Gene Kimmelman, director of the Washington office of Consumers Union, said most all-inclusive packages of television, telephone and Internet cost more than $100 a month. That total that is beyond the means of many.
“There is a new digital divide. In a world where it is important to have a speedy connection to the Internet, 40 percent of the nation doesn’t have access and is falling behind, ” Kimmelman said.
Verizon, which just announced that Motorola will supply it’s optical network gear, said yesterday that current plans for its advanced networks are focused on suburban neighborhoods. But that the company is working on new technologies that will lead to investment in urban and rural neighborhoods.
“We believe America’s broadband future should include everyone: rural and urban, rich and poor, established communities and new. Multiple technologies and multiple competing service providers will be involved in making it happen,” Verizon spokesman Lawrence D. Plumb said.
Verizon’s first rollout of video services is expected to occur sometime next year, and the company has said it will first offer an RF-based video service, equivalent to what is now offered by cable companies. The FTTP RFP the carrier issued — along with SBC Communications and BellSouth said a video delivery system would use, “to the extent possible, standard off-the-shelf CATV video equipment.”
Kerry and Bush are Split on Broadband says WiFi Planet.
A Kerry administration would use federal subsidies to help spur broadband deployment while President Bush would continue his policy of deregulation to spread the technology.The Bush approach is that the best way to get greater broadband deployment is to reduce regulations, deregulate in areas where regulations have essentially provided disincentives to the deployment of broadband,” Lenard said at a debate sponsored by the tech trade group CompTia. “Kerry believes the market can not do it alone, so you need to subsidize it.”
Kerry is proposing a 10 percent tax credit for investments in current broadband technology for rural and inner city areas. He’s proposing a 20 percent tax credit for next-generation broadband technologies, which the Massachusetts Democrat defines as speeds of more than 20 times today’s networks.
According to the Kerry technology plan, the tax credits would cost $2 billion over five years and would be paid for by the estimated $30 billion the government will gross by auctioning off the spectrum left behind by broadcasters transitioning to digital television.
“This is one of those issues … between two fundamentally differing approaches,” Atkinson said. “What Bush is proposing is [by 2007] every single American can get low-speed broadband. I think that’s emblematic of their approach. When Kerry is talking about broadband, he is talking about big broadband. He is talking about networks that are 10 to 100 times faster [than today] and setting that as a goal.”
From Internet taxes and outsourcing to H-1B visa caps, the candidates have different opinions.
- NET News.com GOP beats Dems on tech-friendliness
- CNET News.com Grading Bush on tech
- Network World the tech platforms of Bush and Kerry
- New Scientist Should governments play politics with science?
- PCWorld Tech 2004: Where the Candidates Stand
- PCWorldWhich Candidate Is More Tech-Friendly?
- Wired News Candidate Has Platform for Geeks
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