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By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

The U.S. Broadband Coalition's report on increasing broadband adoption and use got a boost on Wednesday as its working group racked up an endorsement from the Joint Center for Political Economic Studies Media and Technology Institute. The working group report presented - but did not endorse - a number of policy options for increasing broadband adoption among minorities. THe U.S. Broadband Coalition, a group comprised of more than 160 different stakeholders from industry, labor, and government, released its original report last month, but withheld the section drafted by its Adoption and Use Working Group until now in order to make use of more accurate data. Joint Center CEO Ralph Everett said the coalition should be commended "for recognizing the positive impact that rapid broadband adoption can have on our economy and highlighting ways to accelerate the process.” The report is available at Read More »

By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

Access to high speed Internet in the European Union is growing with 80 percent of broadband lines now having download speeds of 2 megabits per second or greater, according to a report published Wednesday by the European Commission. In July 2009, 24 percent of the EU population had a broadband access line subscription marking a 21.6 percent increase from July 2008, the report found. The research also found a 54 percent increased of mobile broadband penetration since January, which means the EU currently has a penetration rate of 4.2 percent per 100 citizens. “Vibrant high-speed broadband markets in a competitive single telecoms market are a strategic priority in the European Digital Agenda that is currently being prepared in the Commission. High-speed internet broadband, whether via fibre networks or wireless, is a pre-condition for a strong digital economy in Europe and for European leadership in new technologies and applications,” said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding in a statement. She expects a new and pro-competitive regulatory framework for Europe's telecoms markets to drive the roll-out of high speed internet in member states. The report found 40 percent of the population in Denmark and the Netherlands have a broadband...

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By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday released the agenda and speakers for its upcoming workshop, “From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” The workshop has been organized to consider the emerging issues of an increasingly internet oriented society. As more consumers turn to the internet for news and information, print news organizations have begun to struggle with the declining ad market. Besides the simple economics of the matter, as online news expands many wonder how the two news formats can successfully coexist. “The workshop will consider a wide range of issues,” stated an FTC news release, “including: the economics of journalism in print and online; the wide variety of new business and non-profit models for journalism online; factors relevant to the new economic realities for news organizations, such as behavioral and other targeted online advertising, online news aggregators, and bloggers; and the ways in which the costs of journalism could be reduced without reducing quality. The just-released agenda will feature a diverse group of speakers to discuss these topics. These participants include Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corp. and Arianna Huffington, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post. Other panelists represent groups...

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By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

NBC.com on Monday launched a new fan platform that offers its users a variety of exclusive services including NBC content and communication tools. The announcement was made by Stephen Andrade, Senior Vice President, Digital Development and General Manager, NBC.com. The NBC.com Communicator offers tools including a computer-to-computer voice calling system over internet protocol and a texting service. The services and programming are free. "This new effort gives our users a powerful, easy to use set of communication tools integrated with the best of NBC programming," said...

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By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

A technology that allows a user to make phone calls using a broadband internet connection instead of an analog phone line could soon become legal in the United Arab Emirates for the first time in years, according to an Arab news web site. International internet-based calls using voice over internet protocol (VoIP) through providers such as Skype and Yahoo have been illegal in the UAE since 2004 and the related Web sites have been blocked, Maktoob.com reported last month. The country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has been working on an official proposal governing VoIP for several years. Currently, two domestic telecommunications service providers, Etisalat and Emirates Integrated Telecommunications, have been offering VoIP services within the country. If TRA comes up with a new policy for international calls it will only allow licensed providers to offer the services. That would mean that most likely Etisalat and Emirates Integrated Telecommunications will be the first legal providers of the service. Yahoo announced in August 2009 that it would acquire Maktoob.com, which reported the...

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By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

The New York City Council Committee on Technology in Government plans to hold a public hearing to consider the Federal Communications Commission's proposed rules to regulate Internet access. The hearing will examine so-called Net Neutrality or open Internet principles and whether they “would effectively obtain the goal of maintaining a free and open Internet.” The council will also consider a resolution that asks the FCC and Congress to go forward with Net Neutrality regulations. The council said it plans to draft a letter to the FCC on the issue of net neutrality with citywide...

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By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

Google is now a wireless carrier, working with airports across the country to provide free wireless from now through January 15, the company said Tuesday. Currently, the wireless will be available in 47 airports including: Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Google is working with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others on the initiative. Google further said it will give network users the option to donate to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. The company said it will match donations made across all the networks up to $250,000, and the airport network that generates the highest amount per passenger by January 1 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local nonprofit of their choice. Google is also partnering with Virgin America to provide free wireless on every Virgin America flight between November 10 and January...

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By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

In an interview for C-SPAN's "The Communicators" series scheduled to air on Saturday, Rick Cotton, executive vice president and general counsel of NBC Universal, discussed his views about online piracy and counterfeiting – particularly with recent developments regarding the Internet and the pending launch of a national broadband plan by the Federal Communications Commission. Cotton said that there as a need to protect the innovation of creative works, and claimed that intellectual property animated 40 percent of the growth in the economy. “What drives our compatibility to compete is our innovation, our ingenuity, our technical inventions and our creativity,” Cotton said. “But if we are not prepared to protect those engines of growth, particularly at a time when out economy is in a ditch…we are really handicapping ourselves and handcuffing ourselves in our terms of getting out of the ditch.” Cotton promoted the idea of wide-scale filtering of illegal content, including copyright-infringing movies as well as child pornography. “Looking at the big picture, over 50 percent of [internet service provider] bandwidth is [devoted] to carrying illegal content,” Cotton said. “This also imposes additional and unnecessary cost.” As the FCC generates its national broadband plan, he said, the agency “needs to see...

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