Eye-rolling Bandwidth Silliness

The internet can be a crazy place when governments get involved, whether large or small, friend or foe:

Now That’s Some Serious Anchor Bandwidth — Sometimes the way governments spend money is just mind-boggling. ArsTechnica reports that there are now rural libraries across West Virginia with one computer connected to the internet via a Cisco 3945 series router worth $22,600 that can power a college campus. Why? Because West Virginia only bought one kind of router with its BTOP money – sort of like buying one-size-fits-all socks. By the time anyone with a brain noticed, it was too late and now they’ve even got 366 of them still in a warehouse – I guess they even ran out of rural libraries to hook up.  Now they’re spending more money on a study to better understand how to spend money.

What’s Good For the Goose Is Good For the… Ayatollah? — Iran’s internet filtering system engaged in a bit of friendly fire, preventing the country’s population from reading a new fatwa by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Apparently, the supreme leader’s screed against bypassing his own filter got itself filtered.  Oops. Yep, in Iran you need anti-filtering software to learn why you’re not allowed to use anti-filtering software.  Not that he will get the irony of course.  To get his message out to the public at large, maybe the Ayatollah could just use the same euphemisms and misspellings that everyone else in his country uses to evade keyword-filtering software.  Nah, he’s definitely not going to get the irony.  The Chinese government never has either.

If you haven't already, please take our Reader Survey! Just 3 questions to help us better understand who is reading Telecom Ramblings so we can serve you better!

Categories: Fun · Government Regulations · Telecom Equipment