Nov 22, 2008 (Another weekend update)

"The FCC has always been one of those agencies where people think they can get a fair, impartial hearing based on the facts. Unfortunately, I don't think that has happened in the last few years."
-- Chairman Bart Stupak (D-MI), House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

The Telecom Act of 1996 has been "a huge success -- in France."
-- John Windhausen, Telepoly

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for SATURDAY NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Just catching up after our Internet outage on Friday.

THE TRANSITION
   Democrats Oust Longtime Leader of House Panel
   Waxman win has ripple effects
   The Waxman Democrats
   Change in Congress More Than a Slogan
   Shift Seen in Telecom Regulation
   What Next for Obama's Network?
   Penn State-led research team offers counsel for new administration
   Will Obama's FCC be Less Friendly to Incumbents?
   Wireless policies under scrutiny under Obama advisers
   Obama Urged To Focus On Government Data Use
   Google, others call for new broadband, energy policies

FCC REFORM
   Chairman Stupak to appear on The Communicators

BROADCASTING/CABLE
   $1.65 Million Grant to Civil Rights Group to Help Vulnerable Groups Transition to Digital TV
   Survival Mode: Is Cable The Future Of (Broadcast) TV?
   My Rx for Washington: First, Do No Harm
   Product Placement Disclosure Dispute Heads Toward Deadline at FCC
   Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties
   FCC, DOJ Appeal Janet Jackson To Supreme Court
   British Regulators Reject BBC Plan to Add Local Web Video News

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   US needs more broadband competition, expert says
   Homes With Tails: What if You Could Own Your Internet Connection
   User-generated video under siege
   12 myths about how the Internet works

WIRELESS
   Verizon Staff Viewed Obama's Account
   Prison Plans to Shackle Cellphones

