The Obama stimulus package includes $7.2 billion to help rural America access the Internet more easily, and officials in Genesee County would like to ensure some of that money benefits the region.
Known as "Title VI--Broadband Technology Opportunities Program," the allocation is a mere 1 percent of the entire stimulus program.
County Manager Jay Gsell clued me in a couple of weeks ago about the County's efforts to attract some of that money to help areas of the county that do not yet have broadband access. He said the broadband effort is one of many tasks on the County's to-do list related to bringing as much stimulus money to the county as possible.
Stephen Zimmer, Genesee County Director of Information Technology, said the county is participating in a state program to map current broadband availability and identify areas of need.
New York Farm Bureau President Dean Norton applauds the effort to help rural residents access the Internet more easily.
"Farmers in rural, agricultural areas need broadband," Norton said. "Support for broadband has been in our policy book for years. Technology is necessary to keep agriculture viable. Your business (The Batavian) thrives off of technology and agriculture is needing technology more and more."
Much is unknown even at this point about how the broadband program will be administered, and it may not be until 2010 before we see any results. This PCWorld article explains some of the unresolved questions about the program.
The broadband stimulus program is also not without controversy.
Former FCC economist Michael Katz has been acerbic in his dismissal of rural American and the need for spending $7.2 billion on improving Internet access.
Katz listed ways that the $7.2 billion could be put to better use, including an effort to combat infant deaths. But he also spoke of rural places as environmentally hostile, energy inefficient and even weak in innovation, simply because rural people are spread out across the landscape.
"The notion that we should be helping people who live in rural areas avoid the costs that they impose on society … is misguided," Katz went on, "from an efficiency point of view and an equity one."
According to the same NPR piece, a New York Times article has referred to the rural broadband initiative as a "cyber bridge to nowhere."
But others say the package could help another 20 million Americans get broadband access, and high-speed access does help create and retain jobs.
A study of 3,000 people in Michigan, Texas and Kentucky found those in areas that received broadband Internet grants from the federal Rural Utilities Service quickly signed up for service, matching the penetration rates in cities. That happened where network investment was coupled with community programs aimed at convincing people about the benefits of Internet access.
Home broadband users were more likely to start businesses or take classes online, and less likely to move away, the researchers at Michigan State University found.
Norton said a lot of farmers in Genesee County are still stuck with dial-up, which hurts their productivity. It also keeps them from accessing more advanced online-software that help them run their businesses.
"(Broadband) will help the more progressive and larger enterprises the most," Norton said, "but with the smaller ones, there lies another opportunity to educate people and help them."
Interesting. This might not
Interesting. This might not be half a bad idea what with Time Warner charging per usage come September and FiOS in limited parts of Batavia.
Then again, I'm secretly hoping Verizon decides to expand their FiOS coverage to all of Batavia when Time Warner switches their billing practices.
I don't think this will help
I don't think this will help with the TW situation (which is outrage), but one interesting thing about the stimulus requirements: Any provider taking advantage of the program to expand coverage cannot meter usage and must charge a flat fee.
It won't help directly with
It won't help directly with the TW situation. I don't expect it to.
It'll help with bringing broadband to Batavia, an alternative to Time Warner. Even if it takes a year for something to happen, I figure it's worth it.
I know why their doing it (well, one of the reasons). The U.S. is one of the few countries that doesn't charge on a bandwidth cap per month. Not only are the employees working for the ISP needing to be paid, but so do the network engineers/techs that set up new networks. Right now, they aren't getting paid for all of the networks they set up. People, and I'm speaking strictly home users, are sending and receiving obscene amounts of data (like me, who goes through 2GB minimum a day). The ratio between bandwidth and money is really bad because of this.
Setting up a cap per month helps fix the the above problem. In addition, it weeds out the people downloading music and movies that aren't legit. It sounds bad, but a lot of people do. Time Warner is going to lose a lot of customers because of this switch.
What do you think your average joe that never encrypted his access point (wifi) is going to do when everyone in the neighborhood leeches his bandwidth and he ends up getting an outrageous bill for the month?
However, it is outrageous even if I understand the argument. Call me shallow, but I'll keep switching ISPs so I don't have a bandwidth cap.
Chris-unfortunately, i see it
Chris-unfortunately, i see it trending towards all ISPs charging on usage basis. What irritates me is, there is nothing lower cost with broadband than 5gb! If it truly is usage based, grandma who pays her bills, occasionally emails and reads the paper doesn't crack a gig! Why not $15 a month?? At least this would give the perception that TW cares about its customers. All the wireless broadband is currently capped, and traditional access is going the same route!
