Netflix Embracing Both DVD and VOD

Video is in a transition, much the same as the one music experienced a few years ago. We’re moving from a world in which the content is provided on a standardized physical medium to one where the content exists as packets, somewhere out there. Right now we have one foot in each world. If you are a video service provider, you can choose one world over the other, or you can do as Netflix as done and support both.

The iPod and iTunes experience demonstrates that when technology is ready to change, it can happen in a hurry. When was the last time you browsed in a music store? It wasn’t that long ago that every town and every mall had at least a couple music stores full of CDs and a smattering of LPs. Now they’re as hard to find as a vinyl 45 record. The MP3 player, and especially the iPod, put music in the electronic realm with no need to move a physical medium from place to place. The Internet works just fine when your content is in digital form.

Few of us have film cameras and projectors anymore, but we’ve got DVD and Blu-ray players galore. Still sitting on many shelves is the VHS tape player, probably powered off. If VHS tape represents the vinyl record, DVD and Blu-ray represent the CD. They are just different ways to physically transport video content. But what happens when you have the infrastructure to move the content electronically? Do you really need that physical medium anymore?

Broadband Internet enabled music downloads. It’s fast enough now to enable both streaming and video downloads. When fiber optic bandwidth becomes the norm, we’ll really have the information superhighway and there will be little need for “sneaker net” to transport software, data files, music or video. With DOCSIS 3.0 and higher speed DSL developments, we may already have all the bandwidth we really need for video on demand.

You’re starting to see the beginning of it. Video stores are disappearing the way music stores did. Our local grocery store has converted their video department to sell posters and picture frames. Blu-ray is giving the disc medium another lease on life, but it will probably be short lived. The latest wrinkle in retailing is the Blu-ray rental vending machine. It’s a clever idea, but you still have to physically travel to rent and return discs. I give it a few years before even this seems too inconvenient.

Netflix is the video rental service that saw this transition coming and is taking advantage of it. The first thing they did was differentiate themselves by renting DVDs by mail rather than building a portfolio of physical stores. With 100 shipping locations, they can get a DVD into your mailbox within a business day most of the time. The service is sold as a reasonably priced monthly subscription to eliminate mad dashes to the store in time to avoid late fees. When you want another movie, you drop the one you have in the mail. The mailers are provided and postage paid to eliminate the usual annoyances of using the mail.

This is a slick system that supports DVD, Blu-ray and any other physical medium the video industry comes up with. But the lure of fast and easy online viewing is tilting the pendulum toward digital delivery. Netflix has responded by adding Internet streaming to its service at no extra charge. The amount of content is limited right now, but there’s enough to make it interesting and give you plenty to watch on the spur of the moment. Between Netflix plans that start at $8.99 a month and free over the air TV, a good number of people have found it a lot cheaper to eliminate their cable or satellite service and still get as much viewing variety as they need.

Does Internet viewing mean you need to sit in front of your computer to watch a movie. You certainly can if you want to, but you also have the option to view Netflix rentals on your television. Some TVs offer the ability to be used as VGA monitors, making connection to the big screen easy. Some of the latest flat screen TVs have Internet access built-in, so you can watch Netflix and even YouTube videos. Some LG HDTVs are Netflix-compatible, as are some Blu-ray players. Netflix has even gone beyond this to enable gaming consoles, such as the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 to access your video account. These devices are already connected to a television, so they are logical “set top devices” for Internet based video.

What is 4G and Why Do You Want It?

You see ads for 3G cell phones and wireless modem aircards. Now here comes 4G. What is this advance in technology all about and why should you want it now?

2G, 3G, 4G. All those G’s, what do they mean? What we’re talking about is a shorthand for the generations of wireless broadband service. It’s been advancing so fast that it’s not unusual for different generations of service to be available in the same area. That’s by design. If you are in a weak service area for 3G, then your device will automatically seek out a lower speed service such as 2.5G or 2G. You won’t get as high a bandwidth, but at least you’ll be connected.

Wireless broadband is generally a companion service to cellular telephone. It uses the same towers and base stations. Coverage areas are pretty much the same. The exception is when a particular tower site hasn’t yet been upgraded to the latest cellular broadband generation. In that case, you’ll get a lower level of service until you move into the coverage of a cell tower that is at the latest standard.

I should mention here that there are two wireless broadband services that have nothing to do with cell phones. One is the WISP or Wireless Internet Service Provider that offers home and business broadband. You need to be within line of site of their tower and install an outdoor antenna on your roof. These WISPs are pretty much locally owned an operated, and generally serve locations that aren’t wired for DSL or Cable.

The other non-cellular wireless service is the WiFi hotspot. There are so many of them, that they could almost form a cellular-like network of their own. That hasn’t happened because hotspots are also largely local services, mostly offered by restaurants and hotels. There’s no network to tie them together, so once you leave a hotspot you have to log into another one at your next stop.

That’s where 4G steps in. Imagine that you are connected to a 4G service and are reading a document while parked in your car. You can go into a client’s office or your own and you’ll still be on the same service. The idea of 4G is to blanket a city with a signal strong enough that you have high bandwidth connectivity without worrying about where you are located.

But doesn’t 3G do that? To some extent, yes. But 4G has the advantage of higher bandwidths. With the 4G service that is available today using the WiMAX standard, you can get 3 to 6 Mbps on a normal basis, with bursts of to 10 Mbps.

WiMAX 4G is also not limited to mobile service the way that 2G and 3G are. It’s designed for both desktop and mobile service. That puts this 4G network in a class by itself. You can get a WiMAX modem for your desktop computer and a plug-in 4G aircard for your laptop computer. You’ll have the same service at your desk as you do on the road. There are even 4G phones coming out sometime this summer that look to become a game changer in the wireless service industry.

There are two standards that will dominate 4G service. One is LTE which will be deployed later this year and through 2011. The other is WiMAX broadband that is available now in many cities and states. Find out if your location qualifies for 4G wireless broadband
now.

Ethernet Over Fiber Needed By Business

We’ve all heard that fiber optic bandwidth is the future, but are you sure it isn’t the right service for the present?

Most business telecom services have traditionally been copper based. It starts with the binder cable that gets installed during building construction. All those twisted copper pair provide the multi-line telephone service that is as standardized in business as the metal file cabinet. Copper pair are also used to bring in ISDN digital trunking for PBX phone systems and T1 lines for broadband Internet and linking business locations point to point.

For many small and medium businesses, this is the telecom infrastructure. It’s been that way for decades. Why should it change?

