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AT&T hit a nerve with its privacy-eroding Internet Preferences Plan, which lets customers surf the web at gigabit speeds but also lets the telecom giant…
Smut sellers normally prefer that the government stay far away from their business. But when it comes to how the FCC oversees the internet, the adult…
Google wants to make Android apps free to use overseas, giving more people access to mobile data services in developing markets, according…
Two of the authors of the original Cluetrain Manifesto from 1999 have come out with an update that says many of the risks and potential dangers facing the internet come from us, the users, and the choices we are making
The Federal Communications Commission will vote on an official proposal for net neutrality come February 26, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said on…
If you like tech and you like sports, it’s hard not to like Mark Cuban. That’s why it’s so disappointing to hear his views on net neutrality.
When President Obama called for net neutrality this month, AT&T said the sky would fall. It warned that a policy banning internet providers from giving special treatment to some websites over others would lead companies to stop investing in new network capacity. So much for that.
You have to admire the chutzpah: a day after President Obama jolted the telecom industry with a bold announcement on net neutrality, Comcast declared that it agrees with him.
President Obama has come out strongly and specifically in favor of “bright-line rules” that will protect network neutrality. Now the FCC just has to write them.
The FCC has dropped a big hint about how it will resolve the vexing net neutrality question: its solution sounds like a clever compromise, but will do nothing to stop internet fast lanes.
The FCC has already been swamped by a record-breaking number of comments on its proposal to change the rules for internet traffic. More comments are likely to come in by the final deadline period on Monday.
It’s like it’s 2010 all over again as the FCC indicates it may take a second look at bringing the idea of network neutrality to the wireless networks as part of its Open Internet proceeding.
Open internet advocate Tim Wu’s campaign to be lieutenant governor of New York gained more momentum on Thursday. A Wu wins could lead to increased attention to broadband issues.
Attention, ISPs who have vague terms of service or promise one thing and then fail to deliver: The FCC is keeping an eye on you.
Tim Wu, who coined the term “net neutrality,” is running for office in New York. His campaign could raise the profile of broadband policy as a national political issue.
Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) would love to offer its customers Netflix. The local ISP decided to make its love for House of…
Internet providers operate a service that is very much like a utility, but now a Republican Congressman wants to pass a law ordering the FCC to say they are not utilities.
The FCC is sticking to its guns on net neutrality, voting to approve a framework for rules that could create an internet fast lane, while trying to patch up the loopholes that would make that fast lane possible.
Equal access to broadband is key to the future of the internet. Plans to allow ISPs to charge for access to internet fast lanes put that very future in danger. That’s why we are taking a stand for net neutrality.
It was a closely-fought contest, but Europe’s crucial telecoms package has passed through its first European Parliament vote, as have amendments that remove loopholes that would have clashed with the open internet.
The wording of the proposal, included in a wider package of telecoms legislation, is vague enough to let ISPs favor certain content providers on their “open internet” offerings.
Given the options facing the FCC in the wake of a court vacating most of the net neutrality rules the agency put in place, it’s likely we’ll see a double-sided market for broadband emerge.
In a ruling that has significant implications for the future of the internet, an appeals court has ruled that the FCC cannot impose so-called “net neutrality rules.”
AT&T is officially putting its idea of a subsidized internet to the test. A new program allows internet companies to exempt their content from data plans. Instead the content providers would foot the bill.
Any day now the DC Circuit Court is expected to rule on Verizon’s case against the FCC’s open internet order — the…
The judges hearing the lawsuit filed by Verizon against the FCC’s network neutrality rules seem inclined to let ISPs charge providers for delivering premium content– effectively creating a fast lane for the web and gutting network neutrality.
Verizon filed its 116-page suit to appeal the network neutrality regulations enacted by the FCC. The suit has a glossary, 53 pages of legal argument, inflammatory prose on regulating the Internet and even the FCC trampling ISPs’ first amendment rights, but Verizon may prevail.
Network neutrality, the idea that ISPs can’t discriminate against traffic on its network, is an enshrined right in some areas and a hotly contested regulatory fight in others. But it may become moot if the ITU succeeds in take over the management of the Internet.
