Tag Archives: Internet access speed

The cloudy day doesn’t last for an entire month –John S. Quarterman @ GA PSC 2013-06-18

The disruptive challenge electric utilities face is like 1: Solar power telephone companies faced years ago, as Edison Electric Institute recently pointed out. Circuit switching 20 years ago is like distributed solar power and the smart grid it needs now; this is what I described at the Georgia Public Service Commission meeting Tuesday 18 June 2013.

Hi, I’m John Quarterman, I’m from Lowndes County, down near the Florida line. These videos I’ve been taking are with Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange and you’ll find them on YouTube later.

Two things Now I’d like to commend Georgia Power for helping fund our Industrial Authority down in Lowndes County to do a strategic plan. And in the focus groups they did with that, they discovered there’s at least two things everybody wants: business, education, health care, the people in general: Continue reading →

A metropolitan area needs better than trash government –John S. Quarterman

My LTE in the VDT Thursday. I’ve added links to some of my inspirations. -jsq

Local leaders worked hard to get the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area declared. Why now are they acting like a Ludowici speed trap for local businesses?

The Lowndes County Commission shouldn’t act like a private business trying to exclude anybody it doesn’t like. State law says local governments are supposed to have open bids and public hearings. A promise (in the VDT) in March 2013 of a non-exclusive contract for trash collection turned into exclusive in October; at least two of the five bidders are now the same company; and the county is suing Applause a local business to the profit of a company owned by investors in New York City. Meanwhile, no public accounting has ever been seen of the former waste collection sites and no public hearing was held before they closed, despite state law.

Business exists to make a profit. Government exists to provide public services like law enforcement, water, sewers, roads, and yes, trash collection. Sure, balanced books are good. But money isn’t the main point of government: providing what the people need is, and the people didn’t ask the county to exchange the waste collection centers for lower prices that won’t last.

Businesses (except monopolies) have to Continue reading →

Senate Farm Bill adds Rural Gigabit Amendment

The U.S. Senate just adopted an amendment to invest in gigabit (1,000 megabit per second) rural broadband networks. Our local leaders need to lobby for the House to pass this, if they are serious about fast affordable Internet service for everyone here. Senator Leahy’s tiny Vermont, with the population of a single Congressional district, is already well along towards gigabit Internet. Our three House members can help get south Georgia on the road to better jobs, education, and health care through better Internet service.

Jennifer Reading wrote today for WCAX, Leahy’s high-speed internet amendment passes,

What I want to make sure is that a rural area can compete the same way an urban area can. It’s actually the argument, the debate that went on before I was even born about whether you had rural electricity, rural telephone or not and if we hadn’t done that much of this country would be a wasteland,” said Sen. Leahy.

Don’t we want that, too?

Continue reading →

Remerton Mill demolition –WCTV

Maybe Nina King’s elegy on the sad demolition of Remerton’s Strickland Mill will spur enough people to get involved in the community so next time a monument is threatened with demolition we can find the resources to save it, and we can bring things the community needs now, like fast affordable Internet access for all.

Nina King Greg Gullberg reported for WCTV 11PM News last night, Demolition Of Remerton Mill Has Begun, in which Nina King said:

“Well, it breaks my heart, and it’s so sad. And I don’t understand why anybody would want a historic old building torn down like this.”
Continue reading →

DeKalb County is a slum –DeKalb County Commissioners

I could see our Commissioners using this reasoning. -gretchen

DeKalb County as a slum Urban Redevelopment in DeKalb County

Erica Byfield reported for WSBTV yesterday, DeKalb commissioners declare most of county a slum,

What’s this urban redevelopment zone about? Tax breaks for businesses that produce new jobs, leaving taxes to be paid mostly by… Continue reading →

Google fiber expanding: how about here?

Nothing gets the attention of the incumbent duopoly of telcos and cablecos like an upstart doing it 10 times faster for a lower price, and claiming that can be profitable.

Dan Graziano wrote for BGR yesterday, Google expects Fiber to be profitable, hints at new markets,

Google Fiber is seen by many as a regional experiment that will push current Internet service providers to offer faster speeds at more affordable speeds. Google Fiber head Milo Medin countered that perception at an event on Wednesday, however. Speaking at a Fiber-to-the-Home Council meeting, the executive explained that the company’s fiber-optic broadband network isn’t just an expensive research project but a great and profitable business for Google, CNET reported.

Medin noted that Google has kept costs down by partnering with cities that are interested in bringing the company’s gigabit fiber network to its residents. Partners help Google build a less expensive and less time-consuming network.

Any local cities around here interested in partnering with Google?

-jsq

Fast fiber to rural Georgia: Georgia Public Web

What connects Tifton, Omega, Lenox, Adel, Valdosta, Moultrie, and Thomasville? Georgia Public Web’s 3,000 miles of fiber optic cable, plus wireless last mile.

Who is Georgia Public Web?

Georgia Public Web is a member owned non-profit corporation formed in 1998 to help “Bridge Georgia’s Digital Divide” by delivering high-end technology services to metro Atlanta and communities throughout the State of Georgia.

That emphasis on metro Atlanta is unfortunate from a south Georgia point of view, yet their map extends right down here. “High-speed Internet access”; how fast is that?

Internet Connectivity for Business (DS-1, DS-3, OC-3, OC-12, GigE)

That means Continue reading →

Internet access lunacy maybe partly corrected by Google Fiber

Slower and more expensive than the rest of the world: U.S. Internet access doesn’t have to be that way. Bob knows about our Internet issues here and is interested in helping.

Chunka Mul wrote for Forbes 26 April 2013, The Lunacy of Our Internet Access, and How Google Fiber Could Provide Needed Shock Therapy,

Imagine you are the world’s largest operator of shopping malls, and shoppers can only get to your malls via the equivalent of dirt paths and country roads. What’s more, those meager routes are all controlled by an oligopoly of private, toll-road operators that focus on their profitability, not on getting consumers to the stores in your malls.

The result would be a mess. The roads would be slow yet expensive. Consumers would limit shopping trips. The stores in your malls would have a hard time generating business, so your malls would languish.

Yet the entire online economy runs on an analogous network. The network could easily be lightning fast, pervasive and cheap (or even free). Instead,

Continue reading →

Gigabit fiber Internet from Vermont Telephone Company: half the price of Google fiber

BroadbandVT.org logo Tiny Vermont demonstrates that the Internet access most telephone and cable companies are selling us is way overpriced for way too little speed.

Look Out Google Fiber, $35-A-Month Gigabit Internet Comes to Vermont (by Shalini Ramachandran for WSJ 26 April 2013)

Heads up Google GOOG +1.94% Fiber: A rural Vermont telephone company might just have your $70 gigabit Internet offer beat.

1,000 Mbps

Vermont Telephone Co. (VTel), whose footprint covers 17,500 homes in the Green Mountain State, has begun to offer gigabit Internet speeds for $35 a month, using a brand new fiber network. So far about 600 Vermont homes have subscribed.

Even more interesting:

Continue reading →

Harris resignation letter —Gretchen Quarterman

Some thoughts on the Kay Harris resignation letter.

  1. If the library building is going to fall down, move the library to another available building like the soon to be closed federal building downtown.
  2. Has she forgotten that the newspaper brags that SPLOST is paid half by people who don't even live in the county?
  3. If Valdosta had gone ahead with the MOST then for sure county residents would have been paying for something that they wouldn't get to use. How much "shopping" is outside the Valdosta city limits? Harvey's in Bemiss, Harvey's in Hahira and the stores in Lake Park.

Certainly a SPLOST is better than a MOST.

-gretchen