France and Germany demanded that US tech companies help them police terrorism on the Internet, escalating European efforts to wrangle more law-enforcement help from Silicon Valley.
Cuba’s regime, which has curbed the Internet to help prevent any popular uprising, faces a new challenge to its policy: US diplomacy.
Roberta Jacobson, the US State Department’s top diplomat for the hemisphere, will lay the path to a potential new era in connectivity for the region’s least-wired nation. Promoting Internet access for Cubans is a top priority for Washington, where the Obama Administration began to permit commercial shipments of devices like mobile phones and laptops, as well as related software and hardware. A senior US official said that American negotiators didn’t expect any breakthroughs in the first round of talks, which are set to focus on the details of establishing formal embassies in both countries. But the rapprochement is raising hopes of a freer Internet on the Caribbean island.
[Commentary] The signal from the Obama Administration and an army of regulators appears to be that it almost doesn’t matter how Internet service providers gained the power they have -- that the power to connect people to the Internet is now so great, and the Web so central to daily life and commerce, that it is in the public interest for government to step in.
In the call for new rules, the Obama Administration has made the speed of delivery an issue to be highlighted. Its message: ISPs aren’t delivering broadband that’s fast enough to meet all of those needs, and they aren’t facing enough competition for service to lower prices and boost those speeds. Moreover, they need common-carrier rules to keep them from blocking and discriminating and prioritizing that Internet traffic. President Barack Obama's broadband initiatives include: calling to end laws that harm broadband service competition, expanding the national movement of local leaders for better broadband, announcing a new initiative to support community broadband projects, unveiling new grant and loan opportunities for rural providers, and removing regulatory barriers and improving investment incentives.
In his State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama will be putting forward a number of programs that could change the web in profound ways. Here’s what you can expect to hear about:
Most experts believe that even if President Barack Obama's statement doesn’t lead to extensive federal involvement on the matter of municipal broadband, it’ll raise awareness about the value of local government-owned networks.
Christopher Mitchell, director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and a national expert on community broadband, called President Obama’s speech “tremendously positive” for bringing muni-broadband issues to the forefront. But he admitted concern over how it may impact the political landscape. While the Federal Communications Commission has yet to announce whether it will take up the petition, President Obama’s statement on broadband could have an impact on what the FCC will do. Madison (WI) Mayor Paul Soglin noted that the FCC is split on some of the broadband and Internet topics, but felt President Obama’s message could be a critical tipping point.
[Commentary] While the White House's and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposals to promote municipal broadband may make for good political theater, and even assuming Chattanooga's (TN) fiber system is the most successful municipal broadband venture to date, the claim that Chattanooga is the reason why the FCC should use questionable legal authority to try to preempt state laws in order to allow local governments to build broadband networks glosses over several important details. Chattanooga is unique in many respects, so care must be taken when generalizing this somewhat unique situation to other communities.
[Commentary] Our review of municipal fiber projects finds that the few successful projects have unique characteristics that do not make them models for other communities.
Most muni fiber networks were built by public utilities, and almost all are located in small municipalities. Some received federal Recovery Act subsidies that are no longer available. Almost half do not even serve residential customers. And it appears that few employ career, skilled employees with the good wages and benefits that union standards have set in the telecommunication industry. In contrast to municipal ownership, there are models of public-private partnerships that are successful. Using local public ownership carries a high risk of failure. We must continue to insist that incumbent providers invest in high-speed networks serving all communities. And cities, policymakers, and concerned advocates can look to the North Carolina Next Generation Network for models of successful public-private partnerships that expand high-speed broadband and create jobs for skilled, union telecom employees.
According to research conducted by Broadband Communities Magazine, US counties lacking high-speed broadband have lower population growth and are more likely to see population decline than counties where high-speed broadband is available.
House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo (D-CA) thinks the Republican-backed bill to define the Federal Communications Commission's authority over an open Internet is a bill of rights for "various companies" that would tie the FCC's hands by preventing Title II reclassification.
Additionally, Ranking Member Eshoo believes the bill creates a "huge loophole" for specialized services to create prioritized fast lanes that would be biased against enforcement, harms the deployment of rural broadband, and could restrict access to utility poles. Ranking Member Eshoo also doesn't like the draft's limitation of the FCC's powers to the issues it enumerates -- blocking, discrimination, paid prioritization. "The proposal also attempts to address specific forms of discrimination, but who today knows with any certainty what tomorrow’s forms of discrimination will be? The proposal takes away the authority of the FCC to address them."
Amazon is calling for changes to draft legislation from Republicans on new network neutrality rules, suggesting the measure could be ineffective and place too many limits on the Federal Communications Commission's authority.
Amazon believes FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has the authority he needs to go ahead with a vote on proposed network neutrality rules requiring all Internet traffic be treated equally. Amazon said there are several loopholes in the draft that could open the door to fast lanes for "specialized services" -- a loosely defined term in the bill. Amazon also said the draft could open the door to providers thwarting net neutrality rules "further upstream in the network." The company said this exception should be viewed suspiciously when it comes to wireless broadband, as it could leave a loophole for mobile broadband providers to prioritize their own content.
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