Roy Mark

UPDATED: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael K. Powell announced today he is leaving the powerful independent agency in March. In his resignation letter to President Bush, Powell said he was stepping down with a “mixture of pride and regret.” “Having completed a bold and aggressive agenda, it is time for me to pursue other […]

The 109th Congress convenes at noon today facing the same technology policy questions the 108th Congress was uninterested, unable or unwilling to render judgments on. Leftovers from the last session include the regulation of IP-based network services, stock option expensing and providing more spectrum for commercial wireless broadband providers. The new, two-year Congress will also […]

Lawmakers and U.S. regulatory officials wrestled with a packed IT agenda this year, setting a policy course on a number of important and complex issues. Voice over IP , online fraud, spam and international trade are just a few of the hot topics that flashed across their plates this year. Here is a look at […]

High tech interests scored a late victory in Congress when the lame duck legislature increased the 2005 H-1B visa ceiling by 20,000 foreign workers. The visas are limited to workers with graduate degrees from U.S. universities. The original quota of 65,000 with undergraduate or higher degrees was reached on Oct. 1, the first day of […]

For the key items still left on the technology industry’s legislative agenda, the final session of the 108th Congress has come down to wishing and hoping and not much else. The lame duck Congress will convene Tuesday afternoon and tentatively plans final adjournment on Friday. The four days leave little time to work out compromises […]

UPDATED: WASHINGTON — Voice over IP services are interstate in nature and not subject to traditional state public utility regulation, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided today. The ruling gives the FCC the responsibility and obligation to decide what regulations apply to Internet telephony. The FCC voted 4-1 to grant N.J.-based VoIP provider Vonage’s request […]

UPDATED: Major technology policy issues were left on the backburner of Congress in the run up to Tuesday’s hotly contested general elections. But with the winners in the U.S. House and Senate races (mostly) decided, including the re-election of President Bush — now that his Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry reportedly conceded the race — […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Tuesday it would rule Nov. 9 on whether Internet telephony is an interstate service and exempt from state and local regulation and tariffs. The decision is considered critical to the future development of the emerging Voice over IP industry, which hopes to avoid negotiating rates with 50 separate state […]

President Bush signed into law late Friday $136 billion in corporate tax breaks, including a one-year reduction from 35 percent to 5.25 percent on foreign profits for U.S. multinationals. The provision was strongly backed by the technology industry despite criticisms that the break rewards corporations that outsource jobs overseas. Bush signed the legislation on Air […]

Failure is a large part of David Kirch’s game, and the Library of Congress just gave him $235,000 to work harder at it. As an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, Kirch is the driving force behind a project to create the “world’s largest digital archive of documents related to the historic […]