At an event in New York City today, Genachowski will announce a list of 20 schools and libraries that the FCC plans to connect to the wireless Internet so that students can use Internet-ready devices on and off school campuses.

This new FCC effort coincides with the Obama Administration's National Broadband Plan that aims to boost the country's mobile broadband access overall and with its National Education Technology Plan that proposes that every student and teacher have access to an Internet-enabled device.

These efforts recognize the increasing importance of mobile and online learning, and those students without access at home to these technologies or the Internet are at a major educational disadvantage.

The "Learning On-the-Go" program will be piloted in 14 states and will fund wireless broadband for ten laptop programs, two virtual schools, three handheld device programs, and five technology programs. One program in New Orleans will give third through sixth graders access to wireless data cards, for example.

The plan will involve reshaping the Universal Service Fund, a decade-old subsidy which is paid for by fees added onto most consumers' phone bills. That money is then disitributed among phone companies to help subsidize the costs of providing services to rural areas.

Genachoswki says that the Universal Service Fund needs to be updated as it "was designed for a world with separate local and long-distance telephone companies, a world of traditional landline telephones before cellphones or Skype, a world without the Internet - a world that no longer exists."

Instead of subsidizing phone service directly, says Genachowski, we need to support broadband access, something that could in turn be used for telephony.

According to The New York Times, Genachowski rejects the idea put forward by some members of Congress to simply scrap the Universal Service Fund altogether. To do so, he says, "would let the broadband revolution bypass a substantial portion of the 24 million Americans who the commission says lack access to high-speed Internet connections."

The proposed changes address just one portion of the Universal Service Fund - the high-cost program which accounts for about 55T of the fund's annual disbursements. Other parts of the fund include the E-Rate program, which helps provide schools and libraries with broadband.

The report is based on data from a survey conducted in 2010 that looks at broadband usage in schools and libraries. The survey found that almost all respondents have some form of broadband connection to at least one facility. Just 2% use satellite and 3% use dial-up in order to access the Internet.

However, nearly 80% of all survey respondents say their broadband connections do not fully meet their current needs. 55% say that slow connection speed is the primary reason their needs aren't met. 39% says that cost of service is the major barrier to meeting their Internet needs. 27% cite installation costs as the barrier. Rural schools and libraries, in particular, struggle to provide adequate bandwidth to their users.

What Are E-Rate Recipients Using Broadband For?

Email tops the list of the most-used app by E-rate users. 98% of respondents say that's what Internet access is regularly used for and 69% say it's the most essential app. For libraries, online reference materials are the most important and most used app. 86% of library staff and patrons regularly use online reference materials, and 62% say it's the most essential tool they access online.

Schools and libraries both indicate that they see usage increasing. For example, 56% of all E-rate survey respondents say they plan on expanding their usage of digital textbooks in the next 2 years, and 45% say they plan to implement or expand their use of handheld devices for educational purposes. Currently, the average student-to-computer ratio of those schools responding to the survey is 5.86 to 1.

According to the FCC, this data will help the agency make better policy decisions for the E-rate program. The FCC has made better broadband access one of its major goals.

According to the FCC, there are more than 650,000 911 calls made daily, and nearly 70% of those come from mobile devices. However, "right now you can't text 9-1-1," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, noting that during the Virginia Tech school shootings in 2007, some witnesses tried to text 911 but the texts simply never went through and the messages weren't received by dispatchers.

Updating the emergency response system will be quite a substantial undertaking, in terms of technology and training. The FCC's move to address 911 is part of the agency's National Broadband Plan, and as Genachowski noted in his remarks, there are still many 911 call centers (and communities) that do not have broadband Internet.

The FCC's announcement came yesterday, alongside its vote to adopt new Net Neutrality rules.

Under the rules, two years in the making, no provider may block another company's traffic, however, it may offer "faster" access to companies willing to pay more.

1) Transparency. Consumers and innovators have a right to know the basic performance characteristics of their Internet access and how their network is being managed.

2) No Blocking. A right to send and receive lawful traffic. This prohibits blocking of lawful content, apps, services, and the connection of non-harmful devices to the network

3) Level Playing Field. A right to a level playing field. A ban on unreasonable discrimination. No approval for so-called "pay for priority" arrangements involving fast lanes for some companies but not others.

4) Network Management. An allowance for broadband providers to engage in reasonable network management. These rules don't forbid providers from offering subscribers tiers of service or charging based on bandwidth consumed.

5) Mobile. Broadly applicable rules requiring transparency for mobile broadband providers, and prohibiting them from blocking websites and certain competitive applications.

6) Vigilance. Creation of an Open Internet Advisory Committee to assist the Commission in monitoring the state of Internet openness and the effects of our rules.

