The $825 billion proposal from the Obama transition team and House Democrats includes $6 billion to improve the U.S. broadband infrastructure, which is lacking in many rural and mountainous areas, particularly the West.

There aren’t a lot of details yet on how that $6 billion would be given out, but it doesn’t seem to encompass the tax breaks phone and cable companies were lobbying for. Even so, the wireless industry was cheering Thursday morning because a summary of the spending released by House Democrats calls for the money to be used on “broadband and wireless grants.”

Wireless companies were concerned that the money would be earmarked for cable and phone companies providing fiber to the home.

On Wednesday, an Obama adviser who’s been in charge of the broadband…

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing giving innovators free unlicensed access to valuable airwaves if the company that buys a license to the channels doesn’t meet tough requirements to build a nationwide Internet network.

The proposal has been added to a pending auction of the airwaves. The FCC is scheduled to vote on rules for the sale on Dec. 18. Mr. Martin wants the company that buys the airwaves to devote at least 25% of the spectrum to free Internet access for 95% of the country. The no-cost Internet service also would be smut-free for users under 18. Adult users could opt out of the filter blocking pornographic content.

Mr. Martin said Wednesday that he has circulated two versions of the auction item — one…

In the remaining weeks of his tenure, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin will push for a free, no-porn wireless Internet network across the nation, according to the agency.

Martin is expected to put his proposal for the free Internet network on the agency’s Dec. 18 meeting agenda despite criticism by wireless operators like T-Mobile, who say using the spectrum could interfere with their new high-speed data network. T-Mobile, a unit of Germany’s Deutsche Telecom, spent $4 billion for nearby spectrum and has disputed a report by the FCC that rejected the firm’s concerns of interference.

For Martin, however, the plan could dispel criticism he’s taken over the country’s fall in international broadband Internet rankings during his tenure and leave him with a legacy of potentially…

President-elect Barack Obama has named two telecom industry and policy veterans and a leader of Google’s philanthropy arm to craft the new administration’s high-tech policy priorities.

The policy working group on Technology, Innovation and Government Reform will “develop proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for action during the Obama-Biden Administration,” according to the president-elect’s transition web site www.change.gov.

The authors of what could be sweeping changes in broadband rules, privacy and government transparency include:

–Blair Levin, a telecom investment analyst at Stifel Nicolaus and former chief of staff to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt. Levin is also seen among a short list of candidates to head the FCC in the new administration.

–Julius Genachowski, former chief counsel to Hundt at the FCC and a member of Obama’s…

The Federal Communications Commission, as expected, approved a measure that would make “white space” spectrum available for wireless broadband.

White space is industry lingo for the unused airwaves that abut broadcast TV spectrum, providing a buffer zone from stray signals and other inferference. The buffer zone was set up more than 50 years ago when TV was first invented.

The FCC’s white-space plan was initially proposed four years ago. More than 25,000 comments — from supporters as well as critics — were submitted.

Under the FCC’s plan, white space spectrum will be unlicensed and free — like Wi-Fi — to anybody who wants to use it. In some markets, there’s enough white space to fill a half dozen TV channels

Read the full story in USA Today here.

…

We pay for other utilities (electricity, water, phone services) by the amount utilised, but usually a flat rate for broadband depending upon the bandwidth. I have earlier compared this to paying for water based on the diameter of the pipe, instead of liters consumed.

The following letter by a reader to USA Today highlights similar concerns – may be in another context.

WHY SHOULD BROADBAND BE FREE?

James Lakely – Chicago

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin’s reference to the phone industry exposes the weakness of his argument to provide free broadband access in the USA.

Yes, copper phone lines were, for decades, “the main means of communication for millions of Americans.” But the government didn’t invent that technology, nor give it away for free. The market provided, and…

Comcast Corp. filed suit against the Federal Communications Commission Thursday to overturn the agency’s decision to sanction the company for blocking certain Internet traffic.

The lawsuit involves a 3-2 decision the FCC handed down in early August that found Comcast’s practices violated so-called net-neutrality principles, and ordered the company to provide more details of its network-management policies within 30 days. The FCC also ordered Comcast to stop by the end of the year blocking traffic related to specific applications, such as file-sharing software that allows users to swap videos.

It was the first time the FCC had found a company in violation of the commission’s net-neutrality principles, which lay out consumers’ Internet rights.

Comcast was widely expected to appeal the FCC’s decision, even though the company wasn’t fined.…

Where exactly the line that segregates ‘Broadband’ from ‘Narrowband’? Interestingly every country and every organization seems to have one’s own definition. 256 kbps is adequate ‘broadband’ for some countries to claim to be at the top of the broadband map. More ambitious have kept the level at 1 Mbps or even 2 Mbps.

