Illinois municipality joins with AT&T to offer broadband

Starting next week, high-speed Internet connection will become a basic municipal service available to Bedford Park residents, much like garbage collection, police protection and library access.

The southwest suburban village has struck a deal with AT&T Inc. to deliver digital subscriber line connections to all residents who want it, paid for by the village.

Story in the Chicago Tribune.

AB 2897: Millions being spent on regulatory battle instead of service improvements

Here’s an analysis of legislation, AB 2897, that would give the California Department of Corporations sole authority to grant cable and video franchises, preempting the existing authority of local governments to grant the franchises.

The bill’s proponents including AT&T and other telecom vendors want one stop shopping to obtain video franchises from the state rather than having to separately negotiate agreements with cities and counties.

There’s nothing in the analysis that suggests AB 2987 would do anything to expand broadband Internet access in El Dorado County despite the bill’s stated purpose to promote competition among providers. It’s unfortunate that these vendors are spending millions on regulatory food fights rather than investing those dollars in urgently needed improvements to upgrade and expand their services.

Americans commuting farther, longer than ever

Another story on Census Bureau research that points up the need for modernized telecommunications in outlying residential areas to allow people telecommute to their jobs.

Presently, however, too many can't get on the information highway from home, trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide and relegated to sluggish and outdated dial up connections to the Internet.

Population shift to exurbs has major implications for telecoms

Northeasterners are moving South and West. West Coast residents are moving inland. Midwesterners are chasing better job markets. And just about everywhere, people are escaping to the outer suburbs, also known as exurbs.

This story has huge implications for telecommunications companies that serve outlying areas who should be putting in place updated networks now to serve the growing population.

Think tank: Rural U.S. faces potential loss of telecom infrastructure

“If changes are not made soon, then the universal service system as we have known it will suffer irreparable damage. Consumers in the most rural and high-cost areas of the nation will face the very real possibility of having no telecommunications carrier capable of connecting them to the telephone and information networks,” the firm concludes in “Universal Service: Rural Infrastructure at Risk, Release 2.0,” a white paper published earlier this month.

Article at NRTC Update

Broadband in Iceland, but not El Dorado County

U.S. government officials have noted that the low population density of the U.S. makes it difficult to deploy broadband over large areas of the country, but the advance of other low population density countries like Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden seems to indicate that broadband can be deployed in rural and remote areas if there is a will.

Article in Internet News by TechWeb News

Sacramento Bee: Rain exposes problems with AT&T's aging infrastructure

Phone service rained out for many in region
By Clint Swett -- Bee Staff Writer

Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, April 14, 2006

Carl Wood, a former commissioner at the California Public Utilities Commission and now a labor union consultant in Southern California, said AT&T may be more vulnerable because it serves a large geographic area and much of its infrastructure is aging.