Posts Tagged ‘FCC’

When Congress created the USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Broadband Loan Program in the Farm Bill, the goal was to connect to the Internet those Americans living in small towns and hard-to-reach rural areas with insufficient access.

  By: James Assey, NCTA Executive Vice President   In a relatively short period of time, broadband Internet service in the United States has evolved from the exception to the norm.  Over two-thirds of U.S.

The FCC today released their annual “Measuring Broadband America” report which tests consumer broadband performance in the U.S.  The report’s findings underscore that the U.S. enjoys a healthy, growing, and competitive broadband marketplace.

The FCC held a summit yesterday on broadband adoption, lessons learned over the past few years and best practices that can continue helping to close the digital divide among communities that remain unconnected.

NCTA has been a strong supporter of the major universal service reforms adopted by the FCC in November 2011.  Reforming the universal service regime was an incredibly complex and difficult challenge and the Commission deserves great credit for establishing a long-term path to a modern program that supports broadband only where necessary and that relies on market-based mechanisms to the greatest extent possible.

Professor Steven Wildman, Michigan State University Professor of Information Studies, has been named as the FCC’s newest Chief Economist. In December Wildman spoke at NCTA Connects, a new event series at NCTA which hosts national thought leaders discussing issues that are impacting the media and communications industries.

Our speaker and moderator line-up is coming together quite nicely for The Cable Show. From Conan O’Brien to Julius Genachowski and media leaders like Chase Carey and Jeffrey Bewkes, you are certain to come away from The Cable Show 2012 General Sessions with a whole lot of inspiration and  questions about “What’s Next?” answered.

Last fall, a unanimous FCC approved long-overdue reform to modernize the universal service fund (USF) and related intercarrier compensation (ICC) payments, crafting new mechanisms better suited to today’s competitive realities and furthering our national goal of extending broadband to all Americans.  The FCC’s gradual transition plan and new framework promotes greater efficiency, instills needed fiscal discipline and refocuses the program toward the needs of rural consumers, not rural companies.

You are undoubtedly aware of the Emergency Alert System (EAS), the national public warning system used to address the American public during emergencies. You may have seen the system in action, used by state or local authorities to deliver important emergency information, such as AMBER alerts and weather information targeted to your area.

Steve Morris, Vice President & Associate General Counsel of NCTA, gave BroadbandBreakfast.com his first impressions on this week’s USF Reform Proposal. His commentary is also available here.

Back in June, on the eve of NCTA’s annual conference, it was clear that a theme had emerged for The Cable Show.  As I wrote on this blog, we were entering “a new world in which Consumer Electronics, Information Technology and Hollywood” have come together into order to deliver our customers new and powerful ways of consuming entertainment and information.

Policy talk turned to consumer privacy at the Cable Show as representatives of the FCC, White House, think tanks and Canoe Ventures came together to discuss the need for privacy protection for consumers.

Following on the Public Policy lunch discussion between the FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, the  bureau chiefs joined NCTA’s Rick Chessen for a discussion of the telecom sector.

FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz and FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn sat down at the Public Policy lunch with NCTA’s James Assey to discuss the regulatory challenges facing cable and the challenge of getting America connected.

The blogosphere has been buzzing since last night, with all manner of “experts” offering opinions about the dispute between Comcast and Level 3 over their commercial arrangement for the exchange of Internet traffic.  While I am a bit hesitant to add to the ruckus, I think it is important to refute the misguided notion that this business dispute is really a “net neutrality” problem that can and should be solved by federal regulation.