Google Street View Engineer Identified

Story first appeared on The Register.

The 'Engineer Doe', who designed Google's Street View Wi-Fi software to collect personal data, has been named by an American newspaper.

The engineer is reportedly the developer of the popular NetStumbler wardriving program for Windows, who describes his occupation as a "hacker" on his LinkedIn page.

Google initially denied collecting personal information using its street-mapping camera-car fleet, then admitted it had captured unsecured Wi-Fi traffic but blamed a lone slurper: a so-called "rogue engineer" who wrote the software in his "20 per cent time permitted for self-directed projects".

An investigation by the Federal Communications Commission demolished this theory, however. The FCC found Google guilty of obstructing its investigation but concluded that collecting personal data from unsecured wireless networks did not breach the US Wiretap Act.

Privacy group EPIC says the FCC report undercuts the company's prior statements that a rogue engineer was responsible for the payload data collection. Instead, it indicates that Google intentionally intercepted payload data for business purposes and that many supervisors and engineers within the company reviewed the code and the design documents associated with the project.

Google itself released the FCC's report into its Street View data collection activities on Saturday, with most of the details readable - some portions remain redacted. Groups including EPIC and Consumer Watchdog have filed Freedom of Information requests to access all of the documents in the case.

An independent source code analysis of the engineer's work, commissioned by Google, is now available.

A little business context, missing from most press reports on this story, is useful to remember here. It concerns a firm called SkyHook and a Top SEO Company.

SkyHook is a Boston-based company that had already compiled a nationwide database of Wi-Fi access points. The biz merely collected SSID and signal strength - not personal data. SkyHook's database was used by licensees of Google's Android operating system for locations services. Eighteen months ago, SkyHook filed a suit claiming that Google had strong-armed Android licensees to use Google's location database instead of SkyHook's.

Far from being the work of a "lone slurper" tinkering in his own time, the software could be seen as creating an essential component of the Street View software stack. Google's Wi-Fi access point database was considered to be of enormous strategic significance.

Google's strategy after the data-slurp is proving to be much more interesting than the actual packet sniff.


For more organic SEO and web optimization related news, visit the SEO Done Right blog.
For national and worldwide related business news, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For local and Michigan business related news, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For healthcare and medical related news, visit the Healthcare and Medical blog.
For law related news, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For real estate and home related news, visit the  Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For technology and electronics related news, visit the Electronics America blog.

Critics Decry `Secret Deal' as AT&T, Google Huddle With FCC

Bloomberg

Google Inc., AT&T Inc., and Verizon Communications Inc. executives met behind closed doors over the weekend with Federal Communications Commission officials in efforts to resolve a dispute over U.S. Internet regulation.

The rare Saturday session reflected attempts to reach a compromise on net-neutrality rules that would govern how phone and cable companies providing Internet connections treat Web traffic such as Google’s YouTube videos and Skype Technologies SA’s free phone calls.

The companies and senior FCC aides have been holding the private meetings since June, according to disclosure statements on the agency’s website.

The FCC may be negotiating a “secret deal” that would keep Chairman Julius Genachowski from fulfilling President Barack Obama’s pledge to back net neutrality, said Josh Silver, president of the Washington-based advocacy group Free Press. The agency may be about to “abdicate its responsibility to protect Internet users,” Silver said in an e-mailed statement.

“We are fully committed to preserving the free and open Internet,” Jen Howard, an FCC spokeswoman, said yesterday.

The long-running fight over net neutrality has pitted cable and phone companies that say they need leeway to protect the performance of their networks against content providers and advocacy groups that say the communications companies may favor their own online offerings or those of partners.

Mobile-Phone Apps

FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus is leading the meetings with a core group of six industry representatives. Among them are Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president of Dallas-based AT&T; Tom Tauke, executive vice president of New York-based Verizon; Richard Whitt, telecommunications and media counsel for Mountain View, California-based Google; and Christopher Libertelli, senior director of Luxembourg-based Skype.

All six participants declined to comment publicly on the talks.

Questions being hashed out include whether Web providers can boost delivery of some content, at the cost of slowing other traffic, and whether rules should apply to increasingly popular Web applications on mobile phones, according to the disclosure filings on the FCC website that summarize the topics discussed and name the participants.

Lazarus also has met with public-interest groups including Silver’s, Howard said in an e-mail. The sessions, held in conference rooms at the FCC’s Washington headquarters, are properly disclosed in subsequent public filings, as are all such meetings with agency staff, she said.

Minimizing Discord

Howard declined to discuss the substance of the meetings. Lazarus declined to comment in an e-mail yesterday.

A proposal by Genachowski that the FCC claim authority over Internet traffic under rules long used to regulate phone calls has sparked resistance by telephone and cable companies and from members of Congress of both parties.

“He’s interested in getting something that will minimize discord,” Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior vice president of the Washington-based Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm, said in an interview.

The backdrop is the FCC’s defeat in April before a U.S. court, which said the agency lacked the power to censure Comcast Corp. for interfering with subscribers’ Internet traffic. In response, Genachowski proposed using the rules designed for monopoly telephone service, while promising he wouldn’t invoke the associated power to regulate prices. Phone companies have said future commissions could place price controls on Internet service.

Congressional Opposition

Most congressional Republicans and more than 70 House Democrats have signed letters objecting to Genachowski’s plan, and House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio called it “a government takeover of the Internet.”

The talks at the FCC aim to produce Internet-traffic rules that would be enforced by the agency as well as principles for legislation, said Rebecca Arbogast, a Washington-based analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co., in an interview.

The pace of the talks intensified in the last week of July, Arbogast said in a note to investors. A deal would be viewed as positive for telephone and cable shares, she said.

The meetings are unusual for their frequency and complexity, and because they aim in part to craft legislation rather than the regulations that are the FCC’s normal concern, said Schwartzman.

The core participants have met at least seven times since June 22, and the agency on its website lists about 50 additional meetings with trade groups and companies such as wireless operator Clearwire Corp. and cable operator Time Warner Cable Inc.

‘Level of Controversy’

Genachowski and aides are “prepared to go forward if they need to” without a compromise, Arbogast said. “But that level of controversy is unwelcome going into the midterm” elections in November.