QUICKLY -- Policy Archive; Eligible Services List

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THE TRANSITION

DEMOCRATS OUST LONGTIME LEADER OF HOUSE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Broder]
Representative Henry A. Waxman wrested the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee from Representative John D. Dingell on Thursday in a coup that is expected to accelerate passage of energy, climate and health legislation backed by President-elect Barack Obama. Democrats read the signals coming from the president-elect's transition office, which this week announced the intention to name Philip Schiliro, a longtime aide to Mr. Waxman, as the White House director of Congressional relations. Rep Waxman represents Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and well-to-do areas of West Los Angeles. He has long championed clean air legislation and measures to strengthen consumer protections. He supports tougher nursing home regulation, increased federal support for disease research and subsidies for prescription drugs for the poor and the elderly. As ranking member and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, he has been Congress's grand inquisitor, conducting high-profile investigations of Wall Street, Major League Baseball, Pentagon contractors and the tobacco industry. He has also served as the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health. Many lawmakers and lobbyists consider the Energy and Commerce Committee to be the most influential panel in either house of Congress, one that handles, by some estimates, all or parts of two-thirds of the legislation moving through the House. Three committees in the Senate share jurisdiction over bills relating to energy, environment, telecommunications and commerce, all of which pass through the single House committee. With Mr. Waxman's ascent, more leadership changes on the Energy and Commerce Committee are possible. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) is expected to replace Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) as chairman of the subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, which has jurisdiction over legislation involving virtually every form of energy.
http://benton.org/node/19192
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WAXMAN WIN HAS RIPPLE EFFECTS
[SOURCE: Politico.com, AUTHOR: Patrick O'Connor, Ryan Grim]
The fallout from the House Commerce chairmanship fight will ripple through Washington for years. But some lawmakers are worried about more immediate aftershocks. Chairman Henry Waxman has a handful of personnel decisions ahead, and those calls will be based on policy as much as personal politics. Democrats allow members to bid on subcommittee leadership slots, according to one senior aide. The Policy and Steering Committee, which voted to give Waxman the Energy and Commerce chairmanship, must approve these subcommittee posts. Dingell's subcommittee chairmen are already sending letters hoping to keep their jobs so they can have a hand in an aggressive environmental, energy and health care agenda Waxman is sure to pursue in coordination with the incoming Obama administration. Most members of the Energy and Commerce Committee backed Dingell in the race, so Waxman may need to tread lightly at the outset or risk losing support from the members he represents. On a more personal level, an army of aides and lobbyists owe their careers to Dingell ­ even House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) once worked for the Dean of the House. And this outcome could make life more difficult for many of them. But the job market is kind to anyone with a "D" after his or her name these days, now that a Democrat is taking over the administration and the party expanded its majorities in both chambers. Waxman's win was a mixed blessing for congressional Republicans. On the one hand, Republicans don't expect to work as closely with Waxman as they occasionally worked with Dingell. But the California Democrat makes an easy target for partisan attacks.
http://benton.org/node/19191
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THE WAXMAN DEMOCRATS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] John Dingell's fall from power yesterday is an important inflection point in the history of the modern Democratic Party. The House purge marks the final triumph of the Congressional generation that came of political age during the 1970s over the last lion of New Deal liberalism, and it is symbolic of the party's change in culture and policy priorities in the Barack Obama era. The coastal elites who now dominate Democratic politics will happily trade the blue collar for the green collar. Waxman belongs to a cohort who may work for sweeping expansion of government: "they aren't about to let an old warhorse with scruples about the costs of regulation interfere with their moment to govern." It's obvious who now pulls the Democratic levers of power, and anyone in the energy or health-care business had better erect the barricades.
http://benton.org/node/19190
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CHANGE IN CONGRESS MORE THAN A SLOGAN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Carl Hulse]
Age and seniority gave way in Congress on Thursday, a transformational shift for an institution where tremendous power has traditionally been built on sheer longevity, accumulated and savored with the passage of years. Past the choice of Henry Waxman over John Dingell to lead the House Commerce Committee, the 11th Congress will also see the departure or diminished role of Sens Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd. The abrupt change in status for the three lawmakers sent this fact swirling around Capitol Hill: their combined age of 258 exceeds the age of the United States itself. The careers of other very senior lawmakers were also coming to a close, including Senator John W. Warner, 81, the Virginia Republican elected 30 years ago; Senator Pete V. Domenici, 76, the New Mexico Republican who spent 36 years in the Senate, and Representative Ralph Regula, Republican of Ohio, 84, a 36-year veteran of the House. As they watched the procession, lawmakers said the generational transition had potential consequences for Congress, as the House and Senate were losing most of their World War II-era veterans and that unique perspective on history. But younger lawmakers say they are being inspired to assert themselves, spurred in some respects by the success of President-elect Barack Obama, a first-term senator who this year battered the seniority system on his way to the White House, leapfrogging more experienced senators of both parties along the way.
http://benton.org/node/19189
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SHIFT SEEN IN TELECOM REGULATION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Brody Mullins, Amy Schatz]
The telecommunications industry is bracing for a new era of increased regulation. New congressional leaders as well as policy makers in the Obama administration are expected to press for fresh limits on media consolidation and require phone and cable firms to open their networks to Internet competitors, lobbyists and industry officials say. Two pivotal figures will be Sen Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Rep Henry Waxman (D-CA). Their ascension marks a fundamental shift towards more activist regulation on telecom and other regulation. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) also is expected to play a significant role on telecommunications issues while Sen Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is expected to take a larger role in telecommunications policy. Sen Snowe is a moderate lawmaker who often sides with Democrats on industry regulations.
