May 2010

NEWS FROM THE FCC

ERIC
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
This Order amends Federal Communications Commission's rules to establish rules governing the Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) and delegates authority to the Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau to establish advisory bodies and select appropriate representatives from federal agencies, the public safety community, and industry to advise ERIC. Now published in the Federal Register, the rules go into effect June 21, 2010. ERIC will be tasked with implementing national interoperability standards and developing technical and operational procedures for the 700 MHz public safety broadband wireless network. The Commission also anticipates that over time, ERIC may perform similar functions with respect to other public safety communications systems.
benton.org/node/36016 | Federal Communications Commission
Recommend this Headline
back to top

WIRELESS COMPETITION REPORT
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
On May 20, the Federal Communications Commission released its 14th annual report on the state of competition in the mobile wireless industry. The report -- which reflects the agency's commitment to upgrading all competition reports -- will create a solid foundation for predictable, fact-based wireless policy.
Unlike previous reports, which examined competition in the provision of Commercial Mobile Radio Services (CMRS), this year's report integrates CMRS into the broader mobile ecosystem, including mobile voice, messaging, and broadband services. For the first time, the report also includes data on the many interrelated "upstream" and "downstream" market segments of the mobile ecosystem -- including spectrum, infrastructure, and devices -- each of which has the potential to affect competition. [much more at the URL below]
benton.org/node/36015 | Federal Communications Commission | read the report | Chairman Genachowski | Commissioner Copps | Commissioner McDowell | Commissioner Clyburn | Commissioner Baker | The Hill | Fierce | WSJ | Bloomberg | Reuters | CTIA | Free Press
Recommend this Headline
back to top

FCC UNLEASHES 25 MHz OF SPECTRUM FOR MOBILE BROADBAND USE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission adopted rules that will make available 25 megahertz of spectrum for mobile broadband service in much of the United States, while protecting adjacent satellite radio and aeronautical mobile telemetry operations. Mobile broadband promises to be a significant contributing factor for economic growth and job creation in the 21st century. To promote mobile innovation and investment, the National Broadband Plan recommends that the Commission make 500 megahertz of spectrum available for broadband use in the next 10 years, including 300 megahertz for broadband use in the next five years. The Report and Order adopted amends the Wireless Communications Service (WCS) rules to immediately make 25 megahertz of spectrum available for mobile broadband services. The existing WCS rules constrain operations to fixed services, but the Commission found today that those rules can be revised to allow mobile broadband services without risking harmful interference to neighboring operations. To provide certainty for licensees while maintaining high-quality satellite radio services to the American public, the Commission adopted rules permitting the use of terrestrial repeaters by Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service (SDARS) licensees at the same time. The Commission also adopted enhanced build-out requirements for WCS licensees, to ensure that the promise of mobile broadband is realized. These requirements are designed to spur investment that will promote the deployment of innovative mobile broadband services across the country. Together, the Orders establish a regulatory framework for the co-existence of WCS and SDARS licensees in the 2.3 GHz frequency band.
benton.org/node/36014 | Federal Communications Commission | read the Order
Recommend this Headline
back to top

FCC PROPOSES E-RATE UPDATES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission took further steps toward ensuring universal access to affordable, high-quality broadband by proposing updates to the highly successful "E-rate" universal service program. The proposals further the FCC's National Broadband Plan goal of connecting schools and libraries to world-leading broadband by modernizing and improving the Universal Service Fund. E-rate has been instrumental in expanding opportunities for schoolchildren and communities across the country. Through the E-rate program, 97 percent of American schools now have Internet access. But the National Broadband Plan found that many schools will need significant upgrades to meet future broadband speed and capacity demands, and that many E-rate policies are out-of-date. In the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FCC explores ways the E-rate program can become a more effective educational tool for teachers, parents, and students. Broadband connectivity in the classroom and at home will enable educational advances, economic growth, government delivery of services, and civic engagement.
benton.org/node/36013 | Federal Communications Commission | read the Notice
Recommend this Headline
back to top

