WASHINGTON, April 6, 2010 - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission does not have the power to mandate that broadband provider Comcast must give equal treatment to Internet traffic streaming through its networks. Interested parties in the broadband community rushed to express their opinions. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 15, 2010 - An executive summary of the Federal Communications Commission's forthcoming National Broadband Plan drew near-unanimous praise from stakeholders on the eve of the full plan's release, with industry groups, public interest advocates and lawmakers all weighing in positively as they became aware of the agency’s intentions. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 9, 2010 – Public Knowledge, Silicon Flatirons and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation last week sponsored a half-day conference to discuss the Federal Communications Commission and its efforts in reform, regulatory responsibility and standard setting. The second panel looked at the pros and cons of regulation, self-regulation and co-regulation. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 8, 2010 - Panelists from the Federal Communications Commission, Capitol Hill, public interest groups and the private sector addressed issues of FCC reform and regulatory responsibility at “An FCC for the Internet Age: Reform and Standard-Setting, a half-day conference sponsored by Public Knowledge, Silicon Flatirons and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 18, 2010 – NBC-Universal Vice President Richard Cotton on Wednesday called upon internet service providers to be permitted to filter content over their pipes for copyright violations, and compared copyright filtering to filtering for computer viruses. Cotton’s statement was part of a briefing outlining the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s top 2010 intellectual property priorities. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 18, 2010 – A coalition of public interest groups on Wednesday called on the Federal Communications Commission to include a set of ambitious benchmarks and policies in the agency’s upcoming national broadband plan. The agency will discuss aspects of the national broadband plan, now due on March 17, 2010, at the February monthly meeting being held on Wednesday. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 12, 2010 - The FCC should do everything it can in the upcoming national broadband plan to restore competition in the communications market, shows a new study spearheaded by Economics and Technology and lauded by Public Knowledge. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 8, 2010 - The Federal Communications Commission has received thousands of comments both lauding and criticizing its proposed plan to address the controversial issue of network neutrality. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, January 27, 2010 - Broadband Census News LLC on Wednesday released, for FREE, the full-length video of the BroadbandBreakfast.com event on January 19, 2010: The Town Hall Webcast on the topic of "Net Neutrality, Copyright Protection and the National Broadband Plan." The event, moderated by Kim Hart of The Hill and Drew Clark of BroadbandBreakfast.com, begins with an introductory welcome by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, and is followed by two panels, the first focused on technolgy, and the second focused on policy. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, January 19, 2010 - Communication and intellectual property experts debated whether a national broadband plan is the right vehicle for addressing copyright and network neutrality issues and whether the FCC is overstepping its bounds by dabbling with copyright issues. Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn sparred with officials from the Recording Industry Association of America, telling RIAA’s executive vice president and general counsel that the recording and Hollywood industries along with some song writers want iinternet service providers to filter networks for copyright infringement. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, January 18, 2010 - Monday is the last day to register to attend BroadbandBreakfast.com's Town Hall Webcast on "Net Neutrality, Copyright Protection and the National Broadband Plan," which takes place tomorrow, or on Tuesday, January 19, 2010, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Register at http://ipbreakfast.eventbrite.com. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, January 13, 2010 - The consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge on Tuesday hosted the first-ever World Fair Use Day. “Fair use” refers to the defense, under the copyright statute, that permits individuals and businesses to make use of others’ copyrighted material under certain circumstances. The keynote speaker was Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., who told the attendees how Congress as a whole sees the issue of mixing and mashups – they don’t understand it. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, December 16, 2009 - The U.S. is committed to an inter-agency process for combating piracy of American intellectual property, Vice President Joseph Biden said Tuesday during a press availability with top law enforcement officials. Appearing at the White House complex with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, the directors of the FBI, Customs and Border Protection, and the United States Secret Service, as well as the chief executives of the nation's largest entertainment companies. The meeting was followed by a closed-door, roundtable discussion on international intellectual property theft. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, December 4, 2009 - The Senate has confirmed Victoria Espinel to be the first U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. Her job will be to craft the nation’s next intellectual property strategy. Though former President George Bush created the position of U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement and filled it with Chris Israel, the intellectual property czar has been elevated to a White House position under President Obama. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, November 25, 2009 - The Federal Communications Commission has moved ahead to implement an order from last year to establish rules to allow new wireless devices to operate in unused broadcast television spectrum. “The rules will allow for the use of unlicensed TV band devices in the unused spectrum to provide broadband data and other services for consumers and businesses,” according to a public notice (DOC) dated November 25. The FCC document invites proposals from entities that would like to be “Designated TV Band Device Database Managers.” Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, October 22, 2009 - The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved controversial proposed rules governing internet access during its monthly public meeting. Commissioners on all sides of the debate stressed the importance of having an open internet, and in engaging in constructive dialogue on the issue going forward. The move marked the beginning of a formal phase of regulating internet access. Although the FCC in August 2005 adopted a policy statement pledging fidelity to four Net neutrality principles, such a policy was never binding upon all broadband providers. Additionally, the proposed rules go beyond those four generally-accepted neutrality principles. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, October 21, 2009 - As the Federal Communications Commission nears the monthly meeting slated for Thursday to consider new regulations regarding Net neutrality, e-mail boxes across Washington are being flooded by all manner of interest groups staking their claim over neutrality and freedom on the Internet. Keep Reading
