September 2009

President Barack Obama's policies on secrecy get higher grades for openness than those of President George W. Bush, yet there's still room for improvement, says a coalition of public interest groups. In a report issued Tuesday, the coalition says the new administration has made major strides toward more disclosure, including the recent release of Justice Department memos on Bush administration interrogation policies and Obama's embrace of greater openness under the Freedom of Information Act. The report noted, however, that the government has resisted release of photos from Army interrogation investigations; has not backed away from occasional use of the state secrets privilege; and has argued in court for secrecy regarding the role of former Vice President Dick Cheney in the Valerie Plame affair.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski released a comprehensive report on the Commission's ability to respond to natural disasters, terrorist attacks, public health emergencies, and other large-scale events. The report, prepared by the Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, is in response to the 30-day, top-to-bottom state-of-readiness review launched by Chairman Genachowski as one of his first actions at the agency. During emergencies, the FCC's primary mission is to ensure that essential communications networks and services are operable, reliable, and quickly restored when necessary so that the American public can communicate and receive emergency information. Equally important is the FCC's responsibility to ensure that America's public safety officials and first responders have the tools they need to protect lives, property, and strategic infrastructure. The report concludes that the Commission is prepared to respond to communications emergencies and perform its mission. The report also identifies a number of areas in which the FCC can improve its emergency planning and response: education and training, outreach and collaboration, emergency operations and alerts, and network analysis. The initiatives highlighted below have been completed, are underway, or will be launched in the near future. Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett said the FCC could seek expanded authority from Congress to obtain network outage information from cable companies and other Internet service providers during emergencies. The FCC currently has the authority to monitor the resiliency of landline and cellular Internet networks, but the FCC has less flexibility to regulate Internet services offered by "information services" such as cable.

If there was any lingering doubt that broadband was the new platform for technology innovation, new data out today from trade group The Broadband Forum should put it to rest for good. The number of broadband subscribers around the world grew to 445 million in the second quarter, led by China, with 93.6 million, followed by the U.S., with 86.2 million. Many of them are using DSL connections to log onto the Internet, the report found. The data also shows that over the past 12 months, Latin America and Eastern Europe were the fastest-growing broadband regions. Meanwhile Europe has emerged as the hub of IPTV activity, with some 13.6 million IPTV users as of the end of June. France remains the "champion" IPTV country, with more than 7 million subscribers.

[Commentary] While there's little consensus as to whether every home and business will someday require a fiber pipe, there should be no debate that every school in America needs fiber. The reasoning is simple: only fiber can support the demands for simultaneous capacity that the classrooms of today and tomorrow require.
Anything less than fiber means teachers will be handcuffed in terms of how much they can incorporate online experiences into their lesson plans. Schools won't be able to realize all the efficiencies and opportunities of their counterparts in other countries that have made a commitment to fiber. And ultimately our students will suffer from having limited access to a truly 21st century education. With all this in mind, our national broadband plan must acknowledge this basic reality of America's broadband demands. The plan can't afford to allow the debate over residential broadband's future and the sacred cow of maintaining strict technological neutrality to obfuscate what our schools truly need. And the simple truth is that our schools need fiber. But that's just one component of the national fiber plan that should be at the core of any national broadband plan. Many more details on what that national fiber plan should include and how we can go about accomplishing these goals to come in future posts. For now, though, let's push everything else aside, and come to agreement on the straightforward, justifiable, and achievable goal that every school in America needs and deserves fiber. The future of 21st century education in America depends on it.