FCC TAKES ACTION TO REDUCE BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE ACCESS COSTS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission adopted an Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that implements key recommendations of the National Broadband Plan for promoting broadband deployment and competition. The Order and Further Notice will make broadband more affordable and available by speeding and reducing the costs of access to an essential piece of infrastructure: utility poles. Currently, access by service providers to poles can be slow, costly, and mired in long disputes. The National Broadband Plan recognized that one way to lower the costs of telecommunications, cable, and broadband deployment and promote competition is to reduce the cost of access to infrastructure. The Plan found that the impact of utility pole attachment rates on broadband can be particularly acute in rural areas, where there often are more poles per mile than households. The Order will reduce costs and speed access to poles by clarifying the statutory right of communications providers to use the same space- and cost-saving techniques that pole owners use, such as placing attachments on both sides of a pole. The Order also establishes that attachers have a statutory right to timely access to poles. The Further Notice seeks comment on revising pole attachment rates to make them as low and as close to uniform as possible, reducing the disparity between current telecom and cable rates. Different rates for different types of firms using the same space on a pole makes little sense when the cost of providing the space is the same to the utility pole owner. Disparate rates can affect investment decisions and product offerings, resulting in fewer competitive choices for consumers. The Further Notice also seeks comment on a specific timeline to govern each step of the pole attachment process, while still providing flexibility to accommodate safety concerns and special circumstances, such as natural disasters.
benton.org/node/36012 | Federal Communications Commission | read the Order and Notice
Recommend this Headline
back to top

FCC SPEEDS NUMBER TRANSFERS FOR CONSUMERS CHANGING CARRIERS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules that will allow consumers to transfer their phone numbers to new providers much more quickly. The action makes markets more competitive since delay in "porting" a phone number -- moving it from one provider to another -- can inconvenience consumers and cause them to abandon efforts to switch providers. Last May, the Commission adopted an Order that reduces the time allowed for transferring a number from four business days to one. The change affects most transfers of a phone number from one wireline provider to another, or between a wireline and a wireless provider, or between a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider and another provider. Completing the task begun last May, today's Order streamlines the number porting process by standardizing the information that providers must exchange, based upon recommendations from participants in the proceeding. The deadline for compliance is August 2 for all but small providers, which must comply by February 2, 2011.
benton.org/node/36011 | Federal Communications Commission | read the Order
Recommend this Headline
back to top

INTERNET/BROADBAND

COMMON CARRIAGE
[SOURCE: The Economist, AUTHOR: ]
Excerpts from Justinian's "Digest" of Roman law suggest that 6th-century sea captains, innkeepers and liverymen could not refuse board to any cargo, man or horse. William Blackstone, in his 18th-century "Commentaries on the Laws of England", was more explicit: to open a house for travellers implied "an engagement to entertain all persons who travel that way". English common law came to see innkeepers, boatmen, warehouse owners and granary operators as "common carriers": transport trades compelled to serve all comers, and to charge reasonable rates. Telecoms operators argue that America does not need common carriage for Internet access, because the country's unique network of local cable monopolies competes against its last-mile copper-wire monopolies. True, the promise of high returns has encouraged Verizon, a telecoms giant, to build fibre networks in some densely populated areas without government subsidy. But in practice America's regulatory approach has left much of the country with a cable monopoly for truly fast broadband access. The single largest reason given for failing to purchase broadband access in America is price, and many non-adopters are stymied by hardware fees, a lack of billing transparency and the extra cost of bundled services that providers often add to Internet access. The Federal Communications Commission's current plan—to ask last-mile providers to subsidize rural service, and to ensure equal treatment of packets of information—is a mild intervention by global standards. America's modern-day common carriers should count themselves lucky.
benton.org/node/36008 | Economist, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top

HUTCHINSON ON RECLASSIFICATION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, has written a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski asking that he identify which elements of the National Broadband Plan are at risk from the Comcast-BitTorrent decision, and says she thinks Title II reclassification is not about that plan, but about buttressing expanded and codified network neutrality rules, which the FCC has proposed. Disappointed with Chairman Genachowski's decision to try reclassification, Sen Hutchison said the move would lead to "lengthy appeals" and regulatory uncertainty that could hurt broadband investment. She urged him to reconsider the move, but in the meantime wanted him to clear up "conflicting reports" about the impact of the BitTorrent decision. She cited a comment by FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick that the decision has "no effect at all on most of the plan," then a Genachowski statement that reclassification was necessary "so that the commission can implement important, common sense broadband policies." Sen Hutchison requested a list of all the recommendations in the national broadband plan that Genachowski believes can't be implemented based on its existing authority, a justification for that conclusion for each, and the number of investigations or enforcement actions involving alleged violations of the FCC's Internet Policy Statement.
benton.org/node/36007 | Broadcasting&Cable
Recommend this Headline
back to top

