Offline Chromebooks

J. R. Raphael instructs readers in the use of a Chromebook when offline .

-DD

Internet Access for Students and Teachers in the US

According to Evan Marwell, almost forty million students in the USA have access to high speed internet

. This is good news. But over six million students still lack broadband internet access. -DD

Net Neutrality Rulings

Grant Gross explains the FCC's request for comments on its plan to remove some of the restrictions on corporations which privided net neutrality .

-DD

Internet for the Poor

Matt Hamblen reports that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will charge a fee on telecommunications services to allow the poor to have internet access .

-DD

Airborne Internet

Matt Weinberger muses on the promise of balloons and drones to provide internet accessto remote areas. He points to efforts funded by Google and Facebook to deploy proof-of-concept trials.

-DD

North Korea's Internet Access

Martyn Wjilliams explains how North Korea is connected to the Internet . I was amazed that the nation only received Internet access four years ago:

A connection from China Unicom into the country first appeared in late 2010. Until then, North Korea had no full-time connection to the Internet—just an email service that relayed messages every hour or so. (para. 4)

Now Korea also has Internet access through a Russian telecommunications satellite.

-DD

Windows 9 and Wi-Fi Sense

Jared Newman notes that Windows 9 should offer better Wi-Fi connectivity. This is good news, as I have had trouble getting Wi-Fi to connect to institutional wireless networks.

-DD

Inexpensive Internet

Sharon Gaudin and Sharon Machlis share U.S.Census Bureau data indicating that roughly 20 percent of of the population does not have a computer. Most of these people are either the very young or very old. It makes sense to me that those in custodial care would not have their own computer.

It is also telling that U.S. Census Bureau statistics show 25 percent of U.S. citizens do not use the Internet at home. The high speed Internet service required to use websites with rich content can run $500/year, or more than the cost of a low-end consumer-grade laptop. Providing cheap Internet to the inner cities would level the playing field.

-DD

Internet Access

Jim Miller has posted several tips for obtaining inexpensive Internet access .

In looking at comments about FreedomPop (which seems to use the Sprint network) I read about another network on the Sprint Network, Republic Wireless, which offers forty-dollars-per-month plans that supposedly have unlimited data usage. Republic Wireless seems to be able to do this because they route calls through local wi-fi wherever possible - I expect that data in areas with no wi-fi will not be unlimited, or will be capped to low speeds.

-DD