The Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband is a subcommittee within the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. It was renamed from the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet at the start of the 117th Congress. Prior to the 111th Congress, it was known as the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation.
The Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband has jurisdiction over all sectors of communications, including: wired and wireless telephony; the Internet; commercial and noncommercial television; cable; satellite broadcast; satellite communications; wireline and wireless broadband; radio; spectrum and consumer electronic equipment associated with such services, and public safety communications. [1]
The Subcommittee also is responsible for oversight of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) at the Department of Commerce, which is the administration primarily responsible for the management of government spectrum and advising the President on telecommunications policy.
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Present-day telecommunications in Canada include telephone, radio, television, and internet usage. In the past, telecommunications included telegraphy available through Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.
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.
The Communications Act of 1934 is a United States federal law signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 19, 1934, and codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, 47 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. The act replaced the Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It also transferred regulation of interstate telephone services from the Interstate Commerce Commission to the FCC.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that serves as the president's principal adviser on telecommunications policies pertaining to the United States' economic and technological advancement and to regulation of the telecommunications industry.
The telecommunications policy of the United States is a framework of law directed by government and the regulatory commissions, most notably the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Two landmark acts prevail today, the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The latter was intended to revise the first act and specifically to foster competition in the telecommunications industry.
The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is a standing committee of the United States Senate. Besides having broad jurisdiction over all matters concerning interstate commerce, science and technology policy, and transportation, the Senate Commerce Committee is one of the largest of the Senate's standing committees, with 28 members in the 117th Congress. The Commerce Committee has six subcommittees. It is chaired by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as Ranking Member. The majority office is housed in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, and the minority office is located in the Hart Senate Office Building.
CTIA is a trade association representing the wireless communications industry in the United States. The association was established in 1984 and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit membership organization, and represents wireless carriers and suppliers, and manufacturers and providers of wireless products and services.
The Universal Service Fund (USF) is a system of telecommunications subsidies and fees managed by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intended to promote universal access to telecommunications services in the United States. The FCC established the fund in 1997 in compliance with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The FCC is a government agency that implements and enforces telecommunications regulations across the U.S. and its territories. The Universal Service Fund's budget ranges from $5–8 billion per year depending on the needs of the telecommunications providers. These needs include the cost to maintain the hardware needed for their services and the services themselves. The total 2019 proposed budget for the USF was $8.4 billion. The budget is revised quarterly allowing the service providers to accurately estimate their costs. As of 2019, roughly 60% of the USF budget was put towards “high-cost” areas, 19% went to libraries and schools, 13% was for low income areas, and 8% was for rural health care. In 2019 the rate for the USF budget was 24.4% of a telecom company's interstate and international end-user revenues.
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 Internet in the United States grew out of the ARPANET, a network sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense during the 1960s. The Internet in the United States in turn provided the foundation for the worldwide Internet of today.
The U.S. House Energy Subcommittee on Communications and Technology is a subcommittee within the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The subcommittee existed as the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet during the 111th Congress and beyond.
The Community Broadband ActS. 1853 was a bill that was never enacted into legislation by the U.S. Senate,110th Congress The act was intended to promote affordable broadband access by allowing municipal governments to provide telecommunications capability and services. Supporters of the bill believed it would have encouraged widespread broadband development in the United States by overturning existing state bans on public broadband deployments and eliminating existing barriers to broadband development.
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.
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.
Policies promoting wireless broadband are policies, rules, and regulations supporting the "National Wireless Initiative", a plan to bring wireless broadband Internet access to 98% of Americans.
Robert M. Pepper is an American specialist in communications policy.
The Federal Communications Commission Consolidated Reporting Act of 2013 is a bill that passed the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress. The bill would "require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prepare a biennial report for the Congress that assesses certain characteristics of the communications industry." That report would include an analysis of "the state of competition in the markets for voice, video, and data services, as well as the availability of high-speed and high-quality telecommunications services" in the United States. Perhaps most importantly, "the bill would require the FCC to determine whether laws and regulations pose a barrier to entry into communications markets and to include that information in the biennial report." The bill would also cancel a number of preexisting requirements for various other reports from the FCC.
Thomas Edgar Wheeler is an American businessman and former government official. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 31st Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
The First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) of the United States was created under the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (MCTRJCA). The purpose of FirstNet is to establish, operate, and maintain an interoperable public safety broadband network. To fulfill these objectives, Congress allotted $7 billion and 20 MHz of radio spectrum to build the network.
Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) is a 150 MHz wide broadcast band of the 3.5 GHz band in the United States. In 2017, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) completed a process which began in 2012 to establish rules for commercial use of this band, while reserving parts of the band for the US Federal Government to limit interference with US Navy radar systems and aircraft communications.