In addition to the four company executives attending meetings with Lazarus, participants in the sessions are Kyle McSlarrow, president of the Washington-based National Cable & Telecommunications Association and Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition.

Among companies in McSlarrow’s trade group are Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Erickson’s organization, which says it works to keep the Internet fast and open, lists as supporters EBay, Google, Skype, Free Press, Media Access Project, Netflix Inc. and IAC/InterActiveCorp unit Ask.com.

Wireless Broadband Network set to Launch Next Year

Associated Press

 

U.S. consumers and businesses may get more options in wireless service starting next year, with the launch of a new wireless broadband network that aims to provide competition to the incumbent phone companies.

Private-equity firm Harbinger Capital Partners on Tuesday revealed details of the launch of its wireless network, LightSquared, which should cover 92 percent of the population by 2015.

But there are financial and regulatory hurdles to overcome. And in another wrinkle, LightSquared won't initially be offering conventional cell phone service, just data. It's possible to send phone calls over data connections, but that technology is not fully mature or standardized.

Still, LightSquared represents a rare new entrant in the wireless market. Only two other companies, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., have firm plans to build nationwide networks using the same, fourth-generation network technology that LightSquared will use. Sprint Nextel Corp., through its Clearwire Corp. subsidiary, is building a third one with a different 4G technology that's likely to get less support from equipment makers.

Consumers won't buy service directly from LightSquared. Instead, it will sell access wholesale to other companies that can resell it to consumers. LightSquared hopes to attract cable TV providers, phone companies that don't have wireless networks of their own and retailers that want to provide wireless service under their own brand.

Dan Hays, who focuses on telecommunications with consulting firm PRTM, said LightSquared "could provide a renewed opportunity for retailers and major brands such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Office Depot to enter the wireless market as service providers to consumers."

LightSquared plans to start providing service in the second half of 2011 in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver and Baltimore.

LightSquared said Nokia Siemens Networks will build, maintain and operate the network under a $7 billion, eight-year contract. Nokia Siemens is a joint venture of Finland's Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG of Germany.

The contract is an important step for Nokia Siemens, which hasn't had much of a presence in the U.S. market for wireless equipment. On Monday, it announced a deal to buy Motorola Inc.'s networks business for $1.2 billion, with a view to increasing its foothold in the U.S.

One reason it's rare for new national wireless carriers to spring up is that it's difficult and expensive to procure the rights to airwaves across the nation. Verizon Wireless paid $9.4 billion for nationwide spectrum rights in a 2008 auction, for example.

LightSquared is in an unusual position in that it owns nationwide wireless spectrum once set aside for satellite phone use. Harbinger bought SkyTerra, a satellite company, earlier this year.

Placing calls over satellites is expensive and impractical compared with using cell towers, so the FCC allows spectrum holders to back up satellite coverage with towers. That gives LightSquared a "back door" to building out a conventional ground-based network of cell towers.

However, under current FCC rules, all devices that use LightSquared's spectrum have to come with the ability to connect to a satellite besides conventional cell towers, according to satellite industry consultant Tim Farrar. That would add to the cost of devices and limit the selection.

LightSquared is banking on the FCC changing its rules to allow devices that only talk to towers. Regardless, it needs to launch a satellite later this year to satisfy the FCC's condition that it be able to provide satellite connectivity.

The launch of the new network would fit into the FCC's goals of creating more competition in the wireless market. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Tuesday that he was pleased to learn of the creation of LightSquared.

Farrar said it's also not clear if Harbinger will be able to raise the billions needed to build out the network, and other expenses.

"It's going to be very interesting to see where this money comes from," Farrar said.

Tom Surface, a spokesman for LightSquared, said the company "will evaluate our funding needs as we develop and grow our business."

LightSquared's CEO is Sanjiv Ahuja, who was CEO of French cell phone company Orange from 2004 through 2007. He then founded a company that started wireless service in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

FCC Set to Reconsider Broadband Regulations

Associated Press

 

Federal regulators are reconsidering the rules that govern high-speed Internet connections - wading into a bitter policy dispute that could be tied up in court for years.

The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday to begin taking public comments on three different paths for regulating broadband. That includes a proposal by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, to define broadband access as a telecommunications service subject to "common carrier" obligations to treat all traffic equally.

Genachowski's proposal is a response to a federal appeals court ruling that has cast doubt on the agency's authority over broadband under its existing regulatory framework.

The plan has the backing of many big Internet companies, which say it would ensure the FCC can prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over broadband connections to determine what subscribers can do online.

"There is a real urgency to this because right now there are no rules of the road to protect consumers from even the most egregious discriminatory behavior by telephone and cable companies," said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition. The group's members include Google Inc., eBay Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and online calling service Skype Ltd.

But Genachowski's plan faces stiff resistance from the broadband providers themselves, including AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. They say it opens the door to onerous and outdated regulations that would discourage them from upgrading their networks.

"This FCC proposal could call into question the business assumptions underlying multibillion-dollar broadband investments," said Howard Waltzman, a former Republican staffer on the House Commerce Committee who is now representing telephone companies as a partner with Mayer Brown LLP.

Many Republicans and even some Democrats on Capitol Hill - as well as the two Republicans on the five-member FCC - oppose Genachowski's plan. At least one House Republican, Rep. John Culberson of Texas, has proposed blocking funding for the FCC if it pursues the plan.

The FCC currently defines broadband as a lightly regulated information service. But in April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that this approach does not give the commission the authority it needs to adopt so-called "network neutrality" mandates, which would bar broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against traffic traveling over their networks.

Supporters of network neutrality say such rules are necessary to prevent phone and cable companies from blocking or degrading online calling services, Internet video and other applications that compete with their core businesses.

Indeed, the recent appeals court decision grew out of a challenge by Comcast Corp. to a 2008 FCC order directing the cable company to stop blocking subscribers from accessing an online file-sharing service. Comcast and other broadband providers insist they need flexibility to manage their networks and ensure that certain applications don't hog too much bandwidth.

The court ruling also undermines the FCC's ability to act on several key recommendations in its national broadband plan - another top priority for Genachowski - including a proposal to expand high-speed Internet access by tapping the federal program that subsidizes phone service in poor and rural areas.

