Daily Digest 11/22/2019 (Loon Heads to Peru)

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
Table of Contents

Agenda

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for December 2019 Open Meeting  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  Federal Communications Commission

Internet/Broadband

USDA Invests $4.3 Million in Rural Broadband for New York Families  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  US Department of Agriculture
Alphabet's Loon Signs Deal to Bring Balloon-Powered Internet to Amazon Rainforest Region in Peru  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  Loon

Security

FCC Commissioner Starks Report of the Find It, Fix It, Fund It Workshop  |  Read below  |  FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks  |  Press Release  |  Federal Communications Commission
Senators Cotton, Schumer Request Suspension of Licenses Allowing US Exports to Huawei  |  US Senate
What They're Saying About Chairman Pai's Proposed Rules To Protect Communications Networks From Foreign Threats  |  Federal Communications Commission
What to Expect from Congress’ Cyber Strategy Brain Trust  |  nextgov

Wireless

FCC Commissioner Carr Suggests FCC Democratic Commissioners Lack 5G Vision  |  Multichannel News
President Trump says he asked Tim Cook to help build out 5G in the US  |  Vox
Verizon Coverage Maps Insist 5G Is Actually Here This Time  |  Multichannel News

Platforms

Former President Barack Obama Worries That Tech Has Led Society Astray  |  Fortune
Analysis: Platforms, publishers, and the end of scale  |  Columbia Journalism Review
Apple says its App Store is ‘a safe and trusted place.’ We found 1,500 reports of unwanted sexual behavior on six apps  |  Washington Post
Mark Jamison: The Wall Street Journal’s study of Google search bias appears to be biased  |  American Enterprise Institute

Privacy

Your Health Data Isn’t as Safe as You Think  |  Wall Street Journal
Alleged bank robber accuses police of illegally using Google location data to catch him  |  Washington Post

Children & Media

Parents Television Counsel Calls for Reconstituting Content Ratings Board  |  Broadcasting&Cable
Op-Ed: The Real Cost of Tweeting About My Kids  |  New York Times

Journalism

Shepard Smith, Late of Fox News, Gives $500,000 to a Free Press Group  |  New York Times
First Amendment Study: Gen Z Attitudes On Media, First Amendment Influenced By Race, Gender  |  John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Study Finds 'Fake News' Has Real Cost: $78 Billion  |  MediaPost
Securing a future for Latinx journalists  |  Columbia Journalism Review

Elections

Campaigns Pressure Facebook to Stay Put on Political Ads  |  New York Times

Accessibility

Op-Ed: Blocking the Disabled on the Web Means Blocking Innovation  |  Wired

Telecommunications

Remarks Of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai At The Robocall Symposium Of The New England States  |  Federal Communications Commission

Policymakers

Former CTO at FCC Tapped to be Assistant Directory for Telecom And Cybersecurity at OSTP  |  Read below  |  John Eggerton  |  Multichannel News

Company News & Labor

Google Wants to Do Business With the Military -- Many of Its Employees Don't  |  Bloomberg
Tech hubs and the labor market: A long-read Q&A with Enrico Moretti  |  American Enterprise Institute

Stories From Abroad

Why did Iran shut off the internet for the entire country?  |  Vox
Russia bans sale of gadgets without Russian-made software, take effect July 2020  |  BBC
Today's Top Stories

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for December 2019 Open Meeting

Press Release  |  Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, Dec 12, 2019:

988: Suicide Prevention Hotline Number – The FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would propose to designate 988 as the 3-digit number for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline. (WC Docket No. 18-336)

5.9 GHz Band Spectrum Use – The FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would take a fresh and comprehensive look at the rules for the 5.9 GHz band and propose, among other things, to make the lower 45 MHz of the band available for unlicensed operations and to permit Cellular Vehicle to Everything (C-V2X) operations in the upper 20 megahertz of the band. (ET Docket No. 19-138)

Facilitating Shared Use in the 3.1-3.55 GHz Band – The FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would seek comment on removing the existing non-federal allocations in the 3.3-3.55 GHz band as a step towards potential future shared use between federal incumbents and commercial users. (WT Docket No. 19-348)

VoIP Symmetry – The FCC will consider an Order on Remand and Declaratory Ruling that would promote continued investment in IP-based networks by clarifying that a local exchange carrier partnering with a VoIP provider may assess end office switched access charges only if the carrier or its VoIP partner provides a physical connection to the last-mile facilities used to serve the end user. (WC Docket No. 10-90, CC Docket No. 01-92)

Cable Service Change Notifications – The FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would seek comment on modernizing requirements for notices cable operators must provide consumers and local franchise authorities. (MB Docket Nos. 19-347, 17-105)

Noncommercial & Low Power FM Station Licensing – The FCC will consider a Report and Order that would revise the Commission’s Noncommercial Educational Broadcast Station and Low Power FM Station comparative processing and licensing rules. (MB DocketNo. 19-3)

The FCC will also consider three enforcement actions.

