We saw the first signs of that last year, when Clayton bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy, then used the video company to create a kind of Netflix challenger. Tomorrow we should see the next steps, when the company rolls out a big announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Here’s a good bet on what that will be: A new broadband Internet service, along with a super-sized DVR.

Trade pub Multichannel News has the details, gleaned from a report that went up briefly on Dealerscope, then went away, presumably because it violated a pre-briefing embargo. (Thanks to Jason Hirschhorn’s very useful Media Redfined feed for flagging.)

Since we never agreed to the embargo, happy to summarize here (not surprisingly, Dish declined to comment):

• The Internet service will be marketed to 8 million customers, most of whom can’t get fiber or cable broadband.
• The giant DVR will be called “The Hopper” and is designed to save and transmit shows in different parts of your house, and presumably outside of it, via Slingbox. You can see a teaser page for that one here, or look at the screenshot at the bottom of this post.
• There’s a cool feature that looks like it will automatically record the primetime lineups for the four broadcast networks (News Corp.’s Fox, Comcast’s NBC, Disney’s ABC and CBS).

All of which sounds interesting, and useful for existing Dish customers. But it doesn’t sound like Dish is ready to try a true “over the top” Web-based pay TV service that would rival traditional cable.

A lot of people think someone, or many people — could be Dish, could be Apple, could be Verizon, etc., etc., etc — is trying to line up one of those. But figuring out how to do that involves lots of deals with TV studios and programmers, and I don’t get the sense that anyone has those pacts yet. If Dish does, and announces it tomorrow, then it will truly be a press conference worth tuning into. If not, no worries — I’ll be watching anyway and will report back.

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

[Shutterstock/Marko Cerovac]

The agreement soothes investor fears Sprint was seeking to distance itself from its 4G provider as the carrier planned its own new high-speed network on the LTE technology favored by AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless. Sprint will pay $926 million for unlimited use of Clearwire’s WiMax 4G network through 2013, giving Clearwire a needed cash infusion.

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The Kirkland, Wash., company had $698 million in cash and short-term investments on Sept. 30, and can afford to make the $237 million payment due Dec. 1. But it also needs to raise lots of money if it is to remain in business after the next 12 months.

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But before you envision the rollout of a nationwide Google pay TV service, consider: Building out and maintaining a cable TV (and broadband) service is enormously time-consuming, expensive and messy.

Think, for example, of all those angry/confused service inquiries your local cable guy has to deal with. And recall that last year, when Google tried to sell its own line of smartphones, it was hoping to get by without setting up a customer service operation that gave buyers the ability to talk to a real live human.

Verizon spent some $23 billion on its FiOS rollout, and by the time it stalled out last year, it still wasn’t clear if it was a good idea for the telco to build out a cable/broadband service. So why does Larry Page think it makes sense for him?

He doesn’t, according to Sanford Bernstein analysts Craig Moffett and Carlos Kirjner in a note this morning. Instead, they argue, Page and Google have to be thinking about Kansas City as an R&D experiment meant to accomplish three things:

First, it helps Google (slightly) on the public policy front as it promotes the agenda of faster broadband, and it potentially adds to their status in promoting net neutrality. Faster broadband means more Internet usage, more searches, and more ads. Of course, the real regulatory game is a few orders of magnitude more sophisticated, but every little arrow in the quiver helps.

Second, it is a laboratory for Google to learn about technology and consumer behavior, ranging from the impact of higher speed access on Internet usage to the potential and economics of different ad formats and models, on different platforms, particularly when it comes to advertising associated with video and TV.

Third, it is an opportunity for Google to learn about the economics of deploying and running infrastructure. And learn they will…

Analysts like to pull their punches, but Moffett and Kirjner are crystal clear here: There’s no way they think Google becomes the “world’s biggest cable company” or anything like that.

Just to beat this into the ground, here’s another excerpt from their report (well worth reading the whole thing) where they spell out just how ugly the economics of this kind of venture would be:

From a [return on invested capital]-based perspective, the difference between Google’s current business model and that of a facilities-based wireline service provider like Verizon could not be starker. In 2011, we expect Google to post an ROIC of 56%, or 38% when including goodwill. In 2010, Verizon’s wireline segment (which includes FiOS) sported an ROIC excluding goodwill and “one-time items” of… wait for it… just 1.6%. Including goodwill and similar intangible, and smoothed one-timers, it was -1.0%.

