The Federal Communications Commission announced Wednesday plans to free up 195 megahertz of wireless spectrum in the 5 gigahertz band to help increase Wi-Fi speeds and alleviate congestion in high-traffic areas.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski discussed the new plan at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The new spectrum allocation is the largest block of unlicensed spectrum that has been made available for expansion of Wi-Fi since 2003.

The effort is expected to increase Wi-Fi speeds by at least 35 percent, Genachowski said. And it will also help alleviate Wi-Fi congestion at major hubs, such as airports, convention centers, … Read more

LAS VEGAS -- It's time to fix a broken immigration system that encourages smart engineers to study at U.S. universities but prevents them from staying afterward, a Republican senator said at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Sen. Jerry Moran from Kansas said here today that he was disappointed Congress hadn't acted on his legislation, called the Startup Act 2.0, which was introduced last spring but has languished in committee.

Engineers and other people in science-related disciplines who are "foreign-born but U.S.-educated" should be allowed to remain here, Moran said. Chile and other countries &… Read more

LAS VEGAS -- A U.S. senator today blasted leaks from the Federal Trade Commission during its antitrust pursuit of Google, saying he intends to find out who was responsible for the disclosures.

"I'm determined to get to the bottom of this," Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat with a

Last week, the FTC said it had finished its investigation -- which had been encouraged by Microsoft and other rivals -- into possible unlawful activities by Google and had decided against filing a lawsuit.

"All parties deserve to know that there's not that kind of … Read more

Consumer Watchdog, a group that's accused Google of antitrust misconduct, is trying to find out why the FTC's investigation into the subject resulted in only mild punishment.

The group requested the Federal Trade Commission release its staff's report to detail the situation, according to a letter Consumer Watchdog sent to the commissioners (PDF). The agency's staff prepare such reports then forward them to the five commissioners who vote on what course of action to take.

"I call on you to release the FTC staff report to help make clear what was behind the commission's … Read more

LAS VEGAS--As attendees arrive today for four days of innovative developments in consumer technologies, a related revolution is also getting attention at CES. At today's Broadband Unlimited conference, representatives of the communications industries and others were unified in calls for an accelerated transition from outmoded legacy copper phone lines to new networks that would treat all traffic as IP packets from end to end -- what has sometimes been called the "Internet Everywhere" network.

"If 'The Graduate' were being remade," according to Daniel Berninger, a pioneer in voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications and now … Read more

Samsung and LG Display have been fined by the Chinese government over charges that they fixed the prices of LCD panels.

China's National Development and Reform Commission fined Samsung $16.2 million and LG $18.6 million, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

Also included in the fines for price fixing were four Taiwanese firms: Chi Mei Optoelectronics, AU Optronics, Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd., and HannStar Display. The total fine levied against all six companies reached $56 million.

The display makers were accused of fixing prices on LCD panels that they sold to Chinese TV makers from 2001 to … Read more

The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it has completed a nearly two-year investigation into Google's business practices. Here are some of the key takeaways:

On the issue most important to Google, Google won. The most potentially damaging line of inquiry undertaken by the FTC concerned accusations that Google's search results were unfairly biased in favor of its own products. Some critics wanted to see mandated changes to Google algorithms. But after considering a number of approaches, FTC commissioners decided unanimously that Google was not violating any antitrust laws when it comes to search results. For Google, this … Read more

This was the year of Internet activism with a sharp political point to it: Protests drove a stake through the heart of a Hollywood-backed digital copyright bill, helped derail a United Nations summit, and contributed to the demise of a proposed data-sharing law.

In 2012, when Internet users and companies flexed their political muscles, they realized they were stronger than they had thought. It amounted to a show of force not seen since the political wrangling over implanting copy-protection technology in PCs a decade ago, or perhaps since those blue ribbons that appeared on Web sites in the mid-1990s in … Read more

news analysis When the history of early 21st century Internet politicking is written, the meltdown of a United Nations summit last week will mark the date a virtual Cold War began.

In retrospect, the implosion of the Dubai summit was all but foreordained: it pitted nations with little tolerance for human rights against Western democracies which, at least in theory, uphold those principles. And it capped nearly a decade of behind-the-scenes jockeying by a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, created in 1865 to coordinate telegraph connectivity, to gain more authority over how the Internet is managed.

It … Read more