Items tagged with FCC
The world belongs to the airwaves, and we're just breathing it all in. Or something like that. The FCC has been trying to figure out what to do with wireless spectrum for a few years now, first ushering in the analog-to-digital TV transition and then auctioning off unused 700MHz wireless...
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The Canadian ISP, Rogers Communications, admitted yesterday that it throttles games like World of Warcraft in its bid to maintain QoS for all customers. The issue came to light when a Rogers subscriber filed a complaint against the company in February. The author details why she believes...
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Last week, the FAA announced that there were a record number of "laser events" in 2010. What the FAA means by that, there was a record number of idiots who think it's funny to potentially temporarily blind a pilot with a laser pointer or even some high-powered laser device. The FAA created a...
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Here's a surprise: Verizon isn't too fond of the FCC's Net Neutrality order. Actually, that isn't too much of a surprise. Many ISPs, cellphone carriers and other operators in this space are very hesitant to jump onboard the FCC's latest train, as any additional regulation and oversight into...
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Thanks to documents posted over at the Federal Communications Commission's website, we now have a sneak peek at Dell's upcoming Looking Glass tablet. The documents cover the testing of the tablet to ensure the device complies with various regulations. Although we certainly can't get every detail about the tablet from the documents, they do...
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We have to believe that most of the suits in Washington, D.C. were in a hurry to get back home for the holidays, but an FCC ruling was able to be hammered out just before the Christmas break. Net neutrality has been one of the biggest issues in the FCC circle this year, along with rural broadband. As the Internet has grown, so has concern...
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Yesterday, a sharply divided FCC voted to 3 to 2 to approve new Net Neutrality rules. The vote went down as expected with Democrats voting in favor of rules intended to prevent broadband service providers from blocking content, and Republicans opposed, claiming that such rules are an...
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Verizon this week issued a strong challenge to the U.S. Congress to update the nation's antiquated and anti-competitive telecom rules (Verizon's words, not ours), saying that Congress must act now to address telecommunications policies that are broken. "The grinding you hear are the gears...
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Have you ever opened up your cell phone bill, only to drop it immediately in shock of the huge numbers you see? You aren't alone. Particularly in a world of smartphones, texting overages, and global roaming, it's not too difficult to spend more than you expected on mobile costs. To date...
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High-speed Internet service is only half as fast as advertised, according to an FCC report released this week. It is already bad enough that the U.S. trails a significant number of countries in terms of broadband speed, despite having invented the Internet. It is possibly because...
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Last week, the New York Times showcased a story which implied Google and Verizon were coming to an agreement that would end net neutrality. Both Verizon and Google denied that claim, although indicating they were working on something. On...
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If you've ever tried to set up a wireless router in an apartment building or college campus, you've probably encountered problems when it came to establishing a clear signal. All too often, multiple routers in close proximity will tangle...
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We've all heard the horror stories from people traveling overseas, only to return home to a wireless bill that's more expensive than their mortgage payment. You're probably thinking "that would never happen to me!," but the reality is that...
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Wouldn't it be nice if your wireless operator shot you a free text message or e-mail whenever you were quickly approaching your monthly minute limit or text limit? Wouldn't it be great if you received some sort of alert whenever you touched down in a foreign country and were about to incur...
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Net Neutrality has always been a hot button topic, just like anything else involving politics. What really pushed the discussion over the edge was Comcast's decision to throttle some users in hopes of providing a "better experience" for...
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Interest in the iPad is running high on launch day—just in time for photos of a 'naked' iPad to pop up on the FCC's website. The images detail what's underneath the hood of Apple's new tablet and while some of the text was originally grayed out, there are ways to access the original image...
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We imagine the suits over at the FCC must be big fans of the movie Top Gun, because a major new Internet policy that's about to be unveiled proves someone in Washington feels the need for speed. We're talking about a policy that would task ISPs with putting 100Mbps speeds in place at 100...
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Broadband speed tests are nothing new, but the FCC is offering Internet users a chance to weigh in on just how fast connections are across the country. Unlike regular speed tests, the FCC's program records the street address from which the program is run (no other personal information is...
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Earlier this week we covered the news that nearly 80 percent of all Internet users worldwide feel that Internet access is a right. In a week, the FCC will present its specific plan for bringing broadband Internet to the estimated 35 percent of Americans who currently either don't have or can't...
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The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski has been much in the news over the past six months. As we've covered in the past, Genachowski has aggressively stumped for a national broadband policy, traveled the...
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Broadband speeds in the United States have long lagged behind other industrialized nations; the average download speed across the US was 5.1 megabits (mbps) in August of last year. While that's a 45 percent increase over the average download speed in 2007 it's just 25 percent of South Korea...
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As you may recall, last month Verizon Wireless upped the Early Termination Fee (EFT) that it charges customers who cancel their contract early. The fee increase wasn't a small one, either: if you have what Verizon calls an "advanced device," you'll now pay $350 if you want to cancel early...
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