“Comcast” on The Daily Caller

Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, told the company’s employees in an e-mail Friday morning that he would step down from his position upon the completion of the takeover of NBC by Comcast. (more)

Free Press, the public face of the net neutrality movement, is a moral see-saw when it comes to transparency. (more)

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to take another step toward reclassifying the way it regulates Internet service providers, releasing a plan for public comment that would give the federal agency vast new powers over companies that distribute Web access. (more)

Since 2005, the Federal Communications Commission classified broadband Internet access as an “information service,” and effectively deregulated it; your phone company via DSL, your wireless provider via whatever generation of network speed that it offered, and your cable provider via cable modems, could offer access without regulation as a telecommunications service provider under what is known as “Title II” of the Communications Act. Instead, the FCC declared it would regulate only as necessary under its Title I “ancillary authority.” In a Policy Statement the FCC espoused principles of good sportsmanship it would expect of market participants. (more)

House Republicans swept the Congressional Management Office’s 2010 Mouse Awards honoring the best member, committee and leadership Websites last month, but—with at least 2 government agencies bringing complex Web issues 2 Congress’ doorstep and the GOP ill-prepared 2 handle them—their arrogance is more naive than letting Mark Foley host a boy scout camping trip. (more)

Speaking to Hampton University graduates last week, President Obama ignited a debate when he told the students that a 24/7 media environment, and technology such as the iPod or iPad, can be a distraction, “rather than a tool of empowerment.” Putting aside the mixed signals delivered by the Blackberry-loving president who gave the Queen of England an iPod; is our current media environment a source of empowerment? (more)

Despite the protestations of Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski that he has found a “third way” forward on regulating the Internet, the only place his path will lead is to a tightly-regulated, government-utility Internet. (more)

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again — and with a more “diplomatic” approach. That’s the strategy the Federal Communications Commission, which detailed its plans to regulate the Internet via a “third way.” (more)

Broadband and Web service companies are beefing up their lobbying forces in Washington as the multibillion-dollar battle over Internet regulations gathers momentum. (more)

Google has just announced that they will now begin factoring page speed in their search algorithm rankings.  That means the faster a website loads, the higher up they show up in Google searches.  Sluggish sites on the other hand will be knocked down the search rankings even if they have the most relevant information.  While I believe that Google’s latest actions are rational and that it serves consumer interests since no one wants a slow results, it does raise an interesting dilemma for “Network Neutrality” advocates who propagate the myth that all websites should operate at the same speed. (more)

Players in the telecommunications industry were elated last Tuesday as the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit invalidated the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to regulate broadband service under the principles promulgated in the Commission’s Internet Policy Statement. (more)

At first glance, Tuesday’s federal court ruling on Comcast looked like a clean win for the cable giant and for competitors including Time Warner and AT&T. The court, after all, ruled that Comcast could regulate high-speed Internet traffic over its own system and that a company that wanted to push its content through Comcast’s pipelines could not. (more)

At first glance, Tuesday’s federal court ruling on Comcast looked like a clean win for the cable giant and for competitors including Time Warner and AT&T. The court, after all, ruled that Comcast could regulate high-speed Internet traffic over its own system and that a company that wanted to push its content through Comcast’s pipelines could not. (more)

America’s communications industry comprises, like health care, roughly one-sixth of our economy. Unlike health care, however, which required majorities in Congress for sweeping new regulations, the Federal Communications Commission believes it can take over the communications system with just three votes of an unelected commission. (more)

Internet freedom got a reprieve Tuesday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia slapped down a brazen attempt by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ignore the rule of law and begin imposing onerous regulations on broadband network operators. The decision, Comcast v. FCC, deals with arcane matters of regulatory agency jurisdiction, but the stakes were profound and the ramifications for the future of the Internet will reverberate for years to come. (more)

The National Football League is entering a new phase of the 2010 season, the player recruitment campaign will start on March 5 and there are new rules for this endeavor because the owners have decided to blow up the old collective bargaining agreement, a document that kept both owners and players relatively happy. (more)

Google is certainly getting a lot of media attention over their plans for an experimental gigabit broadband network.  The main argument for this type of a network is to give high bandwidth applications a home to be tested because the theory was that broadband networks in the US were constricting applications to very low bandwidth.  But does broadband really lag applications, or is it really the other way around? (more)

Something unfortunate happened in the search for Net Neutrality and an “open Internet”. We have essentially been asked to suspend economic reason and accept the premise that the commodity of Internet server bandwidth is not a free market but a low-cost fixed rate service. We are told by proponents of Net Neutrality that the Internet is a place where the smallest websites that might pay tens of dollars per month for Internet connectivity have the same capability as the largest websites that pay millions per month for Internet connectivity. “Equal access for equal payment” has been replaced with “equal access for any payment”. By trying to “preserve” a vision of the Internet that never even existed, Net Neutrality would eliminate the existing open and competitive Internet server bandwidth market. (more)

With 16.5% of the nation “underemployed” and economists gloomily doubting next-generation job creation, Washington is considering a number of strategies, including the President’s “jobs bill.” “Jobs,” President Obama insisted in his state of the union address, “must be our number one focus in 2010.” (more)

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc. is planning to build high-speed fiber-optic broadband networks in the U.S. to offer Internet speeds that are more than 100 times faster than what Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. sell today. (more)