USDA Invests $4.3 Million in Rural Broadband for New York Families

Press Release  |  US Department of Agriculture

US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development Donald “DJ” LaVoy announced USDA has invested $4.3 million in high-speed broadband infrastructure that will create or improve rural e-Connectivity for more than 1,000 rural households on the Seneca Nation’s Cattaraugus Territory in western NY. This is one of many funding announcements in the first round of USDA’s ReConnect Pilot Program investments.

The Seneca Nation, through Seneca Telecommunications, will use a ReConnect Program grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband network capable of simultaneous transmission rates of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) or greater. The funded service area includes more than 1,000 households, 58 businesses, 25 farms, three educational facilities, one health care center and one critical community facility. The project will facilitate more access to services and information for local residents, and it will improve the overall quality of life for people on the Cattaraugus Territory and in the local community.

Alphabet's Loon Signs Deal to Bring Balloon-Powered Internet to Amazon Rainforest Region in Peru

Press Release  |  Loon

Loon and Internet Para Todos Perú (IpT) have reached an agreement to use high-altitude balloons to expand mobile internet access to parts of the Peruvian Amazonia. The companies aim to provide service to Telefónica customers in Peru in 2020. Loon is a subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. IpT Perú is an open access wholesale rural mobile infrastructure operator owned by Telefónica, Facebook, IDB Invest and CAF which aims to help bridge the digital divide bringing mobile internet to remote populations where conventional telecom infrastructure deployment is not yet economically feasible. Loon and IpT will work together to serve parts of the Loreto Region (Peruvian Amazonia), one of the largest and most remote regions in the country, providing Telefónica customers with mobile internet coverage. According to Osiptel, the Peruvian telecom regulator, Internet penetration in Loreto is 100 times lower than in Lima. Loon and IpT will initially provide service in certain locations that make up around 15 percent of Loreto’s area and where nearly 200,000 people live. About a quarter of them lack 3G or better service, and many others lack any reliable mobile service at all outside of populated areas. The deployment of Loon in Peru will make it the first country in Latin America to use this innovative connectivity solution on a sustained, non-emergency basis.

FCC Commissioner Starks Report of the Find It, Fix It, Fund It Workshop

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks  |  Press Release  |  Federal Communications Commission

On June 27, 2019, I convened a workshop at the Federal Communications Commission to consider security threats that stem from the presence of certain Chinese communications equipment in US networks and from the related services these companies provide. This workshop gathered the views of many stakeholders, particularly in the wireless communications ecosystem, including carriers, trade associations, manufacturers, and academics. Workshop participants shared their perspectives on network security issues and evaluated my proposal that we need to find untrustworthy and insecure communications equipment currently located in U.S. communications networks, fix the problems posed by this equipment, and help fund the process. Find it. Fix it. Fund it. 

Thanks to participation of a wide variety of industry experts, this workshop helped to define the nature of threats to our communications networks posed by China and Chinese-manufactured communications equipment. They also point the way forward: finding and replacing untrustworthy equipment is a national problem that requires a national solution. I look forward to working with these stakeholders, leaders in government, and the communications industry as whole toward a comprehensive solution. 

Former CTO at FCC Tapped to be Assistant Directory for Telecom And Cybersecurity at OSTP

John Eggerton  |  Multichannel News

US Chief Technology Office Michael Kratsios has tapped Federal Communications Commission veteran Eric Burger to a top network security post. Burger, former Chief Technology Officer at the FCC, has been named assistant director for telecom and cybersecurity at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where he will focus on 5G, broadband, and telecom. Before joining the FCC in Oct 2017, Burger was director of the Georgetown site of the NSF Security and Software Engineering Research Center in Washington, which deals with issues including robocalls, network deployment and network security and stability. Burger is also a former CTO at various public and private internet and telecom companies, including Nuestar, MCI, Texas Instruments, and Cable & Wireless. 

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Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.


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Kevin Taglang

Kevin Taglang
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Benton Institute
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