FCC Commissioner, Meredith Attwell Baker, Who Approved Comcast-NBC Universal Merger, Leaving to Join Comcast
Edward Wyatt writes in the NY Times Media Decoder:
Four months after the Federal Communications Commission approved a hotly contested merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, one of the commissioners who voted for the deal said on Wednesday that she would soon join Comcast’s Washington lobbying office.
Meredith Attwell Baker, a former Commerce Department official who worked on telecommunications issues in George W. Bush’s administration, announced that she would leave the F.C.C. when her term expires at the end of June. At Comcast, she will serve as senior vice president for government affairs for NBC Universal, which Comcast acquired in January.
The announcement drew immediate criticism from some groups that had opposed the Comcast-NBC merger. They said the move was indicative of an ethically questionable revolving door between regulatory agencies and the companies they oversee.
FCC OK’s Net Neutrality Rules
Our beloved Federal Communications Commission has approved the highly controversial net neutrality rules, albeit in slightly watered-down form from those originally proposed.
In case you need a reminder as to why this is NOT a good thing, Al Franken lays it out for you:
Public Finally Gets Some Airwaves Back: Congress Passes Local Community Radio Act
Finally, Congress passes the Local Community Radio Act, which has been sitting on the shelves for 10 years. The public finally gets some of its airwaves back. Reports Reclaim The Media:
With the clock ticking toward the end of this year’s Congress, the Senate on Saturday passed a new law which will enable community groups, churches and schools across the country to establish new non-commercial, low-power FM radio stations in their cities and towns.
The Local Community Radio Act, which will allow the FCC to issue possibly thousands of new noncommercial LPFM radio licenses, earned broad, bipartisan support after some ten years of organizing by grassroots media democracy advocates from coast to coast. Backers of the bill included a stupefying range of civil rights groups, religious organizations, musicians, unions and garage-bound radio dreamers around the country.
The FCC initially created the Low power FM service radio in 2002, as a way to counter the…
FCC Commissioner Blasts “Bloated Profits” of Verizon/Google Internet Plan
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps just announced that the public shouldn’t stand for deals “that exchange Internet freedom for bloated profits. And he forcefully mocked the tiered-data plans of the “Verizon-Google gaggle,” accusing them of wanting “gated communities for the affluent.”
Instead of letting Verizon create a ghetto of reduced-quality internet service, the commissioner warns the audience against proposals that would “vastly diminish” the internet’s importance, blasting “special interests and gatekeepers and toll-booth collectors who will short-circuit what this great new technology can do for our country.” He concludes by acknowledging that “you can’t blame companies for seeking to protect their own interests. But you can blame policy-makers if we let them get away with it!””
FCC May Allow You To Text 911
If you’re unable to speak during an emergency, but still have access to your cell phone, you will soon be able to send a text, picture or video to 911. Although, until 911 dispatchers are up to date with technology you still need to pick up the phone and dial a real operator. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Here’s a public safety message: You can’t text 911.
Not yet, anyway. The Federal Communications Commission says that shortcoming was evident during the Virginia Tech massacre. Students and witnesses tried texting 911 for help. But those texts went unanswered because call centers can’t accept texts or photos.
That doesn’t appear likely to change any time soon, but the government now says it’s ready to explore the possibility of making 911 go mobile. FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski announced today that the commission will hold a Next Generation 911 proceeding in December, the first step in an inquiry…
Pirate Radio Cranks Up the Volume for Documentary
Via Joe Nolan’s Insomnia:
Hello friends. This weekend I discovered an entertaining and eye-opening pirate radio documentary online: Pirate Radio USA.
Given the post-Clinton legalization of media monopolies, the subject of pirate radio has once again become a hot-button topic. Pirate radio broadcasters use homemade technologies to take over radio frequencies, broadcasting without licenses, outside of FCC rules and regulations.
Pirate radio has become a form of civil disobedience. The various subjects of the documentary fight directly against the corporate media by simply “stealing” FM bandwidth to broadcast their radical, rocking messages. Of course, the irony is that the airwaves above the United States are owned exclusively by the public.
How can you steal what you already own?
