March 2011

Hearing on Duplication and Inefficiencies of Federal Programs

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee announced it will conduct oversight and hold a hearing on duplication and inefficiencies in federal programs. The Government Accountability Office recently released a report cataloguing overlapping, fragmented, and duplicative federal programs, and other areas where the government might save costs, increase revenues, and achieve greater results. Among the programs highlighted in the GAO report was the Universal Service Fund.

Vocalo relaunch dials up new direction

Chicago Public Media is “relaunching” its Vocalo radio station and website with more emphasis on local music and less on user-generated content for the young, culturally diverse Chicago audience it has targeted for the past three years.

Vocalo is seeking to build an audience of listeners and users mainly between the ages of 25 and 34 and attract sponsors that will directly fund the WBEW-FM/89.5 radio station and Vocalo.org site. For now, it’s funded by foundation grants and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “We now have a product that we feel really good about that will attract sponsors, audiences and a variety of different stakeholders and investors,” said Silvia Rivera, the managing director who was hired last year to lead Vocalo. When the broadcaster -- which also runs Chicago public radio station WBEZ-FM/91.5 -- first launched Vocalo, it sought to spur user-generated content from its listeners and web visitors, but that response never materialized. And Chicago Public Media courted controversy when it diverted listener contributions from its other WBEZ programming for the effort.

Senate Commerce Committee
March 10, 2011
10am

The Committee will consider 4 nominations including:

Mr. Philip E. Coyle III
to be Associate Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy
Executive Office of the President

Read more about Nominations Hearing

Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI) and Georgetown University’s Communication Culture and Technology Program
March 18, 2011
http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/citi/events/nbp2011reg

The FCC’s National Broadband Plan was released on March 16, 2010. It laid out a number of ambitious long-term goals, including that 100 million US households would have affordable access to 100mbps broadband service within a decade and that the US should be the world leader on mobile broadband innovation with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.

After a year, is the Plan “on track”? What is the state of broadband in America in 2011? What has been accomplished and what are the major next steps in the implementation of the Plan? Have any of the facts, circumstances and analyses that underlie the NBP changed in such a way that the Plan itself needs to be amended? How will the Plan be administered and updated over the next decade?

Speakers include: Blair Levin - Aspen Institute and former Executive Director of the FCC’s Omnibus Broadband Initiative (National Broadband Plan); Ruth Milkman - Chief, Wireless Bureau, Federal Communications Commission; Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer of the United States; Thomas Power - Chief of Staff, National Telecommunications and Information Administration; Joseph Waz, Senior Vice President External Affairs & Public Policy Counsel, Comcast Corp.; Harold Feld, Legal Director, Public Knowledge

Read more about The National Broadband Plan: One Year Later

Communications and Technology Subcommittee Schedules Second Hearing on FCC’s Efforts to Regulate Internet

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), will hold a second hearing on the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to implement controversial Internet rules on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, at 10:30 a.m. in room 2123 of Rayburn House Office Building. The legislative hearing will examine H.J.Res 37, a Resolution of Disapproval that reverses the FCC’s net neutrality rules.

Senate schedules nomination hearing for new White House tech official

The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a nomination hearing for Philip Coyle March 10. Coyle was appointed by the White House to become associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Phil Coyle has been OSTP’s Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs since July. Before joining the Administration, Mr. Coyle served as a Senior Advisor to the President of the World Security Institute and the Center for Defense Information, a Washington D.C.-based national security study center. In 2005 he was nominated by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on the nine-member Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission. From 1994 to 2001 he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Test and Evaluation."

Copyright Office Launches Inquiry Into Phasing Out Compulsory Carriage Licenses

The Copyright Office has launched its Notice of Inquiry on phasing out the compulsory licenses for MVPD's to carry local and distant broadcast TV station signals. It is seeking comment on a variety of possible marketplace mechanisms to replace the blanket license. Comments will be due 45 days after the notice is published in the federal register, which usually happens within a week or so. Reply comments will be due 30 days after that.

MetroPCS ‘Looking at Everything’ in Wireless Spectrum Search

MetroPCS Communications Inc., the pay-as-you-go mobile-phone carrier, said it is considering all options in a search for additional wireless spectrum that would help it expand more rapidly in the US. “We’re looking at everything out there” on spectrum, Chief Financial Officer J. Braxton Carter said. MetroPCS is willing to consider partnering with various network operators to bring it more wireless capacity, including billionaire Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc., said Carter.

Free messaging apps threaten wireless carriers' cash cow

Here's the dirty secret about text messages. It costs a wireless carrier close to nothing to send and receive them -- even though they charge about $10 a month for 500 to 1,000 texts.

Now, a new crop of messaging apps -- including one recently bought by Facebook -- are threatening the wireless industry's cash cow. GroupMe and Beluga, bought by Facebook earlier this week, is among several free group messaging services that allows users to send texts to contact lists, Twitter followers and Facebook friends through a smartphone application. Fast Society also allows users to customize groups for messages and provides conference calls. As more cell phone users turn to smart phones, the new set of messaging software allows users to bypass text messages offered by carriers. And that's perked the interest of Web giants, analysts say. "Facebook is, at its core, a communications company," wrote Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein research. "The move to acquire Beluga makes this explicit. Beluga puts Facebook squarely into competition with carriers for the first time." He and analyst Amelia Chan wrote in their recent note to investors that a trend toward in-app texting could eat into the revenues of wireless carriers who don't get the same rate of returns from data consumption. Watching videos on a device is a much greater burden on a network than texting. They said wireless data makes up only 9 percent of a carrier's revenues while voice and texting bring in the majority of revenues. Carriers will likely respond by strapping texting plans to data packages, the analysts said.

Cable industry pushes back on charges of spectrum hoarding

Earlier this week, the National Association of Broadcasters accused Time Warner Cable and other telecom firms of warehousing spectrum beyond their business needs. National Cable and Telecommunications Association Executive Vice President James Assey replied: "At least with respect to cable industry licensees implicated by these charges, the NAB's claim is flat wrong. It is nothing more than a finger-pointing exercise transparently designed to distract policymakers from the important task of evaluating national spectrum policy." Assey argued firms that purchase spectrum at auction and hold licenses are in compliance with the FCC's requirements and therefore not engaged in anything untoward. He noted that unlike the broadcasters, the wireless industry has had to pay billions of dollars to purchase their spectrum. "NAB's implied suggestion that the government — rather than even consider requiring greater efficiency from the broadcasters — should instead reclaim spectrum purchased at auction for billions of dollars and currently in full compliance with FCC rules, is patently absurd," Assey said.

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