The business of Internet, wireless, and telecom law.
TV stations have long been the backbone of the American community. Marshall McLuhan said in 1964, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man : “The medium is the message.” By 1964, TV had solidly taken over the dominate role of the king of media from radio. McLuhan was writing about TV. If Today, 50 [...]
On September 28, 2012, the FCC’s open meeting will address the implementation of the TV inventive auction requirements contained in February 2012 $150 billion "Payroll" bill, or the “Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012.” The Payroll legislation was amended at the last minute to require the FCC to design and hold [...]
On February 9, 2011, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRMâ€) 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 ("ARRAâ€) 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. [...]
