DECEMBER 2004
Welcome to the Rockbridge Global
Village, Inc. Newsletter. We have selectively found
information and articles that may be of interest to our
customers. We hope that you find
information and topics within this newsletter interesting
and useful.
Topics in this newsletter:
US Broadband Lines Jump 15%
Microsoft to Unbundle Media Player by January
Opera Launches New Rendition of Browser
Spam Suspicions Greater than Realities?
US Broadband Lines Jump 15%
December 23, 2004 By Colin C. Haley
UPDATED: The
number of home and business broadband lines in the United
States jumped 15 percent to 32.5 million during the first
half of 2004, according to new data released by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The adoption rate was off slightly from
the preceding six months, when broadband lines soared 20
percent, from 23.5 million to 28.2 million, the agency
said.
But that should be seen as a sign of
market weakness, said Mark Wigfield, an FCC spokesman.
"More subscribers were added in the last six months
than in the prior," he said. "But the increase
is less because the base was larger."
From June 2003 to June 2004, lines
increased 38 percent as ISPs, telecoms and cable operators
cut prices and bundled with other high-speed services to
tempt customers to upgrade from dial-up to broadband.
The agency collects the broadband
numbers twice a year from service providers.
As for the method of access, asymmetric
digital subscriber line (define) technologies gained 20
percent during the first half of 2004, from 9.5 million to
11.4 million lines. That's a dip from the 24 percent jump
during the last six months of 2003.
Cable modem service, which has been
stronger in the United States than most other countries,
increased 13 percent, from 16.4 million to 18.6 million
lines. That too is down slightly from the second half of
2003, when cable broadband gained 20 percent.
The remaining 2.5 million connections
are satellite or wireless, wireline other than ADSL, and
fiber high-speed connections.
Fiber-to-the-premise could be primed for
growth as Baby Bells, including Verizon and SBC , invest
billions in fiber deployments and ready services for 2005.
In a recent interview with
internetnews.com, Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet
& American Life project, said the greatest hindrance
to widespread broadband adoption in the United States is
that "we're not growing new Internet users
anymore."
"Part of it is we might have
reached close to a saturation point for available
interested people," Rainie said. "Thirty-seven
percent of adults don't use the Internet; half say they
won't."
The adoption rate could accelerate
again, however, with new technologies that could make it
less expensive to bring broadband to rural areas, as well
as applications, such as Voice over IP (define),
which could convince dial-up users to make the switch, he
said.
The FCC's Wigfield said the agency
doesn't delve into the reasons why Americans upgrade to
broadband, but "we certainly believe that VoIP will
result in more consumers signing up for high-speed
services."
Spam Suspicions Greater than
Realities?
December 16, 2004 By Rob McGann
Approximately 87 percent of Web users
believe they've received spam as a result of subscribing
to an e-mail newsletter, according to a survey conducted
by ReleMail,
an e-mail monitoring and certification service. The survey
polled 1,000 Internet users who described themselves as
subscribing to at least on e-mail newsletter.
"The main point is that customers
don't trust the online privacy policies of e-mail
newsletter companies," said Michael Adams, founder
and chief executive of the Tucson, Arizona-based company.
"Most Internet users believe these policies are
routinely violated. However, research we did contradicted
that assumption."
Of the 1000 newsletter publishers
profiled by ReleMail in an separate study, ReleMail found
that 99.7 percent did not send spam to the e-mail
addresses of their subscribers. Adams classified that
apparent gap between the suspected prevalence of
newsletter spamming and actual cases of impropriety as
"a huge distortion."
That said, skepticism appears to be
widespread enough to prevent a majority of people from
subscribing even to newsletters in which they may
otherwise be interested. The latest survey found that 83
percent of the Internet user public has avoided
subscribing to newsletters of interest because they
weren't sure they could trust the online publisher.
Additionally, 80 percent said they had tried to
unsubscribe from an e-mail newsletter, only to find the
request was either disregarded or did not go through.
EMAIL PRIVACY STATISTICS 96% say
email privacy is important to them
87% believe they have received spam
from a company that collected, then sold their email
address
83% have avoided subscribing to email
newsletters because they weren't sure they could trust
publisher
80% have tried to unsubscribe from an
email newsletter, and found unsubscribe did not work
78% do not always believe company
email privacy statements
66% believe that, given an
opportunity, most businesses would take advantage of
public if they thought they would not be discovered
Source: ReleMail LLC
As a solution to the problem, ReleMail
suggests a five point "action plan" for
companies to build trust with potential Internet
subscribers: first, appoint a third-party organization to
certify the company's privacy policies; second, articulate
a clear privacy pledge that can be easily accessed online;
third, get a third-party to certify your e-mail subscriber
program; fourth, gain a single view of customers; and
lastly, implement technology that allows customers to
control the dialogue.
Finally, the report found that 72
percent of Internet users said they would be more likely
to subscribe to an e-mail newsletter if had been
independently certified as trustworthy.
"These data point out that people
are increasingly skeptical of self-published e-mail
privacy polices, but they do pay attention to independent
certification of e-mail practices," Adams said.
Rockbridge Global Village, Inc.
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