Do big tech companies need more government oversight? That’s the question Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai pondered in a blog post Tuesday, just as Congress prepares to grill executives from Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday. Specifically, Pai said companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter need to be more transparent about how they operate their social …

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai was on the defensive Thursday when asked at a Senate oversight hearing why he didn’t correct the record sooner about an alleged cyberattack on the FCC at the height of last year’s net neutrality debate. Pai defended his decision not to talk earlier about the findings of a report released last week by the …

Democrats on Capitol Hill are demanding answers from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai after it was revealed his agency falsely claimed it had been the victim of a cyberattack last year. Last week, the FCC’s Office of Inspector General concluded the agency wasn’t the victim of a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack in May of 2017. Such …

Comcast is opening its low-cost internet program to military veterans, the company announced Monday. Comcast also said the program, which provides $10-a-month broadband to low-income families and individuals, has now reached 6 million Americans since it was introduced seven years ago. Last year marked the largest subscriber increase with Comcast connecting 2 million users through the program in 2017, the …

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s controversial $3.9 billion takeover of Tribune Media won’t be happening, despite the media giant’s vows to continue its fight to preserve the deal. Tribune on Thursday called off the sale of 42 TV stations to Sinclair, saying in a statement that the broadcaster hurt the deal by trying to “maintain control over stations it was obligated to …

A trade group representing rural cellular carriers is accusing Verizon of “grossly” overstating its 4G LTE coverage in government filings, claiming the bad data could prevent rural carriers from obtaining subsidies aimed at bringing broadband to remote areas. The Rural Wireless Association (RWA) alleges the coverage map Verizon submitted to the Federal Communications Commission is “a sham,” and should be …

Net neutrality may be dead, but questions remain about how seriously the Federal Communications Commission considered comments from the public. The FCC’s system for submitting those comments was a hot mess. Two million of the 22 million comments submitted used stolen identities, some for people who were dead, including actress Patty Duke, who died in 2016. Nearly 8 million comments …

The Federal Communications Commission has already repealed net neutrality, but the Trump administration can’t leave it there. It also wants the US Supreme Court to remove a ruling that upheld the controversial Obama-era rules. The petition, filed last week by Department of Justice lawyers, asked the Supreme Court to remand the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit’s 2016 …

Talk about unfair. Millions of broadband customers in rural and underserved urban markets are paying nearly identical prices for slower DSL service as customers who have access to high-speed fiber services. That’s the conclusion from a report published this week by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), which advocates for more equitable broadband deployment. In places where AT&T and Verizon …

New York state regulators are reneging on their approval of the Charter Communications acquisition of Time Warner Cable, alleging the cable provider broke its promise to deliver high-speed broadband to rural customers. Charter, the second-largest cable provider in the US after Comcast, completed its $56.7 billion deal to buy Time Warner Cable in 2016. The company has since rebranded itself …