SCREAM 2 AT FCC
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
[Commentary] For the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), this summer's big rerun is being brought to you by AT&T, which first broadcast its blockbuster "shock and awe" show last fall. Now AT&T is doing it again. While the FCC may have been spooked by this exercise in intimidation the first time around, there's no excuse for the Commission panicking, screaming, or getting weak in the knees again. Last September, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gave a fine speech at the Brookings Institution in which he announced the Commission would move forward with a rulemaking on Net Neutrality four existing principles and two new ones to make sure consumers were protected from the telephone and cable companies changing the Internet from one where the consumers determine what and how they see online content to one where the companies set priorities for consumers. In response, the telecommunications industry, led by AT&T, decided to show the new FCC who was the old boss. They unleashed an unprecedented "shock and awe" campaign dedicated to making certain the FCC backed down before it ever got started. To some degree, it worked. Now AT&T is once again swarming all over Capitol Hill getting their pet members of Congress to sign yet another disingenuous letter. This one is sponsored by Rep. Gene Green (D-ATT). This time, AT&T is claiming that consumer protection, Universal Service and other items the government needs to do to help people are simply a "distraction." Once again, they threaten the future of investment if the FCC goes forward. Message to the FCC: You have seen this before and you know the score. It doesn't matter how many Democrats sign these put-up letters. You are doing the right thing. Stay strong. This rerun is as meaningless now as it was during the first showing.
benton.org/node/36006 | Public Knowledge
Recommend this Headline
back to top

SPECTRUM/WIRELESS/TELECOM

VERIZON AND RURAL LTE
[SOURCE: Fierce, AUTHOR: Phil Goldstein]
More than a "couple dozen" rural wireless carriers have expressed interest in Verizon Wireless' 700 MHz LTE spectrum licensing proposal. And the company is in the process or formulating different business models for the deals, according to a company spokesman. The carrier's business development team is working on two different types of deals, Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said. In one scenario, Verizon will build the network, and in the other the rural carriers will build the network. However, both deals include LTE data roaming. Within the next week or two, Nelson said, Verizon will launch a website explaining the potential benefits of the two types of deals to rural carriers and allow them to explore which model works best. Nelson added that Verizon is not "interested in mandating to anybody how they build [the network]." Verizon has picked Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson as its primary LTE infrastructure vendors but rural carriers will not be required to use those vendors. However, Nelson said there may be some benefits from economies of scale to selecting the same vendors. How the deals will be structured is something that is being debated.
benton.org/node/35979 | Fierce
Recommend this Headline
back to top

JOURNALISM

FTC AND BLOGS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Thomas Catan]
US trustbusters have set their sights on Silicon Valley, with a number of investigations targeting possible anticompetitive behavior by technology companies. Now they are having to deal with an unexpected consequence: Potential witnesses are using blogs to blurt out details of an inquiry as it is being conducted. Many of the technology-savvy people contacted by Federal Trade Commission staff investigating Google Inc.'s $750 million deal to buy mobile advertising company AdMob Inc. have written online about the conversations. Some of their blog posts discuss the kinds of questions the FTC is asking, the apparent attitudes of agency investigators and their level of familiarity with online advertising. "There is no way the FTC knows enough to support a decision to block the deal," wrote a blogger from Wertago, a mobile nightlife application. The post was entitled "Ignorance and Hubris at the FTC." Though there is no written rule against disclosing the details of such investigations, FTC staffers typically tell potential witnesses that such inquiries are nonpublic. "It is highly unusual in every respect," says Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law institute at Santa Clara University in California. "Historically, whenever the FTC was doing its homework, it was able to keep it behind the veil."
benton.org/node/36019 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

