Netflix continues to gobble up bandwidth, but the company’s explosive growth still hasn’t threatened cable, said a study released Tuesday by analyst Bruce Leichtman. Nearly 30 percent of survey respondents watched online video at least once per week through Netflix. Three percent of non-Netflix subscribers reported that they were watching streaming video, Leichtman said. While Netflix is growing exponentially, over-the-top streaming is growing only incrementally: 12 percent of the adults surveyed told Leichtman that they watched TV shows online once a week, up a percentage point from last year and up from 10 percent in 2009. “People watching TV online has barely moved,” Leichtman told us. “The reality is, in this over the-top emerging video world, there’s only two winners: Netflix and YouTube. Everyone else is losing out."
The FCC made the right decision by putting off a fight over contribution reform to focus on reforming the high-cost Universal Service Fund distribution system, said National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin. There are “too many moving parts” in the debate over contribution factor, so the commission focused on “low-hanging fruit” in its recent rulemaking notice, Levin said on a panel Wednesday sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. He was having an exchange with fellow panelist National Telecommunications Cooperative Association CEO Shirley Bloomfield. She said she “would have liked to see the FCC wrestle with contribution.” NTCA members are seeing up to 10 percent of their bandwidth gobbled by companies like Netflix and the situation is critical, she said.
The FCC took its first steps toward remaking the Universal Service Fund and the intercarrier compensation system Tuesday with a 5-0 vote in favor of a broadly worded rulemaking notice. The commission also voted to adopt a notice for a separate rulemaking that commission officials said will “streamline its data collection program” and eliminate “unneeded data collections that impose unnecessary burdens on filers.”
ATLANTA -- The Rural Utilities Service will help the FCC carry out the National Broadband Plan, revamp the Universal Service Fund and accomplish other goals, Administrator Jonathan Adelstein said Tuesday at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners conference.
The FCC no longer appears likely to take on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation proposals at its Dec. 15 meeting, FCC officials said last week. With USF likely off the agenda until the new year, it’s unclear what will be on the agenda at the last open meeting of 2010.
An FCC vote on net neutrality principles proposed by Chairman Julius Genachowski in September 2009 appears unlikely before the January open meeting, industry and some agency officials said. Genachowski in particular appears ready to give Congress one last chance to approve net neutrality and broadband reclassification legislation during an expected lame-duck session, though congressional action seems unlikely.
An FCC vote on net neutrality principles proposed by Chairman Julius Genachowski in September 2009 now appears unlikely before the January open meeting, industry and some agency officials said. Genachowski in particular appears ready to give Congress one last chance to approve net neutrality and broadband reclassification legislation during an expected lame-duck session, though congressional action seems unlikely.
Free Press didn’t support the House net neutrality proposal that Republicans scuttled Wednesday (CD Sept 30 p1), President Josh Silver said in an interview. The public interest group believed that “introduction risked relieving the FCC chairman” of his duty to reclassify broadband transport under Title II of the Communications Act, and to make net neutrality rules, Silver said. Free Press is “relieved” that House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., now is urging the FCC to act, he said. If FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski doesn’t fulfill Waxman’s request, “he will face an avalanche of public pressure.” In an e-mail to the Open Internet Coalition (OIC) before Wednesday’s announcement that no bill would be introduced, Silver threatened to pull out of the coalition if it issued a news release supporting the Waxman bill. “Free Press cannot afford to be misconstrued as supporting a bill that strips FCC rulemaking authority, fails to sufficiently protect wireless, and forecloses the agency’s ability to enact key goals” of the National Broadband Plan, “such as USF and low-income broadband deployment,” Silver wrote. “While we have deep respect for all of those from our community who worked tirelessly over the past few weeks on this effort, we have a strong disagreement with the assessment of this legislation as a positive, both on the merits and on the strategy. I don’t think the benefits of an OIC” news conference “in support of a doomed bill is worth the cost, but that’s not my call.” In a statement Wednesday, Waxman thanked the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Consumers Union, Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy & Technology, as well as AT&T, Verizon and NCTA, but not Free Press. The CFA praised the Waxman proposal. “Mr. Waxman’s bill would have created an important safety net to prevent the broadband Internet access landscape from being Balkanized by anti competitive pay walls and discriminatory technology barriers that block or degrade communications,” said Mark Cooper, the group’s research director.
About 66 percent of Iowans had broadband at home in April, said a report put together by a nonprofit state affiliate of Connected Nation with Iowa’s Utilities Board and its Broadband Deployment Governance Board. The report, the first in a series that Connect Iowa plans on the topic, is to be formally released Wednesday. The document is based on data collected for an interactive map at http://connectiowa.org/mapping/interactive_map.php.
About 66 percent of Iowans had broadband at home in April, said a report put together by a nonprofit state affiliate of Connected Nation with Iowa’s Utilities Board and its Broadband Deployment Governance Board. The report, the first in a series that Connect Iowa plans on the topic, is to be formally released Wednesday. The document is based on data collected for an interactive map at http://connectiowa.org/mapping/interactive_map.php.