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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Commerce
AGENCY: National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Department of Commerce (DOC).
ACTION: Notice of Open Meeting
SUMMARY: This notice announces a public meeting of the Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (Committee). The Committee provides advice to the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information on spectrum management matters.
DATES: The meeting will be held on December 13, 2006, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Herbert C. Hoover Building, Room 6059, 1401 Constitution Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. Public comments may be mailed to Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, 1401 Constitution Ave. N.W., Room 4725, Washington, D.C. 20230 or emailed to spectrumadvisory@ntia.doc.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Meredith Baker, Designated Federal Official, at (202) 482-1840 or mbaker@ntia.doc.gov; Joe Gattuso at (202) 482-0977 or jgattuso@ntia.doc.gov; and/or visit NTIA’s web site at www.ntia.doc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background: The Secretary of Commerce established the Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (Committee) to implement a recommendation of the President’s Initiative on Spectrum Management pursuant to the President’s November 29, 2004 Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the subject of “Spectrum Management for the 21st Century.†This Committee is subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C. App. 2 and is consistent with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Act, 47 U.S.C. § 904(b). The Committee provides advice to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information on needed reforms to domestic spectrum policies and management to enable the introduction of new spectrum-dependent technologies and services, including policy reforms for expediting the American public's access to broadband services, public safety, digital television, and long-range spectrum planning. The Committee will function solely as an advisory body in compliance with the FACA.
Matters to Be Considered: This will be the first meeting of the Committee. The primary purpose of this initial meeting is to organize the Committee and establish future agendas and work schedule. As such, the meeting agenda includes the following: (1) Discussion of Committee organization and future agendas and (2) Briefings on matters related to the President’s Spectrum Policy Initiative.
Time and Date: The meeting will be held on December 13, 2006 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. These times and the agenda topics described below are subject to change. Please refer to NTIA’s web site, http://www.ntia.doc.gov, for the most up-to-date meeting agenda.
Place: U.S. Department of Commerce, Herbert C. Hoover Building, Room 6059, 1401 Constitution Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. The meeting will be open to the public and press on a first-come, first-served basis. Space is limited. When arriving for the meeting, attendees must present photo or passport identification or a U.S. Government building pass, if applicable, and should arrive at least one-half hour prior to the start time of the meeting. The meeting will be physically accessible to people with disabilities. Individuals requiring special services, such as sign language interpretation or other ancillary aids are asked to contact Joe Gattuso at least two (2) business days prior to the meeting.
Status: Interested parties are invited to attend and to submit written comments. Written comments should be sent to the above listed address and received by close of business on December 11, 2006 to provide sufficient time for review. Comments received after December 11, 2006 will be distributed to the Committee, but may not be reviewed prior to the meeting. It would be helpful if paper submissions also include a three and one-half inch computer diskette in HTML, ASCII, Word or WordPerfect format (please specify version). Diskettes should be labeled with the name and organizational affiliation of the filer, and the name of the word processing program used to create the document. Alternatively, comments may be submitted electronically to spectrumadvisory@ntia.doc.gov. Comments provided via electronic mail may also be submitted in one or more of the formats specified above.
Records: NTIA is keeping records of all Committee proceedings, which will be available for public inspection at NTIA’s office at the address above. Documents including the Committee’s charter, membership, agendas, minutes, and any reports are or will be available on NTIA’s web site.
Dated: November 22, 2006
Milton Brown,
Acting Chief Counsel, National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/frnotices/2006/spec_advisory_112806.htm
It's a time of uncertainty: just how much merger can the industry get away with?
[SOURCE: New York Times 11/04/1996, AUTHOR: Geraldine Fabrikant]
Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed radio companies to own as many as eight stations in a single market -- though not more than five on either the AM or FM band -- the Justice Department has started looking assiduously at the antitrust implications of mergers. In a speech, Lawrence Fullerton, an official in the department's antitrust division, said the department was investigating about 20 radio mergers around the country. The Justice Department has said it will make market-by-market decisions. And in addition to future mergers, it may also disqualify existing joint sales agreements, which are arrangements in which one station agrees to sell the advertising time for another station. The Justice Department is worried that such agreements, like mergers, give companies too much influence with advertisers. Measuring the absolute percentage of advertising dollars a single company controls in a single market is not the only issue. The Justice Department is also raising questions about single companies controlling too many stations with the same or similar formats in a single market. It may let an owner retain control of a number of stations if they have widely different formats, like classical music and rock music, that do not attract similar advertisers.
