Sprint’s latest “cost-cutting” decision to roam on rural networks in Kansas and Oklahoma gave conservative critics of the Federal Communications Commission a sense of vindication. The FCC’s 2011 data roaming rule, critics argued at the time, would drive down investment and slow wireless network development. (more)
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Mild-mannered community activist Albert Knighten found himself in handcuffs last month when police and federal agents raided his home and shut down a pirate radio station he operated out of a spare bedroom. Supporters say his bare-bones operation filled an important niche in a predominantly black section of Fort Myers, a community whose residents often feel overlooked and underserved by commercial radio. (more)
“Internet access is not a human right,” wrote Vinton Cerf in an OpEd in the New York Times on Thursday. Cerf is a prominent computer scientist who worked on the DARPA project that gave rise to the Internet, and is revered as the “Father of the Internet.” (more)
The FCC yesterday approved AT&T’s acquisition of spectrum from Qualcomm. The positive outcome is bittersweet for the wireless carrier, coming only a few days after the company was forced to throw in the towel on its acquisition of spectrum from T-Mobile USA. (more)
AT&T announced late Monday afternoon plans to drop its $39 billion bid to purchase T-Mobile, citing federal government intervention by the Federal Communications Commission and the Obama Justice Department as reasons for ending the deal. (more)
The technology industry is upset over a bill that would muck up the whole Internet just to keep people from illegally downloading copyrighted stuff like movies. But the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) is not the only dumb idea politicians have had about technology. (more)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — AT&T Inc. is hanging up on its $39 billion bid to buy smaller wireless provider T-Mobile USA, nearly four months after the U.S. government raised concerns that it would raise prices, reduce innovation and give customers fewer choices. (more)
NEW YORK (AP) — Call it the Great Channel Squeeze. (more)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shush, already. That’s the message the Federal Communications Commission is sending with new rules that force broadcast, cable and satellite companies to turn down the volume on blaring TV commercials. (more)
Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, told The Daily Caller that the Federal Communications Commission’s “net neutrality” rules demonstrate a “fundamental disregard of the Constitution.” Hutchison said the rules are an attempt by the Obama administration to regulate the “one economic engine in America that is thriving.” (more)
There is an effort within the United Nations – led by Russia, China and a coalition of developing nations with authoritarian regimes — to control the Internet, and 2012 may be a crucial year for opposition to such a shift, a key U.S. overseer warned Thursday. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Friday it wants to withdraw or postpone its antitrust case against the proposed merger between AT&T Inc. and smaller rival T-Mobile USA now that the two companies no longer have a valid application to approve the deal. (more)
Mobile phone service has become a key battleground in the new progressive era in which we live. A small minority of political activists claim to be worried that cell phones could become a consumer rip-off without government intervention. They are pressuring the Federal Communications Commission to torpedo a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. (more)
Ten years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, a new amendment to a House bill to provide police officers and firemen with the electromagnetic spectrum frequencies needed to improve their communications networks could possibly sink the whole bill in the Senate. The communications bill is designed to prevent the problems during September 11, when first responders died because police and fire departments could not communicate with each other. (RELATED: Spectrum: What it is, and why it matters) (more)
At the Senate Commerce Committee’s confirmation hearings for Federal Communications Commission nominees Wednesday, Republican nominee Ajit Pai — previously employed by at Jenner & Block, the law firm representing clients in the AT&T/T-Mobile deal — told Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison that he “would not feel any prejudice” towards a client of his former firm. (more)
The Federal Communications Commission announced Tuesday that it had approved requests from AT&T and T-Mobile to withdraw their merger applications, filed in April. (more)
AT&T and T-Mobile USA’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, withdrew applications for Federal Communications Commission approval of their controversial and highly contested $39 billion merger Wednesday. The telecommunications giants made the decision to temporarily withdraw from the approval process one day after FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that he would seek an additional hearing that threatened to sink the proposed merger. (more)
The Federal Communications Commission’s “Open Internet” rules — also known as net neutrality — took effect Sunday, after a year-long battle in Congress. Some market-based technology experts, however, have expressed doubt that the rules will be upheld when the case comes before the federal appellate court in 2012. (more)
The U.S. Senate voted 46-52 along partisan lines, shooting down a Republican effort to stop the Federal Communications Commission from regulating the Internet through net neutrality. (more)
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio delivered a speech before Senate colleagues Wednesday in defense of the Internet of the future. His speech came during a floor debate on the Republican-led effort to overturn the FCC’s Internet regulation, which is set to take effect November 20. (more)