Still. It’s quite obvious that something has changed in Google’s thinking over the years.

The company that strove to stay away from anything approaching the content business has now leapt in with both feet. See, for example: Google Music, Google Books, YouTube, and YouTube’s new “channels” project. And recall that Google just made a plus-sized bid for Hulu.

So the notion that Google is now willing to consider even testing out life as a cable TV service is still telling. As is the notion, buried lower in the Journal piece, that Google has floated the idea of turning YouTube into an “over the top” cable service, though that doesn’t seem like it’s on the table right now.

Android boss Andy Rubin even spelled it out at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong last month: “Google is in the very, very early phases of adding consumer products to our portfolio.” So even if that doesn’t mean it’s ready to become a cable guy, it’s still going to evolve into something much broader than a search company.

The video business has its challenges. It’s still a significant part of our business, so we’re not abandoning it by any means. We do see ourselves, and the mantra inside the company is to think of ourselves, as an ISP.

Charter Communications CEO Mike Lovett during his company’s earnings call yesterday, explaining that the cable TV provider would increasingly look to broadband revenues

The largest U.S. cable operator and its peers have struggled with stalling industry-wide growth in pay-TV subscribers as consumers cut back on services and the weak housing market means fewer people signing up for services when they move into a new place. Comcast, though, has improved its TV customer retention of late while also accelerating growth in broadband subscribers.

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In a unanimous vote, the Federal Communications Commission’s commissioners approved a remake of the federal Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone service in rural America and to low-income Americans. The agency will shift the fund’s $8 billion from funding phone service to high-speed broadband service over the next few years.

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On Wednesday public interest group Free Press filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission rules in a Boston-based federal appeals court, saying they didn’t protect wireless Internet users enough.

In the complaint, the group argued the FCC acted arbitrarily when it decided to “adopt one set of rules for broadband access via mobile platforms and a different set of rules for broadband access via fixed platforms.”

The rules take effect November 20.

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Arriving at Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum, in the heart of the tech industry, with the leader of the free world talking jobs and digital, you might expect fantastic wireless access.

You might, but not so much if you are a “local” reporter and can’t jack into the extra-secret-special wireless link the national White House press corps apparently has reserved for itself. (They also get a lovely noshing buffet, whilst we tech reporters have been instructed not to touch the pineapple and scones or else!)

Famished for coffee and carbs, we’re left with glomming onto the museum’s slowish wireless service — there are lotsa geeks here today jamming up the lines — and every now and then getting some juice from Google. The search giant blankets the Mountain View, Calif. area near its HQ with free Wi-Fi, but it fades in and out.

I am now reconsidering the antitrust investigations that the Obama administration is conducting against Google, as long as its signal is good enough to check Twitter.

So this liveblog of President Barack Obama’s LinkedIn Town Hall — which will center on jobs and is titled, “Putting America Back to Work” — could be glacial with not much news, much like what I am expecting from the event itself.

I’d certainly like to work, as long as the wireless does! (Plus, limited power outlets in the room, so it’s every reporter for herself!)

But bygones, while we await the Prez!

10:18 am: One thing that made me flee Washington, D.C., when I worked for the Washington Post, was all the rigmarole that surrounded the appearance of and access to politicians.

I get it, the security and all, and am all for it on a general safety level. But, no matter how you slice it, it hinders any kind of movement or genuine interaction, like being stuck at a really dull opera. All the world’s a stage and we are all merely waiting in traffic.

In contrast, and one of the joys of Silicon Valley, is that anyone can get up right up into the grill of the various billionaire potentates littering the landscape, engage in a debate and get a possibly real answer.

Thus, I am hoping for a lot here from LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who is going to moderate the hour-long session with the President.

By the way, while he is busy running the business-focused social networking site, Weiner is looking good in a fancy suit, almost as if he could be Secretary of the Internet. I’d vote for him.

