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.
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.
IBM has been hired to help rural Americans get broadband access using power lines. On Wednesday, Big Blue announced it has signed a $9.6 million contract with International Broadband Electric Communications to bring the technology to rural America where it hopes to deliver high-speed broadband connectivity to millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get it. IBM and IBEC, which will build and manage the networks, are working with over a dozen electricity cooperatives in seven states, The Wall Street Journal reported. For years, people have hoped broadband-over-power line technology, or BPL, would allow power companies to become the third alternative in the broadband market, competing against cable operators and telephone companies.
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.