Benton RSS Feed

T-Mobile and NTCH, owner of the Cleartalk brand, will be able to collect money from the Lifeline low-income portion of the Universal Service program in certain states as the result of action taken by the Federal Communications Commission late last week.

Both carriers had asked the commission to grant them eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) status so that they could participate in the program, which is funded by the telecom industry and pays about $9 per household toward the cost of voice service. T-Mobile was granted ETC status for the purpose of providing Lifeline services in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Virginia and the District of Columbia. NTCH was conditionally granted limited designation as a Lifeline ETC in North Carolina and Tennessee. Originally the Lifeline program was directed toward traditional landline phone service, but in recent years some states have allowed funding to be used for wireless service and in January the FCC made that an option nationwide. Various wireless carriers already offer Lifeline services. Sprint, for example, has one of the most aggressive programs, offering Lifeline service for no net charge to end users in 34 states through its Assurance Wireless brand. The offering includes 250 minutes of voice service and 250 text messages per month, with customers having the option to pay an additional fee to get more minutes or messages. Sprint views the offering as a way of getting new subscribers at a time when wireless adoption rates have become saturated. According to last week’s FCC order, NTCH plans to charge $29.95 a month before the Lifeline discount for unlimited voice service with no credit checks, deposits or long-term contracts. T-Mobile’s pricing was not stated, but the commission did note that the carrier will offer preset monthly rates with additional minutes for purchase at the “low rate of $0.05 per minute.”

[Commentary] The Justice Department has given the go-ahead to a very interesting transaction between Verizon Wireless and the cable companies, with certain conditions. The government’s review followed the template we suggested in the comments we filed with the FCC in February, where the spectrum transaction and the other arrangements were evaluated separately. While the FCC is tasked with reviewing the spectrum transaction, the commercial arrangement was examined by Justice. Commentary by left interest groups focuses on the resale agreements between Verizon Wireless and the cable companies and ignores the much more interesting joint venture to develop intellectual property. This is a strange omission because the joint venture (“JOE LLC”) figures very prominently in the DoJ review, with its own set of conditions attached. The left-wing rage over the resale agreements is hard to fathom given that the technology agreement has so much more significance.

As Congress prepares to reauthorize the controversial FISA Amendments Act of 2008 — which effectively legalized the notorious warrantless wiretap program launched by President George Bush — much about the law remains shrouded in secrecy: The National Security Agency (NSA) has refused to give legislators even a rough estimate of how many Americans’ communications have been swept up in the digital dragnet. Yet even four years after the FAA’s passage, one of the biggest mysteries isn’t how the law has been used, but why it was necessary in the first place. One surprising — but surprisingly plausible — explanation points to the unexpected consequences of broadband deregulation. In other words, it seems entirely plausible that the Bush Administration’s deregulation of cable broadband service accidentally led to a secret court refusing to approve a sizable chunk of the NSA’s wiretapping activities. That ruling then precipitated a dramatic political battle full of overblown claims of threats to America and eventually resulted in the passage of a measure expanding the NSA’s ability to intercept communications inside the United States.

In January, Sameer Bhalotra left his position as President Obama’s senior director for cybersecurity without discussing his next move. On August 21, he announced his next gig: chief operating officer at Impermium, a cybersecurity start-up based in Redwood City (CA) that wants to clean up the social Web using so-called big data techniques. Bhalotra is the latest cybersecurity expert to leave the public sector for a start-up.

In April, Shawn Henry, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top cybercop, joined CrowdStrike, a start-up that helps keep companies’ intellectual property safe from hackers. And in June, Howard Schmidt, the Obama administration’s former cybersecurity czar, joined the board of Qualys, a security company.