Ars Technica reports that Rep. Doris Matsui has introduced the Broadband Adoption Act of 2013. The bill would modify the Lifeline program to provide cheaper broadband Internet services to low-income families across the country.

“In today’s digital economy, if you don’t have access to the Internet you are simply at a competitive disadvantage. For example, more than 80 percent of available jobs now require online applications,” said Congresswoman Matsui. “The Internet is increasingly the economic engine for growth and innovation. The Lifeline program provides a tangible service to lower-income Americans and it is imperative that the Lifeline program be reformed and modernized to account for broadband services. We must ensure lower-income Americans have a greater opportunity to participate in the digital economy, whether it be for workforce training, education, finding a job or creating the next big idea.”

Matsui says that a recent FCC report found that nearly 100 million Americans are without broadband Internet services. She places the blame squarely on the high cost of broadband Internet in America. Many low income families simply can’t afford the high cost of broadband Internet. The bill would help to make faster Internet affordable to all.

Of course, the Broadband Adoption Act of 2013 isn’t just about providing faster Internet to low-income families. Matsui has envisioned a number of reforms to the Lifeline program for the FCC to enact if the bill were to become law:

It’s hard to see how anybody in the telecom industry would be opposed to this bill. It would net ISPs more subscribers to their expensive broadband plans while receiving plenty of free government money. There’s an argument to be had that we can’t be spending more money on social welfare programs, but the counterargument is that universal Internet access is worth it.

Let’s get the most important part of this report out of the way. Are ISPs not delivering advertised speeds? Some aren’t, but the majority of them are, at least during peak periods. The study found that in September of last year, ISPs delivered 97 percent of advertised speeds with some even going above and beyond the call of duty by offering over 100 percent of their advertised speeds.

Of course, there are some ISPs that are still not delivered anywhere near their advertised speeds. Some of these ISPs include AT&T, Qwest, Windstream and Lexington’s own Insight. All of which are offering anywhere between 80 and 90 percent of the advertised speeds.

Which ISPs are going above and beyond what they promise? Cablevision, Verizon Fiber and ViaSat are all offering more than 100 percent of their advertised speeds. Amazingly, ViaSat is offering almost 140 percent more than what they currently advertise in download streams.

Moving on, the FCC report reveals that consumers are continuing to migrate to faster Internet speeds. This is only a good thing as it’s once again proving wrong the concept that most Internet consumers don’t want faster speeds. In even further good news, 46 percent of consumers on 0 to 1 Mbps speed Internet moved up to a faster speed tier between April and September of last year. Unfortunately, the study doesn’t say to which tier these folks moved to, but it was enough to raise the average speed of the Internet in the U.S. to 15.6 Mbps. The FCC notes that this is an annualized increase of 20 percent.

Finally, the report found that satellite Internet is making huge leaps and bounds in terms of advertised speeds versus actual speeds. You already saw before that ViaSat was offering 140 percent of its advertised speeds, and that carries over to the actual charts which shows that satellite Internet providers on average offer 137 percent of their advertised speeds. Coming in second place is Fiber, which offers 115 percent of its advertised speeds. Cable is second with 98.5 percent, and DSL is last with 85.3 percent.

The FCC points out, however, that satellite Internet, which is largely offered as an alternative to rural homes that can’t access to terrestrial lines, still has issues with latency. That is the time it takes to connect and transfer information is still very slow compared to land lines. That being said, satellite Internet companies are improving their technology every year which has led to this year’s massive jump over its traditionally advertised speeds.

So, what can we take away from this report? It’s good that ISPs are still mostly delivering what they advertise, and that people are still upgrading to higher speeds. What the FCC report doesn’t take into account, however, is the prohibitive prices and refusal to expand that keep most consumers away from high speed Internet. Those issues need to be addressed before we start seeing truly remarkable results from these reports.

It seems that the FCC will be focusing on this more in the future. In a statement to The Hill, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said that “we most continue to see increases in broadband speed and capacity” to “unleash innovation and realize broadband’s full potential.” Let’s hope the Commission will actually do something about that this year.

GlobalWirelessPOD is a startup company that uses “proprietary wireless infrastructure to provide wireless broadband and collateral business services to small rural communities.” Their hope is to provide broadband Internet to the roughly 19 million Americans living in rural areas that can’t obtain access any other way. It’s a noble endeavor, but it will cost a bit of money to get going.

The company has launched an Indiegogo campaign that asks for $850,000 to fund the next step of their plan. Here’s how the company is planning to bring Wi-Fi to rural Americans across the country:

Over the past two years, the company has invested heavily in R&D to optimize software protocol thereby enhancing the ability of 802.11 platforms. The core strategic alliance is to merge with existing national and international rural stations and utilize its terrestrial infrastructure to deliver the bundled services and content. The infrastructure has been successfully tested and is used in limited areas benefiting rural schools and emergency services. The company started with two positive cash flow remote radio stations and internet radio in Iowa. GlobalWirelessPOD has identified multiple rural radio stations in the U.S. Midwest that are ready to align to the multipoint network.