10:28 am: Some painless but hip music is playing now, as we wait, wait, wait for Obama, who is set to begin in 30 minutes.

I wonder if the President is ever early. Wouldn’t that freak the peeps out?

(Obviously, I am bored, so I shall now go monitor Twitter to catch up on the latest in the new bad-marriage-or-not cat fight between Brad Pitt and his ex, Jennifer Aniston — as if we need him to tell us Angelina Jolie is more interesting. Frankly, Angie’s midday snack is more interesting than Jen.)

There is now what appears to be a Secret Service dude next to me, giving me a hairy eyeball. If I am jailed over my wireless protest, please give generously to my defense fund.

Free the Internet! Free the Internet!

10:35 am: Finally, the production guy is up giving out the rules. Turn off the cellphones, no making noise.

The head Secret Service guy then takes the stage. No getting out of your seat. No sudden movements. And no crossing the blue line in the front row.

“All joking aside,” he says, he will take you down. He also notes that if the President moves toward you to shake your hand, “do not move toward him.”

I love Secret Service agents — especially when played by Clint Eastwood — and wish I had one to give a few people in tech a little smackadoo on my behalf. And not only if they moved toward me!

10:47 am: This little frisson of excitement is followed by more waiting, as the final seats are filled up in the room, which is an unusually (and welcome) multi-racial and gender-balanced crowd for Silicon Valley.

Various White House aides skitter back and forth like nervous ground squirrels — I would imagine their life is one big effort to avoid any gaffe — so the Prez must be near.

I am actually looking forward to seeing him, as I never have in person and am looking forward to seeing the famous Obama charm and techie cred.

Indeed, he is probably the most fast-forward tech president there has ever been. That said, buffeted by more serious issues facing the nation, his administration has delivered on few — by which I mean none — of its promises around the digitization of the U.S.

Our high-speed broadband, for example, is still woefully slow, inordinately expensive and not easily available nationwide.

And I will not even go into the need for increased focus on math and science education or the importance of our broken visa policies.

But the topic today is jobs, which is an arena where Silicon Valley and tech shines in the U.S., even as manufacturing of it has mostly moved overseas. How tech can help improve in the creation of jobs will be issue No. 1 here.

10:55 am: Total silence with five minutes to go. I need the President around to quiet my kids.

Now, LinkedIn Chairman and VC Reid Hoffman comes in, so the event is probably about to begin.

And, indeed, Weiner emerges to cheers, to give a little speech on “changing the way we work … and connecting talent to opportunity.”

11:01 am: Then, the session starts right on time with President Obama.

He begins with a rote speech on jobs, which is nonetheless the most important issue he faces going into next year’s election.

11:14 am: Ah, wireless glitch! Back!

President Obama is inexplicably in the middle of a Medicare question, which gives him an opportunity to talk about the need for the rich to pay more taxes.

And pass his American Jobs Act, of course.

11:17 am: More on proposing legislation for retraining workers, such as the questioner’s mom.

Now to a group of email questions. The first is about when small businesses are going to get a break from onerous regulations and taxes.

President Obama says since he has been in office, he has cut taxes 16 times for those who create a business.

But he is not going to apologize for some regulations, such as those for the financial industry over the mortgage crisis.

“There are some regulations that have outlived their usefulness,” he says, but others not so much.

11:24 am: The next question is from a Chicago IT employee. Except she is not employed.

She is asking a question about keeping her skills up and what programs are needed.

“The best thing we can do for you is that the unemployment rate goes down,” said President Obama, but also adds that making it easy to go to school while waiting on a job is also important.

“Just looking at you, I can tell you are going to do great,” he tells her in an awkward effort at reassurance.

Thanks, Barack, but she needs a job!

11:28 am: A veteran is asking a question about transitioning out of the military.

Obama launches into a story of a medical technician who faced all kinds of experiences, but had to start over again with new classes when out of the military. He suggests some level of credentialing based on experience.

11:33 am: Obama gets to pick out someone from the crowd and manages to pick out a dude who is a former Googler — although he only says that he works down the street — and is out of work by choice.

He asks: “Will you please raise my taxes?

