Searching for "FCC"
Got Terrible Internet Speeds? The FCC Wants to Hear About It
https://www.pcmag.com/news/got-terrible-internet-speeds-the-fcc-wants-to-hear-about-it
The FCC is accepting data via an online form, where you can presumably talk about anything, whether it be slow speeds, lack of providers, data caps, or high costs. The FCC is asking you to describe the problem in three to five sentences, and provide your name, the state where you live, ZIP code, phone number, and any attachments you’d like to include.
The FCC has currently been using its own broadband maps
+++++++++++++
more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
Mozilla leads push for FCC to reinstate net neutrality
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/19/mozilla-leads-push-for-fcc-to-reinstate-net-neutrality.html
- Firefox-maker Mozilla is leading a push for the Federal Communications Commission to swiftly reinstate net neutrality rules stripped away under the Trump administration.
- In a letter to FCC Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel Friday, ADT, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Reddit, Vimeo and Wikimedia joined Mozilla in calling net neutrality “critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth.”
- Net neutrality is the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) should not be allowed to favor or throttle service for websites that rely on it.
+++++++++++++++++
more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
https://www.cnet.com/features/biden-broadband-plan-digital-divide-appalachia-rural-test-case/
How faster internet is being blocked by politics and poverty throughout the eastern US
While FCC data holds that about 93% of Kentucky has broadband access, last September, Microsoft vice president Shelley McKinley said the portion of the state’s population actually using the internet at broadband speeds (defined as 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up) is only about 31%. Those findings echo Microsoft’s 2016 estimates that 162.8 million Americans are not using the internet at broadband speeds compared to the FCC’s count of 24.7 million.
+++++++++++++++
more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
3Mbps uploads still fast enough for US homes, Ajit Pai says in final report from r/technology
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/3mbps-uploads-still-fast-enough-for-us-homes-ajit-pai-says-in-final-report/
Rosenworcel said that Pai’s report obscures “the hard truth that the digital divide is very real and very big” and that “it confounds logic that today the FCC decides to release a report that says that broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”
++++++++++
more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
In 2021, we need to fix America’s internet: We pay twice as much as Europe for high speeds, assuming we can even get them from r/technology
IN 2021, WE NEED TO FIX AMERICA’S INTERNET
We pay twice as much as Europe for high speeds, assuming we can even get them
https://www.theverge.com/22177154/us-internet-speed-maps-competition-availability-fcc
Across the country, the FCC and internet service providers are pretending there’s competition in an unimaginable number of places where it doesn’t actually exist.
As FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel wrote for The Verge last March, as many as one in three US households doesn’t have broadband internet access, currently defined as just 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up — which feels like the bare minimum for a remote learning family these days.
early 12 million children don’t have a broadband connection at home, the Senate Joint Economic Committee reported in 2017. And the “homework gap” hits harder if you’re poor, of course: only 56 percent of households with incomes under $30,000 had broadband as of last February, according to the Pew Research Center.
+++++++++++++
more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will step down on January 20 from r/technology
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-will-step-down-on-january-20.html
In 2017, Pai voted with his fellow Republican commissioners to remove rules that prohibited internet providers from blocking or slowing traffic to particular sites and offering higher speed “lanes” at higher prices. Many major internet providers have not yet taken advantage of that rule change, however.
Net neutrality advocates cheered Pai’s departure online.
++++++++++++
more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
It’s 2020: Why Is The Internet Still Treated Like A Luxury, Not A Utility? from r/technology
It’s 2020: Why Is The Internet Still Treated Like A Luxury, Not A Utility?
https://gothamist.com/news/its-2020-why-is-the-internet-still-treated-like-a-luxury-not-a-utility
The city Board of Estimate first decided back in 1965 to slice up the city into cable-TV franchise fiefdoms, a setup that has survived largely intact in the internet era. Today, Altice (aka Optimum) has exclusive cable rights to the Bronx and southeast Brooklyn, while Charter (aka Spectrum, formerly Time Warner) has the rest of the city; Verizon FiOS is also available in a slowly expanding patchwork of areas overlying those two. As a result, most city residents have at most one other option if they’re unhappy with their current service, and many have none at all.
Americans weren’t always beholden to their local cable and phone companies for internet access, notes Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative for the D.C.-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance. In the 1990s, thousands of internet service providers across the country offered dialup connections for relatively low prices, connecting via the copper wires of the phone system. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, he says, was initially designed to build on this by enabling multiple providers to use the new, faster networks that were then starting to be rolled out using higher-capacity coaxial and fiber-optic cable. It didn’t quite pan out.
