Open Networks

On May 6 of this year, Public Knowledge and New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative sent a letter urging the Wireline Competition Bureau to exercise its statutory authority to fully investigate the nature, purpose, and impact of data caps upon consumers.¹ Since then, data caps have spread further across the industry.

From June 28-30, more than 300 rural leaders from across the United States met in St. Paul, MN, for the 2011 National Rural Assembly. The event included work sessions, roundtables, networking opportunities, and panel presentations for stakeholders who represented the diversity of rural America in geography, race/ethnicity, and public policy interests. Participants strategized about how to create a nation where rural communities can thrive and contribute to the nation’s success.

In pushing to remove access to tethering applications on some phones, Verizon Wireless may be violating openness rules attached to spectrum licenses that the company purchased in 2008. But weeks later, federal regulators have still not ruled on the alleged violation or taken action against the cell phone company.

Developed by Georgia Institute of Technology researchers Partha Kanuparthy and Constantine Dovrolis, a new measurement program called ShaperProbe is the first of its kind to detect traffic shaping over end user connections to the Internet.

Hub & Spoke Wireless Networks vs. Mesh Wireless Networks

Here at the New America Foundation we are excited to head to Boston this weekend (April 8-10) for The National Conference for Media Reform ( NCMR) 2011. For those who want to learn more about the future of media, technology, and democracy, now is your chance! Our team members from the Open Technology Initiative will be participating in the following sessions:

Friday April 8, 2011

The Center for Social Inclusion released a report drawn from two panels at their National Symposium on Community-Scale Broadband in December 2010.

The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative today welcomed Sarah Morris as the program’s newest Policy Analyst. Morris previously served as a Google Policy Fellow with the Media Access Project, where she assisted with research and drafting of FCC comments on issues including media ownership, the open Internet and broadcast licensing. She earned a B.A. in Poltical Science and English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a J.D. and LL.M.

Last week, coinciding with the release of the National Broadband Map, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) also released the latest report in the Digital Nation series. Titled Expanding Internet Usage, the report provides updated data on broadband adoption in the United States by analyzing U.S. Census survey data from 54,000 households and 129,000 persons.