tvb

At their May board meeting, the FCC is set to allocate frequencies in the 2360 to 2400 MHz spectrum for short-range, low power medical use. This application is called Medical Body Area Network or MBAN, and will allow doctors to … Continue reading →

Last summer, I wrote about the mind-numbingly tedious battle between Comcast and Bloomberg over whether Bloomberg’s news channel was being exiled to television Siberia in most of the important Designated Market Areas or DMAs. Bloomberg filed a pretty well-documented complaint … Continue reading →

Our friends at The Simple Dollar, a consumer-focused blog, have put together an infographic showing how AT&T and Verizon dominate the US wireless market. There’s not much new information, but you are given a panoramic view of the existing terrain. … Continue reading →

I haven’t visited the FCC’s website in recent months. At least since the FCC’s Heimlich maneuver that forced AT&T to cough-up T-Mobile. While some in Congress think otherwise, there’s more to the FCC than its evil plans on our communications … Continue reading →

So much to choose from! I’ve gotten through the first half of the FCC’s analysis of the AT&T-T-Mobile merger. To my utter lack of surprise, all the things you or I might have intuited about this deal have been found … Continue reading →

They argued over lists and schedules and experts witnesses and limitations placed on adverse witnesses and written versus oral testimony and perhaps the number of coffee breaks–’cause this trial will require plenty of that. I am referring to the pre-trial … Continue reading →

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 →

The US Senate is expected to vote on Joint Resolution 6 this week. You mean you’ve forgotten about this? SJ 6 is a one sentence piece of legislation that succinctly expresses Senators’ (read Republicans’) desire to stomp on the FCC’s … Continue reading →

I had great unobstructed front rows seats for last night’s Hacks/Hackers Meetup NYC. Exiled to the long waiting list, I instead watched a livestream of the interactive map making presentations with my MacBook propped on the coffee table in my … Continue reading →

With a little time on my hands yesterday afternoon, I was scanning my Google Reader when I came across a startling headline. According to a Reuters story, the cable industry is doing an about face on its long standing opposition … Continue reading →

The FCC divides the country up, in terms of wireless spectrum, into CMAs or Cellular Market Areas. In their recent suit against AT&T, the US Department of Justice gauged the effect of a T-Mobile acquisition across the top 100 CMAs, … Continue reading →

Bloomberg reports that the US Department of Justice has filed an anti-trust complaint against the AT&T-T-Mobile merger at the US District Court, District of Columbia.

With everyone on vacation or preparing for vacation, the FCC released letters from our Congressional representatives regarding their feelings on the AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile. None of the opinions express should come as a surprise to anyone following this debate. … Continue reading →

The  200+ page response  to Bloomberg TV’s complaint that it had been exiled in Comcast’s lineup from the major players news neighborhoods —Fox, CNN, CNBC, etc.— has been submitted to the FCC. The lawyers must have had loads of fun … Continue reading →

The FCC’s cableCARD initiative was supposed to crack open the proprietary set-top box provided by the cable operators and give consumers more box choices. The idea was that you would purchase a PCMIA card for decrypting the cable signal and … Continue reading →

While AT&T may be boasting about the wireless side of the business in its 2Q results, Ma Bell 2.0 is still very dependent on its copper cables. True, wireless revenue has been doing the growing, rising to $14.1 billion over … Continue reading →

It’s been about two weeks since I attended Consumer Electronics Week at NYC, watched 3D TV on big screens and small, and met with local TV entrepreneur Jack Perry. TV is still very much on my mind. Perry’s company Syncbak … Continue reading →

When Comcast acquired NBC from General Electric, one of the conditions in the FCC order approving the acquisition was that this media conglomerate must carry in their existing news neighborhoods “all independent news and business news channels”—like, for example, Bloomberg’s … Continue reading →

The FCC released another paperweight-class report. Entitled The Information Needs of Communities, this 478 pager (with footnotes) is “an in-depth analysis of the current state of the media landscape along with a broad range of recommendations.” Produced by journalists, academics, … Continue reading →

