Latest Pew Study Shows 70 Percent of US Has Broadband. But Access Is Still Unequal

Pew released survey results showing that the percentage of Americans with home “high speed broadband” connections has ticked up from 66 to 70 percent since April 2012. Pew calls this a “small but statistically significant rise.” The news of an overall rise in “high-speed broadband” adoption will likely be trumpeted by America’s giant communications companies and policymakers as the bright spot: “We’re not doing so badly!” But before we start celebrating, it’s a good idea to look closely at the results.

read more

Cable monopolies hurt consumers and the nation

Choice and competitiveness are the casualties when big firms such as Time Warner and Comcast have no motive to upgrade speed or capacity. The filthy little secret of home and business Internet data services in the United States is that the vast majority of Americans receive them from their local monopoly cable provider, the two largest of which are the increasingly rapacious and indolent Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

read more

How the Time Warner Cable, CBS Standoff Could Set the TV Standard

Unlike other recent retransmission negotiations that focused on small fee increases, CBS is determined to make up for what it perceives to be a historic injustice in terms of what cable and satellite operators pay for CBS content.

read more

Here’s how phone metadata can reveal your secrets

The National Security Agency’s surveillance program, now being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, only collects metadata about Americans’ phone calls—who they call, when, and how long the calls last. In defending the program, the government has cited a controversial 1979 Supreme Court decision that held that phone records are not protected by the Fourth Amendment because consumers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their calling records.

read more

Smart phone searches by police should raise alarm

The more we hear about President Obama's attitude toward privacy, the less we like. The latest eyebrow-raiser is the Administration's argument that the Fourth Amendment allows warrantless cell phone searches.

read more

Aereo Wins Send Networks on Hunt to Stop Streaming TV

Broadcasters stymied by court losses in New York are turning to judges in California and Massachusetts in their campaign to shut down the Aereo.

read more

Facebook and Google Try Self Help

It turns out you need lots and lots of cement when building Internet super-highways. Now web heavyweights like Google and Facebook want to mix their own.

read more

Why don’t Facebook and Google just embrace that they’re monetizing the third world?

You’d be hard pressed to find many fooled that Internet.org is anything but a Trojan horse for some big tech companies to access new customers.

read more

Inside Comcast’s $30 Billion TV Bet

In the two years since Comcast bought NBCUniversal, Steve Burke has shown a zeal for shaking things up with little sentimentality, weeding out some of the company's most well-known personalities in the process.

read more

Home Broadband 2013

As of May 2013, 70% of American adults ages 18 and older have a high-speed broadband connection at home, according to a nationally representative survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

read more