In a possible rebuke to President Obama and his new FCC chairman, Seventy-two House Democrats signed on to a letter sent Friday to the five members of the Federal Communications Commission asking them to reconsider a proposal to adopt "network neutrality" rules. Keep Reading
Public Knowledge's sixth annual "IP3 Awards" - which celebrates information policy, intellectual property, and internet protocol - drew a crowd of Washington's technorati to the Sewell-Belmont House in Washington on Thursday evening. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, October 15, 2009 - Six public interest organizations, including Consumers Union, on Wednesday filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to protect consumers from misleading and confusing advertising and billing practices by phone, cable and wireless providers. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, September 17, 2009 – Panelists with divergent viewpoints weighed in at the Federal Communications Commission workshop on September 17 on the question of whether the U.S. broadband policy should take cognizance of intellectual property issues such as copyright infringement Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, September 2, 2009 – The Federal Communication Commission’s workshop on how to best benchmark broadband for evaluating the various dimensions of broadband across geographic areas highlighted the difference between measuring the current network versus focusing on internet users’ needs. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 13, 2009 - A group of academic and industry representatives agreed Monday that some government regulation will be necessary to ensure a robust and competitive broadband market and continued innovation. The group spoke during a panel discussion sponsored by the Technology Policy Institute. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, June 22, 2009 - Wireless carriers and consumer advocates joined forces Monday to open a new front in the battle over pricing for "special access" markets. The newly-formed NoChokePoints coalition brings together a number of unlikely bedfellows that usually clash on many topics, most notably Sprint Nextel and Public Knowledge, in order to battle the "chokehold that these huge phone companies have on the special access market." Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, June 1, 2009 - Consumer advocacy groups are gearing up for another fight with Time Warner Cable after the internet provider quietly updated its terms of service with language that critics have pounced on as a harbinger of future metering and usage caps. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 3, 2009 – The role of broadband competition is central to discussion about a National Broadband Strategy, and to the emerging process for states and companies to tap into the $7.2 billion in federal funds allocated last month for broadband services.
Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 3, 2009 - President Obama’s long-awaited nomination of Julius Genachowski to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission was greeted with an enthusiastic reaction from groups representing every corner of the telecommunications community. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 18, 2009 - Art Brodsky, communications director at Public Knowledge, has just posted a second piece about Connected Nation. For more than a year, BroadbandCensus.com has been presenting an alternative to the proprietary-information model of Connected Nation. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 12, 2009 - The "open access" provisions of the broadband stimulus package currently before Congress was praised by technology industry officials and network neutrality activists during a conference call on Wednesday afternoon. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, February 11, 2009 - As the economic stimulus legislation entered conference negotiations Tuesday after Senate passage, the broadband stimulus provisions were the subject of fierce criticism by a panel of economists at the American Enterprise Institute. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, December 2 – A total of 55 companies and non-profit organizations, including major corporate entities such as AT&T, Cisco Systems, Google, Intel and Verizon Communications, have signed on to a “call to action for a national broadband strategy.” Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, September 26 - State and federal government programs to develop maps of broadband service availability at a granular level must overcome objections by carriers to revealing what they view as proprietary information, although carriers may actually find the resulting maps beneficial, panelists at the Broadband Census for America Conference said today. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, October 7 – Congress last week passed legislation, the “Broadband Data Improvement Act,” that seeks better information about high-speed internet connections but cuts all authorization of funds – an amount that had totaled $40 million for each of fiscal years 2008 through 2012 in the Senate Commerce Committee version of the legislation. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, September 8, 2008 – Many of the nation’s foremost broadband policy-makers and experts will analyze and discuss best practices for improving the collection and sharing of public data about high-speed internet access at the Broadband Census for America Conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday, September 26, 2008. Keep Reading
August 11 - Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain is preparing to launch a new telecom and technology agency, in which he's pushing for the Federal Trade Commission -- and not the Federal Communications Commission -- to be the key internet enforcement agency. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, August 1 – The Federal Communication Commission's enforcement action against Comcast can be seen either as a limited response to a company's deceptive practices, or a sweeping new venture by the agency into regulating internet policy. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 31 – Combatants on the subject of Net Neutrality debate took aim at each other on Thursday, with House Minority Leader John Boehner blasting FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in advance of a Federal Communications Commission meeting on Friday. Keep Reading
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. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 10 – The lack of a cohesive national broadband policy in the United States is hampering the nation’s ability to deploy high-speed broadband, attorney James Baller said Thursday at the Alliance for Community Media conference here. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 8 – Online advertising firm NebuAd is violating individual users’ privacy, and possibly state and federal laws, officials at the Center for Democracy and Technology said at a Tuesday briefing on a report. Keep Reading