Internet/Broadband

In Pennsylvania, there is a renewed push by state officials to capture $140 million in federal subsidies for rural broadband, a windfall that could go to another state after Verizon declined it two years ago. The Federal Communications Commission plans to distribute the rejected funds through an upcoming nationwide auction, a move that state officials are trying to head off through public advocacy and a pending FCC petition.

The Senate Communications Subcommittee looked at the impact of the internet of things on rural America in a hearing Nov 7, with both sides of the aisle agreeing that the Federal Communications Commission needed better data on where broadband is and isn't deployed, given that connectivity is key to IoT deployment.

Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) wants the Federal Communications Commission to tap into more state and local government input on broadband deployment, suggesting the FCC’s goal now is to serve industry and tie the hands of those local governments. That came in a letter Rep Eshoo sent to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the other commissioners Nov 7. Rep Eshoo wants to see more state and local officials on the FCC's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC).

The Federal Communications Commission is intervening in a court case in order to help Charter Communications avoid utility-style consumer protections related to its phone service in Minnesota. The FCC and Charter both want to avoid a precedent that could lead other states to impose stricter consumer protection rules on VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone service offered by cable companies. The FCC has never definitively settled the regulatory status of VoIP.

Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Anne Hazlett announced that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing more than $200 million in infrastructure projects to bring broadband to hundreds of unserved and underserved rural communities.  Hazlett discussed USDA’s work to expand broadband access in rural areas during a visit today to Upshur County (WV).

Comcast Xfinity Internet service suffered major problems on Nov 6, leaving customers in many major cities with slow connections or none at all.  Internet-monitoring company Downdetecter said that the outage is affecting Xfinity customers in Denver (CO), Portland (OR), Chicago (IL), Seattle (WA), New York (NY), San Francisco (CA), Houston (TX), Minneapolis (MN), Boston (MA), and Mountain View (CA). Comcast’s customer care on Twitter apologized for the outage and said that the company was trying to fix the problem, but it did not say when it would be solved.

[Commentary] On November 16, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on an item that will impact the commission's Lifeline program, which provides discounts on telecommunications services for qualifying low-income consumers. On October 26, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released a draft of the item in advance of the November vote. Here we break down the rules that the FCC plans on changing immediately at the November meeting, the new proposals the FCC is seeking comment on, and the more general evaluation the FCC is launching into the program's "ultimate purposes." [Kevin Taglang]

Comcast and Verizon have both asked the Federal Communications Commission to make clear that the FCC's new policy on network neutrality — which could be put to a vote as early as Dec — will preempt state and local regulations that might read differently. The request marks the industry's latest step to weaken federal rules that regulate broadband companies like legacy telephone companies. The broadband industry fears that even if the FCC succeeds in deregulating, states could take steps “countermanding” the federal agency's decision, according to the Verizon white paper.

[Commentary] In a few weeks, it is widely expected that the Federal Communications Commission will release a draft order reversing the Obama Administration’s controversial 2015 decision to reclassify broadband internet access from a lightly-regulated “information” service under Title I of the Communications Act to a heavily-regulated common carrier “telecommunications” service under Title II of that same Act. As with the original 2015 decision, a court appeal of this policy change is a virtual certainty. Yet, even though the DC Circuit in USTelecom v.

Hundreds of state and local efforts to connect rural and remote schools to fiber-optic networks have been delayed or rejected by federal officials during the past two years, jeopardizing the push to bring high-speed internet to the country's hardest-to-connect classrooms. Broadband proponents say the problems stem from confusing barriers erected by the Federal Communications Commission and the Universal Service Administrative Company, which oversee and administer the E-rate, a $3.9 billion program to help schools and libraries pay for internet access and other telecommunications services.