The world's largest internet companies lambasted the FCC in a formal filing today, telling America's telecom regulator to kill its plans to ditch net neutrality rules. In a lengthy 38‑page response [PDF], accompanied by a 45‑page economic analysis [PDF], the Internet Association – which represents Google, Facebook, Microsoft, …

Open up! It's the FCC! The words that every pirate radio station fears. This time, however, those words landed on a man of god: Pastor Yvon Grand-Champ. Grand-Champ ("big field" in French) had been hunted down by US comms watchdog the FCC's most fearless and intrepid investigators – its region-one enforcement agents, known as …

Hark, ye internet peasants. Google and Facebook today trumpeted that they will join the day of protest against efforts to kill off America's net neutrality rules. The news was welcomed by Fight for the Future, the organization behind the protest planned for Wednesday, July 12. But it also noted pointedly that neither of the …

President Donald Trump has nominated Brendan Carr, the FCC's general counsel, to fill the last remaining Republican commissioner slot at America's telco watchdog. Carr is a long-time associate of FCC chairman Ajit Pai, having served as his personal legal advisor for three years before being appointed as the regulator's general …

Updated A US Senator is looking to turn up the heat on a particularly annoying new robocall practice. Charles Schumer (D-NY) plans to pressure America's comms watchdog, the FCC, for a ban on straight-to-voicemail calls that plant recorded messages on phones without them ever actually ringing. Under proposed new rules, the practice …

America's broadband watchdog, the FCC, has approved OneWeb's proposal to launch an ISP on the backs of 720 orbiting satellites. The regulator said it would allow the ISP to offer its service in the US once it makes good on the plan to send 720 satellites into low earth orbit (LEO) and bounce data transmissions around the world …

America's comms regulator, the FCC, will fine a Florida Man $120m for flooding the country with nearly 100 million robocalls in three months. The watchdog said that Adrian Abramovich of Miami ran a scheme that made more than a million calls a day – each with its caller ID information altered – with the aim of selling travel …

President Donald Trump has nominated former FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to rejoin the US federal telecom regulator, filling a seat made empty by... herself. There are actually two empty seats on the five-person FCC board – one Democrat and one Republican – but uncharacteristically, Trump did not announce a Republican …

It's a funny thing, but the ability to buy an internet connection and not have the company you buy it from control what you can see and at what speed you can see it is a popular thing in the Land of the FreeTM. According to a poll by Ipsos and commissioned by open source software developer Mozilla, no less than 76 per cent of …

A slew of internet companies, including Amazon, Kickstarter, Reddit and Mozilla, have signed up for a "day of action" on July 12 in an effort to retain net neutrality rules. The campaign hasn't decided yet what form the protest will take, but campaign director Evan Greer told The Register it will be designed to "display a …

FCC boss Ajit Pai has put forward a new set of changes to the rules it will use to govern US telcos, potentially reducing privacy protections and local government rights in the process. The US comms chairman said on Thursday that the rules will help to improve competition among broadband providers and make it easier for police …

A group of Senate Democrats is asking the FBI to take a close look at the reported "denial of service" the FCC blamed for the collapse of its comment system earlier this month. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Ed Markey (D-MA), Al Franken (D-MN) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) all signed on to the letter [PDF] today, …

Analysis The FCC has released a revised version of its plans to tear up net neutrality – and unwittingly revealed the extraordinary influence that the cable industry has over the process. The new "notice of proposed rulemaking," which was approved in a 2‑1 vote last week, completely ignores hundreds of thousands of critical comments …

A "toolkit" provided to House Republicans to defend US comms watchdog the FCC's recent decision to tear up net neutrality rules was written by the cable lobby. In just the latest example of special interests literally dictating what lawmakers say on significant policy issues, the "Draft Member Toolkit" [PDF] stretches to 24 …

The US Representatives who just weeks ago repealed privacy rules for ISPs now want to enact a new set of restrictions. Tennessee Republican rep Marsha Blackburn is sponsoring the bill [PDF], known cheekily as the "Balancing the Rights of Web Surfers Equally and Responsibly (or BROWSER) Act of 2017." The bill would explicitly …

A wrongly updated whitelist was behind the five-hour nationwide outage of AT&T's emergency 911 service in March, a report by America's phone regulator, the FCC, has revealed. The whitelist of IP numbers plays a critical role in AT&T's backend systems, but was listed as containing only "customer" rather than "infrastructure" …

As expected, on Thursday America's broadband watchdog, the FCC, voted 2-1 to start the process to gut net neutrality rules. Also as expected, it was a fiery affair with protestors outside the building and harsh words inside as the only Democrat on the commission, Mignon Clyburn, slammed her fellow commissioners for trying to …

Analysis Despite more than a million comments opposing it, tomorrow at around 12:00pm Eastern time, the three FCC commissioners will vote 2-1 to approve a so-called "notice of proposed rulemaking" and start on the rocky path to rescinding net neutrality rules. Just as it was three years ago, it is going to be a long and tortuous …