April 2010

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps Explains Public Interest In Regulating Internet

Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps will appear on "Bill Moyers Journal" April 23. In the interview, Commissioner Copps says Network Neutrality won't be achieved "without a fight." he argues that because of the media shift online, it is in the public interest to regulate the administration of Internet service. "This is a tough question for America right now. Here you've got this dynamic technology that thrives on openness,that thrives on innovation... and you don't want to regulate or artificially limit it. But at the end of the day, if that's where everything is moving, if that's where our national dialogue, if that's where our civic dialogue is moving, there is a public interest component to that...." Commissioner Copps said. "I think at the end of the day, you have to come to that conclusion: we have a public interest in how this is used to inform and serve the American people."

The Schemes and "Confessions" of Reed Hundt

[Commentary] Sorry to say, there are people in public life who, were hubris a lubricant, could forgo ambulation and just glide on down the road. Reed Hundt, the former chairman of the FCC, is one such person. Hundt is back in the news these days because policies he clandestinely pursued while chairman are now thought by some (including Hundt himself) to be coming to fruition at the hands of his former FCC aides and confidantes, one of whom, Julius Genachowski, is now chairman. This, and more, was revealed in a speech Hundt gave last month at Columbia University. The subject of his address was the national broadband plan, then set to be released by the FCC just a week later, and what he characterized as a "confession or admission" of the role he played, years earlier, in using his office as chairman to systematically elevate broadband, at the expense of broadcasting, as the "common medium."

[Patrick Maines is president of The Media Institute, an organization funded by contributions from media and telecom companies.]

White House tells agencies to use same framework to exchange information

The White House is requiring federal agencies to consider using a standard configuration developed by the Justice and Homeland Security departments to share information across the public and private sectors.

More than a month ago, the Office of Management and Budget issued guidance to agencies on the website of the National Information Exchange Model, a joint DOJ-DHS program. The OMB document, which is not posted on its website, includes instructions for assessing the framework's merits by May 1. "All agencies shall evaluate the adoption and use of the National Information Exchange Model as the basis . . . of reusable cross-boundary information exchanges," said an enclosed memo from Kshemendra Paul, the federal chief architect. "The Office of Management and Budget is working jointly with the NIEM Program Management Office to provide guidance and the tools necessary to help you meet this requirement." OMB did not make the public aware of such plans to overhaul federal information exchange on its website, raising questions about a lack of transparency, as well as the security of the model, according to privacy advocates. OMB officials noted that the NIEM website is public and pointed out that other OMB requirements such as information security standards for the federal government also are posted on other agency sites.

Princeton Shows How "Reasonable Network Management" Would Work

[Commentary] iPads had a problem that started bringing down Princeton's Wi-Fi network. So Princeton blocked the iPads, diagnosed the problem, published the details of the problem and acted in an open and transparent manner, developed a work around, published the work around, allowed any iPad that implemented the work around to reconnect, and is now working with Apple to share the work around with everyone. It is a good example of how to deal with the "what if a device runs rampant and starts taking down the network" scenario that I had to post something.

AT&T: Industry must reassess mobile data billing models

AT&T has made its best case for its eventual shift from all-you-can eat smartphone data plans to a tiered or usage-based models that more closely align customers data bills to the amount they consume.

Though AT&T gave no timeline on when it would make such a shift or how such plans would be implemented, chief financial officer Rick Lindner said the emergence of new data-focused devices and the growing disparity in the amount of data customers consume will force not just AT&T, but the industry as a whole, to move away toward billing models that are much more equitable to the way individual consumers behave.

FCC hears input on media cross-ownership

The consolidation of media outlets was vilified and defended at a Federal Communications Commission workshop April 20 that focused on cross-ownership of newspapers and television stations.

FCC representatives heard from an 11-member panel of local media representatives and some critics of cross-ownership, in which one company owns both a newspaper and television station in the same market. They also heard from about 15 citizens who spoke out at the sparsely attended four-hour session at the University of South Florida, which drew an audience of only about 35. The issue apparently is not as volatile as in 2007, when hundreds turned out to sound off against cross ownership at a similar workshop in Tampa. And some of those who spoke wandered off topic to urge the FCC to support more low-power radio stations and local public access cable channels.

"Cross ownership is not the critical issue in national communications, but it bears watching," said Karen B. Dunlap, president of the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists that owns the company that publishes the St. Petersburg Times.

