WASHINGTON, March 11, 2010 – The FCC launched its consumer broadband test today, enabling consumers to test the speed and other performance measurements of their broadband connections.

Representing a congressional district that includes Omaha, Nebraska, Republican Rep. Lee Terry knows first hand the benefits of advanced telecommunications. Omaha is home to four Fortune 500 companies and as highlighted in Stephen Colbert’s “Better Know a District,” Omaha is the teleservices capital of the country. Omaha is the teleservices capital not because Omahans lack of a notable accent as Colbert notes, but rather because Omaha has benefited from a very robust telecommunications network. In fact, Omaha has consistently maintained its place at the forefront of new telecommunications technologies. In the early 1980’s, Omaha was one of the first cities in the U.S. to develop a fiber optic cable network. By 1992, multiple carrier fiber optic networks provided service to the Omaha metro area, giving rise to a proliferation of teleservices operations in Omaha.

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2010 – Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan on Tuesday compared broadband expansion in the United States to the development of the interstate highway system under President Eisenhower, speaking at the Knight Center for Digital Inclusion.

Also speaking at the event was Federal Communications Commissioner Chairman Julius Genachowski, who addressed the various impacts of broadband on the wider economy and the need for expansion in order to spur innovation. Genachowski also commented on the fact that the United States has fallen behind on key metrics; once number two globally, the United States has fallen to a distant 15 in connectivity.

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2010 – Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Tuesday announced a new initiative to remedy the low penetration and adoption rate for broadband among Native Americans. In previous remarks on the subject Genachowski had characterized the status of broadband in Indian Country as a “disgrace” and vowed to include a fix in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan.

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2010 – The Federal Communications Commission could do a better job of collecting and managing the information it gathers from consumers, businesses and other entities, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

WASHINGTON, February 23, 2010 – Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Tuesday outlined goals for broadband supply and demand, and said that by 2020, 100 megabit per second (Mbps) broadband should be available to 100 million households.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution at the unveiling of an FCC survey on broadband adoption and use in America, Genachowski also said that by 10 years from now, 90 percent of population should have adopted broadband, and that all high school graduates need to be digitally literate.

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.

WASHINGTON, February 10, 2010 – Google shook up the broadband world on Wednesday with the announcement, on its blog, that it plans to offer super-fast broadband, at speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second, to up to 500,000 homes.

Google framed its entrance into the marketplace to deploy fiber-optic services as a “testbed” to understand more about the way that consumers and businesses use internet applications when truly high-speed services are available.

“We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections,” said Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly, project managers at Google. “We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.”

WASHINGTON February 1, 2010 – As a follow-up to President Obama’s State of the Union Speech last week, Obama sat down with YouTube’s news and political director Steve Grove to answer questions submitted and voted on by users of YouTube, which is owned by Google. The total number of votes cast were 774,450, on 14,476 questions, from nearly 65,000 users.

The number one question in the “jobs and economy” category came from James Earlywine of Indianapolis, who asked: “An open internet is a powerful engine for economic growth and new jobs. Letting large companies block and filter online content and services would stifle needed growth. What is your commitment to keeping the Internet open and neutral in America?”

“I’m a big believer in Net Neutrality,” said Obama.

WASHINGTON, January 28, 2010 – Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland sent a letter to her colleagues on Wednesday urging them to sign a petition supporting the principles of network neutrality.