Governor Kaine's Broadband Roundtable -- led by former Governor Mark Warner -- is developing a plan for improving the deployment of high-speed Internet through the Commonwealth. Of course, to that end, they need to figure out where we need more broadband. So, that's where you come in. Help improve Virginia's broadband readiness -- and consequently our ability to compete in the global economy -- by taking this survey.
We want to know more about broadband deployment in Virginia and its availability in your area. By answering a few questions, you can help us gain a better understanding of where access to broadband services and the Internet remains a challenge. Your answers will be used only as part of an aggregate report and your information will not be shared with any other group or business.
If the survey attract both a large number of people and a good geographic representation of the state, the Roundtable will be able to best promote high-speed Internet to the parts of Virginia that need broadband most.
So, please take the survey! It took me two minutes, so it's not a big time commitment to help out "raise" Kaine's broadband initiative!
1) Give the phone and cable companies more incentives to bring service to underserved areas.
Sounds nice, except we've been doing that for, oh, forever. Interested in reading up on that? Check out Bruce Kushnick's Teletruth site.
Anyone here have any suggestion on what ought to be done?
(I'm in a pretty well served area - I can get a decent connection/poor service from Verizon, Comcast, or a limited number of DSL resellers. I suppose I could get satellite, but I don't think my neighbors would appreciate me cutting their trees down to do it.)
Stay away, far away.
People outside the competitive inner 'burbs and cities are getting robbed with expensive monopolies or no choice at all.
We've given out hand-outs to Verizon in particular, but to all RBOCs and Cable companies in general to help them bring broadband (at the time it was DSL or Cable-modems) to everyone or nearly everyone (they were exempted from areas they did not already cover). It's time for them to pay back the freaking hand-out or establish the connections.
Their corporate actions have been criminal and they only get away with it because of our corrupt and completely bought congress being unwilling to go after them.
We have FIOS here, but Verizon customer service is so awful that I would hate to recommend it. Before I moved last summer, I had a Cox cable modem, which seemed to work fairly well.