Searching for "net neutrality"
You shouldn’t have to publicly humiliate AT&T to get usable internet
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/12/22280964/att-provides-fiber-after-newspaper-ad-media-coverage
Earlier this month, Aaron Epstein spent $10,000 to buy an ad in The Wall Street Journal to tell AT&T’s CEO he wasn’t happy with his internet service — service that was limited to a paltry 3Mbps (via Ars Technica). Now, AT&T has him hooked up with a fiber connection, and he’s getting over 300 Mbps up and down. All it took was getting interviewed by Ars, the ad going viral on Twitter, and a Stephen Colbert mention.
+++++++++++++++
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
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
my note: what does Ajit Pai and his war against #netneutrality have to say about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html
US Falls Out of Top 10 Average Internet Speeds Globally in 2020 While Global Speeds Faster Than Ever from r/technology
ANALYSIS: US Falls Out of Top 10 Average Internet Speeds Globally in 2020, but Global Speeds Faster Than Ever
++++++++++++++++
more on Internet speed in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=internet+speed
https://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=638802408:638802410
Slow internet? Fast internet? You might be paying the same price
NDIA https://www.digitalinclusion.org/
https://t.co/WofgV8eEbk
++++++++++++
more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=net+neutrality
https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chair-rosenworcel-launches-broadband-mapping-task-force/
The FCC has acknowledged that the maps it uses to figure out how to distribute the billions of dollars in federal funding it offers each year to subsidize the cost of building out infrastructure are flawed.
+++++++++++
more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
New Acting FCC Chief Jessica Rosenworcel Supports Restoring Net Neutrality from r/technology
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7mxja/new-acting-fcc-chief-jessica-rosenworcel-supports-restoring-net-neutrality
Rosenworcel has long supported net neutrality, and opposed most Trump FCC policies, be it the steady dismantling of the agency’s consumer protection authority, or efforts to eliminate decades-old media consolidation rules designed to protect public discourse and smaller companies from massive media monopolies.
In 2019, Rosenworcel pressured telecom giants to come clean on their collection and sale of sensitive user location data to third parties, and consumer groups say she’s been a steady advocate of consumer rights throughout her tenure.
Roughly 42 million Americans—double official FCC estimates—lack access to any broadband connection whatsoever. Another 83 million only have the choice of one provider, usually Comcast or Charter. This lack of meaningful competition directly results in high US broadband prices, spotty coverage, and routinely terrible customer service.
++++++++++++
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
Computer-generated humans and disinformation campaigns could soon take over political debate. Last year, researchers found that 70 countries had political disinformation campaigns over two years from r/Futurology
Bots will dominate political debate, experts warn
Last year, researchers at Oxford University found that 70 countries had political disinformation campaigns over two years.
Perhaps the most notable of such campaigns was that initiated by a Russian propaganda group to influence the 2016 US election result.
he US Federal Communications Commission hosted a period in 2017 where the public could comment on its plans to repeal net neutrality. Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Bruce Schneier notes that while the agency received 22 million comments, many of them were made by fake identities.
Schneier argues that the escalating prevalence of computer-generated personas could “starve” people of democracy
++++++++++++
more on deepfake in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=deepfake
AI, Autonomous Cars, and Libraries
at RMG’s Annual Presidents’ Seminar:
The View from the Top on Friday February 9, 2018, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
ALA Midwinter Conference, Denver Colorado Convention Center Room 505
Who, When, Where?
- How will these disruptive technologies enter the
Library Industry ?
- Who will lead the innovation?
- And what about Robots, Blockchain, and the loss of Net Neutrality?
- How will Artificial Intelligence and Self-Driving Cars improve library services and performance?
- • In the age of click and digital download, will driverless library (or Uber or Lyft) delivery services plus robots-to-the-door put printed books and other physical items into readers’ hands with comparable ease? Or transport and escort readers to Library programs and browsing opportunities?
- • Alexa: Please deliver to my weekend address the Hungarian cookbook I checked out from my Branch Library last year and fresh — not frozen — ingredients for goulash for six. Text me by Thursday if I can’t get all this by Friday 6pm. Also, could you recommend a suitable under $15 red wine available at my weekend Whole Foods?
- • Siri or Alexa: Call the Library and make reservations for my two grandchildren and me for the February program on Spring solstice, and ask them to text each of us confirmations. Also, could you ask the Library to send them links to e-books that explain the history of astronomy? And deliver to Amy a book in English or Mandarin about ancient Chinese astronomy a week before the program?
The Seminar is open to everyone for dialogue on topical issues and concerns — registration is not required.
Attendees are invited to ask questions of Library Industry executives entrusted with delivering platforms and solutions for global library systems, services, and content to thousands of libraries serving millions of library users worldwide.
Participating companies & executives include:
Axiell (Ann Maelerts), BiblioLabs (Mitchell Davis),
Demco Software (Ravi Singh), Easy Mile, Index Data (Sebastian Hammer), Innovative Interfaces (James Tallman), Overdrive (Steve Potash), ProQuest (Rich Belanger), SirsiDynix (Bill Davison), The Library Corporation (Annette Murphy)
Rob McGee will moderate the session with assistance from Marshall Breeding and RMG’s Geoff Payne (Melbourne Office).
++++++++++++++
more on artificial intelligence in this ims blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=artificial+intelligence