July 2009

New FCC Chairman's Agenda Includes Broader Internet Access, More Transparency

Julius Genachowski has laid out a major mission for the Federal Communications Commission: making affordable high-speed Internet available to all Americans. But how the agency's new chairman goes about achieving that goal has Internet providers watching nervously. Chairman Genachowski confirmed his commitment to widespread Internet access, saying the Web has been perhaps "the most successful driver of economic growth" in the country. The new FCC head also faces internal challenges. Under previous Chairman Kevin Martin, who preferred a top-down management style that discouraged information leaks, many agency staff got out of the habit of communicating with each other and to the public, critics say. Chairman Genachowski said he is working to encourage more communication and transparency. His efforts include an overhaul of the FCC's Web site to make it easier for consumers to find information.

Verizon Limits Length of Exclusive Phone Deals

Verizon Wireless said it will shorten the time it holds exclusive arrangements to offer popular cellphone models, allowing small wireless carriers to offer the devices as well. The largest US wireless provider by subscribers announced the change in a letter Friday to key lawmakers on Capitol Hill who have been pressuring the wireless industry to end exclusive handset arrangements such as AT&T's multi-year deal to carry Apple's iPhone in the US. Verizon said it will modify its exclusivity arrangements with handset manufacturers so that smaller wireless carriers -- those with 500,000 customers or less -- can offer the same handsets six months after Verizon. "Any new exclusively arrangement we enter with handset makers will last no longer than six months -- for all manufacturers and all devices," Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam wrote in the letter. However, McAdam defended the practice of locking up phones with exclusive deals, and said the new policy wouldn't apply to existing arrangements, such as Verizon's exclusive deal to carry the BlackBerry Storm. The Rural Cellular Association, whose members include about 100 small and medium-sized carriers, said it was encouraged by Verizon Wireless's offer to limit new exclusive handset deals but the offer was inadequate

As Media Grow, FCC Looks Ahead

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski talked about the importance of "edge" Internet and software companies in pushing forward technological advances. He suggested that these companies might play a key role in boosting the economy and in helping the agency meet its mandate to bring high-speed Internet access to all Americans. "That's where the greatest innovation is," he said. "What is interesting to me is to find ways to work with early-stage innovators to build from the edge and work on tomorrow's ideas." The 46-year-old former venture capitalist offered few specifics on how he would bring those entrepreneurs into an agency that is still grappling with arcane policies on sharing telephone wires and the distribution of radio broadcast licenses. And he did not weigh in on some of the most vexing issues confronting the FCC, including complaints about exclusive wireless partnerships such as the one AT&T and Apple forged with the iPhone. But he touted the role of high-tech and telecom startups and smaller competitors in creating jobs as the administration pushes to bring broadband access to the nation.

FCC chairman has broad approach to Net access

Expanding high-speed Internet access throughout the United States is a top priority for Julius Genachowski as he starts his term as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Chairman Genachowski and the agency are charged by President Obama and Congress with helping to ensure that all Americans can participate in the ongoing technological revolution that is integrating broadband with television and other devices beyond the computer. The 46-year-old lawyer has extensive experience in Washington and the technology industry. And it helps that he's a friend and former classmate of Obama's. Genachowski was a clerk for two Supreme Court justices and worked on Capitol Hill as well as at the FCC. He also spent a decade in the technology arena, including eight years as an executive at Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, the Internet and media giant. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama talked often about expanding broadband Internet access, and, as president, he signed into law the $787-billion stimulus bill this year that includes $7.2 billion to do that. The Commerce and Agriculture departments will distribute the grants. But the stimulus law puts the FCC in charge of developing a national strategy by February for improving broadband access nationwide. It's a daunting task for the historically slow-moving FCC, which was criticized during the tenure of former Chairman Kevin J. Martin for infighting, questionable research and general bureaucratic dysfunction.

