A year after former FCC Managing Director Steve VanRoekel left the agency to become federal chief information officer, questions remain about the FCC’s revised website. Frequent users of the site say they continue to rely on the old version, the old blue and gold site, still available as the transition website. Meanwhile, the FCC has markedly decreased the number of blog entries it posts each month. The blog averaged 25 posts per month in 2010, but only about a fifth as many per month so far this year.
The FCC hopes more operators agree to use a yet-to-be-deployed type of stripped-down set-top box lacking a DVR for subscribers whose cable-connected consumer electronics lack CableCARDs, industry officials said. That would let the CE devices get scrambled broadcast and basic-cable channels, and the commission hopes that happens before an encryption order circulates, the officials said. They said some at the agency have signaled to the cable industry that the Media Bureau and Chairman Julius Genachowski’s office would like additional operators to agree to a hardware workaround for clear QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) products from CE companies including Boxee to get encrypted content.
The FCC’s plans for special access reform became a prominent issue during a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Tuesday where members queried the commissioners on a broad spectrum of regulatory issues. Chairman Julius Genachowski conceded that the current framework for special access is “not working” but said the commission lacks the necessary data to determine how exactly it should be reformed.
The U.S. is working with a coalition of countries and private sector organizations to ensure that proposals at the ITU to extend traditional telecom regulations to the Internet are defeated, said Daniel Weitzner, White House deputy chief technology officer. Some of those proposals are aimed at dealing with cybersecurity issues, while others would have the ITU get more involved in setting technical standards or in “administrative arrangements,” he said at an event at the Hudson Institute Tuesday.
Congress should move forward with extreme care as it examines possible changes to banking regulations to take into account mobile payments, said Sarah Hughes, professor of law at Indiana University, during a Senate Banking Committee hearing. Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said the committee plans more hearings on the topic as it tries to get a bead on whether regulatory changes are necessary. Tuesday’s hearing was the second examining mobile banking, and more are on the way, Johnson said.
It’s possible to protect civil liberties and privacy while ensuring cybersecurity, said Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute Monday, he said it was important for the U.S. to have cybersecurity “legislation.” He made clear he is not backing any specific piece of legislation now before Congress. “We as a nation need to look at this” and decide on “what we need as country,” he said.
More transparency and oversight must govern the way law enforcement agencies acquire personal information from wireless companies, lawmakers and privacy groups said Monday. The reactions came after nine wireless carriers, in responses made public Monday, said they had received more than 1.3 million federal, state and local law enforcement requests for cellphone records in 2011. The carriers emphasized that they are legally required to respond to police warrants, court orders and subpoenas and sought to reassure lawmakers that they do not sell their customers’ personal information to law enforcement agencies.
A report on the state of pay-TV competition is among the several media items FCC members may soon vote on, agency officials said. They said the report will put an end to the agency’s attempt with a past multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) competition report to Congress to see if the so-called 70/70 threshold was reached where cable operators passed 70 percent of U.S. households with at least 36 channels and 70 percent of residences subscribed. An order on the Tennis Channel’s program carriage complaint against Comcast is among other media-related items that may be acted on soon, agency officials said. Not on the eighth floor’s front burner is a further rulemaking notice on a radio and TV station biennial ownership form and an order on TV captioning waiver standards, commission officials said.
About 200,000 rural Americans could get broadband for the first time as Frontier announced Monday it would accept nearly $72 million from the FCC’s Connect America Fund. The commission announced the funding in April, allocating a total of $300 million to ten carriers if they agreed to deploy broadband to unserved areas (CD April 26 p1). Frontier is the first carrier to say it will accept the funding.
It’s feasible for Multi-Line Telephone System manufacturers to provide precise 911 location information, but groups that commented Friday differed on the proper role of the FCC in encouraging that capability. Some thought the FCC should pass rules explicitly extending location service requirements to MLTS manufacturers and operators, while others said the FCC was better positioned as an agency to guide the development of voluntary industry standards.