The National Broadband Plan: everything you need to know about US broadband reform
FCC-backed bill would subsidize broadband for low-income homes
New federal legislation is looking to modernize an aging government assistance program aimed at telephones by turning it into a way for low-income consumers to access broadband internet. The Broadband Adoption Act of 2013 was introduced to the House of Representatives yesterday and would update Lifeline, an FCC-run program that offers subsidized phone service to citizens near the poverty line or enrolled in select government programs such as Medicaid. Under the new legislation, Lifeline would...
Is AT&T's plan to end landline phone service crazy, or just crazy enough?
POTS, the loving acronym for "plain old telephone service," is the single oldest continuously operating network in existence. It predates even the earliest vestiges of the internet by three-quarters of a century. It's so ubiquitous and so reliable that the notion of eliminating it is quite literally banned by law — it's written into Section 214 of Title 47, the portion of the US Code established largely by the Communications Act of 1934:
No carrier shall discontinue, reduce, or impair...
Policy & Law
Connect America Fund bringing broadband to 400,000 underserved Americans by 2015
Yesterday, the FCC announced the finalized details of the Universal Service Fund's replacement, the Connect America Fund. The $115 million plan will bring high speed internet to nearly 400,000 underserved residents across 37 states within three years time, the first step in the agency's $4.5 billion National Broadband Plan.
The FCC plans to bring broadband to 400,000 citizens in three years, seven million in six years, and as many of the 19 million residents that the FCC estimates lack...
Mobile
Voluntary TV spectrum auction on tap with approval locked in Congress
The House passed an extension of the payroll tax cut this morning after representatives from both sides of the chamber hammered out a deal earlier this week; a Senate vote is planned for this afternoon, and early indications are that it'll pass. That may not seem like an interesting development for members of the wireless community, but approval of the voluntary auction of spectrum currently reserved for television broadcasts — a contentious issue over the past couple years — is attached...
FCC plans $300 million reverse auction for rural mobile access, releases map of 3G dead zones
In a statement on Friday, the FCC reiterated its commitment to extending rural broadband access by reminding everybody it is planning a reverse auction, the winner of which will receive a one-time payment of $300 million in order to fund the buildout of wireless data in rural areas. It's all a part of the FCC's revamped Universal Service Fund, which was originally designed to bring landlines to the far corners of the US but has been re-purposed for broadband access. Along with the reminder,...
FCC revises Lifeline subsidy program, savings to fund low-income broadband pilot test
Under Chairman Julius Genachowski, the FCC has been driving hard for the expansion of broadband into rural America. Today it announced cost-saving changes to its Lifeline subsidy program that will help fund a new test program to bring broadband to low-income households. They're aimed primarily at cutting out waste and abuse of the 25-year-old Lifeline program, which helps subsidize the cost of basic telephone service for those who can't otherwise afford it. A new National Lifeline...
Policy & Law
FCC votes unanimously for USF overhaul, proposes new Connect America Fund and Mobility Fund
As expected, the FCC has thrown its full weight behind a fundamental rethinking of the Universal Service Fund, a government-backed fund created decades ago originally designed to bring landline telephone service to relatively unprofitable rural areas. Acknowledging the shift from telephone to broadband, the renamed Connect America Fund will receive up to $4.5 billion annually to subsidize broadband build-out to roughly 7 million Americans currently underserved (or entirely unserved) by...
Verizon 'stands ready... to help get the job done' on Universal Service Fund reform
Verizon's senior VP of federal regulatory affairs, Kathleen Grillo, has indicated that her company is bullish on the FCC's intentions to shift the focus of the Universal Service Fund from landline telephones to broadband data — but naturally, she leaves herself wiggle room on the specifics pending the full plan:
We congratulate Chairman Genachowski for putting forward a plan to reform the broken intercarrier compensation and universal service programs. If done right, the reforms will...
FCC chairman lays out plan for universal broadband by 2020
Under Julius Genachowski's leadership, the FCC has been keen on incentivizing companies to build out broadband data service to underserved rural areas that aren't profitable enough to be served without subsidy. To do that, the agency has wanted to modernize the so-called Universal Service Fund — historically used to build out telephone service to the same areas — which is clearly a relic of a bygone era. After working on a plan for most of the year, Genachowski has just announced that...
