Wireless Internet

There is, of course, a digital divide among low-income Americans, but there is also what we at TechSoup call an organizational digital divide. Many nonprofits themselves are low-income and benefit greatly from low-cost, uncapped broadband. This is a groundbreaking study on how charities use this resource for both their staff and their clients. Nearly a third of nonprofit respondents report relying on Mobile Beacon service as their main Internet connection. A majority of respondents reported that unlimited data has allowed them to expand their program services.

Here is a brief explanation of how 5G will be used and what it will mean for your online experience — and  your everyday life:

Existing applications: 5G, which will supplement rather than replace today’s 4G networks, will radically improve the bandwidth, capacity and reliability of mobile broadband, much more than in previous generational shifts.

Why exactly is it so important for the US to build 5G networks before China? The benefits of 5G are obvious, but today the US doesn't have the fastest home broadband speeds, nor the fastest or most widely available 4G networks, and often lags countries such as Finland, Japan, and South Korea in such metrics. Why would the US's economic strength erode if it's a bit late to the 5G party?

Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including Huawei, a manufacturing giant that has a close relationship with China’s government. The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL.

Republican and Democratic senators are expressing concerns about the coverage map the Federal Communications Commission is planning to use to decide where to put more than $4.5 billion in rural broadband subsidies, and they want more time to challenge the agency's findings.

North Carolina residents will be among the first to have faster 5G broadband access thanks to legislation approved by lawmakers making the state a leader in digital innovation, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said. “I remember Charlotte and the surrounding communities in the '80s and '90s and to see how quickly things are moving, the energy in this town and in this county, it’s a testament to the leadership on all kinds of levels, public and private sector,” Chairman Pai said.  He especially praised 2017 legislation to install 5G broadband in the state. But critics of th

The House Commerce Committee's Digital Subcommittee held a hearing on a bipartisan bill, the State of Modern Application, Research and Trends (SMART) IoT Act, which charges the Commerce Department with studying the Internet of Things (IoT) from various angles with an eye toward what the government needs to do to promote adoption while protecting the security of the nation's networks. On hand to talk about the kind of information the government needs were Tim Day, VP at the U.S.

While mesh Wi-Fi systems can saturate every corner of your home in speedy wireless coverage, they’re also expensive and mostly proprietary. Prices for these systems start at around $250–more than three times what the average consumer spends on a wireless routerp–and if you want to switch to another router maker’s software and services, you have to replace the entire system. Recently, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced a wireless standard called EasyMesh that’s supposed to solve these problems.

The founder and former CEO of Boost Mobile USA says the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger should not happen.