“Both the Clinton and the Bush administrations dismantled that, under pressure from the big cable and telephone companies,” says Mitchell. “Most of those internet access providers went out of business, because they didn’t have access to the networks. If you have a policy that requires a company to pay $1,500 per home to get a subscriber, and it takes three to four years to earn that money back, you will not have much competition.”
The result has been a network of broadband services that are unaffordable or unavailable for a persistently high number of local households.
Torres noted that the city has spent nearly $300 million on renting otherwise-vacant hotels to house homeless New Yorkers during the pandemic, but hasn’t asked for the hotels to allow residents access to their broadband routers.
++++++++++++++
more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
https://www.facebook.com/groups/educatorsinvr/permalink/702577083922779/
Judge orders FCC to hand over IP addresses linked to fake net neutrality comments. from r/technology
The Times’ lawsuit follows reporting by Gizmodo that exposed multiple attempts by the FCC to manufacture stories about hackers attacking its comment system. In reality, the Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) crashed, both in 2015 and 2017, after Last Week Tonight host John Oliver instructed millions of his viewers to flood the agency with pro-net neutrality comments.
For over a year, the FCC claimed to have proof that distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks were behind the comment system issues. In August 2018, however, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai finally admitted that wasn’t true. After an inspector general report found no evidence of an attack, Pai sought to pin the blame on his staff—and, for some reason, former President Barack Obama.
Pai stated in an agency memo in 2018 that it was a “fact” that Russian accounts were behind the half-million comments. His attorneys, meanwhile, were arguing the exact opposite in court.
+++++++++++++++++++
more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=net+neutrality
iLRN 2020: 6th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network
Organized in conjunction with Educators in VR
Technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Education Society
June 21-25, 2020, Now Fully Online and in Virtual Reality!!!
Conference theme: “Vision 20/20: Hindsight, Insight, and Foresight in XR and Immersive Learning”
*** FREE registration for non-presenter EDU attendees until April 19th ***
##### TOPIC AREAS #####
XR and immersive learning in/for:
– Serious Games
– Medical & Healthcare
– Workforce & Industry
– Culture & Language
– K-12
– Museums & Libraries
– Special Education
– Geosciences
– Data Visualization
##### SESSION TYPES/ACTIVITIES #####
– Keynotes and plenaries
– Academic stream presentations (with peer-reviewed proceedings for submission to IEEE Xplore)
– Practitioner stream presentations (no paper required)
– Poster and exhibition sessions
– Workshops
– Panel sessions
– Special sessions
– Immersive Learning Adventures
– Immersive Learning Project Showcase & Competition
– Game Night
– Virtual Awards Banquet & Masquerade Ball
##### INTERESTED IN ATTENDING? #####
For a limited time, free registration is being offered to faculty, students, and staff of educational institutions (including K-12 schools/districts, universities, colleges, museums, and libraries) who wish to attend but will NOT be presenting at the conference or publishing in the proceedings. To take advantage of this offer, you must register by April 19, 2020 using an email address associated with your educational institution:
##### INTERESTED IN PRESENTING? #####
No further Academic Full and Short paper submissions are being considered at this stage.
##### INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING OR REVIEWING? #####
A range of volunteer opportunities are available, including conference internships for undergraduate and graduate students. Some of the roles currently available include session chair/facilitator, moderator, audio-visual/technical support, virtual event greeter/usher, virtual event photographer, virtual event videographer/livestreamer, 2D artist / illustrator
Expressions of interest are also being solicited from scholars and practitioners wishing to join the iLRN 2020 Program Committee to peer review papers and proposals received in the late submission round (closing April 19, 2020). The late-round submissions will be no longer than 3 pages in length, and each Program Committee member will be asked to review no more than two submissions.
##### INTERESTED IN SPONSORING OR EXHIBITING? #####
A number of sponsorship and exhibition opportunities are available for organizations to:
– Meet and interact with key educational stakeholders
– Showcase their products and services
– Connect and collaborate with top researchers / scientists
– Build and strengthen customer / client relationships.
Packages range from US$500 for a basic virtual exhibit booth to US$15,000 for an exclusive Gold Sponsorship.
##### INTERESTED IN JOINING ILRN? (FREE) #####
Fee-based premium individual memberships and organizational memberships will be introduced in the near future.
##### CONTACT #####
++++++++++++
more about Educators in VR in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=educators+in+vr