The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction over the areas of broadband access, fair competition, radio frequency use, media responsibility, public safety, and homeland security.
Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings, is an American multinational telecommunications and media conglomerate incorporated and headquartered in Philadelphia.
Michael Kevin Powell is an American attorney and lobbyist who served as the 24th chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2005. Since leaving office, Powell has since worked as the president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), a broadband industry trade association.
Kevin Jeffrey Martin is a lobbyist for Facebook and former member and Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent agency of the United States government. He was nominated to be a commissioner by President George W. Bush on April 30, 2001, and was confirmed on May 25, 2001. On March 16, 2005, President Bush designated him as FCC chairman, to replace Michael K. Powell. President Bush renominated Martin to a new five-year term on the Commission on April 25, 2006, and he was reconfirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 17, 2006. In January 2009, Martin announced that he would step down from the FCC and join the Aspen Institute, as a senior fellow in the think tank's Communications and Society Program. He since became a partner with the law firm Squire Patton Boggs LLP, and was hired as Facebook's head of U.S. Public Policy.
Martha Raddatz is an American reporter with ABC News. She is the network's Chief Global Affairs Correspondent reporting for ABC's World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline, and other network broadcasts. In addition to her work for ABC News, Raddatz has written for The New Republic and is a frequent guest on PBS's Washington Week. Raddatz is the co-anchor and primary fill-in anchor on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
NCTA, formerly known as the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), is a trade association representing the broadband and cable television industries in the United States. As of 2011, NCTA represented more than 90% of the U.S. cable market, over 200 cable networks, and various equipment suppliers and service providers to the cable industry.
In the United States, net neutrality—the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should make no distinctions between different kinds of content on the Internet, and to not discriminate based on such distinctions—has been an issue of contention between end-users and ISPs since the 1990s. With net neutrality, ISPs may not intentionally block, slow down, or charge different rates for specific online content. Without net neutrality, ISPs may prioritize certain types of traffic, meter others, or potentially block specific types of content, while charging consumers different rates for that content.
Robert Malcolm McDowell is a lawyer and lobbyist who served as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission from June 1, 2006, to May 17, 2013. He is currently a partner in the law firm Cooley LLP.
The digital television transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of terrestrial television programming. Under the Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005, full-power broadcasting of analog television in the United States was initially planned to have ceased after February 17, 2009, but this was delayed to June 12, 2009, after the passage of the DTV Delay Act on February 4, 2009. This date was a further delay from the original date of December 31, 2006, as stipulated in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The delay to June 12 was to assist households on a waiting list for coupons for digital converter boxes, funding for which was provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Julius Genachowski is an American lawyer and businessman. He became the Federal Communications Commission Chairman on June 29, 2009. On March 22, 2013, he announced he would be leaving the FCC in the coming weeks. On January 6, 2014, it was announced that Genachowski had joined The Carlyle Group. He transitioned from Partner and Managing Director to Senior Advisor in early 2024.
Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan is a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plan to improve Internet access in the United States. The FCC was directed to create the plan by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and unveiled its plan on March 16, 2010.
Stephen B. Burke is an American businessman. He is the senior executive vice president of Comcast and chairman of NBCUniversal.
Colin Crowell is an American public policy expert active the telecommunications and Internet sector. He is currently the head of the Blue Owl Group. Crowell is the former Vice President of Global Public Policy and Philanthropy at Twitter, where he was the company's first public policy hire. Crowell was initially brought on board to build out this function globally for Twitter.
The Media Access Project was a non-profit group that promoted the public's interest before Congress and the US court system. MAP grew out of a 1960s lawsuit against the United Church of Christ and was eventually formed in 1972 in order to advance the rights of the public wanting to participate in the democratic process. Some of their first cases involved two TV stations in Mississippi not catering to the African American Community, resulting in the stations almost being shut down. From that era and cases came the thought "that members of the viewing and listening public have the legal right, derived from the First Amendment, to participate in FCC proceedings." Their most common way of fighting cases was through lobbying. The group suspended operations on May 1, 2012.
On December 3, 2009, telecommunications company Comcast announced its intent to acquire mass media company NBC Universal from General Electric (GE). The acquisition was subject to scrutiny from activists and government officials; their concerns primarily surrounded the potential effects of the vertical integration that the acquisition could create, as Comcast is also heavily involved in cable television and internet services in many media markets. The deal went through on January 28, 2011, resulting in Comcast owning 51% of the company until March 19, 2013, when GE divested its stake to give Comcast sole ownership. Through this acquisition, Comcast gained ownership of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the film studio Universal Pictures, cable channels such as Syfy, CNBC and MSNBC, and Universal Parks & Resorts, among other assets owned by NBC Universal. It has also integrated its own cable channels – including E! and Golf Channel – into NBC Universal. As a result of the acquisition, NBC Universal slightly changed its name to "NBCUniversal", rendered in camel case, to indicate the integration between NBC and Universal Studios.
Meredith Attwell Baker is the president and chief executive officer of CTIA, an industry trade group that represents the international wireless telecommunications industry. From 2009 to 2011, Baker was a member of the United States Federal Communications Commission, nominated by U.S. President Barack H. Obama. She also served in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration as a political appointee, and was subsequently named a deputy assistant secretary of the Commerce Department by President George W. Bush in February 2007.
The Federal Communications Commission Open Internet Order of 2010 is a set of regulations that move towards the establishment of the internet neutrality concept. Some opponents of net neutrality believe such internet regulation would inhibit innovation by preventing providers from capitalizing on their broadband investments and reinvesting that money into higher quality services for consumers. Supporters of net neutrality argue that the presence of content restrictions by network providers represents a threat to individual expression and the rights of the First Amendment. Open Internet strikes a balance between these two camps by creating a compromised set of regulations that treats all internet traffic in "roughly the same way". In Verizon v. FCC, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated portions of the order that the court determined could only be applied to common carriers.
Lt. Ewell Kirk "Jack" Jett, USN was chief engineer and later a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States in the late 1930s and 1940s, serving briefly as the Commission's chairman. He later managed Baltimore television station WMAR.
Jessica Rosenworcel is an American attorney serving as a member and chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). She originally served on the FCC from May 11, 2012, to January 3, 2017, and was confirmed by the Senate for an additional term on August 3, 2017. She was named to serve as acting chairwoman in January 2021 and designated permanent chairwoman in October 2021. She was confirmed for another term by the Senate in December 2021. Rosenworcel's current term runs for five years beginning July 1, 2020.
The Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Telecommunications Services also known as the Section 706 Joint Conference on Advanced Services was created by the FCC in 1999, pursuant to section 410(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, with endorsement by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). Section 706 refers to the Telecommunications act of 1996. In this section the code states that the FCC is to "encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans." The Joint Conference is intended to serve as a forum for ongoing dialogue among the FCC, state regulators, and local and regional entities about the deployment of advanced telecommunications capabilities, and to identify a set of "Best Practices" that promote rapid deployment, particularly to benefit the underserved. The Joint Conference has held a series of field hearings across the country and has conducted Broadband Summits.