A plant? I wish!

President Obama asks the name of the start-up. “A search engine,” says the ex-Googler-in-disguise, who is Doug Edwards, an early marketing exec there who actually wrote a book on being an ex-Googler.

“That worked out well for you,” kids President Obama.

Everyone likes a rich-guy joke!

He is soon onto the idea that we’re all dang lucky and declares he does not want it to turn the debate over taxes into a rich-poor war.

Bottom line, he notes that we have to raise taxes on the very wealthy. Frankly, if we raised taxes on a bunch of folks in this room, it would help a lot.

11:42 am: A teach-training question, especially math and science teachers.

President Obama is all for it.

He is meaning well here, but all he seems to offer is a lot of bromides about the importance of education and errant related anecdotes.

Like one from IBM, where the company hires the kids in the program at the end.

President Obama wants students to see a direct connection between learning and jobs.

Then, he kind of says it again. Gosh, he can talk. How does the well-fed and wirelessly connected White House press corp take it? Lotsa donuts, I would imagine.

President Obama also wants us to turn off the electronics and video games for kids, too, thereby instantly losing the votes of my two sons!

Another laid-off guy is up at the mic. He had 22 years in IT management and is disheartened.

He wants a statement of encouragement from the CEO of America.

President Obama assures him that his track record of success gives him a leg up, but that the problem is the economy and the global meltdown, too.

It’s systemic, apparently.

“The problem is not you, the problem is the economy as a whole,” says President Obama.

That was the last question. Weiner, who has been sitting quietly (I know it was hard, Jeff, but good job), thanks the President and tells him that this is a big issue.

President does his thanks, too, for being able to speak, although not really that much was actually said.

And then a genuine moment, finally, of clarity.

“Look, we’re going through a very tough time, but we have gone through tougher times before,” he says. “But the trajectory we are going on is one that is more open, more linked …”

He talks about the need for being ready to take advantage of that opportunity.

“Things have gotten so ideologically driven, putting party above country,” he adds, that nothing is getting done. That’s why the people, the voters, have to demand leadership from their elected officials.

Or, presumably, fire them and let them try to find another job, too.

It might turn out to be the best idea yet, if these pols don’t agree on something and quick.

Microsoft made the announcement at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, the philanthropic organization run by former President Bill Clinton. The meeting is getting underway today in New York.

The problem Microsoft is trying to solve is sometimes called “digital exclusion.” Think about how much you rely on day-to-day access to the Internet at home to do your job, and then imagine your life without it, or with only spotty access. There are lots of families with school-age children who are at a disadvantage because they don’t have access at home, or because their families can’t afford computers or the monthly fee for broadband.

Lacking that access has a lot of long-term economic repercussions, none of them good. Without access, kids don’t perform as well in school, because they don’t have the Internet to help them with homework. And while there are usually other socioeconomic forces to consider in these cases, having not done well in school, these children have a greater tendency to not finish high school; therefore they don’t go on to college, and later on have a harder time finding meaningful work.

There have been lots of attempts to count all these unconnected households. The FCC estimates that there are 100 million people in the U.S. without access to broadband. Some lack access because of where they live, while others simply can’t afford it. Within that number, there is thought to be some 9.5 million school-age kids who are effectively “digitally excluded.”

The irony, of course — at least to anyone who remembers how Bill Clinton’s Justice Department so vigorously pursued Microsoft through the courts during the 1990s — is how friendly Clinton and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates seem to have become in public. The photo is from Gates’s appearance with Clinton at last year’s CGI meeting.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, best known for investing in Google, Amazon, Twitter and Zynga, has made a bet on Turkey as the next big market with its first major investment there.

The receiving company — Trendyol.com, an e-commerce site based in Istanbul — is announcing today that it has raised $26 million from Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global.

Trendyol is similar to other flash sales sites in the U.S., such as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La, and Ideeli. The site sends out daily emails offering a heavily discounted selection of clothes. Consumers have a limited amount of time to purchase the items before the sale expires or quantities run out.

The company was founded by Demet Mutlu, a 29-year-old dropout from Harvard Business School — she is now running the company with about 350 employees.

