WASHINGTON, December 7, 2009 – Broadband should be the central focus of the next generation of the Universal Service Fund, OPASTCO said Monday in comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission. TheOrganization for the Promotion and Aid of Small Telecommunications Companies’ comments highlight a plan to push affordable broadband to the rural areas those carriers serve.
WASHINGTON, November 18, 2009 – The Universal Service Fund is in need of an overhaul to equalize costs among stakeholders and modernize programs to include broadband services, a group of industry representatives and regulators told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet during a Tuesday hearing.
The hearing examined a discussion draft of the Universal Service Reform Act of 2009, authored by subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb.
The Universal Service program, which existed for decades before being codified in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, is under “tremendous pressure” and requires a comprehensive effort to reform its operations, Boucher said during opening remarks.
WASHINGTON, August 3, 2009 – The Federal Communication Commission’s aggressive press toward a federal broadband policy is the biggest telecommunications policy story at the moment, but there are still other more mundane matters going on at the agency.
DALLAS, May 4, 2009 – Regulations have not yet been issued regarding the federal government’s program to invest $7.2 billion in broadband networks, but experts inside and outside of government took their best shot at explaining the program’s contours at the Broadband Properties conference here.
WASHINGTON, March 20, 2009 – Debate about the broadband divide in America resurfaced at a Thursday afternoon public roundtable about how the federal government should spend $7.2 billion in broadband.
WASHINGTON, November 4 – The Federal Communications Commission on Monday deleted one of the four big-ticket items that it planned to tackle at its Tuesday open meeting, but resisted pressure to spike a rule that would force broadcasters to share the vacant spaces between television channels.
WASHINGTON, July 17 – Communications Workers of America this past week teamed up with a group of telecommunications companies, cable operators and non-profit groups to push for Congress to pass broadband data legislation. Internet for Everyone also wants better broadband.
Commentary WASHINGTON, July 15 – Most Americans who have high-speed Internet can’t imagine life without broadband. How could you connect to the Internet of today without it? In today’s world, broadband is as basic as running water and electricity. And yet the U.S. is falling behind globally.
WASHINGTON, July 14 – A study about broadband adoption by the Phoenix Center is a better gage of United States deployment than the higher-profile reports of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Republican Federal Communications Commissioner said Monday.