Genachowski says his new regulatory framework would allow the FCC to move ahead on both fronts by placing broadband connections firmly within the agency's jurisdiction as a telecommunications service. At the same time, he has pledged to impose only narrow telecom rules on broadband providers, avoiding burdensome mandates such as rate regulations and network-sharing obligations. He has also stressed that his approach would not impose regulations on Internet content and services.

In outlining his proposal last month, Genachowski called it a "third way" that respects "investment and innovation" and protects consumers and Internet competition.

Thursday's vote will launch a proceeding to examine:

-Genachowski's proposal;

-the implications of leaving the existing regulatory frawework in place;

-and the implications of imposing the full array of traditional telecommunications regulations on broadband providers.

If the FCC ultimately adopts Genachowski's plan, it will almost certainly draw legal challenges from phone and cable companies that fear any shift away from the current deregulatory approach adopted under the Bush administration. That approach was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005 and a battle over any attempt to overturn it could go all the way back to the high court.

FCC's Third Way for Broadband Access is a Boon for Net Neutrality, Google

eWeek

 

 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski May 6 laid down new rules for applying narrow regulations to broadband providers, which should please Internet companies such as Google as much as it dismays Internet access providers such as Comcast and Cablevision.

Under the "third way broadband framework," Genachowski said the FCC will recognize the transmission component of broadband access service as a telecommunications service and apply only the six sections of Title II that were believed to be within the FCC's purview for broadband.

The FCC will also put in place rules to guard against regulatory overreach. Genachowski also said the approach will forbid the FCC from regulating rates charged by telephone and cable companies for Internet service.

The commission also may not regulate the Internet, he said.

"It will treat only the transmission component of broadband access service as a telecommunications service while preserving the longstanding consensus that the FCC should not regulate the Internet, including Web-based services and applications, e-commerce sites, and online content," Genachowski said.

Genachowski's "third way" is geared to boost network neutrality rules that order Internet service providers to treat all traffic equally, and not give preferential treatment to some Websites over others. Net neutrality has become something of a crusade for companies such as Google and Amazon, which depend on the Internet to deliver Web services and goods.

The third way is also a measured response to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ruled April 6 that the FCC did not have the authority to order Comcast to stop throttling BitTorrent traffic and that Comcast could regulate Internet traffic over its own system.

The FCC in 2008 had complained that Comcast and other Internet providers must treat content that traverses their pipes equally. Comcast took the FCC to the court and won, with the court claiming the FCC had overstepped its boundaries.

As such, the FCC's third way, perceived as a rally against the court's decision, must have a strong legal footing. FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick believes it is rooted in the idea that the computing component and the broadband transmission component of Internet access service are separate entities subject to different regulation.

Genachowski's third way is also a move to prop up the National Broadband Plan, which was dealt a hard blow by Comcast's victory. The FCC said the Comcast ruling impedes plans to accelerate broadband access and adoption in rural America and connecting low-income Americans, among other recommendations.  

The third way is designed to turn the tables on Comcast. Genachowski's proposal must be approved by three or more of the FCC's five commissioners before it can come to fruition.

Reaction to Genachowski's third way plan was swift and cleanly divided.

Conservatives disdain the proposal, fearing government regulation over Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner and other access providers would stifle investment and innovation. Democrats lent their support to Genachowski's plan, characterizing it as a victory for network neutrality and consumers.

Google, whose interests lie in making sure its Web applications are accessed freely on the Internet, pointed eWEEK to this letter from the Open Internet Coalition, whose members include Google, Amazon, eBay and others.

OIC Executive Director Markham Erickson also noted:

"After Comcast v. FCC, consumers were essentially stranded on the information highway without protection from the FCC. This step by the FCC ensures that consumer choice and innovation on the broadband Internet will receive the protections this essential communications infrastructure for the 21st century requires."

Comcast told Bloomberg it is "disappointed" by Genachowski's action. Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge said on the company's first-quarter conference call today that regulating network providers under rules written in the early 20th century is a bad decision.

FCC Says it has Compromised on Key Broadband Rules

Associated Press

The head of the Federal Communications Commission thinks he has come up with a way to salvage his ambitious national broadband plans without running into legal obstacles that have threatened to derail him.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Thursday that his agency has crafted a compromise in how it regulates high-speed Internet access: It will apply only narrow rules to broadband companies. The FCC chairman, a Democrat, said this delicate dance will ensure the agency has adequate authority to govern broadband providers without being too "heavy-handed."

But his plan likely will hit legal challenges from the big phone and cable companies and already faces significant opposition from Republicans at the FCC and in Congress.

The FCC has been scrambling to develop a new regulatory framework since a federal appeals court last month cast doubt on its jurisdiction over broadband under existing rules.

The FCC needs that legal authority for the sweeping national broadband plan that it released in March. Among other things, the plan aims to give more Americans access to affordable high-speed Internet connections by revamping the federal program that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural areas and using it to pay for broadband.

Genachowski also needs this authority for his proposal to adopt "network neutrality" rules prohibiting phone and cable companies from prioritizing or discriminating against Internet traffic traveling over their lines. Internet companies such as Google Inc. and Skype Ltd. say these rules are needed to prevent broadband providers from becoming online gatekeepers and blocking Internet phone calls, streaming video and other services that compete with their core businesses.

Genachowski said his new regulatory framework will let the FCC move ahead with its plans and "support policies that advance our global competitiveness and preserve the Internet as a powerful platform for innovation."

The FCC currently treats broadband as a lightly regulated "information service." It had maintained that this framework gave it ample authority to proceed with its broadband plan and to impose net neutrality rules. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected this argument.

So now Genachowski is seeking to redefine broadband as a telecommunications service subject to "common carrier" obligations to treat all traffic equally. Similar rules apply to other networks that serve the public, including roads, electrical grids and telephone lines. But Genachowski said he will refrain from imposing more burdensome mandates that also apply to traditional telecom companies. For instance he would avoid requiring the broadband companies to share their networks with competitors.

The proposal is intended to strike a balance that can satisfy both Internet service providers that oppose new regulations and public interest groups that are demanding greater consumer protections. FCC officials stressed that they intend to regulate only Internet connections, not the online services flowing through them.

