WASHINGTON August 6, 2010 - The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has approved legislation that gives the Secretary of Energy the power to issue orders regarding threats to the electric grid. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, August 2, 2010 – Regulators in the state of Hawaii have recently rejected a $115 million smart grid expansion project. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2010 – At BroadbandBreakfast.com’s breakfast club this week, experts in the smart grid field said issues such as consumer adoption, environmental benefits and privacy concerns would decide the future of grid development. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 21, 2010 - The "smart grid," or the way that the electric infrastructure can be enhanced with interactive, telecommunications- and broadband-related capabilities, may not be that important for consumers, said panelists at Tuesday's Broadband Breakfast Club. At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission Energy and Environment Director Nick Sinai, in a keynote speech at the Broadband Breakfast Club, said that intelligent electric infrastructure -- including consumer data about energy use -- could enhance competition in electricity and in broadband. The event is available on BroadbandBreakfast.com at the following link. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 15, 2010 – Nick Sinai, Director of Energy & Environment for the FCC’s Omnibus Broadband Initiative will keynote The Broadband Breakfast Club’s event “The Smart Grid, Telecommunications and the Electric Infrastructure” on Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 8 am – 10 am at Clyde’s of Gallery Place, 707 7th St. NW, Washington, DC 20001. Registration is available at http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 16, 2010. General Electric is seeking project ideas for renewable energy, electric grid efficiency, and ecobuilding technologies through its Ecomagination Challenge. There is over $200 million invested in this innovation experiment, where people can try to get their ideas for building the next-generation power grid funded. GE works with venture capital firms to get the most promising ideas resources and funding. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 13, 2010- A panel of smart grid experts claims that smart grid advocates and providers are not doing enough to educate consumers about the benefits of smart grid technology. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON July 7, 2010- National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) has just released a draft of its proposed resolutions for their summer meeting. The organization is proposing a fourth way of regulating broadband and would like the federal government to take a hands off approach to smart grid. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON June 29, 2010-AT&T’s mobile broadband network will work will CURRENT Smart Grid Distribution Solutions to increase grid efficiency and system capacity. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, June 18, 2010 - The Utilities Telecom Council and Verizon will conduct a first-of-its-kind study on the information and technology required to support the nation’s utilities. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, June 4, 2010 – Chattanooga, Tennessee will now have the fastest home broadband speeds in the nation through a municipal fiber optic network. The network is maintained through a subsidiary, EPB Fiber Optics, of the city’s municipal electric provider EPB. The network boasts speeds of up to 150Mbps symmetrical, in comparison the fastest Verizon Fios is offering is 50Mbp down and 20Mbps up. This new high speed access is quite expensive for users, the 100Mbps plan is $349; pricing for the new 150 plan not announced yet. Keep Reading
UTOPIA, billed as providing light-speed to your door while connecting you with friends, family, entertainment, businesses, healthcare, and education, highlights itself as being part of your home, not owned by any network provider. Keep Reading
DALLAS, April 29, 2010 - Broadband is a powerful solution to community ills, former two-term mayor Fort Wayne, Indiana, Graham Richard said Tuesday at a packed keynote luncheon at the 2010 Broadband Properties Summit here. His address presented a model for community involvement in the proliferation of broadband as a tool to make cities more efficient, retain and gain jobs, while educating a workforce for the future. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, April 26, 2010 – BroadbandBreakfast.com, a broadband and internet technology news service on Monday - Intellectual Property Day - launched a new series of breakfast events entitled “The Intellectual Property Breakfast Club.” The series, which will occur on May 11, June 8 and July 13, complements BroadbandBreakfast.com’s highly popular “Broadband Breakfast Club,” which will continue to meet each month. Sponsored by Intel Corporation and Time Warner Cable, the new series will probe a diverse set of topics, including the Google Book Search case and e-book licensing; increasing controversies over retransmission consent; and international progress against counterfeiting. Keep Reading
THE MISSION OF THE PLAN is to create a high-performance America—a more productive, creative, efficient America in which affordable broadband is available everywhere and everyone has the means and skills to use valuable broadband applications. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 26, 2010 - On Friday, Cisco Systems announced a partnership with Grid Net, a smart meter company that employs WiMax Technology to send data about electricity usage back to utility companies. Grid Net has also garnered with ClearWire, Motorola, Intel, and General Electric. With the investment by Cisco, Grid Net is poised to become the leader in smart meters in America. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 26, 2010 - The national broadband plan aims to present not just a roadmap of how to expand broadband but also to provide a long-term vision of innovation. While the first chapter of the plan explains its overarching goals and congressional mandate, the plan is really outlined in the second chapter. The plan has six goals that the Federal Communications Commission plans to achieve through four general recommendations. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 15, 2010 - Blair Levin, head of the Federal Communications Commission’s national broadband plan and the “national purposes” team at the agency previewed key points from the upcoming national broadband plan. The object of the plan, they said, is not just to expand broadband networks, but to enable the creation of applications and innovations built upon that network. The six primary objective areas presented were healthcare, education, energy, civic engagement, economic expansion, and public safety. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 22, 2010 - A meeting of regulatory commissioners last weekend included much discussion of major telecommunications issues such as the state of the nation’s broadband. Keep Reading