Politico notes the new rules ensure that "[t]raditional wired broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate against any lawful traffic, though no such rule will be put in place for wireless providers."

On the one hand, those who believe companies have a right to govern how they offer their products to consumers may find this freedom to have been abridged by a government too eager to make new rules. On the other hand are those who see the two-tiered pricing structure as a de facto way to block unwanted traffic by increasing the efficiency of its competitors or simply by making it so slow in relationship to "premium" traffic that it cannot stay in business.

Both the concept of unreasonableness and the wireless exception may be seen by some as loopholes big enough to drive a truck through.

In April a lower court put aside an FCC ruling based on an "informal" attempt to promote net neutrality. It was hoped by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (and the Democratic commissioners who voted with him) that this would be a light touch, net neutral for the most part and enforceable.

Regardless, it seems unlikely that a minute will pass after the first FCC action on this order before either the access or the content people file their first motions.

Read more ReadWriteWeb coverage of net neutrality.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski spoke briefly this morning at the agency's headquarters, outlining the proposal. He did not call for a reclassification of broadband as a regulated, common-carrier service, as was proposed earlier this year - something that would have certainly given the FCC jurisdiction over this area. However, calling net neutrality an "important milestone in our effort to protect Internet freedom and openness," Genachowski argued that the FCC's draft order would help consumers, entrepreneurs, and broadband providers.

In outlining the proposal, Genachowski touted three things:

1. Meaningful transparency: Consumers and innovators have a right to know basic information about broadband service, like how networks are being managed.
2. Prohibition of blocking "lawful content": "The proposed framework would prohibit the blocking of lawful content, apps, services, and the connection of non-harmful devices to the network," said Genachowski.
3. A level playing field: "No central authority, public or private, should have the power to pick which ideas or companies win or lose on the Internet; that's the role of the market and the marketplace of ideas. And so the proposed framework includes a bar on unreasonable discrimination in transmitting lawful network traffic."
4. Meaning flexibility: Broadband providers should be able to "manage their networks -- for example, to deal with traffic that's harmful to the network or unwanted by users, and to address the effects of congestion.

Although Genachowski may have the votes to get the proposal passed by the FCC, the proposal will likely face opposition from members of Congress who see this move as falling outside FCC jurisdiction. And these rules may also fail to satisfy net neutrality proponents either, who note that the principles listed above apply only to wired networks.

Also on the agenda for the December Meeting, a Notice of Inquiry seeking public input on how to transition the voice-only 911 system to include new communication tools, including text, photo and video capabilities.

And even when controlling for socio-economic factors, some of these gaps persist, with minorities and rural residents less likely to have high-speed Internet than their urban and white counterparts.

63.5% of U.S. households now have broadband subscriptions, according to the Commerce Department report, compiled from a Census survey of 54,000 households in October 2009.

But households with less than $25,000 had an adoption rate of 35.8% - although it's notable that this is still a twelvefold increase from 2001. And in households where the head had less than a high school diploma, the broadband adoption rate was only 28.8%. At the other extreme, 94.1% of households with more than $100,000 income had broadband, as did 84.5% of those with college degrees.

77.3% of Asian-American households and 68% of non-Hispanic white households subscribed to broadband last year, compared to only 49.4% of African-American households and 47.9% of Hispanic households. And 65.9% of urban households had high-speed Internet, while only 51% of rural households did. Mississippi ranked last in terms of states' adoption rate, with only 42% of customers subscribing.

Other demographics with low adoption included those with disabilities (37.5%).

The reasons given most frequently for not having broadband at home were "Don't need it" (38%) and "Too expensive" (26%).

In response to the findings, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement today that "The digital divide is an opportunity divide - if you can't get online, you can't compete in the digital economy." Genachowski says closing these gaps will be one of the top priorities in the FCC's National Broadband Plan.

Of course, statements about net neutrality's death hardly seem new. Its demise has been predicted for months, particularly after a Federal Appeals Court's decision this spring challenged the FCC's authority to stop Comcast from throttling P2P traffic.

Some analysis following last week's election has tried frame the Democrats' loss, in part, as a referendum on net neutrality, with Verizon going so far as tweeting that every Democratic candidate that supported the PCCC's net neutrality pledge lost their election.

But as Techdirt's Mike Masnick counters, these particular candidates were not incumbents and were largely running in Republican strongholds. Furthermore, some Democrats who signed anti-net neutrality pledges also lost their election bids. "Sorry," says Masnick, "net neutrality simply was not an important issue in this year's election." Rather, there were plenty of other reasons why Democratic candidates lost seats. ("It's the economy, stupid.")

If Congress Won't Do Anything about Net Neutrality, Will the FCC?