The FCC will soon seek public comment on Genachowski's proposal. It would have to be approved by at least three of the FCC's five commissioners, and Genachowski is expected to have the support of his two fellow Democrats.

Several public interest groups and big Internet companies, including Google, Skype, eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., praised the proposal. So did Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC. "With this decision, the FCC will ensure that the agency remains the 'cop on the beat,' protecting consumers and competition on the World Wide Web," Markey said.

But Republicans lined up against the plan.

The two Republican FCC commissioners, Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker, said the proposal would "shatter the boundaries" of the agency's authority and discourage broadband providers from investing in their networks. McDowell and Baker said Genachowski's plan would impose "burdensome rules excavated from the early-Ma Bell-monopoly era onto 21st century networks."

House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio called the plan "a government takeover of the Internet."

The battle is likely to land in court if the big phone and cable companies decide to challenge the new framework. The companies already oppose Genachowski's network neutrality proposal, warning that restrictions on what they can do with their networks will discourage them from investing in their lines.

Shares of phone companies Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. slipped 2 percent Thursday. Cable stocks tumbled even more - reflecting the fact that cable companies have a larger share of the broadband market and no wireless operations to fall back on. Shares of Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, lost 6 percent, while Cablevision Systems Corp. fell 7 percent and Time Warner Cable dropped 8 percent.

Tom Tauke, Verizon's top Washington official, said Genachowski's new approach to regulation is "legally unsupported" and "could ultimately harm consumers and inhibit the innovation and investment he wants to encourage." AT&T echoed that point.

Comcast said that while it is disappointed with the FCC proposal, it is prepared to work with the agency. But Comcast may be more open to compromise because it needs FCC approval for its plan to take a controlling stake in NBC Universal.

It was Comcast that helped set in motion the events leading to last month's court ruling.

The case centered on the company's behavior in 2007 when it interfered with subscribers using the online file-sharing service BitTorrent, which lets people swap movies and other big files. Comcast said the service was clogging its network, but public interest groups maintained that the company saw the swapping of video files as a threat to its cable business.

The FCC, then led by Republican Kevin Martin, ordered Comcast to stop blocking subscribers from using BitTorrent and based its decision on net neutrality principles it had adopted in 2005.

Comcast challenged the order in court. It argued that the order was illegal because the agency was seeking to enforce principles and not regulations or laws. That is one reason that Genachowski is now pushing the FCC to adopt formal net neutrality rules that would apply across the industry.

Comcast also had argued that the FCC lacked authority to mandate net neutrality because it had deregulated broadband by classifying it as an information service under the Bush administration. Now Genachowski's next move could reverse course on that approach.

FCC Web Rules Create Pushback

The Wall Street Journal

Is FCC chairman in over his head?

The head of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday outlined a proposal for regulating the Internet that he described as a "third way," or middle ground between "heavy-handed" regulation and a do-nothing approach that could hurt competition and leave consumers unprotected.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is proposing to promote competition and preserve the free flow of Web traffic by applying to broadband Internet service certain provisions of rules designed to regulate traffic on copper-wire telephone networks.

Big phone and cable companies, which provide much of the nation's broadband service, expressed dismay at the FCC chairman's decision to extend his regulatory authority to broadband, predicting it would damp investment and lead to court battles that could last years.

"We are very concerned about the direction this is going," said Grant Seiffert, chief executive of the Telecommunications Industry Association, an industry lobbying group.

Industry executives said privately that they didn't trust the notion that the FCC would take only a limited approach to the new regulations, applying just six sections of Title II of the Communications Act to broadband while not enforcing others.

They also expressed concerns about the legality of the proposal. "We believe that the chairman's stated approach is legally unsupported," said Tom Tauke, executive vice president of Verizon Communications Inc., in a statement.

Broadband policy has evolved into a deeply partisan issue in Washington. Democratic lawmakers applauded Mr. Genachowski's stance Thursday, but Republicans blasted his plan, saying it would cost jobs.

Senate Republicans began recirculating legislation proposed in 2009 by Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) that would prohibit the FCC from regulating the Internet. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) called the decision a "government takeover of the Internet" and a "job-killing big government scheme."

An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment.

The FCC's two Republicans also dissented. "This proposal is disappointing and deeply concerns us," said Commissioners Meredith Attwell Baker and Robert McDowell, in a joint statement. They argued that the FCC was overstepping its authority.



Mr. Genachowski doesn't need congressional approval or the votes of his Republican colleagues to adopt the proposal. The other two Democrats on the FCC's five-person board have said they will support his efforts.

Consumer groups applauded some aspects of Mr. Genachowski's plan, but some groups, including Public Knowledge and Consumers Union, expressed concerns that the FCC plan doesn't go far enough to ensure greater competition among Internet-service providers.

Six Sections to Apply:

    * Section 201—Requires Internet providers to interconnect and charge reasonable rates
    * Section 202—Prevents price or service discrimination
    * Section 208—Sets up FCC complaint process
    * Section 222—Protects customer privacy and proprietary commercial information
    * Section 254—Allows use of Universal Service Fund for broadband
    * Section 255—Ensures disability access

Mr. Genachowski said the FCC needed to take action to protect consumers after a federal appeals court last month questioned the agency's authority to enforce rules that require broadband providers to treat all Internet traffic equally, prohibiting them from deliberately slowing or blocking such traffic.

These so-called net neutrality guidelines are strongly supported by the Internet-commerce industry. Broadband providers have said rigid net-neutrality rules aren't desirable because that restricts their freedom to manage their fast-evolving networks.

The appeals court ruled in April that the FCC overstepped its bounds in deciding to sanction Comcast Corp. for deliberately slowing some broadband subscribers' traffic in 2008. The court's ruling essentially threw into question much of the agency's efforts to set rules for broadband providers over the past eight years.

The FCC's proposal seeks to provide "a solid legal foundation for achieving the policy goals that benefit consumers and our economy in the most effective and least intrusive way," Mr. Genachowski said Thursday.

The FCC chairman said he doesn't intend to regulate rates for Internet service or require service providers to share their lines with rivals at government-regulated rates.

