SAN FRANCISCO -- FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel are visiting the Bay Area and Silicon Valley this week, meeting with prominent technology companies and some advocacy groups that are pushing technology policy at the agency. The two toured Verizon’s regional innovation center and AT&T’s Foundry -- each set up to liaise with the technology development community here. They met with Apple, Netflix, Google, Twitter and Facebook, Pai said. “Part of the reason we wanted to come to California was to get a sense of what drives innovation and investment growth in what I think most people would agree is the most dynamic part of our economy,” Pai told us.
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Themes of outreach and consumer access rang loudly at the midyear meeting of NARUC commissioners and staff. Telecom industry officials, regulators and advocates are struggling to connect people with broadband and teach digital literary skills as an extension of traditional access concerns, and voiced those challenges extensively on panels. Panelists and observers weighed in on the barriers to broadband adoption and how to give access and teach the value and understanding to the rural, the elderly, the low-income and those with disabilities.
Wireless carriers must be protected from interference if the FCC allows more deployment of balloon-mounted systems and other aerial base stations that could be quickly deployed to temporarily replace communications destroyed in a disaster, CTIA, AT&T and Sprint Nextel responded to a notice of inquiry. The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials was more bullish on the benefits offered by deployable aerial communications architecture (DACA). APCO said the systems also pose risks. The commission approved the NOI at its May meeting (CD May 25 p 3), with Chairman Julius Genachowski comparing DACA to a “cell tower that’s floating or flying in the sky.” Agency officials said then they'd drawn no conclusions on whether DACA should see broad use.
Where the first decades of the Internet were marked by a hands-off approach to regulation and legal issues, lawmakers must now focus on ensuring users’ privacy as the worldwide network of networks becomes ever more fundamental to so much of society, lawmakers and privacy experts said Wednesday. At a New America Foundation panel on transatlantic perspectives on digital rights and online privacy (http://xrl.us/bnh7hj), a delegation from Germany discussed Europeans’ concerns on digital policy issues.
PORTLAND, Ore. -- State commissions need to get involved in the growing cybersecurity problem, said panelists at a midyear meeting of state utilities regulators, although they also said sometimes the best way for regulators to get involved is to regulate at a minimum.
Several super-fast Internet initiatives were introduced this year to address the need for citizens to have access to broadband and benefit from emerging applications, backers of one such project said Wednesday. Backers of the White House-convened US Ignite Partnership cited Gig.U, the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project and Google’s fiber project in Kansas City, Kan. The need for more capacity and universal access stems in part from the use of wireless networks and developing applications, said Sue Spradley, US Ignite executive director. With all that’s happening in the wireless space, “it’s clear that there’s tons of innovation happening in the U.S.,” she said on a webinar organized by BroadbandUS.TV.
Three leading House cybersecurity advocates said Wednesday in separate interviews at the Capitol they were encouraged by the Senate’s intention to bring a cybersecurity bill to the floor. Members said they hope the Senate will be able to reach a compromise on the revised Senate Cybersecurity Act (S-3414) in a way that resembles the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) (HR-3523). Sponsors of S-3414 previously said Majority Leader Harry Reid, R-Nev., plans to bring the bill to the floor for consideration before lawmakers depart Aug. 3 (CD July 25 p12).
Last week’s report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) confirms what NTIA has been saying for the past year about the importance of spectrum sharing, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said at the opening of the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) meeting Wednesday in Boulder, Colo. But federal government speakers at the meeting said they continue to have concerns about sharing and whether the PCAST report (CD July 23 p1) outlines what will become a final, national policy.
Comcast said it plans to appeal an FCC order largely upholding the ruling of an administrative law judge that it violated program carriage rules in its treatment of the Tennis Channel. The commission voted 3-2 along party lines to uphold Chief FCC ALJ Richard Sippel’s December ruling that Comcast distribute the Tennis Channel, which it doesn’t own, to the same extent it distributes its own Golf Channel and Versus (now called NBC Sports Network) channels (http://xrl.us/bnh4ks). The order gave Comcast 45 days to comply with the sanctions, which include a $375,000 forfeiture, and clarified Sippel’s recommendation to require the operator to carry the plaintiff “on the same distribution tier, reaching the same number of subscribers, as it does Golf Channel and Versus."
AT&T and Verizon have their own plans for developing broadband, and they don’t include accepting money from the FCC, the telcos said. AT&T rejected $48 million and Verizon $20 million of Connect America Fund (CAF) support, citing prior company strategy regarding broadband development. The Virgin Islands Telephone Co. declined the $255,000 Vitelco was allocated, saying it was unable to meet a condition for accepting the funds.