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 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.

WASHINGTON, January 21, 2010 – The Federal Communications Commission in a Tuesday workshop explored consumer choice, user control of their online experience and the importance of transparency.

The agency’s fourth Open Internet Workshop on Consumers, Transparency and the Open Internet focused on the sixth principle of network neutrality – transparency.

WASHINGTON, January 18, 2010 – Verizon Communications’s net neutrality filling is unique in that the telecom giant is one of the only companies which provides broadband service via high-speed fiber optic cables and copper digital subscriber lines, plus wireless broadband via third-generation and fourth-generation wireless services.

The company’s opposition to net neutrality is based on, it says, the lack of evidence that users’ internet rights have been violated. Additionally, the companies said that enforcement of such principles will have negative economic consequences.

WASHINGTON, January 15, 2010 – Verizon and Google submitted a rare joint filing to the FCC on Thursday. The two communications giants praised the agency for its principles while stinging it by saying that communications laws and regulations should not apply to Internet applications, content, or services.

WASHINGTON, January 8, 2010 – With about a month left until the Federal Communications Commission delivers its National Broadband Plan to Congress, Commissioner Robert McDowell spoke about the impending plan – as well as spectrum politics, Net neutrality and competition in the video media landscape – on C-SPAN’s “The Communicators.”

Predictions for 2010 for Broadband, Cable TV, Telecom, and Wireless seen through the eyes of The Cable Pipeline.

WASHINGTON, December 22, 2009 – Connected Nation, which bills itself as a national non-profit organization that seeks to expand access to broadband internet, hit the jackpot Tuesday when the government announced it will be receiving more than nine million in funding for broadband mapping work.

“Congress rightly recognized that increasing broadband access and adoption in communities being left behind in the 21st Century economy depends on better data collection and broadband planning,” said Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, in a statement.

WASHINGTON, December 14, 2009 – What’s the greatest source of dissatisfaction in the mobile wireless industry? Ironically, according to industry experts and government representatives attending a conference on customer complaints, it is competition itself.

The size and pervasiveness of the mobile device market has exploded. In the space of just 17 years, the number of active mobile subscribers in the United States has exploded from 11 million to 276 million. An increased number of complaints have accompanied this market growth.

WASHINGTON, December 2, 2009 – A number of companies have signed onto a letter to members of Congress encouraging the passage of legislation affirming that all internet protocol-based services are subject to exclusive federal jurisdiction, if the services are regulated at all.

Under the approach, state regulation of such services would be barred.

“Absent Congressional action to confirm exclusive federal jurisdiction, IP services will be subject to a patchwork of 50-plus different regulatory regimes, stifling innovation and the industry’s ability to take full advantage of available cost savings,” reads the letter (PDF) obtained by Broadband Census News.