Local media representatives such as Ken Tonning, general manager of WTSP, Channel 10, said the government should get out of the way in these tough economic times and allow media companies to find innovative ways to operate.

Cable News Tops List of the Public's "Most Important" Information Sources for Health Care

The first Kaiser Health Tracking Poll fielded since the passage of health reform last month finds that 8 in 10 Americans know that President Obama signed the legislation into law. But 55 percent say they are confused about the law and more than half (56%) say they don't yet have enough information to understand how it will affect them personally. Americans of all political leanings pointed to cable television news more than any other source when they were asked to choose their most important source of news and information about the law. More than a third (36%) cited cable TV news stations and their websites as their most important outlet, followed by network news (16%), newspapers (12%), friends and family (10%) and the radio (9%). There were some differences along party lines, however. Republicans were more likely to name cable TV as their most important news source, with 45 percent saying so compared to 30 percent of Democrats. On the other hand, Democrats were twice as likely as Republicans and independents to say that they got most of their information from network news (23% of Democrats compared to 12% of the other two groups).

Politicians jockey over cybersecurity positioning

Cybersecurity appears to be on the verge of losing its status as one of the few areas of national security to remain relatively free of partisan bickering. Because the topic has never been colored neatly red or blue, debates about computer defense have focused largely on substantive rather than political differences, enabling policy discussions to continue despite the changing political fortunes of the political parties. But now more than ever, the public is becoming aware of the dangers of computer attacks. As solely technology topics, they were once the province of geeks and policy wonks inside the Beltway. But they now make national headlines. Given the highly politicized environment in Washington, cybersecurity will inevitably become a political lightning rod.

White House Updates Cybersecurity Orders

The White House issued new cybersecurity marching orders to government agencies Wednesday, which top officials say will help redirect government efforts from wasteful paperwork compliance toward continuous monitoring and patching and more effective cybersecurity spending.

The new policy outlines what federal CIO Vivek Kundra described as a "significant departure" from the way cybersecurity has been measured and managed in government. It is contained in an Office of Management and Budget memo penned by federal chief performance officer Jeffrey Zients, Kundra, and Schmidt, and developed with input from federal CIOs. Kundra and Schmidt said on the conference call that the new policy points toward continuous monitoring and patching of federal systems, and also toward the deployment of cybersecurity systems that better position the government against constantly evolving threats.

The guidance takes a "three-tiered approach" to FISMA that includes automatic reporting of cybersecurity data feeds directly from agency security and management tools to a tool hosted by the Department of Homeland Security; government-wide benchmarking on agencies' security postures; and agency-specific interviews to help determine the needs and proper metrics for individual agencies.

First, agencies will be required to feed cybersecurity information directly and in near real-time from their own security management tools into the recently implemented Cyberscope security reporting tool, which DHS is now operating. The White House is convening with agencies on May 7 to discuss how they will move forward with this plan, and what new metrics will be included in the new reporting.

Agencies will begin feeding this data to Cyberscope by June of this year, but Kundra admitted that some agencies will have to make investments in order to get tools like asset management systems and security information management systems in place to feed data to Cyberscope.

Along with this new reporting structure will also come new metrics for agencies to use. Those metrics have been developed in concert with the private sector, academic community, and federal CIOs and CISOs. The new data feeds will include summary information about inventory, systems and services, hardware, software, external connections, security training, and identity management and access.

Public Interest Groups Stress Unlicensed and Opportunistic Access to Spectrum

Representatives from Consumers Union, New America Foundation, Public Knowledge, and Media Access Project have been meeting with Federal Communications Commission staff to discuss a range of spectrum policy issues raised in the National Broadband Plan and in other proceedings currently pending at the FCC.

The representatives reiterated positions set forth in their joint and individual filings regarding the importance of both unlicensed and opportunistic access to spectrum. In particular, the representatives urged the FCC to consider establishing for unlicensed use, as part of the Commission's spectrum reallocation efforts pursuant to the National Broadband Plan, a contiguous band of substantial size located below 3 GHz. Such an allocation would permit continued innovation and investment in broadband communications technologies, generating tremendous consumer welfare akin to and potentially surpassing the value generated by WiFi. The also emphasized that making more spectrum available for unlicensed and opportunistic use would ease congestion experienced by licensees and ultimate end-users of licensed spectrum.

Benton

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