Kentucky Is Broadband Model?

Chris - u live in Kentucky?

So, what’s Mark’s (from Kentucky) problem? DSL and Cable ARE broadband. Connecting up an entire state seems like a GOOD thing.

[...] No free beer! That sucks. Mitch Joel says broadband is everywhere.   But only if you consider DSL broadband.  I don’t call DSL broadband. [...]

[...] I happen to agree with him. [...]

Well, this seems to be going nowhere fast. I lobbied Mitch Joel of Twist Image and Paul Van Hoesen of cTechnology let me use some of his time at Barcamp Nashville to try to generate some discussion.

If you’re reading this, please take time to stake a position on the subject so it doesn’t slip into law without a LOT of conversation.

Erick: I have a problem calling DSL broadband.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-96kbps-Broadband-Connection-85904

The FCC needs to change the definition of broadband.
The latest numbers I saw that average speed was near 5 mbps down for the U.S. France and Sweden are 18 mbps down. China and Korea are like 50+ down.

I should not be acceptable for the U.S. to set a standard that is already way behind the rest of the world. If the Kentucky Model is adopted, this is what will happen. And the politicos will continue to tout the US as a technological and communications leader.

Hi,
Here are couple more tidbits that I found that I haven’t read much about - admittedly I don’t really know where to look, that’s why I’m using you as a touchstone!

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spectrum11sep11,1,5592484.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
hat’s more important: broadcast TV or high-speed Internet access?

Not surprisingly, broadcasters choose TV. And they launched a lobbying blitz Monday to prevent technology companies from potentially causing interference on over-the-air television signals in a quest to hook up more people to the Internet.

http://www.nlr.net/ National LambdaRail
National LambdaRail, Inc. (NLR) is a major initiative of U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies to provide a national scale infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking technologies and applications. NLR puts the control, the power and the promise of experimental network infrastructure in the hands of our nation’s scientists and researchers.

The fraud is picking up speed.
Alabama and Wal-mart announced they are offering “high speed” thru sattelite.
Here’s the kicker:

“Wal-Mart will be offering HughesNet service plans with download speeds
of up to 1.5Mbps”

It’s a farce to call 1.5mbps “high speed.”

Full press release here. I wish you and other people with influence would start writing about redefining “high speed.”

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/10-10-2007/0004679081&EDATE=

The BS is flowing from the government about the digital divide narrowing.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/32855q

Saying high speed is everywhere.
“Ninety-three percent of online households with income levels of $75,000
and higher have high speed access, compared to 65 percent of households
with an income of $25 - $75,000 and 58 percent of households at $25,000 or less.”

DSL IS NOT highspeed.

While you can argue until you are blue in the face about “what is broadband”, the real point of the matter is that ANYTHING is better than dial-up. I live in a rural part of Kentucky and my ONLY option other than dial-up is satellite, which I have used for nearly 8 years now. Broadband or not, it is vastly superior to dial-up. I have been considering becoming a wireless ISP to serve my local area which could offer much better speeds than satellite at significantly lower cost. Whether you would call it broadband or not is really irrelevant.

On the other hand, I have been watching the “initiative” in KY to improve the states technology usage which includes providing “broadband” to more areas of the state and the more I looked into it, the more it looks like an effort to improve people’s PERCEPTION of KY. Or at least it’s former governor.

You can check out all the details here: http://www.connectkentucky.org/

A lot of smoke and mirrors if you ask me.

Dial-up is a non-starter. That’s a given.

Defining broadband is important. You point out that KY is attempting to improve perception - and that’s exactly why there needs to be a definition so that KY and every other state would be measured against a standard of upload and download speeds.

To try and pass off DSL as true broadband does nothing to improve the internet experience. Refer to my comment about download speeds in other countries.

http://463.blogs.com/the_463/ has an excellent analysis of what’s happening in D.C. and how ignorant lawmakers are. It’s this type of attitude toward technology that MUST change.

Thank you for weighing in on this.

UPDATE: 200 Kpbs is considered “broadband” by FCC.

200k !!!

Ridiculous

source: http://463.blogs.com/the_463/2007/12/download-this-f.html

Measuring the rate of U.S. broadband adoption is difficult, because there is no widely agreed-upon definition of the term “broadband.” The International Telecommunication Union defined it as a transmission capacity greater than 1.5 to 2 megabits per second (mbps), but the OECD has a minimum download speed of 256 kilobits per second (kbps) in its definition of the term, while the FCC uses 200 kbps in its definition.19 Most estimates of the number of U.S. households with broadband in 2006 range from 50 million to 56 million.

FINALLY!
The FCC will no longer refer to “high speed broadband” instead it will be “First Generation Data”

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080615-jokes-over-fcc-establishes-new-broadband-measurement-system.html

KentuckyConnect is a joke. I dont see the point of having the website at all.

Kentucky is a far cry from being fully covered in broadband. I live in rural Harrison County where progress is a dirty word to our city officials. All they care about is adding another fast food joint.

A few people have been trying to get DSL extended to all rural areas, which would be great. But, it hasn’t come close to my side of town. I am only 4 miles from the city. No cable. No DSL. Nothing at all but dialup. Many things including online schooling is requiring high speed capability. At home jobs, etc.

Its a disgrace that we have a mayor and other officials that have no concept of “needs” accept what their bank account needs.

WE NEED BROADBAND ACCESS IN HARRISON COUNTY LIKE KENTUCKY NEEDS BETTER EDUCATION.

I would not believe that Kentucky has a broadband or DSL model for the rest of the country?