Kleiner partner Aileen Lee said a combination of a hardworking executive team, the company’s phenomenal growth, and Turkey’s increasingly attractive market opportunity led to the investment. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to introduce e-commerce to a market that doesn’t have a strong brick-and-mortar environment.

Check out some of these facts:

• Turkey has 35 million Internet users, representing the third largest Web market in Europe.
• Turkey is a socially engaged country, ranking fifth-highest for Facebook usage globally; eighth for Twitter and first for FriendFeed.
• Turkey has a high credit card penetration rate of about 60 percent with 46 million credit cards.
• In the past 16 months, Trendyol has signed up four million members, translating into one out of every nine Turkish Internet users.

The chief was responding to a question about whether the newly combined Comcast Corp. and NBCUniversal view Netflix as friend or foe, a topic that investors, reporters and industry executives love to grill media executives on these days.

Mr. Roberts praised Netflix’s streaming video service and said it is great for Comcast’s booming broadband business. But he raised some doubts about its potential.

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Nonsense, says a new report: The Diffusion Group’s survey of Netflix users finds 32 percent of them planning on cutting at least part of their cable bill — either because they can’t afford it, or because they’ve got plenty of stuff to watch online. That’s up from 16 percent a year ago. (Thanks to VideoNuze for flagging).

This jibes with both common sense and other anecdotal evidence we’ve seen. Like Roku’s surveys that show that up to 40 percent of its customers have cut some or all of their cable service after buying a box from the company, presumably to watch Netflix.

And again, because it’s not necessarily about cord cutting, but cord shaving, the Diffusion Group study also fits with statistics that show cable subscriptions holding steady even as Netflix adds millions of subscribers per quarter.

Start paying Reed Hastings $8 a month and you may not be ready to rip out your cable box. But you might be willing to drop down a service tier, or say goodbye to HBO.

Some cable company executives will indeed acknowledge this, but not around people who will quote them on the record. And even when they’re chatting on background, they’re still likely to argue that their company will make it through just fine — it’s the other guys who are screwed.

Meanwhile the Netflix folks, a disciplined bunch, continue to insist that they come in peace. And they keep writing those checks that the content guys are happy to cash, even as they worry about what’s going to happen about the cable business. One day.

While LightSquared and the GPS industry agree that the tests showed interference, the two sides will disagree on whether the problem can be solved with filters or other technical fixes, according to several people with knowledge of the pending report.

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The two companies say Comcast subscribers equipped with special gear will be able to use the Web video messaging service on their HD sets “soon.” But they haven’t provided many details about the plan, like how much it will cost.

Here’s the relevant information from the press release, issued on the eve of the cable industry’s annual convention, which kicks off in Chicago tomorrow:

Here are a few things customers will be able to do through this offering:
· Make and receive Skype video and audio calls, or send instant messages via Skype on a television while watching their favorite TV show at the same time, and accept incoming calls during a TV show with the help of Caller ID.

· Make and receive video and audio calls, or send instant messages via Skype on a compatible mobile phone or tablet.

· Import friends to their address book from their Facebook, Outlook, Gmail and smartphone contact lists, find them on Skype and see when contacts are online and available to talk.

This service will be delivered on the Comcast customer’s HDTV through an adaptor box, a high-quality video camera, and a specially designed remote control that enables customers to text on Skype as well as control their television. The other calling party does not need any special equipment beyond what is needed to use Skype.

In addition, customers will be able to access mobile features conveniently through Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile app, and continue to enjoy conversations by switching from one compatible device (e.g., smartphone, tablet or television) to another.

Customer trials for this offering will begin in the coming months, and further product details will be made available later this year.

Neat function, but obviously the key factor here will be pricing. Safe bet that it will be something between free, which is what Skype’s basic service costs (and is what 94 percent of Skype’s customers pay today), and incredibly expensive, which is what Cisco’s terribly named “umi telepresence” service cost when it rolled out last year (it has since become cheaper).

But since Comcast offers all sorts of different bundles, including a “triple play” offering that sells cable, phone and broadband access for one price, it has a whole lot of options here.

