Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
By Winter Casey, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 17, 2009 - The consulting firm Empiris LLC joined a host of cable and phone broadband network related entities on Tuesday when it slammed a recent study from Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society on broadband policy.
In July the Federal Communications Commission commissioned the Berkman Center to review the existing literature and studies on broadband deployment and usage throughout the world to inform the FCC’s development of a National Broadband Plan. The FCC is sought
public comment on the study through November 16.
Empiris held a teleconference with bloggers Tuesday to discuss its problems with the report. Empiris argues that the study failed to provide an accurate summary of broadband policies in other countries and advances “conclusions that conflict with the evidence found in existing research.”
“The central question for developing broadband services and the infrastructure required to deliver them is how to provide the requisite incentives for carrier investment in such infrastructure,” noted Robert Crandall, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and a senior expert for Empiris, in a statement. “The Berkman Study ignores this issue, focusing instead on a policy of intra-platform competition that has been thoroughly discredited in...
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Sunday, October 25th, 2009
By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com
The French Constitutional Court on Thursday approved legislation that would create a graduated-response program to copyright infringement. The goal is to enable copyright owners to halt illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing without suing individual consumers. Thomas Sydnor, Senior Fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation hailed the move, calling it a step forward for common sense and the rule of law on the Internet. "In America today, if a caregiver for my children used one of my home computers for illegal file-sharing, copyright owners would have to file a federal lawsuit and spend thousands of dollars—which they would then have to recover from me—just to alert me to the problem,” Sydnor added.
He said that as a consumer, he would far prefer the successive warnings that French law would now provide to the sudden financial devastation of an anonymous, “John Doe” lawsuit that American law now requires. “I thus urge American internet service providers and copyright owners to work together to provide American consumers with similar relief," said Sydnor. But privacy advocates and critics of the recording industry have insisted that copyright holders that “John Doe” lawsuits better protect individual rights because they keep the content industry from...
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Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
By Winter Casey, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 22, 2009 - The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved controversial proposed rules governing internet access during its monthly public meeting. Commissioners on all sides of the debate stressed the importance of having an open internet, and in engaging in constructive dialogue on the issue going forward.
The move marked the beginning of a formal phase of regulating internet access. Although the FCC in August 2005 adopted a policy statement pledging fidelity to four Net neutrality principles, such a policy was never binding upon all broadband providers.
Additionally, the proposed rules go beyond those four generally-accepted neutrality principles.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a supporter of Net neutrality efforts for some time, noted that the FCC has been addressing open internet questions since 2005.
“[W]e face the dangerous combination of an uncertain legal framework with ongoing as well as emerging challenges to a free and open Internet,” he said.” Given the potentially huge consequences of having the open Internet diminished through inaction, the time is now to move forward with consideration of fair and reasonable rules of the road, rules that would be enforceable and implemented on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
Republican Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker...
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Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com
An agreement reached by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was praised Wednesday by Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., Chairman of the Communications, Technology, and the Internet Subcommittee.
“It will help insure that the Internet remains stable and secure for the people around the world who use it for work, study, entertainment, or to stay in touch with family and friends,” read the statement.
This new arrangement brings to an end the series of short-term agreements between the U.S. government and ICANN. With this agreement, ICANN will continue to manage the Internet’s global Domain Name System while agreeing to a series of review processes to help it assess and improve its mission and operations. The NTIA, an arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce, will continue its relationship with ICANN.
The Affirmation ensures the global Internet stakeholder community of permanent accountability mechanisms hard-coded into ICANN's continued evolution as a private sector led organization, commented Michael Palage, adjunct fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation and a former ICANN Board Member.
“The Affirmation of Commitments recognizes...
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Monday, September 21st, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, September 21, 2009 – Broadband data is important for the future of our country – and public and transparent broadband data is even more important.
Today, at this moment, new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is making a speech in which he is highlighting the vital principle of public and transparent broadband data.
For three years now, this principle has been the core belief animating my efforts as a journalist, and as the entrepreneur founding BroadbandCensus.com. Now, as we enter the fourth year since this saga began, it’s time to take stock and reflect on what BroadbandCensus.com has accomplished.
And with One Web Week having arrived, I’d like to lay out this history from a personal perspective. In this series of blog posts, I’m going to speak about what we’ve been through, who we have worked with to advance the principles of public and transparent broadband data, and what we ultimately aim to achieve at BroadbandCensus.com.
- Part 1: The debate begins with the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2006.
- Part 2, on One Web Day: The founding of BroadbandCensus.com in the fall of 2007.
- Part 3: The Broadband Census for America Conference in...
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