The agency would require broadband providers to allow data to travel from the Internet to a subscriber's computer without meddling. However, it isn't planning to regulate material sent over the Internet, like email, online videos or games.

That's an important distinction for Silicon Valley, where a handful of companies including Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. sent Mr. Genachowski a letter Thursday applauding his "middle ground approach" to regulation.

"This is a great way to move forward," said Paul Misener, vice president of global public policy at Amazon.

The move catches the communications industry, and phone companies in particular, at a difficult time.

Phone companies and cable operators are spending billions of dollars slugging it out to snare broadband and TV subscribers. Wireless service, the growth engine of phone companies for the past decade, has become a mature market.

The FCC proposal adds another layer of uncertainty that industry executives say will cause them to delay investments in land-based and wireless Internet infrastructure. Any such cuts in capital spending could lead to job losses and hurt the Obama administration's plan to extend faster broadband service across the country. Investors are worried about the potential fallout as well.

Under questioning from an analyst on a conference call after its first-quarter earnings release Thursday, Cablevision Systems Corp. Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge said a move to reclassify broadband lines under "1930s laws, utility-type regulation" would be disappointing. "We operate in a highly competitive environment," he said.

FCC Chief Julius Genachowski faces Broadband Dilemma
USA Today

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will soon have to make a wonky but controversial decision that could have a profound impact on how much consumers pay for broadband, how fast their services will be — and possibly whether millions of people will be able to get it at all.

He can ensure that the FCC has the power to set rules for high-speed Internet service if he asks his fellow regulators to define it, in legal terms, as a highly regulated common carrier service like telephones. Or he can let cable and phone companies call the shots by allowing it to remain a lightly regulated information service.

There's no deadline for a decision. But if Genachowski waits too long, he may have to abandon dozens of policy changes that he has proposed to close the digital divide and protect broadband subscribers.

That would mean Genachowski "will have no legacy," says Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, an activist group that favors more broadband oversight.

But if he does act, cable and phone companies likely would "launch an all-out attack" on the FCC leading into this year's congressional elections, "with charges of lost jobs, lost investment, lost (broadband) deployment and more Democratic meddling in industry," says analyst Rebecca Arbogast of Stifel Nicolaus, a financial services firm.



Genachowski ran into this dilemma last week when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned a commission decision from 2008 that involved Comcast's management of Internet traffic. Justices said the FCC lacked an explicit mandate to regulate broadband. The agency tied its own hands in 2005 when it defined phone DSL broadband as an information service, similar to a decision it made in 2002 about cable modems.

The court tossed aside the FCC's view that it could infer some power over Internet services from its authority to set rules for cable TV and phone services. The ruling hit just weeks after the FCC unveiled a sweeping proposal, called the National Broadband Plan, designed to make high-speed Internet a staple of everyday life.

Separately, Genachowski and President Obama have said that they want to require Internet providers to treat all Web services equally, a policy known as net neutrality.

Without a change in the law that defines broadband, many of these proposals would have to be scuttled or might end up being "litigated before a skeptical court," Arbogast says.

The FCC won't say whether Genachowski is inclined to reassert regulatory power over broadband by reclassifying it as a common carrier service. But whatever decision he makes will create shock waves.

Rules are 'badly out of date'

If the FCC changes the way it treats high-speed Internet, then "everybody in the industry would sue," says Scott Cleland, chairman of NetCompetition.org, an Internet forum supported by cable and phone companies.

"It would be like an 8.0 earthquake under the sector," he adds. "Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested (in broadband) in the belief that there'd be a market rate of return, not a regulated rate."

The FCC's two Republican commissioners have said they'd fight a move to reclassify broadband.

Verizon and AT&T have said that they'd prefer to see Congress clarify the FCC's role and what rules should apply to new players including Google. Laws are "badly out of date," Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke said in a recent speech.

But consumer advocates and others say that Genachowski can't afford to wait. "It would surely take a year or two" to get a major law through Congress, says Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm.

And if an FCC decision to reclassify broadband draws a lawsuit, it makes more sense to have "one big court case instead of a dozen small cases," Schwartzman says.

Genachowski's fellow Democrats on the commission also are eager to act. Michael Copps called reclassification the "only way the commission can make lemonade out of (the Appeals Court's) lemon of a decision."

If Genachowski wants to defuse the issue, he could try to engineer a compromise. For example, he could agree to take broadband reclassification off the table as long as providers make legally binding promises to offer consumer protections called for in the National Broadband Plan and to agree to treat all Web services equally. But it will be hard to please everybody as advocates gear up for a fight.

While reclassification isn't a sexy issue, as the Internet becomes the main pipeline for media and communications and phone DSL broadband, the FCC's rules "will shape everything that people use to interact with the world," Silver says.

FCC Loses Key Ruling on Internet 'Neutrality'

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal court threw the future of Internet regulations into doubt Tuesday with a far-reaching decision that went against the Federal Communications Commission and could even hamper the government's plans to expand broadband access in the United States.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC's authority to impose such "network neutrality" obligations on broadband providers.

Supporters of network neutrality, including the FCC chairman, have argued that the policy is necessary to prevent broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain Web sites and online services, such as Internet phone programs or software that runs in a Web browser. Advocates contend there is precedent: Nondiscrimination rules have traditionally applied to so-called "common carrier" networks that serve the public, from roads and highways to electrical grids and telephone lines.

But broadband providers such as Comcast, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. argue that after spending billions of dollars on their networks, they should be able to sell premium services and manage their systems to prevent certain applications from hogging capacity.

Tuesday's unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel was a setback for the FCC because it questioned the agency's authority to regulate broadband. That could cause problems beyond the FCC's effort to adopt official net neutrality regulations. It also has serious implications for the ambitious national broadband-expansion plan released by the FCC last month. The FCC needs the authority to regulate broadband so that it can push ahead with some of the plan's key recommendations. Among other things, the FCC proposes to expand broadband by tapping the federal fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities.

In a statement, the FCC said it remains "firmly committed to promoting an open Internet and to policies that will bring the enormous benefits of broadband to all Americans" and "will rest these policies ... on a solid legal foundation."

Comcast welcomed the decision, saying "our primary goal was always to clear our name and reputation."

