Japanese-owned SoftBank should not be permitted to buy Sprint due to national security concerns, said former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell during the first of two House cybersecurity hearings Tuesday. SoftBank’s $20.1 billion bid to buy 70 percent of Sprint Nextel has recently been criticized because of allegations that SoftBank uses equipment from Chinese telecom manufacturers Huawei and ZTE (CD May 21 p12). “If you are in the intelligence business ... the one thing you would love to do is run the telecommunications infrastructure in another country ... so having a foreign country own and control a communications company inside the United States ... I would not be in favor of,” said McConnell, who was in George W. Bush’s administration and is now the vice chairman at Booz Allen Hamilton.
Top minority members of the House Commerce Committee objected, in a letter sent to FCC commissioners Thursday, to a recent Republican letter urging the FCC to reject the Justice Department’s advice to implement spectrum aggregation rules or caps. Democrats said (http://1.usa.gov/16CnoJ1) the GOP letter is another example of Republicans seeking to “advance a one-sided re-interpretation of the goals and meaning” of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act in an “attempt to spin the legislative history in a way that inaccurately reflects the intent of Congress in adopting these provisions.” Top Republican members of the House Commerce Committee had previously told FCC commissioners that the Justice filing wasn’t consistent with the Spectrum Act and could lead to a failed auction (CD April 23 p1).
U.S. broadband projects received a boost from federal stimulus programs, but that didn’t end ongoing needs that have new urgency with stimulus money disappearing, said federal and state officials at the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition meeting Thursday in Washington. State leaders shared strategies and updates on how different efforts were progressing in their region. NTIA released a 68-page toolkit (http://1.usa.gov/YhGzCZ) of best practices, focused on its more than 200 Broadband Technology Opportunities Program stimulus grantees.
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said there is “plenty of blame to go around” but the current data on the program “doesn’t paint a picture of success,” in his opening remarks. He said the Lifeline fund grew 226 percent since 2008 and, in 2012, the FCC spent $2.2 billion on the program. “Specifically, it spent $2.2 billion of your money, my money -- virtually every American’s money -- since the Lifeline program and the entire Universal Service Fund is paid for through a charge on phone bills,” he said. “We are spending large sums of money and probably squandering much of it.”
House lawmakers are taking a close look this week at the FCC’s handling of the Universal Service Fund Lifeline Assistance Program, aimed at increasing Americans’ access to telecom service. On Thursday, Republicans on the House Communications Subcommittee said they plan to ask during a hearing at 10:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn tough questions about allegations of waste and fraud in the FCC Lifeline program. Meanwhile, a group of House Democrats, led by Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., introduced a bill Tuesday to change the Lifeline program and codify a provision that would permit eligible users to use subsidies to acquire wireless broadband services. House Communications Subcommittee Democrats also met with FCC staff members to discuss the status of the overall program.
House Commerce Committee members formed a bipartisan working group to consider rural telecom issues like call completion, spectrum, broadband access and broadband speed, said a news release Tuesday. The 18-member group will be led by Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Bob Latta, R-Ohio. The group will “serve as a forum to educate committee Members on rural issues to ensure that rural priorities are understood and addressed in the important work of this Committee,” Latta and Welch said in a joint statement. Other members are: John Barrow, D-Ga.; Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.; Bruce Braley, D-Iowa; Lee Terry, R-Neb.; G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.; Morgan Griffith, R-Va.; Lois Capps, D-Calif.; Billy Long, R-Mo.; Ben Lujan, D-N.M.; Cory Gardner, R-Colo.; Doris Matsui, D-Calif.; Renee Ellmers, R-N.C.; Jerry McNerney, D-Calif.; Brett Guthrie, R-Ky.; Paul Tonko, D-N.Y.; and Bill Cassidy, R-La. NTCA commended the working group’s focus on broadband deployment, rural call completion and spectrum allocation, in a news release. “These and other issues weigh heavily on the minds of rural consumers, and we appreciate the committee members’ willingness to devote more of their attention to seeking smart policy solutions,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield.
Capitol Hill’s dormant net neutrality debate boiled over Wednesday afternoon as House lawmakers sparred ahead of the markup of a bill aimed at codifying the U.S. policy against “government control” of the Internet. Republicans on the House Communications Subcommittee argued that international governments are seeking to regulate the Web through a U.N. body and U.S. lawmakers must send a strong message that it’s committed to Internet freedom. But Democrats on the panel loudly objected to the bill’s use of the term “government control,” which they said was overly broad and could have unintended consequences on U.S. and foreign policy regarding the Web. Technology groups and public interest groups said they also opposed the “government control” language in the bill and urged lawmakers to reject or amend the provision in separate statements and blog posts.
