September 2009

A highway safety organization is calling for restrictions on cell phones and texting by drivers of commercial vehicles. Members of Advocates for Highway Safety are asking the federal agency that regulates trucks and buses to give urgent attention to the matter. Next week at Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's summit, he's expected to announce what the department calls "concrete actions" on issue.

Endeavour is analyzing broadband stimulus funding applications. New Mexico, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska all have fewer than 20 people per square mile and actual broadband performance that is demonstrably lower than the US average. Of these laggards, only Alaska makes the cut in the top 10 for total funding requests, but four out of the six are represented in the top 10 on a per capita basis - and a fifth, Montana, is ranked 11th. This one piece of news is encouraging, at least: Some of the money is likely to head to the markets with the greatest need. Unfortunately, digging deeper provides reason for concern. Three of the top 10 states ranked on funding requests per capita are in the top 10 for actual broadband performance: Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, and Maryland. These are all densely populated areas with meaningful broadband competition. Looking at specific high value applications gets even more interesting. Among the top 10 applications, four are satellite, three are unlikely to qualify, and the remaining two have a disturbing, "bridge to nowhere" feel. These are all very large projects and most don't seem to fit the model the architects of the broadband stimulus program had in mind.

Hickins talks to Skydeck founder and CEO Jason Devitt about Network Neutrality. Skydeck provides services to help users organize their wireless communications and contacts.) Devitt is an "ardent supporter" of the view that incumbent carriers shouldn't be allowed to use their networks to discriminate against service or content providers. "Entrepreneurs should not require permission in order to set up a business or bring a new product to market," he said. What about the fact that the incumbents invested all that money on the pipes upon which he wants to piggy-back? It seems logical that if they built the network, they should be free to decide who gets to use it. Ah yes, except that they're called incumbents for a reason. They were handed the right to build the infrastructure (and tear up our streets) and enjoy the numerous benefits of incumbency, "with the understanding that the public reserves the right to impose certain conditions on them in the future in return for granting them this huge privilege." To the idea that rivals should simply go build their own networks, "the reality is you can't -- local communities won't allow 30 different companies to dig up streets... The compromise is that we grant a handful of companies the privilege to all this pipe, subject to other services being able to use the pipe as a shared facility." Sort of like other common carriers, like railroads, who get to charge for this service, and who are exempted from liability for criminal or fraudulent behavior (like piracy) committed on their networks by third parties. According to Devitt, Skydeck would have a much greater range of services to offer consumers were it not for the fact that carriers act as gatekeepers of the network. "With every new feature we're thinking about, every new product we're bringing to market, we have to think about what the implications are from that perspective," he lamented.

Six Republican senators co-sponsoring an amendment to prevent the Federal Communications Commission from enacting new broadband rules have received more than $400,000 in campaign and political-action contributions from AT&T, the telecom giant that has criticized the new FCC rules, as well as other large telecoms and cable companies.

Campaign finance records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show that AT&T-related entities have donated some $67,300 to the campaign and political action committees of Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas Republican and lead sponsor of the amendment to an unrelated Interior Department appropriations bill that would bar the FCC from spending money "to develop and implement new regulatory mandates."

Four of Hutchison's five co-sponsors have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from AT&T and Verizon, and a fifth worked for a DC lobbying firm -- before he was elected senator -- when it represented Comcast, the cable giant.

Over the course of his career, Sen Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) has received $220,914 from "telephone utilities," including some $83,130 from AT&T, his second-largest donor, in the form of employee and lobbyist donations to his campaign and political-action committees. Sprint Nextel has given Brownback $35,550 over the course of his career.

Two of the co-sponsors of the bill, Sen David Vitter (R-LA) and Sen John Ensign (R-NV), have been on the receiving end of AT&T's largesse. AT&T and predecessor BellSouth have donated $82,050 to Vitter's campaigns and political-action committees. And over the last four years, AT&T has donated some $61,250 to Ensign's campaign and political-action committees. Verizon-related entities donated $46,600 to Ensign during that period. During that time, AT&T has donated $63,750 to the campaign and political-action committees of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). AT&T is DeMint's second-largest donor.

Sen John Thune (R-SD) has not received significant donations from the telecom industry since his 2006 defeat of Sen. Tom Daschle, then Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. But from 2003 to 2005, Sen Thune served as a senior policy adviser to the D.C. lobbying firm of Arent, Fox, when its client Comcast, the largest cable company in the U.S., paid some $40,000 in fees.