FCC

An important law that would protect California consumers from state-level regulation of VoIP and other IP-based services passed the California State Senate late last week on a bipartisan 30-6 vote.

The bill, SB 1161, now moves to the State Assembly, which has scheduled hearings for June 11.

SB 1161 is short and sweet. It prohibits the state's Public Utility Commission "from regulating Voice over Internet Protocol and Internet Protocol enabled service...except as required or delegated by federal law" or otherwise authorized by statute, until at least 2020.

Its goal is even more straight-forward. As the bill'… Read more

Democratic and Republican government officials warned this morning that a United Nations summit in December will lead to a virtual takeover of the Internet if proposals from China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are adopted.

It was a rare point of bipartisan agreement during an election year: a proposal that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described last year as handing the U.N. "international control of the Internet" must be stopped.

"These are terrible ideas," Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, said during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing. They could allow "governments to … Read more

A group of regional wireless carriers is calling AT&T's bluff when it comes to claimed interference issues in the lower spectrum bands of the 700 MHz frequency.

On Tuesday, Cavalier Wireless, C Spire Wireless, Continuum 700, King Street Wireless, MetroPCS Communications, U.S. Cellular, and Vulcan Wireless filed a report to the Federal Communications Commission detailing results from a test conducted that shows there are no interference issues between devices operating in other parts of the 700 MHz spectrum frequency bands and the broadcast TV channel 51, which is right next to the lower A block portion … Read more

Remember the Huawei Ascend P1 from CES? Well, it looks like it could be coming to the U.S., thanks to a recent FCC filing.

Its ultrathin -- 0.27 inch thin, no joke -- and stylized white-on-black design is the Ascend P1's beauty that matches the brawn of its dual-core processor, 8-megapixel camera, and a cutting-edge Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS. I haven't been able to give the phone a thorough examination yet, but based on the features list and what we saw in January, I'd go so far as to call it the Huawei superphone … Read more

Verizon Wireless' $3.6 billion bid to buy unused wireless spectrum from cable companies is likely to get regulatory approval. But Verizon may have to give up some of its wireless spectrum to satisfy regulators, say analysts and insiders close to the deal.

Analysts covering the market say it's almost a near certainty that the Federal Communications Commission will approve the deal, which Verizon and a coalition of cable companies owning wireless spectrum proposed late last year. Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks, which are all part of Spectrum Co. plus Cox Communications, want to sell nearly … Read more

Senator Al Franken says Comcast may be violating Net neutrality rules by exempting its own video service from a usage cap on its broadband network.

The Minnesota Democrat today sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice asking the agencies to take a closer look at a new service Comcast announced in March that will stream Xfinity on-demand content to Microsoft Xbox consoles.

The content that is streamed directly to the Xbox console will not be counted against subscribers' total bandwidth usage caps.Comcast now imposes a 250GB monthly data cap on its subscribers.

This … Read more

Just when it seemed like things were finally settling down for Google in the Street View debacle, more information has been leaked. The formerly unnamed engineer who wrote the code that enabled Street View cars to collect personal e-mail, text messages, passwords, and Internet-usage history from unsecured wireless networks for four years has been identified, according to The New York Times.

Marius Milner is his name and the Times reported that his LinkedIn profile occupation was listed as "hacker" and under the social network's specialties category his entry said, "I know more than I want to … Read more

Federal regulators said today they needed more time to review Verizon's deal to acquire spectrum from the cable providers and cross-sell cable and wireless services.

The Federal Communications Commission extended the typical 180-day review period by 21 days to give it sufficient time to examine the reams of documents that were submitted late by Verizon and the cable companies. Opponents have lauded the FCC's move, claiming the agency has "stopped the clock" on the deal, signalling deeper concerns about the transaction. But the move only marks an extension, and not an actual pause, in the process. … Read more

Google has released a full version of the FCC's report on the company's controversial gathering of personal data with Street View cars.

The move, reported by the Los Angeles Times, comes about a week after a privacy group filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see the full report, and a short time after the FCC released a heavily redacted version, saying Google's data collection had not broken the law but that the commission would impose a $25,000 fine on the company for "deliberately impeding and delaying" its probe.

There have been a … Read more