The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today approved by a 3-1, party-line vote a series of steps that its Republican-majority commissioners argue will speed the pace of infrastructure installations necessary for carriers to provide 5G wireless services, but which have drawn strong protest from states and localities in the run-up to today’s vote who object to restrictions on their ability to govern. […]

As the FCC prepares to vote next week on an order that would make it easier for wireless service providers to deploy small wireless antennas and other infrastructure to speed the deployment of fifth-generation–or 5G–services, two of the agency’s five commissioners discussed the pros and cons of taking that course at an event organized by Politico. […]

The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) today announced awards to five research organizations as part of a new program aimed at identifying network and internet disruptions that could “significantly impact critical infrastructure systems” and “other essential systems on which society is dependent.” […]

California’s state Senate pushed the Golden State one step closer to enacting the Obama-era Federal net neutrality laws that were gutted by the FCC earlier this year. On Friday the state Senate passed the controversial bill, called SB 822, in a vote of 27-12 that was largely along party lines. […]

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai today defended his year-long public insistence that the FCC was the victim of a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack which impacted its electronic comment filing system during the agency’s net neutrality rulemaking proceeding last year, but admitted to having his own doubts about the cause of the system problem. […]

The Federal Communications Commission said this week it is seeking public comment through Sept. 10 on its annual report to determine whether “advanced telecommunications capability”–typically referred to as broadband service–is being deployed “to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”  […]

Members of the House Energy and Commerce’s Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee expressed broad agreement today that the Federal government needs to do more to promote the availability of broadband service in underserved and unserved areas of the United States, but appeared to signal little in the way of any unified sentiment to coalesce around any of several existing bills that aim for that goal. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been on an ambitious modernization journey, taking not just a “Cloud First” approach, but also setting an “All Cloud” goal. Alongside the modernization process, the team recognized they needed to re-tool their cyber infrastructure to achieve the strongest levels of cloud security and keep data and systems secure.   […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology today discussed the most recent draft of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Reauthorization Act of 2018, which the subcommittee said is intended to “support broadband infrastructure, efficient spectrum use, and drive the nation’s internet-connected economy.” […]

Leadership of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on Wednesday pressed the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for necessary follow-up to passage earlier this year of the MOBILE NOW Act. […]

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) of the General Services Administration (GSA) on Wednesday announced the winners of the inaugural FedRAMP Five Awards at ATARC’s Cloud & Data Center Summit. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today approved S. 2418, the Rural Reasonable and Comparable Wireless Access Act of 2018. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on May 10 approved a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that could supply more spectrum to commercial carriers to provide 5G wireless services. […]

Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said on Wednesday he filed a petition to force a vote by the full Senate on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would overturn network neutrality rules approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December 2017. […]

When Joby Emmons arrived for his first day as general counsel at IdeaScale, he was told: “Your first job at IdeaScale is to get us FedRAMP authorized.” […]

The Department of Commerce and the European Union held the first review of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, where the parties discussed methods for keeping consumer data private. More than 2,400 organizations, including Microsoft, Facebook, and Google, have joined the Privacy Shield. […]

TechNet, a network of innovation economy CEOs, recently sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission advocating for increased investment in broadband connectivity. The letter emphasizes the importance of broadband for the success of commercial industries such as businesses, hospitals, libraries, and educational institutions. […]

The Federal Communications Commission announced that it will begin an auction in 2018 that will provide nearly $2 billion over 10 years to expand high-speed Internet access in rural areas that are currently underserved by fixed broadband. […]

The Federal Communications Commission announced Aug. 3 that it’s exploring ways to improve the quality of the data it collects on broadband service. The FCC released a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to seek comment on proposals to collect better data. The FCC in 2000 established its deployment data collection program, which requires Internet providers to file the information with the FCC twice a year. […]

The Federal Communications Commission’s authority to create net neutrality policy is uncertain, so Congress needs to draft legislation that creates a definitive authority for which actions the FCC can and cannot take for the sake of net neutrality, according to experts who spoke at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation panel. […]

The Federal Communications Commission announced June 8 that it made updates to its Connect2Health Mapping Tool, which shows areas of the United States that lack broadband connectivity and health care resources. The changes include adding the most recent data on broadband and health care access to the map from the FCC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s County Health Rankings. […]

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency tweeted June 5 that David Bray will assume the new role of chief ventures officer. Bray, chief information officer of the Federal Communications Commission, will be tasked with driving internal and commercial innovation when he moves to the NGA in July. […]

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced the Balancing the Rights of Web Surfers Equally and Responsibly (BROWSER) Act of 2017, which requires Internet service providers to get permission to sell users’ data. […]

Cloud security company Zscaler announced Monday that it is “in process” for FedRAMP certification, under the sponsorship of the Federal Communications Commission. […]

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai outlined a proposal to reverse the net neutrality rules. The proposal would reverse the classification of broadband from a Title II service to a Title I service, which would give the Federal Trade Commission the authority to oversee the Internet once again. […]

The Federal Communications Commission has announced that its experimental licensing system can now accept applications for program licenses, which will help startups to get the requirements needed to start testing on new 5G applications. […]

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the agency will begin to create the Office of Economics and Data, which will provide economic analysis for rulemakings, manage the agency’s data resources, and conduct long-term research on how to improve the agency’s policies. […]