Sen. McCain Seeks &#36;1 Billion to Speed Digital TV Shift
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U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain is pushing for up to &#36;1 billion in aid to ensure consumers are not left in the dark when television stations broadcast only new, crisp digital signals, according to draft legislation obtained on Sunday.
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Setting aside any doubt about his presidential aspirations, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona announced Wednesday that he would seek the GOP presidential nomination.
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Sen. John McCain, the straight-talking Republican who often challenges the GOP establishment, has taken on a headline-grabbing issue &#151; steroids in baseball &#151; and generated talk of a presidential bid in 2008.
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BAGHDAD -- Senator John McCain took his controversial proposal for curbing Iraq's sectarian violence to Baghdad yesterday, calling for an additional 15,000 to 30,000 US troops and joining a congressional delegation in telling Iraq's prime minister he must break his close ties with a radical Shi'ite cleric.
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In case music, games, and video weren't enough, vendors are now vying for the opportunity to send digital television signals to your mobile phones.
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Media conglomerate NBC Universal aims   to more than double revenue from its digital businesses to   about $1 billion by 2009 from an estimated $400 million this   year, a source familiar with its plans said on Monday.
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By O'Malley, Chris  Lawmakers last spring made it easier for AT&T, Verizon and big phone companies to get into the video business now ruled by cable TV operators.
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The Democratic candidate steps up his airwaves campaign in an early state.
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Sen. John McCain padded his commanding delegate lead in the Republican presidential race Wednesday and urged conservative critics to cut him some slack. In a Democratic surprise, Hillary Rodham Clinton disclosed she'd lent $5 million to her cash-short campaign.
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Unless a coalition of United States senators get their way, a 42-minute film about John Kerry&#39;s effect on American POWs during and after the Vietnam War is going to be aired by 62 television stations across the country sometime before Nov. 2.
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Mitt Romney is buying advertising in Californiaâs expensive media markets as Senator John McCain is set to be endorsed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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WASHINGTON -- The cable television industry has launched a $200 million advertising campaign to assure customers they will still be able to watch their favorite programs after the transition to digital broadcasting.
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(InfoWorld) - Several lawmakers protested a spectrum auction proposal from the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), saying his plan could limit the number of bidders and raise costs to consumers. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's plan would require winners of part of theÂ 700MHz band of spectrum, to be auctioned by early next year, to accept any wireless devices, including phone handsets, allowing customers to transfer devices between mobile providers. Martin's plan would also include net neutrality-like rules, prohibiting auction winners from blocking or slowing Web content from other providers. But several members of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, many of them Republicans, questioned Martin's proposed rules, which have support of the majority of the FCC. Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said he was "very disappointed" that fellow Republican Martin was proposing regulations for part of the 60MHz of spectrum to be auctioned. Some proposals byÂ consumer groups and Frontline WirelessÂ would also require auction winners to provide wholesale access to competitors, and Barton praised Martin for not including that provision. "It's not quite as bad as the Frontline plan, but I don't think it's as good as absolute no-condition auction," Barton said. Many Republicans suggested that auction conditions would decrease the value of the spectrum. Congress has budgeted the auction to raise $10 billion with about half of that going toward reducing the U.S. government budget deficit. "Congress has already spent that money," said Representative Charles Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat. Questions about Martin's proposal came from a handful of Democrats. Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, asked FCC commissioners whether the device-portability rules would increase the cost of wireless phone plans. Customers want to be able to take their mobile phones with them when they switch carriers, but carriers generally haven't offered that option, Martin said. "I think the benefits outweigh the costs and concerns," he said. Barton suggested that winning bidders could implement the device-portability and net neutrality proposals without FCC mandate. Google has indicatedÂ it could bid billions of dollars, Barton noted. "Why shouldn't we just let Google bid?" Barton said. "If they've got a better idea, why don't they go into the marketplace and bid their four or five billion dollars?" There's customer demand for device portability, but carriers haven't acted on it, Martin said. Wireless carriers didn't offer phone number portability until the FCC forced them to in late 2003, then millions of U.S. residents took advantage of it, he said. Asked whether they supported Martin's proposals, the FCC's two Democrats said they did, while the two other Republicans said they hadn't made their minds up yet. "Please let me keep my phone and let me take it wherever I want," said subcommittee chairman Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. The so-called open-access rules are necessary for new broadband competition to challenge cable and telecom providers, said FCC commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat. The 700MHz auction is the last major spectrum auction on the horizon, many participants said. "This is one proceeding where we cannot fail," Copps said. Some lawmakers suggested Martin's proposal doesn't go far enough. Representative Charles "Chip" Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, called on the FCC to require wholesale access rules as well. Wholesale access would allow new and innovative services to flourish on the networks using the spectrum, he said. Martin's plan would "enhance markets and competition," he added.
