Many enterprises view high-speed broadband connections as ubiquitous. Yet in about 20 percent of the country, businesses and their employees do not have access to even DSL connections. This shortcoming diminishes enterprises' ability to support their employees.
Estimates are about 25% of the population may live in such areas.
This seems like a misleading metric that makes it sound like a huge proportion of the population is being underserved. How many of those living in rural areas actively don't want to have broadband access? Some people live in remote areas because they want to get away from all the urban technological trappings.
If there's a poverty issue, then simply providing broadband access isn't necessarily going to be a magic bullet for alleviating poverty. Rural broadband deployments should be planned in a way that optimizes resources.
Well, it seems like the potential usage of rural broadband should be taken into account before governments start mandating infrastructure projects.. Wasting resources on an "internet highway to nowhere" doesn't sound like a great idea. Sure, rural inhabitants have some right to internet access, but some rural areas should probably be prioritized over others based on how many people would actually use the broadband access. Google's Kansas City broadband project didn't just set itself up willy-nilly, they plan to put broadband where it's most needed. So perhaps employment shouldn't be the only metric, but there should be some logical way to distribute infrastructure that opitmizes for usage.
I don't think it is a matter of how many employees are living in the rural areas. This is about the entire populace living in the rural areas. When it comes to the issue of broadband, you don't necesarily have to be employ in order mised its non-existence. We are living in an information age and people living everywhere have the right to access internet be it employed or not.
Estimates are about 25% of the population may live in such areas. There has been a lot of poltical pressure to find answers to the problem although the progress has not been as noteworthy as many hoped.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Big-data has become a big point of emphasis for many businesses. While the technology is available to deploy these applications, the needed personnel often is not. As a result, analytic engineers' salaries have blown past the six-figure mark, and hiring these experts has become a challenge for IT managers.
Increasingly, companies are using videoconferencing technology to help employees collaborate with co-workers, partners, and customers. As a result, demand for technicians is rising, and companies are finding it difficult to retain their quality workers.
Software-defined networks, which deliver virtualization functions to enterprise networks, have the potential to dramatically change network design and significantly reduce costs and maintenance.
A recent survey by Endace found that 23% of companies experience some type of network problem daily and another 25% have a serious problem each month. Enterprise networks are still very unreliable and probably will continue to be in the near term.
ITRC found that more than 600 security breaches took place in 2012. Flaws were found in some of the nation's most respected companies: Apple, Citibank, and Wells Fargo. So, it seems the bad guys are doing better than the men in the white hats.
Comparing Internet services is tough because service providers price and market their services based on a best-case scenario connection that most consumers will never enjoy.
Walk into the Coastal Federal Credit Union in Raleigh, N.C., and something is missing. Rather than human tellers, customers face videoconferencing ATM machines. Is this the future of branch banking?
A survey by JD Powers found that customer interest in product features is lessening as phones evolve. Rather than features, price is driving purchases, and that change could have a dramatic impact on how IT departments secure these devices.
Businesses helped neighbors with Internet access and mobile device charge-ups during Sandra. Following that example, enterprises should consider preparing Internet disaster plans to help the public during disasters.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
The decision could discourage innovators looking to the past, and require companies to build from the ground up, leading to a new generation of stagnation in the IT world.
Comcast and other broadband providers just might exempt content they own from counting against consumer Internet usage caps. Would that make their broadband services more desirable?
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
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