Media giants Sinclair and Tribune were all set to merge and create one of the country’s biggest broadcasters — and a complacent FCC seemed to to be doing everything it could to help the deal along. But the regulator had a change of heart after evidence surfaced of duplicity too serious to be ignored, and the resultant red tape and bad PR provoked Tribune into spiking the deal and suing its would-be acquirer for $1 billion.
View More Tribune sues Sinclair for $1B after spiking merger under FCC pressureCategory: Fcc
Verizon accused of lying about rural coverage, stifling 4G LTE expansion
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Is Verizon misleading the government on just how much of rural America is covered by its 4G LTE network?
According to a group of rural carriers the answer is yes. And, according to these smaller carriers, Verizon’s deceptive claims are blocking their ability to serve these uncovered rural areas.
The Rural Wireless Association (RWA), a trade group, has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission requesting an official investigation into whether Verizon’s LTE network covers as much of rural America as the telecommunications giant says it does.
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Net neutrality activists, not hackers, crashed the FCC’s comment system
An unprecedented flood of citizens concerned about net neutrality is what took down the FCC’s comment system last May, not a coordinated attack, a report from the agency’s Office of the Inspector General concluded. The report unambiguously describes the “voluminous viral traffic” resulting from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight piece on the topic as the cause of the system’s collapse.
View More Net neutrality activists, not hackers, crashed the FCC’s comment systemFCC claims of DDoS net neutrality attack were ‘bogus’
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Pretty much everyone saw this coming.
A forthcoming report from the FCC’s Office of Inspector General reportedly dispels earlier dubious claims from the FCC that its comment system was hit by a distributed denial of service attack in May of last year. It turns out, after all, that the commission’s site was likely brought to a crawl not by malicious hackers or pranksters but by — gasp — concerned citizens trying to make their voices heard in support of net neutrality.
“The Inspector General Report tells us what we knew all along: the FCC’s claim that it was the victim of a DDoS attack during the net neutrality proceeding is bogus,” reads a statement from FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “What happened instead is obvious—millions of Americans overwhelmed our online system because they wanted to tell us how important internet openness is to them and how distressed they were to see the FCC roll back their rights.” Read more…
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View More FCC claims of DDoS net neutrality attack were ‘bogus’New York kicks Charter out of the state after failure to honor conditions of Time-Warner merger
Broadband providers! They love to make noise about how dedicated they are to improving your service, rolling out new features, and generally adhering to both the law and their own code of ethics. So how can it be that Charter has so badly failed the terms imposed on its purchase of Time-Warner Cable in 2016 that the state of New York is showing them the door? Could all these promises be only so many words? Say it ain’t so!
View More New York kicks Charter out of the state after failure to honor conditions of Time-Warner mergerFCC issues ‘de facto merger death sentence’ to Sinclair-Tribune deal
A broadcast merger that has been the poster boy for the FCC’s pro-industry agenda has been ordered to undertake a lengthy and potentially embarrassing process that amounts to, in the words of one commissioner, a “de facto merger death sentence.”
View More FCC issues ‘de facto merger death sentence’ to Sinclair-Tribune dealA single House Republican sides with Democrats on net neutrality
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There’s a Democratic bill in the House of Representatives that seeks to void the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality, restoring the Obama-era rules that once ensured a free and open internet.
But even with the support of nearly every Democrat in the House, the petition still falls far short of the 218 signatures it needs to force a vote in the lower chamber on overturning the net neutrality repeal.
However, on Tuesday, the vast majority of Americans who support the Obama-era policy were given a new reason to hope: Rep. Mike Coffman became the first House Republican to stand with Democrats on net neutrality, signing his name to their petition to force a vote. Read more…
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The 21st Century Internet Act aims to enshrine net neutrality in law
Congress may soon vote on a new bill that would set net neutrality down as a matter of law rather than a set of rules to be changed every few years by the FCC. The “21st Century Internet Act,” introduced by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO), would ban blocking, throttling, paid prioritization, and eliminates all questions of jurisdiction.
View More The 21st Century Internet Act aims to enshrine net neutrality in law‘Serious concerns’ at FCC threaten to halt Sinclair-Tribune merger
The FCC has been under serious scrutiny by citizens, advocates, and politicians alike due to its laissez-faire attitude towards, in particular, the proposed Sinclair Broadcasting merger with Tribune. But the agency is showing some backbone today with a no-nonsense declaration that the merger can’t go through unless a few “serious concerns” are addressed.
View More ‘Serious concerns’ at FCC threaten to halt Sinclair-Tribune mergerFCC updates Emergency Alert System to prevent false alarms
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Earlier this year, the people of Hawaii received an emergency alert on their phone. This alert read:
As you can probably now tell, a missile did not hit Hawaii in January 2018This message, which explicitly said was “not a drill,” indeed turned out to be just that: a drill. The test message was mistakenly sent out as an actual emergency alert. However, at the time, it took nearly 40 minutes for officials to issue a correction about the alert, sending pretty much everyone on the island in a confused state of panic.
In response to the false alarm in Hawaii, which occurred when a state emergency employee hit the wrong option on a drop-down menu, the FCC is taking steps to make the Emergency Alert System more reliable. Read more…
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FCC looks to revamp children’s media rules, but advocates cry foul
One of the FCC’s many jobs as a media regulator is to make sure that there is adequate time being dedicated by broadcasters to educational content for kids. As the media landscape changes, however, so too should the regulations — and the FCC is looking to update its “Kid Vid” rules for the 21st century. But the agency’s proposal is half-baked, warn some advocates.
View More FCC looks to revamp children’s media rules, but advocates cry foulFCC may soon charge you $225 to investigate your complaint
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Late last December, nearly 24 million comments poured into the FCC after the agency revealed its plans, spearheaded by its chairman Ajit Pai, to roll back net neutrality.
The FCC’s rules, as they stand, require all comments from the public to be forwarded to the commissioners, and for the commissioners to take these comments into consideration when casting a vote on a new measure.
Well, it seems like the current FCC doesn’t want to bother having to read through all your comments anymore. At least, not without getting paid for it.
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