http://benton.org/node/19188
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WHAT NEXT FOR OBAMA'S NETWORK?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: E J Dionne Jr]
[Commentary] Electoral campaigns, like circus tents, quickly disappear after the show is over. But Obama is our first community-organizer president, and he sees the way he got elected as being almost as crucial as the fact that he won. Because of the emphasis he put on organizing, barackobama.com might fairly be seen as the most successful high-tech startup of the past two years. The urgency of the organizational discussion signals that Obama's lieutenants see the 2008 campaign as having fundamentally altered the contours of American politics. Democrats believe (and many Republicans fear) that Obama allowed his party and its allies to take an enormous leap forward in both technological sophistication and grass-roots activism. Preserving those gains and building on them is a priority for a man who sees organizing not only as instrumental but also as a way of transforming democracy itself.
http://benton.org/node/19187
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PENN STATE-LED RESEARCH TEAM OFFERS COUNSEL FOR NEW ADMINISTRATION
[SOURCE: Pennsylvania State University, AUTHOR: ]
An ambitious research collaboration involving 16 scholars at 11 research universities across the United States, overseen by Penn State's Institute for Information Policy (IIP), has produced a telecommunications and media policy agenda for the new administration. Members of the group urge that immediate steps be taken by the new administration, including: 1) enacting a network neutrality policy; 2) capping universal service expenditures at sustainable levels while redesigning universal service policy so that it is broadband focused; and 3) conducting an inventory of federal spectrum to determine if it can be used more efficiently to promote social and economic benefits. The FACT Working Group recommendations are based on a consensus that all communications services will eventually be provided over broadband and that the national goal should be to make broadband ubiquitous, content-rich and nondiscriminatory. Broadband policy should become a core part of the national agenda for economic recovery, according to the group. Achieving that goal requires adopting a comprehensive, national information policy that is technology neutral, socially inclusive and strikes a balance between promoting public goods and consumer markets.
http://benton.org/node/19186
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WILL OBAMA'S FCC BE LESS FRIENDLY TO INCUMBENTS?
[SOURCE: IP Business, AUTHOR: Bob Titsch]
[Commentary] The Obama-Biden transition team has disclosed that Susan Crawford, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and Kevin Werbach, a former FCC staffer and a Wharton professor, will lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Review team. Both are long-time net neutrality advocates. Industry pundits say the choice of Crawford and Werbach could signal a different approach to the incumbent-friendly telecom policymaking over the past eight years at the FCC. Indeed, in March at a telecom policy conference in Hollywood, Calif., Crawford said that Internet access is a "utility." Crawford also told Ambassador Richard Russell, the associate director on science and technology policy at the White House, that he lived in a fantasyland when he asserted that the United States' rollout of broadband is going well. We can assume that Crawford's stance indicates that President-elect Obama's FCC will be more inclined to regulate, more inclined to enforce competition rules for smaller players, and less willing to approve mega mergers.
http://benton.org/node/19185
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WIRELESS POLICIES UNDER SCRUTINY UNDER OBAMA ADVISORS
[SOURCE: RCR Wireless News, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Silva]
While it will be months before President-elect Barack Obama gets his administration in place and begins to roll out policy priorities, the selection of individuals focusing on high-tech agencies and their issues in the transition period suggests industry giants Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility could face greater scrutiny on open access, consolidation and other issues than they have the past eight years. Indeed, two academics assigned to the Federal Communications Commission transition review — Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach — are vocal advocates of open networks in the wireless and broadband sectors. Both are influential bloggers on cutting-edge telecom and high-tech policy issues. On a related front, the Obama administration could significantly shape the debate on whether short-code texting messaging should be regulated by the FCC. The cellphone industry opposes government intrusion into business decision-making on granting short codes for marketing campaigns. Some proponents of wireless open access and net neutrality are aggressively lobbying the FCC to establish a policy that forbids discrimination when wireless providers issue short codes.
http://benton.org/node/19197
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OBAMA URGED TO FOCUS ON GOVERNMENT DATA USE
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
President-elect Barack Obama's administration should craft sound policies on government use of data -- especially in the national security context, cybersecurity expert Fred Cate told reporters at a Friday briefing sponsored by Hunton & Williams' Centre for Information Policy Leadership. "Nobody has said the current state of law is good -- even people who are advocates for less privacy protection in this area want clearer laws," said Cate, who is also director of Indiana University's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. Nearly all the components of Obama's ambitious "change agenda," which includes reforms to the financial services sector, healthcare system and the economy, relate to the collection, use and processing of information, Abrams said. Privacy and information security are "at the top of the heap" and will be part of the regulatory, policy and legislative agenda going forward, he said.
http://benton.org/node/19196
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GOOGLE, OTHERS CALL FOR NEW BROADBAND, ENERGY POLICIES
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
The US government may be poised to reverse course on its market-only approach to rolling out broadband and a smart electricity grid to all corners of the country, advocates said Thursday. With a Democratic Congress and a Democratic and tech-savvy president in Barack Obama, the upcoming months will be the time to push for government involvement in building network infrastructure, said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press. In recent years, some conservatives and broadband providers have called on the government to stay out of broadband rollout, saying such "industrial-policy" intervention could lead to a heavily regulated industry, with little competition and high prices. "I'm about to use some words that have been profane in this town for the last eight years," Scott said at a Google-sponsored forum on broadband and electricity policy. "We need an industrial policy." If policy makers agree that universal broadband and a higher broadband adoption rate are crucial for the U.S. economy, "then we're going to have to take some really aggressive measures to get there," Scott said.
http://benton.org/node/19184
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FCC REFORM