The case centers on Comcast's actions in 2007 when it interfered with an online file-sharing service called BitTorrent, which lets people swap movies and other big files over the Internet. The next year the FCC banned Comcast from blocking subscribers from using BitTorrent. The commission, at the time headed by Republican Kevin Martin, based its order on a set of net neutrality principles it had adopted in 2005.

But Comcast argued that the FCC order was illegal because the agency was seeking to enforce mere policy principles, which don't have the force of regulations or law. That's one reason that Martin's successor, Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, is trying to formalize those rules.

The cable company had also argued the FCC lacks authority to mandate net neutrality because it had deregulated broadband under the Bush administration, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005.

The FCC now defines broadband as a lightly regulated information service. That means it is not subject to the "common carrier" obligations that make traditional telecommunications services share their networks with competitors and treat all traffic equally. But the FCC maintains that existing law gives it authority to set rules for information services.

Tuesday's court decision rejected that reasoning, concluding that Congress has not given the FCC "untrammeled freedom" to regulate without explicit legal authority.

With so much at stake, the FCC now has several options. It could ask Congress to give it explicit authority to regulate broadband. Or it could appeal Tuesday's decision.

But both of those steps could take too long because the agency "has too many important things they have to do right away," said Ben Scott, policy director for the public interest group Free Press. Free Press was among the groups that alerted the FCC after The Associated Press ran tests and reported that Comcast was interfering with attempts by some subscribers to share files online.

Scott believes that the likeliest step by the FCC is that it will simply reclassify broadband as a more heavily regulated telecommunications service. That, ironically, could be the worst-case outcome from the perspective of the phone and cable companies.

"Comcast swung an ax at the FCC to protest the BitTorrent order," Scott said. "And they sliced right through the FCC's arm and plunged the ax into their own back."

The battle over the FCC's legal jurisdiction comes amid a larger policy dispute over the merits of net neutrality. Backed by Internet companies such as Google Inc. and the online calling service Skype, the FCC says rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from prioritizing some traffic or degrading or services that compete with their core businesses. Indeed, BitTorrent can be used to transfer large files such as online video, which could threaten Comcast's cable TV business.

But broadband providers point to the fact that applications such as BitTorrent use an outsized amount of network capacity.

For its part, the FCC offered no details on its next step, but stressed that it remains committed to the principle of net neutrality.

"Today's court decision invalidated the prior commission's approach to preserving an open Internet," the agency's statement said. "But the court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet; nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end."

U.S. Officials to Unveil Sweeping Proposal for Broadband
Mercury News

WASHINGTON — Recognizing that high-speed Internet has joined telephone service and electricity as essential tools of modern life, the federal government will unveil an ambitious blueprint this week to extend broadband to virtually all Americans.

Crafted by the Federal Communications Commission over the past year, the national broadband plan is expected to set the federal government's high-tech agenda on a variety of fronts, with far-reaching implications for Silicon Valley. At its core, the plan, which will be released Tuesday, will propose ways to close the long-standing digital divide by bringing broadband into 90 percent of American homes by 2020.

For those with broadband already, the plan will target vastly increased speeds for wired and wireless service, fostering the already-booming market for Web-based video and other high-bandwidth applications. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the plan could spur advancements in telemedicine, education and energy efficiency through a Web-enabled smart grid.

Progress will be dictated largely by the private sector, given the immense costs of broadband infrastructure.

"World-class broadband," Genachowski said in a speech last month, "is our generation's great infrastructure challenge."

The FCC says that about 93 million Americans, almost a third of the population, currently lack high-speed Internet at home — a huge untapped market for high-tech firms that advocates say a national broadband initiative could help them reach.

In the case of Google, for example, universal broadband would mean more Web ad clicks, smoother YouTube video quality, and easier collaboration on Google Docs and other sharing applications, an executive said.

"The more people on the Internet, the better our business model works," said Vint Cerf, a founding father of the Internet who now serves as "chief Internet evangelist" for Google. "And high-speed creates a lot of opportunities for collaboration."

Cisco Systems, meanwhile, stands to sell more routing equipment to direct the Web traffic of millions more users. But the importance of broadband extends far beyond any one company, said Jeffrey Campbell, Cisco's senior director of technology and trade policy.

"This is highly relevant to the valley and the tech industry in general," Campbell said. "If the United States is going to continue leading the world in creating applications for the Internet, we need to make sure people have access and we need world-class speeds."

The country is lagging on both fronts now. Studies show the United States trailing a dozen or more countries in the proportion of people who have broadband and in the speed of service. While some critics question the criteria for those rankings, "few would suggest we are leading the world in broadband, or are even as close as we should be," Genachowski said.

The plan will focus simultaneously on expanding access and increasing speeds. According to several recent surveys, about one-third of households lack broadband connections at home, and they are concentrated in low-income and rural communities. All but about 4 percent of households have access to at least one broadband service. The most oft-cited reasons cited for not signing up are that people don't see the need or can't afford the typical $40 to $45 a month fee.

FCC officials in recent weeks have floated a number of ideas to close the access gap that are expected to be included in the plan:

# Redirecting a roughly $8 billion-a-year government program that subsidizes telephone service for rural and low-income communities toward expanding high-speed Internet in underserved areas.

# Setting aside a slice of the radio spectrum for free or low-cost wireless service.

# Creating a "digital literacy corps," modeled after AmeriCorps, to help people unfamiliar with the Internet (particularly residents of low-income and minority communities and seniors) learn how to use it.

The plan will also set ambitious targets for bolstering current broadband service. Genachowski said it will call for broadband speeds of 100 megabits per second in 100 million homes by 2020. That would be more than 10 times faster than what's considered speedy Internet now.

And it will recommend more than doubling the amount of spectrum devoted to wireless Internet to accommodate the explosion of smartphones and other mobile SEO devices and make wireless Internet a more viable alternative to cable, DSL and similar services in the home.

While Genachowski and other proponents talk about broadband in transformative terms — "akin to the advent of electricity," the FCC chairman said — the plan's impact is likely to be gradual, requiring years of work by the commission and the cooperation of Congress. Progress will be dictated largely by the private sector, given the immense costs of broadband infrastructure.

