Government mulls broadband help
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The government may take steps to ensure the UK has the infrastructure necessary for super-fast broadband.
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Blog: Pair of politicos who pushed last year for strict nondiscrimination requirements for broadband operators are looking to federal regulators to help revive their cause.
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Yesterday&#39;s decision by the Federal Communications Commission to remove barriers to the delivery of broadband services over power lines may give consumers a third broadband option.
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(Washington, DC-NBC) Dec. 15, 2004 - The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to give away broadband space for wireless Internet service on board airliners, and it&#39;s opening up for public comment on cell phone use.
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The government has responded to calls to make the BBC's iPlayer work on computers that do not run Windows.
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FCC clears the way for more companies to offer the alternative form of Net access. The US Federal Communications Commission this week cleared the way for power companies to roll out broadband over power line
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A more joined-up approach to net safety is needed if government is to get the message home to citizens.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. government needs better ways to measure broadband availability and adoption in order to develop policies that focus on ways to use broadband to improve the economy, several telecom experts said Thursday. "As policy makers, we need to have an eye to the future," said Beth Shiroishi, senior director of regulatory policy and planning for AT&T. "Where do we want our country to go, and where do we want our citizens to go?" Participants of the forum on broadband data, sponsored by conservative think tank The Progress and Freedom Foundation, argued that broadband is key to the future of the U.S., but most said current statistics don't tell the whole picture. Broadband "does mean economic opportunity to those who wouldn't otherwise have it," said Clair Kaye, treasurer for Cumberland Internet, which provides broadband to parts of three counties in Illinois. Many participants complained about biannual broadband adoption numbers put out by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The FCC, in its January broadband report, said that 99 percent of U.S. postal ZIP codes have at least one broadband provider. But the broadband-less zip codes change between FCC reports, said Kenneth Flamm, chairman of the international affairs department at the University of Texas in Austin. There are other errors in the FCC report: For example, it says his neighborhood has 13 broadband providers when in reality it has one, he said. The FCC also classifies 200KbpsÂ as broadband when most users would think of it as something, at least 12 times faster, that can deliver full-motion video to computer screens, said Mark Lloyd, senior fellow for the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. The congressional requirements that the FCC measure broadband adoption has been "horribly abused" by the agency, he said. "How do you manage what you cannot measure?" Lloyd added. "How do we know if there are gaps to fill?" An FCC spokesman declined to comment on Thursday's forum, but he noted that in April, the agency began two inquiries into U.S. broadband deployment, including one that will look at ways to better collect information. Others at Thursday's forum questioned numbers from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which says the U.S. ranks 15th in per capita broadband adoption among the 30 nations that are OECD members. The OECD numbers don't measure broadband at work, and they make no allowances for the relatively low U.S. population density, said Dennis Weller, chief economist for Verizon. Others defended the OECD numbers, saying they at least show that the U.S. has fallen behind other countries as it has dropped from fourth in the rankings. About three-quarters of Japan's residents can get 100Mbps, fiber-based service, said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech-focused think tank. But in densely populated Manhattan, no one can get that speed of service to the home, he said. Atkinson proposed that U.S. agencies develop a "wikimap" that would allow U.S. residents to report their broadband speeds. Such a tool wouldn't cost much to create, he said. New methods of measuring broadband are needed, but not because the U.S. should refute the OECD statistics, said Joseph Waz, vice president for external affairs and public policy at Comcast. "We need to decide what problem it is we're trying to solve," he said. "TheÂ number-one goal of this data should be to find out where broadband isn't."
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UK homes in certain towns will  benefit from 100Mbps broadband, delivered via the sewers.
