Items tagged with 'FCC'
FCC To Examine Google Voice Service
According to people familiar with the matter, the Federal Communications Commission plans to open an inquiry into Google's Voice service, looking into how the service works and whether or not the Internet giant is restricting calls. Earlier this week, a group of 20 Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives... Read More
FCC Chair Backs Network Neutrality; Data Transparency
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has been a busy beaver as of late; we've previously discussed his thoughts on the importance of the Internet and the FCC's request for comments on how its Internet development funds should be allocated and used. The FCC chair spoke at the Brookings Institute in Washington today; his speech... Read More
FCC Chairman To Smack Down ISPs That Throttle Data
While healthcare may be the hottest topic of all right now, it's hard to argue that net neutrality isn't one of the hottest, longest lasting topics as related to the Internet. Ever since this series of tubes was first put into place, pundits and supporters alike have debated about how much regulation was needed. Some argued... Read More
ATT And The FCC Clash Over Gaming, Broadband
The FCC has been particularly concerned about the Internet over the past six weeks, tasked as it is with the job of creating a national broadband policy. The FCC's chairman, Julius Genachowski, has gone on record proclaiming that spreading broadband across the country is a massive, possibly culture-changing event, on par... Read More
Federal Broadband Stimulus Funds Utterly Unable To Meet Demand
A few weeks ago, in early August, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski declared that the FCC viewed the creation of a national broadband policy as integral to the future of of the nation. Broadband, according to Genachowski, is "our generation’s infrastructure challenge...It is as important as electricity and highways were for... Read More
FCC Chairman Declares Nationwide Broadband Integral To US Future
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has been touring California for the past week discussing the national broadband initiative the FCC has been tasked with creating. The FCC has spent months gathering comments from both the public and various corporate interests, but the real challenge may be distilling those comments into... Read More
FCC Investigating App Store Rejection of Google Voice
The FCC has opened an inquiry into the rejection of the official Google Voice app from the App Store, which occurred at the same time that the App Store was "cleansed" of any Google Voice-enabled third-party apps. On Friday, the FCC sent letters to all three parties involved: Google, Apple, and AT&T. While the letters... Read More
Wireless Carriers Ban Together For Higher Fees
Small chunks of change can add up to a lot. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile know just how true this is. Recently, the carriers banned together and agreed to raise a monthly fee that’s tacked on to your monthly wireless bill. This higher fee is suppose to help carriers recoup business costs and will add up to millions... Read More
FCC Seeks To Improve U.S. Broadband Access
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is working on a plan to solve the problem of nationwide access to high-speed Internet service.The three main issues the agency is tackling first are, figuring out how to improve availability, quality and affordability, according to the Washington Post. Acting FCC Chairman Michael... Read More
Cox Hops On Data Discrimination Bandwagon
Oh great, this again? The awful aftertaste from Comcast's data meddling still hasn't completely vanished, and now we're being hit with yet another cable company attempting to grab hold of customer Internet traffic.As the battle over net neutrality rages on in Washington, Cox Communications has opened the flood gates for... Read More
Comcast Questioned Over VOIP Net Management
Comcast, Comcast, Comcast. You can't seem to satisfy the FCC, no matter what you do. While Comcast has just switched to a new protocol-agnostic network management scheme, the FCC has some new questions for the company: namely, why its new policy affects the VOIP services of other companies, but not Comcast's own Digital... Read More
FCC Votes to Allow "White Space" Access
In a unanimous 5-0 decision, the FCC late Tuesday approved public access to the "white spaces" of the wireless spectrum. "White space" in telecommunications refers to unused frequencies in the radio waves portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the FCC's decision followed months of lobbying by Google, Microsoft, and... Read More
Comcast Sues FCC Over Net Neutrality
You didn't seriously think Comcast would roll over without a fight, did you? It was only a matter of time after FCC's decision in early August, before Comcast took some legal action. And here we are. Last month, the FCC voted 3-2 to declare that Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent P2P traffic last year was illegal. At that... Read More
FCC Considers Mandating Free Wireless Access
The FCC is gearing up to auction off exclusive use to a spectrum of airwaves (2155 – 2175MHz, a.k.a. the AWS-3 band), and it is considering requiring the purchaser to provide high-speed (768Kbps) Internet access to most of the U.S. for free: ''We're hoping there will be increased interest (in the proposal) and because this... Read More
The FCC vs. Comcast, Round 2
As the debate for net neutrality still rages, the FCC continues its hearings into Comcast’s throttling of P2P traffic: "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, testifying before a Senate committee, said Comcast's blocking of BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) traffic appeared to happen when there wasn't network congestion, in contrast... Read More
FCC To Hold Comcast BitTorrent Hearing
Comcast has drawn a lot of attention to itself since it decided to throttle BitTorrent traffic, and most of it negative. Customers complained to anyone who would listen, and one of those was the FCC and another may just be House Internet Subcommittee Chair, (D) Rep. Ed Markey:“This time, the Federal Communications... Read More
Cable Box+FCC+Imaginary Competition=Pay Up Sucka
The least Hot Hardware in the world might be your set-top cable box. It unscrambles your signal and changes the channel. The FCC thought it would sex up the lowly technology and spur competition by requiring set-top boxes be configured to allow the end user to purchase the box, with an installable card supplied by the cable... Read More
Your Opinion Of Apple's Windows 7 FUD Ads?