fcc

Bay Area cities offer FCC chair a glimpse of the future


FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski sees a gigabit city in San Leandro.

Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) visited San Leandro today, taking a look at the economic progress kindled by the Lit San Leandro project and delivering a keynote speech to local leaders, business people, city staff and proud residents. I’ll have more on his remarks later.

I was fortunate enough to be invited as one of the opening speakers. My assignment was to give some background on efforts in the Bay Area and around California to develop our economy by developing broadband infrastructure:

Here in the Bay Area, we are surrounded by the fattest Internet pipes on the planet.

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More unlicensed spectrum on the way

21 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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Super-sized WiFi too.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took a big step towards fulfilling a promise that Chairman Julius Genachowski made at CES in Las Vegas last month. Yesterday, commissioners voted unanimously to start the process of opening up 195 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz range to unlicensed uses such as WiFi. (H/T to UCSC’s Jim Warner for tipping me off).

“WiFi congestion is a very real and growing problem,” Genachowski said. “Like licensed spectrum, demand for unlicensed spectrum threatens to outpace supply.… More

Local, state role curtailed for tower upgrades

6 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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No substantial change.

Local and state government agencies have to say yes to any request for “collocation, removal, or replacement of transmission equipment on an existing wireless tower or base station,” so long as it doesn’t involve a substantial change to the existing structure’s dimensions. That’s what last year’s Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act required. Now, the FCC has issued guidance that tries to come up with practical rules to apply it.

Drawing on language from a couple of past rulings, the FCC says that…

  • Requests must be granted.
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Pricing policy might be the price for mobile spectrum

21 January 2013 by Steve Blum
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Can they meet in the middle?

The gap between the consumer expectations created by broadband service providers and delivered performance is once again drawing attention in Washington. Mobile carriers are the ones in the crosshairs this time.

Silicon Valley congresswoman Anna Eschoo says she's going to take another try at passing legislation regulating what mobile carriers have to tell customers when they sign up for service plans. She's specifically targeting pricing, terms and conditions of service and network management techniques that can have an impact on the level of service that's actually delivered.… More

Game on for voluntary spectrum auction

13 January 2013 by Steve Blum
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It's all about doing business now.

“The unstated reason for this auction is the money. It was estimated we could raise $24 billion,” said Congressman Lee Terry, a Republican from Nebraska. “We wanted the FCC to design the rules to get us the $24 billion”

The debate now is over what those rules should be. The FCC intends to carry out a three step process next year to shift frequencies in the 600 MHz range from television broadcasting to mobile broadband uses.… More

The Internet faces the dark side of the Force

9 January 2013 by Steve Blum
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International telecommunications diplomacy isn't a pretty business.

“It was a little bit like the Star Wars bar scene,” said FCC commissioner Robert McDowell, as he described his experience as a U.S. representative at last month's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai.

He was part of a delegation that included private sector companies, like Google, as well as a boat load of diplomats and policy wonks. They were up against a solid wall of countries that wanted the International Telecommunications Union – a United Nations organization – to get into the business of regulating the Internet.… More

FCC commissioners push to quickly rewrite rules, free spectrum

9 January 2013 by Steve Blum
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Collegial commissioners at CES.

As plain old telephone service migrates to mobile and Internet protocol platforms, new regulations to match technology shifts and more wireless spectrum are the top priorities for the FCC this year.

Four of the five commissioners talked about what's ahead at a CES panel session this afternoon. Chairman Julius Genachowski made a solo appearance earlier, and his colleagues endorsed his plan to move ahead quickly with freeing up government spectrum in the 5 GHz band for unlicensed use.… More

More unlicensed spectrum coming soon, says FCC chairman

9 January 2013 by Steve Blum
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Tired of slow WiFi at the airport.

Julius Genachowski is a popular guy at CES today. The FCC chairman announced that the commission is moving ahead with freeing up spectrum that's currently assigned to government agencies for WiFi and other unlicensed uses.

“This is unlicensed spectrum. This is in 5 GHz. It's time to move to do it,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do with federal agencies that have this spectrum. We're moving forward with it and we're going to work out the problems as we go.… More

FCC crowdsourcing mobile broadband measurements

20 December 2012 by Steve Blum
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Can y’all hear me now?

Via Jim Warner, U.C. Santa Cruz network engineer and chair of the Central Coast Broadband Consortium’s technical expert group: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will ask the public to download an app and take mobile broadband coverage measurements…

The FCC and its contractor SamKnows will soon be announcing a program to collect crowd source data on mobile broadband performance. A program will trigger tests like iperf and ping and report the results along with handset and location information to a central database.

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Congresswoman Eschoo pushes for more broadband spectrum

Silicon Valley congresswoman Ann Eschoo wants to shake up the way that Washington manages and assigns spectrum. The goal is to free up a total of 500 MHz for wireless communications purposes. Much of that would come from turning over frequencies held by government agencies to public use. But some of it would come, willingly or not, from the private sector.

 

“We have to make freeing up spectrum a top priority,” she said at Joint Venture Silicon Valley's second annual wireless symposium, held on 2 November 2012 at Marvell Semiconductor Inc.… More