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Acting to expand access by health care providers to robust broadband networks, the Federal Communications Commission established the Healthcare Connect Fund to reform and modernize its universal service program for health care.
The new Healthcare Connect Fund will help expand access by health care providers to the high-bandwidth connections they need for modern telemedicine by:
- Removing artificial limitations on technology and provider type that hampered legacy universal service health care support
- Encouraging consortia between smaller rural health care providers and urban medical centers to enable remote hospitals and clinics to draw on the medical, technical and administrative resources of larger providers
- Increasing fiscal responsibility by requiring participants to contribute 35% of the costs, while affording health care providers access to lower rates through group buying
- Supporting broadband services purchased from diverse communications providers, while also allowing health care providers to construct new broadband networks when that is the most cost-effective option
Covering upgrades to higher speed service required for health care applications In addition, the reforms establish a new competitive Pilot Program to test expanding broadband healthcare networks to skilled nursing facilities. Because these facilities are often remote from doctors and sophisticated lab and testing facilities, frail and convalescing patients will benefit greatly from broadband services that can reduce the time, expense and stress of travelling to receive medical care. Up to $50 million over three years will be available from the Fund for these competitively-awarded Pilots. The Order implementing these reforms maintains a $400 million ceiling on the cost of universal service support for broadband health care networks. Savings achieved by group purchases through consortia and other increases in efficiency could cut the cost of robust broadband health care networks in half for both providers and the Universal Service Fund, based on the FCC’s analysis of successful Rural Health Care Pilots.
FCC Creates Healthcare Connect Fund to Expand Access to Robust Broadband Healthcare Networks
The Federal Communications Commission proposed rules to bring Americans the ability to send text messages to 911 more rapidly and uniformly, and to inform consumers about the availability and appropriate use of text-to-911. The FCC’s proposed action builds on prior FCC initiatives and the recent voluntary commitment by the nation’s four largest wireless carriers, with support of leading public safety organizations, to make text-to-911 available to their customers by May 15, 2014, with significant deployments expected in 2013. The FCC’s proposed action also seeks to accelerate the nation’s transition to a Next-Generation 911 system that will use cutting-edge communications technology to assist first responders in keeping our communities safe.
In the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adopted, the FCC proposed to require that all wireless carriers, as well as providers of certain Internet-based (“over the top”) text messaging applications – that is, those that send text messages to phone numbers – enable their customers to send text messages to 911 in areas where local 911 call centers (known as Public Safety Answering Points, or PSAPs) are also prepared to receive the texts. Noting the voluntary commitment of the four largest wireless carriers to deploy text-to-911 capability by May 15, 2014 in areas where the 911 call center is prepared to receive the texts, the FCC sought comment on whether this timeframe is achievable for all carriers and third-party
messaging providers.
The FCC proposed to require all wireless carriers and certain “over the top” text messaging providers to send automated “bounce back” error messages to consumers attempting to text 911 in areas where the service is not yet available. The error message would indicate that the text did not reach 911 and that the consumer should instead place a voice call to 911 if possible.
FCC Proposes Action to Accelerate the Availability of Nationwide Text-to-911 Service
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed to make available 100 megahertz of shared spectrum in the 3.5 GHz Band (3550-3650 MHz) using small cell and database technologies. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) broadly reflects the innovative thinking of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which issued a report this summer recommending spectrum sharing and small cell use in the 3.5 GHz Band. It also builds upon the FCC’s previous work to free up spectrum by promoting spectrum sharing and enabling innovative licensing techniques.
The proposal lays the groundwork for the widespread deployment of small cell technologies across 100 megahertz of spectrum, and would spur significant innovation in wireless technologies and applications throughout the economy, while protecting incumbent users in the band.
The proposal envisions three tiers of users, each with different levels of rights and protections in the 3.5 GHz Band:
- The first tier, Incumbent Access, would include authorized federal users and grandfathered fixed satellite service licensees. These incumbents would be afforded protection from all other users in the 3.5 GHz Band.
- The second tier, Protected Access, would include critical use facilities, such as hospitals, utilities, government facilities, and public safety entities that would be afforded quality-assured access to a portion of the 3.5 GHz Band in certain designated locations.
- The third tier, General Authorized Access, would include all other users – including the general public – that would have the ability to operate in the 3.5 GHz Band subject to protections for Incumbent Access and Protected Access users. A spectrum access system, incorporating a geo-location enabled dynamic database, would govern access to the 3.5 GHz Band.
FCC Proposes to Enable Innovative Small Cell Use of Spectrum in the 3.5 GHz Band FCC (read the proposed rules)
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed new rules governing how wireless broadband providers can share the airwaves with government users, adopting an innovative model first proposed earlier this year by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in its landmark report, Realizing the Full Potential of Government-Held Spectrum to Spur Economic Growth.
