Off you go… into the purple yonder!

Google has announced it is going to build a real broadband network in the US, to test ultra-high speed applications and networks. They intend to provide service to at least 50,000 and possibly up to 500,000 people. It will be a fiber to the home network with speeds over 1 gigabit/second.
That’s way, way, way faster [...]

I wrote about Monticello, Minnesota and its fight with the local incumbent telco TDS last fall. At the time, TDS had its lawsuit against the city thrown out for lack of merit. No big surprise, since the gist of the suit was basically “they are going to compete with us, and they are going to [...]

Via the wired blog: Net Neutrality Advocates In Charge Of Obama Team Review of FCC.
The two people appointed are Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach.
They ‘get it’ – they understand that the US is a broadband backwater, that the current telecom policies only work to fatten the bank accounts of the big telecom players, and that [...]

TDS Telecom lost its lawsuit against the city of Monticello, MN.
Some background: citizens of Monticello approved in a referendum a plan to roll out a city-owned fiber network to provide cheap and fast internet access.
Immediately after the referendum the city was sued by Bridgewater, the local incumbent telco. Bridgewater and its parent TDS telecom challenged [...]

Via the Google blog: the FCC is set to rule shortly on the unused ‘white spaces’ – parts of the spectrum between broadcast TV channels that currently goes largely unused.
Google’s launching Free the airwaves – a campaign to make people aware of the FCC’s pending decision that could alter the broadband landscape significantly. If the [...]

Ars Technica describes a pilot project in Ottawa that puts a new twist on telecommunication infrastructure: the customer-owned last mile.
From the article: A private company has recently completed a project to string dark fiber from a colocation facility under the Ottawa City Hall to a neighborhood of 400 older, upper-middle-class homes.
The idea is to [...]

Walt Mossberg gets it, too: he likens wireless carriers in the US to Soviet ministries. I would go further and include most incumbent telcos, but hey, this is a good start.
I think things are going to change in broadband-land.

Great article in the New York Times’ business section on the upcoming 700 MHz auctions and the White Spaces Coalition. Here’s to hoping that the FCC will take up professor Judith Chevalier on her advice; we desperately need more competition in the broadband market.