October 2009

FCC November Meeting Agenda Continues Focus on Broadband

Less than a week since the Federal Communications Commission's last meeting, the Commission is already planning for next month. Chairman Julius Genachowski released a tentative agenda with two items: 1) Wireless Service Facility Siting: A Memorandum Opinion and Order on promoting the deployment of wireless broadband services by reducing delays in the construction and improvement of wireless networks, while also preserving local zoning authority. 2) National Broadband Plan Status Report: Commission staff will report on the status of the National Broadband Plan, which the FCC must deliver to Congress on Feb. 17, 2010. The presentation will include analysis of the major gaps in broadband in America. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 18, 2009

National Broadband Plan Must Address Middle Mile before Building Fiber to Anchor Institutions

Responding to the Federal Communications Commission's request for comment on cost estimates for connecting anchor institutions to fiber broadband networks, Fiberutilities Group says the "drop and entrance" construction approach in the Gates model needs to be supplemented to resolve the middle mile problem. The issue is that the fiber plant currently deployed for middle mile is either depleted, not available for new uses or not there at all. Without middle mile fiber there is no advantage gained by building the "last" mile fiber to anchor institutions as contemplated by the Gates Foundation study.

Evaluation of Broadband Investments on Small Businesses and Job Creation

The House Small Business Committee held a hearing to review steps to advance broadband deployment and adoption through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) programs. Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) noted that since larger telecommunications companies opted not to participate in the first round of broadband stimulus funding, small firms should win a sizeable chunk of available grants and loans. But she raised concerns that the programs' process has been less than seamless. Many small businesses have complained of challenges ranging from excessive paperwork to restrictive capital requirements. Representatives of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) testified on the current status of broadband investments and efforts to create opportunities for small businesses. NTIA head Larry Strickling said greater broadband availability impacts much more than the commercial operations and profit margins of small businesses. Broadband, by providing greater access to information, health care, education, and job opportunities, has the power to transform communities across the country and sow the seeds for the next generation of American entrepreneurship and innovation.

Senate Commerce Committee Ponders Perils Of Texting, Driving

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on distracted driving. Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and Sen Frank R. Lautenberg -- Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security -- introduced comprehensive legislation (S. 1938) to address the nationwide problem of distracted driving in both passenger and commercial vehicles.

Transportation Sec Ray LaHood noted three types of distraction: (1) visual taking your eyes off the road; (2) manual taking your hands off the wheel; and (3) cognitive taking your mind off the road. "While all distractions can adversely impact safety," Sec LaHood said, "texting is the most egregious because it involves all three types of distraction." Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said the FCC wants to play an active role in encouraging technologies that can reduce injuries and loss of life due to distracted driving. The Commission is examining whether there are ways in which it can act to create a climate that will allow consumers and industry to have more options in addressing the problem, he said.

Chairman Genachowski said he wants the FCC to set a good example and recently reinforced to agency employees the importance of complying with President Obama's recent executive order that banned the use of federal devices to text while driving. The order also prohibited the use of personal devices while driving government vehicles.

Steven Waldman Named to Lead FCC Effort on Future of Media in a Changing

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the appointment of Steven Waldman, a highly respected Internet entrepreneur and journalist, to lead an agency-wide initiative to assess the state of media in these challenging economic times and make recommendations designed to ensure a vibrant media landscape. Waldman is the Co-Founder, President, and Editor-in-Chief of Beliefnet.com, the largest multi-faith Web site for religion and inspiration, and served as its CEO from 2002 until 2007, when it was acquired by News Corporation. Under his leadership, Beliefnet won the top editorial awards on the Internet, including the General Excellence Award from the Online News Association and the National Magazine Award for General Excellence Online. Waldman, who will join the Office of Strategic Planning and serve as Senior Advisor to the Chairman, will work with the relevant FCC bureaus and lead an open, fact-finding process to craft recommendations to meet the traditional goals of serving the public interest and making sure that all Americans receive the information, educational content, and news they seek. He will step down from Beliefnet and News Corporation and discontinue his blog and the regular column he writes for Wall Street Journal Online.

FCC Defends "Fleeting Expletives" Fox Ruling

In a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the Federal Communications Commission says it was correct to conclude that the "vulgar expletives" from Cher and Nicole Richie during a Fox 2002 broadcast of the Billboard Music Awards were a violation of community standards for broadcasting. Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the FCC's decision to "expand broadcast indecency enforcement to fleeting expletives, Fox is left with no basis for challenging the Commission's determination that the broadcasts violated longstanding federal prohibitions against broadcasting indecent material." The Commission also said indecency regulation is still necessary to "ensure that parents can construct 'a relatively safe haven for their children.'" The FCC reaffirmed that it believes broadcasting to be pervasive and uniquely accessible to children, and that broadcasting remains a unique medium given its free access to spectrum. "[U]nlike wireless telephone companies and others who are required to pay often substantial sums at auction for spectrum licenses," said the commission, broadcasters get theirs for free in exchange for public interest obligations.

PTC Finds Increase in Violence Against Females on Television

New research from the Parents Television Council finds that storylines depicting violence against females are increasing and being shown more graphically and in ways that have not been seen in the history of television. The PTC's report examined fatal and nonfatal female victimizations on prime time broadcast television and finds that there was a significant increase in all forms of female victimization storylines; an increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims; an increase in the use of female victimization as a punch line in comedy series; and an increase in the depiction of intimate partner violence.

Major findings include:

1) Incidents of violence against women and teenage girls are increasing on television at rates that far exceed the overall increases in violence on television.

2) Every network but ABC demonstrated a significant increase in the number of storylines that included violence against women between 2004 and 2009.

3) Although female victims were primarily of adult age, collectively, there was a 400% increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims across all networks from 2004 to 2009.

4) Fox stood out for using violence against women as a punch line in its comedies -- in particular Family Guy and American Dad -- trivializing the gravity of the issue of violence against women.

5) From 2004 to 2009 there was an 81% increase in incidences of intimate partner violence on television.

Facebook challenges financial regulators: FINRA

Social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn raise "serious new challenges" for financial regulators, the head of the largest U.S. independent securities regulator said on Tuesday. Wall Street bankers and analysts increasingly want to use social networking to connect and interact with customers, Richard Ketchum, the chief executive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said. But as these sites are currently designed they may not allow firms to keep the kind of archives of their employees' business communications required by regulators, Ketchum told industry group Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's (SIFMA) annual meeting.

House Passes the Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program Extension Act

The House of Representatives passed by a vote of 420 to 0 the Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program Extension Act of 2009. This bipartisan legislation, which was introduced in the House by Rep. Jane Harman, would allow the National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) to extend the deadline for making grants to public safety agencies to improve the interoperability of emergency communications systems. Under current law, all grant expenditures must be completed by September 30, 2010.

Sandvine follows shift to services, user experience

Deep packet inspection (DPI) is evolving into something new. It has to what it was before, with a focus on helping providers manage packets and protocols, is both a done deal in most networks and a bit verboten in this age of Network Neutrality. That's part of the message in the release of an updated usage management solution from DPI vendor Sandvine, perhaps best known for providing the traffic switches at the heart of Comcast's network which has drawn the scrutiny, and sometimes ire, of the FCC. Sandvine released Usage Management 2.5, a new version of one of its core solutions for helping network providers both wireline and wireless institute new billing models driven on user consumption, service plan tiering and other approaches that try to manage the bandwidth crunch by influencing usage patterns.

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