CHAIRMAN STUPAK TO APPEAR ON THE COMMUNICATORS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Appearing this weekend on C-SPAN's The Communicators, House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Bart Stupak (D-MI) says, "The way FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has run the commission is not the way it is supposed to be run." "The FCC has always been one of those agencies where people think they can get a fair, impartial hearing based on the facts. Unfortunately, I don't think that has happened in the last few years." Chairman Stupak's investigation into the Federal Communications Commission has taken about a year because of the FCC's attempt to run out the clock by being uncooperative. Chairman Stupak said the report on the FCC is being finalized and that "certain individuals" have been asked to talk to the committee, but have declined. He declined to identify them, but they are key staffers of Chairman Martin. Stupak said they have been given a deadline after which the report will be released and their lack of cooperation noted. "We have been very cooperative with Congress, and we have provided them with all the documents they requested," said Rob Kenny, a spokesman for Chairman Martin. "FCC procedures under Chairman Martin have been the same as those under Republican and Democratic chairmen for the past decade," he added. "The chairman has provided three-week notice to fellow commissioners on all monthly agenda items. In addition, he also released details on his proposals publicly by holding press conferences in advance of the meeting."
http://benton.org/node/19183
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BROADCASTING/CABLE

$1.65 MILLION GRANT TO CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP TO HELP VULNERABLE GROUPS TRANSITION TO DIGITAL TV
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded $1.65 million to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) to help vulnerable populations transition to digital television with the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. Coupons should be requested by the end of the year for consumers to be prepared when full-power TV broadcasters switch from analog to 100 percent digital broadcasts after February 17, 2009. LCCR will establish two Digital TV Assistance Centers in seven television markets with large over-the-air populations to train local leaders to ensure that households most at-risk have the necessary tools, resources, and technical assistance to continue accessing free over-the-air television.
http://benton.org/node/19202
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SURVIVAL MODE: IS CABLE THE FUTURE OF (BROADCAST) TV?
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Diane Mermigas]
[Commentary] Is the system of broadcast networks and local affiliate television stations a broken business model? The strain on their dysfunctional paradigm is emanating from a devastating recession and the ongoing digital revolution. Both are permanently altering the rules of play for the networks. A case can be made for at least one of the Big 4 broadcast networks -- perhaps Fox or NBC -- emerging as a glorified general entertainment cable network within the next several years. The economic advantages: more steady ad revenues and consistent subscriber fees as content is distributed cross-platform. As for the TV affiliate part of the equation, its business model has been transforming for a decade against the backdrop of February's mandated broadcast-to-digital conversion. Network paid compensation has given way to affiliates paying to carry programs, and in turn, being paid by cable and other distributors for their signals. Exclusivity has given way to ubiquity. So the only unique commodity is stations' generally underestimated, under-monetized digital value of local news, content, community and advertising. Local TV stations will ultimately have to make it on their own as markets support only the best and most diverse (as in Hispanic and Indian stations), working in tandem with newspapers and cable operators.
http://benton.org/node/19181
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MY RX FOR WASHINGTON: FIRST, DO NO HARM
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
[Commentary] The last thing any broadcaster needs is Congress or the Federal Communications Commission fashioning new laws or rules that would add costs, reduce revenue or force stations to provide services that the marketplace isn't interested in. With Washington quiet, stations would be better able to focus on finding new sources of revenue to sustain themselves and in making cost cuts that will not permanently damage their businesses. Jessell proposes a one-year moratorium on all rulemaking proceedings. No retransmission consent reform. No localism obligations. No product placement regulations. No restrictions of advertising of any kind. No free political airtime mandates. No more broadcast spectrum grabs. No TV violence restrictions. No nothing. And while the new FCC is busy doing nothing it might ease up on the indecency enforcement.
http://benton.org/node/19201
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PRODUCT PLACEMENT DISCLOSURE DISPUTE HEADS TOWARD DEADLINE AT FCC
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Ira Teinowitz]
Friday was the deadline for comments in a federal Communications Commission proceeding on television sponsorship. An advertising group, TV networks and TV news directors are urging the Federal Communications Commission not to increase TV sponsorship and placement disclosures. Consumer groups, meanwhile, want the agency to make the disclosures more prominent. Consumer groups, among them Commercial Alert, have complained about increasing product placement as advertisers try to find new ways to advertise in order to offset the impact of commercial-skipping technology in digital video recorders. The groups have said the increased placement demands higher disclosure standards. They also have complained disclosure of placement can now come long after a product is seen. Some of the groups have urged the FCC to require disclosure at the moment a product is seen on screen. The consumer groups have found some support for tougher standards from FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein.
http://benton.org/node/19200
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RADIO HOST HAS DRUG COMPANY TIES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Gardiner Harris]
An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular NPR program "The Infinite Mind" earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. The psychiatrist and radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated. Dr. Goodwin's weekly radio programs have often touched on subjects important to the commercial interests of the companies for which he consults. Margaret Low Smith, vice president of National Public Radio, said NPR would remove "The Infinite Mind" from its satellite radio service next week, the earliest date possible. Ms. Smith said that had NPR been aware of Dr. Goodwin's financial interests, it would not have broadcast the program. The program has received major underwriting from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, both of which have policies requiring grantees to disclose and manage conflicts of interest. Mr. Grassley wrote letters to both agencies asking whether disclosure rules were followed for the grants. Spokesmen for both agencies said they were cooperating with the investigation. Sen Grassley's investigation demonstrates how deeply pharmaceutical commercial interests reach into academic medicine, and it has shown that universities are all but incapable of policing these arrangements. As a result, almost every major medical school and medical society is reassessing its relationships with makers of drugs and devices. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said that although concerns about news media bias were growing, few people believed that journalists took money from those they covered. Disclosures like those surrounding Dr. Goodwin could change that, "so this kind of thing is very damaging," Mr. Rosenstiel said.
http://benton.org/node/19199
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FCC, DOJ APPEAL JANET JACKSON TO SUPREME COURT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals in July threw out the Federal Communications Commission's $550,000 fine against CBS stations for the broadcast of Janet Jackson's bare nipple as arbitrary and capricious. Calling that decision flawed, the FCC, backed by the Department of Justice, has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the decision. The FCC and Justice argue that the lower court did not give due deference to the FCC's "legitimate and rational basis for what it was doing and the court was improperly intruding into the FCC's turf."
http://benton.org/node/19180
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BRITISH REGULATORS REJECT BBC PLAN TO ADD LOCAL WEB VIDEO NEWS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Pfanner]
British regulators rejected a plan on Friday to add locally focused video news to BBC Web sites in Britain, dealing a setback to the digital ambitions of the BBC, which has expanded aggressively on the Internet. The BBC Trust, which oversees the public broadcaster, and Ofcom, the British media regulator, said the proposal would have hurt rivals in the private sector, including the Web sites of newspapers. Under the plan, the BBC wanted to spend £68 million, or $100 million, and hire 400 people to provide news, sports and weather for dozens of local BBC Web sites. Commercial rivals said the £3 billion in public financing that the BBC receives each year gave it an unfair advantage. The BBC Trust, which was created last year, previously approved other contested BBC Internet initiatives, including the addition of advertising to the BBC News Web site outside Britain.
http://benton.org/node/19198
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