The FCC notified the NTIA it plans to start an auction of licenses in the 1695-1710 and 1755-1780 MHz bands as early as September 2014. In doing so, the FCC satisfied a requirement of last year’s spectrum law, the FCC said (http://fcc.us/ZNM3n7). “As directed by Congress in the Spectrum Act, NTIA recently identified the 1695-1710 MHz band as the 15 megahertz of spectrum between 1675 MHz and 1710 MHz to be reallocated from federal use to non-federal use,” the FCC said. “The Spectrum Act now requires the Commission to allocate this identified spectrum for commercial use and to license the spectrum by February 2015. Our goal is to ensure that the Commission has adequate time to conduct this auction and complete the subsequent licensing process prior to the Spectrum Act’s deadline.” The 1695-1710 MHz is part of the 1675-1710 MHz band, which provides weather satellite downlinks, and was the subject of a Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee working group, which looked at sharing in the band. The 1755-1780 MHz band has been a longtime target for carriers for reallocation for wireless broadband. A government official said the move is mostly ministerial and provides options for the FCC to reallocate the 1755 MHz spectrum, though many questions remain. “We are happy that both the FCC and NTIA are working to move these two pairings to auction,” said CTIA Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe. “Clearing this spectrum and moving the bands to auction will bring tremendous, measurable benefits to our economy, our citizens and our country.” “T-Mobile has worked closely with the FCC, NTIA, and federal users to make these bands available for mobile broadband use and today’s designation marks a critical milestone in this process,” said Senior Vice President Tom Sugrue. “When paired with spectrum the FCC already has under its jurisdiction, these frequency blocks can provide an additional 80 MHz of valuable spectrum adjacent to the AWS-1 band, and expand US leadership in LTE mobile broadband deployment.” Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member John Thune, R-S.D., said he was glad to see the FCC taking steps to pair and auction together the 1755-1780 MHz and 2155-2180 MHz wireless spectrum bands according to a news release following the publication of the letter. Thune commended Commissioner Ajit Pai for advocating the FCC use of its notify-and-auction authority and said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has “once again shown he clearly understands the tremendous potential of commercial mobile broadband and the importance of making more public resources available to the private sector for development,” the news release said. Thune urged NTIA and the White House to concentrate their efforts on reallocating the 1755-1780 MHz band “for as much exclusive, non-federal use as is feasible. Cleared spectrum is the best way to meet consumer demand and raise revenues needed to relocate current users and reduce the deficit,” he said. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said she too was pleased by the FCC’s letter: “Pairing the 1755-1780 MHz band with 2155-2180 MHZ band makes sense not just for revenue purposes, but also for innovation in our ever growing digital economy,” she said in an email sent via her spokesman. “The clock is ticking on the AWS-3 spectrum reallocation. We must find a timely solution that address both our economic needs and our national security challenges.” Last congress Matsui introduced the Efficient Use of Government Spectrum Act which sought to require the FCC to pair for commercial auction the 1755-1780 MHz band with the 2155-2180 MHz band (CD April 27 p5).
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Thursday at a subcommittee oversight hearing he’s concerned the FirstNet board is not sufficiently consulting state officials as it develops the first interoperable public safety network. Walden’s comments echoed the recent complaints of state public safety officials who told lawmakers they're not adequately involved in the decisions being made by the FirstNet board. The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act requires that the FirstNet board represent the interests of a broad range of stakeholders, including: public safety; states, territories, tribes and localities; and urban and rural representation.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., reintroduced her Global Free Internet Act this week (http://1.usa.gov/1082MC4). The bill -- which has California Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda and Doris Matsui as original cosponsors -- would create a task force to monitor and respond to actions by foreign and domestic governments “that deny fair market access to Internet-related goods and services, or that threaten the technical operation, security, and free flow of global Internet communications,” said a Lofgren release(http://1.usa.gov/Ydifh2). The task force would be composed of leaders of executive branch agencies, as well as four people nominated by congressional leadership and four people who are not government employees and who have been “nominated by the Internet itself” and “would hold public hearings, issue reports, and coordinate the activity of the U.S. government to respond to domestic and international threats to the Internet,” the release said. In a statement, Lofgren said: “For the Internet to remain a platform for innovation and prosperity, we need to address undue restrictions on Internet commerce and the global free flow of information.” The bill would ensure that a commitment to an open Internet be prevalent in U.S. foreign and trade policies, said Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Affairs Christopher Lewis in a statement (http://bit.ly/Xoxlom). “The Global Free Internet Act can provide much-needed balance to US efforts to ensure an open internet that promotes free speech around the world,” Lewis said.