To get an idea about where network speeds are going, take a look at the broadband services offered to consumers. Both DSL and Cable left the 1-2 Mbps download speed is the dust years ago. Consumers now expect at least 3 to 6 Mbps, and many clamor for 10, 20, 30 or 50 Mbps. Cable is getting to these levels with new DOCSIS 3.0 modems. Verizon is offering double digit broadband as a matter of course over it’s FiOS fiber to the home service.

If consumers are getting used to high bandwidth Internet services, some using fiber optic service, it should be no surprise the pressure on business users to expand their network bandwidth is increasing. It’s not just the businesses generating bandwidth-demanding content for the consumer market. Business applications are getting more sophisticated to improve worker productivity, including audio, video and interactivity. They’re also headed to the cloud. Processes that always put demands on company local networks now put those demands on the outside connections.

Once you get beyond 10 Mbps or so, in becomes increasingly necessary to bring in fiber optic service. Ethernet over Copper can work up to 50 Mbps in special situations, close to carrier points of presence. That’s the limit, and it only works for a minority of business locations. What you want and need is fiber optic service that is almost bandwidth unlimited.

But what about the cost? This is where the newer Ethernet over Fiber services have become the high bandwidth solutions of choice. Ethernet is generally less costly than traditional telecom bandwidth on a per Mbps basis, sometimes dramatically less expensive. Scalable bandwidth options are readily available, once you have the fiber connection. That means you can start off with 10 Mbps Ethernet and easily upgrade to 20, 30, 40 or 50 Mbps as long as terminal equipment will support those port speeds. The fiber itself will take you to Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps and on up to Gigabit Ethernet or GigE, perhaps even to 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 GigE. Don’t roll your eyes. The days of needing those bandwidth levels are not that far off.

Are you frustrated with your WAN network connection speed? if so, it’s time to be looking into fiber optic solutions. It may be much less expensive than you think. The way to find out is to check Ethernet over Fiber prices and availability for your business location.

The Need for Low Latency Networks

When we think of network performance, we tend to think of bandwidth. After all, bandwidth equals speed. The faster your network runs, the faster your can transfer files from place to place. The faster those data transfers go, the more work can be done. That can also translate into bandwidth equals productivity. But there is another characteristic of network performance that is getting attention as of late. That is the matter of latency.

What is latency? It’s the time delay in the network. In other words, how long it takes to get a packet from node to node. You might be inclined to think that latency has something to do with bandwidth, but they are quite different characteristics.

Here’s an example. Suppose we are transmitting a data stream up to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. One application is video feeds from the other side of the world. You see them on the TV news every night. Have you noticed that there is a slight delay in the connection? The TV anchor has to wait a second for the reporter to reply or they’ll talk over the top of each other. That pause is latency. It has to do with how long it takes for the signal to go up to the satellite and back down to the far location.

Now, how much do you suppose that it would speed up the television feed if we doubled the bandwidth? The answer: Not at all. As long as you don’t have packets waiting in a queue because of insufficient bandwidth, doubling, tripling or making the bandwidth 100x won’t speed up the circuit at all.

Why? Because the radio signal traveling thorough space is already at the speed of light. The Einsteinian limit of 186,000 miles per second sets the threshold on how low latency can be between point A and point B. You can’t make the signal go faster, but you can sure make it go slower.

Signals traveling to satellites in space go slowly enough. If you have a satellite Internet connection, you know that quite well. VoIP is impossible unless you want to use your connection like a walkie-talkie. Only one person can talk at a time and then wait for the other to reply. That’s called half-duplex. We’re used to full duplex, where two people can talk at the same time and still hear each other without interruption.

Low latency was inherent in the analog telephone system. There was very little but wire connecting two telephone sets. It takes maybe a millisecond to go a hundred miles. The same is true for TDM (Time Division Multiplexed) circuits such as T1 lines. You lose a little in the conversion process, but the synchronized channel propagates as fast as the signal can travel in copper wires or glass fibers.

So, what slows things down on the Internet? It’s all those routers between source and destination. Each one adds some milliseconds or fraction thereof to the process. Get a dozen or more routers between you and the other end of the transmission, and you’ll notice the latency building up.

Sometimes latency is important and sometimes it isn’t. The Internet was designed for things like scientific data file transfers and email. Neither of these applications is going to be much affected by a few dozen or hundred milliseconds of latency. It wasn’t until real-time interactive applications came along that anyone really took note of the latency issue.

What is latency sensitive? VoIP telephony for sure. Even so, 100 ms is considered quite workable for phone conversations. That same 100 ms can be a real annoyance to real-time gamers who might find the small but noticeable lag between action and reaction to be annoying. But 100 ms can be the difference between profit and loss in high speed financial trading. With new financial centers being built and traders increasingly using computers to automatically place their trades, the subject of networking latency has become a hot topic for very high speed networks.

So how do you decrease the latency on your network? First, forget the Internet or anything modeled after it. The Internet was designed to be self-healing, so it will route your packets any which way it can to get them to their destination. The lowest latency networks have high speed fiber in as straight a line as possible between locations. There is also as little equipment as possible between end points. Signal regenerators may be needed, but switches and routers need to be minimized. Whatever switching and routing equipment does exist has to be designed to minimize latency by running as fast as possible internally and doing a few functions as absolutely necessary. The more you process a signal, the longer it takes.

If low latency it essential to your operation, you need to specify that. Just saying that you want a 10 Gbps connection will guarantee you bandwidth, but not necessarily the lowest latency possible. Many major carriers are sensitive to the needs of financial trading and other businesses where network latency makes a difference. They offer special low latency network connections designed specifically for those needs.

Do you have a low latency requirement for your business? If so, be sure your say so when you check high bandwidth network service prices and availability for your locations.

Ethernet Over Copper Can Be A Lifesaver

You know how it is when you are caught in an impossible situation? One of the worst is when the very life of your company is at risk due to some unforeseen situation and there appears to be no way out. It’s at times like these that a clever solution can be a real lifesaver.

Here’s a potential scenario. You needed only a limited amount of bandwidth when you started your venture. In fact, a T1 line seemed like more than you really had use for. But you went ahead and installed the service. The years of reliable operation proved this to be a wise decision. But recently your business has developed services that need far more bandwidth than your trusty T1 line can provide. You do the logical thing. You call your service provider and say that you are ready to upgrade to DS3 level service. Problem solved?

Not so fast. Your T1 service provider can double or triple your bandwidth easily. But no way can provide you with anything above about 10 Mbps. If you need 25 or 50 Mbps, you’ll need fiber optic service. Sadly, there is no fiber to your building or even on your street. They’ll be happy to bring in new fiber service, but you’ll have to wait months and come up with tens of thousands of dollars in construction capital.

