State Laws/Franchising

Google Fiber has targeted another city in the Kansas City area -- Olathe, Kan., where the Internet giant has received approval to roll out its fiber-to-the-home network touting up to 1 Gigabit per second of bandwidth and a next-gen IPTV service.

While the city represents an expansion of Google’s original deployment map, it still isn’t clear whether the company intends to broaden the fiber project -- which it has previously described as experimental -- to other regions.

WASHINGTON — The gloves came off during a Wednesday House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing over government broadband subsidies.

Republicans on the panel hammered National Telecommunications & Information chief Lawrence Strickling (pictured) over the agency’s oversight of the subsidy program, designed to speed broadband deployments to underserved and unserved areas, and charged it with overbuilding incumbent providers. Strickling returned fire, vigorously defending the effort.

WASHINGTON — California cable operators have won a legislative victory they say will allow them to invest in IP-based services — like voice over Internet protocol — by removing the threat of unnecessary regulation.

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the bill into law, appeared to agree. In a letter to members of the California Senate, he said that with consumer safeguards in place, the bill would spur the growth of “innovative services that have become a hallmark of our state.”

Group Says it's a Further Attack on American Companies

'La ley del miedo' Premieres Sept. 18