If it wants to, for instance, it could easily charge a one-time fee for the equipment, and tuck a monthly fee into a bundle, where it could be “free.” Or invert that formula: give away the equipment and charge for the service.

Or perhaps Comcast will just make the whole thing free for its platinum customers as a “thanks for not cutting the cord, please don’t think about doing so” reward/incentive. Meanwhile, the press release doesn’t say a word about Microsoft. But we’ll assume that Skype’s owner-to-be is just fine with the plan, and it’s interesting to think about what a Comcast/Skype/Xbox 360 tie-up could involve.

As of the end of 2010, Intel Capital held about 10 percent of the equity in Clearwire, including more than 33 million of the Class A common stock, plus warrants on another 93,000 Class A shares. Clearwire’s 10-K shows that other Intel entities control another 65.6 million Class A shares and another 44 million shares of Class B Common stock. Between its holdings through Intel Capital and the other entities, Intel owns about one third of the equity in Clearwire and holds about 10 percent of the voting power. Clearwire’s biggest owner is Sprint, while Google, Comcast, and Time-Warner Cable also have a piece of the action. As John Paczkowski observed in 2008, its product may be called Clear, but its corporate structure is “clear as mud.”

It’s not the first time that Intel has reduced its holdings in Clearwire. In 2009, it said it would take a $950 million charge to write off part of the value of its Clearwire holdings given their poor performance in the market.

The move is certainly not going to help Clearwire shares today. After closing at $4.73 a share during the regular sessions, Clearwire fell to $4.55 after hours, which amounted to a drop of nearly 4 percent. And it’s no wonder Intel wants to cut its stake: Clearwire shares are down 41 percent over the last year.

On May 4, Clearwire reported a $227 million loss on revenue of $242 million. The problem was the curse of a growing subscriber base. It ended the quarter with 6.15 million subscribers, a surge of more than 500 percent over the 971,000 from the year-ago quarter, and said it expects to finish the year with more than 9 million subscribers. Costs are naturally through the roof, surging by 81 percent year on year to $930 million, causing it to burn through cash.

More than 1,100 communities applied. One can only wonder how neighboring Topeka, Kansas, feels after briefly renaming itself Google, Kansas last year.

Kansas City is by no means a technical backwater. I visited the place in 2003 to write a profile of Garmin for Forbes Magazine. Sprint is based in the suburb of Overland Park, though I confess I’m having a hard time thinking of other examples. Google’s video on the announcement is below Little Richard’s rendition of the R&B standard written for the city.

It’s a question that nags the tech industry with almost every new advancement. But experts say the pitch for faster, more tricked-out technology has reached a new peak.

Here, in four categories, is what you need–and what you don’t.

Broadband. Most Internet service providers now offer different levels of high-speed connectivity. If you want to stream TV shows or movies, play games or download big files, you may need more juice. Ditto if you have an entire household that’s trying to get online after dinner. Before you change plans, however, make sure you’re actually getting the speed that your provider promised. You can assess the speed of your current connection via a free test website such as Speakeasy.net or Speedtest.net.

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The network-equipment giant on Monday said it is reducing the price of the existing umi system to $499 from $599, and introduced a $399 version with reduced high-definition resolution that requires a slower Internet connection. The San Jose, Calif., also slashed the price of the monthly service fee for umi to $9.95 a month from $24.99.

Cisco’s system is a home version of its high-end conferencing gear for businesses, which it calls “telepresence” in order to indicate the lifelike quality of the connection. The consumer system includes a camera, set-top device and remote control and connects high-definition TVs to a user’s broadband Internet connection.

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Nestled within that amount was $350 million to draw a map showing a detailed, block-by-block inventory of the existing broadband infrastructure in the U.S. It took two years, but the results were unveiled by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration today on the Web site Broadbandmap.gov.

This is far from the first time someone has tried to tackle the problem of mapping existing broadband pipes in order to show where service is lacking. But prior attempts have generally been haphazard because service providers tend to carefully guard the precise maps of their physical plant as competitively sensitive. And prior federal efforts fell short because the maps were based on ZIP codes. If one person in some geographically large but sparsely populated rural ZIP code had access to service, prior federal maps showed that area as “served,” even if the majority of the population didn’t have access. The new map uses the far more granular census tracts.

