Ever wonder what a company means when it says its internet service is “high speed”? Then check out this table that documents the plethora of technologies that the FCC counts as “broadband” — be warned, speeds can vary by as much as 2000 percent!
In short, “broadband” is defined by the FCC as anything other than “dial up” — and “high speed” has no commonly-agreed-to definition.
Today comScore released results of a survey of consumer attitudes about the Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle and other ereaders. This surprising tidbit is at the bottom of the press release:
Younger consumers indicated a high willingness to pay for news and magazines specially formatted for e-readers. 68 percent of 25-34 year olds and 59 percent of 35-44 year olds said they were willing to pay for this content, representing substantially higher percentages than people age 45 and older.
Of course, there is no data (public data, anyway) showing how much they might be willing to pay. And if there is a difference in willingness to pay for newspapers versus magazines.
In regards to the iPad, 34 percent said that they would like a built-in camera; 37 percent want the screen to be the same size as a laptop or desktop computer; and 43 percent want to be able to use multiple applications at once.
The survey of 2,176 Internet consumers revealed that the iPad has the same “aided awarness” as the Kindle (65%) and about the same percent who are “seriously considering” a purchase in the next three months (14% Kindle, 15% iPad). The Barnes and Noble Nook trailed in both categories: 28% aided awareness and 10% intent-to-purchase.
No wonder Facebook wants so much of our information to be accessible to external search engines. Their internal search is pitiful.
Continue reading
A round-up of editorials and analyses of the FCC broadband plan released Tuesday. Continue reading
Media reports of the FCC broadband plan (pdf) that was sent to Congress today were fawning. Almost all contain this quote from FCC Chair Julius Genacowski, which describes the plan to connect 100 million U.S. households (~85 percent) to 100 Mbps high speed broadband by 2020 as
a 21st-century roadmap to spur economic growth and investment, create jobs, educate our children, protect our citizens and engage in our democracy.
But does this plan meet that lofty claim? No. (Read on if you want to argue with me.) Continue reading
