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By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, March 11, 2010 – The FCC launched its consumer broadband test today, enabling consumers to test the speed and other performance measurements of their broadband connections. Users will randomly be assigned to one of two speed and measurement tests when they visit www.broadband.gov. One of the tests will utilize the open source Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) developed by Internet2, a consortium of researchers. BroadbandCensus.com has been using the NDT speed test since February 2008. The other test, uses Ookla, Inc.'s Speedtest.net, has been used by Communications Workers of America's SpeedMatters.org web site since 2007. “Transparency empowers consumers, promotes innovation and investment, and encourages competition,” said Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. “The FCC’s new digital tools will arm users with real-time information about their broadband connection and the agency with useful data about service across the country," he said. "By informing consumers about their broadband service quality, these tools help eliminate confusion and make the market work more effectively.” The FCC also said that it did not endorse any specific testing application. In addition to the "Consumer Broadband Test," the FCC on Thursday also launched a mobile application -- a first for the agency...

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By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, November 12, 2009 - While the economy is slowly turning itself around, small and disadvantaged businesses face problems gaining capital, according to panelists speaking at the Federal Communications Commission national broadband plan workshop on November 12. Small disadvantaged businesses are businesses that are at least 51 percent owned or controlled by an individual or a group of individuals who are deemed as economically or socially disadvantaged. They are deemed disadvantaged by the Small Business Administration. Businesses with this status struggle to gain any form of capital, and that does not give these businesses a foothold to hang on to in troubled times. However, such businesses may be eligible for grants and loans. Within the $7.2 billion devoted to broadband stimulus funding, “Additional consideration is given for small and disadvantaged businesses,” said Maureen Lewis, director of Minority Telecommunications Development Program at the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is administering the program. However, while small disadvantage businesses might receive a different level of consideration when it comes to the funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, they don’t also get a break in the private sector. “Funding doesn’t always have to come out of the Universal...

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By Mercy Gakii, Reporter-Researcher,  BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, November 11, 2009 - The creation of a “smart grid” for electricity conservation may lead to parallel telecommunications networks by both utilities and traditional telephone communications providers; whether or not this was a positive development was debated at the Broadband Breakfast Club on Tuesday. The “smart grid” enables communications about electric transmissions over that electric infrastructure. Broadband, or high-speed internet access, has traditionally occurred over telephone, cable or wireless networks. Broadband over power lines (BPL) is a form of internet access over the electric infrastructure. All of these technologies are competing for consumers and business customers. Whether utilities will continue to use electric lines for transmitting BPL, or shift to fiber-optics or wireless infrastructures – whether self-built or managed by traditional carriers like Verizon Communications and AT&T – prompted debate at the November breakfast club, on “Setting the Table for the National Broadband Plan: The Environment.” Kevin Moss, head of corporate social responsibility at BT Americas, said that telecommunications hoped to provide communicative capabilities as utilities need more of it to satisfy “smart grid” requirements. But Cynthia Brumfeld, director of research for the Utilities Telecom Council, said that utility companies require that communications systems exhibit a high degree of...

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By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, November 9, 2009 – Panelists at a Federal Communications Commission field hearing on Friday agreed that there should be a national broadband plan that made high-speed internet connections accessible to everyone, including those with hearing, visual and other disabilities. “A national broadband plan is not national if not accessible to everyone,” said Michael Richert, director of public policy for the American Foundation for the Blind. Thus far, people with hearing or visual disabilities have been limited to the resources that are offered to those without disabilities. And those have been inadequate to meet the special needs of people with disabilities, panelists said. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said that soon after he first became a commissioner in 2001, he went to speak in Sioux Falls, S.D. The unemployment of the hearing disabled community was at 75 percent, he said. “Broadband can impact education and the environment of the people with disabilities,” said Jay Wyant, president of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. With the speed increase that broadband offers vis-à-vis dial-up services, and with appropriate technology, people with disabilities are able to work from home and attend class at home. That can be useful when...

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By Andrew Feinberg, Deputy Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, November 6, 2009 - The National Cable and Telecommunications Association has asked the Federal Communications Commission to redirect up to $2 billion in "wasteful" spending from Universal Service programs towards broadband. The association did so in a filing submitted to the Commission on Thursday. With telephone subscriber contributions to the program now exceeding 12 percent of total usage fees -- and projected to pass 14 percent next year, it is "critically important" for the FCC to update the program, NCTA said in a press release. "The USF program operates as if nothing has changed since 1996," the association said in its filing. Americans continuous switch away from traditional copper-based phone service negates the need to subsidize it, and funds should be redirected towards the broadband infrastructure carrying Voice over IP traffic which Americans are increasingly choosing. "[A]s millions of Americans take service from facilities-based wireline competitors, the Commission continues to provide billions of dollars of support for [traditional] service." The NCTA suggests the FCC use a two-step process to reassess the level of USF support needed by measuring the availability of cable-based telephone service -- and reducing USF support where it can be shown that competitive service...

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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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Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, November 5, 2009 - Panelists at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation on Friday agreed that price and digital literacy have created a barrier to broadband demand that can affect more than just broadband adoption. The event was based off of a report written by Robert Atkinson, president of ITIF, “Policies to Increase Broadband Adoption at Home.” The report said that of the 92 to 94 percent of Americans have the opportunity to subscribe to broadband, only 65 percent have chosen to do so. The broadband penetration number comes from the widely-regarded random-digit-dial surveys of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. James Prieger, associate professor of public policy at Pepperdine University’s school of public policy, cited another barrier to adoption: the price of broadband service is just too high. Creating subsidization programs for broadband, or lowering taxes that pertain to broadbandmight be additional possibilities, he said. Prieger said that Canada had used tax credits to subsidize broadband, which could be a possibility for the United States, too. But Prieger cautioned, “Just because you have a plan, doesn’t mean that it is going to work.” According to panelists, another problem for broadband adoption is that consumers may not recognize that...

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By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com

October 6, 2009 - The Federal Communication Commission hosted a “field hearing” in Charleston, S.C., on October 6, 2009, as part of as part of its series of workshops and testimony in preparing a national broadband plan. One panel at the hearing focused on expanding digital literacy to the elderly, and to those whose professions rely heavily on the Internet. Finding ways to help mend the health care system was also on the agenda. Having seamless medical care would be ideal for older populations, said Otha Meadows, CEO of Trident Area Agency on Aging. It would be beneficial to have a patient’s medical records travel from one state to facilitated specialized health care. Doing so would also provide better statistics and vital signs taken from the patient through broadband from the comfort of their own home, and not at the doctor’s office. However, telemedicine is not the only aspect of society that has affected by the advances of broadband. Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps highlighted the fact that, as he said, “75 percent of Fortune 500 Companies hire their employees off the web.” Such a development might be beneficial from the perspective of reducing printing costs, but Copps said...

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