The map shows some new data that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been following the saga of broadband in America: Anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of Americans lack access to broadband at acceptable speeds. Recall that the Federal Communications Commission last July set a benchmark of 4 megabits per second downstream and 1 MBPS upstream as what it considers acceptable.

Another key finding is that so-called “community anchor institutions” are going without adequate access to broadband. These are schools, libraries and hospitals, where different kinds of services are needed. As a rule of thumb, a school needs about 50 to 100 MBPS for every 1,000 students, and most of the schools surveyed had speeds of 25 MBPS or less, and precious few libraries reported speeds approaching that.

When residential service isn’t available, these are the institutions that people turn to when they need to use the Internet. A few years ago I visited a rural county in Tennessee where the local library had broadband and provided free wireless. If you watched the parking lot after the library was closed you’d often see people pull their cars up with laptops and use the Wi-Fi to work on homework assignments with the kids. Even the local sheriff’s deputies would pull up and use it to check their email.

There was some good news. Alongside the map, the NTIA released a separate report on broadband adoption. It found that 68 percent of households have access to a cable modem, a DSL line or a home fiber connection, up from less than 64 percent a year ago. The usual demographic disparities remain: People living on low incomes or with disabilities, along with seniors, minorities and those with low educational attainment, tend to lag behind other groups in home access. The city-country divide remains as well: 70 percent of city dwellers, versus 60 percent of rural residents, access broadband at home.

But here’s a stat that should surprise you: 28.3 percent of all the people in the nation do not use the Internet, period. That’s down about two percentage points from a year ago, but still means that out of every 25 Americans, seven don’t use the Internet at all. I don’t know about you, but that surprises me.

Republicans are targeting the “net neutrality” rules, which would bar Internet providers from blocking or slowing Internet traffic and services, as well as new regulations in such areas as health care and the environment, as unnecessary and overly burdensome on industry.

“Why would you put the government in charge of the Internet?” asked Rep. Fred Upton (R., Mich.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, defended the new rules during the hearing, saying the FCC “did the right thing” and that it is “pro-job and pro-investment” for the U.S. economy.

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Today the the CTIA, the wireless industry trade organization, got behind the president’s plan in a big way, and suggested that the proposed spectrum auctions could bring in billions of dollars more than the president said. Using data from 13 prior spectrum auctions as a model, the organization today released the findings of a study conducted in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association saying that an auction of 120 MHz worth of spectrum could produce revenue in the range of $36 billion to $48 billion.

The study also found that only in the top 30 markets in the continental United States will TV stations actually have to exit certain spectrum ranges to clear up sufficient spectrum for wireless broadband. In most cases, TV broadcasters will probably be satisfied with incentive auctions that give them some portion of the proceeds raised from the auctions. In a few cases it will be trickier, and the study suggests a few options like channel-sharing and repacking. Broadcasters outside the top 30 markets should not have to give up any spectrum, the study says.

The point of the study, CTIA president Steve Largent told me, is to help nudge Congress toward passing a law that will allow the Federal Communications Commission to hold incentive auctions that can help spur TV broadcasters who currently have the licenses for the spectrum. So far, broadcasters have signaled that they’re not yet entirely willing to go along with this plan. “We think this can be relatively painless for the broadcasters, but it’s still going to take a lot of work at Congress and at the FCC to get it done,” Largent said.

That the wireless industry would be getting behind Obama’s plan is no surprise given their exploding spectrum needs for data services, so there is a bit of a grain-of-salt element to the study’s findings. However it’s also a solid signal that the wireless carriers are willing to bring serious cash to bear for spectrum, which is, generally speaking, good news for all concerned.

Broadcasters are understandably taking a cautious line. In a statement issued last week in response to Obama’s speech in Michigan, Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of the National Association of Broadcasters said, “Let’s not forget that broadcasters returned more than a quarter of TV station spectrum to the government less than two years ago, and that much of that spectrum has not yet been deployed. NAB is not against the President’s plan. We will work to ensure that incentive auctions remain truly voluntary, and that broadcasters who don’t volunteer to return spectrum–and the millions of viewers that we serve–are held harmless.”

