Democrat Mignon Clyburn, a leading defender of net neutrality, announced Tuesday she will be stepping down from the Federal Communications Commission in the next month, ending an eight-year stint at the agency. Clyburn announced her departure at the FCC’s April meeting and said she’d step down before the agency’s next scheduled meeting on May 10. …

An attempt in California to replace the FCC’s repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules faces its first legislative test Tuesday. Senate Bill 822, written by state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, will get its first hearing before the Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, which could gut key provisions of the legislation. In its original form, the California bill offers consumers …

Occupational therapist turned disability rights activist Alanna Raffel has spent her career thinking about accessibility. So for her 30th birthday last year, she turned her passion into action. Raffel had worked with disabled clients for years in Philadelphia. It wasn’t till late 2016, however, when she became more involved in advocacy, that she learned how difficult it was to find …

Ross Compton had no idea his pacemaker would finger him for arson. Compton — who also needs an external heart pump — told police he was asleep when his Middletown, Ohio, home caught fire in September 2016. As the flames licked the 2,000-square-foot house, he packed a suitcase with some clothes, stashed other items into a few bags, and grabbed …

Facebook’s fact-checking partners tasked with fighting fake news aren’t happy with their bosses at the social media giant. Top brass at several news outlets hired to help clean up Facebook’s misinformation problem in the wake of the 2016 presidential election say Facebook hasn’t been transparent about the effectiveness of their efforts and has ignored requests to improve the process, according …

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel wants the agency to be more involved in ensuring the false alert mistakenly sent in January warning that a ballistic missile was about to hit the islands doesn’t happen again. At a field hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet in Honolulu Thursday, Rosenworcel said the agency could take a number …

A key milestone in the nationwide public safety wireless network known as FirstNet has been met, according to AT&T, which is building the network. AT&T announced on Tuesday that the “core” of the dedicated 4G wireless network, which acts as the “brain and nervous system” for the network, is live and ready for local agencies to begin the work of …

FCC chairman Ajit Pai is proposing new rules that would bar telecommunications and broadband companies from using a government subsidy program to buy telecom equipment and services from “any company that poses a national security threat.” Pai didn’t specify which companies or countries would be banned as part of the proposal. Officials from the FCC said on a call with …

It looks like 5G deployments in the states will be getting a kick-start. The $1.3 trillion US government spending bill signed into law Friday includes a bipartisan effort to speed the rollout of 5G: the Ray Baum Act, named in honor of the late Energy & Commerce staff director who died last month. The legislation folds in language from the …

The Federal Communications Commission is altering regulations so wireless carriers can deploy 5G faster. In a 3-2, party-line vote Thursday, agency commissioners passed a measure that exempts small cell radio deployments from federal environmental and historical preservation reviews originally meant for large cell phone towers. The vote didn’t affect reviews from towns and cities. The agency may consider exemptions for …