Aurora Over Norway

SPACE WATCH
NASA – Auroras can make spectacular sights. Photographed above last weekend, flowing multi-colored auroras helped illuminate a busy sky above Tromsø, Norway. Besides the spectacular aurora pictured above, the photographer caught three satellites streaks, one airplane streak, and a friend trying to capture the same sight. Although auroras might first appear to be moonlit clouds, they only add light to the sky and do not block background stars from view. Called northern lights in the northern hemisphere, auroras are caused by collisions between charged particles from the magnetosphere and air molecules high in the Earth’s atmosphere. If viewed from space, auroras can be seen to glow in X-ray and ultraviolet light as well. Predictable auroras might occur a few days after a powerful magnetic event has been seen on the Sun. more> http://tinyurl.com/33n2a6f

Credit & Copyright: Ole Christian Salomonsen

A 2010 Declaration of Broadband Inclusion for All

ITU (United Nations) – We strongly believe that getting the broadband policy and investment mix right requires coherent and concerted political will and leadership from the top as well as grassroots support. Critically, this will require a newly proactive and progressive approach to creating an enabling environment for broadband inclusion for all via the convergent and interdependent forces of policy, infrastructure, technology, innovation, content and applications, people and government.

Although broadband has the inherent capability to cut a swathe through the silos associated with the health, education, culture, energy, transport, environment and other sectors, it has all too often fallen between sectors as a casualty of short-term micro- and macroeconomic planning. Many would argue that these sectors are on the threshold of systemic and fundamental change requiring re-engineering from top to bottom. Fundamentally, like mobile and the early Internet, broadband could be the next disruptive technology tool that is about to catalyze that change. more> http://tinyurl.com/2c4kpp6

Europe calls for global internet treaty

By Mark Ballard – Europe has proposed a global Internet Treaty to protect the net from political interference and place into international law its founding principles of open standards, net neutrality, freedom of expression and pluralistic governance.

The draft law was compared to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as the Council of Europe presented it to web luminaries from around the world at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Vilnius, Lithuania, this week. more> http://tinyurl.com/2ea36m5

House lawmakers close to net neutrality bill

By Cecelia Kang – Democratic and Republican staff members have been in talks for weeks on a bill that outlines how Internet service providers can treat Web content and applications. “We are working hard on legislation to protect the open Internet,” said Karen Lightfoot, a spokeswoman for the House Commerce Committee.

One House staff member said the bill will reflect the “least worst” of options for parties on both sides of the issue. Telecommunications and cable firms would get a bill that doesn’t give the FCC authority over broadband and only temporary authority to enforce net neutrality rules. more> http://tinyurl.com/24gs9q9

Chattanooga raises the bar on broadband development

By Kevin McCaney – The optical fiber network, built with Alcatel-Lucent’s gigabit passive optical network technology, reaches 100,000 homes and businesses. By year’s end, EPB Fiber Optics, Chattanooga’s community-owned fiber-optics utility, expects to raise that number to 170,000 across a 600-square-mile area in the city and surrounding region.

Chattanooga’s service costs $350 a month, so it’s not likely to attract your average Web user, but businesses, large organizations and the most ardent of online gamers could jump on board. more> http://tinyurl.com/2dodbq5

related>

• Federal government models new broadband push on Chattanooga
• EPB Says Fiber Optic Network Available for All in 2010, News Channel 9 [VIDEO] http://tinyurl.com/l837z9
• Chattanooga Tenn announces only 1 Gigabit broadband service in U.S. for both residential and business customers, Alcatel-Lucent http://tinyurl.com/2wkhxnw