From this morning’s Washington Post:

Tell me something I don’t already know…we are repeating the same mistakes that we did with cell phone service; multiple technologies fighting it out in the cities, lack of access in the countryside, service that is way too expensive and speeds that are dismal.

TOKYO — Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it.

Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States — and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world’s fastest Internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show.

Accelerating broadband speed in this country — as well as in South Korea and much of Europe — is pushing open doors to Internet innovation that are likely to remain closed for years to come in much of the United States.

And why is this the case? The Bush administration always favors companies over consumers and customers, even if consumer-friendly policies would ultimately create a market exponentially larger than what we end up with all the regulation in place which favors (and is written by) the old-line communication companies.

[In Japan…]For just $2 a month, upstart broadband companies were allowed to rent bandwidth on an NTT copper wire connected to a Japanese home. Low rent allowed them to charge low prices to consumers — as little as $22 a month for a DSL connection faster than almost all U.S. broadband services.

In the United States, a similar kind of competitive access to phone company lines was strongly endorsed by Congress in a 1996 telecommunications law. But the federal push fizzled in 2003 and 2004, when the Federal Communications Commission and a federal court ruled that major companies do not have to share phone or fiber lines with competitors. The Bush administration did not appeal the court ruling.

“The Bush administration largely turned its back on the Internet, so we have just drifted downwards,” said Thomas Bleha, a former U.S. diplomat who served in Japan and is writing a history of how that country trumped the United States in broadband.

The Grantsmanship Center’s signature Grantsmanship Training Program is coming to Hartford, Connecticut, August 13-17, 2007. The program will be hosted by the Watkinson School.

The Grantsmanship Training Program covers all aspects of researching grants, writing grant proposals and negotiating with funding sources. More than 100,000 nonprofit and government personnel have attended this comprehensive 5-day workshop, which now includes a full year of valuable membership services.

During the workshop, participants learn The Grantsmanship Center’s proposal writing format, the most widely used in the world. In addition to practicing the most advanced techniques for pursuing government, foundation, and corporate grants, they develop real grant proposals for their own agencies.

Upon completion of the training, participants receive free follow-up, including professional proposal review, access to The Grantsmanship Center’s exclusive online funding databases, and an array of other benefits.

Tuition for the Grantsmanship Training Program is $875 ($825 for each additional registrant from the same organization).

To ensure personalized attention, class size is limited to 30 participants. To register online, to learn about scholarship opportunities for qualifying organizations, or for more information, visit http://www.tgci.com/gtptraining.shtml. Or call The Grantsmanship Center’s Registrar at (800) 421-9512.

If you’re wondering why the Grantsmanship Training Program is five days (when other grantwriting classes are shorter)…

• The Grantsmanship Training Program is not a quick overview of “grantwriting.”

• The Grantsmanship Training Program is an intensive, small-group, total-immersion workshop that covers funding research, program planning and proposal writing.

• By integrating program planning into our curriculum when we first created grantsmanship training, The Grantsmanship Center anticipated the increased demand by grantmakers for more accountability, smarter programming, and a stronger, more demonstrable return on granted funds.

• Grantsmanship Training Program participants prepare and critique real grant proposals under expert guidance during the class.

• You can’t get this quality of in-depth training, personal attention and hands-on experience in a two-, three- or even a four-day workshop!