I have supported 15 year olds and 75 year olds installing our system!

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If you can't already tell, I love my job and this is the favorite part of it. I have worked with 1,000's of people in your exact position today. From 15 years old high school drama students, to 68 year old grandmothers, to 75 year old ex-marines named Carl who's 37 year old ex-marine neighbor trained as a radio technician gave up after 9 minutes and I convinced him to climb on his roof to tune in the signal himself.

Thank you again for your interest in our rural broadband solution. We look forward to hearing your test results and ultimately supporting your successful launch of services to your rural subscribers.

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Oh, by the way, Carl found the signal himself in less than 10-minutes!!!

Tom-

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AT&T: FCC Must Fix Universal Service Fund

Telco Said Commission Needs To Address USF Before Focusing On National Broadband Plan

John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 6/15/2009 11:29:22 AM MT

AT&T says that the Federal Communications Commission cannot get serious about a national broadband plan until it fixes the Universal Service Fund, which.underwrites telecommunications service in hard-to-reach or uneconomical-to-reach areas..

That came in response to the FCC's announcement Monday of the latest USF contribution percentage, which is now at 12.9%, up from 9.5% at the beginning of the year, says AT&T, a whopping 36% increase.

The fund's base continues to shrink as more people drop landline for wireless and Internet phone service.

"The universal service fund is in a death spiral, driven by growing demands on the fund, the decline of the wireline model and consumer migration to other platforms and services," said AT&T in a statement. "These factors cause the government to ask for more money from a shrinking base of phone customers to support the goals of universal service. This vicious cycle leads to higher and higher USF fees.... In order to begin a discussion on a national broadband plan, the commission must address comprehensive universal service reform."

Most companies and government agencies concede the fund needs fixing. One proposal has been to expand it beyond phone service to include broadband, which would both broaden the base of contributors and start underwriting broadband deployment, which is a national priority of Congress, the administration and the FCC.

Currently, the fund goes to subsidize telephone service, but if the Democrats now in control of Congress have their way, it will be extended to underwriting the broadband build-out as well. That would be in addition to the $7.2 billion in the economic stimulus package going toward that same goal.

House Communication Subcommittee chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who has previously proposed reforming the fund, has said he and his past partner in that effort, Lee Terry (R-Neb.), would be reintroducing a bill to expand the revenue base for the fund.

source

Telephony Magazine article on our Solution (June 2009)

RE: Telephony Magazine article on our Solution (June 2009)

I am proud to say that we had an article published in this month's Telephony Magazine, (page 20). I have attached a photo I made from a fax a good friend sent to me yesterday.

I believe now is the best time to get involved. We are working with Telco's in 27 states on field tests prior to their signing our agreement. We are available to do the same with your rural customers. One email to your employees and/or rural customers can literally tell if there is demand or not.

Will you have time this week to discuss next steps?If so, call us at 1-800-761-9149

With Telephony Magazine actively watching and reporting on our rural efforts, USDA still considering our solution for RUS loans and our alternative financing almost ready to go, we have the solution which will help maintain and grow your rural exchange high speed Internet business and beyond.

Have a great day.

Regards,

Thomas William
Vice President of Partner Solutions
Broadband in a Box
1302 Clear Springs Trace
Louisville Kentucky 40223
(800) 761.9149 : office
(502) 426.2067 : local
(502) 263.9879 : my mobile
(502) 515.3710 : fax

:email:::::::::::::::::::::::: tomw@bbinabox.com
:web::::::::::::::::::::::::::: www.bbinabox.com
:skype::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: bbinabox
:chat::::::::::::::::: broadbandinabox@gmail.com
:icq:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 562727303
:blog::::::: http://broadbandinabox.blogspot.com
:network: http://linkedin.com/in/broadbandinabox

The Failure of 3G Hurts Apple and Its Competition

By 24/7 Wall St. Monday, May. 11, 2009

A poster touting applications available for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch hangs from a metal support at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. Apple says it has 25,000 apps in its app store and there's one for "just about anything."

Paul Sakuma / AP

The inadequacy of 3G networks to carry data and video for large numbers of handsets simultaneously is hurting the performance of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. The problem only starts there. The weakness of 3G networks has also likely undermined the consumer's opinion of new products from RIM (RIMM), the Samsung Instinct, and a host of new products from market leader Nokia (NOK).