Regardless, net neutrality does remain an important issue. And while the Republicans will control Congress, Democrats do still hold a majority of FCC seats. "The ball is clearly in the FCC's court now," said Art Brodsky, communications director for Public Knowledge, a digital rights group supporting new net neutrality rules, in an interview with Computerworld. However, when the FCC published the agenda for its November Open Meeting, discussions of net neutrality did not make the docket.

So with or without the support of Congress, it remains to be seen whether the FCC will move forward to address net neutrality, or whether it will simply focus its efforts on its National Broadband Plan, something that seems less contentious and that has more bipartisan support.

The Major League Baseball playoffs are going on right now and millions of people are unable to watch them due to the contract conflict. The official FCC Twitter account is posting live game updates along with calls on the companies to settle their dispute.

There's something about these old media rules and relationships that just seem absurd when new media makes so much more possible.

As we wrote earlier this week, the move was expected and will open up a number of avenues for "connected devices, or the Internet of Things, which are now coming online faster than new human subscribers to leading mobile phone networks."

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is quoted as saying that the move will "open a new platform for American innovation" and tens of billions of dollars in private investment.

Already, both Microsoft and Google have begun work to offer wireless Internet using white space and many other companies are looking forward to the innovation made possible with the FCC's vote.

Keerti Melkote, founder and CTO of Aruba Networks, says that the open nature of the white space spectrum will drive innovation.

"Making 'whites spaces' available as unlicensed spectrum will drive a great deal of innovation in the wireless space. The multi-billion dollar Wi-Fi industry has grown rapidly precisely because the spectrum it operates in is free and unfettered," said Melkote. "TV whitespace as unlicensed spectrum promises to change the game in network access in ways that benefit consumers and ultimately bolster global competitiveness of US companies in the wireless industry."

In the end, the vote means one thing if nothing else - more bandwidth. What this bandwidth will be used for - whether wireless Internet access, communication between devices and the Internet, or whatever else - remains to be seen.

"This will also be a platform for innovators and entrepreneurs," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told the New York Times in an in-depth report last week. "There is every chance of this leading to the development of one or more billion-dollar industries." Beyond the possible economic impact, the move may have substantial cultural consequences, as the spectrum is opened up through which our refrigerators, toasters, exercise equipment and city streets can publish data about their activities to the Internet.

Above: IBM's video introduction to the Internet of Things.

Privacy Concerns

Some critics fear that this instrumentation of everyday objects could come hand-in-hand with a growth of surveillance of our activities, locations and more. The technology is moving ahead much faster than policies, or even discussions, about privacy and user control over data.

Who owns the data your washing machine publishes to the Web? It's handy that a website may be able to recognize what kind of washing machine you have and when it may be in need of repair, but what happens if your landlord notices you've been doing a lot of laundry lately and asks if you've got too many people staying in your rented house?

Such possible indignities are a minor risk, compared to the possible political and civil liberties consequences in a world of connected devices. Almost no one appears to have begun those conversations, yet the technology moves forward.

A Platform

D.C.-based reporter Edward Wyatt calls Thursday's vote to open the spectrum virtually guaranteed in his Times write-up. He focuses on the potential creation of super-powerful Wifi networks. "The stronger, faster networks will extend broadband signals to bypassed rural areas and allow for smart electric grids, remote health monitoring and, for consumers, wireless Internet without those annoying dead zones," he writes.

The new spectrum is available because TV's transition from analog to digital means a much smaller buffer of spectrum needs to remain unused for fear of interfering with broadcasts.

These days wireless spectrum isn't just used for broadcast anymore. It's also used for communication, between people and between machines.

Last month, leading wireless industry analyst Chetan Sharma released a report finding that more network connected devices came online with AT&T and Verizon last quarter than did new human subscribers.

Where data can be transmitted, it can be analyzed - and where data can be analyzed, patterns and thresholds can be detected. Where patterns and thresholds can be detected, services can be invented based on those patterns and thresholds. Where a new greenfield of data emerges as the foundation for new inventions, we may find a new and important platform for economic and cultural innovation.

What devices would you like to see intrumented and brought on line? Those conversations will likely begin to draw more attention if the FCC votes as expected on Thursday.

It will be interesting to see in what ways how the recommendations from the Information Technology Industry Council will differ from the "policy framework" put forth by Verizon and Google last month that reaffirmed basic principles of an indiscriminate wireline Internet but made an exception for wireless.

Weighted toward a neutral Internet

Based on the ITIC's member list, we're expecting its proposal to be more - ahem - in the corporate interest than the one put forth by Google and Verizon, which at least called for enforceable neutrality rules. But there are a few companies in the group that could push the recommendations the other way.

