Obama's Plans for Mobile Broadband for Everyone
Internet: It's America's Five Year Plan.
Earlier this week, U.S. President Obama gave his State of the Union speech, which was enhanced with slides for the first time ever.
While many topics were touched upon and lofty goals were set (quite a number of which won't even be near realized even if Obama serves another term), the ones that caught our eye had to do with technology.
The USA is vast, and its population is spread out. Unlike a nation like Japan or Korea, covering an entire country with a similar level of internet and wireless service is a considerably more difficult undertaking. (Canada faces the same challenges, but the vast majority of its population lives in the southern part of the country.
Obama set the goal to blanket 98 percent of the U.S. population with high-speed wireless coverage. He did not specify if this would be done through investments from AT&T, Verizon, or other carriers, nor did he reveal how many G's this wireless coverage would have. He did say:
"Our infrastructure used to be the best, but our lead has slipped. South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do."
"Within the next five years, we will make it possible for business to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98% of all Americans. This isn't just about a faster internet and fewer dropped calls. It's about connecting every part of America to the digital age. It's about a rural community in Iowa or Alabama where farmers and small business owners will be able to sell their products all over the world. It's about a firefighter who can download the design of a burning building onto a handheld device; a student who can take classes with a digital textbook; or a patient who can have face-to-face video chats with her doctor."
Check out Gizmodo for a pretty good choice of clippings from Obama's speech. One that we particularly liked was:
"We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair."
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Sound great and all but i'm more concern about net neutrality. No point of having fast connection if you have trotting everywhere.
wasn't this what the whole freeing up the old tv bands for mobile/internet use was about
Ok, it's a great idea. Now...
At whose expense?
By what right?
//TILT//
No mission to mars? No moon base?
I'm glad President Obama recognized that our education system is largely failing, but I wish he hadn't emphasized the math and science so much. How many times did he repeat the "math and science" line? Too many for me. I know they're important, but the educational system has been failing on history and English for a long time as well. We need writers just as much as IT pros.
Ok, it's a great idea. Now...At whose expense?By what right?//TILT//
Agreed.
Translation: Please vote for me
Bah, that statement is too vague. Don't we already have 3G coverage hitting 98% of the U.S. population?
Barrack Obama "What must a president do to secure a second term?"
Michelle Obama, "Instead ask yourself, what would Carl Marx do?"
Joe Biden "1000 memebers of the Rebublican empire will descend upon you!"
Barrack Obama "We will stand, and give it all away!"
Glen Beck "America, tonight we dine, In the soup kitchen (with free wifi)!"
I am sorry for that, I just had to. For the record I am an independant (not the party, i just make up my own mind myself).
Didn't President Clinton promise that?
Paying for this is easy:
Just offer lifetime, nation wide, free, wireless access for a onetime advance donation of $200.00.
I'm glad President Obama recognized that our education system is largely failing, but I wish he hadn't emphasized the math and science so much. How many times did he repeat the "math and science" line? Too many for me. I know they're important, but the educational system has been failing on history and English for a long time as well. We need writers just as much as IT pros.
In general the education system as a whole is failing. This mostly has to do with holding students that excel back and students who fail pushing them forward when they should be held back. While History and English could be improved upon, that isn't the major problem in US schools.
The US is now embarrassingly far behind in Math and Sciences. These are easily the most important part of education today.
In 2006, in the US, less than 12% of bachelor graduates are engineers. Compare this to the rest of the world. Germany, Sweden, and Finland are over 25%. Korea is over 37% engineer graduates. Japan over 24%.
By comparison, in the US, over 25% of graduates are that of the Social Sciences! Over 16% PSYCHOLOGY!!!
No sir, you are wrong. I would say that if anything, we focus too much on Social Sciences in K-12. We do not focus on the Math and Sciences enough, this is what is hurting the US. This is why we are no longer the innovators in the world. This is why we produce less scientific papers.
Math and Science SHOULD be his focus, not History and English.
Education> National Debt > Healthcare > Infrastructure
but in reality everyone knows we cant get anything passed with a two party system. So everything Presidents say is pretty much a pipe-dream.
I liked this idea the first time he said it and we gave a TRILLION DOLLARS for it and infrastructure, that worked SO WELL we are gonna double down on it! Jesus Jumping...mumble mumble...
careful, nObama might throw in a mandate to buy.
Free (paid for by tax dollars) Internet access is great and all... but I plan free hookers and blow for everyone across the nation! Now... the only problem is... how to pay for it.
Speaking as an individual who found math and science in public schools far too easy, I never learned real English until I got to an "educational opportunity center." In grammar school, I was taught "use a comma everywhere you want to pause."
All education is a joke, IMHO, but then how do you handle the needs of the individual? It would be great if someone came up with an educational system that worked.
Then again, the education system is, IMHO, a symptom of a far larger problem.
Back on topic, I support "internet access in every pot."
Education> National Debt > Healthcare > Infrastructure but in reality everyone knows we cant get anything passed with a two party system. So everything Presidents say is pretty much a pipe-dream.