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More Related

• Cell Phones and Connections Faster than Lightning
• The iPhone: Second Time’s a Charm
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None of the consumer electronics companies banking on 3G to drive handset sales to pre-recession levels are going to be able to count on their carrier partners for services that will show off the best features of phones that can download and manipulate files, access the internet, and play video. (See pictures of the iPhone.)

The Wall Street Journal reports that the iPhone is so feature rich that "the resulting growth in downloading and Web browsing will strain AT&T's network." AT&T is not alone. Sprint (S) and Verizon Wireless (VZ)(VOD) are up against the same problems.

The promise of 4G wireless networks, which should operate at speeds five to ten times faster than 3G, may be years away. Sprint is testing WiMax ultra-fast broadband in several cities, but there is no guarantee that the technology will work in nationwide rollout. AT&T and Verizon are preparing technologies which are supposed to offer similar results. (See the top ten gadgets of 2008.)

The handset and cell industries face a particularly vexing problem. The current 3G networks are not powerful enough to allow consumers with advanced handsets to take advantage of all of their features, especially networks strained by huge transfers of data to and from handsets. It is a problem that cannot be solved soon enough to keep customers from being disappointed because the phones they have purchased will not work well on the services they have subscribed to.

— Douglas A. McIntyre

source

GPRS/EDGE hybrid Satellite modem UPDATE: 5/2/2009

We recently tested our new GPRS/EDGE hybrid Satellite modem and saw consistent 80Kbps uploads (AT&T) and 170Kbps uploads (T-Mobile) with consistent 1.1+ Mbps downloads (AMC-15/EchoStar Fixed Satellite Corp.)

One test conducted = requesting a 100Mb file

Satellite received: 106976 kB
GPRS/EDGE received: 46 kB
GPRS/EDGE sent: 153 kB

The AT&T signal had t only 2 bars. The T-Mobile was at 5 (do you hear me now?). The SW-20 GPRS/EDGE modem comes with an external antenna and it helped out.

We have been testing for a week and should have more results shortly. Our manufacturing/engineering partners will be in from Europe on Tuesday, so we're all excited to get things kicked off very soon i.e. FCC certification, evaluation units in, etc.

Imagine a low latency, mobile & easy to install system which can be used anywhere that you have GPRS cellular data available.

I just received some .75 Prodelins from SatEng, and they are beautiful.

Concept of the geostationary communications satellite

Have you ever wondered how satellite communications got its start? Thanks to Wikipedia, we have the story. Also, please download the companion piece written by Arthur C. Clarke, the father of satellite Technology - HERE. (Special thanks to the Clarke Foundation)

From Wikipedia

Geostationary orbit

Main article: Geostationary orbit

Clarke's most important scientific contribution may be his idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays. He described this concept in a paper titled Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?, published in Wireless World in October 1945.^[68] The geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour.

However, it is not clear that this article was actually the inspiration for the modern telecommunications satellite. John R. Pierce, of Bell Labs, arrived at the idea independently in 1954 and he was actually involved in the Echo satellite and Telstar projects. Moreover, Pierce stated that the idea was "in the air" at the time and certain to be developed regardless of Clarke's publication. In an interview given shortly before his death, Clarke was asked whether he thought communications satellites would become important; he replied

"I'm often asked why I didn't try to patent the idea of communications satellites. My answer is always, ‘A patent is really a license to be sued.' "^[69]

Though different from Clarke's idea of telecom relay, the idea of communicating with satellites in geostationary orbit itself had been described earlier. For example, the concept of geostationary satellites was described in Hermann Oberth's 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen^[70] (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) and then the idea of radio communication with those satellites in Herman Potočnik's (written under the pseudonym Hermann Noordung) 1928 book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums — der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor) sections: Providing for Long Distance Communications and Safety^[71] and (possibly referring to the idea of relaying messages via satellite, but not that 3 would be optimal) Observing and Researching the Earth's Surface^[72] published in Berlin. Clarke acknowledged the earlier concept in his book Profiles of the Future.^[73]