Now you are faced with a real dilemma. You can come up with money and wait for provisioning or go looking for a location that is already lit for fiber optic service. Both solutions are going to be expensive and time consuming. That delays the launch of your service and puts your company at financial risk. Just getting a loan to tide you over is dicey these days. Is this a hopeless situation?

Not yet. There may be another option available that can solve this problem quickly and with little or no construction cost. The potential solution is Ethernet over Copper service. You are already getting your T1 line over copper wiring. That same twisted pair bundle can be used with special terminal equipment at each end to transport a newer protocol service called EoC or Ethernet over Copper. Depending on how far you are from the nearest carrier point of presence, you can get anywhere from 10 to 50 Mbps using the same copper pairs that carry analog telephone conversations now. Since the wiring is in place, all that is required is to install special terminating equipment at your location and turn up the service.

It’s fast. It’s generally the lowest cost bandwidth per Mbps available. It installs quickly. Could this be the lifesaver your business needs? Find out what Ethernet over Copper service is available for your business location.

The Gift of Bandwidth For Administrative Professionals

This week is Administrative Professionals Week. It’s a time to honor those “Radar O’Rilleys” of the office who keep everything running smoothly so management and staff can concentrate on getting their own jobs done. You’ve no doubt signed a nice greeting card and perhaps taken your secretary, administrative assistance, receptionist or other admin. support pro to lunch... Haven’t you? If not, better scramble and do something nice quickly. You have no idea how much doo-doo you could be in on Monday.

After the hoopla ebbs, there is something that still needs attention. Besides a little fawning and personal kudos, what administrative professionals could really use is better tools to help them be more productive. I’ve dealt with many great administrative assistants over the years and can attest that they are models of efficiency. They’ll take whatever’s available and make it work magic. But think how much more would get done if the tools worked better.

One big bottleneck in any business can be the WAN bandwidth connection. That includes point to point lines linking your business locations, and broadband Internet service. When the network slows down, everybody slows down. Those high performance admins that burn through a keyboard a week wind up drumming their fingers on the desk while waiting for critical files to transfer. Does that sound like a wise use of resources to you?

I’m going to make a suggestion here. Why not take about a minute or so and ask your administrative assistants if they are being slowed down by the performance of your computer network, especially for outside files. If the answer comes back “yes,” you probably can’t make a better investment than increasing that bandwidth.

That can be easier and cheaper than you imagine. Just ask your assistant or IT manager to run a quick bandwidth pricing check through a telecom broker. It can be done online in almost no time. All you need to know is the address of the business, who should be contacted and how much bandwidth you have in mind. Start with double what you have now and see what the results are. You might be shocked to find that you could have a lot faster network service for the same money as you are paying now. Wouldn’t it be a shame to let that opportunity go to waste?

Pssst. If you are one of those hard-charging administrative assistants being limited by data connections that are way too sloooowww, why not take charge and make this happen. When you tell your boss that you could get a lot more done with a faster network connection, also mention that you can take care of researching this without distracting from your critical work. Then get an instant online quote for bandwidth services and print off the results. Good chance the boss will say: “Go ahead and order that.” Then you’ll have one really sweet gift for Administrative Professionals Week.

Earth Day Means Money For Electronics Recycling

It’s Earth Day, the day to hug those trees and generally show appreciation for Mother Nature. We better show a little respect for Momma Earth, before she decides that we’re the ones who ought to be recycled. Even so, can’t we find some way to make a buck off all this environmental goodness?

You bet we can. I’ll bet even Ed Begley, Jr. wouldn’t be too horrified at the idea of pocketing a few dollars from doing a good thing for the ecology. I’m certainly not above it. How about yourself? Would you like to do a little painless recycling and put a few bucks in your pocket for the effort?

I thought so. Well, here’s the deal. We’re a world swimming in a sea of unwanted electronics. Grandpa would be horrified at the thought of setting his Atwater Kent out at the curb for trash pickup. But thanks to automation and mass marketing, electronics is now a throw away commodity -- literally.

Think about it. Where is the cell phone you had before the one you have now? How about the one before that. We’re probably talking less than six years for three generations of cell phone design, and this has been going on for a couple of decades. So, is it in a desk drawer? Or was it dumped unceremoniously in the trash during last spring’s cleaning frenzy?

This is typical of not only cell phones, but digital cameras, MP3 players, gaming consoles, home audio equipment and computers of all types. Would you be shocked to learn that the “junk” electronics you set out at the curb last Sunday night could have taken you to a nice dinner and a movie, or financed the next electronic gadget on your wish list?

It’s true, and if you’re suspicious that this just can’t be so, find out how much cash you can get for your electronics now.

Oh, you think that running ads and trying to sell that stuff is more trouble than it’s worth. That’s probably true. But you don’t have to run any ads or wait for people to come to the door and then try and talk you into a lower price. There’s no need to go through that grief when you can just check electronics recycling prices online in a minute or so. If you like the price this recycler is offering, then click to order a free shipping box. Drop your stuff in the mail and back comes a check. Does it get any sweeter than this?

So, where’s the Earth Day tie-in to this blatantly capitalistic activity? It comes from keeping electronics out of the landfills here and abroad. This equipment may look benign, but left out in the environment it starts to decompose and leach out all sorts of toxic materials. The legacy of trashing your iStuff is iPoisoning for some future generation. You don’t want to be responsible for that, do you? Of course not. So even if your old unwanted electronics proves worthless, send it in for proper recycling anyway. Your Mother Earth will appreciate it.

3G 4G Mobile Bandwidth

The Internet long escaped the desktop and moved onto the mobile phone. The problem is that it has been following a similar learning curve that took us from 300 baud telephone modems to DSL & Cable broadband and now to high speed wireless and fiber optic service. Mobile bandwidth is undergoing a steady evolution, with the demand for higher and higher speeds pushing the technology. Let’s have a look at what’s available and what’s coming soon.

The benchmark today is 3G wireless. This service offers somewhere between 500 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps and is owned and operated by the cellular carriers. The same company that sells you your cell phone minutes also sells you 3G wireless Internet access. The signals come from the same towers, so if you are in a dead spot for phone reception you won’t be surfing the Web or watching videos either.

The 3G build-out has been proceeding at something of a panic level, especially since the introduction of the Apple iPhone. The first iPhone used the AT&T EDGE network, which is actually called a 2.5G network. That means it has considerably less bandwidth than the newer HSPA or High Speed Packet Access 3G network, perhaps as little as a tenth as much. HSPA is offered by GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile and is also known as HSUPA.

