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from: MultiChannel News

Ball State Study Sees Positive Effects From Indiana Telecom Bill
Finding Disputed by Cable Incumbents

By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 2/25/2008 1:20:00 PM

Ball State University has released a white paper stating that Indiana’s 2006 telecommunications reform bill has advanced the deployment of video and broadband services in the state, a finding disputed by cable incumbents in the state.

from: The Inquirer

FiOS: Nearing Full Speed
Posted on Sun, Feb. 24, 2008

By Bob Fernandez
Inquirer Staff Writer

Two years ago, Gus Gadonas saw the Verizon lineman stringing fiber-optic FiOS wires through his neighborhood in East Pikeland Township, Chester County. He ordered the new FiOS high-speed Internet service right away.

Note: This is an article from earlier this month, and prior to the request of the The National Association of Real Estate Brokers to have the Attorney Generals of five states investigate AT&T (according to Light Reading NAREB has since backed down).

from: Milwaukee Biz Blog

from: Ars Technica

Cable and telcos side with Comcast in FCC BitTorrent dispute

By Matthew Lasar | Published: February 19, 2008 - 04:57AM CT

The race is on to get the last word in on the Comcast/BitTorrent controversy. With ten days left to file, telcos, trade, and advocacy groups are sending the Federal Communications Commission their statements on whether Comcast and other ISPs purposefully degrade peer to peer traffic, and if so, what to do about it. Not surprisingly, the debate pits broadband content providers and advocacy groups against the big telcos, cable companies, and their trade association backers.

from: Broadband Reports

Connected Nation's $134 Billion Fish Tale?
Editorial: Lets make sure we adopt the RIGHT national broadband policy....
12:00PM Friday Feb 22 2008 by Karl

Last month Public Knowledge penned a piece that suggested that Connected Nation, a group supposedly created to push a national broadband policy, was actually now essentially a baby bell lobbying effort. The allegation was that what started as a real, local Kentucky effort to map U.S. broadband penetration, has ultimately been hijacked by baby bell lobbyists, and now exists primarily as a way to protect those companies' interests under the guise of a national broadband deployment model. If true, it's absolutely ingenious in a robustly amoral way.

from: Chuck Chowdery

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Who's Zooming Who on Digital TV?

Because all analog TV broadcasts in the USA will end in exactly one year, we've been hearing a lot about it lately. The ads and articles appearing now try to make it as simple as possible, which is admirable, but it's more complicated than it appears.

from: Bitch Slappin

Cable Choice and Competition, but only if you’re Rich

Nwitimes.com is reporting that in Indiana, after passage of one of the ubiquitous ‘Cable Choice and Competition‘ state level bills written by the phone companies, and pushed into passage by the phone companies deploying a swarm of lobbyists and handing out lots of chunky campaign contributions at the local level, the only neighborhoods that have been wired for UVerse service are affluent city and suburban neighborhoods. “More than a year ago, Indiana lawmakers supported video franchise reform legislation promoted by AT&T on the grounds that lower cable prices and widespread deployment would occur. So we exempted AT&T from the historic anti-discrimination rules that required cable operators to serve everyone in their footprint. . . . User-generated information on http://UverseUsers.com (probably the best and only public information available) conspicuously shows a dense concentration of U-Verse service in high-income areas and little coverage in low-income and rural neighborhoods. Indeed, it almost depicts a bright line separating wealthy suburbs of Indianapolis and the minority inner city areas.”

from: The Times

Is AT&T avoiding poor, minority neighborhoods?

by Charles Emory | Wednesday, February 20, 2008

With the 2008 presidential primaries well under way, we know this election season will be remembered in large part for its innovative use of the Internet. Fred Thompson and Barack Obama announced their candidacies via Web videos, and when Hillary Clinton unveiled her health care plan to cover the millions of uninsured she claims are "invisible" to the current administration, she did so via Webcast.

from: Ann Arbor News

New Service Lacks the CTN Channels

February 20, 2008
By Tom Gantert

Ann Arbor residents who choose AT&T U-verse — an Internet-based alternative to Comcast’s cable TV — won’t find Ann Arbor’s community-access channels on the service.

from: Public Knowlegde

Maryland Broadband Bills Should Send Connect Kentucky Home

From Public Knowledge, February 19, 2008
By Art Brodsky

Over the next couple of weeks, the Maryland General Assembly will consider a modest step in helping to further the spread of high-speed Internet services in the state. It could be a positive step, or a harmful misstep.