"In practice, this executive order would mean that whichever political party is in power could dictate what speech is allowed on the Internet."

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted new regulations that ban caller ID spoofing of text messages and phone calls originating outside the U.S. The measures are intended to close loopholes that allow scammers to target U.S. consumers without the government being able to take action to stop them. Legislation passed in 2009 was intended to protect consumers, but it neglected to cite text messages or international calls.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is sending a bill to help end the onslaught of unwanted robocalls to the floor, an issue that both chambers of Congress have made a priority this session. The bipartisan Stopping Bad Robocalls Act would outlaw a slate of methods fraudsters use to scam consumers over the phone and through text. If approved, the bill would make it easier for the government to go after the fraudsters and issue tougher penalties. The Federal Communications Commission would also need to update what it considers a “robocall,” which would require more businesses to obtain consent from customers before making robotic calls.

We are still hearing stories about how cord cutting costs more than cable TV; however, rarely do these stories include the hidden fees and taxes that are added to the advertised prices.

A US Navy memo warns that 5G mobile networks are likely to interfere with weather satellites, and senators are urging the Federal Communications Commission to avoid issuing new spectrum licenses to wireless carriers until changes are made to prevent harms to weather forecasting.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has rejected a request to have the FCC investigate Frontier Communications' business practices in Minnesota, despite evidence that the company has failed to properly maintain its telecom network.

Remember in February when the Federal Communications Commission essentially said that broadband deployment in the US is going great despite 20 million homes lacking access to high-speed connections? And then a month later, Microsoft basically called bullshit? Well, the FCC has finally admitted the report "drastically overstated" actual broadband deployment, but still insists everything is just fine.

More than 106,000 rural homes and small businesses in 43 US states will get access to 25Mbps broadband at some point in the next decade thanks to a Federal Communications Commission policy change. The FCC's Connect America Fund (CAF), which distributes money to ISPs in exchange for new broadband deployments in underserved areas, had been requiring speeds of just 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream over the past few years. But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai led a vote in December 2018 to raise the standard for new CAF projects to 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) is expected to sign net neutrality legislation that bans internet service providers from getting taxpayer money in Colorado if they slow down internet access or unfairly speed up certain websites. The legislation passed the state's House and Senate chambers along strict party lines according to the Denver Post. The newspaper reported that Polis supports the legislation, which will now head to his desk.

House Democrats advanced their flagship net neutrality bill on Wednesday, clearing the final hurdle before a floor vote next week. The House Energy and Commerce Committee in a 30-22 party-line vote approved the Save the Internet Act, which would reinstate the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Obama-era regulations requiring internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally. The Democrats beat back more than a dozen attempts from Republicans to gut the bill with amendments throughout the bill's markup that lasted 9 1/2 hours.

Open networks allow information to flow freely and more people to be connected, which helps innovation and ultimately economic growth. The best example of that is the Internet, which has created incredible economic activity but also facilitated free speech, education and social mobility.

The Federal Communications Commission will consider "regulatory intervention" if major phone companies fail to adopt a new anti-robocall technology this year. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been pressuring phone companies to implement the "SHAKEN" and "STIR" robocall-blocking protocols, which perform Caller ID authentication. Most major providers have committed to doing so, but Pai issued a warning to laggards yesterday.

Last year SpaceX successfully tested two of the microsatellites that will form the backbone of its Starlink broadband project, and in November it secured authorization to launch more than 7,000 such satellites to get the network up and running. Now…

Earlier this week, a member of the Texas state legislature introduced a bill that would make it a crime for a telecommunications company, like Verizon or AT&T, to throttle internet service in declared disaster areas, according to KUT News. This Texas bill, HB 1426, doesn’t go any further to codify net neutrality rules, only prohibiting carriers from restricting internet access in disaster areas. It does not ban behaviors like throttling in any other scenarios.

Democratic lawmakers have put Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on notice that he can expect a lot more scrutiny now that Democrats control the US House of Representatives. The House Commerce Committee is "reassuming its traditional role of oversight to ensure the agency is acting in the best interest of the public and consistent with its legislative authority," Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-Penn.) said in an announcement yesterday.

A federal appeals court has overturned Ajit Pai's attempt to take broadband subsidies away from tribal residents. The Pai-led Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 in November 2017 to make it much harder for tribal residents to obtain a $25-per-month Lifeline subsidy that reduces the cost of Internet or phone service. The change didn't take effect because in August 2018, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed the FCC decision pending appeal.

The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard the case of Mozilla v. FCC today to determine whether the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is allowed to repeal its net neutrality rules and abandon its authority over the broadband industry. The case delved into many different legal and technical issues that reveal the extent the FCC is willing to stretch to abandon the Open Internet. On one side sat public interest advocates, local governments, and Internet companies large and small.

Time's run out for net neutrality supporters hoping to restore Obama-era regulations using a legislative loophole, but the fight's far from over as it heads to federal appeals court. Democrats in the House of Representatives failed to gather enough votes by the end of the year to use the Congressional Review Act to undo the Federal Communications Commission's rollback of the popular rules. The Republican-led agency voted a year ago this month to repeal the rules adopted in 2015, which were designed to ensure that all traffic on the internet was treated equally.

In the waning hours of 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order, ending net neutrality protections for the millions of Americans who support them. The fallout of that decision continued all throughout 2018, with attempts to reverse the FCC in Congress, new state laws and governor executive orders written to secure state-level protections, court cases, and ever-increasing evidence that a world without the Open Internet Order is simply a worse one.

Almost a year ago to the day, I filed a FOIA request with the Federal Communications Commission for emails related to the now-infamous Ajit Pai Harlem Shake video. A few months later, the FCC rejected the request under the equally-infamous b(5) exemption, arguing that releasing these emails would harm the agency’s ability to make stupid videos in the future.