Net Neutrality Bill: Broadband Internet Is An Essential Service

Last Thursday, House and Senate Democrats introduced the Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act, a bill to reclassify broadband Internet as an essential service and giving the FCC power to prohibit discriminatory practices like blocking and throttling certain lanes of internet traffic. The essential nature of broadband should be obvious to all, especially after COVID lockdown moved so much public sector, education, and business activity online.

In 2015, the FCC voted to regulate broadband as a common carrier under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, ensuring utility-style regulation and non-discrimination rules, but this was reversed by Trump appointees in 2017.

According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “the Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act will secure a fairer, more accessible digital future by enshrining into federal law a common-sense value: everyone deserves access to affordable, high-speed internet service.” A United Nations report declared Internet access a human right in 2011.

The Congressional effort is being led by Rep. Doris Matsui (D, CA-6) and Senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

More:

“Net neutrality bill unveiled to codify broadband Internet as essential service,” Darryl Coote, UPI

“Democrats revive the fight for net neutrality,” Makena Kelly, The Verge

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Naughty or Nice? Santa’s Tracking System.

“It is no overstatement to say that Santa knows when children have been bad or good. He knows much else besides. The information stems from a personal pipeline Santa has to children’s thoughts via a listening antenna that combines technologies currently used in cell phones and EKGs. A sophisticated signal processing system filters the data, giving Santa clues on who wants what, where children live, and even who has been bad or good. Effectively, it gives him advanced neuroimaging capabilities that tell him that Mary in Miami hopes for a surfboard, Michael from Minneapolis wants a snowboard, etc. Later, all this information is processed in an onboard sleigh guidance system, which provides Santa with the most efficient delivery route.

The system serves as a fail-safe backstop to the letters Santa receives via snail mail from around the globe.”

– Dr. Larry Silverberg, NC State University scientist and 2010 Visiting Scholar at Santa’s Workshop-North Pole Labs (NPL).

More:

“Dispatches From The North Pole: The Science of Santa’s List,” Matt Shipman, The Abstract

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Congress Chooses Vacation Over NSA Hearings

The U.S. Senate was shocked – shocked! – to learn that the NSA is conducting activities Congress had approved and promptly scheduled hearings about them. Senators then went on vacation instead of attending the hearing.

Members of Congress hold fast to one sacred principle: A three-day workweek. Nothing must interfere with that.

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Earphones

“In the 1890s, a British company called Electrophone created a system allowing their customers to connect into live feeds of performances at theaters and opera houses across London. Subscribers to the service could listen to the performance through a pair of massive earphones that connected below the chin, held by a long rod. The form and craftsmanship of these early headphones make them a sort of remote, audio equivalent of opera glasses. It was revolutionary, and even offered a sort of primitive stereo sound. However, the earliest headphones had nothing to do with music, but were used for radio communication and telephone operators in the late 19th century.”

–“A Partial History of Headphones,” Jimmy Stamp, Smithsonian blog [link added]

Budapest’s long-running Telefon Hírmondó (“Telephone Herald”) phone newspaper preceded Electrophone. It often featured live opera performances, and seems to have used stock telephone ear speakers.

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Japan: True Fax

“Japan is renowned for its robots and bullet trains, and has some of the world’s fastest broadband networks. But it also remains firmly wedded to a pre-Internet technology — the fax machine — that in most other developed nations has joined answering machines, eight-tracks and cassette tapes in the dustbin of outmoded technologies.

Last year alone, Japanese households bought 1.7 million of the old-style fax machines, which print documents on slick, glossy paper spooled in the back. In the United States, the device has become such an artifact that the Smithsonian is adding two machines to its collection, technology historians said.”

“The Japanese government’s Cabinet Office said that almost 100 percent of business offices and 45 percent of private homes had a fax machine as of 2011.”

“’There is still something in Japanese culture that demands the warm, personal feelings that you get with a handwritten fax….'”

— “In High-Tech Japan, the Fax Machines Roll On,”  Martin Fackler, New York Times

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Syria Shuts Off the Internet

“Syria: Internet and mobile communication ‘cut off,'” BBC News

“Syria Has Disappeared From the Internet,” Arik Hesseldahl, AllThingsD

“Internet down nationwide in Syria,” AP via USA Today

UPDATE:

“How Syria Shut Down the Internet,” Ben Weitzenkorn, TechNewsDaily via Discovery News

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7 Billion People, 6 Billion Cell Phones

“There are seven billion people on earth, and six billion cell phone contracts …. China and India each have about one billion cell phone subscriptions. Twice as many people have access to the Internet via cell phones, as those with fixed connections.”

“Six Billion Cell Phones In World Of Seven Billion,” Worldcrunch

The figures are from the annual report of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies.

More:

“ITU releases latest global technology development figures,” ITU press release

Measuring the Information Society 2012 — download it from this webpage.

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Adieu, Minitel

On June 30th, its 30th birthday, France Télécom is hanging up on the Minitel videotexting system, whose monitors have been a fixture in French homes, offices, and post offices since 1982. The “France-Wide  Web” text-over-phoneline system replaced phone directories, displayed online news and information, and allowed electronic bill payments and other transactions (even virtual sex). Cellphone MSM texting and e-commerce on the Web now serve many of the same functions. Still, there is some mélancolie as the French say “Adieu Minitel, ami fidèle.”

Naughty or Nice? Santa’s Tracking System.

“It is no overstatement to say that Santa knows when children have been bad or good. He knows much else besides. The information stems from a personal pipeline Santa has to children’s thoughts via a listening antenna that combines technologies currently used in cell phones and EKGs. A sophisticated signal processing system filters the data, giving Santa clues on who wants what, where children live, and even who has been bad or good. Effectively, it gives him advanced neuroimaging capabilities that tell him that Mary in Miami hopes for a surfboard, Michael from Minneapolis wants a snowboard, etc. Later, all this information is processed in an onboard sleigh guidance system, which provides Santa with the most efficient delivery route.

The system serves as a fail-safe backstop to the letters Santa receives via snail mail from around the globe.”

— Dr. Larry Silverberg, NC State University scientist and 2010 Visiting Scholar at Santa’s Workshop-North Pole Labs (NPL).

More: “Dispatches From The North Pole: The Science of Santa’s List,” Matt Shipman, The Abstract

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Cell Phone Robocalls?

Wouldn’t it be nice if telemarketers could call you day or night, at your own expense, on your cell phone? Big business thinks it would be lovely, and is behind a Congressional bill that would make cell phone robocalls legal.

If you enjoy intrusive and unwanted robocalls to your cell phone, do nothing. If not, tell the House Energy and Commerce Committee not to refer the bill for a full House vote by signing the petition here and sending this link to your friends — http://bit.ly/twzZZk

More:

“Telemarketers, Collectors Could Target Cells Under “Mobile Information Call Act”: Chuck Schumer,” NY Daily News

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