The business of Internet, wireless, and telecom law.
On February 9, 2011, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on numerous proposed changes to “fundamentally modernize” the USF (Universal Service Fund) and another subsidy program called the “intercarrier compensation system.” The USF “High Cost Fund” is a multibillion dollar annual subsidy created in [...]
Universal Service Reform has been in the FCC “reform hopper” for more than 10 years. Commissioner McDowell correctly labeled the USF program “antiquated, arcane, inefficient and just downright broken.” Fixing USF is anything but easy because while you can move USF money from one bucket to another, lowering the fee will take away government subsidies [...]
Technorati Tags: FCC,NTIA,Cisco,Alcatel-Lucent,FTTH,Fiber,Recovery Act,BTOP On Friday, July 26, 2009, the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) granted a “limited waiver” for the Buy America restriction in the Recovery Act covering certain types of equipment that may be required for broadband projects. The NTIA is responsible for overseeing the process of delivering $4.7 billion in stimulus [...]
Technorati Tags: FCC,NTIA,Recovery Act,Buy America,Broadband The Recovery Act included a “Made in America” requirement for all $787 billion of stimulus funding. Section 1605 of the Act provides that in a “public work” all “manufactured goods used in the project” must be “produced in the United States.” A Federal agency is authorized to waive the requirement [...]
Technorati Tags: NTIA,ARRA,Recovery Act,National Broadband Plan,Recovery.gov On May 18, 2009, NTIA submitted the first required quarterly progress report to Congress on getting the Recovery Act funding out the door. Without a press release or press conference, NTIA “quietly” (a word GigaOm’s Stacey Higginbotham used) explained to Congress that the first tranche of broadband funding would [...]
Technorati Tags: FCC,National Broadband Plan,ARRA The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act ("ARRA”) appropriated $7.2 billion for various broadband projects. The primary goals of the ARRA broadband provisions are 1) to increase broadband penetration for the unserved, both rural and urban, 2) to increase broadband adoption for the “underserved,” and 3) to deliver new jobs. The [...]
While visiting Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science this week, President Obama signed the historic “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” For the telecom industry, as well as other sectors of the economy, the Recovery Act presents the opportunity for obtaining billions of dollars of grants and loans and delivering jobs and hope to the economy. [...]
Technorati Tags: Google Android,T-Mobile G1,Open Mobile,Open Source Yesterday Google announced that the Android code was officially “open source.” Today, T-Mobile started selling the G1 smart-phone in the U.S. The T-Mobile G1 phone uses the Google Android operating system. I think that today will be viewed historically as a “time shift” for mobile and mobile computing. [...]
On July 23, 2008, a new 911 statute was entered into law. The “New and Emerging Technologies (NET) 911 Improvement Act of 2008” (the NET 911 Act) requires the FCC to enact rules implementing the Act’s provisions within 90 days of the effective date of the legislation, or October 21, 2008. The legislation was designed [...]
On September 17, 2007, only 10 days after the Pulvermedia’s FMC conference in Chicago where Sprint discussed its future femtocell plans, Sprint formerly announced that it would immediately start offering its AIRAVE femtocell solution in Denver and Indianapolis. Sprint included a cool marketing video about AIRAVE and femtocells on the Sprint web site. While two trials [...]
