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VERIZON CALLS FOR NEW BROADBAND INCENTIVES
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
The U.S. government should launch a new program that provides grants and loans for broadband providers to extend service to rural areas, said Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president for public affairs, policy, and communications. He pointed to ConnectKentucky as a model state program; it has provided 94% of Kentucky residents with broadband options. The rest of the nation likely won't reach U.S. President George Bush's goal of universal broadband access by the end of 2007, Tauke said. The U.S. needs to look at broadband incentive programs "sooner rather than later," he said. The new program proposed by Verizon could use some existing funding, including redirecting some funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), which had a 2006 budget of $6.1 billion, he said. The RUS now subsidizes several types of utilities, including broadband, electricity, distance learning, and telemedicine. New funds may also be needed, Tauke said, although he didn't provide specific numbers at a press briefing. Part of the problem is there's no good measure of how many U.S. residents have access to broadband, Tauke said. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission released a report Jan. 31 saying 99 percent of all U.S. postal codes had at least one broadband provider, but critics have noted that the FCC would count a postal code if a provider offered service to just a handful of residents. Tauke called for a comprehensive study of what broadband gaps exist. "We just don't know today who has broadband and who doesn't," he said.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/12/HNverizonbroadbandincentives_1...

* Verizon Shifts Its Policy Focus To Boosting Broadband Deployment
[SOURCE: Technology Daily 2/12, AUTHOR: David Hatch]
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-RKZB1171483871353.html

AT&T SHOULD BOOST FIBER, SAYS MARKET RESEARCHER
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
BNA market research company Pike & Fischer suggests that AT&T's buildout of fiber to the node and using existing copper lines to connect to homes will not be successful in the long-term. "AT&T is attempting to position its TV service as superior to cable, but there's nothing to prevent those competitors from matching the U-verse features over time," says report author Tim McElgunn, chief analyst for Pike & Fischer's Broadband Advisory Services. The firm concludes that AT&T will have to buildout fiber directly to customers' premises.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6415927.html?display=Breaking...

NEW FRONTIERS FOR CELLPHONE SERVICE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Cassell Bryan-Low cassell.bryan-low@wsj.com]
For years, developed nations provided the cellphone industry with most of its growth and fat profits. Now, that growth has slowed, it is the emerging markets that are rising fast. As a result, cellphone-service providers are reaching into the world's remotest regions. Developing regions such as Africa, China and India together account for roughly 1.6 billion cellphone subscribers, about 59% of the global market, according to Wireless Intelligence, a joint venture between the GSM Association and Ovum Holdings Ltd. that tracks cellphone-industry data. Analysts expect these newer cellphone markets to contribute the vast majority of growth in mobile subscribers in the coming years. Only about a third of people in developing markets currently have mobile phones. In India, less than 15% of the population has a cellphone, but the market is increasing by more than six million new subscribers a month. By contrast, roughly 70% of the U.S. population own a cellphone and some Western European markets have reached saturation point. The industry is racing to adapt. Companies from Vodafone Group PLC, the world's largest wireless-service provider by revenue, to regional providers like Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications Co., are looking at everything from lower-cost handsets to services tailored to clientele living on very low incomes and often far from urban centers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117131445160206294.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
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* Cell phones mobilized to fight AIDS in Africa
The "Phones-for-Health" project will use software loaded on to a standard Motorola handset to allow care workers in the field to enter critical health information into a central database in real time.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL1269690620070213

HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ASKED TO DEMAND ANSWERS FROM FCC AT OVERSIGHT HEARING
[SOURCE: Campaign Legal Center & Benton Foundation]
Members of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet are being urged to demand answers from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the lack of digital public interest obligations more than a decade after the process began. The request from the Campaign Legal Center and the Benton Foundation was hand delivered to Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) as he received the 2007 Susan G. Hadden Pioneer Award for his pioneering efforts on behalf of consumer access. The full Subcommittee received similar letters that included a timeline of the FCC's foot-dragging on digital public interest obligations dating back to 1995. All five FCC Commissioners are slated to appear before the Subcommittee in an oversight hearing scheduled for Thursday, February 15 at 10 a.m. in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Full text of letter at the URL below.
http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/press-2436.html

See also --
* Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters Timeline of Inaction 1995-2007
http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/4754

* Citizen's Guide to the Public Interest Obligations of Digital TV Broadcasters
http://www.benton.org/pioguide/index.html