Monday, November 9th, 2009
By Rahul Gaitonde, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 9, 2009 - On Friday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced seven new state recipients of the state broadband data and development grant program. These grants fund state efforts to map broadband availability and speeds. Each state was asked to pick a designated entity – either a state body or a non-profit organization – that would develop a plan for how broadband mapping would be conducted.
Of the seven states awarded grants on Friday, two choose to fully internalize their process and have state agencies control the mapping.
In Alabama, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs was tasked; they received $1.4 million for broadband data collection and mapping activities and $463,000 for broadband planning activities both for over a two- year period.
In Washington State, the Department of Information Services received $1.7 million for data collection and mapping and almost $500,000 for broadband planning activities both for over a two-year period.
Wyoming and Idaho, by contrast, choose to contract their mapping to the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology, a Seattle based non-profit. Wyoming received $1.3 million for data collection and mapping over a two-year period and $500,000 for broadband planning activities...
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Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
News
By William G. Korver, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, July 1 - "Broadband penetration will have substantially increased" by 2015, the U.S. Copyright Office said in a Monday report in which the agency recommended that Internet companies streaming local television signals over the Internet be denied a compulsory copyright license.
The agency, an arm of the Library of Congress, also recommended that Congress streamline the statutory copyright licensing terms for cable and direct broadcast satellite providers of broadcast TV signals.
If the advice of the U.S. Copyright Office is implemented, companies desiring to stream local TV signals over the Internet would be denied the copyright license that cable and satellite operators utilize to distribute identical signals.
The report urged, however, that the compulsory license extend to Internet protocol-based video services such as those offered by telecommunication companies like AT&T and Verizon Communications. Such services, the report held, fit the definition of a cable service under existing copyright law.
A compulsory license allows users of copyright audio and video material – such as cable and satellite copies – to use video programming without obtaining permission from the copyright holders. But the user must still pay the copyright owner a fee, and that fee is determined by the government.
The...
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