The broadband Internet and cable TV industries are rapidly becoming one and the same, as companies use the same wired and wireless capacity to provide Internet, video, telephone and other services. As Congress and the FCC deal with the need for a new regulatory paradigm for this new data-rich world, the race is on between citizens' and consumer advocates pushing for equal-opportunity systems that will best serve the growth of our culture and our democracy, and service providers who see de- or re-regulation as an opportunity to dramatically increase their profit potential.

Links on broadband Internet and cable issues:

• Benton Foundation
• Center for Communication and Civic Engagement
• Center for Digital Democracy
• Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Grassroots Cable Coalition
• Hear Us Now
• Media Access Project
• Minority Media and Telecom Council
• Philadelphia Grassroots Cable Coalition
• Public Knowledge
• Save the Internet Coalition
• Seattle Wireless

Technology-focused blogs:

• Jeff Chester
• MediaCitizen
• Media Policy Blog
• MuniWireless
• Telecom Consulting
• Truth, Justice, and Telecom Policy

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Broadband/Cable

Life, liberty and connectivity for all

Submitted by jonathan on Tue, 2009-01-06 10:15

We live in a civil society – a place where primary education is freely available to all, where anyone can enjoy a walk through our public parks or down our sidewalks and freely drive through the streets. Libraries across the country loan out books for free – literature that you can read on a spring day in our parks or beneath the streetlights on main street on a warm summer's evening. You don't have to tip the firemen who show up at your house or pay for police protection – in a civil society, public safety is freely available to everyone.

We enjoy myriad services and resources that we don't pay for each and every time we use them. Yet each of these key facets of contemporary society was part of a new social contract, often adopted only after years of battle and turmoil to overcome a prior status quo (from private fire and educational services to for-fee libraries and parks). Eventually, however, new models are seen to provide such an enormous benefit to the entire population that we're willing to invest in ideas that lift all boats. We realise that, as a society, each of us is better off when certain basic services are freely available to all.

Internet providers move to shape broadband push

Submitted by jonathan on Wed, 2008-12-31 12:21

President-elect Barack Obama's call to improve the nation's broadband infrastructure has cable and phone company lobbyists maneuvering to get a leg up.

Lawmakers in Congress want a plan that will create jobs over the next two to three years while also tackling the longer-term goal of improving the availability and quality of high-speed Web access in the U.S. The U.S. has slipped to 15th from fourth place since 2001 in broadband penetration, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Advocates say broadband deployment is critical to the competitiveness of the U.S. economy.

Media, civil rights groups voices support for black-focused TV network

Submitted by jonathan on Tue, 2008-12-30 10:50

Ion Media and Robert Johnson's Urban Television have a number of supporters, at least in principle, for their proposal to create a minority-targeted over-the-air TV network by programming multicast must-carry channels and trying to get the FCC to grant those stations must-carry status.

In separate filings with the FCC, Media Access Project/Common Cause and nearly a dozen civil rights groups weighed in on the proposal.

Telecom sector grows 24% in Venezuela

Submitted by jonathan on Mon, 2008-12-29 10:18

Venezuela’s telecommunications sector has grown 24 percent in recent years, according to the Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology, Socorro Hernandez.

Hernandez, who is also the president of the Venezuelan National Telephone Corporation, CANTV by its Spanish acronym, made the announcement during a televised press conference.

Larry Lessig's Newsweek piece is a pre-dot-bomb retread

Submitted by jonathan on Mon, 2008-12-29 08:56

Larry Lessig’s latest article in Newsweek is very disappointing, a pre-dot-bomb retread that backs down from all his recent progressive thinking. It’s so dated, one wonders if it was written in the last ten years, or if someone just found this article now and decided to print it. When was this written? 1995? 1998? Are you sure this was written by Larry Lessig, not George Gilder? If this is what it purports to be, then it helps explain why Larry is a very good teacher, but he should never be let closer to a telecom network than the handset.

Telecom industry seeks to influence broadband policy in North Carolina

Submitted by jonathan on Wed, 2008-12-24 11:21

Citizens across North Carolina are clamoring for better access to the Internet, but cable and telecom companies say it's too expensive to build service that reaches them. Now the industry has decided it is willing to pay an outside group, Connected Nation, to collect data about who's stuck on dialup, ostensibly to deliver improved service. But critics say the motive is hardly altruistic, charging that cable and telecom companies are more interested in warding off regulators than in bridging the digital divide.

Proposal for the creation of a rural broadband fund

Submitted by jonathan on Fri, 2008-12-19 15:05

Over the last week I've been working with a first-rate team of experts in the field of rural fiber deployment on developing the concept of a Rural Fiber Fund that can be including as a part of the upcoming economic stimulus package.

This is the first fruit to be borne of our labors. We'll be working on crafting an in-depth policy paper over the holidays that will be released on January 5th.

Bogus Wall Street Journal story on Google and net neutrality

Submitted by jonathan on Mon, 2008-12-15 12:52

Today's Wall Street Journal has a bogus, misleading story claiming that Google has been making deals with telephone and cable carriers that violate Network Neutrality.

Wall Street Journal: Google wants its own fast track on the web

Submitted by jonathan on Mon, 2008-12-15 08:34

The celebrated openness of the Internet -- network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic -- is quietly losing powerful defenders.

Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.

Obama's broadband roadmap

Submitted by jonathan on Wed, 2008-12-10 06:26

In a Saturday morning YouTube address, President-elect Barack Obama gave the nation a first glimpse at his administration's stimulus plan - and connecting everyone to the Internet was a main route on his roadmap to economic recovery.

"Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they'll get that chance when I'm President," he said. "Because that's how we'll strengthen America's competitiveness in the world."