The NSF initiative brings new telecommunications power to classrooms. While several cable networks offer audio-video programs, often television is really a better and far less costly medium than the Web. However, sometimes the cable stations will offer real-time programs, such as national meetings, to which students would have no television access. Tpoint by providing audio up-to-the-minute climate data in real-time across the Web, ie. the whole globe, accomplishes what regular radio stations, limited to geographic boundaries, cannot.