PRIVACY

PRIVACY LOOPHOLE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Emily Steel, Jessica Vascellaro]
Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers' names and other personal details, despite promises they don't share such information without consent. The practice, which most of the companies defended, sends user names or ID numbers tied to personal profiles being viewed when users click on ads. After questions were raised by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook and MySpace moved to make changes. By Thursday morning Facebook had rewritten some of the offending computer code. Advertising companies are receiving information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation. Several large advertising companies identified by the Journal as receiving the data, including Google Inc.'s DoubleClick and Yahoo Inc.'s Right Media, said they were unaware of the data being sent to them from the social-networking sites, and said they haven't made use of it. Across the Web, it's common for advertisers to receive the address of the page from which a user clicked on an ad. Usually, they receive nothing more about the user than an unintelligible string of letters and numbers that can't be traced back to an individual. With social networking sites, however, those addresses typically include user names that could direct advertisers back to a profile page full of personal information. In some cases, user names are people's real names. Most social networks haven't bothered to obscure user names or ID numbers from their Web addresses, said Craig Wills, a professor of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who has studied the issue.
benton.org/node/36020 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top

GOOGLE SUIT
[SOURCE: ComputerWorld, AUTHOR: Gregg Keizer]
Google's secret Wi-Fi sniffing has prompted a class-action lawsuit that could force the company to pay up to $10,000 for each time it snatched data from unprotected hotspots, court documents show. The lawsuit, which was filed by an Oregon woman and a Washington man in a Portland (OR) federal court on Monday, accused Google of violating federal privacy and data acquisition laws. "When Google created its data collection systems on its GSV [Google Street View] vehicles, it included wireless packet sniffers that, in addition to collecting the user's unique or chosen Wi-Fi network name (SSID information), the unique number given to the user's hardware used to broadcast a user's Wi-Fi signal (MAC address, the GSV data collection systems also collected data consisting of all or part of any documents, e-mails, video, audio, and VoIP information being sent over the network by the user [payload data]," the lawsuit stated. On Tuesday, the same plaintiffs filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent Google from deleting the data, a move the company has said it would make "as soon possible." Oral arguments on the restraining order are scheduled for Monday before U.S. District Court Judge Janice Stewart.
benton.org/node/35976 | ComputerWorld
Recommend this Headline
back to top

KLOBUCHAR ON GOOGLE
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) wrote Google CEO Eric Schmidt Thursday seeking answers to her questions about the firm's revelation last week that it had "mistakenly" collected private data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks. In her letter to Schmidt, Sen Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, noted Google's revelation that vehicles that snap photos for Google's Street View feature and Google Maps services also scanned for wireless networks that collected the name and numerical address of such networks. When it came across an unsecure home or business network, the Google scanning software also collected "snippets" of data from them that may have included Web sites, e-mail messages, passwords and other personal information. Now Sen Klobuchar wants to know what types of data were collected, how was it stored and who had access to it. Sen Klobuchar also asked to know if any Google software engineers or other employees had noticed the additional information in the three years the database was used and what Google is doing to ensure it does not happen again.
benton.org/node/35975 | CongressDaily
Recommend this Headline
back to top

MEDIA & ELECTIONS

DISCLOSE ACT MOVING IN HOUSE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The House Administration Committee marked-up the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175) and amended the bill to allow for hardship waivers of disclosure requirements for political ads on radio and TV. The Democracy is Strengthened by casting Light On Spending In Elections would tighten disclosures of the corporations and unions backing those ads and require more explicit, and potentially longer and more extensive, disclaimers on all TV ads funded by special interests. After the committee approved the bill, President Barack Obama said the bill would "establish the toughest-ever disclosure requirements for election-related spending by big oil corporations, Wall Street and other special interests. It would prohibit foreign entities from manipulating the outcome of U.S. elections, and it would shine an unprecedented light on corporate spending in political campaigns so that the American people can clearly see who is trying to influence campaigns for public office. These changes are particularly urgent in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, and I encourage the full Congress to give this strong, bipartisan legislation the swift consideration it deserves."
benton.org/node/35986 | Broadcasting&Cable | President Obama
Recommend this Headline
back to top

Benton

Search

Benton

Daily Digest

Analysis

May 2010

RapidShare didn't infringe on copyrights, says US court

House panel approves bipartisan bill to overhaul cybersecurity

May 21, 2010 (FCC Meeting)

Sites Confront Privacy Loophole

Blogs Blab as FTC Studies Deal

E-Books Rewrite Bookselling

Tribune Facing Legal Battle With Creditors

Establishment of an Emergency Response Interoperability Center