President Bush Wants You To Have High Speed Internet

In a speech President Bush made in New Mexico on Friday, he called for universal and affordable broadband Internet access by 2007. He is suggesting that Congress not tax Internet access either. His point is that broadband will speed the flow of information and spark innovation.

The fact is that broadband growth in the U.S. is slowing. The rate of growth is expected to drop to about 16% by 2007, down from 36% this year. The President is suggesting that lower prices will push the growth rate higher.

While I agree that the Internet is a great enabler, we must get security and reliability under control in order to gain the greatest benefits from it. Spam, Viruses and phishing cause many to be nervous about using the Internet for anything more than basic research. Once these issues are resolved I believe another phase of Internet growth will occur. In the meantime, cheaper access will be greatly appreciated! Now, about those gas prices?

One For The Good Guys

I am often asked if any virus writers or spammers are ever caught. In fact there have been many arrests. Most of the time it is difficult to find what happened to these idiots because so much time lapses and they are not considered headline news, although I wish a few would be.

Yesterday in Houston Zachary Keith Hill plead guilty to running a phishing operation. Phishing is a version of spamming where emails are sent out looking like they are from a credit card or other type of financial institution. The recipient is tricked into giving account information to the spammer. This has been very popular lately and I'm sure several people have fallen into the trap. In his possession were 471 stolen credit card numbers, 152 bank accounts, and 541 user names and passwords for secure web sites.

This is actually the second arrest for this guy. He could get 10 to 15 years and large fines. It will be interesting to see what he ends up getting. Hopefully the judge or some of the jury members is or knows someone that is a victim of a phishing scam.

Click here for the whole story. (No account information required!)

Broadband Internet Via Power Lines

Residents of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana will be the first to be able to get broadband Internet via their power lines this month. BPL, as the technology is known as, allows users to plug a device into one of their power outlets which enables a high speed Internet connection via the power lines. This service can provide high speed Internet access in areas where DSL or Cable broadband connections are not available. The service costs between $30 to $40 per month depending on the connection speed. There has been some concern that this technology may interfere with with ham radio signals. However, the FCC has given it the OK and will monitor for problems.

If this technology works as well as promised, it will enable a whole new group of consumers and businesses to have access to broadband Internet that are unable to get DSL or cable Internet connections at this time. The price is right and availability will be virtually anywhere that power is supplied to. Of course the utility company must take the step of installing the equipment or partnering with a vendor that will provide the service.

Cingular To Purchase AT&T Wireless

In the first of what will probably be several consolidations in the wireless market, Cingular has won a bidding war to purchase AT&T wireless. Their bid of $41 billion knocked the last remaining competitor, Vodafone out of the running. Now Cingular must get stockholder and government approval to close the deal. If it does go through, the combined company will be the largest cell phone carrier in the country moving ahead of the current leader Verizon. By the way, Vodafone just happens to own a 45% share of Verizon.

AT&T Wireless split from AT&T in July 2001 as an independent company and employees 30,000 employees. It has somewhere around 25 million subscribers.

As you know, I am not a large fan of these mega mergers. Generally people lose jobs and customer service goes further down the tubes. But sometimes you get some real cool television ads. The wireless industry in this country needs some fire under its feet. We are not moving fast to implement new technologies in this area. If this deal can help get the fire started, it might be worth it. Check back in around 2006 or 2007 and let's see what really happens. I wonder how many shares of AT&T Wireless stock its executives and board members own anyway? At a $15.00 per share bid they are all probably sitting pretty well! (The market price on Monday was around $12)

Microsoft Critical Patch Update

Some users are finding that when they go to the Windows Update Service site they need to install dozens of critical updates. Welcome to tech support! If you do not know how to install updates I suggest you be very careful. In the short term, while we suggest all updates are eventually installed, you may want to consider only installing the two latest critical updates which are KB828028 and KB832894. If you are not sure what you are doing with this...don't. Call us or someone that does. You may cause problems that you don't want. We do not suggest any end users install any patches on any servers at any time, you system administrators are of course excluded (as long as you are real system administrator).

Please seek help from someone qualified if you are not sure that you know what you are doing!