The US is the best at everything, including broadband according to Verizon: [8th Apr 2010]

The FCC national broadband plan which was worked on for several months, may be affected by a loss in the federal courts this week, which may mean some policies will have to be abandoned. Austin Schlick from the FCC commented that each recommendation must have a sound legal footing and they are assessing the impact of the decision. The federal court ruled in favor of Comcast who argued that sanctions placed on it were not in keeping with the rules surrounding open internet access. Effectively the ruling said that because the FCC can regulated telephone and cable, it does not give it automatic right to regulate broadband. Shlick suggested that this may affect the ability to make broadband more affordable and the ability to change the phone subsidy to a broadband one. Cybersecurity issues may also be affected.

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg has claimed that the US is so far ahead of the rest of the world when it came to broadband, that no one else even came close. He made the comment at the Council for Foreign Relations, where he also suggested that the FCC measurement of the speed of the network was not important. He suggested that the US has a greater household penetration than other countries and simply comparing speeds was not a good indicator. He says regulators should look at what the market wants, not what the government believes is the most important issue. He also said that Europe was envious of the advancements made in the US, in particular when it came to smartphone use.

The FCC have announced a new initiative this week to help small businesses adopt broadband. The initiative will combine SCORE (the volunteer arm of the Small Business Administration) and private partners including AT&T, Cisco, Best Buy, Google and Microsoft. It is hoped that the new project will help small businesses to become more competitive with larger US companies and those overseas. The FCC commented that their national broadband plan found that having the service enhances businesses and their communities.

Project GOAL (Get Older Americans Online) have released research which shows that just 35% of older people in the US have a broadband service, compared with 65% across the whole population. The new group is backed by technology companies such as Facebook and Time Warner Cable and is hoping to encourage use to prevent the isolation many seniors feel. Debra Berlyn from the group has said that many elderly people feel worried about the privacy issues surrounding the use of the internet and many are not aware they could use the technology to keep their minds sharp, do research and do the shopping without having to leave the house. GOAL will work with seniors to encourage training in technology and help with teaching the elderly why broadband could be useful for them. Berlyn has also expressed concern that in the future, not being online could lead to social and financial disadvantage.

AT&T have announced they will be investing $1bn to upgrade its business networks, services and products for both big and small businesses in the US. This will be added to the $3bn already spent since 2006 upgrading its services. The changes they have made range from laying more undersea cabling to boosting broadband speeds by up to 24 times.

Google got into the spirit of April Fools Day this year by changing their name (on their homepage at least) to Topeka. The brilliance of this gag is that the town Topeka recently changed it's name to Google to attract attention to be considered for high speed broadband. Google even released a photo of the headquarters with new signage in place, proudly showing it's new name. Users were even instructed on how to use the name. For example: "before our blind date I Topeka'd him." This gag has been added to a previous list which included the announcement in 2007 that they would run their cables through sewers and described themselves as a TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider). Also in 2007 Google launched a paper back up option for Gmail users. They could request a paper copy of their emails to be sent to them. They claimed the cost of postage would be offset by advertisements on the back of the page, in 36 point red ink...