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The Federal Communications Commission has approved rules which it claims will encourage development of broadband access over power lines, a new technology that provides access to high speed broadband services using the nation&#39;s power grid instead of phone
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(InfoWorld) - Two members of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission called for the federal government to create a wide-ranging national broadband strategy to help small businesses compete on a global level. Too many U.S. small businesses have no access to broadband, and many others can't afford it, said Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, Democratic members of the FCC. The cost of consumer-level broadband per megabit in the United States is about seven times the cost in Japan, Adelstein told the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. Small businesses "typically pay too much for a service that is too slow," Copps said. "It's not just a matter of national pride we're talking about -- it's a business issue." A survey in 2005 found that small businesses paid an average of $720 per month for a T1 line, added Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a media reform advocacy group. In Chicago, customers pay $80 to $90 a month for 1MbpsÂ of broadband, but in smaller Urbana, Ill., the cost is about $300, Scott said. In Greenup, Ill., a city with about 1,500 residents south of Chicago, the monthly cost of a 1Mbps connection is $1,300, Scott said. Small businesses in small towns and rural areas lack the same technological edge that many overseas competitors have, Scott said. "The head start we're giving our global competition is taking it just a bit too far," he said. Senators John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, complained that President George Bush set a policy goal in 2004 for all U.S. residents to have broadband available by this year, but didn't back it up with policies. "We had the goal but not the tactics," Snowe said. A national broadband policy should include better data about where broadband service is lacking, said the FCC's Adelstein. The FCC still says a postal zip code has broadband if one customer there does, he said. Congress should provide more money for broadband build-out in rural areas, and the Republican majority at the FCC should stop a deregulatory approach that has led to few broadband competitors, he said. Adelstein also called for a national summit on broadband that would bring together customers, providers, members of Congress and the Bush administration, and others to address broadband availability. "We should make broadband the dial tone of the 21st century," he said. Not everyone at the hearing complained about the state of broadband in the United States. There's little evidence of a broadband problem in the United States, said Scott Wallsten, director of communications policy studies at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank. "Telephone, cable, and wireless companies are investing billions in new high-speed infrastructure, and consumers and businesses are adopting broadband at remarkable rates," Wallsten said. Verizon CommunicationsÂ alone is planning to spend $23 billion on its fiber-optic network by 2010, he said. People calling for government solutions "fail to provide solid analysis showing that their proposals would actually benefit consumers or small businesses," Wallsten added. Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, laid the problems back at the feet of Copps and Adelstein. The FCC has the power to encourage more broadband competition through anÂ upcoming auction of radio spectrum, he said. Several companies want to provide nationwide wireless broadband if the January auction is set up right, he said. "It seems like to me you have the tools at the FCC," he said.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. government should launch a new program that provides grants and loans for broadband providers to extend service to rural areas, a top executive at Verizon said Monday. The U.S. should use as a model a state program called ConnectKentucky, which has provided 94 percent of Kentucky residents with broadband options, said Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president for public affairs, policy, and communications. Kentucky, a state with large rural areas and chunks of hilly terrain, expects to provide about 99 percent of its residents with a broadband carrier by the end of the year, Tauke said. The rest of the nation likely won't reach U.S. President George Bush's goal of universal broadband access by the end of 2007, Tauke said. The U.S. needs to look at broadband incentive programs "sooner rather than later," he said. Broadband access can have a large impact on local economies and services such as health care, Tauke said. The new program proposed by Verizon could use some existing funding, including redirecting some funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), which had a 2006 budget of $6.1 billion, he said. The RUS now subsidizes several types of utilities, including broadband, electricity, distance learning, and telemedicine. New funds may also be needed, Tauke said, although he didn't provide specific numbers at a press briefing. Part of the problem is there's no good measure of how many U.S. residents have access to broadband, Tauke said. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission released a report Jan. 31 saying 99 percent of all U.S. postal codes had at least one broadband provider, but critics have noted that the FCC would count a postal code if a provider offered service to just a handful of residents. Tauke called for a comprehensive study of what broadband gaps exist. "We just don't know today who has broadband and who doesn't," he said. Verizon has not yet pitched the idea to most lawmakers, Tauke said. The telecom giant also called on the U.S. Congress to make changes the Universal Service Fund program, a $4 billion program that subsidizes telephone access in rural and poor areas. Instead of providing USF funds to multiple carriers, the U.S. government should cap USF at its current funding levels, and require carriers to bid to provide service in areas where subsidies are needed, Tauke said. "Reverse auctions" forcing carriers to compete to provide service would end the current system in which multiple carriers, sometimes five or more wireless voice providers, receive USF money to provide service in the same territory, Tauke said. Verizon does not currently take USF money, he said. "If you have multiple carriers offering service in a territory, that would seem to suggest you don't need Universal Service Fund support," he said. "[Carriers say] 'If somebody's going to hand out money, why not take it?'" The tax on telephone service to pay for USF has risen from about 3.2 percent in 1998 to 9.7 percent currently, Verizon noted in a proposal to the Federal-Sate Joint Board on Universal Service, filed Friday. "The level of fees is becoming staggeringly high," he said. "The system is broken, it's not working, and it's unfair." Several rural lawmakers have opposed changes to USF. Tauke didn't address net neutrality, an issue that dominated telecom debates in Congress last year, until asked about it. Verizon expects efforts that would prohibit broadband carriers from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors to fail in Congress this year, partly because the FCC and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission are monitoring providers, he said. The two agencies "are watching the issue like hawks," he said.
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BT must work harder to open up its network to rivals in order to aid uptake of broadband internet access or risk a possible investigation by the UK Competition Commission, the UK communications regulator has warned.
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Agency seeks public comment as first step in deciding how far Internet service providers can go before they transcend "reasonable network management" and run afoul of federal policy.
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The bill requires the F.C.C. to assess whether broadband providers are interfering with consumersâ rights to access, send, receive or offer content, applications and services over networks.
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Internet providers are asked to help with the growing problem of teenage suicides in Northern Ireland.
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Internet access may be cut for people who illegally download music and videos  under government proposals.