Fcc Chairman Julius Genachowski

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski gently prodded telecommunications companies to build out their broadband networks in order to dramatically increase the number of homes that have access to high-speed Internet. The effort is vital to the nation's economic health, Genachowski told several hundred people attending the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. annual convention in Chicago on Wednesday. About 67% of the country's homes now have high-speed or broadband Internet, he said.

Those aggravating automated telemarketing calls will be interrupting your dinner a lot less often. After receiving thousands of complaints from consumers, the Federal Communications Commission clamped down Wednesday on unwanted robo-calling by approving sweeping changes to its telemarketing rules for wireline and mobile phones. Even with the national Do Not Call Registry in effect — the initial effort to block those pesky calls — telemarketers have found ways around the rules.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski tried to ease fears Tuesday about the agency's broadband plan and expressed concern about recent battles over carriage fees between broadcasters and cable operators. Speaking at the National Assn. of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, Genachowski said the talk among broadcasters that the FCC was going to appropriate spectrum from them and sell it to telecommunications companies was a myth. The goal of the FCC's broadband plan, he said, is not to "confiscate broadcasters' spectrum and drive broadcasters out of business."

Something sounded familiar last week when I heard U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski make a huge pitch for infusing digital technology into America's classrooms. Every schoolchild should have a laptop, they said. Because in the near future, textbooks will be a thing of the past. Where had I heard that before? So I did a bit of research, and found it. The quote I recalled was, "Books will soon be obsolete in the schools.... Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years.

Those aggravating automated telemarketing calls will be interrupting your dinner a lot less often. After receiving thousands of complaints from consumers, the Federal Communications Commission clamped down Wednesday on unwanted robo-calling by approving sweeping changes to its telemarketing rules for wireline and mobile phones. Even with the national Do Not Call Registry in effect — the initial effort to block those pesky calls — telemarketers have found ways around the rules.

The Federal Communications Commission has come up with a new way to apply some net neutrality rules that would force Comcast Corp., AT&T Inc. and other broadband Internet service providers to handle all Web traffic the same, without imposing limits on users or blocking websites. Its proposal released Thursday is aimed at blunting an April federal appeals court ruling involving Comcast that found the agency had limited authority to regulate broadband Internet service. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement that the Comcast decision had created a "serious problem" and that his agency believes more regulation of broadband Internet service is needed, though not the heavier restrictions that apply to telephone companies.

New rules proposed by the nation's chief communications regulator to ensure unfettered access to the Internet would level the online playing field as more people surf the Web on mobile devices, but the plan has wireless carriers in an uproar. Monday's proposal by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski would ensure that consumers would be able to get whatever content they want on the Internet and to use any service they want. But the telecommunications and the cable companies that control both land-line and wireless access to the Internet argue that some customers who download large amounts of data, such as a continuous flow of movies, can jam their networks.

Something sounded familiar last week when I heard U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski make a huge pitch for infusing digital technology into America's classrooms. Every schoolchild should have a laptop, they said. Because in the near future, textbooks will be a thing of the past. Where had I heard that before? So I did a bit of research, and found it. The quote I recalled was, "Books will soon be obsolete in the schools.... Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years.

Excessively loud television commercials should be a thing of the past, thanks to the Federal Communications Commission. Responding to years of complaints that the volume on commercials was much louder than that of the programming that the ads accompany, the FCC on Tuesday passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act to make sure that the sound level is the same for commercials and news and entertainment programming. "Most of us have … experienced this ourselves: You're watching your favorite television program, or the news, and all of a sudden, a commercial comes on, and it sounds like someone turned up the volume — but no one did. Today, the FCC is quieting a persistent problem of the television age: loud commercials," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.

