fcc

Inflight mobile phone decision could be an FCC bellwether

20 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Terrorists coordinating attacks, planes forced to land because of fights among passengers, airline staff pummelled as they try to keep order in economy class. The latest Liam Neeson thriller perhaps? Or maybe a United Airlines customer service training video?

Nope, that’s the future of U.S. air travel if the FCC decides there’s no technical reason to ban inflight mobile phone calls. At least if you believe some of the more than fourteen hundred public comments on the matter.… More

Net neutrality avalanche looks more like a slush pile

19 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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I’m still getting my head wrapped around the concept of three million comments. That’s how many individual bits of advice regarding net neutrality that the FCC received, as of Monday’s deadline to submit.

No single commissioner or, indeed, all the members of the commission working together can possibly read through the entire pile. Even if they divvied it up and only dwelt on each submission for ten seconds, it would take the five commissioners more than a year of work each to get through their respective in-boxes.… More

FCC's net neutrality rules stack the deck in favor of the big boys

17 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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What would Billy Bob do?

Even without the back and forth voting over whether or not to treat broadband providers as common carriers Thursday’s California Public Utilities Commission meeting offered an excellent discussion of net neutrality and the regulatory questions that surround it (assuming you’re into that sort of thing, of course).

Helen Mickiewicz, the CPUC’s assistant general counsel, walked commissioners through the main issues. You can see the video here:

CPUC Commission Voting Meeting – September 11, 2014

The net neutrality discussion begins at about 1:17:00 and runs for about an hour and 20 minutes.… More

Hope still flickers for thoughtful Internet policy at the FCC

16 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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There might yet be an intellectual debate at the FCC about network neutrality. A debate on facts and philosophy, rather than a negotiation for spoils or a partisan punch up. Four commissioners – the entire FCC minus chair Tom Wheeler who did a solo turn earlier – had an hour-long conversation with new CTIA head (and former FCC commissioner) Meredith Baker at a standing room only session at the CTIA show in Las Vegas last week.… More

FCC rural broadband experiments become 10% more cost effective in California

12 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Any Californian ISP that gets funding from the FCC to build out and operate an experimental rural broadband system can also get money from the California Advanced Services Fund. The California Public Utilities Commission yesterday approved a blanket 10% match of any federal funds an ISP might win via the FCC’s program.

The hope is that the extra CASF subsidy will buy down the cost of pursuing those rural broadband experiments in California, making them more cost effective in the eyes of the FCC and giving them a competitive edge against proposals from other states.… More

CPUC approves then pulls back endorsement of common carrier regulation for broadband

11 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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I come down strongly behind Title II, it’s the only thing that makes sense here.

It was high drama at today’s California Public Utilities Commission meeting in San Francisco, at least by the CPUC’s normally placid standards. Commissioners first voted 3 to 2 to tell the FCC that broadband infrastructure should be regulated under common carrier rules. About an hour later, after commissioners returned from a nominal five minute break that lasted somewhat longer, commissioner Carla Peterman asked to change her yes vote to abstain.… More

Setting the Vegas stage for a declaration of net neutrality victory

11 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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“Our goal in this proceeding is to establish the rules of the road for Internet openness that will provide certainty in the marketplace”, FCC chair Tom Wheeler told his former clients at the CTIA wireless show in Las Vegas on Tuesday. He was talking about network neutrality rules that he drafted and hundreds of thousands of people and organisations are commenting on now. Rules that set up a process for governing the Internet that will be anything but open and certain.… More

Transparent auction rules and a clear business proposition needed to get more mobile broadband spectrum says FCC commissioner

9 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Finding new radio bandwidth for mobile broadband services and then figuring out how to pry it out of the hands of businesses and government agencies that don’t use it particularly well is a perpetual challenge for the FCC. Four commissioners – the whole bunch except for chair Tom Wheeler – took questions from CTIA president Meredith Baker at the CTIA show in Las Vegas this afternoon. Not surprisingly, given the venue, much of the hour-long session focused on moving twentieth century technologies and analog users off of spectrum, particularly in the coveted 600 MHz bands, to make way for twenty-first century digital services.… More

FCC chair Wheeler confuses market competition with Beltway negotiation

9 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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America’s telecommunications lobbyist-in-chief showed up at the CTIA show this morning, full of sunny remarks and gentle chiding for the wireless industry. FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who used to hold the top job at CTIA, was clearly coming home.

“It was ten years ago, ten years ago, that I last stood on this stage,” he said. He recalled that when he was up for confirmation of his current assignment, he told U.S. senators he hoped he was a pretty good representative of the mobile telecoms industry.… More

Las Vegas mobile show struggles for the spotlight

8 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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The rebooted CTIA mobile telecoms show is ramping up in Las Vegas today. It officially opens tomorrow, but pre-show activities and associated meetings – particularly the Competitive Carriers Association – are already underway.

This new version of the show is, among other things, a combination of the big, technology and business-focused CTIA springtime convention and its fall MobileCon conference, which was more about applications and services. But the market is crowded and both shows were faced with declining attendance.… More