ITIC includes cell phone handset makers Nokia and Research in Motion, which have an interest in a less-regulated wireless Internet, and Cisco Systems, which is likely to vote the same way due to its stake in networks that support wireless connections for objects and devices. Both companies signed a letter last year saying formal net neutrality regulations punish innovators, kill jobs and are generally more trouble than they're worth.

The group also includes Apple, which has an established fondness for restricted channels. Another member is Microsoft, which last year told the FCC that broadband access providers should be able to offer tiered services, as long as the market is competitive. "The adoption of unnecessary or insufficiently tailored regulations, such as a prohibition on all types of discrimination, could have 'the unintended consequence of limiting innovation and investment going forward,'" Microsoft wrote in a filing, citing the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

The group also includes infrastructure owners Qualcomm, Intel and Ericsson.

Skype, eBay may push things the other way

But there are a few more populist companies in the group. eBay has supported legislation in the past that would prohibit network operators from "replacing the robust open Internet with 'Pay to Play' private networks that will force out and discriminate against content and service providers that refuse to pay new tolls."

Another member, Skype, has been called "one of the loudest voices for net neutrality from within the high-tech industry," advocating for rules that ensure users can get access to whatever content and services they want on the Web, unfettered.

Lobbyists for ITIC started developing their own recommendations after talks between the FCC and the industry stalled and Google and Verizon released their proposal.

What do you think? Will ITIC's recommendations end up being better for users than Google/Verizon's recommendations - or worse?

The September agenda is not available yet, but it's possible that the FCC might rule at the meeting to reclassify Internet communications under Title II "common carrier" regulations, which would give the FCC more authority to regulate free access and could mean stricter enforcement of net neutrality than would be allowed under alternative proposals such as the one Google and Verizon unveiled this week.

The talks broke down after Google and Verizon issued a proposal that received mixed reviews but many say is a step back for net neutrality. The companies' proposed legislative framework gives wireless Internet a pass, requiring only that wireless Internet providers be "transparent" about what traffic gets priority, and allows a loophole for "new services."

In 2002, the FCC classified cable, DSL, and other high-speed Internet services as "information services," subject to fewer regulations under Title I. In 2005, the agency issued a policy statement that said providers cannot restrict access to content, software or devices and users must be free to choose between providers. But a recent federal court ruling challenged the FCC's authority in enforcing those provisions, and the legality of restricted Internet access is now in question.

That question could be settled as soon as the agency's September meeting. But the issue is highly controversial and progress has been slow. In addition, members of Congress have been pressing the FCC to give them more time to consider and give their input on the issue.

[via Broadcasting & Cable]

The New York Times reported Sunday that the spectrum will be auctioned off, a similar approach used in the 2008 auction of the 700 MHz frequency band taken from its previous use for UHF TV signals. The majority of this auction will be allocated from federal spectrum, including that from agencies that is being underused or that could be shared with other services.

"We can use our American ingenuity to wring abundance from scarcity, by finding ways to use spectrum more efficiently," the memo says. "We can also unlock the value of otherwise underutilized spectrum and open new avenues for spectrum users to derive value through the development of advanced, situation-aware spectrum-sharing technologies."

It is encouraging to see the government take some further steps toward an improved wireless infrastructure, but the timeframe of the spectrum offering is somewhat disappointing. With the exponential growth of smartphone technology, who knows what kinds of things we'll be trying to do from our mobile phones in the next few years.

In the 2008 auction, Google lobbied to make portions of the spectrum open to use or rental by smaller independent providers. A similar debate could occur with this new spectrum that will be auctioned in the coming years. However, open access to the spectrum is not in the best interest of the major providers, like AT&T and Verizon, since more competition would undercut their subscriber bases.

Photos by Flickr users Rowdyman, and Jeff Kubina.

In order to get reliable statistics about the actual speeds that consumers are getting from the ISPs, the FCC announced a new initiative today that will place broadband speed measurement devices in the homes of 10,000 volunteers.

Measuring Broadband Speeds

To conduct this study, the FCC has partnered with SamKnows, a U.K.-based company that conducted a very similar study in Great Britain. Earlier this year, the FCC also launched Broadband.gov, a consumer-oriented site that features a set of broadband speed tests. With this new initiative, the FCC is looking to "develop more scientific and consistent broadband speed measures."

According to SamKnows, the device will download no more than 2GB per month and participants will be able to monitor their results in a Web-based dashboard.

Next Step: Mobile Broadband

In addition to these initiatives - which will flow into a new "State of Broadband" report later this year - the FCC is also looking for public input (PDF) on the best ways to measure mobile broadband speeds. As more and more of our Internet experience is shifting to the mobile Web, it only makes sense for the FCC to start looking into the performance of these networks. After all, how often do you really get the speeds that your mobile provider advertises? According to the FCC survey, only 33% of mobile Internet users in the U.S. are "very satisfied" with the speed of their mobile Internet connection.