October 2009

Comcast: FCC's BitTorrent Decision Violated "Fair Notice"

In a filing at the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington (DC) Comcast says the Federal Communications Commission's BitTorrent decision was hardly modest (as the FCC claims), was done without the requisite notice, and was unenforceable. Comcast was responding to the FCC's argument in its brief to the court last month that it had the authority to take action against Comcast for "covertly interfering" with BitTorrent peer-to-peer traffic in violation of Internet openness principles -- and doing so in an adjudicatory proceeding rather than a rulemaking. Comcast argues that the FCC violated "basic rules of fair notice" because the conduct it targeted--reducing peer-to-peer traffic on the network--did not violate any FCC rules. "[T]he unenforceability of the Policy Statement has now been confirmed by the initiation of a rulemaking to establish the Policy Statement (and two new principles, including non-discrimination) as enforceable regulations," said Comcast in its brief. Comcast also argues that the FCC's invocation of "virtually the entire Communications Act" for its authority is a regulatory theory that "would free the agency of any meaningful statutory limits on its power, restrict Congress' role to prohibiting agency action rather than, as present law establishes, authorizing such action."

Government breaks new ground in Web site satisfaction

Public satisfaction with federal Web sites has reached a record high, according to Tuesday's release of the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index for e-government. Overall e-government satisfaction, which the university has measured quarterly since 2003, increased 2.2 percent between the second and third quarters of 2009, from 73.6 points to 75.2 points on a scale of 100. Researchers attributed the all-time high mostly to long-term investments in site maintenance and to measuring satisfaction. Efforts by the tech-savvy president were less of a factor, according to the study.

Amendment makes pharmacists eligible for IT loans

Pharmacists have been included in legislation intended to help small medical practices adopt healthcare information technology. The Small Business Health Information Technology Financing Act, an amendment introduced by House Subcommittee Chairwoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), makes provisions for state-licensed pharmacists and other healthcare providers to use a lending program for health IT. The program would provide reduced-cost loans guaranteed up to 90 percent, with a subsidized deferment period of up to three years. The amendment was included in H.R.3854, the Small Business Financing and Investment Act of 2009, which was passed by the U.S. House Small Business Committee and is slated for vote by the full House.

President Obama Announces $3.4 Billion Investment to Spur Transition to Smart Energy Grid

President Barack Obama announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies that will spur the nation's transition to a smarter, stronger, more efficient and reliable electric system. The end result will promote energy-saving choices for consumers, increase efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar. The $3.4 billion in Smart Grid Investment Grant awards are part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, and will be matched by industry funding for a total public-private investment worth over $8 billion. Applicants state that the projects will create tens of thousands of jobs, and consumers in 49 states will benefit from these investments in a stronger, more reliable grid. An analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute estimates that the implementation of smart grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent by 2030. That would mean a savings of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers around the country. The grants include $1 billion create the infrastructure and expand access to smart meters and customer systems so that consumers will be able to access dynamic pricing information and have the ability to save money by programming smart appliances and equipment to run when rates are lowest. Two billion dollars will be invested in "smart" components such as smart meters, smart thermostats and appliances, syncrophasors, automated substations, plug in hybrid electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, etc.

The benefits could reach to the broadband sector as well, said Craig Settles, a broadband analyst and president of consulting firm Successful.com. The backbone of the smart grid, which uses digital technology to deliver electricity and control use, will be an Internet Protocol-based network, and the result could mean new broadband deployment in some areas. "The interdependencies and mutual influences of smart grid and broadband technologies should enable both grant programs to have a greater payback for their respective awardees," Settles said in an e-mail. "All of the things people are talking about doing with smart grid, such as moving "green" energy from windmill farms and proactively managing energy usage, require at some point a fast data connection. That means fiber (the ideal) or possibly super-fast fixed wireless."

The smart grid will include a smart-meter monitoring device paired with electricity meters at buildings. That device will collect data on energy use, as well as control many of the electrical appliances in the building, Settles said. Those devices will need to connect back to the electric utility through an IP network. With that in mind, smart grid and broadband applicants can work together, or piggyback on each other's networks, Settles said.

"A community's fiber network can provide the backhaul for this [smart-grid] data," he said. "Or a utility can build its own fiber backhaul and determine how to make that fiber available for local government and other institutions for their use. It's cheaper to expand than to build from scratch."

Tech projects to get big splash from second wave of stimulus spending

A new wave of spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will happen over the next year, and information technology projects will get a lot of the green, said Edward DeSeve, special advisor to the Office of Management Budget and director for implementation of the Recovery Act. "Without innovation, the American economy has no where to go," DeSeve said. "We can't do the things that we've been doing, we have to do new things, and technology will be an extraordinarily important force in implementing the long term aspects of the Recovery Act." Health IT, for example, will receive significant funding over the next year, DeSeve said. About $20 billion will be applied to health-related projects, he said.

