Internet/Broadband

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.

I am pleased to report that the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) has made tremendous progress in fulfilling its charter. At the BDAC’s next meeting on November 9, I expect each working group to come ready to present a detailed, substantive work product for the BDAC to consider. I am optimistic that the BDAC will come out of this meeting with some initial recommendations for the FCC as well as a plan to tackle the next phase of its work.

The Federal Communications Commission has weighed in with a federal court to support Charter's challenge to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission's application of legacy Title II telecom regulations to its interconnected VoIP phone service. The case is being heard by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Minnesota. "The Minnesota PUC has adopted a blunderbuss approach to VoIP regulation that threatens to disrupt the national voice services market," the FCC's legal team says.

[Commentary] As the House GOP released the first draft of the tax plan the week of Oct 30, rural broadband deployment, an issue that continues to receive bipartisan congressional attention, may find some helpful incentives. For telecommunications companies that are highly capital-intensive, the draft that the Senate eventually adopts could impact investments in new rural broadband facilities or the upkeep of existing network infrastructure in rural and urban areas.

In the fall of 2010, the Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner took the stage for a Q. and A. at a technology conference in San Francisco. Milner, whose holdings have included major stakes in Facebook and Twitter, is known for expounding on everything from the future of social media to the frontiers of space travel. But when someone asked a question that had swirled around his Silicon Valley ascent — Who were his investors? — he did not answer, turning repeatedly to the moderator with a look of incomprehension.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he believes technology companies that displayed Kremlin-linked ads during the 2016 election could help the United States “retaliate” against Russia. “What we ought to do with regard to the Russians is retaliate, seriously retaliate against the Russians,” Sen McConnell told MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt.