Tag archive: federal communications commission

According to a recent article at Public Knowledge, cables companies are pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider a rule regarding the encryption of the basic cable tier. During the early nineties, a rule was adopted by the FCC to make sure cable companies kept a portion of the broadcast stations completely unencrypted. Commonly known as “basic cable” by the public, these stations can be accessed without the… Read More

Occurring on early Friday, a handful of T-Mobile customers were treated to a test of the Personal Localized Alert Network (PLAN) that occurred before any scheduled public test. Originally reported by Lance Ulanoff over at Mashable, the test involved a startling noise that played on his HTC Radar 4G that was similar to the alert siren heard when the Emergency Broadcast System is tested on a television, likely taking T-Mobile customers by… Read More

The US Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously Thursday to reallocate most of a $4.5 billion fund originally intended to expand telephone access to rural areas toward the expansion of national broadband Internet service.  “We are taking a system designed for the Alexander Graham Bell era of rotary telephones and modernizing it for the era of Steve Jobs and the Internet future he imagined,” said FCC Chairman Julius… Read More

The Federal Communications Commission rolled out plans today to provide broadband service to over 18 million Americans that are without hi-speed Internet access. This plan calls for a change in the Universal Service Fund (USF), a government fund originally setup over 14 years ago to provide all Americans with access to phone service. The new proposal would create the Connect America Fund (CAF) and shift approximately $15.5 billion over the new… Read More

Sprint announced today that it has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block AT&T's planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA from German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion. The suit, filed today in Washington D.C., follows an antitrust lawsuit by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), which also seeks to prevent the deal from going through. Sprint's lawsuit was filed as a related case to the DoJ's legal action, the… Read More

The Federal Communications Commission has officially announced a plan to roll out the next-generation emergency 911 system. Details of the five-step deployment plan were announced by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski at an event in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Once the plan is fully enacted, emergency responders will be able to receive text messages, videos and photos sent from individuals, in addition to standard voice calls. Responders will also… Read More

On Tuesday, the Seattle police department launched a 12-hour experiment that posted all 911 emergency calls into the official @SeattlePD Twitter feed. This test was intended to give the public a better understanding of the call volume and types of reports that flood into the emergency call centers. The flow of tweets began at 6 a.m. and sent about 40 tweets an hour into the feeds to about 10,000 followers.  By 6 p.m., the account had increased… Read More

A newly released study by the Federal Communications Commission shows that the plethora of online news outlets has led to a serious degradation of local news reporting, reports Cnet. While it's now easier than ever for citizens to learn about everything from what President Obama ate for lunch to public uprisings in the Middle East, information about local schools, courts, governments and events has become increasingly scarce, according… Read More

A day after a Senate subcommittee grilled Google and Apple over concerns about user location data collection, another group of US senators brought in representatives of AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel to answer questions about AT&T's plan to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion. At the opening of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights hearing, chairman Sen. Herb Kohl… Read More

The Federal Communications Commission will announce today a new emergency alert system that sends a signal directly to consumers' cell phones in the event of a disaster. Rather than alert everyone to a potential threat, the Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN) will enable emergency officials to send text messages to people in specific, targeted geographic locations — which means those who need to know the most first will. For those… Read More

When AT&T announced the planned acquisition of T-Mobile back in March, it was made immediately clear by the Federal Communications Commission that some tough questions would have to be addressed before the deal is approved. One unnamed regulatory official said that AT&T would face “a steep climb, to say the least.” The intention, of course, is to protect consumers. If AT&T joins forces with T-Mobile, the number of top… Read More

The Federal Communications Commission voted today to adopt new data roaming rules that will allow smartphones to access wireless Internet networks nationwide, in areas not covered by the users' wireless provider. The functionality would be similar to roaming related to voice and text messaging. The 3-2 vote, which was held this morning during the FCC's monthly public meeting, requires large wireless companies like Verizon Wireless… Read More

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will unveil a proposal this week that would expand broadband access to rural areas, The New York Times reports. Through what's known as the Universal Service Fund, telecommunications companies already receive $4 billion per year in subsidies — the money for which is collected by the federal government through a surcharge on phone bills — to provide phone access to remote and impoverished… Read More

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is ridin' solo. The U.S. Gov't agency plans to regulate the Internet to ensure it remains a fair and neutral place for everyone. Under the new regulations, internet service providers (ISPs) would not be allowed to block Websites that offer competing services to their own nor speed up or slow down certain types or sources of Internet traffic–in other words, it plans to keep the net… Read More

Last month, Apple's controversial iTunes App Store policies went into the spotlight yet again when an app for using Google Voice on the iPhone failed to make it into the App Store. Google Voice is a service that enables users to receive transcriptions of voicemail message and use the same phone number for as long as they like—even if they change telecom operators or mobile carriers. A few days later the Federal Communications… Read More