FCC members call for national broadband policy
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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.
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Meaning everyone in America Appearing via satellite at the annual NXTcomm conference in Chicago, U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin urged telecom leaders to provide the entire country with broadband access.â¦
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For critics of power-line broadband access, new FCC rules mean "the glass is both half-full and half-empty."
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Broadcasters are trying to persuade the FCC not to allow wireless Internet services in the white spaces of TV spectrum, plan ad campaign.
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The FCC uses fines to get its message across.
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WASHINGTON-Despite the interference concerns of government-spectrum users, public-safety entities and amateur-radio operators, the Federal Communications Commission Thursday adopted rules to allow broadband over power lines.
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Action should be taken over consumers' concerns about broadband connection speeds, a watchdog says.
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Will a new set of FCC rules for broadband over power lines bring the Internet to millions more homes? On Friday, proponents of broadband Internet service over power lines hailed a recent decision by the US
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(InfoWorld) - A plan to have private investors build a national wireless broadband network for police and fire departments met resistance at a U.S. Senate hearing Thursday, including from the man in charge of New York's emergency broadband network. Startup Frontline Wireless, backed by two former U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)Â chairmen and several tech industry heavyweights, would set aside 22MHz of wireless spectrum from an upcoming auction of the 700MHz band for a dual-use commercial and emergency response network with the winning bidder required to build a nationwide network that would give priority to police and fire departments. A national broadband network for emergency response agencies would take billions of dollars to build, and a public-private partnership like the one Frontline has proposed is the only way it will happen, said James Barksdale, president and CEO of investment group Barksdale Management and a partner in Frontline. The U.S. government lacks the money to build the network, he said. "We're not asking agencies to give us the spectrum," Barksdale said. "And public safety gets a free ride on it -- that's a heck of a deal." Six years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and two years after Hurricane Katrina, emergency response agencies across the U.S. still do not have broadband networks that allow agencies to talk to each other, said Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape. "The FCC can achieve, at no cost to taxpayers, an interoperable public safety network that, I submit to you, will never be built if we don't do it this way," Barksdale told the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. "We are long past the time to talk about what might happen or should happen or is going to happen for public safety. Any serious proposal must address how this costly network will be funded and built without relying on government funds." But several people at the hearing, including Paul Cosgrave, commissioner of the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, questioned the Frontline plan. New York has already built a $500 million emergency network that will roll out fully in early 2008, and the Frontline proposal could take away local control of emergency communications networks, he said. Spectrum that's optimal to use for emergency communications in New York may not work for Boise, Idaho, he said. "A national network, based on a one-size-fits-all approach, may not meet the disparate communication needs of emergency responders throughout the country," Cosgrave said. In addition, if emergency responders must share spectrum with commercial providers, the network may be jammed during disasters, Cosgrave said. The proposed network will be "dominated by commercial interests, and deployment and maintenance will be undertaken based on return on investment rather than effective emergency response," he added. The Frontline plan would take 10MHz from 60MHz scheduled to be auctioned by early next year and pair it with 12MHz of spectrum out of 24MHz set aside for public safety. The 84MHz of spectrum is becoming available after Congress voted early last year to require U.S. television stations to abandon the spectrum and move from analog to all-digital broadcasts. The deadline for the transition to digital TV is in February 2009. Under the Frontline plan, the winner of the auction for the 22MHz would be required to build a national broadband network, estimated by Barksdale to cost $12 billion. The network operator could then collect wholesale fees from emergency response agencies and from commercial telecoms that want to use the spectrum to provide broadband services. Frontline is also asking the FCC to create rules that would require the winner of the 22MHz chunk of spectrum to resell access to any customer that can pay. Several consumer groups and tech companies have also called for open access provisions for part of the auctioned spectrum, saying it represents the best chance for a new national broadband provider that would compete with cable and telecom company offerings. The FCC is expected to set service rules on the spectrum to be auctioned within weeks. Representatives of two wireless carriers told the committee they oppose open access rules in the auction. Dick Lynch, executive vice president and CTO at Verizon, suggested open access and net neutrality rules called for by several groups would limit the appeal of the spectrum and drive down the cost the U.S. government receives in the auction. The auction is expected to raise at least $10 billion with many observers suggesting much more money will be bid. "The auction must make the spectrum available in ways that will promote, not cripple, broadband deployment," Lynch said. [Open access and other] requirements are unwarranted, would deter innovation, and would not benefit consumers." Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, also questioned the Frontline plan, saying the proposal doesn't address how local police and fire departments will pay for handsets and other equipment used to access the network. The best way to raise money for public safety equipment is to maximize the value of the spectrum at auction, he said. "There's no reason this [spectrum] shouldn't go into the private sector and be profitable, too," he said. Several Democratic senators and Wanda McCarley, president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International, were more receptive of the Frontline plan. The proposal includes many ideas that many emergency response officials want, McCarley said. "With this auction we stand at a crossroads," added Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. "Either we can provide extraordinary benefits to millions of Americans, or we can tilt the broadband policy to improve the already significant position of the powerful few that deliver this service. I think there's a clear path that we have to take -- the airwaves belong to the American people."
