Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com
The FCC will hold its second workshop on broadband opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses on November 12. The discussion will focus on the availability of financing for the growth and purchase of telecommunications facilities related to broadband technologies. The workshop will also explore capitalization in cable, wireless, TV and radio broadcasting, common carrier facilities, and ancillary services. The first hearing was in August, which discussed whether small and disadvantaged businesses are ready to take advantage of the existing broadband technologies. Attendants can
register in advance...Read More »
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com
The Federal Communications Commission will host a broadband field hearing in conjunction with Georgetown University Medical Center on The Role of Broadband in Improving Public Safety Communications and Emergency Response.
The hearing will focus on the specific broadband requirements for America’s first responders and emergency medical personnel, how to maximize broadband's potential in serving first responders with applications and new technologies, and the cost of implementing such communications technologies. At the core of the discussion will be how the National Broadband Plan now being developed by the Commission can help bring attention to, and address, these critical public safety issues.
The hearing will be on Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 9:00 am and will be held at Georgetown University's Leavey Center. In addition to attending in person, interested parties may view proceedings
via...Read More »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
By The Staff of BroadbandCensus.com
The Federal Communications Commission will hear updates from staff on the formation of a national broadband plan at its November open meeting, scheduled for November 18. The staff presentation will include an analysis of "major gaps" in American broadband service availability.
The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act charges the FCC with developing a national broadband plan, which it must deliver to Congress before February 17,...
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Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com
The FCC has established the
OpenInternet.gov web site as a portal for public participation in the discussion about preserving the free and open Internet, introducing collaborative tools Web 2.0 applications. Among the links included on the site is one to Idealscale at
http://openinternet.ideascale.com/, which allows the public to evaluate, rank and discuss the ideas regarding the open Internet, in new and improved pathways for communication to encourage and facilitate public participation.
The page breaks the discussion down into ten open Internet topics that have generated widespread interest, including freedom of speech, innovation, transparency/disclosure, and others.
A blog at
http://blog.openinternet.gov/, will provide an additional forum for public comment and debate. Comments from the blog and the Ideascale page other than anonymous comments will be included in the official public record of the Open Internet inquiry, along with comments filed through traditional channels at the FCC. And one of those traditional channels – the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) at
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs2/ – became much easier to use and search this month with the launch of ECFS 2.0.
The FCC previously announced the use of other popular social media sites to increase public...
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Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
By Mercy Gakii, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 22, 2009 – The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners on Tuesday filed comments at the Federal Communications Commission urged the agency to select its web site,
www.BroadbandBestPractices.org, as the commission’s “clearinghouse” for examples of broadband successes.
NARUC praised the FCC for its efforts to utilize the so-called “Section 706” Joint Conference members and structure as part of the national broadband plan that the FCC is charged with carrying out by February 17, 2009. The group is a “joint conference” of state regulators and the FCC, and has been following broadband data and mapping efforts for some time.
NARUC said that it would be inefficient for the FCC to consider launch a duplicative broadband clearinghouse effort.
NARUC said that D.C. Public Service Commission Chairman Betty Ann Kane headed up the effort to create an interactive a “best practices” webpage.
This interactive portal is designed to link to various broadband projects, and one key objective, NARUC said, is to consolidate the information contained in several useful, but incomplete, state-focused websites.
The website,
www.BroadbandBestPractices.org, aims to grow over time. Presently, it is being maintained by the National Regulatory Research Institute, an independent research agency specializing in...
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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
By Rahul Gaitonde, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 2, 2009 – The Federal Communications Commission says that it wants to ensure that the pending national broadband plan addresses the needs of minorities, and the October 2, 2009, workshop heard multiple perspectives on the subject, with a focus on “Diversity and Civil Rights.”
FCC Consumer Research Director John Horrigan said that there is a clear correlation between education level and adoption: those with less than a high school degree only have a broadband penetration rate of about 30 percent.
Minorities are much more likely to access the Internet via mobile devices, he said, although the national average for all Americans is around 32 percent, while it is 47 percent for Hispanics. Although more Hispanics may access the Internet via mobile phones, such phones are generally prepaid and have limited internet capabilities.
The biggest barrier to adoption is the issue of relevance, with 50 percent of those using dial-up to access the Internet saying that they saw no reason to upgrade to a high-speed connection. The lack of available cited by a mere 17 percent.
Another major barrier to access is simply not having a computer, or knowing how to properly use a computer.
While users are able to...
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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
By Rahul Gaitonde, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 9, 2009 - The Federal Communications Commission workshop on economic issues in broadband competition on October 9 brought together regulators and academics, who agreed that regulation of the broadband market would be difficult and different compared to old-style telecommunications.
Judith Chevalier of Yale University, explained that while economic models do exist and can be useful they are not perfect. “There are big gaps between these models and the world we see.”
She said that there are too many variables for a truly perfect model to be created. Hence one must look at the market to predict the outcome of any regulation – and not just rely on a result from an econometric model. Echoing a refrain of almost every workshop, Chevalier said that in order to create a better model, “we need more and better data”.
In answer to the question of whether “there a duopoly in the broadband market,” almost everyone said yes.
However this duopoly in the wireline market may soon be losing its bite, as incumbent telecommunications carriers begin to compete more aggressively with cable companies. Additionally, panelists said, mobile broadband is becoming more of a substitute than a complement to the wireline options.
Looking at...
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Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 13, 2009 - Hospitals and health care are the last of the industrial-age institutions that have yet to go online as department stores, banks, and venues entertainment have already gone, panelists said at the Broadband Breakfast Club Tuesday morning.
With the Federal Communications Commission charged with developing a National Broadband Plan by February 2010, health care is one obvious area potentially impacted by greater broadband.
One of the most significant ways in which broadband is likely to impact health care is through the integration of technology into the fabric on consumers’ lives, as with greater use of smart phones.
Ron Poropatich, a doctor and colonel in the U.S. Army , said that physicians dealing with returning active members of the military suffering from traumatic brain injuries or post-traumatic stress syndrome find that art of text messaging has become a vital source of scheduling and reminding.
“[Physicians] would send e-mails to patients in the military of when their appointments would be and the e-mail would be sent back because their e-mail boxes are full,” said Poropatich. “When we would ask them about it, they would say, ‘oh, just send me a text.’”
This advancement has been applied in other contexts,...
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