New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg announced today an agreement with AT&T to provide free public WiFi service for the next five years in 20 city parks. They’ll soon be coverage in parts of Manhattan’s Central Park, in Battery Park, along … Continue reading →

There may be good arguments in support of AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile, but improved WiFi access in the Grand Canyon is not one of them. But that’s the claim that the Grand Canyon Hotel Operators Association makes in its comment … Continue reading →

I’m going to review this massive petition to denial filing—redacted, though, for public viewing—over this short holiday week. Not surprisingly, Sprint Nextel is not happy with AT&T’s bid to swallow T-Mobile. With the word duopoloy (according to my PDF search) … Continue reading →

I didn’t think there was much to say about FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker’s bold decision to leave the FCC for NBC Universal. Shocking? No really. As we all know Baker voted to approve Comcast’s acquisition of NBC a few months … Continue reading →

Last week, the FCC released its annual report on carrier revenue based on Form 499 filings, this blog’s favorite regulatory worksheet. And those numbers confirm what we already knew: revenue from voice—both mobile and fixed line—has already plateaued and is … Continue reading →

Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin has filed his $.02 in the FCC’s AT&T/T-Mobile docket. According to Eakin, who was John McCain’s economic adviser on the campaign trail: If this merger is approved by the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission, no monopoly … Continue reading →

CNET has gone on a spelunking expedition into the recent AT&T FCC filing and brought a few things up to the surface. One nugget that caught my attention is from a document written by AT&T’s Chief Technology Officer, John Donovan. … 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 →

You can read excerpts from AT&T filing to the FCC on their website. AT&T claims with the purchase of T-Mobile there’ll be fewer dropped and blocked calls, consumers will be empowered to participate more fully in our broadband society, and … Continue reading →

Last week the FCC made it official: they’ve opened a new docket—that would be 11-65—for the “proposed transfer of control of T-Mobile USA, Inc. and  its subsidiaries from Deutsche Telekom AG to AT&T Inc.” Let the ex-parte comments and presentations … Continue reading →

Is it the right time to put together a golden oldies album of our public phone system’s greatest app hits? I think so. Even the FCC is currently scrutinizing carrier comments on sunsetting the copper wires and rusting switches that gave … 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 →

Now that Larry “Willie Wonka” Page has named Kansas City, Kansas the winner of the golden gigabit contest, residents there will soon be like kids in the broadband candy store. If all goes to plan, they’ll be gorging out on … Continue reading →

Missed Aspen Institute’s IDEA Plenary (“a transatlantic dialogue to address common interests in a free and open Internet capable of enhancing economic growth”) held in Brussels, Belgium yesterday? Not to worry, FCC Chairman Genachowski was there to address the gathered … Continue reading →

With the announcement that AT&T will be ending its all you can eat broadband for DSL and U-Verse customers, I decided to take a look at how US broadband compares with the rest of the world. And I mean beyond … 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 →

Yesterday’s Q&A session at the House Communications and Internet Subcommittee felt a little bit mockumentary, a little bit reality TV show with a few movie stars making appearances. Yes, the Republicans were playing “we’re just folks”, taking on the bumbling … 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 →

On Tuesday, the DC Court of Appeals denied Verizon’s request to have the same judges who decided Comcast vs. FCC hear its challenge to the new Open Internet rules. Still to be resolved is the FCC’s motion to dismiss the … Continue reading →

Back in November 2010, Zoom Telephonics, makers of cable modems, filed a complaint with the FCC against Comcast. The modem manufacturer cited anti-competitive practices in Comcast’s new Physical and Environment (P&E) acceptance testing of their modems. According to Zoom’s filing, … Continue reading →

To everything there is a season. A time to propose Open Internet rules. A time to seek relief from these arbitrary and capricious rules in the courts, specifically the DC Court of Appeals. Let’s say it’s not a complete surprise … Continue reading →

Telecom consultant Gary Audin has recently come out with a solid overview article on a question that has no doubt kept telecom wonks up at night: Can the PSTN be Shut Down? I include myself in that geeky group who … Continue reading →

After burning off my holiday calories shoveling out of Snowmageddon 2010, I was ready to settle down with a good book and a flagon of mulled cider. Perhaps I was still looking for more Sisyphean exercises, so instead of Harry … Continue reading →

The FCC voted 3-2 (along the usual party lines) to approve the Open Internet Order  or as the media refers to it, NET NEUTRALITY.  I suppose a set of rules that has brought condemnation from both sides of the argument … Continue reading →

In case you weren’t at the Web 2.0 Summit earlier this month to hear FCC Chairman Genachowski, O’Reilly has published the interview on YouTube. My Google Reader had already bombarded me with excerpts of Genachowski’s remarks (“net neutrality will happen”) … Continue reading →

With pre-election talk of new telecom laws and in the aftermath of the Comcast decision, I was hoping to not revisit the spooky crypt containing moldy Supreme Court decisions and worm-eaten FCC regulatory rulings for a few months. But I … Continue reading →

If you haven’t already, please read Seymour Hersh’s insightful and non-alarmist New Yorker article on cyber security in the context of the recent Stuxnet virus and China’s growing hack capabilities. The Hersh piece contains a very simple solution to safeguard … Continue reading →

On Friday, the FCC sent out a letter to Fox and Cablevision requesting both to state how they  are meeting their statutory obligations ( “to negotiate in good faith”) over their current retransmission dispute.  As Yankee fans are painfully aware, … Continue reading →

As someone who has lived through this issue for many years, and who watched the tortoise- like and tortured pace of discussions about unidirectionality and bidirectionality—I felt the pain, believe me. We can’t do that again, but the sad saga … Continue reading →

Holy Heisenberg! Scientific American, the magazine better known for writing about dark holes and gene splicing, has editorialized earlier this month on the state of US broadband. While SA has in recent years taken on more topical subject matter, there … Continue reading →

I wanted to get this post out before we close up shop for a small business-related trip. We’re taking off to study social networking issues in a beloved southern European country noted for its incredible contributions to art, culture,  food, … Continue reading →

I missed this month’s New York Tech Meetup due to a previous engagement that was scheduled over 5000 years ago. By the way, Matt Merriam has a nice summary of September’s NYTM demos. One of the startups, Kodingen, caught my … Continue reading →

I practically did a spit take while drinking my coffee this morning and reading The New York Times story about a municipal broadband project in Tennessee.  I learned that  Chattanooga’s  community owned power provider, EPB, has plans to offer up … Continue reading →

What happened was that in less than a generation, a media landscape that should have been moving toward more diversity, more localism and more competition was transformed into a market controlled by a handful of players, too often providing little … Continue reading →

Is this what Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg metaphorically whispered into the Google founder’s ear?  I’m still reeling from the Google-Verizon non-aggression pact and what it will mean for a  competitive and open Internet.  Some have pointed out that the proposal … Continue reading →

So there wasn’t an agreement between Google and Verizon, as reported by The New York Times, on price tiers. Instead the two companies released a modest proposal and legislative framework for an open Internet.  I like the boldness of their … Continue reading →

Any deal that doesn’t preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet will be unacceptable.

Ars Technica reported a few months ago that the practice of slamming still lives on. Slamming involves the deceptive switching of a customer’s voice carrier. It is one of those minor protections spelled out in Title II of the Communications … Continue reading →

On Tuesday, the FCC released its sixth annual report, as required by law, on the state of US broadband. Their conclusion:”… broadband deployment to all Americans is not reasonable and timely.”  This differs from the five preceding reports. The reason … Continue reading →

The FCC just posted an ex parte filing from Google in which the search giant makes it feelings on net neutrality and Title II reclassification crystal clear. Here’s the money quote: “The FCC needs to assert affirmative oversight and enforcement … Continue reading →

You can sense where the Internet may be heading by looking at the bandwidth policy platforms that core infrastructure vendors are offering to carriers. With equipment from Tekelec, a major networking equipment player, cable companies can monitor and allocate bandwidth … Continue reading →

A article in Wired by Ryan Singel does a nice job of explaining why the cable ISPs need regulation. As this blog has also been saying, reclassification of their services as telecommunications, the current FCC strategy, undoes a bad course … Continue reading →