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(InfoWorld) - U.S. senators questioned Thursday whether members of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission plan to enforce merger conditions that AT&T Inc. agreed to in its December acquisition of BellSouth Corp. Democratic members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee questioned why FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate issued a joint statement while approving the merger saying the FCC couldn't broadly enforce some of AT&T's concessions. "What I find difficult to understand is that ... you said that you do not intend to stand by the deal that was reached," said Senator Daniel Inouye, the committee chairman and a Hawaii Democrat. Martin and Tate, both Republicans, had protested a net neutrality condition, preventing AT&T from giving priority transmission speeds to its own or its partners' Web content for at least two years. The net neutrality conditions "very well may cause greater problems than the speculative problems they seek to address," Martin and Tate said in the statement Dec. 29. Martin on Thursday said he intends to hold AT&T to the net neutrality agreement, but he doesn't plan to impose those standards on other broadband carriers. "Since [AT&T] volunteered to do that, we would enforce that," he said. "That does not mean we were changing our policy." Martin also suggested another part of the agreement setting out wholesale rates for some data services may be unenforceable. "What is your legal authority as chairman ... to not enforce something you just did?" asked Senator Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat. AT&T agreed to lower the wholesale special access prices for DS1, DS3, and Ethernet services available to some regional telecom carriers and large businesses, but not to large competitors. But the FCC's policy in the past has been that wholesale discounts should apply to all customers, Martin said. "That tariff actually has some components that I believe are illegal under the commission precedent," Martin said. "They can file [the proposed discount], but I'm not committing to approving something that would be in violation of our precedent. We don't allow for that kind of discrimination." But Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat who pushed for conditions on the AT&T merger, noted that the FCC adopted the AT&T merger conditions on a 4-0 vote. "It's hard for me to understand why we can't implement something we adopted unanimously," he said. Senators also urged the FCC to work on ways to get broadband service to rural, inner city and poor areas. The FCC on Wednesday issued a report saying the number of high-speed lines in the U.S. increased by 26 percent during the first half of 2006, from 51.2 million to 64.6 million lines in service. The number of high-speed lines grew by 21 percent in the second half of 2005. Senators also pointed to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's latest study saying the U.S. ranks 12th in broadband adoption rate among industrialized nations. Commissioner Michael Copps called on Congress and the FCC to develop a national broadband strategy. He called the U.S. broadband adoption rates "woeful." "I am really worried that we can go into the 21st century and have a bigger digital divide in this country ... than we had back in the days of plain, old telephone service in the 20th century," he said. "This just isn't feel-good liberal theory -- we're talking about the competitiveness of the United States of America."
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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 Verizon executive says.
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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!
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Group including Amazon, Google, and TiVO lobbies for a national broadband policy that would provide affordable access for all.
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(InfoWorld) - Hundreds of groups and individual Internet users sounded off to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)Â on net neutrality in comments filed Monday, the deadline for responding to the agency's inquiry into the proposed regulation. Individual Internet users, trade groups, and advocacy organizations filed about 670 comments about net neutrality rules with the FCC Monday. Individuals and organizations have submitted nearly 29,000 comments on net neutrality since the FCC opened its inquiry in late March. Net neutrality advocates want the FCC or the U.S. Congress to prohibit large broadband providers like AT&TÂ and Comcast from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors. Many of the comments Monday came from individual Internet users who asked the FCC to protect them against new fees that they fear broadband providers could charge Web content providers. "Keep the corporations off our rights," wrote Internet user Jack McFarley of Washington state in an e-mail that was part form letter. "Net neutrality is essential to free speech, equal opportunity, and economic innovation in America." Bonnie Bennett of California seemed to take a more individual approach in her e-mail to the FCC. "Free, unlimited access to the Internet is the modern-day version of how to educate the citizenry of a well-functioning democracy," she wrote. "Big companies and global corporations care a lot about profits and stockholders but not much about educating citizens." A technology director of a school in Mississippi said net neutrality rules would protect his students' ability to access the information they need. "The importance of the Internet is increasing each month," wrote David Scovic. "Many small innovative Web sites that are vital to our teaching would be affected by a no vote [on net neutrality rules]." Net neutrality advocates have argued that such rules are needed after decisions by the FCC and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 allowed broadband providers to stop sharing their networks with competing Internet service providers. The debate over net neutrality heated up after Ed Whitacre, former CEO at AT&T, complained in BusinessWeek in late 2005 about potential competition from Internet companies, saying he wasn't going to let them "use my pipes free." In March, the FCC launched an inquiry to examine net neutrality proposals, looking at whether broadband providers charge different prices for different speeds and how consumers are affected by the ways broadband providers manage their networks. Hands Off the Internet, an advocacy group representing AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, the American Conservative Union and other organizations, said in its filing that net neutrality advocates haven't shown the need for new regulations. Broadband providers aren't blocking competing content, the group said. "There is no current or anticipated content discrimination or service degradation justifying new regulations by the commission," wrote Christopher Wolf, cochairman of Hands Off the Internet. "Moreover, regulation could well thwart Internet growth and make consumer access unfairly expensive." The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a trade group representing Microsoft, Google, and other tech vendors, said a net neutrality rule is needed because there's little competition among broadband providers. Broadband providers "insult the commission's expertise by summarily proclaiming the broadband access market competitive without any specific evidence of competition," the group said.
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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) changed its rules on Friday in hopes of promoting wider broadband access throughout the nation by offering the service over power lines.
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The federal government should create a wide-ranging national broadband strategy to help small businesses compete on a global level, two FCC members say.
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A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate this week would require the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to reconsider what bandwidth rates qualify as broadband, a move that won praise from some groups that call current broadband penetration statistics misleading.