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February 2010

Markey Introduces E-Rate 2.0

Rep Ed Markey (D-MA) has introduced the E-Rate 2.0 Act (H.R. 4619), to update the successful E-Rate program.

The bill directs the Federal Communications Commission to implement three pilot programs:

1) The first pilot program narrows the digital divide through the distribution of vouchers to enable low-income students to purchase residential broadband service.

2) The second utilizes a competitive grant program to extend funding for broadband equipment and services to selected community colleges and head start facilities that best demonstrate need and incorporation of broadband use in their educational mission.

3) The third enables certain E-Rate applicants serving particularly low-income students to apply for significantly discounted services and technologies for the use of e-books.

The bill also would provide for an inflation adjustment to the current $2.25 billion cap on the E-Rate program, so funding would increase with inflation. The bill also calls for the streamlining of the application process.

Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
Wednesday, February 18
3:00 pm

Agenda

  • The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to enhance the efficiency, openness, and transparency of the Commission's proceedings by improving and modernizing certain organizational and procedural rules.
  • The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to improve the transparency and effectiveness of the FCC's decision-making process by reforming the ex parte rules.
  • The Commission will consider an Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to enable schools that receive funding from the E-Rate program to allow members of the general public to use the schools' Internet access during non-operating hours at no additional cost to the Universal Service Fund.
  • A report on the status of the National Broadband Plan, providing a framework for the national purposes portion of the plan.

Did Verizon overreact by blocking 4Chan? Depends on whom you ask

Did Verizon Wireless overreact in blocking 4Chan.org? Depends on whom you ask.

Verizon says it didn't block the popular online bulletin board, but "eliminated connectivity" to portions of 4Chan that appeared to be flooding the network with traffic from a denial of service attack. The nation's largest wireless service provider said it would restore service to the site by the end of Monday. "The most important thing we offer? Our network," Verizon spokesman James Gerace wrote in a blog. "When our network is attacked, or at risk of attack in a way that could harm our customers' ability to make and receive calls, or use wireless multimedia and data services, we jump to action." 4Chan, in an email to Post Tech late Monday, disagreed. "4Chan did *not* conduct any kind of 'malicious attack' against Verizon's network and was mostly certainly 'blocked'," wrote founder Christopher Poole. He said the company wasn't warned ahead of time that Verizon would block its sites and compared Verizon's actions to an episode with AT&T last year. So what happened over the weekend? According to 4Chan, a denial-of-service attack was launched on the company's servers, spoofing the originating IP addresses so that it appeared to be coming from the Web site. But Poole said the attack was limited. The public Interest group Free Press said that despite the origins of the problem, carriers such as Verizon need to inform online users and Web sites of such actions. And, it said, the episode underscored the need for clearer guidelines for how Internet service providers control traffic over their networks.

Stimulus funds for high-speed Internet access tangled up

The Obama administration knew that there'd be a lot of interest in the $7.2 billion for high-speed Internet projects it included in last year's huge economic stimulus package.

The goal was to quickly create tens of thousands of jobs and connect millions of poor and rural communities to broadband, a technology that's essential for economic development, modern medicine and education. But officials had no idea that the demand for the cash would be so overwhelming. They also were bombarded with questions and challenges from large cable and phone companies including Comcast, Time Warner Cable and AT&T. The combination has swamped the agencies in charge and created a bottleneck that might threaten disbursement. After nearly a year, about 7% of the funds has been assigned to specific projects.

The effort to spend that money quickly but responsibly is like "trying to use a fire hose with a garden hose nozzle," says Craig Settles, an independent consultant who helps companies develop broadband strategies. "Getting broadband to the American public is not going to be easy."

Such concerns have trained a spotlight on two agencies grappling with the biggest telecommunications program either has ever handled. Congress gave the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) responsibility to allocate $4.7 billion. The remaining $2.5 billion is being handled by the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service (RUS). The agencies say that they'll meet the Sept. 30 deadline for allocating the funds.

Subsidies, Not Consolidation, Will Save TV

A Q&A with Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver.