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Sen. John McCain took his controversial proposal for curbing Iraq's sectarian violence to Baghdad on Thursday, calling for an additional 15,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops and joining a congressional delegation in telling Iraq's prime minister he must break his close ties with a radical Shiite cleric.
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By Christian Hill, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.  Feb. 14--Qwest pushed for a bill Tuesday that it says would hold down soaring cable TV rates in Washington by creating competition.
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President Bush, Sen. John Kerry and their political parties are spending nearly &#36;40 million on TV ads in the final week of the presidential campaign as they adjust their strategies in a shrinking battleground.
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(InfoWorld) - Debate over upcoming auctions of wireless spectrum in the U.S. has reached new heights -- the U.S. presidential campaign. This week, John Edwards, a leading Democratic candidate for president and former U.S. senator, called on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to ensure that small companies and wholesalers can bid on pieces of the 700MHz band when theÂ spectrum goes to auctionÂ by early next year. Winners of the spectrumÂ should not be able to "discriminate"Â against competing Web content and services, Edwards added in a letter sent Wednesday to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. Edwards'Â call for nondiscriminationÂ of Web content echoes requests by net neutrality advocates, who argue that the FCC or the U.S. Congress should prohibit broadband carriers from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors. Edwards' proposal is similar to one advanced by Frontline Wireless, which has called for part of the spectrum to be made available to wholesalers. By taking the steps Edwards suggested, the FCC would ensure that all U.S. residents have access to inexpensive broadband, the presidential candidate wrote. The Internet "improves our democracy by making quiet voices loud, improves our economy by making small markets big, and improves opportunity by making unlikely dreams possible," Edwards wrote. "By setting bid and service rules that unleash the potential of smaller new entrants, you can transform the information opportunity for people across America -- rural and urban, wealthy and not." The spectrum will become available by February 2009. That's the date by which Congress voted last year to require U.S. TV stations to switch to digital broadcasts and abandon channels 51 to 69. Tech and telecom companies are eyeing the new spectrum for a variety of wireless broadband services. Each tower transmitting in the upper 700MHz spectrum band can cover up to four times the large geographic area as towers in higher bands, experts say. Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group that backs net neutrality rules, applauded Edwards' involvement in the 700MHz debate. Public Knowledge is part of a coalition also calling for "open access" for parts of the 700MHz band. Edwards' involvement can help raise the spectrum debate to another level, said Art Brodsky, spokesman for Public Knowledge. "That's a welcome development because this subject matter is important to our economy and to consumers," Brodsky said. Public Knowledge has suggested that the 700MHz auction represents the best chance for broadband competition to cable and DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) providers in the near future. Major broadband providers haveÂ opposed calls for open accessÂ to the auctioned spectrum. A representative of Verizon Communications declined to comment on the Edwards letter, and an AT&T representative wasn't immediately available. But the Frontline proposal for open access and wholesale providers creates heavy regulations for the spectrum use, said Randolph J. May, president of conservative think tank The Free State Foundation. May called on the FCC to reject the Frontline proposal in an e-mail sent out Wednesday. "The managed competition vision rests on an assumption, rarely stated this bluntly, of course, that the regulators, through their supervision and control of unbundling decisions, can do better than the marketplace in promoting consumer welfare," May wrote.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!