Thursday, March 11th, 2010
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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Friday, October 30th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 30, 2009 – Over the summer, BroadbandCensus.com split our operations between the news and events that we host, and the Creative Commons database with the local broadband SPARC: the Speeds, Prices, Availability, Reliability and Competition in the local broadband marketplace.
As we’ve now entered the fourth year of this saga in which BroadbandCensus.com has been
leading the charge for public and transparent broadband data, much has changed about the opportunity that we face, and our country faces, in bringing better broadband data to consumers, and to policy-makers.
In previous versions of this series of blog posts taking stock, I’ve highlighted our efforts to start the ball rolling on
crowdsourcing broadband data, and on uniting scholars and state officials through the
“Broadband Census for America” conference that we hosted on the eve of the passage of the Broadband Data Improvement Act.
Today, I’d like to speak about some of the major changes that 2009 has brought to BroadbandCensus.com – particularly as both our news and our data side have helped to set the table for the national broadband plan currently under development. In the final series of these blog posts, next week,...
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Thursday, October 15th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
Public Knowledge's sixth annual "IP3 Awards" - which celebrates information policy, intellectual property, and internet protocol - drew a crowd of Washington's technorati to the Sewell-Belmont House in Washington on Thursday evening.
Among the guests dropping by the event included White House science and technology policy aide Susan Crawford, the Obama administration's designee to be intellectual property czar Victoria Espinel, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, Office of Science and Technology Policy chief of staff Jim Kohlenberger, NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn recommitted her organization to the principles of Net neutrality and to "balance" in the copyright wars. "Public Knowledge will not rest until we have an open internet," she said, and "universally accessable and affordable broadband."
On copyright, she said, the non-profit group was "locked in a constant battle with Hollywood," including a fight over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement -- truly an intellectual property treaty -- which she said continues to be under seal and hidden from public disclosure.
Sen. Warner introduced one of the awardees, Karen Jackson, the Deputy Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Jackson received the "information policy" award "for leading the Commonwealth’s broadband mapping...
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Thursday, October 15th, 2009
By Mercy Gakii, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com; and Rahul Gaitonde, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 15, 2009 - Six public interest organizations, including Consumers Union, on Wednesday filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to protect consumers from misleading and confusing advertising and billing practices by phone, cable and wireless providers.
The consumer groups argue that current protections are insufficient and urge the FCC to require meaningful, not misleading, disclosure.
These groups would like to force billing and advertising practices which are more transparent and easier to understand. These companies often offer introductory rates and special offers to some customers which then change without consumers knowing in advance when their rates will be affected.
The other organizations were Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, Media Access Project, the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge.
"When consumers have the facts, they can make informed choices," said Chris Riley, policy counsel of Free Press. "Consumers are being bombarded with inconsistent and incomplete information when shopping for service providers or plans, and then they are baffled by misleading and confusing bills once they sign up. Customers invest a lot of money in these services and spend a great deal of time using them. That’s why the FCC must...
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Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON – September 29, 2009 – From the beginning, BroadbandCensus.com has aimed at providing academics, consumers, government officials and industry with the high-quality data needed about the state of broadband throughout the country.
We believe in public and transparent broadband data. Without public and transparent broadband data, each of these constituents are lacking in what they need.
It is heartening that the highest levels of the Obama administration see and espouse the virtues of transparency and of a data-driven approach to broadband policy.
Again today, it came clear that the FCC now seeks to do that which BroadbandCensus.com has been doing since February 2008 – comparing actual speeds with advertised speeds – on an even more finely grained basis.
Now comes the hard part: translating the rhetoric and positive feelings about public and open broadband data into concrete decisions that will drive better-quality broadband data.
Last week I began this five-part series during One Web Week. I focused on the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain broadband data in 2006, and on the founding of BroadbandCensus.com in the fall of 2007.
Much has happened on broadband data in the past week: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced a new...
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
By Christopher Naoum, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com
ARLINGTON, Va., September 28, 2009 – “Beer and Broadband Mapping” was the informal name appended to a spirited and lively discussion that capped the first day of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference here at George Mason School of Law on Friday, September 25.
Blair Levin, executive director of the Federal Communication Commission’s Omnibus Broadband Initiative and a keynote panelist at the Friday evening event, joked that the real intelligence among those academics would be among those spending their Friday night talking about broadband data.
The discussion, which was sponsored by The Benton Foundation, BroadbandCensus.com and the New America Foundation, began at around 8:30 p.m., and lasted for nearly an hour and a half. Many notable academics from TPRC, and from the Obama administration, attended the session.
Charles Benton, chairman of the Benton Foundation, began the discussion by noting the importance of broadband data disclosure, which he had emphasized in his opening statement at the U.S. Broadband Coalition on Thursday, September 24.
Drew Clark, executive director of BroadbandCensus.com, followed by presenting the company’s public and transparent map of Columbia, South Carolina, that shows broadband speeds, technologies, and providers It is available at
BroadbandCensusMaps.com. Clark referenced the major change...
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Saturday, September 12th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, Broadband Census.com
WASHINGTON, September 9, 2009 – The Internet can serve as a means for enhancing consumer protections, provided that government agencies play their appropriate role in regulating and disclosing the practices of broadband providers, according to a several consumer advocates.
Speaking at the September 9 workshop of the Federal Communications Commission, the advocates observed that the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission could each play a significant role in enhancing consumer knowledge about broadband.
Mike Nelson, a visiting professor of communications, culture and technology at Georgetown University, and a former Clinton administration internet official, said that the flowering of the e-commerce in the 1990s owed was “due in large part to the decision [by the government] NOT to regulate.”
“I was involved in the [Ira] Magaziner e-commerce report,” said Nelson. “Almost every page had a promise about what the administration will not do.”
The certainty provided by that report was helpful” because in enabled internet application companies to be free from “having to hire as many lawyers” as they otherwise would have to, he said.
Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, a “tech tank inside a think that that provide support for open architecture,”...
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Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
By Douglas Streeks, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, July 15, 2009 - Widespread broadband deployment and adoption is essential to economic recovery as well as social justice, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. said Tuesday morning at the July BroadbandCensus.com Breakfast Club.
The recovery package planning process has been "one of the most rewarding experiences" Clyburn has had since joining the Congress, he said.
But while Clyburn compared the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to the New Deal programs of the 1930s, he soberly noted that many of the programs instituted by President Roosevelt left out minority communities like those he represents. “If you go back, you will notice most of the communities that I represent were left out," he said.
Broadband access in particular could help rural America in areas like health information technology, Clyburn said. If broadband deployment isn't done correctly, any national health care strategy will fail, he said.
Clyburn’s daughter Mignon Clyburn, formerly of the South Carolina Public Service Commission, has been nominated by President Obama for one of five slots on the Federal Communications Commission.
Mignon Clyburn’s Senate Confirmation hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Following introductory remarks was a panel discussion on “How the FCC's National Broadband Plan Will Affect Spending.” The event was...
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