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Parts of rural America have broadband internet access and I guess you could say it is available to everyone if you consider the satellite services which cover the entire country which are ridiculously expensive for the initial setup and monthly service. There also is a patchwork of local providers offering wireless internet services off of water towers and grain elevators and buildings. These services are limited in the amount of bandwidth they can offer, not because the wireless gear is not capable of high speeds, but because the actual t1s or t3s to provide the backhaul to the internet are so expensive.

The nice thing about this particular spectrum is it will go through trees, walls, and just about anything for a long distance from a central broadcast point. So the cost of deployment is reduced because one central broadcast station will cover a large area and the cost of setting it up and providing internet access is spread over more customers. This is all contingent upon local providers being able to gain access to the spectrum in their area.

Google started a discussion about this spectrum and tried to influence the FCC to require the purchaser of the spectrum to provide access to third parties at wholesale prices. I am not sure what wholesale prices means but to a company like Verizon it means another chance to gouge anyone who wants put up the amount they will arbitrarily come up with.

I think if some company is going to rent a piece of this spectrum in their area it should be cheap, cheap to the point it is a negligible expense in the operation of an ISP's costs to provide internet access. The telcos like to promote themselves as service providers. If one of them gets this spectrum let them do a real service to this country and provide cheap access to everyone who is willing to do something valuable with the spectrum in their area.

Each election cycle politicians have spouted crap about bringing broadband access to rural areas. First of all, I do not think they really know anything about the business and the technology. Secondly, they have ignored the large group of small companies that have already been providing broadband access in rural areas. Finally, they have been all to happy to take money from telcos that maintain a stranglehold on access out to the internet by charging too much for broadband circuits to carry rural traffic to the internet.

Michael Dappert is a co-founder of Winco, Inc., a provider of wireless internet access to small communities in West Central Illinois. More articles and discussion can be found at Mike's Garden Blog and discusses a wide range of topics at Flyoverfolks.com

posted by 46124  # 10:53 PM 0 comments

video games are one of the best forms of entertainment today. With it, you can really make your imagination come alive and become an entirely different character that fights monsters from different planets or be a Formula 1 race car driver.

To play these games, you usually go to the mall and play it on the arcade. In the arcade, you will see different games available. Some are even placed on realistic cars or fighter planes that are designed to follow every move you make. For example, if you play in a fighter plane, you will see that the machine will follow the planes movements, when you bank your plane right, you will feel the machine that youre in move right too, if you pull up, you will feel that the machine will also point up.

Some of the arcade games even have a vibration feedback to alert you that youre being hit by the enemy. There are even two player modes where you can go head to head with your friends in a dog fight or you can do cooperative missions where your friend can be your wingman. There are a lot more arcade games available.

However, you cant go to the arcade everyday because doing so can be too expensive. Therefore, you should buy your own video gaming console where you can play right in your own home. Although it wont contain all the realistic machines that you can find in the arcade, you can still have that great graphics and sound quality in the games.

Another great thing about buying your own gaming console is that you can have flexibility in selecting your games. There are a wide variety of games available that is not yet available or impossible to put in arcades.

In order to maximize enjoyment when you buy a video gaming system, you want to get the best. However, you may wonder what makes a good gaming console. With the number of gaming consoles available in the market today, people get confused on which gaming console they should purchase. The competition makes gaming console manufacturers develop the latest graphics and sound technology and integrate them in their systems making all the different kinds of gaming consoles in the market really stand out.

In the past, crude graphics and simple sounds were the ones available in the market. And, it was really popular. Today, quite a few gaming console manufacturers are now manufacturing the latest gaming consoles with integrated features that can even rival the power of your home personal computer.

Sega, Nintendo, microsoft and Sony are four of the big names in the gaming console industry. They create the best gaming consoles in the market and really took the world by storm with each new version released. When you play in these consoles, you will know that it can really give quality entertainment for you and your family. When you have the time, you will spend hours on playing an action packed game with amazing realism and sound quality.

To answer the question on what makes a gaming system the best is not just about the sound quality and the graphics technology integrated on the system. Before you buy a gaming console, make sure that the gaming console has a lot of game titles supported. Besides, people would rather choose a gaming console where thousands of different games are available rather than purchasing a gaming console that only supports a few hundred games. You would eventually grow tired or bored of the only few hundred games available in a particular gaming console.

With thousands of gaming titles you can choose from, you can simply buy another game title if you get bored with your other games.

Another thing you should look for in a gaming console today is if it has additional add-on gadgets that you can connect. Some gaming consoles have memory cards that you can buy for you to save your progress in case you want to continue playing later on. Some have different joysticks that you can plug in for a more realistic feel for the game. For example, if you want your racing game feel more realistic, you can purchase a steering wheel with gas and brake pedals and if you want your fighter plane simulator, you can purchase a joystick that looks similar to fighter plane controls.

There are even gaming consoles that are integrated with a modem. This gaming console can give you the capability to connect to the internet and play with other players across the world.

If you choose a video gaming system that has all these features, you purchased the best video game system available. With the continuing development of different gaming consoles, who knows what other features it may bring.

Harvey Perl

posted by 46124  # 10:14 AM 0 comments