US NEEDS MORE BROADBAND COMPETITION, EXPERT SAYS
[SOURCE: The Industry Standard, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
So, we could use a little more competition. US broadband consumers have limited choices and prices could fall if there were more competition. John Windhausen, president of Telepoly, a telecom consulting firm, says other countries with higher speeds and lower prices have generally taken a different route than the US, which has generally relied on the marketplace to determine the cost and quality of broadband. Japan, for example, has mandated that its incumbent telecom carriers roll out fiber-based broadband service, and many countries in Europe require incumbent broadband carriers to share their lines with multiple competitors. The European line-sharing approach is modeled after the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996, but that approach was later abandoned by the Federal Communications Commission in favor of the network operator being the lone broadband provider. The Telecom Act has been "a huge success -- in France," Windhausen said.
http://benton.org/node/19195
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HOMES WITH TAILS: WHAT IF YOU COULD OWN YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION
[SOURCE: New America Foundation, AUTHOR: Tim Wu, Derek Slater]
America's communications infrastructure is stuck at a copper wall. For the vast majority of homes, copper wires remain the principal means of getting broadband services. The deployment of fiber optic connections to the home would enable exponentially faster connections, and few dispute that upgrading to more robust infrastructure is essential to America's economic growth. However, the costs of such an upgrade are daunting for private sector firms and even for governments. These facts add up to a public policy challenge. Wu and Slater propose household investments in fiber. Consumers may one day purchase and own fiber connections that run from their homes. They would then be able to connect to a variety of service providers, including today's Internet, television, and telephone services, as well as ultra-bandwidth intensive services of the future. Consumers would have the opportunity not only to get a fast broadband connection, but also benefit from greater competition and lower prices in the retail service market.
http://benton.org/node/19194
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USER-GENERATED VIDEO UNDER SIEGE
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Richard Siklos]
Big media companies video wares have been gaining more notice both on YouTube and elsewhere on the web -- these aren't the user-generated clips on which the three-year-old site built its primacy. Of course, there is still a staggering volume and variety of Diet-Coke-and-Mentos-grade home video being uploaded to YouTube - some 13 hours of it each minute. And putting full-length Hollywood material on the web's top video site is a logical next step. In some respects, YouTube is playing catch-up to compete with the flood of shows available on the web from all the major TV networks, both on their own sites and others like Yahoo and Hulu. What's obviously happening here is the beginning of a monumental battle for online video viewers' attention.
http://benton.org/node/19179
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12 MYTHS ABOUT HOW THE INTERNET WORKS
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Carolyn Duffy Marsan]
Thirty years have passed since the Internet Protocol was first described in a series of technical documents written by early experimenters . Since then, countless engineers have created systems and applications that rely on IP as the communications link between people and their computers. Here's the rub: IP has continued to evolve, but no one has been carefully documenting all of the changes.
http://benton.org/node/19177
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WIRELESS

