Digital Literacy for St. Cloud State University
a moment when the U.S. decided to go one way and the rest of the world went another
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more on Internet Access in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=internet+access
Antiquated phone networks and corporate monopolies do not produce fast Internet.
By Rick Paulas
https://psmag.com/why-is-american-internet-so-slow-98f4eeadb371#.q9v3rd42k
AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner have a “natural monopoly” since they’ve simply been at it the longest. While the Telecommunications Act of 1996 attempted to incentivize competition to upset these established businesses, it didn’t take into account the near impossibility of doing so. As Howard Zinn wrote in A People’s History of the United States, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 simply “enabled the handful of corporations dominating the airwaves to expand their power further.”
Chattanooga has somewhat famously installed its own. Santa Monica also has its own fiber network. The reason these communities have been successful is because they don’t look at these networks as a luxury, but as a mode of self sustainability.
The 19th century’s ghost towns exist because the gold ran out. The 21st century’s ghost towns might materialize because the Internet never showed up.
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more on Internet access in this IMS blog
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/net-neutrality-verizon-212332710.html
http://www.wired.com/2016/06/net-neutrality-won-big-today-dont-celebrate-just-yet/
more on net neutrality in this blog:
There are only 11 education-focused firms listed on the U.S. stock market with a market cap of over $1 billion. While the market is small and fractured today, GSV Capital estimates that education will grow from 9 percent to 12 percent of America’s GDP over the next decade. This equates to a trillion-dollar opportunity.
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My Note:
“although 95 percent of schools have Internet, only 20 percent have high-speed access. For technology to disrupt our schools, we need to get them connected.”
yet, MN government is right now quarreling about fast-connection networking rural parts of Minnesota, whereas the Republicans insist on $30 Mil only, Democrats on $80Mil and the governor on $100K+.
In 2002, the U.S. created the conditions for monopoly in the Internet services providers market, which accumulates to disastrous results. The fight around net neutrality proves one more time that trend (of monopolizing connectivity and profiteering for big companies, rather then developing the US):
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/272480919/when-it-comes-to-high-speed-internet-u-s-falling-way-behind
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Trend: One of the major developments in primary and secondary education is the focus on personalization. Students get pushed material that meets them where they are, when they need it. Classes can now adapt to a learner’s needs and provide them with the skills, the instruction and the resources they need to master concepts.
College is expensive in America; the average cost is more than $20,000 a year for a four-year degree. At least 65 percent of the 55 million new jobs forecasted for the next decade will require a formal post-secondary credential.
In 2015, only 50 percent of college graduates were working in the field they studied, and more than one-third indicated they would have chosen a different major. Nearly 40 percent of college graduates believed their school did not prepare them well for employment.
Students are going to university because it is “the right thing to do,” often without a thought to the ROI on their education or the work opportunities after school. Only 19 percent of full-time college students graduate in four years, which dramatically increases the cost of their degree.
Trend: Online platforms are being leveraged at universities to help drive down the cost of a degree and increase access to programs. Big data platforms are being used to identify students in danger of failing and provide targeted assistance to help them graduate on time.
Trends: The two largest sectors for investment are skill training (primarily coding and digital literacy) and English language learning.
It’s the third time in less than a decade that the FCC’s attempts to regulate Internet access have been challenged in court.
1. The key question the court will answer is whether the FCC had proper authority to reclassify broadband Internet as a more heavily regulated telecommunications service.
2. Reclassification is at the heart of the industry’s legal challenge.
3. Another part of the new rules the court will consider will be whether mobile Internet and cable Internet should be regulated the same way.
4. Not much has changed since the rules went into effect in June.
5. Whatever this court decides, net neutrality will likely end up at the Supreme Court.
more on Net Neutrality in this blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=net+neutrality&submit=Search
http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/12/7196761/net-neutrality-lobbying
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Consumers generally connect to the internet one of two ways. They can subscribe to a residential broadband service from a company such as Time Warner Cable. Or they can subscribe to wireless internet access from companies such as Sprint.
These companies have spent billions of dollars laying cables in the ground (in the case of residential internet access) or erecting cell phone towers (for wireless access) to ensure that customers have fast, reliable service.
Network neutrality is the idea that these companies should treat all internet traffic equally. It says your ISP shouldn’t be allowed to block or degrade access to certain websites or services, nor should it be allowed to set aside a “fast lane” that allows content favored by the ISP to load more quickly than the rest.
Since the term was coined more than a decade ago, it has been at the center of the debate over internet regulation. Congress, the Federal Communications Commission(FCC), and the courts have all debated whether and how to protect network neutrality.
Advocates argue that network neutrality lowers barriers to entry online, allowing entrepreneurs to create new companies like Google, Facebook, and Dropbox. But critics warn that regulating the broadband market could be counterproductive, discouraging investment in internet infrastructure and limiting the flexibility of ISPs themselves to innovate.
In January, an appeals court invalidated FCC regulations designed to protect network neutrality. The agency is currently considering how to respond.
https://medium.com/backchannel/netflix-is-a-data-hog-6e790140b189
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality
Why You Should Be Freaking Out About The End Of Net Neutrality: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/net-neutrality_n_4597831.html
Feds Can’t Enforce Net Neutrality: What This Means For You: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/01/14/262454310/feds-cant-enforce-net-neutrality-what-this-means-for-you?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook
Internet has been the most democratic tool in the last two decades. Trough the Arab Spring, anti-Putin blogs, Erdogan’s Turkey, my home country Bulgaria: people have had a viable voice to speak, hear and share, despite government-own, Goebbels-like mass media, who thus looses the opportunity to control public opinion. .
That era is only logical to wind down. In my home country, the Murdock-like media owner, as well as ruling-parties’ apparatchiks pay “trolls” to go and muddle the blog sections under online articles and the social media field.
In the U.S., the same process takes different “democratic” way: the big companies are lobbying and buying their way of silencing the Internet right of people to be able to voice, speak and share their opinion.