A competing 3G service is offered by CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint using a different technology. Theirs is known as EV-DO and EV-DO Rev A. Download bandwidths are in the range of 1 to 2 Mbps, depending on signal conditions.

Note that 2.5G and 3G cellular broadband not only gives cell phones the ability to download videos and surf the Web but also gives you the option of adding 3G to your laptop computer. The functionality is added using a plug-in wireless modem aircard. These are sold with data-only service plans, since they don’t work as telephones. The aircard and wireless service has been a boon to field sales people who don’t always have the ability to set up shop within a WiFi hotspot.

The newest service on the market is called 4G mobile bandwidth. Right now the run away leader is the WiMAX service offered by Clearwire and Sprint under the CLEAR trademark. WiMAX is yet another wireless standard, albeit a global one not associated with the cellular phone system. WiMAX offers a powerful signal that covers an entire city. It’s strong enough to penetrate buildings so that you can have the same WiMAX broadband on your desktop and laptop computers. Download bandwidth typically ranges between 3 and 6 Mbps, considerably faster than 3G networks.

The cellular companies aren’t sitting still, though. Both AT&T and Verizon plan to deploy another standard called LTE to compete with WiMAX. It will likely be a year or two before these two 4G technologies are competing head to head in most populated areas. For now, WiMAX gives you the most mobile bandwidth at the lowest cost in the cities and states where it is available.

Get Your Mobo On For Long Work Sessions

You’re banging away at the keyboard till all hours of the night. You’ve got to get that last few lines of code or last few pages of the novel written. Now your shoulders hurt. Too bad. You’re on a deadline. No pain, no gain. Right? Wrong!

Whoever came up with that dumb expression, anyway? The fact is that physical suffering is not a requirement for productivity. Physic misery? Perhaps, but that’s another topic. What we’re talking about here is a way to spend long hours working at the keyboard, gaming, or enjoying other intense hobbies and feeling better while you do. Oh, is there an App for that? Nope, but there is an appliance. It’s called the Mobo. Watch the video and you’ll get the idea.



Now, don’t you wish you had one of these to take a bit of the load off? Avid indoorsmen, like myself, can identify with the aches and pains of too much time worshiping the glowing pixels while tickling the little square keys. Looks like Mobo is on to something here. Why suffer for your hobby or profession when you can ease the stress for not all that much money. Learn more and get your Mobo Ergonomic Computer Station now.

iWeb To Help Queenie The Elephant

An advocacy project that my wife and I are involved in is helping circus and zoo elephants find a better life at animal sanctuaries such as the Performing Wildlife Animal Society (PAWS) and The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. One elephant of particular interest is Queenie, also known as Boo. You may have seen her performing or giving rides at the Shrine Circus. Queenie has been marooned in Texas, sometimes chained to a tree, since the USDA ordered her off the road and pulled the license of her exhibitor months ago.

We’ve been advocating that the USDA transfer Queenie to the rolling grassy hills of the PAWS sanctuary in California, where she is wanted and will be well taken care of for life. However, just last Friday we heard that the USDA has made the decision to send her to a small, dark and barren elephant exhibit area at the San Antonio Zoo. This is being done against the wishes of the owner and all of us who recommend a transfer to PAWS at no cost to the government or the owner.

Well, friends, this is America, the land of free speech and personal initiative. Since our business and social network is primarily online, we immediately decided to take action by spreading the word on the plight of poor Queenie and asking for quick action on the part of those sympathetic and willing to spend a few minutes to help Queenie get a better deal. But how could we get an attractive and informative website up quickly enough to do any good? The answer is iWeb. It comes included with every iMac computer as part of the iLife software bundled with the system. Could it do the job?



You decide! I had the welcome page for Help an Elephant up in less than an hour with a basic appeal for help and links to the IDA Blog from In Defense of Animals and the PAWS news statement as backgrounders. The template is the “travel” theme, one of many designs included with iWeb. I kept all the defaults for layout, font face and color. The picture of Queenie is one I took myself when she appeared at the Shrine circus in Loves Park, IL last June. Notice that her back leg is chained to the truck with only a few feet of chain. All I did was drag the picture from my photos file to a blank spot on the page template and there it is.

At the time I was working on the welcome page, Barbara wrote a blog post and added another picture of Queenie giving rides at the event. iWeb includes a blog feature as part of the tool. All you have to do is select what type of page you want and it takes care of the code details for linking and provides an RSS Subscribe button. At some point we’ll add a YouTube video using the YouTube widget in iWeb.

How easy is it to get one of these sites online? Pretty easy. You have a choice of using your MobileMe cloud service from Apple if you are a subscriber. Or you can publish to your own domain on your hosting service, if you prefer. I’ve got a reseller account that I use for many commercial websites, so I just added another account there and entered the settings into the iWeb FTP client. You don’t need a separate FTP with iWeb ‘09, although the earlier ’08 version does require it. This site went up Friday Night. I did a quick submit to the search engines at the same time. By Sunday afternoon, I found it listed in Google on the first page for a search of “help an elephant.” Pretty fast.

There are two morals of this story. First, if you have a cause or point of view that would benefit from being on a website, you can get something really nice looking and functional up and running in a matter of hours using iWeb. From there, you can promote it in the search engines and using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Second, if this story tugs at your heartstrings and you’d like to spend just a minute or so helping Queenie get to a better life, make a quick phone call to USDA Secretary Vilsack’s office at (202) 720-3631. The nice lady will add your name to a petition to send Queenie to the PAWS sanctuary. The idea here is to show public demand by flooding the government phone system and letting them know there are a lot more of us that care about this issue than they might think. I’ll let you know how it works out. Best of luck also with your own advocacy, charitable or political initiatives.

Houston, We’ve Got A 4G Solution

How’s your broadband experience? Lovin’ it or... You know. The speed really drags. It’s dead half the time. Even when it works, it seems to cost a lot more than it should. Worst of all, there are lots of places, even in town, where you can’t even get connected.

Well, you won’t have to put up with that treatment anymore if you happen to be living in Houston, Texas and nearby locations such as The Woodlands, Pasadena, Baytown, Mission Bend, Missouri City, Lake Jackson, Alvin, Conroe, or League City. CLEAR, the new 4G wireless broadband service being deployed by Sprint and Clearwire, has installed their WiMAX Internet service and it’s up and running right now. Can you get it? Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.



