Consumer groups have been hitting AT&T hard recently for their decision to block Facetime over cellular unless users sign up for one of their new shared data plans (complete with $15 per gigabyte overage fees), claiming the move violates the FCC’s new loophole-filled network neutrality rules. For what it’s worth, FCC boss Julius Genachowski yesterday stated that once a proper complaint from consumer groups has been filed, and if good faith negotiations “doesn’t lead to [...]

AT&T has laid bare their plan with the FCC to hang up on the carrier’s landline networks so they can focus on more profitable wireless services. In a recent filing with the FCC (pdf), AT&T outlines their plans to “clear away the regulatory underbrush” governing the company’s older landline and DSL networks. Companies like Verizon and AT&T are hanging up on DSL and landline customers, happily letting them leave for cable so that the incumbents [...]

As we noted back in March, our new national broadband plan involves reconfiguring the Universal Service Fund (USF) so that money paid into it is put toward broadband expansion (currently the funds only address school broadband and rural phone connectivity). It also involved increasing consumer broadband fees, estimated to be between $1 to $5 per broadband connection, in order to pay for it. Though we’ve been discussing the idea since March, for whatever reason nobody [...]

A few years back the FCC decided rather belatedly to start using actual data from actual broadband connections to start influencing policy decisions, a policy that involved using UK stat firm SamKnows and custom in-home routers to collect data on service quality. The endeavor has paid some dividends, the FCC occasionally at least naming and shaming particularly pathetic ISP performance resulting in some scattered but significant improvements for consumers. Now in a new public order [...]

Bankrupt LightSquared still doesn’t have anything close to an actual product on the market, and they likely never will — given the FCC’s decision to block a necessary waiver due to interference of their planned LTE network with GPS services. The company is also just burning through money, having spent at least $134 million since their May bankruptcy, much of it on futile lobbying efforts. Still, that isn’t stopping the company from paying at least [...]

Though it has been proposed for quite some time, people have only just recently started realizing that the FCC’s broadband plan (which isn’t much of one because it ignores the lack of competition) does have a provision in it for applying a $1-$5 monthly tax on each broadband connection to help fund fund the USF, a telecom expansion program with a very long and ugly history of fraud, waste and abuse. There’s vast support for [...]

The FAA this week announced that the agency will be taking a closer look at whether or not they should allow broader use of e-readers, smartphones and other devices while in flight. As it stands, and as most of you are aware, flyers are urged to avoid using any of these devices until the plane reaches at least 10,000 feet. According to an FAA press release this inquiry would focus solely on data and would [...]

Back in April I noted that people were just starting to realize how the FCC’s nationwide broadband plan includes a proposed broadband tax on broadband service, with the FCC imposing what could be a $1-$5 a month tax on each broadband user per month to help fund the USF and expand broadband services. The problem, as Free Press argues to The Hill, is that this extra charge on top of what’s already usually very expensive [...]

Last month the President s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology sent the Obama Administration a new report (pdf) requesting that the President make even more airwaves available for wireless services — and that those airwaves be shared. The report gave a few vague suggestions for these shared spectrum trials, which could involve semi-exclusive licenses where carriers could share airwaves with government services, or some kind of unlicensed approach not unlike white space broadband. [...]

Three votes are in from the FCC to approve Verizon’s massive marketing deal with the cable industry, and as was expected it looks like the agency is eager to approve the deal. A source at the FCC tells Bloomberg News that FCC boss Julius Genachowski has already voted yes, alongside Conservative Commissioners Robert McDowell and Ajit Pai. As we’ve been noting, Verizon is already shoving unwanted DSL users to cable, creating a huge cable monopoly [...]