Washington, February 16, 2010 - Federal Communications Commission chief Julius Genachowski previewed the agency’s upcoming plan to outfit the nation with broadband access at a winter committee meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 9, 2010 - The president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has nominated Carlito Caliboso of Hawaii and Robert Clayton of Missouri to become members of a group interested in advanced telecommunications deployment on local, state and federal levels. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, December 17, 2009 – Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that $2 billion will be made available on a rolling basis over the next 75 days to increase broadband penetration across the country. The money is part of the $7.2 billion Congress allocated in January for national broadband investments. Keep Reading
December 1, 2009 – At a Monday hearing on the relationship between broadband technology and smart grid communications by the Federal Communications Commission in Cambridge, Mass., panelists made clear the important relationship between energy-efficient technologies and economic growth. “I think [broadband adoption] is central to our long term economic growth. And it’s success is proxy to how much economic growth we will have in the future,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., speaking at the FCC event hosted by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, November 24, 2009 – The Department of Energy will provide more than $7 million to fund two Pennsylvania projects that are focused on advanced technologies that could be used to help build a more efficient electrical grid. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, November 23, 2009 - The Federal Communications Commission plans to hold a field hearing on energy and environmental issues this month at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The hearing, which will take place on November 30, will focus “on how broadband can help the nation achieve its energy and environmental goals, including energy independence, greenhouse gas emissions reductions and clean energy generation.” Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, November 17, 2009 - An upgrade to a high-performance computing system housed by the Department of Energy has created the fastest supercomputer in the world, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced Tuesday.
"Supercomputer modeling and simulation is changing the face of science and sharpening America's competitive edge," said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in a statement. "Oak Ridge and other DOE national laboratories are helping address major energy and climate challenges and lead America toward a clean energy future."
Keep ReadingWASHINGTON, November 15, 2009 - The government of the United Kingdom defined the term “carbon neutral” this month after holding a public consultation on the subject. The Department of Energy and Climate Change, which was established in 2008, said that “carbon neutral means that – through a transparent process of calculating emissions, reducing those emissions and offsetting residual emissions – net carbon emissions equal zero.” Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, November 14, 2009 - Congresswoman Doris Matsui touted legislation in a speech Friday that would require the Federal Communications Commission to create a program that would enable qualifying low-income customers to purchase broadband service at reduced prices. Under the bill filed last month, H.R.3646, the government would reimburse broadband providers for each low-income customer served and ensure that the program would be neutral to different technologies. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, November 11, 2009 - The creation of a “smart grid” for electricity conservation may lead to parallel telecommunications networks by both utilities and traditional telephone communications providers; whether or not this was a positive development was debated at the Broadband Breakfast Club on Tuesday. The “smart grid” enables communications about electric transmissions over that electric infrastructure. Broadband, or high-speed internet access, has traditionally occurred over telephone, cable or wireless networks. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, November 9, 2009 - While some tech companies have sought to reduce their carbon footprint in the world, a number of them have been reluctant to do this. Instead, they have been buying into environmentally-friendly projects meant to offset their carbon emissions. While technology companies have considered carbon offset projects, such as investing in a forest sequestration project to balance out there carbon emissions, more are opting to place greater emphasis on developing innovative solutions to reduce energy consumption within company walls. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, October 29, 2009 – Under regulations recently finalized by the Environmental Protection Administration, large sources and suppliers in the U.S. must collect accurate and timely emissions data of greenhouse gases. Information technology firms see big opportunities to find innovative solutions to help companies covered under the new rules to comply with reporting requirements. These representatives say that potential new regulatory changes, which were issued by the EPA on September 22, 2009 – and become effective at the beginning of the year – could spur new business ideas. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, October 28, 2009 - Many think of oil and paper industries as enemies in the war against climate change. They think of sport utility vehicle drivers and excessive paper use as contributing factors to global warming. But what about the carbon footprint of the information technology industry: the personal computers, e-mails, spam messages and electricity required to support internet infrastructure? Keep Reading
The Media Access Project will hold the third session in its 2009 MAPPING CHANGE series on October 8 in Silicon Valley for a conference exploring the issue of “smart grids.” MAP aims to bring together experts on communications, information technology, energy, and infrastructure to discuss policy developments and implementation strategies promoting smarter energy management and environmentally sustainable technologies. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, June 28, 2009 – The Department of Energy on Thursday published eligibility criteria for applicants of so-called “smart grid” funding applicants, with up to $3.9 billion available in grants to support the upgrading the electricity grid. Keep Reading
SAN MATEO, Calif., May 12th, 2009 - Implementing a smart electrical grid could save consumers money while allowing utilities to better serve their customers, a panel of industry representatives said Tuesday during a round-table discussion at the Tech Policy Summit. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 3, 2009 – Revamping the nation’s energy grid for the 21st Century could increase demand for a nationwide broadband network. But a group of experts from government, standards-setting bodies and industry told senators Tuesday that all stakeholders must first do a better job of working together to digitize electricity transmission and delivery systems. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 9 – Three technology and telecommunications companies pressed their case Wednesday on Capitol Hill for better and more accessible broadband in order to promote energy conservation and a “green economy.” Keep Reading