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FCC details plan to reassert authority over Internet

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday detailed plans for its so-called "third way" to reclassify broadband service as a telecommunications service, which would help the agency reassert its authority for regulating the Internet, after it lost an important legal battle last month.

The purpose of the statement is to put the agency on stronger legal footing after a federal appeals court ruled last month that the FCC had no legal authority to punish Comcast for slowing down BitTorrent traffic on its network. The FCC officially censured Comcast for violating its Net Neutrality principles.

The court decision has called into question the FCC's authority for any regulation of the Internet, especially new regulation the agency is forming to deal with Net neutrality--the broad question of whether rules are needed to prevent lopsided treatment for certain Web sites or types of Internet traffic. The chairman's statement, which asks for input from the public and the industry in determining how traffic should be reclassified, is a step toward making the FCC's legal status in regulating the Internet more certain. More...

05-06-2010 16:08

U.S. to roll out major broadband policy

(Reuters) - U.S. regulators will announce a major Internet policy this week to revolutionize how Americans communicate and play, proposing a dramatic increase in broadband speeds that could let people download a high-definition film in minutes instead of hours.

Dramatically increasing Internet speeds to 25 times the current average is one of the myriad goals to be unveiled in the National Broadband Plan by the the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday.

The highly anticipated plan will make a series of recommendations to Congress and is aimed at spurring the ever-changing communications industry to bring more and faster online services to Americans as they increasingly turn to the Internet to communicate, pay monthly bills, make travel plans and be entertained by movies and music.

"This is a fairly unique event," said Paul Gallant, an analyst with Concept Capital. "The FCC really has never been asked to design a broad regulatory shift like this. Broadband is important and difficult because it threatens every established communications sector." More...

03-14-2010 21:50

California’s CTO Responds To Our Challenge With His Own: Give CA Your Best IT Ideas

Editor’s note: In a pair of posts a couple of weeks ago, contributing columnist Vivek Wadhwa highlighted the antiquated nature of the state of California’s IT systems and the way contracts for those systems are doled out to legacy IT firms. He then challenged Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to come up with ways to rebuild California’s IT systems at one tenth the cost. California CTO P.K. Agarwal responds in this guest post with his own challenge: walk the talk and give him your best IT ideas. He’s even set up a crowdsourcing site to gather them.

Vivek, I’m glad to see you are challenging the readers of TechCrunch the same way you challenge the audiences of your speeches.

The debate that has erupted on TechCrunch in response to that challenge is particularly interesting to me because it focuses on a question that my colleagues and I have spent a lot of time trying to find an answer to: What’s the best way to migrate California’s legacy portfolio to new technologies? And there are many other related questions. More...

02-07-2010 11:07

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