December 2017

Comcast to customers: Just trust us about changed net neutrality pledges

Comcast is defending its changed net neutrality pledges in the face of criticism from Internet users. The deletion of a net neutrality promise immediately after the Federal Communications Commission started repealing its net neutrality rules is just a "language" change, the company says.

Sen McCaskill Presses FCC Chairman Pai On Missing Lifeline Fines

Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO), ranking mbmer of the Homeland and Government Affairs Committee, is one of the biggest critics of the Federal Communications Commission's Lifeline program. In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai -- who shares her concerns about waste, fraud and abuse in the program -- Sen McCaskill demanded answers for why almost $90 million in fines against Lifeline providers who profited from rule violations had yet to be collected. "Between September 2013 and February 2014, the FCC proposed more than $94 million in fines to 12 Lifeline providers for enrolling ineligible subscrib

First-time internet users: Who they are and what they do when they get online

Decades after internet access became widely available, Pew Research Center surveys show that about a tenth of American adults (12%) remain offline. But what happens when some of them take the plunge and connect?

FCC Wants to Kill Net Neutrality. Congress Will Pay the Price

Voters know Republicans in Congress are the only ones who can stop Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.  If enough Republicans tell Chairman Pai to stop, he will likely back down. After all, Congressional pressure has stopped the FCC before. Members of Congress face a choice: They can side with their constituents, who overwhelmingly want them to defend the greatest communication and innovation platform ever invented, or support one of the most blatant anti-consumer corporate giveaways in modern history.

How to Make Sense of Net Neutrality and Telecom Under Trump

First, the Department of Justice sued to block AT&T's proposed $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The next day, the Federal Communications Commission unveiled a proposal to loosen the limits on the number of television and radio stations a broadcast company can own, the latest in a series of moves that pave the way for Sinclair Broadcasting's proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Company. The same week, the FCC unveiled its plan to overturn net-neutrality rules that ban broadband providers, including AT&T, from blocking or discriminating against legal content.

The FCC Wants to Let Telecoms Cash In on the Internet

[Commentary] The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to let Comcast, Verizon and other broadband companies turn the internet into a latter-day version of cable TV, in which they decide what customers can watch and how much they pay for that content. That might sound like a far-fetched scenario. But there is reason to fear that some version of that awful vision could become a reality, because most Americans have just one or two choices for broadband access at home.