Not according to, er, AT&T.  “Intellectual contradiction” and “noisome trumpeter” and other mean words were lobbed at Google by AT&T in a letter to the FCC in September 2009.  You get a little dizzy reading this contrivance especially when AT&T … Continue reading →

Let the games begin and ex parte filings flow! The FCC formally opened its proceedings yesterday on the classification of broadband Internet.   The agency released a 64 page, footnote-chocked Notice of Inquiry, Framework for Broadband Internet Service, to set this round … Continue reading →

Waves of bad news coming out of AT&T recently stand as a reminder of what life would be like if the crown was restored to this former monarch. First there was the iPad security escapade wherein a group of hackers … Continue reading →

AT&T Picturephone It’s been a long standing journalistic practice that when writing about the failure of yet another video phone product, you march out AT&T’s Picturephone launch at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. I believe it’s a pretty safe … Continue reading →

Perspectives from David Pogue (New York Times) and Stacy Higginbotham (Gigaom) are a good starting point to understanding what data caps, pricing tiers, and tethering charges imply about the state of wireless competition (less than thriving) and profit expectations of … Continue reading →

After tuning into parts of Google's IO conference last month, news about version 3 of the Maps API slowly made its way into my waking consciousness. I had some time last week to explore this newer, cleaner Map interface as part of a project I've been thinking about. I wanted to get a handle on competition in the broadband sector, a topic I've been covering since the start of this blog, and was hoping to use visualization to get answers and also generate new questions. While trolling the FCC's Gov 2.0 sitelet, I came across files containing service provider competitive data. I then learned about the extensive data the FCC captures from carriers on a per zip code basis as part of its "Form 477" database. Some of the 477 statistics are publicly available, but much is still closed off. (Hey, FCC open those files!) I just needed a way to render zip codes into geo data suitable for mapping. A few more Google searches led me to state-by-state files of zip code polygon paths at the US Census Bureau's page of cartographic boundary files. I had enough to get started. Continue reading →

The FCC reported that  emergency agencies in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were able to stitch together a 700 MHz radio network to connect first responders and government workers.   This was an ad hoc telecom effort to, in effect, route callers … Continue reading →

Carriers have always loved to meter. They are utilities after all.  Of course, then came the Internet,  dirt cheap bits,  and a generation of consumers brought up on free.  Wanting to charge on a piecemeal basis but fearful of consumer … Continue reading →

Congress announced on Monday that they will start the process of revising the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The key committee players (Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Sen. John Kerry, Rep. Henry Waxman, and Rep. John Boucher) will bring together “stakeholders” in a … Continue reading →

It looks like an end game in legacy copper communications is playing out. On Friday, Verizon received approval from the FCC to sell off its wireline operations in 14 states to Frontier Communications: Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia. The affected subscribers are concentrated in rural, low density areas and small cities. The FCC attached a few weak, purely voluntary conditions on Frontier for this transfer of 4.8 million lines. Continue reading →

After the FCC lost its net neutrality case against Comcast, I put on hold a project to review a series of YouTube videos involving Chairman Genachowski. The rough plan was to gain some insight as to how the FCC would … Continue reading →

I discovered an excellent group blog, Wetmachine, that covers telecom policy, technology, and software. The telecom part is written by Harold Feld, a public-interest attorney, in his Tales of the Sausage Factory—aka the FCC. Feld provides excellent background on the … Continue reading →

Sections 201, 202, and 208. These fundamental provisions collectively forbid unreasonable denials of service and other unjust or unreasonable practices, and allow the Commission to enforce the prohibition.  Long before the Comcast decision, access providers supporting an information service classification … Continue reading →

As expected, the FCC has decided to reclassify Internet broadband as a telecommunications service. It’s approach is to apply Title II common carrier requirements to Internet broadband, but forbear most of the provisions except six, those associated with denial of … Continue reading →