AT&T’s shareholders today didn’t require the telecommunications giant to implement network neutrality on its wireline and wireless networks. The proposal lost with a mere 5.9 percent of the vote. But here’s why one fund manager thinks net neutrality won — and should continue to win.
Comcast said content streamed over Microsoft’s Xbox won’t count against a user’s 250 GB usage cap, prompting outrage. But the reality of the situation is that the way Comcast is delivering its content over the Xbox means it’s in the right. Did net neutrality fail?
Like some hideous policy monster that won’t go away, network neutrality is hitting the headlines again. Verizon and Metro PCS, the two opera…
Like some hideous policy monster that won’t go away, network neutrality will hit headlines again. Verizon and Metro PCS, the two operators that sued the FCC last year over its rules forbidding ISPs from discriminating against traffic on their networks, won a victory on Thursday.
AT&T doesn’t give up on trying to monetize its pipes, and thanks to a lack of network neutrality on wireless networks, limited data plans, and a hunger for bandwidth-consuming mobile apps, it may have found a way to charge developers to use its pipes.
What if delivering bandwidth worked like an auction, where business bid for the right to transfer their traffic depending on how crowded the network is? Using Open Flow to create software defined networks makes such a scenario possible. Is that a good thing?
In 2012, a “turbo” button will appear on mobile phones, making it the first of many new options that allow customers to customize their data plans by quality of connection, rather than megabytes consumed. We may even see the resurgence of the unlimited plan, with a catch.
Mobile operators may be key players in the mobile data revolution, building its broadband networks. But in the eyes of the markets, the telcos are seen as utilities, while their Valley counterparts are the ‘true’ high-tech innovators. A new study claims operators can change this.
Even as the FCC moves to dimiss Verizon’s lawsuit against its network neutrality rules, Big Red gained a victory as the the courts consolidated the lawsuits at the same court that gutted the FCC’s authority in the Comcast P2P case.
The Federal Communications Commission’s controversial net neutrality rules have been officially filed with the Federal Register and will go into effect Nov. 20. But it’s expected to prompt new legal challenges from carriers who question the FCC’s legal authority to implement the rules.
The implementation of network neutrality, the idea that all bits of data should be treated equally, became more complicated on Dec. 21,…
Mobile operators are looking for dollars from the content producers. This time, it appears they want over-the-top providers to help fund the cost of building out their networks. But are Wi-Fi offload, congestion pricing and high-margin, machine-to-machine services enough to maintain healthy margins?
The five FCC commissioners traveled to the Capitol today for a hearing on the necessity of its network neutrality rules. The hearing was the first step in a process that attempts to repeal the FCC’s efforts and prevent the FCC from trying to implement them again.
Akamai and Ericsson are teaming up to help mobile operators better manage and monetize traffic that flows over their networks. The partnership could take advantage of recent net neutrality ruling by the FCC that will lightly regulate the management of traffic on wireless networks.
The U.S. Court of Appeals today denied Verizon’s motion to have the three judges who ruled against the FCC in an earlier network neutrality case hear Verizon’s current attempt to contest the regulatory agency’s network neutrality rules. It’s a small setback for foes of network neutrality.
Verizon and the FCC are battling over whether the telecom company’s lawsuit challenging net neutrality rules should be heard in the Washingt…
MetroPCS followed Verizon in contesting the FCC’s network neutrality order that sets rules around when an ISP can discriminate against traffic flowing across its network. The FCC’s decision to avoid reclassifying broadband has left the fate of web innovation in the courts’ hands. But which court?
The FCC’s new net neutrality rules, voted in last month, haven’t even gone into effect yet, but they’re already being challenged by Verizon.…
Verizon filed a lawsuit today questioning the FCC’s authority to implement the agency’s network neutrality rules, but while the argument here is important, the underlying goal for this lawsuit and others that will be filed is finding a court sympathetic to each parties’ cause.
Verizon says it supports Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) in the cable giant’s ongoing face off with Level 3 over who should bear the cost of increased…
The recent spat between Comcast and Level 3 boils down to peering: the idea that Internet Service Provider A allow traffic from…
It will take some time before the full effects of the FCC’s recent net neutrality order take hold. But one thing’s clear: Over-the-top video and the ability of third-party online video sites to operate and innovate is at the heart of the commission’s rules.
