FCC Resumes Testing of Internet-by-Airwave Devices
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Federal regulators will try again to test prototypes for transmitting high-speed internet service over unused television airwaves. The devices will be tested in laboratory and real-world conditions.
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The Federal Communications Commission will investigate complaints that Comcast actively interferes with Internet traffic as its subscribers try to share files online.
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By JUDY O'ROURKE  SANTA CLARITA -- The days of patronizing certain food or coffee joints to tap a wireless Internet feed may soon be past, with citywide access on the horizon.
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U.S. airline travelers may be able  to use their mobile telephones as well as get high-speed  Internet service while in the air under plans launched by U.S.  communications regulators on Wednesday.
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FCC clears the way for more companies to offer the alternative form of Net access.
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Alternative form of high-speed Internet access makes its way to U.S. homes.
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Chip maker will being testing the emerging, high-speed wireless technology.
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(InfoWorld) - A group of technology vendors has submitted new test results for a wireless device intended to operate in unused portions of the television spectrum afterÂ an identical device malfunctioned in U.S. Federal Communications Commission tests earlier this year. The new tests showed the wireless device correctly detected TV signals and stayed out of that part of the spectrum 100 percent of the time, according to a filing on behalf of Microsoft and Philips Electronics. Microsoft and Philips are part of the White Spaces Coalition, a group of tech vendors asking the FCC to allow wireless devices to operate in the so-called white spaces of the television spectrum. The coalition wants the white spaces opened up to give consumers more wireless broadband options. Television broadcasters have opposed the White Spaces Coalition, saying it's too likely that wireless devices will interfere with TV signals. On July 31, the FCC declined to license a wireless device built by the coalition, saying it interfered with TV signals. Microsoft later said the device was damaged and "operated at a severely degraded level." On Thursday, Microsoft and Philips submitted new tests to the FCC. In their new tests, the wireless device detected signals that are "far too weak for a television set to produce a broadcast television picture," wrote Ed Thomas, a tech advisor to the White Spaces Coalition and a former chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology. The FCC will likely do its own retest of the device. The White Spaces Coalition hopes the FCC can make a decision to approve the device by the end of the year, Thomas said. The group had originally hoped the FCC would make a decision by October, and members believe the FCC can still make a decision soon, he said. "We'd love to see the FCC do whatever they need to do to corroborate our data," Thomas said. "We hope we've moved the ball a long way to help them make a decision." This month,Â the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Association for Maximum Service Television launched a campaign urging the FCC to reject white spaces devices. The wireless devices could cause "devastating interference" to digital TV sets, the two groups said. "While our friends at Intel, Google, and Microsoft may find system errors, computer glitches, and dropped calls tolerable, broadcasters do not," Alan Frank, NAB's chairman, said in a news release this month.
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Airline travelers might be able to  use their mobile phones and other wireless devices in the air  under a proposal put forward by U.S. communications regulators  on Wednesday to ease the current ban.
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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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Cable-modem service provider Comcast said Wednesday that it would welcome a U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)&#160;investigation into its broadband traffic management practices.FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, speaking at the&#160;Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas&#160;on Tuesday, said the commission would investigate&#160;complaints that Comcast was blocking some peer-to-peer (P-to-P) traffic. An Associated Press investigation published in October found that Comcast was slowing traffic connected through the popular BitTorrent file-sharing program.A Comcast spokeswoman said Wednesday that the company had not yet received information requests from the FCC. Comcast, in a statement, also defended its practice of sometimes slowing P-to-P traffic during peak traffic times.&quot;We look forward to responding to any FCC inquiries regarding our broadband network management,&quot; David Cohen, Comcast&#39;s executive vice president, said in the statement. &quot;We believe our practices are in accordance with the FCC&#39;s policy statement on the Internet where the commission clearly recognized that reasonable network management is necessary for the good of all customers.&quot;Comcast will work with the FCC to better inform customers about broadband network management, the statement said. &quot;Comcast does not, has not, and will not block any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services,&quot; Cohen said.Martin also said the FCC would look into complaints that Verizon Wireless and other wireless carriers were blocking access to text-messaging on their networks. In September,&#160;Verizon Wireless denied Naral Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, access&#160;when the group asked to allow Verizon customers to sign up for its text-messaging alerts.&#160;Verizon reversed the decision a day later.A Verizon Wireless spokeswoman didn&#39;t immediately respond to a request for comments on Martin&#39;s CES speech.In December, eight consumer and public-interest groups -- including Public Knowledge, the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union -- filed a complaint with the FCC, saying mobile phone providers should not be able to block text messages from political groups and advertisers.Public Knowledge and Free Press, both critical of provider traffic blocking, praised Martin&#39;s CES statements. Public Knowledge is pleased that the FCC is &quot;willing to stand by their principles to protect American consumers,&quot; the group said in a statement. &quot;We look forward to FCC proceedings that will determine what are legitimate uses of power by telecom companies, and which are not.&quot;
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ASHINGTON - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will require incumbent telephone carriers to continue offering parts of their networks to competitors while the commission rewrites those network-sharing rules.
