Austin’s forthcoming Google Fiber gigabit network is a crucial first step to restoring economic opportunities that other cities must follow. The key is partnering with private enterprise on a local level, rather than waiting for federal intervention. Read more »
After nearly four years as FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski is stepping down in “coming weeks”. President Obama will now get to appoint two new commission members in his second term. Read more »
The Democratic chairman is stepping down, according to the Wall Street Journal, just as a Republican commissioner is departing, preserving an administration-friendly majority on the commission. Read more »
The FCC wants to reallocate some of the TV spectrum to auction it off, and Congress is working on bills to facilitate that process. Local, low-power TV stations believe that they could be the casualty of the process, affecting cord cutters and ethnic minorities alike. Read more »
Want to improve the economy? Then demand better broadband. Policymakers at all levels of government need to watch municipal efforts such as those in Kansas City, Kan. with Google’s fiber network. That gigabit network could prove the link between broadband and economic development. Read more »
Chip Rosenthal headed the effort to bring Google’s gigabit fiber network to Austin. He says the Texas capital was on the short list of cities, but thinks Austin was passed over because of a state law banning municipal participation in broadband networks. Read more »
GigaOM and the New America Foundation are sponsoring a debate between Craig Settles, an author and broadband consultant, and Blair Levin, the author of the National Broadband Plan, on how America can meet the broadband needs of its citizens. Click through to watch. Read more »
When it comes to broadband, it’s the applications, not speed that matters, but by default, then we need to admit our national goal of 4 Mbps broadband probably isn’t fast enough to deliver the up and coming apps, and may doom the U.S. to inadequacy. Read more »
In response to a Congressional question on whether broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion to all Americans, the FCC today released its 706 report, saying that 14 – 25 million Americans have no access to broadband, now defined as four Mbps down. Read more »
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski today defended to cable industry executives the agency’s plan’s to reclassify broadband, pitching the commission’s “Third Way” for regulation and attempting to assure the audience that the agency would continue to operate in good faith. Read more »
The FCC today began the long process of building a regulatory regime for the broadband communication network during an open meeting in which it sought comments on several sweeping policy changes, including reforming the subsidy for providing rural telephone access, but questions over its authority linger. Read more »
Solving the lack of broadband competition isn’t just an intellectual exercise, it’s an issue that has to be solved. Otherwise some people will be living in the 21st century while great chunks of the country will be subsisting on the 2010 version of dial-up. Read more »
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski spoke to a YouTube team about the National Broadband Plan and tried to respond to questions from Internet users across the country. The answers to put it politely, were at best nuanced. Watch this video below the fold. Read more »
The executive summary of the National Broadband Plan is out today, and we finally know how the FCC plans to treat the issue most responsible for the current state of broadband in the U.S. — the lack of competition. Read on for the details. Read more »
The FCC plans to deliver its National Broadband Plan a day early on March 16 to Congress. The plan will lay out recommendations for universal broadband access and encourage adoption. But we’re unimpressed with what we’ve seen of recommendations so far. Read more »
An FCC survey released this morning indicates that cost concerns and a lack of digital literacy are the primary reasons one-third of Americans don’t have high-speed broadband at home. The FCC is addressing cost concerns, but it can’t drum up demand for broadband on its own. Read more »
Once a leading nation in the deployment of broadband, Canada now barely ranks as a top-20 nation in overall Internet access, according to a new study. A new national broadband plan that encourages competition could help the country regain its position as a broadband leader. Read more »
The Federal Communications Commission says it will need another month to deliver its national broadband plan. The deadline to originally submit the plan to the U.S. Congress was Feb. 17. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has said that he wants to get the National Broadband Plan right. Read more »
The National Broadband Plan update today that focuses on how policy needs to adapt to deliver nationwide access picked a big fight with cable and didn’t really attack the lack of competition in most U.S. markets at all. Read more »
The FCC is prepping for a future without the circuit-switched network that currently handles most of the calls in this country, as we transition to an all-IP communications network. This transition requires regulatory reform, but will also enable new services that meld voice, video and data. Read more »
U.S. broadband policy must take into account real network speeds, which lag advertised speeds by as much as 50-80 at least 50 percent, according to the FCC task force charged with helping to develop a national broadband plan. But just how policy should address the differences […] Read more »
After reading a report out today from the National Broadband Coalition, I found myself thinking about conversations in recent weeks with guys from Cisco and my colleagues about how far the U.S. needs to go when it comes to fast broadband. The report tries to help […] Read more »
Google’s Mountain View, Calif., Wi-Fi network was supposed to mark the search giant’s evolution into an ISP when it was unveiled three years ago, delivering free Internet access to people as a way of getting more of them to see its ads. Instead it’s stayed confined […] Read more »
[qi:gigaom_icon_social_networking] The Federal Communications Commission’s workshops related to the National Broadband plan are a hotbed of data if one bothers to download the presentations various people and companies are making in them. One that caught my eye, from Verizon for today’s workshop, showed how much time […] Read more »