Leave it to Google to make even the FCC ’s ambitions look meager. But hey, for the vast majority of Americans who will never have access to an ISP with 1Gbps , we’ve got nothing but kudos to send to Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. As the story goes, the FCC has unveiled a plan this week that would “require” internet service providers to offer “minimum home connection speeds by 2020,” with a delectable 100Mbps figure being throw around. Currently, US internet speeds average just under 4Mbps, and the nation as a whole ranks 19th in the world. Naturally, companies that provide internet are balking at the idea, suggesting that consumers would revolt if they were forced to pick up the tab for all the network improvement efforts that would have to take place. Of course, Cisco Systems now appears to be the FCC’s best bud, but we’re guessing we don’t have to explain the logic behind that one.

Talk about rapid response. Just a day or so after Google blew a few minds by announcing its plans to serve 1Gbps internet to a select group of communities, Seattle mayor Mike McGinn has come forward and confessed that the Emerald City is ready to accept said offer. ‘Course, we shouldn’t be shocked to hear that one of the most educated and wealthy cities in North America — as well as ( almost ) being home to Microsoft — is up for a little fiber action, but it’s certainly interesting to see just how willing the local government is to share its resources with Gmail’s creator. We’re guessing that other tech-savvy cities throughout the US will be jumping in line as well, so if you’d like to be one of the first, now might be a fantastic time to ping your own mayor and get him / her on the ball. Seattle eager for Google fiber, other cities apt to fall in line originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:14:00 EST.

Months after Verizon Communications began issuing warnings to accused file sharers, the company has acknowledged that multiple offenses could result in a service interruption. “We’ve cut some people off,” Verizon Online spokeswoman Bobbi Henson told CNET. “We do reserve the right to discontinue service. But we don’t throttle bandwidth like Comcast was doing .

In some ways, this chart showing the spread of broadband in the US sums up the decade better than anything else. [ GigaOM ]

Well, this is equal parts frightening and annoying: malware writers and their lot have been buying up data centers and getting approved for large blocks of IP space. What’s that mean? That they can pretty much run rampant. While local registries are supposed to screen IP applications, in some parts of the world *cough* Eastern Europe *cough* there’s not much of a vetting process. The result is that criminals can spam away while victims have no hosting provider or ISP to complain to

Power to the People: The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, not content with their local service provider, recently took matters into their own hands and literally dug a ditch to install their own modest 100Mbps fiber optic Internet connection. Indeed, when the relatively isolated RNLI, a tidal estuary station in Northern England, wanted a better connection, they took shovel to earth and installed it. That simple. The fiber and other tech necessary for the deployment were eagerly supplied by FiberStream, which enjoyed the PR while the RNLI finally got the Internet speeds they thought they deserved. [ ISP Review via Slashdot ]

It’s been a long slow go for broadband over power lines , but it looks like things are finally picking up steam — an IEEE working group has completed main development of the standard and released the first draft of technical specs. Of course, there’s still the arduous finalization process to go through, but now that BPL is an actual functioning standard we’re hoping to see a new class of 100Mbps internet providers pop up and bring some much-needed competition to cable and DSL. Filed under: Networking First broadband over power lines working spec released originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read

Eric Massa , a Congressman in western New York, has readied a bill that would force ISPs to justify economic need for data caps and volume-based usage fees. This would effectively bringing those practices to an end (for the time being). Ars Technica says the constituents in Massa’s district have been subject to data caps from both of the available broadband providers, and Massa thinks that the lack of competition in the broadband market makes volume usage fees unnecessary and unfair to consumers. Instead, he wants broadband to be treated more like a utility, with the Federal Trade Commission deciding whether or not data caps are fair. And with the current phone/cable duopoly structure in the broadband landscape, Massa thinks companies can do without usage fees. That said, this bill still has to make its way through House, then Senate and then onto the President’s desk

It’s been a rough week or so for Big Cable , but it looks like the East Coast’s Cablevision’s decided to play things a little differently than Comcast and Time Warner: it’s just announced that uncapped 101Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 service will be rolling out on May 11 across its entire service area. The best part? It’ll cost $99 a month, making it faster and cheaper than any other high-speed package we can think of — 50Mbps service from Comcast and Verizon is around $140. Not bad at all — let’s hope the competition picks up on it.

Man, Time Warner Cable — you are some shady players. Hot on the heels of the ISP’s decision to withdraw DOCSIS 3.0 trials from areas that have rejected its tiered billing plan , we’re hearing that TWC’s teamed up with Embarq to persuade the North Carolina state government into banning community-owned broadband services. Why? Well, turns out the 47,000 residents of Wilson, NC got tired of paying for slow broadband, so the city government launched its own fiber ISP called Greenlight that offers some pretty solid packages ranging from $99 for 81 cable channels, unlimited phone service, and 10Mbps (down and up) internet to $170 for every single channel including premiums and 20Mbps up/down internet.