With the Senate passing the Giant Technicolor Stimulus Bill, people have started looking at some of the details – for example, the $10 Billion for broadband access. It sounds like a great idea. The U.S. as powerful as it is, ranks 15th in the world for broadband access (that includes penetration into communities, speeds, etc.). The average broadband speed in the U.S. is one-tenth that of the #1 ranked Japan. Europeans take high-speed access for granted, from their vehicles to wireless access throughout the cities. So, will the stimulus really help this? I doubt it. There is little to no competition in the marketplace, largely driven by local governments. Take, for example, the State of Maryland. It is a fight, county by county, for a new broadband provider to come in and provide service. Many, if not all, of the counties have deals with a select number of providers. Montgomery County allows Verizon and Comcast from the big players. But to truly get broadband access the way that other parts of the world enjoy it, we would need increased competition. That would create jobs but it would have to be done smartly because currently (according to one survey) the average U.S. consumer is paying $3 per Mbps (Mega-bits per second, a measure of how much data is flowing down the internet “pipe” to your house/cellphone/car) while Japanese consumers are enjoying that at $0.13 and the French at $0.33. And it would stimulize the economy because the remainder of our $50/month internet bills could be (using Japan’s numbers) $2.16 leaving the consumer $47.84 per month or $574 plus change per year to spend elsewhere. The power of more access with more data opens the doors for more opportunities for innovation and products for the consumers. An increase in new and innovative products creates demand and will energize the economy. Heck, Intel is banking on it big-time…maybe they get it. Do a little more reading here and then question why your local government is limiting broadband access and then question why the Stimulus bill isn’t applying this paltry $10 Billion in a more savvy way.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.