News

Washington — On Monday, in response to announcements that Google would acquire Motorola Mobility and Time Warner Cable would acquire Insight, Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner made the following statements.

WASHINGTON — The case for AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile continues to unravel as new facts come to light. A Stifel Nicolaus poll of telecom analysts released Thursday gave the deal only a 49.5 percent chance of being approved.

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit threw out a case brought by media companies seeking to have that court eliminate in their entirety the Federal Communications Commission’s media ownership rules. The case was a last-ditch effort by newspaper giant Media General to get the D.C. Circuit to hear its arguments after the U.S.

WASHINGTON — Late Monday, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would combine its reviews of AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile and AT&T’s acquisition of spectrum licenses from Qualcomm.

WASHINGTON — On Monday, Verizon Wireless submitted its response to Free Press’ complaint about the carrier’s decision to block subscribers from accessing “tethering” applications on their 4G phones.

WASHINGTON — The FCC Tuesday published the results of a study measuring the real-world performance of most major U.S. Internet service providers. While the study indicates some providers are consistently delivering their customers the promised network speeds, it reveals that many providers are falling well short of their advertised claims.

WASHINGTON — SavetheNews.org has uncovered 22 more covert consolidation deals in its “Change the Channels” campaign. So far, more than 100 cases have been documented of local TV newsrooms combining operations to circumvent the Federal Communications Commission’s media ownership limits at the expense of independent, local journalism.

WASHINGTON — On Friday, several major telecom companies sent a proposal to revamp the Universal Service Fund (USF) to the Federal Communications Commission. The proposal, authored by Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier, Windstream and Fairpoint, lays out industry’s plan to redirect funding to support broadband access rather than legacy telephone networks.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, House Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Communications Subcommittee Chair Greg Walden (R-Ore.), and Oversight Subcommittee Chair Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission seeking information about the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules passed in December.

WASHINGTON — Late Wednesday, 11 state attorneys general asked the Department of Justice and the FCC to approve AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile USA with conditions necessary to protect competition and safeguard the public interest.