April 2014

C Spire announced that homeowner pre-registration exceeded the required threshold in a second area of the city of Ridgeland (MS) -- helping it qualify for the company’s ultra-fast 1 Gbps (Gigabit per second) fiber to the home Internet service and related digital TV and home phone services.

Ridgeland’s Old Agency East fiberhood, which includes the Dinsmor and Greenwood Plantation neighborhoods, reached its 45 pre-registration target and now joins the Bridgewater fiberhood, which qualified in late March along with areas in the cities of Horn Lake, Starkville and the entire town of Quitman for service that promises Internet access up to 100 times faster than national average broadband speeds.

The six areas in the four cities now move into the next phase of the historic initiative where C Spire puts the finishing touches on engineering plans, meets with city officials and residents and starts construction of the fiber infrastructure that will serve as the platform for the next-generation services. Ridgeland Mayor Gene McGee, whose city already has a reputation as Mississippi’s most tech-friendly community, said the latest progress shows that momentum is continuing to build as more residents learn about the opportunity to invest in their neighborhood’s future.

Nine Mississippi cities are part of initial phase of c spire’s ultra-fast fiber to the home initiative. The Ridgeland mayor vows to continue community pre-registration efforts for 1 Gig service.

[Commentary] The word out of the Federal Communications Commission is that we can expect a 600 MHz auction framework item in the May timeframe. This has set the auction restrictions drums beating (again).

Calls for large-carrier limitations and even strategic set asides are growing ever louder. In all the rhetoric, some fundamental facts are getting lost. So, let’s ground this debate.
Fact No. 1: It will take a lot of revenue for the incentive auction to be successful.
Fact No. 2: No one bidder can run a $30 billion table.
Fact No. 3: A set aside of any type will only exacerbate the $30 billion revenue challenge.
Fact No. 4: A low band cap will also exacerbate the $30 billion revenue challenge.
For this auction to succeed, the FCC must attract wide broadcaster participation in major markets. Period. No exceptions. And to do that, the FCC must be prepared to meet prevailing price expectations.

We are firmly convinced that scoring on any basis related to station value or revenue will undermine the very broadcaster participation that is essential to success. TV stations are selling spectrum -- not their broadcast businesses. And if broadcasters don’t show up, the question of whether the auction will raise the necessary revenue on the forward side will be moot.

The top data protection official for the European Union called for member governments to restore public trust in the Internet by pressing ahead with an overhaul of the bloc’s electronic privacy laws by the end of 2014.

The official, Peter Hustinx, the European data protection supervisor, also called on President Barack Obama to stick to his pledge to review American privacy rules in the wake of disclosures that have exposed the vast reach of government surveillance that has shaken trans-Atlantic relations. Another bill, aimed at providing more equitable access for companies and consumers to the Internet -- “network neutrality” -- and making mobile phone roaming less costly to consumers is now before the European Parliament, which is scheduled to vote on that legislation.

Hustinx stressed the urgency of keeping the privacy legislation moving through the Council of the European Union in Brussels, the body in which national governments meet to adopt laws and coordinate policies. Hustinx called on the bloc’s 28 member states to reach a deal with one another and with the Parliament by the end of 2014, because “the 21st century requires stronger rights, stronger responsibilities, more consistency across Europe.” Hustinx also challenged the United States government to do more in updating its own rules.

“There are some interesting movements in Washington, but we’d like to see much more,” he said. “If trust should be rebuilt, then it certainly takes a number of actions at the other side as well.” Hustinx suggested that European governments could be given added reassurance they would be in sync with the American approach to data privacy, if a group led by John Podesta, a special adviser to President Obama, issues its report on data privacy this spring as expected.