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An Associated Press reporter ran a test of two computers connected to the Internet with Comcast cable modems in Philadelphia and San Francisco, in order to see if reports of the cable provider blocking file sharing programs were true.
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A coalition of technology vendors, consumer groups, and think tanks has launched a campaign to persuade the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve wireless devices that would operate in unused television spectrum.The Wireless Innovation Alliance, which launched a Web site Wednesday, is an expansion of the tech-centric White Spaces Coalition that has been pushing so-called white-space spectrum as a possible new broadband network. At Wednesday&#39;s alliance launch, several other groups, including Free Press, the Media Access Project, TechNet, the Computing Technology Industry Association, and Educause, joined the tech companies pushing for the FCC to approve broadcast white spaces for broadband use.U.S. Representatives Jay Inslee, a Washington state Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, also lent their support.Inslee called white space one of the &quot;greatest untapped&quot; sources for innovation in the U.S. &quot;We&#39;re just waiting for government to do its job, to set the rules of the road, so the geniuses in America can really use this tremendous resource,&quot; he said.The white spaces can help bring broadband to areas of the U.S. that have limited or no choices right now, Inslee added. The lack of broadband in many areas is &quot;really a sad comment on our failure to move ahead as a nation,&quot; he said. &quot;This is one of my continuing frustrations -- that we have not made adequate progress -- and the availability of white spaces is one tool to attack that.&quot;Inslee and Blackburn were among six lawmakers who signed a letter, dated Tuesday, to the FCC, calling on the agency to wrap up its ongoing inquiry into white spaces.Advocates of white-space technology have run into significant opposition and some technical problems this year.The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), representing U.S. television stations, has raised concerns that white-space devices will interfere with TV signals. And more than 55 U.S. lawmakers have raised their own concerns about interference. &quot;Placing these devices in the television band is believed to cause unacceptable interference to television reception for all Americans and impair coverage of news and sporting events by interfering with wireless microphones,&quot; wrote Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, in an Oct. 9 letter to the FCC.In addition,&#160;the FCC rejected a device built by Microsoft and other members of the White Spaces Coalition in July, saying it interfered with TV signals. Microsoft later said the device was damaged and &quot;operated at a severely degraded level.&quot;In September,&#160;Microsoft and Philips Electronics North America submitted new tests from a functioning device to the FCC. The group is awaiting FCC action on the new device.NAB still has concerns, said Dennis Wharton, the group&#39;s executive vice president for media relations. White spaces supporters are &quot;playing Russian Roulette&quot; with TV signals, he said. &quot;It is unfortunate that Microsoft and Google continue to try to muscle their way through Washington in support of a technology that simply does not work.&quot;Blackburn urged the FCC not to &quot;pick winners and losers,&quot; but to base its decision on objective tests of the white spaces devices. A lot of areas in rural west Tennessee have no broadband, she said. &quot;It is essential for economic development,&quot; she said.Asked if any other countries are using white-space spectrum for broadband devices, alliance members said they aren&#39;t aware of any formal projects.Other countries are looking to the U.S., said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. &quot;The United States has led the world on unlicensed technologies from the get-go, and if we don&#39;t want to lose that leadership, we need to keep moving forward,&quot; he said.
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You could soon surf the internet and make a cell phone call from the air. The Federal Communications Commission is now open to the possibility.
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The second phase of the FCC's testing of devices that use spectrum between broadcast TV channels kicks off next week.
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Certified by September, but spec not due till 2008 The Wi-Fi Alliance has started testing kit conforming to the second draft of the 802.11n standard, expecting certified products to be on the shelves by September, despite the fact that the final version of the standard isn't expected until next year.â¦