With its rules on network neutrality, the FCC has protected the current state of the Internet, left the future of the web unregulated and punted on most of the challenging issues that lay before it — from requiring wireless networks to be open to allowing managed services.
The FCC implementation of rules around network neutrality on Tuesday may open up a change in the way carriers price mobile broadband — and it’s not going to get cheaper. Uncertainly over network neutrality has held U.S. operators back when it comes to new pricing plans.
In case anyone was still in doubt just how much Republicans dislike FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s Net Neutrality plans, this morning’s h…
Net Neutrality, a drama that has dragged on for years, lurched forward today with new rules from the FCC that will impose some basic protections for an open Internet but will leave wireless with less safeguards than wired broadband. Here’s what the Web is saying:
The FCC today approved an order that will enshrine the policies of network neutrality — the idea that ISPs can’t hinder or discriminate against lawful content flowing across their pipes — as regulations enforced by the FCC. Here’s how we got here.
Net neutrality has been talked about in tech circles for years, and now the government is finally going to act. New rules proposed by the FC…
The FCC today said it would vote on rules to prevent ISPs from discriminating against the bits flowing across their networks, but it wouldn’t publish the full text of those rules until a few days after the vote due to a compromise with Democratic commissioners.
Tomorrow, the FCC will unveil its policy framework around network neutrality (yes, it did this last September but network neutrality is like tech policy’s Groundhog Day) and vote on the proposed rules. But even after the vote, it is an issue that won’t go away.
Yesterday FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled a framework for the regulatory agencies net neutrality efforts — the idea that a broadband provider cannot interference with the delivery of lawful bits over its network — that received fairly lackluster support. But we found a compelling counterpoint in the blogosphere.
The FCC is moving forward on a vote for long-promised net neutrality rules, fulfilling a goal Chairman Julius Genachoswski laid out more than a year ago. The regulations, which will be heard on Dec. 21, will require wireline providers to follow stricter rules than wireless.
Internet services providers are calling for an Federal Communications Commission with less authority over regulating broadband, just as the FCC reportedly prepares to vote on new neutrality rules. It’s all part of a larger attempt by the telecommunications industry to undercut the power of the FCC.
What keeps a man like FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski up at night? Try 40th out of 40. That’s the U.S.’ ranking in broadband improvements from 1999-2009 according to a study last year. Genachowski is worried that the U.S. is in danger of losing its competitive advantage.
Today on the Net: net neutrality is a sticky issue for media and Internet companies, MySpace has launched its first music video app, dubbed Romeo, and cable distributors and programmers are looking increasingly to tablets for creating new video applications.
In November 2007, I remember reading then-Senator Obama’s Technology and Innovation Platform for the first time. I was amazed that a candidate had said that he understood what net neutrality was about and that he knew it was important to the nation’s economy and culture.
Google has broken the relative silence it has maintained after coming out with a controversial framework for addressing net neutrality, which it developed with Verizon. In a post called “Facts about our network neutrality proposal” Google explains itself. But here are the facts about Google’s facts.
Several grassroots organizations are planning a protest at noon tomorrow at Google’s Mountain View campus. The groups plan to protest because the search giant has teamed up with Verizon to offer a compromise on net neutrality that has the potential to create a two-tiered Internet.
Google’s problems aren’t just a result of its huge size — its global ambitions and the impact it has on so many aspects of our lives has given it a whole new class of problems. In many ways, the company might as well be a nation-state.
On Monday Google and Verizon announced a controversial framework for compromise on the contentious issue of network neutrality–the idea that ISPs shouldn’t discriminate against web traffic. But for those who really want to dig into the issue, read what the web is saying.
The news media wasn’t buying the network neutrality compromise that Google and Verizon shared on Monday, but today the two chief executives…
Today’s compromise between Verizon and Google on network neutrality is a big story, not because it’s going to change the policy discussion much, but because it marks Google selling out the tech and startup community so it can advance it’s own economic interests.
