Clyburn, O’Rielly To Talk Lifeline Reform at NARUC Summer Meeting
Lifeline reform isn’t on the minds of only the FCC commissioners, it’s also on the minds of members of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners ahead of its summer committee meeting in New York City, Sunday-Tuesday. Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael O'Rielly will attend a Monday meeting to discuss reforming Lifeline. The commissioners will discuss how best to give low-income communities more access to 21st century broadband communications services, the meeting program said. South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner Chris Nelson said that discussion should be interesting because the two commissioners have different thoughts on Lifeline: “I think that will be one of our more interesting sessions. ... I'm not sure I can remember a time where we've had two [FCC Commissioners] on the same panel, and in the case of Lifeline, I think [they're] two that have a little bit of a difference in opinion as to how it should evolve, so this may be breaking a little bit of ground.”
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Nelson said the meeting overall is looking at the most pertinent issues of the time. National Regulatory Research Institute Principal Researcher Sherry Lichtenberg said the meeting is "jam-packed" with telecom issues, from cybersecurity to net neutrality to rural broadband. She said hearing what the commissioners say about Lifeline will be educational and there will be some learning experiences on E911. "As usual, they have gotten all the major issues in, including issues that go across industries," she said. "The critical infrastructure will work together with telecom to look at the cybersecurity issues. There is also consumer affairs and telecom ... meeting together to talk about social media."
Among the eight sessions on telecom will be panels on cybersecurity, as well as two about next-generation 911 and E911. One panels aims to teach participants about new and deliberate approaches to cybersecurity, the meeting program said. Matthew Schaffer, senior staff member-national security analysis, Johns Hopkins, also will discuss the potential gaps in U.S. strategies and capabilities for restoring power and other essential utility services against highly capable cyberthreats, the program said.
An NG911 session will ask what the journey from legacy 911 to next-generation 911 will look like. It will also look at the elements and end-state architecture envisioned by the National Emergency Numbering Association (NENA) i3 standard, according to the program, and will feature Mike Nelson, Intrado-senior technical officer. The E911 discussion will focus on who should fix the gaps in E911 governance as everything moves toward IP networks. It will feature David Simpson, FCC Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau chief; Don Brittingham, Verizon vice president-public safety policy; Jeffrey Cohen, APCO International director-government affairs; Brian Fontes, NENA executive director; and Dorothy Spears-Dean, Virginia Information Technologies Agency public safety communications coordinator, on behalf of the National Association of State 911 Administrators executive committee. Lichtenberg said she expects that panel and the one on E911 to be particularly enlightening.
Another big issue NARUC plans to tackle is rural broadband. Nelson is on a panel with Robert Goodling, extension associate, Penn State Extension; Charles Hibberd, dean and director-extension, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Matt Larsen, CEO, Vistabeam; and Brian Thomason, CEO, Blue Valley Tele-Communications. The session will focus on broadband use in rural America to feed the world more efficiently and drive the U.S. economy, Nelson said. He said it’s an important issue he has been working on for a while: “We don't want people to think, 'Well, we've got to have rural broadband so people can play with Facebook.' It's a thousand times deeper than that, particularly as it impacts the economy of this country, as it impacts our ability to produce food for this country and the world. So what I'm hoping to see here is that strong tie between the availability of rural broadband and its impact on agriculture and allowing agriculture to become much more productive than it has in the past.”