By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-11-22 The Senate appears to be getting serious about making edge providers including streamers and search engines pay into the Universal Service Fund. The USF subsidizes advanced telecommunications – essentially broadband – to low-income and hard-to-reach areas of the country. Currently, the fund is paid into by telecom providers, [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-4-22 Internet service providers have dropped their challenge to a U.S. District Court’s ruling upholding California’s network neutrality law. The state adopted the California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act of 2018 (SB 822), prohibiting blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, after the Federal Communications Commission eliminated its similar [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-4-22 The FCC said May 4 that it had committed another almost $39 million in its 14th tranche of the Emergency Connectivity Program Fund, a COVID 19-driven program targeted at closing the homework gap. President Joe Biden has said that one of his administration’s goals is to make sure [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 5-2-22 The FCC says it has authorized another almost $200 million in rural broadband funding, bringing the total it has handed out since July 2021 in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to over $5.2 billion. The money, which comes from the FCC'’s Universal Service Program high-cost fund, will go to [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-29-22 Big Tech and antitrust enforcement activists are squaring off over a couple of bipartisan bills in Congress meant to address the size and power of tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. They made their opposing views known in dueling letters to congressional leaders considering the new legislation. [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-26-22 Senate and House Republicans have advised the Biden Administration not to put any network neutrality conditions on the tens of billions of dollars in broadband subsidies being overseen by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), the president’s chief communications policy adviser. They also don’t want NTIA to [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-25-22 Curtis LeGeyt, NAB president and CEO, offered his State of the Industry presentation at the NAB Show in Las Vegas. He broke down his four priorities as he works with policymakers. He said Congress must take action to rein in “the gatekeeping ability of the Big Tech giants,” [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-22-22 The Biden Administration is seeking input on the competitiveness, or lack of it, in the mobile app marketplace. The public notice announcing a request for comment by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, the White House’s chief communications policy adviser, suggests there is an issue that needs addressing. [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-21-22 Republican FCC Commissioner and Big Tech critic Brendan Carr says Apple is blocking Voice of America’s mobile app from its App Store in China and he wants some answers, actually a single answer, from Apple CEO Tim Cook by the end of the month. Following Cook’s speech last [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-21-22 The U.S. is joining an effort to create global, cross-border privacy rules through a new Global CBPR Forum. The White House said Thursday (April 21) that the U.S. was teaming up with Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Chinese Taipei on a certification system [...]