I agree. It's going to happen
I agree. It's going to happen eventually.
The option of having a bandwidth cap per month isn't a bad idea. The problem here is that there isn't an "unlimited" plan, which is why a lot of people will cancel their service. Even if TW has an unlimited plan, it needs to be similarly priced to what the current rate is if they want to keep customers switching because of the bandwidth cap.
802.11 max speeds aren't really that much of a problem. 802.11g is the common protocol. It has a max speed of 54Mbps. 54000 divided by 8 because 8 bits equals 1 byte is 675KB/s. In English, I'm not going to notice any difference in speed unless there's more than 650KB/s going out/coming in.
Wish everyone would just stop
Wish everyone would just stop begging the socialists for the stinking porkulus money.
Someone please explain this
Someone please explain this all to me in layman's terms. I currently have RoadRunner through Time Warner and my house is networked with several computers. Between us all, we use the internet for many hours each day. Are they looking to charge us depending on how much we use it?
You can bet if the government
You can bet if the government pays for your broadband they will eventually tax you for using it. Accepting government money worked out great for GM. Lets see, so far they own banks, insurance companies, GM, Chrysler, and now they want to control the internet.
I have a sprint broadband
I have a sprint broadband card that I use when I'm in my Batavia office. I get 5 gigs included for my $60 per month. I use it 8 to 10 hours per day, at least five days per week. For the current billing cycle, which ends on April 6, I've used 2.7 gigs.
Frankly, I don't watch much video during the day and have only uploaded two or three this month. So it's mostly web pages and e-mail.
Some of you aren't
Some of you aren't comprehending the article correctly.
This stimulus package doesn't give everyone free internet. It simply brings broadband access to areas that it isn't available in. You'll still have to pay an ISP for internet.
In response to Beth (and everyone else that's confused), data on the internet is measured in bytes, with the prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, and beyond.
Without getting into the specifics of measuring data, 1,000 bytes is equal to (roughly) 1 kilobyte (KB) and so on. 1,000 kilobytes is equal to 1 megabyte (MB) and 1,000 megabytes is equal to 1 gigabyte (GB). One guess on what 1,000 gigabytes equals.
Currently, you pay a flat fee and have no limit on how much data you use in a month. What Time Warner is doing is going to be introducing different "plans" that are pretty much like cellphone plans. You have a specific number of minutes per month on your plan and if you go over those minutes, you pay extra. In this case, minutes is equivalent to data and you'll pay $1 for each gigabyte you go over.
This introduces several problems. Some have already been explained in previous comments. One of the most notable is going to be that the average person has no idea how much data they use in a month. It gets worse when there's other people (spouses, children) that are also using the internet.
Apparently, there will be a way to keep track of how much data you've used so far per month and how much left you have until you go over your limit. This is going to introduce new problems for parents. Those that aren't computer savvy are going to have to learn how to limit their children's internet access and try to block sites and services that are bandwidth heavy. Out of principal, any family with a 13 to 17 year old teenager can easily drive that bill up if they end up going over the monthly limit.
There is a good side to this. People that just get on the internet maybe a few times a day to check their email and read a few things on the internet might use maybe 5GB a month and a 5GB plan will be between somewhere in the $10 - $20 range. Families that don't use much data won't have to pay whatever the going RoadRunner price is.
In my opinion, Time Warner should keep an "unlimited" plan which is the same as what everyone is currently getting now. Price it around the same price RoadRunner is now, or maybe a few bucks higher.
Any more questions, post them here. I can keep dumbing this down so it makes sense.
Chris- do you really think
Chris- do you really think they'll offer something $20 or less? Right now, after a few attempts to cancel, I have RR lite, which is 27.80 a month, but only because it's packaged with my outrageous cable. I do not use even 2GB a month. I used to have a broadband wireless card, so I used to keep track. I hope you are correct in your pricing evaluation.
Thanks for "dumbing it down"
Thanks for "dumbing it down" Chris. I get it now. I have no clue how much we use but it would be a lot. I think it would be good to have the smaller plans for people that don't use it much but I'm thinking that the size plan that I would need would be much more than I'm paying now.
http://www.businessweek.com/t
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090331_72639…
Scan down a few paragraphs. My estimate was off.
Front page of the D&C today
Front page of the D&C today too.