tvb

An underpinning of the National Broadband Plan is Universal Service Fund reform and greater broadband adoption. The Plan calls for the creation of a Connect America Fund to distribute USF monies to ISPs that cover underserved and low income areas. … Continue reading →

It’s a slow afternoon here, so I had a little time  to consider one mind-numbing regulatory aspect of the growing number of group messaging and conferencing startups. Eventually when these companies (Fast Society, Group.me, et. al) start charging for their … Continue reading →

Maybe it’s the result of a second espresso I had this morning, but Google’s recent comment on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rule Making on Universal Service Fund reform doesn’t read like a typical carrier screed. It’s their engineering culture. … Continue reading →

I raise my cup of espresso to the FCC for starting the process to reform the Universal Service Fund with the ultimate goal  of modernizing a rusting regulatory structure that is not up to task of universal broadband service. Reading … Continue reading →

Thomaseagle/Wikimedia K Street lawyers, AT&T, state regulators, and rural LECs who have been anxiously awaiting the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rule Making on USF and ICC reform will not be disappointed by this massive document. It makes the Net Neutrality … Continue reading →

FCC Chairman Genachowski has set a vote tomorrow for a  Notice of Proposed Rule Making on Universal Service Fund and Intercarrier Compensation reform. Some of the ideas Mr. G sketched out in a speech today, in which he called the … Continue reading →

There was one part of ITExpo I was able to attend remotely. The Regulatory 2.0 sub-conference at ITExpo is an under-appreciated gathering of lawyers, FCC observers, engineers, and legally-savvy telecom entrepreneurs, who all had definite viewpoints on net neutrality and … Continue reading →

That's not an Onion headline. But after perusing a few key sections of the officially released National Broadband Plan I learned that the FCC recommendations involve either more study or vague posturings on important policy debates that have been raging since dawn of time: broadening the universal service fund (USF) to include VoIP carriers (see weakly worded Recommendation 8.10), wholesale access and pricing (see tepid Recommendation 4.7), openness of mobile devices (no recommendations that I can find), and the overall question of whether we have a competitive broadband market (for what it's worth, Recommendation 4.2). Continue reading →