The Federal Communications Commission is stripping 83 rules from its books as part of its reform agenda and in response to a request from President Obama earlier in the year to improve or remove any rules that were out of date. Among the rules being eliminated are Fairness Doctrine regulations that were intended to promote honest, balanced discussion of controversial issues when introduced in 1949. But as more broadcast stations and cable channels became available, the need to mandate a diversity of viewpoints eroded and the rules were abolished in 1987.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley said hedge fund billionaire Philip Falcone and a telecommunications executive implied that they wanted a weaker inquiry into the U.S. handling of Falcone's LightSquared Inc. wireless venture. Statements by the men "implied an invitation to pull punches in my investigation," Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in a letter to Falcone that was distributed electronically Monday. "I won't be part of that. " Grassley is reviewing whether authorities improperly accelerated the Reston, Va., company's partial approval last year.

Excessively loud television commercials should be a thing of the past, thanks to the Federal Communications Commission. Responding to years of complaints that the volume on commercials was much louder than that of the programming that the ads accompany, the FCC on Tuesday passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act to make sure that the sound level is the same for commercials and news and entertainment programming. "Most of us have … experienced this ourselves: You're watching your favorite television program, or the news, and all of a sudden, a commercial comes on, and it sounds like someone turned up the volume — but no one did. Today, the FCC is quieting a persistent problem of the television age: loud commercials," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.

  AT&T Inc. blasted a government report criticizing its proposed $39-billion purchase of T-Mobile USA, accusing federal regulators of ignoring key facts and distorting others in findings that were one-sided. In a lengthy, detailed rebuttal on AT&T's public policy blog, a top executive argued that the staff of the Federal Communications Commission - and, by implication, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski - was predisposed to reject the deal and that it advocated that position by publicly releasing the report this week.

Federal regulators allowed AT&T Inc. to withdraw its proposed $39-billion takeover of T-Mobile USA from their approval process, but they also dealt a further blow to the teetering deal. The Federal Communications Commission released a 157-page report Tuesday detailing the agency's staff findings that the purchase was not in the public interest. The staff report concluded that the combination of two of the nation's largest wireless providers — AT&T ranks second in subscribers and T-Mobile is fourth — would harm competition through "an unprecedented increase in market concentration.

The end might be near for AT&T Inc.'s proposed $39-billion purchase of T-Mobile USA Inc. Facing growing opposition, telecommunications giant AT&T announced Thursday that it is withdrawing its merger plan from further consideration by the Federal Communications Commission. Instead, it said it would concentrate first on winning approval from the U.S. Justice Department, which sued to stop the purchase. And, in case the deal collapses, the company said it's setting aside $4 billion it would owe in breakup fees to T-Mobile's German owner, Deutsche Telekom.

The Federal Communications Commission is launching a $4-billion program to narrow the digital divide by making high-speed Internet access and computers more affordable for more than 25 million mainly low-income Americans. The FCC said a public-private partnership, which includes major broadband and computer companies and nonprofits, will make "the biggest effort ever" across the nation to help poorer citizens as well as rural residents, seniors and minorities obtain broadband access.

The Federal Communications Commission is looking into complaints by AT&T Inc. that the Google Voice phone service blocks some calls within the United States to avoid a high connection fee. The FCC sent an inquiry to Google Inc. on Friday seeking information about the software's functionality, the number of users and the identity of its partners. Google Voice allows users to consolidate their home, office and cellphone numbers by routing the calls through a central Google number.

The Federal Communications Commission is stripping 83 rules from its books as part of its reform agenda and in response to a request from President Obama earlier in the year to improve or remove any rules that were out of date. Among the rules being eliminated are Fairness Doctrine regulations that were intended to promote honest, balanced discussion of controversial issues when introduced in 1949. But as more broadcast stations and cable channels became available, the need to mandate a diversity of viewpoints eroded and the rules were abolished in 1987.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski gently prodded telecommunications companies to build out their broadband networks in order to dramatically increase the number of homes that have access to high-speed Internet. The effort is vital to the nation's economic health, Genachowski told several hundred people attending the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. annual convention in Chicago on Wednesday. About 67% of the country's homes now have high-speed or broadband Internet, he said.