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30A11FF3E5C0C77...
(requires TimesSelect subscription)
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30A11FF3E5C0C778CDDA809…
FCC CHAIR MOVES TO BREAK AT&T DEADLOCK
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Bruce Meyerson]
Declaring an "impasse" on AT&T's proposed acquisition of BellSouth, Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin cleared the way Friday for a commissioner who had disqualified himself from the deliberations to break the deadlock. Chairman Martin asked the FCC's general counsel to "consider whether the government's interest would be served" by permitting Commissioner Robert McDowell to vote on the $81.6 billion deal, according to a letter sent to members of the congressional committees that oversee the agency. Commissioner McDowell, one of three Republicans on the five-person commission, had recused himself because he is a former lobbyist for a trade group that opposes the merger. Without McDowell, the vote has been deadlocked at 2-2, with Chairman Martin and another Republican appointee favoring approval of the deal, and the two Democrats demanding the companies offer additional concessions to ensure it doesn't harm consumers. In his letter, Martin wrote, "Despite working for months to reach consensus with my colleagues, three attempts over the past six weeks to have this item considered at an open meeting, and countless hours of internal deliberations, the commission has reached an impasse." Commissioner McDowell issued a short statement saying he looks forward to the general counsel's analysis "regarding my potential participation." Both Democrats harshly criticized the move Friday night. Commissioner Michael Copps said allowing McDowell to vote would be "taking a mulligan" and "starting over with a changed set of players." He said the move would "create more problems than it resolves" and "short circuit discussions, and very likely shortchange consumers." Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said the decision "appears to be an effort to cut short the dialogue about measures to safeguard choice and competition for consumers and to promote affordable broadband services."
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8LOK1I80.htm
* Martin Seeks to Unleash McDowell
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6396777.html?display=Breaking+News
FCC Chair Moves to Break AT&T Deadlock
FCC OWNERSHIP HEARING IN NASHVILLE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
On Monday, December 11, Nashville Tennessee's Belmont University will host a Federal Communications Commission hearing on media ownership. The purpose of the hearing is to fully involve the public in the process of the 2006 Quadrennial Broadcast Media Ownership Review that the Commission is currently conducting. The hearing is open to the public, and seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. This hearing is the second in a series of media ownership hearings the Commission intends to hold across the country. There will be two panels, each followed by a period for public comment. The first panel will examine issues affecting the music recording industry. The second panel will provide an overview of the Nashville market and issues affecting broadcasters and independent programmers. The hearing format will enable members of the public to participate via "open microphone."
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-268785A1.doc
FCC Ownership Hearing in Nashville
WHY NETWORK NEUTRALITY WILL BE LAW IN 2007
[SOURCE: Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Jason Pontin, Technology Review]
[Commentary] One of the first technology controversies that the new Democratic Congress will address when it meets in 2007, will be network neutrality. Here's what will happen: legislators will support new regulation. Democrats know network neutrality regulation, far from representing a creeping expansion of government interference, will simply preserve the established openness of the Internet. Indeed, the failure to enact network neutrality regulation would implicitly authorize the service providers to override the separation of the transport and application layers of the Internet. And that would represent the erosion of the authority of the foundational Internet standards that has made the 'Net into the greatest force for economic expansion and human communications in history. Sometime early in the New Year, therefore, Congress will reform the Telecommunications Act of 1996. They will require Internet providers to allow consumers access to any application, content, or service.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-pontin/why-network-neutrality-wi_b_3...
Why Network Neutrality Will Be Law in 2007
PEDIATRICIANS CALL FOR LESS ADVERTISING TO CHILDREN
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Marilyn Elias]
Pediatricians should lobby for a ban or severe curtailment on widespread school-based ads, and Congress should prohibit commercials for “junk food†on TV shows watched mostly by young children, the American Academy of Pediatrics says today. The new policy on advertising to kids was prompted by alarm over rising rates of childhood obesity in an atmosphere where kids increasingly are targeted by marketers, says pediatrician Victor Strasburger, the policy's senior author. Since the pediatricians last weighed in on the issue 11 years ago, ads have cropped up everywhere kids turn: the Internet, cellphones, video games, school campuses and even school buses, Strasburger says. Last year, advertisers spent $1.4 billion per month marketing to children — 15% more than in 2004, according to James McNeal, a children's marketing expert and author of The Kids Market: Myths and Realities. An Institute of Medicine report last year found evidence that food and beverage marketing to children 12 and under leads them to ask for and eat and drink non-nutritious products that are high in calories. The new policy calls for Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to limit commercials on children's TV to five to six minutes an hour, a 50% cut from what's now allowed. The pediatrics group also called on makers of Viagra and similar drugs to run commercials only on shows that air after 10 p.m. These ads “make sexual activity seem like a recreational sport,†while birth control commercials that could cut teen pregnancy rates are rarely aired, the policy says.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20061204/bl_bottomstrip_pedes0...
