The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) first floated the idea in April by asking nicely for public comment on their tax proposals.

Business and trade associations, which keep a close eye on their balance sheets, weighed in quickly.

The general public? Not so much.

A number of businesses actually like the idea. The FCC wants to use the money for a fund that spreads broadband to underserved areas. This would expand the reach of many providers and bring them new customers. Good for business and good for the FCC’s fund.

But not many consumers are aware that the tax is on the horizon.

The FCC could run into legal problems with the Internet Tax Freedom Act, a 1998 law that prohibits taxing Internet access.

You can read about the FCC’s request here.

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As part of an initiative to reduce the threat of cybercrime, the FCC has launched a new website aimed to help small businesses improve their IT security. 

In announcing the new online tool, the FCC cited data from a Symantec survey which found that only about half of small companies have cybersecurity plans in place, and nearly 80% lack a written Internet security policy.

And as larger companies have been increasing their IT security defenses, criminals are now finding it more effective to target small business, which haven’t kept pace.

According to the FCC, the new Small Biz Cyber Planner can walk organizations through a series of questions to help them determine was should be included in their cybersecurity strategy and offer customized guidance on how to develop a security plan.

The guidelines were developed by the FCC along with other government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as private IT and security organizations, including Symantec, Microsoft, HP and McAfee.

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Well, the first part — the actual plan — is already paid for by federal stimulus funds. The FCC held hearings, hosted public workshops, solicited comments, blogged and Twittered its way to a 300-plus-page report on the topic.

If adopted, the plan would expand broadband availability across the country. It will also be designed to allow government safety agencies — which were terribly embarrassed by their inadequate technology on 9/11 — to become seamlessly interconnected.

While these system flaws were glaringly apparent in the wake of the 2001 attacks, virtually no improvements were made in the eight years following the disaster.

The broadband plan is also being designed to support the move to electronic healthcare records, a cornerstone of the new healthcare overhaul initiative.

If enacted, the plan is supposed make the Internet faster, standardize electronic voting, increase telecommuting options, improve Web infrastructure, open access to government, boost mobile capability and expand e-learning opportunities.

Oh, and everybody gets a pony. No pony? Sorry folks, I just learned that nobody gets a pony.

But it goes without saying that none of this will be free.

The FCC estimates that the interoperable network alone would require as much as $6.5 billion over 10 years.

The costs associated with keeping these efforts sustainable, however, could be between $12 billion and $16 billion.

One way to get those funds? Add a surcharge to broadband service. “Imposing a minimal public safety fee on all U.S. broadband users would be a fair, sustainable and reasonable funding mechanism. The fee should be sufficient to support the operation and evolution of the public safety broadband network,” the FCC said.

In the FCC’s estimation, a $1 per month fee per broadband user for the interoperability needed to assure public safety is nominal enough.

But all those other benefits will come with a price tag as well. As businesses and consumers depend increasingly on the Internet to communicate and get work done, however, the improvements outlined in the FCC’s plan will be crucial.

It’s likely that more and more Web-related fees will be added to any service that uses the Internet to function. The question is: Who will be paying these fees?

Best guess: the consumer, who always sits at the bottom of the hill where things roll only one way.

You can download a copy of the FCC’s broadband plan here.

The post Is there a broadband tax in your future? appeared first on Finance Tech News.

And by help, we mean the FCC will give you a way to test your speed using a tool on their Web site here. So now, if you’re paying your ISP to deliver a certain speed, there’s a way to check — using a government site — to see if you’re getting what you paid for.

The FCC has added the tools to the Broadband.gov Web site not only to help users measure their broadband speeds. The site also gives you a button to click for reporting that you don’t have broadband available.

The new test tools are called, respectively,  the Consumer Broadband Test and the Broadband Dead Zone Report to Broadband.gov. Both are free.

The Consumer Broadband Test measures broadband quality indicators like upload and download speeds,  latency and jitter. The test takes about a minute and when the results come back, the report tells you what upload and download speeds, latency and jitter mean. They also report your speed to the FCC — and for that, you’ll have to give them your address, or you won’t be able to use the tools.

What the report won’t tell you is how fast your connection should be or what kind of speed other users get with their broadband connection. It also won’t tell users who don’t know a kilobyte from a megabyte how to tell the difference between the two, or if jitter and latency actually matter. (IT pros won’t have a problem with this, but their users might.)

The tools don’t work with Safari, Opera and Chrome Web browsers. Java’s required to run the test, but if you don’t have it, the site let’s you download it right then and there.

There’s also a mobile version of the app called, somewhat appropriately, “FCC Broadband Test”. This is  the first mobile app released by the FCC, and it’s available (free) through the Apple and Android app stores.

The post Free tools for measuring broadband speed appeared first on Finance Tech News.

The two telecom behemoths made separate (but equally important) announcements this week that they would open their networks more widely to some of the uber popular (and rival) phone services.

The announcements may be nothing more than an attempt to get out ahead of the a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule change many feel is imminent. The FCC chief is said to favor regulations that would prohibit carriers from blocking services on cell phones that can access the Internet.

One highly publicized case in recent months has been Apple’s decision not to allow Google Voice on the wildly popular iPhone. AT&T’s announcement this week was that the carrier will permit 3G network users to use Skype, a popular Internet long distance service, is an about face to that unpopular policy.