At this point, I think our national debt is more important than the education. Unless, of course, you like being indebted to China.
Education> National Debt > Healthcare > Infrastructure but in reality everyone knows we cant get anything passed with a two party system. So everything Presidents say is pretty much a pipe-dream.
Can you show a linear graph or data set of somesort that correlates education expenditures and increased proficiency in learning or test scores?
Thank you in advance.
Can you show a linear graph or data set of somesort that correlates education expenditures and increased proficiency in learning or test scores?
Thank you in advance.
those rankings were my personal opinion on what needs to be taken care of first. Im not sure why you think I should google some graphs about money and education. BUT to humor your rather elitist douchey comment Ill give you an example of Washington States education finances this year and what happens when school lack money.
660 million deficit for school in washington. Teachers are locked into a contract which doesnt allow the school district to deduct pay, healthcare or effect them at all. This means that the money comes from the students. No new books, computers, facilities, paper, curriculum, sporting events/gear etc.
now I perceive you as a typical narcissistic douche, so Im pretty sure youll come back with some overwritten argument about kinds should learn from wikipedia or something, but really just dont talk to me again.
Thanks in advance.
Bah, that statement is too vague. Don't we already have 3G coverage hitting 98% of the U.S. population?
It's not very clear in this article, but others I have read following it state it more as "access" to internet coverage. It was put more along the lines of having internet access is a right and not a privilege. Although I like with the concept (after-all, knowledge is power), anyone that has the capacity to think for themselves knows exactly what government + "free" really costs.......
Science and technology are great, but forgetting history and philosophy means that society will wander down the same destructive paths it has taken before, until something on the scale of WWII comes along and reinforces the lesson.
It does not matter who is in charge; socialism only appear to work until you run out of OPM.
Do people really think that the federal government can throw some hoo-hah "initiative" into the system and expect better results? Education is much more complicated than that. A large part of learning starts at home with the parents, who should encourage the child to do what they love and do it well. If you ignore your children, do you really think they are going to learn the importance of getting a good education? We also have too many union protected teachers more concerned with getting a paycheck or a salary raise than they are with educating.
Perhaps somebody should "teach" our President that our number one priority is to STOP SPENDING MONEY WE DON'T HAVE. Get the damn fiscal house in order and do what government is supposed to do. If he doesn't, America will be behind the rest of the world and will never catch up.
I think creating jobs for everyone would allow he/she to have internet.... not to mention other things like no debt, housing, their own insurance plans, etc. Just saying...
when he said "this is your generations sputnik moment" i immediately thought "Going to mars motherfracker!", imagine my disappointment when he talked about wireless internet.
In general the education system as a whole is failing. This mostly has to do with holding students that excel back and students who fail pushing them forward when they should be held back. While History and English could be improved upon, that isn't the major problem in US schools.The US is now embarrassingly far behind in Math and Sciences. These are easily the most important part of education today. In 2006, in the US, less than 12% of bachelor graduates are engineers. Compare this to the rest of the world. Germany, Sweden, and Finland are over 25%. Korea is over 37% engineer graduates. Japan over 24%.By comparison, in the US, over 25% of graduates are that of the Social Sciences! Over 16% PSYCHOLOGY!!!No sir, you are wrong. I would say that if anything, we focus too much on Social Sciences in K-12. We do not focus on the Math and Sciences enough, this is what is hurting the US. This is why we are no longer the innovators in the world. This is why we produce less scientific papers.Math and Science SHOULD be his focus, not History and English.
As my own personal opinion, anything liberal arts or ending in -ology is a wasted degree.
An easy solution to deficit problems? Stop shipping jobs overseas.
Just give major wireless carriers the Billions of tax dollars they ask for this project and of course expect them to spend 25% of that, then ask for Billions more, then spend 20% of that, and then it will become a guessing game about where all the other Billions disappeared to.
As my own personal opinion, anything liberal arts or ending in -ology is a wasted degree.
Biology is pretty important
Free internet for everyone. Until you use it as a protest tool. Then its free internet for no one!
wasn't this what the whole freeing up the old tv bands for mobile/internet use was about
Yes! exactly. The writer of this article didn't consider that at all...
We can get TV signal while being many miles away from the TV tower. Now the same will be true with internet providers.
Companies like Comcast (for example) can setup a wireless signal that can be recieved by EVERYONE within X number of miles. I don't know what the range is because I don't know what the range for analog TV signal was BUT... I do know this.. There have been several times where I could be waaay out at a lake or something a amazingly you could still pickup a channel or two. Soon, the same will be true for wireless internet. He's not talking specifically about Mobile phone carriers that offer internet service, although they will be welcome to do so. He is talking about new, small, large or exisiting companies that want to use this new frequency to allow internet to get to pretty much everywhere in the US. Because lets be honest. It seems that no matter where you are in the US you can typically get at least 1 channel. Which means you would be able to tune into at least 1 frequency channel that will allow you to get on the internet.