broadband

One day after Congressional Republicans killed compromise legislation that would have protected net neutrality -- the principle that broadband providers shouldn't play favorites with Web content -- pressure has returned to the Federal Communications Commission to act on the issue.

Amid a fierce clash over the Net's next era, tech titans Google and Verizon crafted their own broadband policy plan and shined a light on what might be Washington's most ineffectual regulator -- the FCC. Unknown to many, Google and Verizon worked on that plan since fall of 2008.

Federal regulators are shooting down a proposal by a startup called M2Z Networks to build a free, nationwide wireless broadband network using a spare slice of airwaves.

While some companies have put an end to unlimited mobile data connections on your laptop or other mobile device, Virgin Mobile USA, a prepaid provider, is simplifying its plans and offering unlimited prepaid mobile broadband for $40 a month -- $20 cheaper than what it would cost with a contract on...

Lobbyists from some of the largest U.S. technology companies are meeting behind closed doors in Washington with telecom giants to discuss net neutrality, following the failed FCC talks and Google's bilateral deal with Verizon. No surprise, public interest groups weren't invited.

If you're expecting the speed of a web download on your laptop to be anywhere near what your phone or cable company advertised, you better start lowering those expectations. The Federal Communications Commission is saying that consumers are getting way less than promised in download speeds. A new...

While often well-intentioned, the agency has watched its own "open Internet policy" slowly, but systematically, crumble over the last five years. Now under Julius Genachowski, the FCC faces an almost no-win situation regarding net neutrality.

The two companies were on opposite sides of the net neutrality debate. So they initiated talks aimed at coming up with a compromise where some progress could be achieved in the face of FCC and congressional inaction. For Google, it's a lesson in growing up.

The concept of the videophone is nearly as old as the phone itself, and prototypes predate the Beatles by many decades. But while other new modes of communication, from email to instant messaging to cell phones have been adopted at astonishing rates, video has lagged -- until now.

Public interest groups kept up their assault on the FCC's closed-door broadband policy meetings after the agency decided to bypass standard disclosure rules, effectively shutting out the public. One group took out a full page ad in The Washington Post blasting the meetings.