Tag: FCC

Don't adjust your TV sets. Democrats and Republicans really did just find a solution to one of the world's biggest problems: commercial decibel levels. After having already breezed through the Senate in October, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act received a final stamp of approval yesterday from the House of Representatives. It's now headed to the White House, where it ...

Two years ago, FEMA and the FCC began working toward an emergency alert system for cell phones. Such services already exist in various municipalities and foreign nations, and now the FCC, FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have finally initiated the implementation of the U.S.'s own national system. The FCC recently commissioned Alcatel-Lucent to create a Commercial Mobile Alert System ...

The FCC's E-Rate program provides many schools around the country with money to support their computer networks. It also provides opportunities for private tech companies, who can bid for school contracts under what's supposed to be an open and fair process. Hewlett Packard, however, recently came under fire for allegedly bribing certain school officials with lavish gifts in an attempt to rig the ...

A few weeks ago, Google publicly admitted that its Street View cars had inadvertently collected personal data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks, and promised to implement tighter security measures to prevent future breaches. The company's mea culpa was enough to satisfy the Federal Trade Commission, which closed its investigation into the incident shortly after the announcement. The FCC, on the ...

Today, more people have access to broadband Internet than ever before. According to a new study (PDF link) from the Department of Commerce, however, Internet access is far from a guarantee in the U.S. -- especially for racial minorities. The report, which was published on Monday, finds that 68-percent of white households have high-speed Internet, compared with just 49-percent of ...

The lengthy standoff between News Corp. and Cablevision has finally come to a close -- and just in time for the World Series. On Saturday night, the Fox network suddenly returned to some three million living rooms serviced by Cablevision, effectively ending a blackout that had begun on October 16th. The dispute had essentially boiled down to money; News Corp. wanted Cablevision to pay higher ...

The FCC takes cyberbullying very seriously -- and it wants to make sure that schools do, too. Today, the Federal Communications Commission announced that all schools receiving subsidies for Internet access must educate students on the dangers of cyberbullying, and teach them how to use social networking sites responsibly. Schools receiving federal funding under the nationwide E-rate program are ...

Talk of cell phones' carcinogenic properties has been around since cell phones themselves, it seems. But, while the gadgets have skyrocketed in popularity, discussions about their health effects have remained contentious and undecided. According to Time, though, the public may have put those concerns to bed too soon. Although you may not know it (and we certainly didn't), it's more than likely ...

On Oct. 15th, Fox Television and Cablevision failed to renew a contractual agreement about the broadcasting rights to Fox affiliates WNYW, WWOR and WTXF. Once the deadline to renew passed, Cablevision subscribers lost access to those local Fox channels, so now the Federal Communications Commission apparently feels obligated to intervene. Instead of mediating or doling out some form of ...

When 27-year-old Kerfye Pierre returned home to the U.S. after volunteering in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, she returned to the open arms of her friends and family -- and a $35,000 phone bill from T-Mobile. In the aftermath of the devastating Haiti earthquake, T-Mobile offered all American aid workers a temporary free voice plan, so that they could communicate without worrying about racking up ...

Okay, so Verizon's agreed to pay $90 million to customers who have incurred erroneous data charges over the past three years. But, what can affected users do to make sure they actually receive their cash? In theory, nothing. The company says that it's currently going through its database to find users who should receive refunds, which will apparently appear in the form of credits on their ...

Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay a total of $90 million to disgruntled customers who were mistakenly charged for accessing data or surfing the Web from their phones. Over the past three years, some 15 million Verizon customers have been receiving data charges from the company, despite having never signed up for data access plans. Most users incurred charges of $1.99 each time they mistakenly ...

Your TV watching experience may be getting a lot calmer very soon, thanks to a newly Senate-approved bill that would put a limit on how loud advertisers can make their commercials. The appropriately titled Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) calls for the FCC to draft new regulations which would guarantee that televised commercials can't be obscenely loud, or broadcast at a ...

In a unanimous vote, all five FCC Commissioners have approved rules opening up the so-called whitespace between television channels for use in what the commission has dubbed "super Wi-Fi." The newly available spectrum offers greater range and wall penetration than current Wi-Fi technology, and provides plenty of room for boosting speeds, as well. Rules will require that devices take advantage of ...

Most of the recent headlines regarding the FCC focus on the battle over Net neutrality. Lost among the haranguing over tiered service and packet prioritization, the debate about so-called white space has fallen by the wayside. But, with the fight to preserve an unrestricted Web temporarily on hold, the regulating body is finally moving to approve the unlicensed use of the spaces that exist between ...