So, is it only the lucky residents of Houston that can get 4G wireless broadband service? No, not by a long shot. There are 10 states and 30 cities that are already on the air with WiMAX service. Others are in the works right now. That’s millions and millions of users who have the opportunity to cut the cord and get away from DSL and Cable if they aren’t satisfied.

One of the unique features of this service is that you can get both fixed and mobile service on the same account. Remember -- this is wireless broadband. That gives you the opportunity to be working on a project at your desk and then take it on the road using the same broadband service. You don’t need to pay twice to get desktop and mobile WiMAX service from different providers. CLEAR will give you both at an attractive price.

What kind of bandwidth is available? The service runs at 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps for downloads and up to 1 Mbps for uploads. That compares favorably with the better DSL and Cable services and completely blows away 3G cellular broadband.

Do you live in the Houston area? If not, are you curious to see if 4G wireless broadband is available for your location? If so, simply Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.

Drowning In A Sea Of Free Cell Phones

Every two years, like clockwork, your cell phone contract expires and you are free to move about the marketplace. Most of us do. The churn in cellular service is legendary. Part of the motivation to dump the old phone and grab a new one is dissatisfaction with your chosen carrier. But most of the impetus is that cell phone technology is advancing at breakneck speed. What was once cutting edge is now old school. If you want to get the latest capabilities, you’ll have to get one of the latest phone models. You'll also have to pay big bucks to upgrade. Or... will you?



If you are smart about where you get your next cell phone, you can move up to the latest technology for little or no money. I’m looking at a list of this week’s top 10 selling cell phones at Cell Phone Plan Finder, a newly update online resource. Nine, count ‘em nine, of the top ten phones are available free of charge. These include the AT&T Motorola Backflip, Droid Eris by HTC, T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8520, Sprint BlackBerry Curve, AT&T Samsung Impression, Motorola Cliq XT, AT&T Samsung Mythic, Sprint Samsung Exclaim and Verizon Wireless LG Chocolate Touch.

What about the 10th phone? That would be the Verizon Wireless Droid by Motorola. This is a different model from the HTC Droid. It’s also highly in demand for its new technology. How much is this non-free phone going to set you back? It’s all of $19.99.

I see that you are scrunching your face. Something about these prices doesn’t sound right. After all, you’ve been shopping the cellular stores locally and maybe dropping in on the big box retailers. They’re not giving away these phones. They expect you to pay for your new cell phone, sometimes a lot. How can this be?

The reason is the efficiency of online comparison shopping. Cell Phone Plan Finder offers an enormous selection of phones by all the major manufacturers for all the major carriers in all price ranges and functionality. They’re delivered to your door, set up for the service plan you choose and ready to use immediately.

But what about those service plans? Don’t they cost more online? No they don’t. They’re exactly the same as the one’s you sign up for in the stores. Probably the big difference is that nobody is going to pressure you to select one plan over another when you shop at your leisure online. You can review all the choices for the phone model you want and pick just the right plan for your needs. That includes family plans where you can often get two or more free phones sharing the same bundle of minutes. What a deal!

If you are in the market for a new cell phone or perhaps your first one, take a few minutes and browse the huge selection of cell phones and wireless service plans you’ll find at Cell Phone Plan Finder now.

WiMAX 2 Will Challenge Fiber For Speed

There is a notion going around that copper and wireless have about had their day in the great bandwidth race. Copper has gained a new lease on life as a last mile technology for Metro Ethernet service. Wireless has a unique position in that no wireline or fiber service can match it for mobility. But there’s a wireless technology in the works that may blow away fiber optic services even on the basis of speed.

Wireless bandwidth higher than fiber? Ha!

Well, not so fast. Not all fiber optic service are pumping out 10 GigE to users. In fact, a lot of fiber optic bandwidth is delivering 50 and 100 Mbps ports to customers. That’s especially true of FTTH or Fiber To The Home that is only now starting to approach 100 Mbps. What would you say to being able to pluck 100 to 300 Mbps out of the air anywhere in the city? Wouldn’t that make your netbook scream? Might you consider going wireless to the desktop with that kind of speed?

High bandwidths and low latency are the promise of a new standard in the works called 802.16m. If that number sounds familiar, it’s because you know 802.16e as the basis of WiMAX service. WiMAX is a mature standard based on SOFDMA (Scalable Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) and MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) radio technologies. It’s the platform used by Clearwire and Sprint for their CLEAR 4G broadband service, now expanding nationwide. This first generation WiMAX offers 3 to 6 Mbps downloads with citywide coverage. The upgrade will increase that more than an order of magnitude.

The 802.16m standard is now being dubbed WiMAX 2 to indicate it is a upgrade to the current international WiMAX standard. It’s a backward compatible upgrade, which is certain to ease deployment.

What will WiMAX 2 be used for? It will certainly be in high demand by mobile business and consumer users, perhaps even for advanced smartphones. The first WiMAX phone is expected to be out this summer. By the time WiMAX 2 has a nationwide footprint, the technology may well be giving traditional cellular services a run for their money. The higher bandwidth capability of WiMAX 2 make it a natural for high definition video and perhaps the long awaited Internet enabled vehicle.

But WiMAX also has the potential to serve millions of users not wired for DSL or Cable broadband and loath to accept the high latencies and limited bandwidth of satellite Internet services. That makes it a natural to be the service of choice in rural areas, perhaps with deployment accelerated by the current stimulus funding available for rural broadband. WiMAX 2 speeds will get the attention of both consumers and business users dissatisfied with their current broadband services and looking for something competitive that doesn’t require construction costs. WiMAX to the desktop is reality now, even in areas heavily dominated by DSL and Cable broadband services.

Less conspicuous will be wireless backhaul applications for WiFI hotspots, 3G cellular and even other 4G technologies. To get beyond today’s bandwidth limited cell sites means either fiber optic or high speed wireless backhaul. WiMAX was always intended for this application, although consumer and business Internet services are what’s being talked up in the media.

No LAN Is An Island

Corporate LANs or Local Area Networks have traditionally been just that -- local. But now you have the option to link multiple business sites into one very large, all encompassing, business LAN. You do that with layer 2 Ethernet services.

You may wonder what the big deal about this is. After all, you’ve successfully linked multiple locations together for years. But actually, you’ve been linking multiple islands. Each LAN is separate and independent. It has a very clear scope. Usually, the domain of one LAN is a single building. Occasionally, very large buildings may have multiple LANs. It’s also possible to connect multiple buildings on a common campus on the same LAN. The deciding factor is where your ownership of the property leaves off. Once you leave the building or corporate campus, you typically hire a common carrier to transport your network packets.