The company is in need of $ 800,000 to start the build-out, merges & acquisition of target rural stations and ramp up customer premise equipment (CPE) inventory . This includes globally scalable joint-ventures in Brazil, Philippines, Vietnam-ASEAN arena awaiting entry memorandum of agreements. If goal amount is not reached, a second round will commence combined with current positive cash flow. Proprietary and specific long range strategy are disclosed with a completed non-disclosure agreement to interested Pioneer Partners.

For those who contribute, there’s a wide variety of rewards available in multiple tiers. The lowest tier starts at $11 and those who contribute this amount will receive a thank you note. Bumping your support up to $33 nets you a GlobalWirelessPOD ball cap. Upping your pledge will net you everything from a military grade unit jacket to a board meeting lunch with the folks at OpenWirelessPOD.

There hasn’t been much money raised yet, but the campaign has just started. OpenWirelessPOD has 116 days left to raise $850,000, but its flexible funding campaign ensures that it will at least receive whatever money is pledged to the cause between now and the campaign’s conclusion.

It’s going to take companies like GlobalWireless to get Internet into the hands of consumers as the FCC has done a rather terrible job so far in furthering its National Broadband Plan. The unwillingness of ISPs to actually foot the bill of extending service to those who need it most isn’t helping either.

Those in Appalachia and other rural regions are constantly targeted as regions that need help, but rarely does that help ever come. It’s nice to see somebody working on campaigns to improve the lives of people living in these communities.

“This is a major commitment to invest in 21st Century communications infrastructure for the United States and bring high-speed Internet connectivity – 4G LTE mobile and wireline IP broadband – to millions more Americans,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. “We have the opportunity to improve AT&T’s revenue growth and cost structure for years to come, and create substantial value for shareowners.

“Revenues in our key growth areas – wireless data, U-verse, and strategic business services – are all growing at a strong double-digit rate. Project VIP expands our potential in these key platforms and makes them available to many more customers. With our strong balance sheet, these capital investments are manageable. We are very confident in our ability to execute this plan. These are things we’ve done before – logical extensions of proven technologies and already successful businesses.”

Of the $14 billion, AT&T will use $8 billion for wireless initiatives, and $6 billion for wireline initiatives. The company expects its 4G LTE network to cover 300 million people by year-end 2014 and its wired IP broadband network to expand to 75% of its customers by year-end 2015. In addition, it expects fiber deployment to reach 1 million new business customers by year-end 2015, covering 50% of multi-tenant office buildings in its wireline service areas.

Dish Network announced that they’re finally bringing satellite broadband to their customers on October 1. It’s called dishNET and the company is rolling the new Internet service into their preexisting TV service. They’ll even knock off $10 a month for those who subscribe to both.

“Today, we are launching a revolutionary consumer broadband service that delivers high-speed Internet available in metropolitan areas to rural markets nationwide,” Dish Network CEO Joseph Clayton said. “With nearly one-in-four rural residents lacking a high-speed connection, reaching these underserved markets is vital. Our mission is to provide broadband at an outstanding value with fast speeds and large data plans.”

So how fast are these speeds and how large are these data plans? The basic package features 5Mbps download/1 Mbps upload with a data plan of 10 GB a month. This will set customers back $39.99 a month. The other plan features 10 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload with a data plan of 20 GB a month. The better plan will set customers back an extra $10 at $49.99 a month.

Those living in urban centers will probably scoff at the low speeds and ridiculously low data caps. Those living in rural areas that have had to live with DSL for the past 10 years will see any increase in speed and availability as a godsend. The real miracle here is that Dish has been able to decrease the price of traditionally expensive satellite broadband.

Unfortunately, satellite Internet is at the mercy of weather conditions and other forms of wireless interference. For customers who prefer landlines and can get one to their house, Dish Network is offering a wired broadband solution. Customers can get 7 Mbps down for $29.95 a month, 12 Mbps down for $34.95 a month, or 20 Mbps down for $39.95 a month.

Dish Network’s satellite broadband is available wherever Dish Network operates. A lot of rural communities have access to Dish Network, and now they’ll be able to get proper Internet. It’s unfortunate that the data caps are so low, but many people in these areas are probably happy to take what they can get.

Back in May, Comcast announced that it was ditching its 250GB data caps. The company announced that it would be exploring “improved data usage management approaches.” In fact, a 300GB per month flat cap (like Nashville) or a 300GB cap with options for higher-capped plans (Tucson) were both mentioned as options by Comcast at the time.

