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Traffic pumping: threat to everyone? (or just AT&T)
Did you know that while decent, law-abiding citizens are minding their own business and making perfectly respectable phone calls to each other, a growing number of schemers are engaged in a sordid, porno-packed activity known as “traffic pumping”? Well, they are, says AT&T, and the telco wants to stop it. Traffic pumping “is growing at an alarming rate,” AT&T has been warning the Federal Communications Commission for months ).
Continue reading »EFF demands FCC close copyright "loophole" in net neutrality
The Electronic Frontier Foundation might be expected to love the FCC’s “Open Internet” push, but the group has one big concern with the rulemaking: the presence of “a loophole for copyright enforcement in its proposed regulations for network neutrality.” The EFF has now submitted a petition to the FCC with 7,000 signatures, asking for the provisions to be stripped from the final rule. “Before the ink is dry on net neutrality regulations, we already see corporate lobbyists and ‘public decency’ advocates pushing for loopholes,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “A loophole like this could swallow network neutrality, with ISPs claiming copyright enforcement as a pretext for all sorts of discriminatory behavior.” At issue is the “reasonable network management” exception to net neutrality .
Continue reading »etc: Sesame Street’s "Elmo" next week becomes an unlikely pitchman for… the National Broadband Plan.
Sesame Street’s “Elmo” next week becomes an unlikely pitchman for… the National Broadband Plan. Read More: FCC announcement Read the comments on this post
Continue reading »Antitrust incoming? Google hit by EU complaint, FCC filing
Turning search into powerful marketing channel for own services, claims Foundem Shopping comparison site Foundem this week fired the opening shots in the coming Google antitrust battle, with a complaint to the European Commission and a filing with the US Federal Communications Commission accusing Google of posing “an immediate threat to competition and innovation.” The US filing is in response to the FCC’s net neutrality enquiry, and seeks to have search neutrality included in FCC rule-making.…
Continue reading »feature: Case closed: why most of USA lacks 100Mbps ‘Net connections
Excitement about the approach of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan, due March 17, is inspiring ever more dramatic calls for greater high-speed Internet connectivity in the United States. This month, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski declared that the agency wants 260 million Americans hooked up to 100 Mbps broadband by 2020. Not to be outdone, the Media and Democracy Coalition says that by that same year consumer access to “world-class networks” should equal the present rate of telephone adoption (90%+).
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