The reason that your business locations each have their own LAN networks and simply communicate between them is that there has traditionally been a protocol conversion needed to get across town or across the country. Telecom standards have been based on telephony requirements consisting of multiplexed channels. LAN networking standards have settled on packet switching using the Ethernet protocol. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just extend your Ethernet-based LAN across town?

Well, now you can and you won’t have to run the cabling yourself. Carriers are now setup to transport Ethernet signals as Ethernet. The connections can be either layer 2 switched or layer 3 routed. With layer 2 switching, the Metro Ethernet link becomes part of your overall LAN topology. The office across town is no farther away on the network than the office down the hall.

What level of services are available? You’ll be pleased to know that you can order Ethernet services in the same standardized speeds as used on your network. That includes 10 Mbps Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet or GigE, and 10,000 Mbps 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 GigE.

What’s more, you aren’t limited to simply connecting buildings in the same metropolitan area on the same network. You can extend Metro Ethernet services beyond your immediate metropolitan area to other metropolitan areas. That typically includes medium and larger cities and suburbs. Competitive carriers with nationwide fiber optic footprints can provide as much bandwidth as you require.

Are you ready to interconnect your far-flung LAN networks for more efficient operation? Would you like to enjoy the cost savings that Ethernet offers over conventional telecom services? If so, then find out what cost and performance advantages Ethernet has for your company or organization.

Nokia Nuron Smartphone Without The Price

You’d like to have a smart phone, but all you’ve got is a dumb phone budget. Well, the Nokia Nuron is here to change all that. It’s got smartphone features at a great price... FREE.

You read it right. The Nokia Nuron 5230 for T-Mobile is available (as of this writing) free of charge when you order it online. It’s shipped to you, also free of charge, ready to use. No standing in line to get served at a cellular or big box store. No shelling out the big bucks for your new cell phone.

What type of phone is the Nuron? It’s got a 3.2 inch touch screen and even contains a guitar pick-shaped stylus if you prefer to use it. It comes with a 4 GB microSD memory card pre-installed. You can upgrade for more memory at any time. Simply plug in a memory card up to 16 GB to store your music, photos and videos.

Music? Photos? Videos? You bet. This is a multimedia phone. There’s an MP3 player, so you can listen to your favorite music and manage playlists anywhere. Tired of your own music collection? Use the built-in FM radio for music, news, weather and sports wherever you happen to be.

How about video? Sure. Enjoy streaming multimedia such as YouTube videos. You have access to the Web at 3G speeds, where available. Use the built-in web browser and email client to give you Internet access on the go. Text messaging, instant messaging, and multimedia messaging are all supported. Even corporate Microsoft Exchange is supported and the ability to view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint attachments. Looks like you’ll be able to work as well as play on this phone. Oh, well. There’s no getting away from work. This phone even has international compatibility.

A couple of other features worth mentioning are the 2 Megapixel digital camera that also works as a camcorder and GPS services support for navigation and location based apps. All this capability and you’ll still be able to talk up to 7 hours or keep your phone on standby for up to 18 days.

Does the Nuron sound like the right phone for you? If so, learn more and order your Nokia Nuron 5230 for T-Mobile to get in on the limited time FREE offer with FREE shipping.

Yes, there are also good deals on other smartphones and basic cell phones. Check out the current specials at Cell Phone Plans Finder now.

4G WiMAX Wireless Broadband Available Now

Have you been frustrated by your choices in home and mobile broadband service? How would you like to find a wireless broadband Internet service that you can use at your desk and take with you on your laptop? Would you like it even more if this service was cheaper than DSL, Cable and 3G wireless? Would you go for it right now if this service was screaming fast? You should really check and see if you can get 4G WiMAX broadband.



What’s WiMAX and why is it better than other broadband service options? WiMAX is a new worldwide standard for high speed wireless data service. If you think the name sounds a lot like WiFi, you are right. In fact, you can think of WiMAX as the coming replacement for public WiFi hotspots. The MAX in WiMAX hints at why. This service gives you a hotspot that covers an entire city. It can extend for 20 or 30 miles. Compare that with WiFi that disappears in a couple of hundred feet.

If you want to go mobile and not have to constantly look for WiFi hotspots to connect, you are probably considering or have a 3G modem aircard. This is a USB device that looks like a flash memory dongle. But the modem aircard has a two-way digital radio inside that connects to a cellular broadband signal. That gives you broadband at speeds similar to entry level DSL but without the wires. The upgrade is 4G or fourth generation wireless broadband. WiMAX is the implementation of 4G that is deployed and working right now.

What does 4G WiMAX have to offer? How about typical download speeds in the range of 3 to 6 Mbps with occasional bursts to 10 Mbps? How about a service that needs no telephone or cable TV wiring even at a desktop location? How about a service that you can run at your desktop and then take with you on your laptop? That pretty much rules out the wireline services doesn’t it? Combine that with a service plan price that starts at $30 a month, and even 3G wireless is left in the dust. You can order home service, mobile service, a combination plan and a plan that even includes 4G VoIP phone service in the bundle.

Now the question is can you get 4G WiMAX broadband at your location? CLEAR offers this service in parts of Texas, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Idaho, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania. More locations are under construction right now. The only way to know for sure is to check for CLEAR 4G WiMAX broadband service availability. Give it a try and see if you’ve been missing out on faster, cheaper wireless broadband service.

Ethernet Point of Presence Locator

You’ve been hearing about lower cost bandwidth options and wondering if you can get more Mbps for less money. The question is, “how can you find out?” What you need is an Ethernet Point of Presence Locator.

What’s that and what’s a point of presence? Ah, these are the keys to getting a better deal on business bandwidth.



Point of Presence, or POP, is a location where carrier services are located. For instance, a major competitive carrier may well have a central office located in your city. Within this facility is termination equipment for the carrier’s metropolitan and long haul fiber optic network. In other words, this carrier POP is like a station where you can get on and off their high speed voice and data network.

The same carrier may have POPs that aren’t part of their office facilities. Many carriers have POPs within colocation centers. Those are public facilities that specialize in housing server equipment for business users. They offer rack space, security, fire suppression, back up power and bandwidth. The bandwidth is provided by however many carriers choose to establish carrier POPs in the colo facility. Because your equipment is located within feet of the carrier POP, construction costs to provide you with bandwidth are little to nothing.