The FCC action comes amidst an array of Administration initiatives aimed at freeing up more spectrum for wireless broadband in order to drive productivity, jobs, and innovation, while also protecting the essential government systems – including public safety, law enforcement, border protection, and military defense -- that also rely on spectrum and are relied upon by the American taxpayer. It is this type of public-private commitment and collaboration that is crucial to maintaining America’s leadership in the development and use of advanced wireless technologies. Reflecting PCAST’s recommendation to apply creative approaches to spectrum sharing, the FCC’s proposal would allow sharing of certain parts of the spectrum under a three-tiered prioritization scheme, allowing two new categories of commercial use into a radio band that until now has been reserved for exclusive use by the government. The proposed rules would ensure absolute protection of the vital government systems operating at those frequencies; a more limited degree of access for commercial users who, within limits, could use those frequencies outside of government protected zones; and a third class of “general authorized access” that would be engineered so as to avoid interference with the first two categories. All users would be required to register in a database, so market participants could make informed decisions about when and where to deploy their systems. While these proposed rules would, if adopted, govern only one slice of the radiofrequency spectrum, they offer a window into how sharing of government spectrum can become an important component of the more efficient approach to spectrum management called for by President Barack Obama.
Backing PCAST, FCC Proposes Spectrum Sharing
We have to learn how to “outrace the robots.”
“Given the trends of globalization, automation and demographics, there will definitely be a small number of people who will be very prosperous,” said Google’s Eric Schmidt. The challenge is to let as many people into that class as possible, and, even more important, get masses of people educated to a level where they can qualify for work in the new businesses these people create. Robots may hollow out the factories in China, which count on cheap human labor, and bring manufacturing back to the United States. Those machines will need people to service them, and those people will need to be reasonably skilled. But who says those robot operators have to be United States-based, just because the machines are? “The way to combat it is education, which has to work for everyone, regardless of race or gender. You’ll have global competition for all kinds of jobs,” said Schmidt.
Understanding this, he said, should be America’s “Sputnik moment,” which like that 1957 Russian satellite launch gives the nation a new urgency about education in math and science. “The president could say that in five years he wants the level of analytic education in this country – STEM education in science, technology, engineering and math, or economics and statistics – has to be at a level of the best Asian countries.” Asian nations, Mr. Schmidt said, are probably going to proceed with their own increases in analytic education. “Employment is going to be a global problem, not a U.S. one,” he said.
How We Outrace the Robots
According to Eric Schmidt, Google‘s executive chairman, the most interesting project going on at the search giant is its high-speed broadband trials in Kansas City. (Missouri and Kansas versions)
“All of the distinctions, like HD, DVD, that we grew up with, go away,” he said. “You really imagine that your computer is really in a data center.” Google is considering introducing the service to other select cities, Schmidt said, but would not specify which towns would get the fiber. Google is likely not interested in being a service provider, like Verizon, but rather in fostering a competitive climate in which ultrafast broadband becomes the norm. “Teleconferences will become holographic,” he predicted. “People take advantage of this kind of increase.” The more people are on the Internet, Google has found, the more they search for things, which is good for Google’s core ad business. In addition, Google can tailor other services to people, like its videoconferencing Hangouts service, which it sells to corporations. Watching consumers use more Google products also makes Google’s ads more profitable, because the company can personalize the pitches better.
Google’s Coolest Project? Broadband
Senior Republican campaign operatives who gathered over beer in Alexandria for a post-election briefing were taken aback by what they were told. A nonpartisan research firm presented data showing that President Barack Obama had far outperformed Mitt Romney in managing the largest single expenditure of the campaign: television advertising. Romney’s spending decisions on advertising look like “campaign malpractice,” said one person who had reviewed the newly circulated data.
President Obama and his allies spent less on advertising than Romney and his allies but got far more — in the number of ads broadcast, in visibility in key markets and in targeting critical demographic groups, such as the working class and younger voters in swing states. As the presidential race entered its final, furious phase, for example, millions of college football fans tuning in to televised games saw repeated ads for Obama but relatively few from the Romney campaign. All told, from June through Election Day, the Obama campaign and its allies aired about 50,000 more ads than Romney and his allies, according to the research firm’s data.
Romney spent more on TV ads but got much less
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) has been chosen to take the helm of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the next Congress.
The Democratic Steering Committee made the announcement after meeting to approve committee chairmen and members in the upper chamber. Sen Carper will replace Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT.), who is retiring at the end of this Congress, and will face issues ranging from terrorist and cybersecurity and border security to postal reform and Social Security legislation.
Sen Carper replacing Sen Lieberman as Homeland Security Committee chairman
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is joining the Senate Commerce Committee.
Other returning Democrats on the panel include Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Sens Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), John Kerry (D-MA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); Mark Warner (D-VA) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska).
Sen Blumenthal joins Senate Commerce Committee Committee Assignments For 113th Congress Approved By Democratic Steering Committee (Senate Democrats) Rockefeller Welcomes Sen. Blumenthal to Commerce Committee (Chairman Rockefeller)
Governors are urgently pressing Congress to pass Internet sales tax legislation in the coming weeks, saying states cannot afford to wait to collect billions of dollars from online retailers.
Governor Chris Gregoire (D-WA) and Governor Bill Haslam (R-TN) wrote to Senate leaders urging them to pass legislation granting states the authority to collect sales taxes from online businesses. They said the changes should be made this year and not be wrapped into "wide-ranging, comprehensive tax reform" in 2013. Legislation requiring online retailers to collect and remit sales taxes to states has languished in the Senate and House of Representatives for years, but the issue has grown more pressing as U.S. shoppers increasingly buy goods online. The governors, writing on behalf of the National Governors Association, said states "are unable to collect $23 billion in sales taxes owed annually from remote sales," and that current practices are "in essence an unwarranted yet growing subsidy to Internet sellers at the expense of brick-and-mortar stores."
Governors plead for urgent online sales tax authority