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We knew this was coming, but starting today, every citizen of Finland has the legal right to a 1Mbps broadband connection, meaning that providers are now required to make the connections available to everyone. The government of Finland has also promised to make good on its goal of getting every citizen with a 100Mbps connection by 2015, saying that they now consider internet access a basic requirement of daily life. We’re with you on that one, we promise.

Finland the first country in the world to make broadband access a legal right originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve had the megahertz and megapixels races, now how about a megabits per second contest? A Comcast customer has posted a note from his latest bill online, showing a new Extreme 105 service that will purportedly be launching on June 1. You’ll need to obtain an Arris WBM760 cable modem to make it work, while also ponying up $249 for installation and $200 each month thereafter, but such is the price for sailing in the mostly unexplored 105Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream currents. Guess that will have to do until Google rolls out that gigabit fiber network later this year.

Comcast to offer Extreme 105Mbps broadband package starting in June? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 08:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The FCC’s plan to rework how it regulates the internet just got a lot more solid today, as the agency officially announced its “third way” approach to classifying broadband services and opened it up for public comment. We’ve broken the entire thing down for you — we’re not kidding when we say this will affect how the internet works for all of us in the future, so grab a snack and head past the break for the whole story.

Continue reading FCC outlines new ‘third way’ internet regulatory plan, will split access from content

FCC outlines new ‘third way’ internet regulatory plan, will split access from content originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 May 2010 13:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/Google_Receives_1_100_Responses_for_Gigabit_Fiber_Network’; Ever wondered what it looks like when the entire nation wants a piece of Google? Well, we’ve already seen some crazy action in a few cities, but here’s a bigger picture — a map showing the vast lot of locations that have signed up for Google’s experimental 1Gbps fiber network service. What’s more, the number of community submissions almost doubled between 10am and the 5pm deadline, resulting “more than 1,100 community responses and more than 194,000 responses from individuals.” Yep, that sure is a lot of paperwork to go through, but Google reckons it’ll have a location or two picked “by the end of the year.” Meanwhile, let’s hope that these Googletown-wannabes will churn out enough nutso videos to keep us entertained.

Google receives ‘more than 1,100 community responses’ for gigabit fiber network originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ll be aware by now that Google’s cooking up an experimental high speed broadband network, which is currently in the process of collecting applications and nominations from interested communities. Given the limited coverage planned — anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 people — there’s understandably a lot of competition to get your small town on Google’s radar, and city officials all around the USA have been doing their utmost to grab some publicity for their locale. Duluth mayor Don Ness can be seen above taking a dip in Minnesota’s icy Lake Superior (with his unfortunate underling Richard Brown taking a fish to the face), while others have held parades, danced, invented a “Google Fiber” flavor of ice cream, and even swam with sharks for the sake of that precious fiber. Duluth, however, is the only place officially endorsed by a senator, and you can see Al Franken promote the city’s virtues on video after the break.

[Thanks, b3ast]

Update: We’ve now also got video of the actual dip in the water, slide past the break to see it [Thanks, TheLostSwede].

Continue reading Google’s 1Gbps broadband offer brings out the crazy in municipal officers around the States (video)

Google’s 1Gbps broadband offer brings out the crazy in municipal officers around the States (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you know there was a Digital Inclusion Summit going on? We already know the FCC isn’t best pleased about the fact 93 million Americans are making do without access to home broadband, and this latest event was an opportunity for it to dish some more info on its forthcoming National Broadband Plan. The major obstacles to broadband adoption identified by the FCC were noted as cost, computer illiteracy, and a sheer lack of awareness about the benefits the web offers (outside of cute kitties). The big Plan will be delivered to Congress a week from today, and its suggestions will include the creation of a Digital Literacy Corps, who’ll be performing missionary duties among the unenlightened, and the big whopper: a proposal to “consider use of spectrum for a free or very low cost wireless broadband service.” Yeah, if you can’t jump over the cost hurdle you might as well eviscerate it from existence. Quite naturally, such radical plans have been met with much grumbling opposition, and Business Week reports that it may be years before the full reforms are implemented … if at all.

FCC will consider ‘free or very low cost wireless broadband’ service originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The BBC World Service has conducted a poll of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries to answer one primary question: is internet access a fundamental human right? We can skip right past Finland and Estonia who’ve already made laws to that effect, and take a look at what the other nations thought. Mexico, Korea and Brazil lead the way here with all having greater than 90 percent agreement, while Pakistan, India and Kenya — countries with a slightly different perception of what fundamental needs are — offer the least support, though they’re all still above 50 percent in agreement. Other interesting stats include the claim by 85 percent of Japanese internet users and 81 percent in Mexico that they would not be able to “cope without the internet,” while 55 percent of Brits and most other European nations believe that the internet should be regulated by governments in at least some way. Ghana and Nigeria are most worried about fraud (ha!), while people in the Philippines see explicit content as the web’s biggest threat. Hit the source for more such pearls of wisdom and do let us know what you think in the comments below.

79 percent of adults believe web access is a ‘fundamental right’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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