Broadband

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators have unveiled a plan for overhauling the $8 billion fund that subsidizes phone service in rural areas and for the poor. It redirects the money toward broadband expansion. The Federal Communications Commission's plan, adopted Thursday, establishes a new "Connect America Fund" for mobile telephone and broadband in rural communities and needy areas. The money will continue to come from a surcharge on consumers' and businesses' monthly phone bills.

A telecommunications consumer advocacy group said it would file with Pennsylvania regulators today a complaint accusing Verizon Communications Inc. of shirking a 1995 promise to offer superfast Internet service statewide. Verizon officials dismissed the allegation yesterday, saying the company has spent billions for new network equipment, including high-speed fiber-optic lines, in Pennsylvania to meet the 1995 deal's broadband rollout terms. New York-based TeleTruth alleges that Verizon and its predecessor, Bell Atlantic of Pennsylvania, improperly reaped nearly $2 billion from customers in Pennsylvania in a quid pro quo deal with the state to remove the company's regulated profit limit.

A RECENT OPINION piece called into question the Free Library's place in our digital world. A quick stop on freelibrary.org — our "online branch," which receives 8 million unique visits annually — immediately highlights just how relevant and digitally savvy the Free Library is. There, users will quickly and easily find access to: More than 30,000 e-books for checkout. Streaming and downloadable popular music. Hundreds of podcasts from our renowned Author Events series, which are downloaded at a rate of 26,000 per month.

The magnitude of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will force America's utility regulators to pay heightened attention to national energy and water security when they meet for their annual convention starting today at the Philadelphia Marriott. The five-day gathering, sponsored by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, will dedicate several sessions to what members from across the country should do to ensure the safety of their states' energy supplies and networks, Charles Gray, the association's executive director, said.

Allan Frank, who as Philadelphia's first chief technology officer has worked to consolidate its information-technology efforts, will stop working for the city in February and return to private industry. In the short term, Frank said, he plans to do management consulting. With an annual salary of $209,000, Frank, 55, is the city's second-highest-paid employee. The top earner is Chief Medical Officer Sam Gulino, at $239,200. Mayor Nutter also announced Wednesday that Frank would head the new Mayor's Advisory Board on Technology.

A consortium of public and private agencies led by the Urban Affairs Coalition has been awarded $11.8 million to provide Internet access, computers and training to low-income residents and small businesses in Philadelphia. The grant to Philadelphia Freedom Rings: SBA Partnership is stimulus money from the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The effort is expected to generate 5,000 new broadband household subscribers and provide more than 210,000 hours of training.

As Philadelphia awaits the findings of a mayoral task force on city-provided wireless Internet service, City Councilman Frank Rizzo has weighed in as yet another critic of the idea. Rizzo wrote an opinion piece for technology news Web site Cnet.com this week panning Mayor Street's proposal to offer wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, broadband access throughout the city at marginal cost to the users. Street announced the initiative in September, viewing it as a way to make city workers more efficient and to make Internet access widely available to residents of all economic levels.

Verizon Communications Inc. says it will not exploit a legal loophole that may open next week when a sweeping Pennsylvania telephone law will die before state lawmakers agree on a replacement for it. The law's demise on Dec. 31 raises questions about who will keep Verizon's rates stable and who will force it to keep old commitments, such as lacing the state with fast Internet connections. The expiring law required incumbent phone companies such as Verizon to lease their lines to competitors and to make broadband Internet service available by 2015 to all customers, even those in unprofitable rural areas.

Judging by the relatively few low-income families taking advantage of a discounted price for no-frills broadband Internet service, it's clear that more hard work will be needed to bridge the city's digital divide. Even though it's less than five months into the effort to sign up households for the $9.95 monthly service, the fewer than 500 customers enrolled locally means participation on Comcast Corp.'s home turf trails most of the company's major markets. Nationwide, 41,000 low-income families with children who qualify for free- and reduced-cost school lunches have signed up. But the turnout locally is particularly discouraging, since 41 percent of Philadephians are going without broadband service.

