FCC discusses emergency responder broadband plan

Part of the funding proposed in the National Broadband Plan, announced on Wednesday by the Federal Communications Commission, is for a $16 billion network that would provide broadband service to emergency responders. A day after the plan's announcement, the FCC launched a webpage to explain the network. Prior to the announcement, the organization discussed aspects of the plan at various conferences and in front of different bodies throughout the U.S. The webpage contains video clips of these discussions and a statement from FCC chairman Julius Genachowski about the first responder network. However, people want to know exactly how the government plans to fund the endeavor and at what cost to citizens. The organization did announce that any fee will be less than $1. The FCC also expects to seek $6.5 billion from Congress for the project in the near future, according to Computer World. The endorsement of high-speed internet by the federal government represents a major cultural shift in thinking. Eighty percent of 27,000 people polled throughout the world by GlobeScan believes that web access has become a basic human right. Those who do not use the internet in the U.S. may soon struggle to adjust.

Alaska receives ARRA funds for broadband, Anchorage tries to attract Google

Google has stated that it plans to provide its 1 gigabyte per second high-speed internet connection to a place that really needs it to prove how valuable internet access is to modern education and economic success.

Anchorage, Alaska has made the latest push to become the first city to be selected by the search engine giant for its service. Anchorage's efforts comes on the same day that the state nearly $90 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to improve broadband access throughout the stay.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to bring broadband services to that region of the state," Bruce Broquet of GCI, the company installing the broadband, told the Alaska Journal of Commerce. "Once you've decided you're going to do it, the wheels have to start turning immediately."

Despite the often slow speeds, a higher percentage of people in Alaska report using the internet on a daily basis than any other state in the country. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an October 2009 survey revealed that 79 percent of the population uses the internet at least once per day.

California man arrested for spam threat to New York Life

A man dissatisfied with the return on his investment in a variable life insurance policy allegedly threatened the policy's issuer, New York Life, with a spam email campaign, which resulted in his arrest over the weekend.

Anthony Digati, a 52-year-old from Chino, California, allegedly claimed on a website that he would send six million emails to potential New York Life customers if they did not pay him nearly $200,000 - which the Wall Street Journal reports is four times as much as he paid to the company in premiums.

Digati was charged with one count of extortion by Manhattan prosecutors and could face two years in prison if convicted. The New York Daily News reported that "Digati may have realized that might happen because in one of his emails, he boasted, 'no judge in the world is going to rule for a 200 billion-dollar company when there is a lonely customer that you stole from.'"

The Journal noted that Digati originally contacted the insurance company over his claims in February.

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