 2004 the Supreme Court ruled in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League that that pre-emption was too broad (more on the decision here). If Congress wanted to restrict states from exercising traditional state powers-including instructing municipalities on what services they could provide-it had to say so explicitly, the Court decided.  Since then, nearly half the states have enacted barriers to public communications initiatives. The first such laws were "flat-out, in-your-face" bans-outlawing municipal networks outright. But more recently, telecoms began pressing for state-level laws to establish a "level playing field"-a wireless market that doesn't pit private companies against public providers. These laws typically impose onerous regulations on public networks that invite costly litigation and frequently lead to delays and cost overruns.

This is a combined National Service Area map for Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISP's) to the best of our knowledge. Coverage shown is an approximation based mostly upon zip code data for the home office of record and/or zip codes reported by the independent wireless network operators. These networks are fixed wireless operations and not part of the cellular mobile data networks. A large part of this information is compiled from records on the WISP Directory web site. To add your WISP information and zip code data, log in to the Wisp Directory and create an account.

In an effort to spur U.S. scientific competitiveness, as well as accelerate development and widespread deployment of 100-gigabit technology, the Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI) was created with $62 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and implemented by ESnet. ANI was established to build a 100 Gbps national prototype network and a wide-area network testbed.

onnected Nation recently announced an upgrade to their mapping application that's being used in S. Carolina. There's another story, though. One state resident saw on the map that his home had AT&T DSL service. But when Joe Roget called the company, "They said they had no idea what I was talking about and that whatever map data I was looking at was totally wrong," Roget reports to Stop the Cap! "The operator was frank with me, saying it was highly unlikely I would ever receive DSL from AT&T and the company was really not expanding DSL access any longer."

Expanding wireless broadband coverage to 98 percent of Americans remains a key priority for the Obama administration in its fiscal year 2013 budget proposal. To help do this, President Obama has proposed a boost in funding for the Federal Communications Commission and the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, two agencies leading an effort to increase the availability of spectrum needed to help expand wireless broadband to most Americans. Some of this new spectrum would come from empowering the FCC authority to auction off spectrum wheedled out of broadcasters.

In 2011, the US government rolled out its "International Strategy for Cyberspace," which reminded us that "interconnected networks link nations more closely, so an attack on one nation's networks may have impact far beyond its borders." An in-depth report today from the New York Times confirms the truth of that statement as it finally lays bare the history and development of the Stuxnet virus-and how it accidentally escaped from the Iranian nuclear facility that was its target.

This report assesses whether policies to raise broadband availability will contribute, as hoped, to local  economic development. Our analysis relies on the fact that broadband technology has diffused unevenly  throughout the United States, thus allowing us to compare economic indicators between areas with greater  and less growth in broadband availability. Using broadband data from the Federal Communications  Commission and economic data from several government and proprietary sources, we examine broadband  availability and economic activity throughout the nation between 1999 and 2006

FRS launched the Rural Telecom Educational Series as part of an ongoing effort to promote rural telecom and educate those who will determine its future. The series has played a vital role in educating both national and local policy-makers on the issues facing community-based telecom providers. FRS publishes papers on an ongoing basis that highlight critical issues to rural telecommunications, such as universal service, net neutrality and wireless technology. One copy of each paper is complimentary; additional copies are available for purchase. Please visit the FRS E-Store to place your order.

"Cable companies weren't interested when the federal government dangled millions of dollars to expand broadband Internet service and boost economic opportunities in Lake County, Minnesota, on Lake Superior (Wikipedia map). But "They didn't want anyone else to build a system, either," report Jim Spencer and Larry Oakes of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "That would mean competition in small parts of the county they already serve, even if it would leave thousands of northeastern Minnesota residents and businesses without broadband. So in 2010, when Lake County applied for federal stimulus funds to build a countywide network, it ran straight into a challenge from industry giant Mediacom and the Minnesota Cable Communications Association. The conflict that ensued is part of a national struggle," one that is repeated over and over in communities across the country, perhaps one you know or cover. "

Tomorrow, the President will sign an Executive Order to make broadband construction along Federal roadways and properties up to 90 percent cheaper and more efficient. Currently, the procedures for approving broadband infrastructure projects on properties controlled or managed by the Federal Government-including large tracts of land, roadways, and more than 10,000 buildings across the Nation-vary depending on which agency manages the property. The new Executive Order will ensure that agencies charged with managing Federal properties and roads take specific steps to adopt a uniform approach for allowing broadband carriers to build networks on and through those assets and speed the delivery of connectivity to communities, businesses, and schools.