Vuze to Mirror FCC Broadband-Network-Management Hearing
Video-Sharing Service to Provide Public Testimony from Outside Harvard Law School Hearing
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/21/2008 12:33:00 PM
Video-sharing service Vuze will help to record a public hearing of its own, shadowing that of the Federal Communications Commission's planned en banc hearing Feb. 25 at Harvard Law School.
The FCC will hear from two panels of experts on the issue of broadband-network management, which prompted the network-neutrality debate, as well as an FCC inquiry into allegations of content blocking and impeding by networks, including a complaint against Comcast by Vuze.
The SavetheInternet.com Coalition will record public testimony outside of the hearing, which Vuze will post to its site, according to media activist group Free Press, an FCC complaint from which helped to launch the network-management-practices inquiry. A Free Press spokeswoman said that the videographers are from local public, educational and government (PEG) channels.
In addition, Vuze is asking consumers unable to attend the hearing to upload their own testimonials about open network access to the site, where they will be posted on a separate FCC channel.
But Vuze will be an official as well as unofficial member of the proceedings, with CEO Gilles BianRosa demonstrating the company's HD-video-sharing technology to the commissioners before the first panel. It will also participate in a technology fair outside of the hearing.