So, you’re looking around and don’t see any colocation centers or carrier central offices anywhere near your building. Does that mean that you are out of luck? No, not at all. There may be all sorts of POPs that aren’t readily apparent. The most prevalent example is the “lit” building. Lit means lit for fiber optic services. To light a building, fiber optic cabling and termination equipment must be installed and turned up. That’s generally only done when there is enough demand by one or more clients in the building for high bandwidth services. But once a building is lit, it can be used as a jumping off point to provide services to other buildings nearby.

The beauty of finding a lit building and its associated Point of Presence is that construction costs are minimal if you are next door to such a facility or within a short distance. The big cost of providing fiber optic bandwidth services is having to trench the fiber cable underground or suspend it overhead on utility poles for miles and miles. Bandwidth, especially Ethernet bandwidth, can be quite affordable if you don’t have to bear the capital expense of extensive fiber construction.

So, if they are not visible to the naked eye, how do you find these lit buildings? Fortunately, you have access to the Ethernet Building’s Point of Presence Locator. You simply enter the address of your building and get a map of nearby lit buildings in seconds. You can then get prices for bandwidth services you are interested in. It’s quick and easy, so give it a try. You may be surprised by how much fiber optic capability is hiding right next door or down the street.

How Growing Companies Buy Bandwidth

As business enters the recovery cycle and starts to expand again, it won’t be long until resources start to become stretched. But just how much of a commitment are you willing to make with so much uncertainty still hanging over the economy? Doesn’t it make more sense to step up incrementally? Oh, wait, can you even do that with bandwidth?

You can now. Traditional telecom contracts are sold on a 1 to 3 year basis for a particular level of telecom service. For instance, you buy a T1 line and you have a certain monthly lease price for 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. You can double that by buying an additional T1 line to get another 1.5 Mbps. You can even have your lines bonded if you get them from the same provider or use an appliance such as the Mushroom Networks “Truffle” to combine the bandwidth yourself.

Bonding or combining bandwidth from multiple network connections is one way to manage your bandwidth needs without over-committing. But there’s another way to accomplish this that makes increasing bandwidth much easier than ordering additional lines and waiting to have them installed. You can have bandwidth virtually on demand with scalable Ethernet services.

Metro Ethernet services differ from traditional telecom services in that they are readily scalable by design. Your original order is for a certain bandwidth, say 10 Mbps. But you want to make sure that you have the ability to upgrade to higher bandwidth levels when business activity justifies it. That’s done by installing a high bandwidth port at your location. This could be a 50 or 100 Mbps port, or something really fast like a Gigabit Ethernet port. You aren’t committed to buy that much bandwidth at first. You may start out with 10 Mbps. In six months or a year you find that you really need 20 Mbps to keep up with expanded business needs. No problem. You pick up the phone and call your provider. They increase your speed to 20 Mbps and adjust your monthly bill accordingly.

Scalable bandwidth changes are fast, because the hardware port is already installed. The service provider only has to adjust the speed of the service at your request. They can do that remotely, without a truck roll to install anything at your building. That gives you the flexibility to adjust to changing business conditions and not have to purchase the bandwidth you need far in advance.

Do you have a growing company or expect your business to be picking up over the next few years? If so, scalable bandwidth could be the best tool you’ll have to control expenses. You’ll also be delighted to learn that Metro Ethernet service prices are not only affordable but can cost considerably less per Mbps than traditional telecom services, such as T1, DS3 or OCx. How much less? Find out by checking Metro Ethernet prices and availability for your business location.

Tysons Corner Gets Wireless Network Connections

The Washington D.C. area, a center for high technology in the government, military, and business community, has been a focus for XO Communication’s competitive network services. The latest addition to their suite of service offerings is carrier-grade broadband wireless coverage for the Tysons Corner area of Virginia. That includes links in the range of 10 Mbps to 1 Gbps for VoIP, Ethernet, MPLS, IP-VPN and private line services.

Wow. That’s one powerful WiFi hotspot, isn’t it? No, this goes far beyond the capabilities of WiFi. Note the speed range of 10 Mbps to 1 Gbps. That’s more than you can expect from WiFi, WiMAX or other wireless services intended for the mass markets. This is LMDS or Local Multipoint Distribution System bandwidth, which is a licensed service in the 26, 28 and 31 GHz microwave bands. If you haven’t heard of LMDS, it’s because this is a very specialized system used for high performance wireless links over distances of a few miles.

What are the advantages of LMDS links? Because they are high bandwidth line of sight connections, LMDS wireless can be used in lieu of both copper and fiber optic lines for last mile connections. This offers a solution to the problem of expensive construction in built-up areas where conduit isn’t readily available or too costly to employ. Even if you have the option to bring in fiber optic cabling, you may not be able to wait for the months long provisioning cycle to complete. As long as there is a clear view of the carrier’s transmitting antenna from your building, it’s relatively fast and simple to install a radio set and antenna and have a signal up and running.

Another use for LMDS wireless links are for network redundancy and business continuity. Even if you have high bandwidth line services, there’s always the possibility that natural disaster or construction activity will cut through a cable and shut off your bandwidth for hours or days. Few operations with the need for high levels of business bandwidth can stand that level of service interruption without a serious impact. By adding a wireless link in addition to your copper or fiber lines, you eliminate a source of single point failure in your network.

XO has been augmenting its extensive fiber optic footprint with wireless network coverage in the greater Washington D.C., including the suburbs of Northern Virginia and Maryland. They can provide service to businesses as far west as Dulles Airport, as far East as Lanham, Maryland, as far North as Rockvill and Beltsville, Maryland and as far South as Mout Vernon, Virginia. XO also operates LMDS wireless links as part of its broadband services in other Metropolitan markets.

Have you been wanting more bandwidth for your business or organization, but concerned about the cost of construction and line leases? With recent network expansion, you may be able to get a lot more bandwidth than you realize. It doesn’t cost anything to find out, so why not get a full set of competitive quotes for voice and data services from XO Communications and other high quality carriers? Who knows, maybe LMDS wireless is the right solution for your company.

Fiber Optic ISP

Not so long ago, Internet service came through the telephone as a collection of audible beeps and squeaks. That evolved into dedicated landline and wireless broadband. The next step has already been taken by the largest companies. Now, medium size businesses are also looking for a fiber optic Internet service provider.

Fiber optic Internet service for residential users is the domain of Verizon’s FiOS. Google will soon enter the market on a test basis with a new benchmark of performance: 1 Gbps. But business broadband connections have moved past the Gbps upper limit, with 10 Gbps service becoming more common for major organizations. The technology is proven. The question is how much bandwidth do you need and where do you need it?