As expected, Google and Verizon have agreed to make network neutrality enforceable on wireline networks, without extending the same to wireless. However, the agreement does ask for transparency in network management on wireline and wireless networks, and leaves a place for operators to offer managed services.
It’s unclear whether Verizon and Google will end net neutrality with an agreement to prioritize some traffic on the Internet, but any such deal would have a devastating effect on startups and video publishers that don’t have Google’s deep pockets to pay for better access.
Internet service providers, Microsoft, Intel and Google have created a broadband technical advisory group to provide an engineering perspective on issues associated with broadband networks. But the group’s lack of focus makes it hard to know if this is a good thing or not.
The FCC will begin the process of reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service subject to greater regulatory oversight from the agency. The reclassification was in response to a court ruling that challenged the FCC’s ability to enforce network neutrality under the current broadband regulatory regime. Here’s what the web is saying.
The Federal Communications Commission today laid out its plans to solidify its authority to regulate broadband after an appeals court seemingly neutered the agency’s regulatory powers when it ruled the FCC didn’t have the authority to censure Comcast for throttling P2P files. Here’s how.
Netflix (s NFLX) is harming Hollywood, and the studios have to team up with telcos to get priority treatment for the traffic…
As regulators dive deep into broadband politics, Ma Bell has turned not only to lobbyists, but also to threats. AT&T today issued a ho-hum press release — except for the last line, when it tied its billions in capital investment to favorable laws and regulations.
A new paper presented to the FCC argues that the agency can extend network neutrality to wireless networks — and proposes ending the flat-rate pricing plans for mobile broadband as a method for doing so.
Last Tuesday a federal court of appeals called into question the FCC’s ability to regulate Internet access, but after talking to people in D.C., the consensus is that regulations guaranteeing net neutrality will survive, and the FCC will begin a proceeding to reclassify internet access.
Google (S GOOG) has long been a proponent of net neutrality, but it appears the company may have unknowingly allowed an advertising…
President Obama took questions via YouTube today, and in response to a question about keeping the Internet open and neutral, professed a belief in net neutrality that may even include resistance to allowing carriers to deliver managed services or possibly tiered pricing on the consumer side.
Amid the debate on network neutrality, transparent network management is generally accepted, but in practice it may not improve the end user experience as much as everyone hopes, since there are so many players between the end user and the content provider. We need intelligence.
The Federal Communications Commission has received 23,137 filings and more than 100,000 comments on its proposed net neutrality rules, that would prohibit both wired and wireless Internet service providers from discriminating against the content flowing across their respective pipes. We take a look at some excerpts.
While some could argue that a free and open Internet means less regulation and oversight, my experience leads me to believe that an Internet that encourages innovation and startups is one that supports net neutrality. Unless it’s enforced, capitalism on the Internet is in serious jeopardy.
[qi:gigaom_icon_social_networking] A public interest group and Some law professors sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission this morning questioning the FCC’s…
The Democrats’ efforts to preserve our Internet freedom through net neutrality legislation needs more help, according to U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.),…
The FCC has yet to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) formally kicking off the process of writing and promulgating net neutrality regulations, but…
Updated: Senate Republicans last night backed off a plan aimed at popping the net neutrality balloon floated by the FCC on Monday,…
[qi:020][qi:026] The FCC defended today its right to censure Comcast (s cmcsa) for blocking P2P files on its cable network, arguing in…
As more of us hop on our 3G-connected smartphones or netbooks, and future 4G connections offer the promise of wired-like speeds via…
In response to an earlier story in The Wall Street Journal, Google (s GOOG) offered a clarification and reaffirmed its stance on…
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google, long a network neutrality champion, is looking to cut deals with broadband providers — both cable and phone companies — in a move to get faster access for its own content. Google, however, says it it not backing away from network neutrality, and that its OpenEdge effort is in fact a plan to peer its edge-caching devices directly with the network operators so that the users of those broadband carriers get faster access to Google and YouTube’s content.
There are a lot of bad things on the Internet: spam, child porn, malware, phishing and so on. Until recently, it’s been…
Bell Canada may have to pay for violating net neutrality. A May 29 class action filing says Bell should reimburse each subscriber…
