FCC

No less than the open freedom of the Internet is at stake in the war over net neutrality. Now FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has waded into the fray with two new proposals and a clear message: an open and nondiscriminatory Internet is a must for the future.

That stance emerged today in Genachowski's address at the Brookings Institute in Washington. He laid out problems such as the limited competition among ISPs, the economic incentives for ISPs to sell bundled phone and TV service with Internet, and the burden of growing Internet traffic that puts pressure back on ISPs.

Sean Captains extensive guide last week to next year's nationwide digital TV conversion featured some interesting comments from the vice president of Centris, a company that recently published a study suggesting the upcoming switchover to digital-only television broadcasts may leave millions of people across the country without a TV signal. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is offering people who have an analog TV a $40 coupon to put toward a converter box. Unfortunately, Centris VP Barry E. Goodstadt says, in certain pockets of the country, using a converter box still wont give you a signal if you dont have a powerful-enough antenna.