Today’s much-hyped speech by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski doesn’t really reveal much more about what the federal agency plans to do about Net Neutrality than was already known. As expected, Gehachowski said he wants to add two new principles to the FCC’s existing Four Principles of Internet governance, announced in 2005 as the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement. The two new principles would prohibit discrimination against legal traffic by either blocking it or degrading it, and would require Internet service providers to publicly disclose how they manage their traffic. The other big change Gehachowski is proposing is to extend Net Neutrality rules to wireless service providers as well, as they are getting into data services. more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The need for physically diverse networks (PDNs) becomes painfully clear after natural disasters or an event like the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The planes that crashed into the World Trade Center took out most of the wireless communication networks, with the exception of a few. One of the remaining networks was run by Teligent, a predecessor to FiberTower Corporation (NASDAQ:FTWR), a backhaul aggregator that owns national spectrum, including two bands of wireless spectrum and a hybrid fiber network in 13 markets. FTWR was able to remain operational because it was running a PDN. The lessons learned on that day are particularly applicable in today’s rollout of smart grid initiatives in which redundancy is crucial, according to Joe Sandri, FTWR’s senior vice president of regulatory and government affairs. more