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ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said that he believed the issue of who the WCIT-12 telecom treaties apply to -- operating agencies or recognized operating agencies -- would be resolved by the time the conference in Dubai ends next week.

The U.S. has said that is one of the key issues at the conference, which is attempting to revamp/update International Telecommunications Regulations. "There is no real contradiction with other positions," he said. "I believe that, as a negotiator, I see things in common. What is happening is that one camp tells you what it wants to see in the document, the other camp is telling you what it doesn't want to see. In reality they are saying the same thing. The discussions are ongoing, and we will see what are the issues that may be difficult for each of the two parties, and then we will come to compromises. I am sure this issue will be resolved." For Ambassador Terry Kramer's part, he has said that the U.S. is not likely to negotiate on the definition issue because of the "scope creep" of expanding the definition. "Scope creep" just about sums up the U.S. concerns about the conference in general.

National Cable and Telecommunications Association president Michael Powell warns operators, programmers and sports leagues that they need to be careful that escalating sports rights costs don't blow up their business model and prompt government intervention.

In an interview for C-SPAN's The Communicators series, Powell was asked by Lynn Stanton of Telecommunications Reports what would happen when sports programming costs exceed the ability of consumers to subsidize them. Powell called it the "billion-dollar question." He said operators are facing the choice of either absorbing the cost, which he said they have been doing to some degree, or passing it on to consumers still trying to recover from a painful recession.

Between now and early 2013, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to release an RFP for continuous monitoring, a function for detecting network compliance and risk vulnerabilities -- which means the feds are working toward a huge shift in how they secure their networks next year.

In the opinion of George Schu -- senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, which consults federal agencies on technology decisions and often is instrumental to computing decisions at America’s highest level of leadership -- the adoption will require decentralized deployment for maximum effectiveness. Each agency is unique with different needs and digital environments.

With an Internet connection and the click of a mouse, today's high school student has access to the world of higher education in fingertip reach. A student can walk the grounds of a college campus a thousand miles away without setting foot in another zip code; get instantly matched with potential sources of scholarship funding without meeting with a counselor; and apply for multiple colleges through one online application without taking a trip to the post office. But while technology is changing the face of college admissions, not all students are reaping the benefits of this virtual access to resources and information.

For disadvantaged students lacking awareness or the digital-connection capabilities, entry into college may become harder to obtain than ever before. "Our first-generation college students, even if they have computers with high-speed Internet, still struggle through the college-application process because they do not have the same frame of reference and knowledge base when it comes to things like college-search websites," said Darrell Sampson, a guidance counselor with the 182,000-student Fairfax County school district in Virginia. "If you do not know what it is you are supposed to be looking for, or how the process is supposed to work," he said, "you are probably not going to be accessing the wealth of information available through technology meant to assist you."