Experts clash over cell phone jamming at Senate hearing

(7/15) In the debate over cell phone jamming in prisons, the skeptics have caution and reason on their side, but the advocates bring impressive horror stories. Take Texas State Senator John Whitmire, who testified at Wednesdays' Senate Commerce and Science hearing on a bill to let prisons use jamming technology to block mobile phone use within their walls. At the event, he described how he received a phone call last year from Texas death row inmate Richard Tabler. Tabler's mother was eventually arrested for smuggling cell phones into the prison. The incident convinced Whitmire that Congress should pass Senator Kay Hutchison's (R-TX) Safe Prisons Communications Act of 2009. The bill would allow the director of the Federal prison system or the governor of a state to petition the Federal Communications Commission for permission to use cell phone jamming devices in a specific prison, a practice that is currently illegal.

FCC gives Broadband Over Power Line a second chance

It's once more into the breach for the Federal Communications Commission's efforts to authorize Broadband Over Power Line technology. On Friday, the agency issued a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, asking for feedback on the power levels Access BPL systems should operate at so that they don't interfere with other services. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) stopped this process dead in its tracks last year, having raised concerns about the transparency of the proceeding and BPL's potential for messing with ham radio signals and other bands. But the Commission is sticking to its guns, arguing that the technical standards it has already set may still be sufficient—at least, with a modification or two. BPL's critics "do not provide convincing information" that the FCC should change course, the NPRM says.

Broadband Maps a Necessary Component of Stimulus Grants, Says Stearns

The House Subcommittee on Communications will hold a hearing "in the near future" on making broadband maps a necessary component of awarding Broadband Initiatives Program and Broadband Technological Opportunities Program grants, subcommittee ranking member Cliff Stearns (R-FL) said. Rep Stearns was the luncheon speaker at an Alcatel-Lucent workshop on rural broadband public-private partnerships. At the event, French telecommunications representatives spoke on their experiences in bringing broadband to rural territories throughout France. Rep Stearns said he was concerned that the stimulus was rushed, and called for more congressional oversight of the broadband stimulus programs.

Universal Service Fund Should Focus on the Low-Income, Agree Broadband Experts

A panel of broadband experts agreed Monday that the Universal Service Fund should direct more of its funding to low-income areas and away from exclusively focusing on rural high-cost areas, where funds are not being spent efficiently. The experts spoke during a panel discussion sponsored by the Technology Policy Institute, a market-oriented think tank on technology issues. The term universal service, said Jonathan Nuechterlein, a partner at Wilmer Hale law firm, has two different meanings. One meaning has to do with funding for broadband in high-cost areas where deployment is expensive, regardless of the residents' income, and the other has to do with funding for low-income areas. "Funding broadband," said Nuechterlein, "is expensive" and is going to "increase the burden on the companies that end up subsidizing it." One way to ensure that this money is spent efficiently is to "narrow the scope" by only funding broadband in "genuinely unserved areas," he said.

Clear Channel Donating Several AM Stations For Diversity Initiative

A day after Obama administration official Susan Crawford said the administration recognized the importance of broadcasting, and in particular radio, to minority audiences, Clear Channel announced that it was donating several AM radio stations to a project that will train future minority and women owners. In an announcement at the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council (MMTC) access to capital conference in Washington Tuesday, the company said it was donating the stations to MMTC and partnering with it on the MMTC-Clear Channel Ownership Diversity Initiative. Clear Channel will donate KYHN Fort Smith (AR); WTFX Winchester (VA); KMFX Rochester (MN); and WHJA Laurel (MS), to the project. The National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation's Broadcast Leadership Training Program will then team up with MMTC to use the stations as a training facility for future station operators.

Are the stars aligning for telemedicine's success?

The current health care crisis has some experts saying that telemedicine's time has finally come. While technology companies have been touting the use of virtual technology to allow doctors to remotely examine and monitor patients for decades, up until recently the business case for deploying these expensive systems was hard to justify. But now as lawmakers in Washington, DC look for ways to fix the broken health care system, technologies, such as high-definition video conferencing and telepresence, are getting a second look.

Benton

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