fcc

Days before recessing for the year, the Senate has at last passed the Broadband Data Improvement Act. It directs the FCC to gather far more detailed (and useful) information about the US broadband market, including better deployment maps and price information.

Ever since the Nextel acquisition, plans to reallocate the 800-MHz spectrum have been bandied about so it doesn't interfere with bands used by public safety agencies.

Comcast has finally provided the FCC with details of its new congestion management system, and there's a lot to like.

Deep packet inspection it out. P2P protocol targeting is out. Management systems that affect entire regions are out.

FCC Chair Kevin Martin says that even if Comcast is appealing its net neutrality Order, the agency still wants to know what the heck "protocol-agnostic" means.

As was widely expected, Comcast has appealed the FCC's ruling concerning its traffic shaping practices -- even though that ruling was a total slap on the wrist that had no real punishment other than a verbal scolding.

Comcast has done the utterly expected: asked the DC Court of Appeals to review the recent FCC decision against its P2P traffic-shaping solution.

Comcast is offering more details about the "protocol agnostic" throttling solution that will replace its current, FCC-denounced approach to network management.

Heavy users will be "deprioritized" for 10 to 20 minutes at a time.

"Surrender, Comcast!" declares the FCC in its Order on P2P blocking. The agency also calls on the public to stay vigilant on the issue and aligns itself more closely with the net neutrality movement.

Another Fairness Doctrine sighting this week. This one from Republican Commissioner Robert M. McDowell.

A Kansas man has filed what he hopes will become a class action lawsuit against Time Warner Cable. The company requires subscribers of premium channels to rent a cable box from the company instead of allowing them to use their own, which he considers to be an illegal tying arrangement that is barred by the FCC.