The FCC has fallen months behind its aggressive schedule for issuing follow-up orders to the National Broadband Plan. By the FCC’s latest count, 21 of 68 action items set up by the report remain incomplete. The agency has made “incremental progress” on two others, an agency spokesman said Friday. Two items which were scheduled to be wrapped up by the end of June remain on the FCC’s to-do list. Critics of the net neutrality order approved by the agency Dec. 21, including Republican Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker, say the agency’s months’ long focus on that order is in part responsible for sometimes slow progress implementing the plan.
On December 20-21, 2010, the Senate and House passed H.R. 4748, the Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy Act of 2010, to require the development of a northern border counternarcotics strategy1, and for other purposes. H.R. 4748 now heads to the President for his signature.
The FCC’s proposed mobility fund is too small to help build out 3G broadband for the nation’s under-served areas, T-Mobile, the Rural Telecommunications Group and South Dakota-based Flow Mobile said in comments filed in docket 10-208 and released Friday. Verizon and Windstream disagreed, saying the fund was appropriate. Verizon, in fact, went further and said that not only is the $100-$300 million proposed mobility fund adequate, but the FCC should phase out other support for competitive eligible telecommunications providers.
The FCC should revise its order on the Sirius XM channel set-aside to more directly promote the intended diversity of the 2008 order approving the deal, the Minority and Media Telecommunications Council said in a petition for reconsideration filed Thursday night. The group has said the recent implementation order undermines FCC Diversity Committee efforts to come up with a definition that promotes diversity without relying on race classifications. The diversity committee released its report soon after the latest order came out. MMTC President David Honig was on that committee. Concerned with constitutional issues, the commission revised the original condition on XM’s purchase by Sirius that had required a set-aside for minority-owned companies.
Net neutrality rules and an open telecommunications infrastructure were urged by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, Democratic State Representative Antonio Maestas of New Mexico and Chief Geoffrey Blackwell of the FCC Office of Native Affairs and Policy. They spoke Tuesday at a Free Press-sponsored public hearing in Albuquerque. New Mexico ranks 47th in broadband access.
Net neutrality rules and an open telecommunications infrastructure were urged by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, Democratic State Representative Antonio Maestas of New Mexico and Chief Geoffrey Blackwell of the FCC Office of Native Affairs and Policy. They spoke Tuesday at a Free Press-sponsored public hearing in Albuquerque. New Mexico ranks 47th in broadband access.
NTIA will propose legislation that would provide funding to help identify spectrum that might be ripe for commercial use, the agency said in its long-awaited “Plan and Timetable to Make Available 500 Megahertz of Spectrum for Wireless Broadband,” released Monday. NTIA laid out a schedule for identifying additional bands for reallocation over the next five years, committing to identify the first band for additional analysis in January. The agency also released a report on 115 MHz of spectrum already considered for fast-track reallocation.
On November 10, 2010, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Bersin addressed the 6th Sovereign Challenge Conference in El Paso, TX and discussed CBP’s approach to border management and how CBP is working with its Mexican and Canadian partners on border security issues. Highlights of the Commissioner’s remarks include:
The FCC is moving into “a very active phase of consumer protection,” in which truth in billing will be “expanded into truth about just about everything,” Chief Joel Gurin of the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said Wednesday, at what is expected to be the last meeting of the Consumer Advisory Committee under its current charter. The group is expected to be rechartered next year and work has started toward that, Gurin said.
Various U.S. government agencies are seeking comments on the following information collections for which they have requested or intend to request Office of Management and Budget approval or extension of approval (see notices for specific details):