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.
Latest Pew Study Shows 70 Percent of US Has Broadband. But Access Is Still Unequal
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Cable monopolies hurt consumers and the nation
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
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.
Here’s how phone metadata can reveal your secrets
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
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.
Smart phone searches by police should raise alarm
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
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.
Aereo Wins Send Networks on Hunt to Stop Streaming TV
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Broadcasters stymied by court losses in New York are turning to judges in California and Massachusetts in their campaign to shut down the Aereo.
Facebook and Google Try Self Help
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
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.
Why don’t Facebook and Google just embrace that they’re monetizing the third world?
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
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.
Inside Comcast’s $30 Billion TV Bet
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
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.
Home Broadband 2013
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
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.