The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is launching a new crowdsourcing app that is designed to test the broadband speeds on Android-equipped mobile phones as part of the expansion effort of its broadband speed test platform in the 2011 Measuring Broadband America initiative.
According to B&C’s report, the app was launched as a way to measure the consumer’s actual, as opposed to advertised, broadband speeds thereby fulfilling FCC’s National Broadband Plan recommendation on gathering and releasing publicly detailed and accurate accounts of the broadband performance in every consumer. The move is part of the Obama administration’s push towards broadband deployment which had focused greatly on mobile since smartphone sales have exceeded those of laptops’ several years ago. Tablets, on the other hand, had been predicted to deliver the same performance towards the end of the year.
In September 2012, the FCC commission confirmed that it is stretching its broadband speed and performance testing coverage to wireless technology under the leadership of new chair Tom Wheeler. Several major players have agreed to participate in the test. These include Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and CTIA, the principal trade association.
The meeting agenda has so far included the status report on the commission’s Universal Service Reform. The reform has morphed its soft 25 percent cap of foreign ownership in a radio or TV station into a de facto hard cap which cuts off a possibly new source of capital infusion.
Mignon Clyburn, FCC Chairwoman, has included in the agenda during the meeting in November about an item that would potentially expand foreign ownership of US owned broadcast companies.
It should be remembered that back in April, the FCC made a unanimous decision that would allow wireless companies to gain easier access to foreign capital. At the same time, it gives an impression that it is ready to do just the same for broadcasters as a response to the petition made by the Coalition for Broadcast Investment.