The key to fiber optic levels of telecom service is the “lit” building. That’s a location where fiber optic cable has been pulled into the facility and connected to terminal equipment. Once the fiber is lit by a service provider, the building is considered to be “on net” and able to select from a wide variety of service options. This facility can also be a jumping off point to provide fiber optic service to other nearby buildings. The most expensive and time consuming aspect of fiber optic service is the initial fiber construction.

What types of fiber optic bandwidth services are available? They typically fall into two categories. The first is traditional SONET / SDH telecom services. These are the original telco standards for voice and data over fiber optic strands. The most basic service is OC-3 or Optical Carrier, level 3. This is a 155 Mbps bandwidth service based on the same TDM or Time Division Multiplexing technology as copper based T1 and T3 lines. In fact, DS3 bandwidth at 45 Mbps is most often delivered as part of an OC-3 signal that can transport 3 of these DS3 services.

The SONET standard fiber optic services include OC-12 at 622 Mbps, OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps, OC-192 at 10 Gbps and OC-768 at 40 Gbps. This highest levels are most often used by carriers, themselves, as their backbone networks.

The other category of fiber optic service is Carrier Ethernet or Metro Ethernet. Ethernet services are standardized at the same levels seen in LAN networks. These are 10 Mbps standard Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps GigE, and 10 Gbps or 10 GigE service. Intermediate service levels are generally available, as Ethernet is readily scalable.

How do you decide between SONET and Ethernet Internet connections? Both are reliable, proven technologies that can deliver the bandwidth you desire. What often differs is availability and price. The best approach is to get a complete selection of fiber optic service quotes from a telecom broker and compare pricing on the services available for your business location. You may be surprised at how affordable the higher bandwidths have become.

HTC HD2 Smartphone With Movies

When was the last time someone offered you a cell phone with two full-length movies already installed? That’s just the start of the surprises you’ll find with the HTC HD2 smartphone for T-Mobile. It doesn’t just say “entertainment,” it screams it!

You might suspect this phone is built for multimedia when you take a look at the huge touch screen display. This one boasts a screen size of 4.3 inches and a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. Does that sound like a cell phone or a small computer? Yes.

The HD2 is a widescreen Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone with HTC Sense running on a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor. You saw correctly. This gadget runs at a blazing GHz. That means you can run multiple applications at once without experiencing time lags. To keep up, cellular broadband is at the 3G level wherever available. Not fast enough? Step into the closest WiFi hotspot and download even faster.

But what about those movies? Oh, yes. You get “Transformers” and “Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen” pre-installed on a 16 GB memory card. You can use other memory cards up to 32 GB for all the storage you need. That’s storage for movies, of course. But it's also storage for the pictures and videos you take yourself. Plus eBooks, music, and documents (for those occasional times you have to work). The HD2 comes pre-loaded with apps that include Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble eBooks, MobiTV and Guitar Hero. The MobiTV app includes a 30 day free trial, the Barnes &Noble eBooks app includes 3 free books, and the Blockbuster app includes 2 free rentals. There’s also a GoGo app that includes 6 months of free in-flight WiFi. No reason not to use this beauty as you soar through the skies.

The digital camera of this HTC smartphone deserves special mention. It’s got 5 Megapixels of resolution and multiple capture modes, including widescreen. There’s a dual LED flash and zoom. So, you need a standalone digital camera... why?

For you mobile professionals, this is also a work phone. You can access Microsoft apps including Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Enhanced teleconferencing includes easy invites to conference call participants from your email. The SWYPE keyboard option helps you type up to 50 words per minute. That important because it lets you get back to entertainment as fast as possible.

It’s an entertainment phone. It’s a work phone. That pretty much covers the day’s activities. The question is whether this is the phone you must have next. Well, is it? If so, learn more and order your HTC HD2 smartphone for T-Mobile at a deep discount online. You’ll also get free shipping. But hurry, this deal could change at any time without notice and you don't want to miss out.

Of course, if you prefer a different model of phone or a different carrier there is a huge selection of free and low cost mobile devices to choose from. Shop now through Cell Phone Plans Finder and be sure to check the specials for today.

FCC Confiscates Remaining TV Channels For Twitter

Shocked and horrified by the geometrically expanding demand for wireless broadband services, the Federal Commfiscation Commission exercised its powers of eminent domain today and confiscated the remaining broadcast television channels not already sold at auction. Most surprising of all was the declaration that this rare and important spectrum is going to be dedicated exclusively to the text messaging service, Twitter.

FCC Chairman Lowon B. Andwidth explained that the Commission just completed an intensive study of Internet usage and found that the Twitter service is growing at such an astonishing rate that it will soon devour all available bandwidth. “While it is bad enough that Twitter will bring web browsing, video streaming, text messaging and email to a halt,” said Mr. Andwidth, “a far worse situation will occur when Twitter users have to take a number and get in line to post their tweets. I don’t want to be in Washington when that mob of anti-social networkers descends on Capitol Hill.”

In shortest supply is wireless bandwidth. Apparently, the lion’s share of cellular phone activity involves posting messages to Twitter rather than the growth previously expected from mobile video and web browsing. One young smartphone user was heard to exclaim, “Does anyone actually surf the Web anymore? Who has the patience to read blogs and web pages? Anything worth saying can be said in 140 characters or less.”

Twitter itself issued a 130 character statement expressing delight at the government’s pre-emptive action to prevent a massive Fail Whale epidemic from sweeping the nation, and requesting re-tweets. They vowed to expand server capacity to match the new wireless bandwidth capacity as best they can. TV stations that follow Twitter have already been tweeted to cease broadcasting immediately and return their licenses. The remaining stations will be getting old school telegrams. “It’s unlikely anyone will be inconvenienced by this change,” explained Chairman Andwidth. “Everybody is on cable and satellite by now, anyway.”

Expectations are that a swift coordinated move by the public and private sectors can ensure adequate messaging capacity at least until after the fall elections. After that, the FCC will likely look at shutting down other less important uses of the electromagnetic spectrum including most AM and FM music stations. “We may even have to shut down microwave ovens and garage door openers if we can’t keep up with texting bandwidth demand,” exclaimed an obviously frustrated chairman.

Also making quick moves to protect its interests, Google announced that it is going to take over non-wireless Internet service by offering 1 Gbps fiber optic connections to every city that performed ridiculous stunts to try to win Google broadband service for its residents. “All other cities that didn’t make fools of themselves will be getting 10 Gbps Google Internet access free of charge,” according to an unofficial Google statement. It went on to say: “There is only one acceptable day for any foolishness and that is April 1.”