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What is the Internet? It used to be simple. If you were a regular Internet user, you used a modem to commandeer your telephone line and you called into a service provider. Once connected, you'd enter the Netscape address and Netscape's servers would send you information over the network of networks. Nowadays, things are much more complicated. Every time you load a web page, it calls out to dozens of other servers, which often dynamically send content to that original page. Meanwhile, service providers like Akamai and Edgecast hold copies of many websites' content close to users to speed up the delivery of that information. Add it all up and you are a far cry from the relatively simple architecture of yesteryear. It's hard even for the big bandwidth providers to tell what's going on. Today, we met a company that can map out this new world of the Internet; Deep Field can decode the tangled web.

In recent years, when Forbes magazine has put out a list of "most wired" cities, Seattle has been 1, 2 or 3. We're used to streaming a Netflix movie anytime, downloading gargantuan files and having a smartphone as another appendage. But the future — even the present — hasn't quite arrived in parts of Washington.

Remote, often rugged-terrain areas with small populations remain on the dark side of the digital divide — meaning everything from working from home to checking the latest Facebook posting to booking a flight online goes ... a little ... slow. Real ... slow. According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, just under 2 percent of the state's population, about 136,000 people, can only get Internet access at basically dial-up speed. These gaps in broadband coverage are about more than the convenience of watching Netflix movies, says the state's Broadband Office. They're about small businesses being able to use the Internet to market their services, students being able to take an online course and individuals in isolated areas having a level playing field with competitors in the cities, says Wilford Saunders, who heads the state agency. No level field, and the populations in those small towns will keep evaporating, says Saunders.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson commended the Federal Communications Commission for moving to review its rules for how much spectrum a carrier should be able to hold.

The tone from Stephenson is noticeably different from the combative stance AT&T and the FCC had last year amid the agency's review of AT&T's failed $39 billion T-Mobile USA acquisition. Stephenson, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, said that he "applauded" the FCC's move. He said that a lack of clarity from regulators was causing a "pause" in deals between carriers. At its Sept. 28 meeting, the FCC is expected to begin exploring rules that determine the agency's so-called spectrum-screen, which it uses when reviewing spectrum transactions. If a carrier acquires too much spectrum and violates the screen, the deal is more closely scrutinized. Currently, the screen is different for each proposed transaction. The rulemaking is expected to look at spectrum transfers between companies and will likely explore whether to treat lower-band spectrum differently than higher-band radio waves. Stephenson said that the rulemaking is the "only chance" the wireless industry has to get more clarity on how much spectrum carriers can hold. He said he welcome the opportunity for carriers to add their views and data to the public record on the issue. "Right now there is zero clarity on what spectrum holdings are allowed," he said.

Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo said that Verizon Wireless now has enough spectrum to handle its capacity needs for the next four to five years. He called the carrier's recently approved $3.9 billion purchase of nationwide AWS spectrum from a group of cable companies "an absolute strategic acquisition for us."

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, Shammo said there is now no real urgency for the next four to five years. That said, he noted that over time as usage on the carrier's EV-DO network declines, Verizon will start repurposing some of its 3G spectrum for LTE service. The Verizon finance chief said that by mid-2013 the company will have filled in its 3G coverage footprint with LTE service using its 700 MHz spectrum. At that point, he said, Verizon may start deploying its AWS spectrum for LTE in certain cities.