"It's intended to be a major statement about U.S. technology policy, and there really hasn't been a major statement like this in a long time," said Jed Kolko, an economist and broadband expert at the Public Policy Institute of California. "Broadband has expanded to the point that it's expected that people have access, and when they don't, they're at a real disadvantage."

FCC Rolls out Plan to bring High-Speed Internet to all Americans

FCC to propose revamping Universal Service Fund

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal regulators trying to bring high-speed Internet connections to all Americans will propose tapping the government program that now subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural areas.

The Federal Communications Commission will include a proposal to revamp the Universal Service Fund as part of a national broadband plan due to Congress on March 17. Although the proposal itself has been expected for months, Friday's announcement offered the first solid details.

The FCC said it envisions transforming the Universal Service program over the next decade to pay for high-speed Internet access instead of the traditional voice services that it currently finances. The proposal would create a Connect America fund inside the Universal Service program to subsidize broadband, and a Mobility Fund to expand the reach of so-called 3G, or third-generation, wireless networks.

"It's time to migrate this 20th-century program," said Blair Levin, the FCC official overseeing the broadband plan, which was mandated by last year's stimulus bill. "We need to move the current system from the traditional networks to the new networks."

The Universal Service Fund was established to ensure that all Americans have access to a basic telephone line. Today, the program subsidizes phone service for the poor, funds Internet access in schools and libraries and pays for high-speed connections for rural health clinics. But its biggest function is to bring telephone service to remote, sparsely populated corners of the country, where it is uneconomical for the private companies to build networks.

Funding for the $8-billion-a-year program comes from a surcharge that businesses and consumers pay on their long-distance bills. That revenue base is shrinking, placing the Universal Service Fund under mounting pressure even as the FCC seeks to use it to subsidize broadband.

The agency's plan will lay out several options to pay for the proposals it outlined Friday, including one that would require no additional money from Congress and one that would accelerate the construction of broadband networks if Congress approves a one-time injection of $9 billion.

Either way, Levin stressed, the proposal would not increase the annual size of the Universal Service Fund, but rather would take money from subsidies now used for voice services.

The FCC would also seek to save money by subsidizing no more than one broadband provider in an areas. Some critics of the program have complained that wireless companies now overlay landline systems with new networks considered duplicative.

Levin said Connect America would not favor one technology over another, be it cable, DSL or wireless.

The FCC proposal also envisions revamping the multibillion-dollar "intercarrier compensation" system, the Byzantine menu of charges that telecom carriers pay to access each other's networks and connect calls. Any changes to the Universal Service Fund would also require changes to intercarrier compensation because rural phone companies tend to rely heavily on both funding sources.

The FCC's latest proposals will be part of a sweeping national roadmap for bringing universal, affordable broadband connections to all Americans.

Although the plan is due on March 17, the agency has already begun releasing details, including a proposal to make more wireless spectrum available for mobile broadband connections by letting television broadcasters and others voluntarily cede some airwaves.

Some of the proposals will likely require congressional action, while others might be up to the FCC to implement.

AT&T, Verizon May Have to Share Internet Lines Under FCC Plan
Bloomberg

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. would be forced to lease fast Internet lines to rivals providing Web services to small businesses under a proposal being weighed by U.S. regulators.

The biggest U.S. phone companies have told the Federal Communications Commission that opening access to lines they laid would curb their incentive to continue spending billions of dollars expanding high-speed service. The FCC’s decision “will significantly affect investment in fiber-based networks,” line- maker Corning Inc. said in a filing with the agency.

The idea, proposed to the FCC by computer-services company Cbeyond Inc., has support from the Small Business Administration, which said it could spur job creation. The plan would add to competition for business clients, who are also being courted by cable providers led by Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

Requiring phone companies to lease their lines would “erode their market position,” said Donna Jaegers, a Denver- based analyst for D.A. Davidson & Co., in an interview.

Atlanta-based Cbeyond sells packages of Internet-based services, such as e-mail, voicemail and data backup, to businesses with fewer than 250 workers. It now uses slower lines than those it wants to lease from AT&T and Verizon.

Cbeyond could benefit “longer term” as the market for advanced services develops, Jaegers said. She recommends buying Cbeyond shares and doesn’t own any.

Atlanta, Chicago

The company, with about 1,100 employees, serves markets such as Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle. It reported $350 million in revenue in 2008, a 25 percent increase from the previous year. The company is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings on March 3.

Cbeyond fell 4 cents to $12.50 at 4 p.m. yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, and declined 21 percent in the 12 months ended yesterday.

Verizon, AT&T and Qwest Communications International Inc. refuse to offer rivals long-term contracts on connections to businesses, said Cbeyond Chief Executive Officer Jim Geiger.

“We expand the market” for business services “because we’re educating these small companies” about online resources, Geiger said in an interview.

Letting competitors lease lines into businesses may boost Internet adoption, help small businesses grow and aid job creation, said Colin Crowell, an aide to Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, in an interview.

‘Lot of Appeal’

“That is certainly something that we’ll look very closely at, and has a lot of appeal as part of a national strategy,” said Crowell. The change may be proposed as part of the FCC’s national plan for increasing the use of high-speed Internet, or broadband, that is to be delivered to Congress in March, Crowell said.

Cbeyond’s proposal could help deliver services such as video conferencing and cloud computing to small businesses, which would “increase their efficiency, and ultimately, spur job creation,” the Small Business Administration’s Susan Walthall, acting chief counsel for advocacy, told the FCC in a filing.

The FCC decided in 2003, under Republican leadership, that phone companies don’t need to sell competitors access to the fiber lines they added. The decision didn’t affect cable companies, which are subject to different regulations and don’t have to lease lines.

The 2003 decision encouraged broadband deployment by assuring phone companies they could invest without having to share lines at regulated rates, said Paul Gallant, a Washington- based analyst with Concept Capital’s Washington Research Group, in an interview.

‘Robust’ Investment

The result was “robust private investment in broadband networks,” Verizon said in a filing. Companies “are less likely to invest” in networks “if they must share the fruits of that investment with their rivals.”

Verizon committed $23 billion to its all-fiber FiOS network, which carries video, telephone and Internet services, as part of the investment “boom” that followed the FCC’s earlier decision, the company said in its filing.

