Internet/Broadband

A trade group of broadband providers including AT&T and Comcast pledged recently to not block or slow web traffic and otherwise avoid “unfair discrimination against lawful traffic online,” according to a statement. The group, Broadband for America, also represents companies including the largest wireless carrier Verizon. Comcast changed the language about its web practices that is posted on a corporate page in late April, as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai was announcing his intention to gut the Obama-era rules.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s record is missing key evidence: over 50,000 Net Neutrality consumer complaints submitted to the FCC between 2015 and 2017.

Frontier users have found an unwelcome present in their latest bill as the company has added a $2-a-month Internet Infrastructure Surcharge:

"Beginning with this bill, customers not on an Internet Service term agreement, price protection plan or subject to other exclusions will be assessed a $1.99 per month Internet Infrastructure surcharge. The Internet Infrastructure surcharge is not a tax or governmental charge."

Frontier says the surcharge has been implemented to defray some local network maintenance costs.

An open internet provides a bedrock on which local news providers can build stable, accessible, and independent structures. Net Neutrality will not solve the problems facing local news. Doing so will require hard work and ingenuity from journalists, community members, entrepreneurs, and local governments. But net neutrality gives those actors the space to try and solve these problems. In a world without net neutrality, that space will shrink. 

A Q&A with Christopher Mitchell, director of Community Broadband Networks for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. 

In an interview Dec 11 about the coming Federal Communications Commission vote over whether to repeal landmark network neutrality rules, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai took aim at a different group — the Web platforms themselves.

Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Ranking Member of the Joint Economic Committee, and Dean Heller (R-NV) introduced the Tribal Connect Act of 2017 to improve broadband connectivity in Indian Country. The bill would increase access to the Federal Communications Commission's schools and libraries universal service support program, known as E-rate, that provides discounts to assist public schools and libraries obtain high-speed internet access and telecommunications at affordable rates.

Video plays a growing role in the education of students who turn to videoconferencing, streaming lectures, and other forms of high-tech distance learning to complete or extend their educations. But the looming end of net neutrality could make life harder, or at least more expensive, for such students. 

[Commentary] I was lucky enough to see up close the excitement of fired-up startup founders building things that never existed before. I got inspired enough to leave behind a great job with healthcare and put my savings into building my dream. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s short-sighted plan will crush that dream for future would-be founders.

Since most folks won’t plow through 5500 words of legal analysis, I’ve gotten some requests to specifically address the claims by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and others that the Federal Trade Commission can address blocking as easily as the FCC and prevent any Internet service provider from blocking any content or application. My short answer is: “No.