FBI Slow to Review Intercepted Communications

The FBI's collection of wiretapped phone calls and intercepted e-mail has been soaring in recent years, but the bureau is failing to review "significant amounts" of such material partly for lack of translators, according to a Justice Department report released Monday. "Not reviewing such material increases the risk that the F.B.I. will not detect information in its possession that may be important to its counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts," said the report, which was issued by the office of the department's inspector general, Glenn A. Fine. In a statement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that it was working to reduce its backlog of unreviewed audio recordings and electronic documents, and that it continued seeking to hire or contract with more linguists.

Internet networks unable to handle H1N1 telework traffic: GAO

As concerns rage over the spread of the H1N1 flu, a federal report showed that a pandemic that would keep millions of Americans at home could also overload Internet networks. Adults working from home, children accessing video files and playing games online and families logging on for information about the illness would overwhelm residential Internet networks that were never built to have a majority of users on the Web at the same time, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The federal government is in disarray when it comes to dealing with such a scenario, the GAO reported. The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of communications networks during times of national emergency. But it says it doesn't have a plan to deal with overloaded Internet networks -- an essential resource to keep the economy humming and residents informed and connected during a pandemic. And the DHS hasn't coordinated with agencies like the Federal Communications Commission to create clear guidelines for how telecom, cable and satellite providers can minimize congestion. Such confusion "would increase the risk that the federal government will not be able to respond rapidly or effectively if a pandemic quickly emerges," the GAO reported. Network operators like Comcast, AT&T, Cox and Verizon are limited in their options. They could add more bandwidth capacity and lay down private lines for essential workers, for example, but that is expensive and would take too long. Shutting down certain Web sites or prioritizing traffic could run into technical regulatory hurdles, the report said.

FCC Expands Use of Web 2.0 Tools

Easy-to-use, interactive, collaborative web tools -- known as Web 2.0 applications -- will be a key part of the Federal Communications Commission's efforts to involve the public in the Open Internet inquiry. The FCC has already established the OpenInternet.gov web site as a portal for public participation in the discussion about preserving the free and open Internet. Among the links included on the site is one to Idealscale at http://openinternet.ideascale.com/, which allows the public to evaluate, rank and discuss the ideas regarding the open Internet. The page breaks the discussion down into ten open Internet topics that have generated widespread interest, including freedom of speech, innovation, transparency/disclosure, and others. Also available at OpenInternet.gov is a blog, which provides an additional forum for public comment and debate. Comments from the blog and the Ideascale page (other than anonymous comments) will be included in the official public record of the Open Internet inquiry, along with comments filed through traditional channels at the FCC.

AT&T and Astroturf: is "following the money" enough?

To appreciate the vast influence that AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon enjoy, check out the AT&T Foundation's 2007 tax returns as an example: it has pages and pages of non-profits, charities, support groups, and community centers that receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in telco largesse. Thumbing through the return, it's easy to come to simple, "follow-the-money" conclusions about some of the filings which the Federal Communications Commission is now receiving.

Take the go-slow on network neutrality commentary filed in late September by the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership (HTTP) and 19 other civil rights groups. Their statement warns that net neutrality policies could inhibit investment and "leave disenfranchised communities further behind." The coalition describes themselves as having a common purpose, serving communities "that are among the most severely impacted by a lack of access to technology." And indeed the list includes signers from venerable organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). But the groups signing the letter have something else in common: financial support from AT&T (and sometimes Verizon and Comcast). These advocates don't hide this.

HTTP's Sylvia Aguilera initiated the action out of HTTP's concerns that net neutrality could slow down investment in ISP rollout, she explained, an area where many Latinos are finding jobs. We also asked AT&T whether they had a hand in the statement, but received no reply. Ironically, while pro-neutrality activists see Astroturf in all this, Aguilera sees something similar in the net neutrality movement. An HTTP analysis calls it "dominated by mainstream consumer advocates and the technology and telecommunications policy elite, groups that are least familiar and least equipped to discuss the perspectives of communities on the wrong side of the digital divide."

And so net neutrality activists face a big challenge: convincing a wider range of stakeholders that uncertain new reforms will not jeopardize their stake in the present system. It is in those anxieties that AT&T and company find allies.

The quest for a truly open smartphone: can it be done?

The recent release of the Symbian kernel source code under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) has generated some discussion in the open source software community about the challenges of building a truly open smartphone platform. Software freedom advocates are concerned because none of the existing open source mobile platforms with mainstream viability are entirely open. Smartphones are playing an increasingly important role in our daily computing activities, a trend that's only going to grow as the technology becomes more pervasive. If smartphone devices can't be opened up, then those computing activities will forever be restricted by network operators, handset makers, and platform vendors. The implications are clear, but the real questions are: to what extent is it necessary to open up a phone and to what extent is it possible?

Benton

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