business

A column in our sister publication, ZDNet UK, has a plan for cutting down on unsecured Wi-Fi access points. These are trouble because they can enable others' illegal activity, it says ?? a neighbor downloading music or software from Kazaa, for example.

The way to stop this is put Wi-Fi scanners in police cars, let them sniff out unencrypted networks, and issue fix-it tickets when they find them. If people don't secure their networks, maybe the next calls they get will be from the Recording Industry Association of America, the article says.

This might be that droll English sense of … Read more

The federal government has put funding on hold for the E-Rate program, which pays for computers and high-speed Net connections for schools, the New York Times says.

The Federal Communications Commission is apparently looking into what has been a real problem with fraud in the program, and ?? along with the White House ?? has imposed stricter rules on how the money can be used.

But the complete suspension of payments means that as much as $1 billion in payments to states is on hold, and administrators are being forced either to take money from other educational programs or stop payments to … Read more

Broadband blogger Om Malik has a piece noting that for all the seemingly good news around new technologies, the telecommunications industry is still in the midst of a funk. Jobs are being cut or moving overseas, there's still a bandwidth glut, and frankly, hype doesn't pay the bills. It's a sobering reminder not to slip back into bubble-think.

USA Today put on its futurist hat today, looking at a yet-to-come Net that percolates quietly in the background, fulfilling your every need before you ask, instead of making you come to it.

The most critical part of this is delinking the Net from the PC, people in the article say. The future is about turning everything into a piece of the network, including devices, TVs, medical gadgets, kitchen appliances. Make sure everything has a little computer intelligence in it, and then the Net really will make our lives easier, it says.

The idea isn't as new as the … Read more

For the most part blogs are just text. But real-time writing on the Net is a huge pain on dial-up, so I'm chalking up all the blogging that tracked the political debates last night as a byproduct of broadband.

Nor is this a marginal phenomenon. Political debate is at least 50 percent spin these days, no matter what side you're on. And spin is half message, and half propagation of the message. Blogs and other online forums have been a key part of shaping and perpetuating ideas in this campaign, for both sides.

Here were a few of … Read more

A Colorado woman is suing Comcast, saying her cable-based phone made a mistake when she called 911, sending the emergency team to the wrong place ?? resulting in the death of her 5-month-old son.

This will be sure to come up again with cable, cell phone and Net phone services, which are struggling to prove they can handle emergency calls as well as the old 911 system. So far the jury is decidedly out, and this is an area where you really can't afford to make mistakes.

AT&T said today it is cutting its monthly charge for unlimited Net-based phone service to $29.99, from $34.99. Vonage promptly followed suit, cutting its fee to $24.99.

Net calling is a high priority for AT&T, and the company has said it's willing to stick it out for the long run. It has a network that allows it to have reasonably low costs. Looks like it's trying to squeeze rivals out of business by driving margins so far down that the profit is gone.

You gotta give Michael Robertson credit. If there's one thing he knows well, it's the inside of a courtroom. The Sipphone founder (and MP3.com and Lindows founder) has sued Vonage, saying that the rival Net phone company is responsible for advertising VoIP hardware without disclosing that it would only work with the Vonage service. Sipphone customers have complained that they've bought the hardware from Fry's Electronics and discovered only later that it doesn't work with their service, the lawsuit said.

Robertson is the same guy that was sued by the record labels for tens … Read more

British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he wants to make broadband available to anyone in the country who wants it during his next term in office.