In trying to bend laws and regulations their way, television broadcasters and their Washington representatives often find themselves opposed by public interest advocates -- like Free Press -- who have very definite ideas of how broadcasting and other media should be handled by the government. Silver says he recognizes the trouble that broadcasting and newspaper publishing is in, but he doesn't see media ownership consolidation as the way out. A better approach, he says, is direct government subsidies for noncommercial media and indirect subsidies for commercial media. He also sides with those who believe that TV stations ought to give back some of their spectrum so that it can be put to better use for broadband access. As for Comcast's proposed takeover of NBCU, he says, don't even think about it.

FCC Reform Moves Forward At Thursday's Meeting

[Commentary] Assuming the Federal government opens for business on Thursday, we can expect to see Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski taking another substantial step to make good on his pledge to reform how the FCC does business.

The agenda for the FCC's open meeting for Thursday, February 11 lists three items. Two have to do with changing FCC rules to make the agency more open and more streamlined, the third has to do with reforming the E-Rate Program under which schools get money to subsidize broadband. We can expect that to the extent the press cover this, the focus will go to the E-Rate story. At least people understand about broadband in schools. But for long term difference that matters, the FCC process stories -- while phenomenally boring and unsexy -- have much broader impact. It is easy to pledge more "openness" and make cosmetic changes. It takes commitment and determination to actually go through the process of changing rules to make things work better for everyone over the long haul. So a tip of the hat to Genachowski and everyone else at the Commission for carrying through on the commitment. Now up to us to do our part and actually participate in the rulemaking process.

YouTube dominates mobile Internet traffic; mobile VoIP on the rise

Mobile data traffic increased an astounding 72% in the latter half of 2009 as video streaming continued to slice bigger and bigger pieces out of the capacity pie, according to Allot Communication's Mobile Trends report.

YouTube alone accounted for 10% of all worldwide data consumption. Meanwhile VoIP traffic grew 44%, making little impact in the amount of capacity consumed but taking a sizable out of carriers' voice revenues. "VoIP traffic pales in comparison to video but it's very significant to operators because they view it as lost revenue," said Jonathan Gordon, director of marketing for Allot, a deep packet inspection (DPI) vendor that compiles a semi-annual report from its global install base. VoIP accounted for 3% of all call traffic on the mobile network, and that percentage includes calls made over 3G connections, not devices reverting to WiFi. The overall percentage of minutes being placed over a VoIP connection from a mobile device is much higher. Much of the streaming video increase is attributable to the increasing number of laptops connected through 3G, but the rise in VoIP can be blamed on another culprit, Gordon said.

All News, All the Time

Nancy Bauer Gonzales is news director of two CBS-owned L.A. television stations—KCBS (Channel 2) and KCAL (Channel 9)—and her mandate is to air as much local news as possible, as often as possible. That means a combined 11 hours each weekday, more news than anywhere else in the Southern California market. "They're at 5, 6, 11, 12, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11," says Bauer Gonzales, who sounds as if she's not done expanding the schedule. "I used to come into work thinking, 'OK, how can I push the business this week?'?" she tells me at the stations' headquarters in Studio City. Now it's 'How can I push it before lunch?'?" The answer always is more news. L.A. is being bombarded with news—it's on virtually nonstop, starting each morning at 4 a.m. (KNBC, Channel 4) and running throughout the day and late into the night. The stretch from 5 to 7 a.m. is especially intense: Besides KCBS and KNBC, there is news on KTLA (Channel 5), KABC (Channel 7), and KTTV (Channel 11). All told, 32 hours of local news every day, and that doesn't count non-English stations or the morning gabfests on channels 5 and 11. Expect additional slots to be filled in the coming months. TV stations are doing this not out of some newfound commitment to journalism but because the economics make sense.

Consumer Interface With the Smart Grid

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) within the Executive Office of the President requests input from the public regarding the consumer interface with the modernized electric grid, which is a vital component of the President's comprehensive energy plan. In particular, we seek comments on issues related to Smart Grid implementation options, including the ways in which each option would support open innovation in home energy services.

This Request for Information (RFI) will be active from February 10, 2010 to February 19, 2010.

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