Armonk, NY Mega-behemoth American white collar job outsourcer IBM says it wants federal stimulus money to make the intertubes available for an estimated 200,000 “rural” people. Unconfirmed and anonymous sources reveal that the stealth program “Operation Homeless Hillbilly” will provide a souped up, yet barely “C” class brand of internet services that will run over power lines – a connection that’s dubiously faster than dial-up but painfully slower than the traditional fiber connections that guys like Tim Geithner get to use.
Although broadband over power lines isn’t a new technology, “it’s been around for the better part of this decade and has yet to gain much traction” which may explain why IBM seeks the “rural” population to load it off on AND get Joe Taxpayer to keep them in Prada loafers at the same time!
So what if the connections are slow? Who’s in a hurry these days, anyway? Especially when pro- labor arbitrage/outsourcing corporations like IBM have gone so far as to want their employees to offshore themselves to
President Obama’s plan includes $2.5 billion that will go toward enhancing Internet services in rural areas, despite the fact that the unemployed and homeless usually don’t typically come across money (via legal means, anyway) to pay for such wired extravagances.
“IBM didn’t say how much money stimulus money it is seeking for its $9.6 million deal with IBEC, which initially will provide broadband services to co-ops in
-2Truthy
5 comments:
Internet over Power Lines is a horrible, devastating, and dangerous technology. Basically the power lines become one big world-wide antenna, interfering (again world-wide) with important radio frequencies, many of which are used for emergency communication.
Hmm, would these be needed in rural areas? Nhaaaaaaa :-p
BTW, this interference is illegal unless the FCC agrees to it. GUESS WHAT? The Bush FCC said "go ahead, pollute the air waves" (after all, we in the Bush administration are totally in favor of all pollution). This despite the vehement opposition of such (non-liberal, really!) groups such as the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
Remember Katrina! WHOOPS! Browning is doing a HELL OF A JOB (a hell of job screwing things UP--said under breath). Well, during Katrina, as during all such disasters, ARRL members volunteered their time, expertise, and equipment to aid communication for emergency services and disaster victims. This would have been made tremendously more difficult if Internet over Power Lines were in use.
"Operation Homeless Hillbilly"?
OMG, I just about died laughing when I read that tonight!
And Prezdumas, thanks for all of the information about Internet over Power Lines. I'd never even heard of it until I read 2Truthy's post.
I have no idea why there's such a push for rural broadband access. Is it because companies are tired of dealing with those pests who insist on sending snail-mail correspondence and calling their toll free customer service numbers?
And is the Bill Gates Foundation going to start a big drive to give out free laptops to the homeless?
"Hmm, would these be needed in rural areas?" prezdumas
Thanks for pointing out what the outcome of this despicable backwash technology will have on the people of these rural towns.
Small towns rely on their local ham radio operators not only for weekly town gossip but for life saving alerts, as you mention in the Katrina example. And how about when the town midwife has to be dispatched or a tornado is sighted? These rural ham operators will be silenced. Why would our gov't. knowingly approve running internet over power lines if it jams emergency ham radio communications? Presumably, the inhabitants of these specific "rural" areas in the states targeted (AL, MI, Virginia etc.) are not deemed VIP status.
CC, Great questions you raise. The snail mail thing...imagine cutting the rural public post offices and the town mailmen out entirely (now that the vc/tech Czar 'advising' Obama on how to spend the stim loot happens to also fund a few gre$n and e-health record startups). These tech 'socioeconomic' architects HATE paper of any sort; not only does it go against their gre$n start-up philosophy mission statements, it cuts into their calculated Q profits.)So 'wire 'em up and start IP/IDing them'? What do people in these rural communities do for jobs these days, anyway? Family farming has been tamped down by Big Ag and local businesses have lost out to WalMart and Home Depot.
2T,
You're missing the obvious! If rural Amurika is wired to the tubes, then the NSA won't have that nasty listening "hole" in Hicksville! Isn't that where all them terrists are movin'?
We gotta make Amurika safe fer Demo-ocracy!
Certainly, this is one way to better monitor their meth lab production/distribution output.
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