Under the Nashville plan, customers who exceed their 300GB monthly data allotment will be charged $10 for every subsequent 50GB of data they cross into. In order to ease customers into their new reality, Comcast will waive the first 3 incidences of overage that customers have during a 12-month period.

While any kind of data cap seems archaic for customers who have enjoyed the freedom of unlimited data in the past, 300GB at least is not prohibitive for the average customer. Still, for those who live their lives online – streaming their entertainment through Netflix and Hulu, playing online games with their friends, talking to their family through Skype, procrastinating on Reddit – that 300GB might not get them through one month. Some Canadians have it worse, though, with internet service providers that cap data at as little as 15GB. Just this week, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos called Canadian internet access “almost a human rights violation.”

Comcast is implementing these caps at the same time Google Fiber is going live in Kansas City. Google will even offer free broadband internet access to customers who pay a one-time build fee of $300.

The FCC recently wrapped up its annual broadband progress report and published the findings today. There’s a bit of good news to be had, but there’s plenty that needs to be worked on according to the report. There is still a lot of people who have no access to broadband Internet.

Let’s start with the good news first: the FCC found that more people have access to broadband Internet than last year. They found that 7 million more people in the U.S. now have access to what the FCC considers broadband – 4 Mbps or higher.

With the addition of 7 million people, 94 percent of Americans now have access to the Internet. Most of those people are getting their access through cable or DSL. Unfortunately, super fast Fiber makes up less than 20 percent of American households, but that number should increase by a bit once Google Fiber launches in Kansas City later this year.

In other good news, the U.S. is now the global leader in 4G wireless coverage. You can thank the wireless wars in the U.S. for that as all the major carriers are competing to outshine the rest in terms of 4G coverage.

All good things must come to an end, however, and that’s where the bad news begins. Even with a 7 million increase in broadband access, there are still an estimated 19 million Americans who lack access to basic broadband. It’s important to remind you that the FCC is rather generous in defining broadband at 4 Mbps. It’s kind of sad that people in rural areas can’t even get speeds at which other people take for granted.

What’s worse is that an alarming 40 percent of people who can purchase broadband choose not to. Why would anybody deny themselves the convenience? The cost or a perception that the Internet isn’t useful to their everyday lives. It’s easy to understand the latter reason, especially for folks who didn’t grow up with the Internet, but it’s a shame that cost is still a factor in the proliferation of broadband.

The cost is always going to be the biggest obstacle to the spread of broadband throughout the country. The worst part is that the cost isn’t just stopping people from upgrading to broadband from DSL or dial-up, but it’s also preventing people from getting faster Internet. The cost of Internet is still abhorrently expensive. Until prices come down, you’re not going to see the FCC’s goal of 100 million homes with 100 Mbps downstream/50 Mbps upstream become a reality.

You can read the rest of the FCC report here. It’s a long read, but there’s plenty of good stuff in there about the present state of the Internet in the U.S. It also gives some hope that the situation on cost and availability may be improving. We’ll have to wait until next year’s report to find out.

While there is little consolation for our Internet woes, there is some hope in the form of a new study from Akamai. The company published “The State of the Internet Report” and the findings are pretty interesting. The study looks at how the Internet has grown in the world, and in the U.S., in the first quarter of 2012.

In a bit of sad opening news, the U.S. is not even in the top 10 of global average Internet speeds. The average speed in the U.S. is a paltry 6.7 Mbps. South Korea is obviously the winner with an average speed of 15.7 Mbps. The U.S. shouldn’t feel too bad though as our average speed is actually up 29 percent year-over-year. South Korea’s speed is only up 9.4 percent year-over-year, and actually down 1.5 percent quarter-over-quarter.

The U.S. fairs much better when looking at the peak Internet speeds. The U.S. is in eighth place with a peak speed of 28.7 Mbps. Hong Kong takes the top spot this time with a peak speed of 49.3 Mbps. South Korea is not far behind though with a peak speed of 47.8 Mbps. It’s important to note that the U.S. is once again growing in this area with 35 percent growth year-over-year.

The best news for the U.S. is the growth of high broadband, which Akimai defines as having a connection of 10 Mbps or higher. Fifteen percent of U.S. citizens are at that high broadband mark which doesn’t seem like much. The growth tells an entirely different story, however, with 95 percent growth year-over-year. Unfortunately, South Korea has to win again with 53 percent of their citizens being at high broadband. Their growth is also higher at 97 percent year-over-year.

Things get really interesting when you look at the U.S. on a state-by-state basis. Delaware has the fastest average speed in the country with an average of 10.2 Mbps. That’s an increase of 58 percent year-over-year. Washington state brings up the rear with an average speed of 7.9 Mbps.

