fcc

Last call for telegraph companies, says FCC

15 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Does this mean the end of the candygram too?

Just in time to bring broadband service under its regulatory umbrella, the FCC is doing some clean up work on its common carrier rules. It’s proposing to completely delete regulations it either hasn’t officially enforced in many years or are simply outdated, and to begin erasing telegraph from its vocabulary.

The first step, it seems, is to find out if telegraph service exists anymore…

We seek comment on whether there are any providers offering telegraph service today at all, and if so, whether such service offerings warrant retaining the term “telegraph” in the rules…Would there be any practical impact if the Commission were to delete “telegraph” from these rules?

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Will common carrier-lite Internet rules kill local loop competition?

13 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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The days of plain old telephone service aren’t behind us yet, but the time will come — sooner rather than later — when all telecoms services, including voice, run over Internet protocol systems. The switch from copper to end-to-end fiber is a bit further down the road, but it’s near enough that practical questions about it have to be dealt with now.

Yesterday, the California Public Utilities Commission offered its suggestions on how to do that to the FCC, unanimously approving comments for the feds to consider.… More

Public posturing is a lousy way to evaluate new Internet rules, but it's all the FCC allows

11 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Vague outlines are little help, just give us the full picture.

If you assume for the moment that both (democrat-appointed) FCC chair Tom Wheeler and (republican-appointed) commissioner Ajit Pai are speaking the literally truth when they characterise what the current plan to bring the Internet under common carrier utility rules actually says, then the shape of what’s in the still-secret document starts to emerge.

Wheeler gave a speech to a tech group in Colorado on Monday.… More

There are devils lurking in the details of new broadband rules, warns FCC commissioner

9 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Minority report.

The latest plan to regulate broadband under common carrier rules is “a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet”, according to FCC commissioner Ajit Pai. On Friday, he released his rebuttal to chairman Tom Wheeler’s rosy summary of a thick – and still secret – proposal to impose stricter rules on how Internet service providers operate.

As a commissioner, Pai gets to see it now, before it’s voted on and released publicly at the end of the month.… More

FCC makes a good call to follow the market and not manage it

7 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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I want to catch up on developments at the FCC this week. The big news, of course, is chairman Tom Wheeler’s press release saying he’s going to put broadband under common carrier rules. If it flies – and all indications are it will – it’ll mark a major turning point in the history of the Internet. I say that with all the authority a bachelor’s degree in history (specifically the historical nexus between California and Japan, if you’re curious) bestows upon me.… More

Five questions about broadband rules the FCC left hanging

5 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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FCC chairman Tom Wheeler released a summary yesterday of the new, common carrier rules he’s proposing for the broadband industry. His overall intent is clear: bring cable companies, wired and wireless telcos and independent ISPs under one common carrier umbrella, at least as far as broadband is concerned. But it was just a summary. The details won’t be made public until the commission votes on 26 February 2015. There’s a lot that’s not clear. My top concerns are…

Muni broadband systems – public utility law generally treats privately owned utilities differently than publicly owned ones.… More

Radical – and imminent – changes in broadband regulation revealed by FCC chair

4 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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A turning point in the battle.

“Retail broadband service Americans buy from cable, phone, and wireless providers” and “the service that broadband providers make available to ‘edge providers'” will be classified as common carrier services, according to a press release from FCC chair Tom Wheeler this morning. The draft ruling that’s circulating at the FCC now would regulate pretty much any kind of Internet access or service using both title II (the common carrier section) and section 706 (the current source of the FCC’s broadband authority) of federal telecoms law.… More

$55 million in rural broadband grants cancelled by FCC

3 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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FCC avoids a “resource-intensive effort”

The FCC chopped 16 more applicants from its rural broadband experiment program. By removing uncertainty as to the outcome, FCC staff is making a mockery of the experiments, creating the appearance that they want an easy ride, rather than a rigorous process designed to test prospective rural broadband systems and business models. Without the possibility of failure, it’s not an experiment and the lessons learned will be meager.

Last month, 37 winning bidders in the subsidy competition were announced.… More

FCC radically changes the broadband game

30 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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The FCC made it official: the benchmark for acceptable broadband service is 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. FCC chair Tom Wheeler’s unctuous endorsement of the new standard at CES earlier this month turned into the new national standard yesterday…

Reflecting advances in technology, market offerings by broadband providers and consumer demand, the FCC updated its broadband benchmark speeds to 25 megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads. The 4 Mbps/1 Mbps standard set in 2010 is dated and inadequate for evaluating whether advanced broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a timely way, the FCC found.

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FCC needs to recognise that paying for knowledge isn't the same as buying service

26 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Negative results can be a positive benefit.

Thirty-seven companies and other organisations were on the list of winning bidders vying to take part in the FCC’s rural broadband experiments. Of those, six are already off the list because they “either withdrew from consideration for rural broadband experiments funding or did not submit the required information by the Friday, December 19 deadline”, according to the FCC.

Another 15 have asked the FCC to waive some of the rules, in particular one that requires certification of technical plans by a professional engineer and another that asks for audited financial statements.… More