Cbeyond “ignores the reality of the marketplace” where there is “tremendous competition” for business-services contracts, said Glenn Reynolds, a vice president at US Telecom, a Washington-based trade association with members including New York-based Verizon and Denver-based Qwest, in an interview. Both companies referred requests for comment to the trade association.

Cbeyond’s proposal “will undermine” FCC efforts to promote investment in broadband, said Michael Balmoris, a Washington spokesman for Dallas-based AT&T, in an e-mailed statement.

Genachowski Meeting

Cbeyond proposed the rule change in November. Geiger, the company’s founder, met with Genachowski Oct. 5, and appeared as a panelist at the agency’s Dec. 21 public hearing on how broadband can help small businesses.

Cbeyond’s typical customer is a business with 12 employees that buys seven Internet-based products, and spends $748 monthly on its services, according to a company document presented to the FCC.

“All we need to do is tweak certain regulations and we know we can unleash innovation and job creation,” Geiger said in the interview.

Cbeyond wants to pay retail rates for its access, Geiger said. AT&T said in its comments that there is no relevant retail rate, and Cbeyond’s idea “appears to involve the creation of a new regulated rate, derived from the retail prices of lower- priced services, such as AT&T’s U-Verse.”

FCC Considering New Rules For Internet Access

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators are considering whether the government should take greater control of the Internet and ask consumers to pay higher phone charges in order to provide all Americans with cheaper access to broadband Internet service.

The Federal Communications Commission Wednesday will lay out the case for expanding broadband Internet service, outlining current obstacles to making it widely available. The agency is considering whether to force Internet providers to share their networks with rivals and raise fees charged on consumer phone bills to pay for the broader access.

The proposals, which have sparked criticism from telecommunications and cable companies, represent a reversal from the Bush Administration, when regulators cut back on government control of Internet and telephone service.

The new commission, controlled by Democrats, is considering whether more government control is needed to ensure competition and more affordable Internet service.

The FCC staff will float possible solutions in December and make formal recommendations in February, when it is set to release its National Broadband Plan, a blueprint for improving broadband speed and access. Congress asked the FCC for the plan earlier this year.

FCC officials estimate it could cost anywhere from $20 billion to $350 billion to connect all American households to high-speed Internet service, depending on speed offered.

They haven't yet said how much of that investment might come from taxpayers.

The agency is looking at three politically charged proposals to reach its goal of universal broadband access.

One is to as much as double a $7 billion federal phone-subsidy fund, called the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone service in rural areas for low income Americans, and expand it to subsidize construction and operation of broadband networks in rural areas. Money for this fund comes from a small charge tacked on to consumer phone bills.

Previous efforts to overhaul the fund have run into significant resistance in Congress, particularly among congressman and senators who represent rural areas where phone cooperatives and small phone companies don't want to lose the federal subsidies they get to provide service.

FCC staff also are studying whether to revive "open access" rules, which would require Internet providers to lease their networks to rivals at government-regulated rates.

Similar rules are in place in Europe and some Asian countries -- and some consumer advocates say open access is one reason why Internet service is cheaper and faster in those countries.

FCC officials have made no decisions yet on whether to adopt any of these proposals. The five-member FCC board will be the final say and they haven't been presented with any options yet.

Still, large phone and cable companies are against any effort to allow open access, arguing they will have little incentive to invest billions in networks if they are required to offer below-rate access to rivals.

In recent weeks, they have resisted efforts by the FCC's staff to gather data for pricing models. They are concerned the data-gathering might be used to help justify government rate setting, according to industry executives. FCC officials say they wanted the data for different purposes.

Consumer groups say open-access rules will spark competition and lead to more choice and lower Internet prices.

"It provides a way to bring more competition into the broadband marketplace which could drive down prices for consumers," said Joel Kelsey, policy analyst at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports.

The issue bubbled up last month, when Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society released an FCC-commissioned study which concluded that other countries have faster and cheaper Internet access because of open-access rules.

On Monday, AT&T told the FCC that the Harvard study's conclusion, "that open access is the talisman for success in broadband, is nothing short of astonishing."

The Harvard study "seems to assume throughout that we should apply the lessons of the past to the future," wrote Link Hoewing, a Verizon assistant vice president for Internet issues, on the company's policy blog. He argued it didn't make sense for the FCC to look at applying old rules, which were designed for the traditional phone system, to the fast-evolving Internet. Verizon declined to comment.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association said the FCC shouldn't reach a "false and foregone conclusion" that such rules would increase the availability of high-speed Internet service "when a clear preponderance of empirical evidence reaches the polar opposite conclusion."

The FCC's third option for broadening Internet access, floated last month, has already stirred controversy.

The agency suggested that it might reclaim some airwaves from TV station owners and auction them off to wireless companies for more high-speed wireless Internet services.

Broadcasters, including PBS executives and station owners from Texas and other states, have been up in arms, streaming into the FCC over the past two weeks to lobby against the plan.

"The political realities of this are huge," said Gordon Smith, a former Senator from Oregon who recently became head of the National Association of Broadcasters on Tuesday. The FCC's proposal has "a long way to go," he predicted.

Phone and cable companies are already concerned by a separate FCCinitiativewhich would prevent Internet providers from favoring some Internet traffic. These net-neutrality proposals are opposed by Internet service providers, who argue that they need flexibility to manage their networks and potentially offer premium services to customers willing to pay more for faster delivery.

The FCC hasn't formally proposed any open-access rules, which require companies to lease space on their networks to competitors, and may decide not to do so. "We're looking at lots of things in the entire ecosystem. It would be premature to suggest we're moving in a particular direction," said Blair Levin, a former telecom analyst who's overseeing development of the National Broadband Plan for the FCC.

He said that the Universal Service Fund, which is financed by fees charged on consumer phone bills, is flawed because it only covers phone service and not broadband as well.

If the agency heads down the open-access road, it would be returning to policies the FCC adopted in the wake of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which opened the local and long distance phone markets to more competition.

Congress required phone companies to lease part of their networks to competitors, but it took the FCC the better part of a decade to write rules that withstood legal challenges from the telephone companies. The FCC exempted broadband lines from such regulation in 2002.