Pediatricians Call for Less Advertising to Children
ITU SEES RISKS TO PRIVACY, SECURITY ONLINE
[SOURCE: Reuters]
Computer users who type in the same username and password for multiple sites -- such as online banks, travel agencies and booksellers -- are at serious risk from identity thieves, a United Nations agency said on Sunday. The International Telecommunication Union, a Geneva-based U.N. branch, said businesses and regulators need to find a solution to the spread of personal information on the Internet, possibly by developing more streamlined identification methods.
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story...
See also --
*
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Victoria Shannon]
This week in Hong Kong, the International Telecommunication Union, representing 191 countries and 650 companies, is putting on the telecommunications industry’s biggest gathering, called ITU Telecom World, attracting about 70,000 people. But some of the conference’s attention will be focused on the role of the United nations agency itself. Should it concern itself with Internet governance -- a role that its Western members find particularly objectionable -- or should it focus on ground-level issues, like access to telecommunications in developing countries? Hamadoun Touré of Mali, who was recently elected secretary general of the agency, its highest-ranking official, favors the latter approach. “I wouldn't want to see the ITU trying to take over Internet governance,†he said at his first news conference. But underlying tensions about the direction of the agency, which has its origins in the era of the telegraph, have troubled it since the Internet became such a prominent part of the world’s telecommunications networks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/technology/04telecom.html
(requires registration)
U.N. Agency Wants to Nourish the Internet, Not Govern It
NEW US RULES RAISE RETENTION REQUIREMENTS FOR E-DOCUMENTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
U.S. companies will need to know more about where they store e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees in the event they are sued because of changes in federal rules that took effect Friday, legal experts say. The changes, approved by the Supreme Court's administrative arm in April after a five-year review, require companies and other parties involved in federal litigation to produce "electronically stored information" as part of discovery, the process by which both sides share evidence before a trial. Federal and state courts have increasingly been requiring the production of such evidence in individual cases. The new rules clarify that the data will be required in federal cases. Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely copies over a backup computer tape could be committing "virtual shredding" once a lawsuit has been filed, said Alvin F. Lindsay, a partner in the Miami office of Hogan & Hartson whose legal expertise is in technology and litigation.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-email4dec04,1,2614875...
(requires registration)
New U.S. rules raise retention requirements for e-documents
A NEWSPAPER CHAIN SEES ITS FUTURE, AND IT'S ONLINE AND HYPER-LOCAL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Frank Ahrens]
Gannett's newspapers are redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second. Papers are slashing national and foreign coverage and beefing up "hyper-local," street-by-street news. They are creating reader-searchable databases on traffic flows and school class sizes. Web sites are fed with reader-generated content, such as pictures of their kids with Santa. In short, Gannett -- at its 90 papers, including USA Today -- is trying everything it can think of to create Web sites that will attract more readers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR200612...
(requires registration)
A Newspaper Chain Sees Its Future, And It's Online and Hyper-Local
CONTENT AND OWNERSHIP
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Craig Kuhl]
By 2009, more than 108 million digital TV subscribers worldwide will be accessing thousands of video-on-demand (VOD) programs and moving massive amounts of content from device to device. That expected explosion of special content delivery holds tremendous upside, and one enormous danger: piracy. Preventing this valuable content from being stolen by consumers or illegally downloaded is now an industry imperative. It's pushing cable operators, broadcasters, movie studios, record companies and their partnering industries -- such as set-top box manufacturers -- to new content-protection heights. Next-generation methodologies and technologies such as the M Card, DCAS (downloadable conditional-access system) and digital watermarking are expected to offer a more effective means of identifying and tracking just who is accessing the content and how it's paid for, all under the conditional-access (CA) umbrella.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6396711.html?display=Special+...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6396711.html?display=Special%20Report