Today's 911 system is built on an infrastructure of analog technology that does not support many of the features that most Americans expect to be part of an emergency response. Efforts to splice newer, digital technologies onto this aging infrastructure have created points of failure where a call can be dropped or misdirected, sometimes with tragic consequences. Callers to 911, however, generally assume that the newer technologies they are using to place a call are matched by the same level of technology at the 911 call centers, known as Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs).

In 2007, through various experiments by the media, most notably the Associated Press, it became clear that Comcast was intermittently blocking the use of an application called BitTorrent and, possibly, other peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing programs on its network. Comcast eventually admitted to the practice and agreed to cease blocking the use of the P2P applications on its network. However, Comcast maintains that its actions were reasonable network management and not in violation of the Federal Communications Commission's ("FCC" or "Commission") policy.

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is one of several federally managed
warning systems. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) jointly
administers EAS with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in
cooperation with the National Weather Service (NWS), an organization within the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NOAA/NWS
weather radio system has been upgraded to an all-hazard warning capability.

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or
Commission) that required broadcast licensees to cover issues of public importance and to do so
in a fair manner. Issues of public importance were not limited to political campaigns. Nuclear
plant construction, workers? rights, and other issues of focus for a particular community could
gain the status of an issue that broadcasters were required to cover. Therefore, the Fairness
Doctrine was distinct from the so-called ?equal time?