Delaware leads the pack again in peak connection speeds of 43.4 Mbps. It’s an increase of 44 percent year-over-year. Unlike the global peak connection speeds, there is no real correlation to the average connection speeds. Much of the peak connection speeds actually come from the Northeast with states like Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts making up most of the list.

The Northeast wins again when it comes to the adoption of high broadband. Delaware is the winner again with 33 percent of its citizens having access to Internet at 10 Mbps or higher. The rest of the list is populated by Northeastern states except for Washington state bringing up the rear with 21 percent adoption.

As for regular broadband adoption of over 4 Mbps, the Northeast is the winner again. An amazing 92 percent of Delaware residents have Internet over 4 Mbps with the lowest being only 68 percent in the District of Columbia. The growth at this point is slower though with Delaware only seeing growth of 14 percent year-over-year.

So what does this all mean? The Internet is getting faster around the world. The U.S. is actually increasing its average speed by a lot, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. It’s pretty pitiful that nobody outside of the Northeast, sans Washington state, is represented in the state breakdown.

Regardless, it’s a good sign that the Internet and speed are both growing throughout the U.S. and the world. It may not be growing as fast as we want it to, but it’s there. If Google brings Fiber outside of Kansas City, the U.S. might be able to better compete with the world. It will at least be interesting to see if Kansas or Missouri shows up on this report once Google Fiber launches. A few thousand homes with 1 Gbps connections might help even the odds.

If you want to see the report in full with breakdowns of all the major global markets, check out the study on Akimai’s Web site. It should be pointed out that they do require you to register with them to check out the study.

The report, “The Cost of Connectivity,” compared high-speed Internet offerings in 22 cities around the world by price, download and upload speed, and bundled services. The most important finding in the report is how much $35 gets a consumer in these cities. The results may surprise you.

Consumers in Paris, France can get a bundle that includes 100 Mbps Internet, television and phone for about $35. In Lafayette, LA, which the study bills as a “top American city,” the cheapest Internet package available costs $65 and only includes a 6 Mbps connection. That’s a bundle, however, and much of the cost probably comes from the bundled in television service.

When we go into just Internet, it gets really sad. Hong Kong residents can get symmetrical download and upload speeds of 500 Mbps for $37 a month. For the same price, Washington D.C. and New York residents get speeds that are a fraction of what our friends in China get (25 Mbps download/2Mbps upload).

Speaking to Ars Technica, a member of the New America Foundation, Benjamin Lennett, says that one of the problems is a “really flawed assumption that telephone companies and cable companies are going to compete with each other.” He says that these companies are actually working under a “negotiated truce” that sees them respecting each other’s territory while setting up monopolies in cities.

As for solutions, Lennett points to what the city of Longmont is doing – buying up fiber and selling residents Internet. The introduction of Google as an ISP should also have the same effect of driving prices down with competition.

In its defense, Verizon argued that it’s unfair to compare Internet speeds of American cities to foreign cities. In a response to Ars Technica, a company spokesperson said that the study is flawed because it only looks at cities. The speeds in countries like China dramatically drop once one leaves the cities.

Of course, for that argument, we only have to look at states with large rural populations. The city gets fast Internet for a decent price whereas consumers out in the rural parts of the state are stuck with slow Internet for higher prices. It’s the same situation around the world with the cities getting the better deal while those in rural communities are left high and dry. Even then, it’s still surprising to see cities in foreign countries getting a better deal than their U.S. counterparts.

Gigabit Squared has called upon the the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project (Gig.U), which consists of 30 universities, to tap the 6 communities to develop the ultra-fast broadband networks. Blair Levin, executive director of Gig.U, commenting on the ample funding, “yes, America needs an upgrade, and that, yes, there are investors and innovators willing to step up to get it done.” The project will be known as The Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program, and will be the first multi-community broadband gigabit deployment in the U.S.

Each Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program project will consist of:

- The use of underutilized network assets and capacity and local investment to drive services and unlock long-term value and sustainability,
- A framework to create new capacity and spur development, including community service applications that promote better health, education and community services,
- Previously unavailable speed and bandwidth,
- Digital economic development strategies to aggregate revenues and lower the overall costs of scaling gigabit-broadband, and
- A future-state network that will serve as a platform for innovation, next generation application development, workforce development and job creation.

Mark Ansboury, president of Gigabit Squared, states, “The Stimulus Funding was a great jumpstart to get broadband initiatives on track in the U.S. But it is just a starting point – In order to realize true economic revitalization, we’re urging our national and community leaders to think and act in more creative ways. And we’re backing those efforts with significant investment of our.”

In related news, the National Association of Broadcasters has recently given the FCC and Google the go-ahead in moving forward with white spaces, which are unused television bands that can be used for ultra-fast wifi connections.