The Verge - The National Broadband Plan: everything you need to know about US broadband reform

FCC-backed bill would subsidize broadband for low-income homes

2013-04-24T14:26:55Z

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 offer the option between discounted telephone, mobile, and internet services. The bill is supported by outgoing FCC chairman Julius Genachowski and was introduced by three Democratic representatives of California, Doris Matsui, Henry Waxman, and...

Is AT&T's plan to end landline phone service crazy, or just crazy enough?

2012-11-07T17:43:14Z

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 service to a community, or part of a community, unless and until there shall first have been obtained from the Commission a certificate that neither the present nor future public convenience and necessity will be adversely affected thereby...

W...

Connect America Fund bringing broadband to 400,000 underserved Americans by 2015

2012-07-27T22:07:06Z

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 access to broadband by 2020. The organization is calling this an "unprecedented broadband expansion," and says that this news marks the beginning of one of the largest public and private efforts to improve national broadband in American history.

Voluntary TV spectrum auction on tap with approval locked in Congress

2012-02-17T17:07:04Z

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 to the bill, and virtually every stakeholder in the wireless community (including the FCC) is in favor of the auction. The National Association of Broadcasters, which represents television stations that currently own the licenses, had been a key...

FCC plans $300 million reverse auction for rural mobile access, releases map of 3G dead zones

2012-02-11T16:49:01Z

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, the FCC took advantage of the MapBox online mapmaker and data from American Roamer to release a new interactive map showing the areas where it believes 3G coverage is lacking (which is to say, nonexistent). FCC Chair Julius Genachowski's statement...

FCC revises Lifeline subsidy program, savings to fund low-income broadband pilot test

2012-02-01T07:01:42Z

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 Accountability Database will be created to prevent subsidies from being funneled to multiple phone carriers on behalf of the same individual, while a secondary database will provide a streamlined way to determine any given customer's eligibility. Also changing...

FCC votes unanimously for USF overhaul, proposes new Connect America Fund and Mobility Fund

2011-10-31T14:43:01Z

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 high-speed data services. It's not just about landline, though: LTE figures prominently into the equation — particularly in the 700MHz spectrum that can travel long distances between cell sites — and to that end, the FCC has also approved a Mobility...

Verizon 'stands ready... to help get the job done' on Universal Service Fund reform

2011-10-06T22:19:48Z

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 connect millions of rural Americans to broadband networks and transform these programs to meet the needs of consumers in today's Internet- and broadband-centric society.

The FCC has a unique opportunity to put in place policies that will bring all the...