VERIZON STAFF VIEWED OBAMA'S ACCOUNT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Verizon Wireless said last night that a number of its employees have "accessed and viewed" President-elect Barack Obama's personal cellphone account without authorization. The company said all employees who accessed the account -- whether they were authorized to or not -- were immediately put on leave with pay. The firm said it was evaluating the circumstances of each employee's access to the account to determine appropriate action, including disciplinary proceedings. "We apologize to President-elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day," chief executive Lowell McAdam said in a statement.
http://benton.org/node/19182
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PRISON PLANS TO SHACKLE CELLPHONES
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Andrew LaVallee]
A South Carolina prison's plan to test a cellphone-jamming system is running afoul of the wireless industry but has sparked interest among some lawmakers and law-enforcement groups. Blocking or jamming wireless communications is illegal in the U.S., although the Federal Communications Commission has some leeway in granting permission to federal agencies. Violators can be fined as much as $125,000. The FCC hasn't attempted to stop South Carolina's demonstration, however, and a spokesman said, "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin understands the concerns of state and local law enforcement officials and is willing to work with them on this complex issue."
http://benton.org/node/19178
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QUICKLY

POLICY ARCHIVE
[SOURCE: Policy Archive, AUTHOR: ]
Policy institutions around the United States spend a staggering $1.5 billion on research each year. Many of them do an excellent job in terms of putting their policy papers, working papers, factsheets, and so on online for use by the public and scholars. Of course, it can be very difficult to locate some of them, and that's where the Policy Archive steps in. Sponsored by the Center for Governmental Studies and the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Library, the Policy Archive site brings together thousands of full text documents, reports, videos, and multimedia material generated by these various think tanks and institutions. First-time visitors can take a look at the "Featured Collections" on the right-hand side of the page, and then move on over to the topic quick links, which include everything from agriculture to technology. Additionally, policy institutions and the like can learn how to submit their own work to the archive. Visitors can also sign up to receive email newsletters about the latest research in the topic areas that are of interest to them.
http://benton.org/node/19176
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ELIGIBLE SERVICES LIST
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission released the funding year 2009 Eligible Services List for the schools and libraries universal service support mechanism (commonly known as E-rate). The Eligible Services List indicates whether specific products or services may be able to receive discounts under the Schools and Libraries Support Mechanism.
The List is organized into four sections that represent the four funding categories -- Telecommunications Services, Internet Access, Internal Connections, Basic Maintenance of Internal Connections -- plus a Miscellaneous section that is applicable to multiple categories.
http://benton.org/node/19193
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