Based on "anonymous sources", the New York Times is reporting that the FCC will reclassify cable broadband today as a hybrid beast, part information and part telecommunications service. This is based on the well known principle that voice (a transmission that doesn't involve a change in format) can infect the information part (a format changing transmission) and... forget it, it's too painful to go into. So you would think that information and content providers would uniformly welcome the FCC's new classification scheme as a way to preserve net neutrality? Not so fast. As I had argued in an earlier post, facility-less VoIP carrier are not going to be very excited about having the legacy telecommunications legal superstructure of Title II placed over them. If you dig into recent FCC filings, you'll see that at least one major VoIP provider, Vonage, has concerns about the FCC's helping hand. Continue reading →

Earlier this month, I glued together two neat apps using parts supplied by two different VoiceXML unified communications companies. The first lets me call in to a VoXMLPHP script hosted by Tropo, which then interprets my voice commands and reads … Continue reading →

I’d like to put aside, permanently, the debate about the correct classification of cable service, which has been argued in the courts for years.  In fact,  the underlying question—what is digital communications—has been endlessly and unproductively analyzed in legal and regulatory … Continue reading →

Susan Crawford, a former aid to Obama on his FCC transition team, has an op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times. Her idea on how the FCC can regain the high ground after the net neutrality defeat is to reclassify cable … Continue reading →

The AP reports that a federal appeals court has decided against the FCC’s claim that it has the authority to impose net neutrality obligations on carriers and service providers. I’m guessing (hoping) that this will be appealed. In any case, … Continue reading →

Ubiquitous high-speed mobile connectivity is spawning new industries and allowing existing industries to become more productive. These services and others yet to be developed will enable entrepreneurs, consumers, non-profit organizations, and government to interact and build better businesses and stronger … Continue reading →

Startling statement: Cisco is in the business of selling routers. So it’s not surprising that its announcement today, which was billed as news that will change the Internet forever, involves said piece of hardware. Analysts were expecting an update to … Continue reading →

In those countries, when a regulator says to do something, what happens is that within a very reasonable, short timeframe, those things are done. What happens in the United States is that, when a regulator says something—I’m not complaining about … Continue reading →

….for all the new iPads, and other iGadgets.  In his speech at the New America Foundation outlining the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, Chairman Genachowski  said that  TV broadcasters are not using their spectrum efficiently.  He proposed a Mobile Future Auction. … Continue reading →

There is a provision in Apple’s agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality in any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T’s cellular network service to originate or terminate a VoIP session without obtaining AT&T’s … Continue reading →

I was captivated by the CTIA’s comment  filed recently in response to the FCC Notice of Inquiry (or NOI) on Wireless Competition. In this factoid filled ex parte presentation, the wireless industry’s leading trade group was crowing about the robust … Continue reading →

By allowing innovation to be easily implemented at the edge of the network, the end-to-end design of the Internet has lowered technical, financial, and administrative barriers to entry for entrepreneurs with technical skill and bright ideas.

As we all know, Verizon went public on Tuesday with its agreement to allow Skype's VoIP application to run on its network. There are still a few gotchas for Verizon subscribers who want the service, but in the world of telecom this is momentous. Faced with the FCC's proposed rules for net neutrality and a new fifth principle of non-discrimination, Verizon (along with AT&T) has relented. Continue reading →

The FCC has decided today is weighing a request that would force cable providers and carriers to lease  FTTH (fiber-to-the-home)  lines to competitive carriers and application service providers. A favorable FCC ruling would be a major change in policy. Previously, incumbents … Continue reading →

Yesterday the Official Google Blog revealed plans for a 1 Gig fiber-to-the-home network. Their project sounds almost tentative and in the spirit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake: …the purpose of this project is to experiment and learn. Network providers are … Continue reading →

AT&T reversed  course and decided to allow Sling Media’s iPhone app to run on its network.   The app was previously viewed as a congestion hog, but  Sling  (under the supervision of AT&T) tweaked its software to lower bandwidth consumption.  iCall, … Continue reading →

Remember the iPhone? It’s like a smaller version of the iPad. Anyway, the tech press is all over the news that Apple unlocked VoIP calling within the iPhone SDK . The first app to take advantage is iCall (or maybe … Continue reading →