CHICAGO, March 12, 2010 – When the City of Chicago has tried its hand at computerized technology of recent, it hasn’t exactly been a hit with citizens.

Those fancy electronic signs on public transit platforms? They tell you everything except the time the next trains will arrive, a la London’s Underground. Those year-old parking meter kiosks that take credit cards? Convenient, perhaps—though they also ushered in an era of quadrupled parking fees.

So when city officials unveiled Chicago’s official new website Friday, they took great pains to emphasize that www.cityofchicago.org would make life simpler for residents, businesses and visitors alike.

WASHINGTON, March 11, 2010 – The FCC launched its consumer broadband test today, enabling consumers to test the speed and other performance measurements of their broadband connections.

When the city of Duluth, Minnesota, did not receive funding from their broadband stimulus application to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program application, they turned to Google.

A few weeks ago, Google announced their own efforts to expand broadband through a trial of high-speed fiber-optic network which would deliver speeds of one Gigabit per second (1Gbps). As part of their application, the city has even created an amusing Youtube video, saying that all first-born children will be named Google.

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2010 – Public Knowledge, Silicon Flatirons and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation last week sponsored a half-day conference to discuss the Federal Communications Commission and its efforts in reform, regulatory responsibility and standard setting. The second panel looked at the pros and cons of regulation, self-regulation and co-regulation.

Why do Internet users continually resist paid content on a systematic basis? Keep in mind that many current Internet business models were built on the premise, (create the content and they will come).

Google’s entrance into the Broadband ISP arena may have lasting effects within the ISP community.

WASHINGTON, February 12, 2010 – Google appears to be prodding the Federal Communications Commission to go big on broadband, says a new telecom update out from consultancy Medley Global Advisors

WASHINGTON, February 10, 2010 – Google shook up the broadband world on Wednesday with the announcement, on its blog, that it plans to offer super-fast broadband, at speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second, to up to 500,000 homes.

Google framed its entrance into the marketplace to deploy fiber-optic services as a “testbed” to understand more about the way that consumers and businesses use internet applications when truly high-speed services are available.

“We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections,” said Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly, project managers at Google. “We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.”

WASHINGTON, February 8, 2010 – The Federal Communications Commission has received thousands of comments both lauding and criticizing its proposed plan to address the controversial issue of network neutrality.

WASHINGTON February 1, 2010 – As a follow-up to President Obama’s State of the Union Speech last week, Obama sat down with YouTube’s news and political director Steve Grove to answer questions submitted and voted on by users of YouTube, which is owned by Google. The total number of votes cast were 774,450, on 14,476 questions, from nearly 65,000 users.

The number one question in the “jobs and economy” category came from James Earlywine of Indianapolis, who asked: “An open internet is a powerful engine for economic growth and new jobs. Letting large companies block and filter online content and services would stifle needed growth. What is your commitment to keeping the Internet open and neutral in America?”

“I’m a big believer in Net Neutrality,” said Obama.