The map’s description says:

This map made with data current as of January 2012. This map shows the areas identified as potentially eligible for Mobility Fund Phase 1 support. These areas are US Census blocks that lack 3G or better mobile coverage at the centroid of the block according to January 2012 American Roamer data and contain road miles in any of nine road categories. Counties that contain any of these blocks are shaded light gray, and as you zoom in and mouse over these counties you will see more information on the potentially eligible blocks, including population, road miles (S1100, S1200, and S1400 categories only), and the name and number of the CMA in which the blocks are located. Further zooming in allows you to see the US Census tracts that contain these blocks.

Hat tip to Discovery News.

More on Mobility Fund Phase I

The Next Web is reporting that Russian mobile carrier MegaFon not only has unlimited data, but they encourage their users to download as much as they can. They even offer prizes for those who downloaded the most data over a given period of time.

Between November 1, 2011 to January 31, 2012, MegaFon customers who bought a 3G moden were asked to download as much data as they could. The person who performed the herculean task was rewarded a $5,000 holiday overseas trip.

The winner downloaded a whopping 419GB of 3G data in one week. He won the contest, but MegaFon used the event to showcase their data network.

The company covers 80 percent of north-Western Russia with its 3G service. According to the company, the second and third place winners come from small Russian towns. MegaFon used this to flaunt their ability to offer 21Mbps download speeds in rural areas.

This is the kind of unlimited data plans that need to happen in the U.S. Our Internet infrastructure is so pathetically behind every other country now that it’s kind of embarrassing. It would go a long way to give users unlimited data again. The majority of users would still use the same amount of data like always while still allowing those who need to download a lot the ability to without data throttling or extra charges.

As part of that story I sent a request for comment to Verizon Wireless. They had this to say:

Verizon Wireless 4G LTE service is returning to normal this morning after company engineers worked to resolve an issue with the 4G network during the early morning hours today. Throughout this time, 4G LTE customers were able to make voice calls and send and receive text messages. The 3G data network operated normally.

While the spokesperson’s statement about the 3G network doesn’t seem to jive with what customers on the support forum were saying, it is nice to finally have some sort of statement from the company. The latest reports on the original support forum thread seem to indicate that the network is in the process of coming back online. Hopefully Verizon customers will be back to normal service soon.

This is actually the second such outage in recent memory. Just two weeks ago (when the support thread was started) Verizon suffered another major data network outage two weeks ago that lasted for most of a day.

Were you affected by today’s outage? If so, have you gotten service back? Let us know in the comments.

The company has been making a minimal effort at damage control via their customer support Twitter feed this morning, but have remained quiet on the details. No comment has been made either on the outage itself or on when Verizon customers can expect the problem to be resolved.

I have sent Verizon a request for comment which has yet to be answered. The Verge, however, is reporting that they did manage to speak to a Verizon spokesperson who only acknowledged the outage without giving any further information.

As one might expect, Twitter has been abuzz with complaints about the outage:

Meanwhile, either someone at Verizon Support has a sense of humor, or they haven’t been paying attention. Just a few minutes ago they responded to this tweet…

With the following:

The timing of the outage is particularly problematic for Verizon, who have been pushing their 4G network heavily in holiday shopping ads for their phones.

Apple will actually not begin selling the new iPads at its stores until 5pm, and is closing down the stores from 4pm to 5pm in preparation for the device’s launch. You can order it online, however.

Just like the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad, this one comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities.

For those ordering the iPad Wi-Fi+3G online, it ships by May 7th. It does come with free shipping. That may be the safer way to go too. If you do go to an Apple Store, be careful about how you hold the bag.

Are you getting the iPad with Wi-Fi+3G? Let us know.

An Alabama woman named Jessica Smith is one of those customers, and she intends to bring many more of them out into the light with her, by filing a class-action lawsuit against Apple.

The suit involves the iPhone 3G, and a 10-page document lists her complaints with the phone and its service. Complaints maintain that the phone finds a connection with AT&T’s 3G network less than a fourth of the time, the number of dropped calls is unusually high, and the service runs slowly. This is despite the fact that her hometown of Birmingham supposedly has great 3G coverage and Apple’s ads tout the device as "twice as fast for half the price." 

Apple did release an update on Tuesday, addressing connection issues, although according to Marin Perez of InformationWeek, the problems haven’t all been fixed. Many people are still finding issues, and might just be interested in that class action suit.

Technology enthusiasts are happy to just sit back and watch. "If nothing else, we might learn from the suit where exactly the phone’s problems lie, and that might be worth the ride, even if it takes a long time to get there," writes Matt Buchanan at Gizmodo.

However, the average consumer, who, like Smith, rushed out to buy the phone, probably does not have such a nonchalant attitude. If more people come forward, Apple might have a hefty fee to pay. The negative publicity for the phone is not going to be too great for sales either.

Slashing the price of the 3G iPhone from $399 to $199 is a big change for Apple at a time when more mainstream consumers are looking to upgrade from regular cellphones to smart phones, said Kaan Yigit, a consultant with Solutions Research Group in Toronto. “All of a sudden, they’ve turned the iPhone from a much-loved and admired device, but not owned by many, into a mass-appeal and attainable mainstream device,” he said.

Only about 12 per cent of Canadian cellphone owners are using smart phones, which means the growth potential for all companies selling Internet-enabled mobile devices is ready to explode, now that the devices are in their price range, he said.

Forbes: The 3G iPhone is a machine designed to gobble up market share. The device will build on Apple’s splashy arrival in the handset market last year. Apple lost ground when it choked off the supply of the original iPhone ahead of the launch of this 3G version. Six months after putting out the iPhone last year, Apple had seized 26.7% of the U.S. smart phone market in the final quarter of 2007. Tech market tracker IDC reported June 6 that Apple had sagged to 19.2% during the first quarter of this year, well behind rival Research in Motion (nasdaq: RIMM – news - people ), which dominates the market with its 44.5% share.

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