The president flew to Michigan to deliver his remarks on the subject and saw a demonstration of WiMAX technology in use at Northern Michigan University.

Obama hopes to build this network with money raised from two key sources, thankfully neither involving any additional direct burden on taxpayers. First he’d like to make changes to the Universal Service Fund, which has historically been used to help connect remote and rural areas to the telephone network. Some $5 billion from that fund that currently goes to subsidize phones in rural areas will instead be put to work building wireless towers and other related infrastructure in places where such networks don’t yet exist. Police, firefighters and other emergency workers would get access to their own wireless network built with another $10 billion. Yet another $3 billion would go toward research and development on other ways to use wireless networks.

That’s almost $19 billion. Where will it come from? Spectrum auctions. The administration hopes to raise nearly $28 billion by re-auctioning some of the spectrum currently held by TV broadcasters but no longer actively used. (About $10 billion would go toward reducing the deficit.) The rub is that TV broadcasters are resisting pressure from the president and the Federal Communications Commission to voluntarily give that spectrum back. Under the plan being considered, broadcasters would get some portion of the proceeds from the auctions–no word yet on how much.

These give-backs are supposedly going to be voluntary, and one priority the National Association of Broadcasters hopes to see in this plan is a provision that allows broadcasters to opt out of the process without penalty. This suggests that the administration will get some spectrum back in some places, but not in others, creating the potential for a sort of inconsistent patchwork. More on the particulars of the plan here.

Building out the Internet is certainly a laudable goal. As I’ve written before, an Internet connection is now as essential to modern life as electric lights and running water. Places without adequate network coverage are essentially locked out of participating in the economic and cultural discourse that so many of us take for granted every day.

Consider for a moment how much of the recent political campaigns was conducted on the Web, and then ask yourself how well-informed a voter you’d be without relatively fast access to the Web day in and day out. As the Communications Workers of America pointed out in a recent study, roughly one American in three doesn’t have access to broadband at home; some choose not to have it, but other want it but can’t get it.

I thought about this a bit when I read that a new undersea fiber-optic Internet cable had been laid to improve access to the Internet in Cuba, courtesy of an international aid program paid for by Venezuela. As it stands right now, Internet connections there are handled via slow and cumbersome satellite links, and so only about three percent of the population has access to the Web. The new cable will allow connections 3,000 times faster than currently possible.

Say what you will about the ultimate political aims of Venezuela in financing the cable, or what controls the Cuban government will likely impose upon those who use it, but you can’t deny that any improvement in getting people in Cuba connected to the Internet is a good thing. Who knows what changes a better connection might bring?

Here my thoughts turn once again to Egypt and the changes unfolding there. During the past several weeks we’ve seen the power of the Internet brought to bear in Egypt, where what’s been widely called the Facebook Revolution seems on the cusp of toppling President Hosni Mubarak. It was Mubarak who shocked the world by cutting his country off from the Internet, and it so irritated people both inside and outside Egypt that they banded together to find ways around the digital curtain he tried to erect around his borders. The same chain of events has turned a humble Google marketing exec into a national hero.

It’s at moments like this that I’m struck by the immeasurable power of the Internet to be turned into a powerful force for good and for the empowerment of people in all walks of life, with better information, better communication, more economic choices. Without passing judgment on Obama’s proposal–it’s likely to spark a fight with congressional Republicans and with various constituencies in the broadcasting and telecom industries–it’s hard not to agree with his intent. It’s unfortunate that in 2011 the country that gave birth to the Internet hasn’t yet found a way to extend its many benefits to every sector of its population.

Here are a few highlights from the president’s speech today, courtesy of the Associated Press.

The result is a battle for content and viewers in Europe that could mean billions in revenue for the winners. That’s because Europe is a fertile market for these types of services, still lacking large dominant players that are able to cross borders.

European countries such as the U.K and France were early pioneers in delivering basic television programming over broadband, in a service similar to cable called Internet protocol television, or IPTV. For that reason, there are nearly twice as many paying IPTV subscribers in Europe compared with the U.S..

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