What happens when you take Mayor Street's trailblazing vision of Philadelphia as one huge wireless Internet hot spot and suddenly cool it to the temperature of long-dead star? The vision dies, and with it a shining chance to showcase the city as hip and technology-friendly. Also shot would be the chance to redefine the "City of Brotherly Love" as a community that reaches across the digital computer divide. The vision doesn't die, though, if enough people start chanting - Neverland-style - that they believe . . . they believe . . . they believe.

A RECENT OPINION piece called into question the Free Library's place in our digital world. A quick stop on freelibrary.org — our "online branch," which receives 8 million unique visits annually — immediately highlights just how relevant and digitally savvy the Free Library is. There, users will quickly and easily find access to: More than 30,000 e-books for checkout. Streaming and downloadable popular music. Hundreds of podcasts from our renowned Author Events series, which are downloaded at a rate of 26,000 per month.

Judging by the relatively few low-income families taking advantage of a discounted price for no-frills broadband Internet service, it's clear that more hard work will be needed to bridge the city's digital divide. Even though it's less than five months into the effort to sign up households for the $9.95 monthly service, the fewer than 500 customers enrolled locally means participation on Comcast Corp.'s home turf trails most of the company's major markets. Nationwide, 41,000 low-income families with children who qualify for free- and reduced-cost school lunches have signed up. But the turnout locally is particularly discouraging, since 41 percent of Philadephians are going without broadband service.

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators have unveiled a plan for overhauling the $8 billion fund that subsidizes phone service in rural areas and for the poor. It redirects the money toward broadband expansion. The Federal Communications Commission's plan, adopted Thursday, establishes a new "Connect America Fund" for mobile telephone and broadband in rural communities and needy areas. The money will continue to come from a surcharge on consumers' and businesses' monthly phone bills.

Comcast Corp. has boosted its top residential broadband speeds to 105 megabits per second, more than double the previous-fastest speed of 50 megabits per second. The service is available in the Philadelphia area for an introductory rate of $105 a month for a year when bundled into the triple of cable-TV, Internet and phone services. The regular listed rate for the 105-speed service is $199.95 a month.    - Bob Fernandez  

(This story has been changed; the corrected text is below.) Precision is a common obsession of engineers and computer scientists, so it's ironic when it's lacking from products they help bring to market. But it often is. Take broadband - the surprisingly hard-to-define Internet service that so many consumers covet for faster access, whatever their needs, and that borders on a national obsession as we fret about competing with technology leaders in Europe and Asia. Want to watch funny cat videos on YouTube, or the latest viral send-up of Rebecca Black's "Friday"?

Low-income families could benefit from Comcast Corp.'s deal to purchase control of NBC Universal Inc. In a last-minute concession to the Federal Communications Commission, the company agreed to offer Internet service for $9.95 a month to families in its cable-franchise areas who participate in the National School Lunch Program. The current stand-alone rate for Comcast's "economy-tier" Internet service is $24.95 a month, the company said Monday. The nationwide initiative, Comcast Broadband Opportunity Program, would be launched within nine months of closing the merger with NBC Universal.

Allan Frank, who as Philadelphia's first chief technology officer has worked to consolidate its information-technology efforts, will stop working for the city in February and return to private industry. In the short term, Frank said, he plans to do management consulting. With an annual salary of $209,000, Frank, 55, is the city's second-highest-paid employee. The top earner is Chief Medical Officer Sam Gulino, at $239,200. Mayor Nutter also announced Wednesday that Frank would head the new Mayor's Advisory Board on Technology.

In the Region Rite Aid reports a down September Rite Aid Corp. , the Camp Hill, Pa., drugstore chain, said its September same-store sales fell 0.9 percent compared with last September. Same-store sales are those at stores open at least a year and are a key retail measure. The firm reported a drop of 1.2 percent in pharmacy sales and a fall of 0.3 percent in front-end sales - that is, sales other than at the pharmacy counter. Pharmacy sales, according to Rite Aid, were hurt by the introduction of generic medicines, which typically have lower prices than brand-name drugs.

A consortium of public and private agencies led by the Urban Affairs Coalition has been awarded $11.8 million to provide Internet access, computers and training to low-income residents and small businesses in Philadelphia. The grant to Philadelphia Freedom Rings: SBA Partnership is stimulus money from the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The effort is expected to generate 5,000 new broadband household subscribers and provide more than 210,000 hours of training.