FCC too was happy with 200 kbps (on either direction) for some time, but apparently has apparently realized that outdated. From now on, it will use a more ambitious and more nuanced set of definitions as follows:

“First Generation data “: 200 Kbps up to 768 Kbps

“Basic Broadband”: 768 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps

And from there, the FCC will keep track of the number of homes that get service in each of six higher speed…

CellCast Technologies urges the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tomorrow to fully consider a proven technology, cell broadcast, in the nationwide emergency alert system for cell phones. On Thursday, the FCC is slated to vote on a committee report that did not specify cell broadcast technology.

“In the best interest of the general public, the FCC must focus on serving the public safety with a proven technology that can be implemented nationwide immediately,” said CellCast Chief Operating Officer Paul Klein. “We should not wait until 2010 when more lives could be lost to hurricanes, tornados and other disasters or crises.”

CellCast Urges FCC to Include Proven Cell Broadcast Technology in National Emergency Alert System for Cell Phones 

Broadband Access Data Mischief — SSRC

There is clear consensus that our nation’s ability to compete in the high speed broadband world is essential to our economic future. Unfortunately, the Administration and the Federal Communications Commission continue to rely upon inadequate, highly-flawed data to assess the marketplace for high-speed Internet access. The Administration’s “mission Accomplished” rhetoric does not match reality:

* According to a September 2007 Pew Internet & American Life Project phone survey, roughly half of all Americans don’t have broadband at home. Half is far from universal.
* Fewer than 25% of New Yorkers in rural areas have access to broadband service and nearly two-thirds of people living in New York City lack access to affordable, high-speed broadband. Some New York City neighborhoods — like Sunset…

The US policymakers overseeing universal service fund (USF) have recommended for the first time that it be used specifically to help offset costs of deploying broadband Internet services in rural and poor parts of the country. The board said the FCC should limit the USF’s largest part to $4.5 billion and also recommended a more specific limit on subsidies for wireless service in those areas.  

The $4.5 billion figure represents the current size of the rural subsidies. In recent years, the cost of the program has ballooned, boosting the surcharge rate to 11 percent, up from about 5.5 percent in 2000. Much of the added cost has gone to subsidize wireless service in rural areas of the country. 

The board recommended splitting the rural subsidy portion of…

Miguel Helft
October 11, 2007, New York Times

For more than two years, a large group of engineers at Google have been working in secret on a mobile-phone project.

As word of their efforts has trickled out, expectations in the tech world for what has been called the Google phone, or GPhone, have risen, the way they do for Apple loyalists before a speech by Steve Jobs.

But the GPhone is not likely to be the second coming of the iPhone and Google’s goals are very different from Apple’s.

Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile internet, a small market today but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile-phone makers to offer phones based on its software,…

A partial victory for those making the case for open wireless networks (Carterfone 2).

F.C.C. Hands Google a Partial Victory – New York Times

The Federal Communications Commission moved cautiously Tuesday toward creating a more open national wireless broadband network, handing a partial victory to Google, which was pushing for more competition in cellphone services.The agency approved rules for an auction of broadcast spectrum that its chairman, Kevin J. Martin, said would promote new consumer services. The rules will let customers use any phone and software they want on networks using about one-third of the spectrum to be auctioned.

The F.C.C. did not approve a provision that would have required the winner of the auction to sell access to its network on a wholesale basis to other companies.…

True to form, Google is proposing a radical rethink of the entire basis of the wireless industry.   And it is putting real money behind its ideas.   All that is in the way seems to be the FCC.

Google Pushes for Rules to Aid Wireless Plans – New York Times

“When you go to Best Buy to buy a TV, they don’t ask whether you have cable or satellite,” said Blair Levin, a former F.C.C. official who is now an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Company. “When you buy a computer, they don’t ask what kind of Internet service you have, and the computer can run any application or service. That doesn’t exist in the wireless world. That’s where Google wants to go with this auction.”

Powered by ScribeFire.

…

Google has proposed to the FCC that instead of getting into long-term contracts for allocating spectrum, companies buying spectrum should be free to resell the spectrum in real-time auctions. This would probably not involve human beings in protracted auction negotiations but rather negotiations between devices in real-time. Since FCC’s auction is done at the wholesale level it would probably involve companies reselling spectrum that they won to consumers on real-time basis.

NYT: “The driving reason we’re doing this is that there are not enough broadband options for consumers,” said Adam Kovacevich, a spokesman for Google’s policy office in Washington. “In general, it’s the belief of a lot of people in the company that spectrum is allocated in an inefficient manner.”

“In their proposal, Google executives argue that…