Lax oversight by federal regulators has helped waste millions of dollars in a government program that aims to connect schools and libraries to the internet, according to a congressional investigation.
The $2.25 billion E-Rate program, which is overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, provides discounted internet access and connection equipment to help expand internet availability, especially in rural and low-income areas.
The agency crafted an ambitious and well-intentioned program, but it failed to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the E-Rate program, the report said. It also faulted the FCC for having no performance goals or measures to gauge the impact and management of the funds.
The report said more than $100 million was provided to Puerto Rico for an E-Rate-funded network that was implemented only in a few schools, and almost no students had access to it. In Chicago, more than $8 million fin unused connection equipment sat in distribution warehouses.
The report made a number of recommendations including the development of performance goals and more rigorous oversight and audits by the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Company, which handles day-to-day management of E-Rate.
Other audits and investigations have uncovered abuses nationwide, including wasted equipment, improper purchases and insufficient payments.
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BlackBerries everywhere: Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices, said it expected to form partnerships with up to 10 Asian carriers over the next six months to tap strong demand.
The Canadian firm enters markets worldwide by signing agreements with local wireless carriers, which then offer services using the BlackBerry name and signature PDA-like devices.
It now offers services through 16 partners in eight Asian countries: India, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and the Philippines.
RIM (RIMM) is also working with China Mobile to offer BlackBerry services in China, the world's biggest cellular market.
RIM has about 3.65 million subscribers worldwide, more than double the 1.657 million users of a year earlier, and is expected to reach 5 million by the end of the fiscal year ending February 2006.
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Electronic cash crop: Nigeria, home to some of the world's most notorious cybercrimes, has proposed a law making spamming a criminal offense for which senders of unsolicited e-mails could be jailed for at least three years.
The draft law identifies the use of computers for fraud, spamming, identity theft, child pornography and terrorism as criminal offenses punishable by jail terms of between six months and five years, and fines of 10,000 naira to 1 million naira ($76 to $7,642).
President Olusegun Obasanjo set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in 2003 to crack down on e-mail fraudsters who had elevated scamming to one of the country's main foreign exchange earners after oil, natural gas and cocoa, according to campaigners.
The agency got its first major conviction in July when a court sentenced a woman whose late husband masterminded the swindling of $242 million from Brazilian Banco Noroeste between 1995 and 1998, one of the world's biggest e-mail scams.
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Pushie-talkie: DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile operator, unveiled a new line of high-speed phones with a walkie-talkie feature that was first made popular in the United States.
DoCoMo said its winter lineup of six third-generation, or "3G," phones would include the function known as "push to talk," which lets users talk to a group of people at the same time with the push of a button rather than dialing a phone number.
The service will cost five yen (4 cents) per "push" or 1,000 yen ($9) per month under an all-you-can-use plan. Users can speak to up to 20 people at the same time under an upgraded plan that costs 2,000 yen ($17) per month.
DoCoMo declined to comment on the price of the phones, but they are expected to be priced in line with its new 3G phones in the past, which were in the 30,000 yen ($260) range.
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Compiled by Keith Axline. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
