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.
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing,using,managing,or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms,such as commercial,community-owned,non-profit,or otherwise privately owned.
In telecommunications,broadband is the wide-bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies,and is used in fast internet connections. The medium can be coaxial cable,optical fiber,wireless Internet (radio),twisted pair,or satellite.
Network neutrality,often referred to as net neutrality,is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally,offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of content,website,platform,application,type of equipment,source address,destination address,or method of communication.
TimothyShiou-Ming Wu is a Taiwanese-American legal scholar who served as Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy at the United States from 2021 to 2023. He is also a professor of law at Columbia University and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He is known legally and academically for significant contributions to antitrust and communications policy,coining the phrase "network neutrality" in his 2003 law journal article,Network Neutrality,Broadband Discrimination. In the late 2010s,Wu was a leading advocate for an antitrust lawsuit directed at the breakup of Facebook.
Gigi Beth Sohn is an American lawyer who is the co-founder of Public Knowledge. She previously worked for the Ford Foundation. In 2013,Tom Wheeler hired her into a senior staff position at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). She left there shortly after Donald Trump's election in 2016. In July 2017,she held fellowship positions with Georgetown Law's Institute for Technology Law &Policy,Open Society Foundations,and Mozilla.
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.
In the United States,net neutrality,the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) treat all data on the Internet the same,and not discriminate,has been an issue of contention between network users and access providers since the 1990s. With net neutrality,ISPs may not intentionally block,slow down,or charge money for specific online content. Without net neutrality,ISPs may prioritize certain types of traffic,meter others,or potentially block traffic from specific services,while charging consumers for various tiers of service.
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.
Mignon Letitia Clyburn is an American former government official who served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2009 to 2018.
Ajit Varadaraj Pai is an American lawyer who served as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2017 to 2021. He has been a partner at the private-equity firm Searchlight Capital since April 2021.
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.
Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co.,Ltd.,often shortened to Hikvision,is a Chinese state-owned manufacturer and supplier of video surveillance equipment for civilian and military purposes,headquartered in Hangzhou,Zhejiang. Due to its involvement in mass surveillance of Uyghurs,the Xinjiang internment camps,and national security concerns,the company has been placed under sanctions from the U.S. and European governments.
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.
Michael O'Rielly is a former commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC),an independent agency of the United States government. He was nominated by President Barack Obama in August 2013 and was confirmed on October 29,2013,taking office on November 4,2013. He was nominated to complete the term of outgoing commissioner Robert M. McDowell which ended on June 30,2014. He was then renominated and reconfirmed by the Senate.
"Net Neutrality" is the first segment of the HBO news satire television series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver devoted to net neutrality in the United States. It aired for 13 minutes on June 1,2014,as part of the fifth episode of Last Week Tonight's first season.
Geoffrey Adam Starks is an American lawyer serving as a Commissioner of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He was nominated by President Donald Trump to succeed Mignon Clyburn who announced on April 19,2018,that she was going to step down on June 6,2018. Starks was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on January 2,2019. He was sworn into office on January 30,2019. Starks is affiliated with the Democratic Party. He was renominated by President Joe Biden for a new term and was confirmed by the Senate on September 30,2023.
Multiple governmental agencies and private businesses have imposed or attempted to impose temporary or indefinite bans on the social media service TikTok due to concerns from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,national security,China's ownership and influence,pornography,human trafficking,children's safety,antisemitism,addictiveness,terrorism and toxic content.
In 2020,the United States government announced that it was considering banning the Chinese social media platform TikTok upon a request from then-president Donald Trump,who viewed the app as a national security threat. The result was that TikTok owner ByteDance—which initially planned on selling a small portion of TikTok to an American company—agreed to divest TikTok to prevent a ban in the United States and in other countries where restrictions are also being considered due to privacy concerns,which themselves are mostly related to its ownership by a firm based in China.
The political positions of Joe Manchin encompass the established political and economic positions taken by Joe Manchin,the senior United States senator from West Virginia. Manchin's positions are reflected in his voting record,public speeches,and interviews. A member of the Democratic Party,Manchin is characterized by his self-described moderate beliefs.
