Free Talk Live

WASHINGTON – Communications regulators are unveiling a sweeping proposal to overhaul U.S. broadband policy. Their aim: to bring affordable, high-speed Internet connections to all Americans and make access much faster for people who already have broadband.

M2Z, a California company, had high hopes of offering coast-to-coast wireless Internet access at no cost to the end-user by using a bit of wireless spectrum that has remained unassigned since the Clinton administration. The FCC, however, had a different take on M2Z's advertiser-supported plan. That take was simply "No". The FCC, an unaccountable and unelected organization that claims the responsibility for "regulating interstate and international communications" denied without comment the company's bid to use the dormant spectrum.

As a result of Bank Transfer Day, in which consumers were encouraged to switch to credit unions, 54 percent of credit unions reported an increase in share growth, according to a survey of 10,000 credit unions by the National Association of Federal Credit Unions.

Also reports a minimum of 650,000 account transfers since mid Sept.

Australia's going all-in with its government-run fiber network. The government has now convinced the country's dominant telco, Telstra, to sign on with the scheme, get rid of its copper and cable lines, and transition its subscribers to the open-access national fiber program. When the project is complete, Australia will have taken an almost unprecedented step for a country of its size: legacy telecommunications infrastructure will be almost gone.

The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects "shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined.

Read this article eating lunch the other day, and was curious to fellow FTL listener's opinions on public ISP's competing with private cable companies. Most of the time you get a local monopoloy from a cable company and that's your only real choice for broadband internet service, and I know my service SUCKS. I'm in favor of free-market solutions and competition, but it doesn't really exist for Cable and Broadband services. This LA city has a public ISP that supposedly operates reliable at advertised speeds, for MUCH less per subscriber.

Funds collected for 911 emergency services: a new survey by the Federal Communications Commission indicates that in 2009 over a dozen states did not or may not have spent these funds on 911 or "E911" services, which zone in on caller locations. Wow, who would have thought this is possible!

the Egyptian government cut internet connections across their country to silence protests, leaving nearly all of its citizens without online access. But they weren't entirely successful. When governments shut down broadband and mobile connections, here's what to do.