Internet Outage

 The internet has had problems over the last couple of days in Carbondale, especially Clearwave. Apparently a cable got cut somewhere in the Kansas City region and it was enough to affect us here in sourthern Illinois, even if you do not have Clearwave as a provider.  Seems to be fined now as I have not heard any complaints today. Also shows how interconnected we are, that a damaged cable in the KC region can have an effect here.

Connect 2 Compete

Sat in on a presentation by Mediacom today and one of the topics discussed was the company's Connect 2 Compete program. Designed to help lower income families get home internet, qualifying families can participate in the program in Carbondale (or anywhere Mediacom services) for $9.95 per month (plus taxes and fees). Participants receive broadband access at up to 10 Mbps and a Wi-fi modem with no rental fees.

To participate in the program, as I said earlier, you have to have Mediacom internet service, which Carbondale does, have at least one student in grades K-12 living and home and have at least one child qualifying for the National School Lunch Program. Families cannot currently subscribe to Mediacom and have not been a customer in the past 90 days, nor have any outstanding bills with the company.  Broadband internet access for $120 a year sounds like a pretty good deal.

Gigabit Broad Band Coming

If you are free at 2 p.m. tomorrow, there is a discussion of the gigabit broadband (which sounds really good) coming to Carbondale:

The City of Carbondale is excited to announce the arrival of new broadband technology to benefit Carbondale residents.

Mediacom is expanding its network to deliver 1-Gigabit-per-second Internet speeds in Carbondale.

The public is invited to learn more about this new technology on Wednesday, August 9 at 2 p.m. in Room 116 of the Carbondale Civic Center.

America's Best Communities

Carbondale Main Street is spearheading Carbondale's participation in the America's Best Communities competition sponsored by Frontier and Dish Network. Along with 49 other cities, Carbondale advanced to the quarterfinalist round in the competition earlier this year, winning $50,000 to further develop the city's proposed economic development plan. First place wins $3 million to implement the proposed plan, 2nd place wins $2 million and 3rd place $1 million.

Carbondale's proposed plan focuses on enhancing internet access for its residents, with installation of a gigabit broadband system, wireless access throughout downtown as well as removing utility poles, burying the cables so as to reduce the likelihood of breakage and enhance the downtown appearance.

Gigabit Project

In case you saw the story in today's Southern  about the upcoming Gigabit project, there is a kickoff ceremony at 3 p.m. today at the Carbondale Main Street offices. Apparently, when completed, internet speeds in Carbondale will be 50 times faster than now, meaning that you will be able to download porn at lightning fast rates.  The article says that Frontier is the lead company for the project, in partnership with SIU and the city so am not sure if that means you will have to be a Frontier customer to take advantage of it.

It also appears that Carbondale's WiFi will get an upgrade, which would certainly benefit downtown as well. The city has some wireless access around the town square but it is generally hit or miss.

SIUC.xxx

According to the Southern, SIUC, along with lots of other universities out there, are buying up assorted .xxx domian names to prevent pornographic web companies from purchasing them and using them to direct people doing a search for SIUC to a porno site.  Cost, about $5000.

The porn industry spends a significant amount of money searching for domain names it can use to direct web searchers to adult sites. Especially desirable are once active domain names that, for one reason or another, the owner has allowed to lapse back into the public domain since they still deliver traffic from searchers unaware the original site is no longer active.

SI Drunks

Yet another website devoted to bringing info about the Carbondale social scene. We see one pop up about once a year or so claiming to bring info about the hottest parties and bars in the area, then the owners lose interest or run out of money and they shut down.

SIUC Worth $105,136

Actually the website is, according to site ranker Websitelog. The site also ranks 106,939 in terms of visitation.

Dayshift

Mary Lynn Schroeder, owner of relatively new local business Dayshift got interviewed by arts and crafts website etsy.

Upcoming Internet Safety Seminar

Courtesy of the City Clerk's office:

Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Carbondale Mayor Brad Cole invite parents, teachers, school administrators and other interested parties throughout Southern Illinois to attend an:

INTERNET SAFETY SEMINAR
Thursday, April 2, 2009
7:00 to 9:00 p.m. (including a question and answer period)
Carbondale Civic Center
200 South Illinois Avenue
Carbondale, Illinois

NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED - - - ADMISSION IS FREE!