In the mean time, Verizon Wireless is boasting that they’ll get together with Google to produce new cellphones based on Google’s Android software. The phones would be open for any applications, including Google Voice — a direct challenge to the AT&T policy.

In the end, these announcements may be nothing more than the power house cellphone carriers way of appearing to be out in front of the FCC. A way of saying “Net neutrality? Been there, done that.”

But it’s apparent to many industry watchers that the cellphone carriers are doing what many consider the right thing because it was inevitable that they’d have to anyway.

“The timing is nice,” said Mike McGuire, vice president of research at Gartner told the Washington Post. “It is the carriers saying, ‘Okay, we are responding’ and answering the market needs while also trying to stay within the guardrails that appear to be going up at the FCC.”

Does anybody out there believe they’d have done it out of the kindness of their collective hearts?

The post AT&T, Verizon bow to mounting pressure appeared first on Finance Tech News.

While the folks with scientific expertise try to figure out if the radiation levels in cell phones can cause real harm, the best you can probably do is find out how your phone — or the ones you issue to workers — rank in the grand scheme of things.

For now, you should probably know which ones have the highest and lowest levels — why use one at the top of the charts until we really know how much radiation is too much?

Since smartphones have become the most popular tool for business users, here’s the list of top smartphone radiation emitters (courtesy of TechRepublic editor Jason Hiner):

1. T-Mobile MyTouch 3G (1.55 W/kg)
2. Blackberry Curve 8330 (1.54 W/kg)
3. Palm Treo 600 (1.53 W/kg)
4. T-Mobile Shadow (1.53 W/kg)
5. Palm Treo 650 (1.51 W/kg)
6. Blackberry Curve 8300 (1.51 W/kg)
7. Blackberry Bold 9000 (1.51 W/kg)
8. Sony Ericsson P910a (1.50 W/kg)
9. HTC SMT 5800 (1.49 W/kg)
10. BlackBerry Pearl 8120/8130 (1.48 W/kg)

And the lowest?

1. Nokia 9300i (0.21 W/kg)
2. Nokia 7710 (0.22 W/kg)
3. T-Mobile MDA Wiza200 (0.28 W/kg)
4. Samsung Impression SGH-a877 (0.35 W/kg)
5. Nokia 9300 (0.44 W/kg)
6. Samsung Propel Pro SGH-i627 (0.47 W/kg)
7. Samsung Gravity SGH-t459 (0.49 W/kg)
8. BlackBerry Storm 9530 (0.57 W/kg)
9. Nokia E90 (0.59 W/kg)
10. Nokia N96 (0.68 W/kg)

For perspective, there are some standards the Federal government has set for emissions in these units.

The Federal Communications Commission sets the acceptable U.S. radiation standards for cellphones. Radiation effects depend on the rate the rate at which energy (in this case, radiation) is absorbed by a mass of tissue — the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). It’s measured in watts per kilogram (W/kg).

Cellphone makers hire private certification companies to test their device’s SAR.

The FCC limits SAR levels for partial-body exposure (including head) to up to 1.6 W/kg, and whole body exposure to up to 0.08 W/kg. For hands, wrists, feet, and ankles, the limit is up to 4 W/kg, averaged over 10 grams of tissue. But remember this: These levels are set based on advice from the industry group that represents the folks who make the phones.

To find out where your phone, or the ones you give employees, ranks in radiation emissions, check out the database that’s been assembled on emissions by the Environmental Working Group.

The post Most dangerous smartphone list appeared first on Finance Tech News.

The dust-up between Google and Apple over the approval of an iPhone Google Voice app looks on the surface to be just another company-to-company flap. But in reality, it may be a lot more.

In the war of technology domination, this is the battle of the titans: One company commands the search engine part of the industry, the other is quickly becoming the super power of the smartphone.

At stake: Who will be the dominant world power of mobile computing?

Apple’s reluctance to allow Google Voice on their phones is understandable. This technology could undercut partner AT&T’s cell phone service that powers iPhones in the United States. Fair enough.

But some industry analysts see the problem as deeper and more sinister. With so many iPhone apps powered by Google’s search engine as an underlying platform, adding this phone application to the popular smartphone would undermine Apple’s core applications for its phone

Of course, this isn’t Apple’s official line. But the folks at TechCrunch say they’re hearing something different from their sources:

“Multiple sources at Google tell us that in informal discussions with Apple over the last few months Apple expressed dismay at the number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google. Search, maps, YouTube and other popular apps are powered by Google. Other than the browser, Apple has little else to call its own other than the core phone, contacts and calendar features. The Google Voice App takes things one step further, by giving users an incentive to abandon their iPhone phone number and use their Google Voice phone number instead (transcription of voicemails is reason enough alone). Apple was afraid, say our sources, that Google was gaining too much power on the iPhone, and that’s why they rejected the application.”

If you want to read Apple’s official response to FCC questions about rejecting the Google Voice app, you can check it out here.

As “unified communications” become more of a reality than just a buzzword in the tech community, these are the issues that will no doubt be debated and litigated for years to come.

The big question: Who’ll decide these disputes? And will those who do have the technology know-how to understand the implications of the decisions?

Much like the health care debate, when those without the expertise to understand the fallout of policy start trying to make it, the results could make a lot of consumers very unhappy.

Your thoughts?

The post Google v. Apple: Should we care who wins? appeared first on Finance Tech News.