Cable companies said Wednesday that they will offer Internet service for $9.95 per month to homes with children that are eligible for free school lunches. The offer will start next summer and is part of an initiative the Federal Communications Commission cobbled together to get more U.S. homes connected to broadband.
The number of people online in China is 52% greater than the entire U.S. population. But don't expect that many U.S. Internet companies will benefit from those 485 million Chinese Internet users. The sky-high stock valuations on China's native firms highlight their strong local advantage.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday proposed that the government auction off its portion of the wireless spectrum to private companies to boost access to high-speed Internet and cut the federal budget deficit.
Netflix, the largest video-streaming company in the world, has been tracking the download speeds of North American broadband ISPs. On Thursday, it posted a chart of its findings: On average, ISPs in Canada handily beat their U.S. counterparts.
Lobbyists from some of the largest U.S. technology companies are meeting behind closed doors in Washington with telecom giants to discuss net neutrality, following the failed FCC talks and Google's bilateral deal with Verizon. No surprise, public interest groups weren't invited.
