January 2010

The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced grants totaling $63 million to expand broadband access and adoption in Massachusetts, Michigan and North Carolina. Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, NTIA's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) provides grants to support the deployment of broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas, enhance and expand public computer centers, and encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service.

• Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts-Lowell: $780,000 broadband adoption grant with an additional $196,000 in applicant-provided matching funds to promote broadband awareness and computer literacy among vulnerable populations, including the nation's second largest Cambodian population, low-income and at-risk youth, the unemployed, residents without college degrees, and seniors in Lowell and Merrimack Valley. As part of the program, University of Massachusetts-Lowell students will work in local computer centers with at-risk youth and seniors to develop appropriate training and outreach materials.
• Michigan, Merit Network, Inc.: $33.3 million infrastructure grant with an additional $8.3 million in matching funds to build a 955-mile advanced fiber-optic network through 32 counties in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The project also intends to directly connect 44 community anchor institutions and will serve an area covering 886,000 households, 45,800 businesses, and an additional 378 anchor institutions.
• Michigan, Michigan State University: $895,000 public computer center grant with an additional $235,000 in matching funds to expand 84 existing library computer centers and establish four new computer centers. Computer center sites were selected by targeting underserved and high-unemployment population areas and then focusing on those libraries with the greatest need for additional computing capacity. The project will add 500 new workstations at these targeted public computer centers throughout the state and serve nearly 13,000 additional users per week.
• North Carolina, MCNC: $28.2 million infrastructure grant with an additional $11.7 million in matching funds and in-kind contributions to build a 494-mile middle-mile broadband network passing almost half the population of North Carolina in 37 counties. The network will build new rings in the western and eastern regions of the state, which will connect to 685 miles of existing infrastructure in the urbanized central region, expanding the reach of the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN), an established broadband service for community anchor institutions in the state.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed revisions to its rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to further empower residential telephone subscribers to avoid unwanted telephone solicitations.

The proposals would require sellers and telemarketers to obtain written consent from recipients before making prerecorded telemarketing calls, commonly referred to as "robocalls," even when the caller has an established business relationship with the consumer. Additionally, the FCC proposes to make it easier to opt out of receiving robocalls. These new restrictions would harmonize the FCC's rules with the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC's) recent amendments to its Telemarketing Sales Rule. Because the majority of entities that use prerecorded telemarketing calls are subject to both agencies' telemarketing regulations, most regulated entities must comply with the FTC's current, more restrictive standards. However, entities outside the FTC's jurisdiction, such as telephone companies, airlines, banks, and insurance companies, are currently subject to less restrictive standards.

Key revisions proposed by the FCC include:

1. Requiring sellers and telemarketers to obtain telephone subscribers' express written consent (including electronic methods of consent) to receive prerecorded telemarketing calls, even when there exists an established business relationship between the caller and the consumer;

2. Requiring that prerecorded telemarketing calls include an automated, interactive mechanism by which a consumer may "opt out" of receiving future prerecorded messages from a seller or telemarketer; and,

3. Exempting certain federally regulated healthcare-related calls from the general prohibition on prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential telephone lines. (These calls are currently not specifically exempted from the prerecorded message rules.)

Consumers are witnessing the beginning of a new war between computer companies. Instead of the Apple-Microsoft conflict of the early 1980s, this fight is taking place between Apple and Google. The latest skirmish: BusinessWeek reported Wednesday that Apple is in talks with Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone's Safari Web browser. The article said the two companies have been negotiating for weeks over a possible partnership on the iPhone.

Apple and Google weren't always "frenemies." The companies seemed to band together against any number of competitors, Microsoft's Windows Mobile included, in 2007 when Apple's iPhone launched with numerous Google applications built in, including GMail, the Google search engine and Google Maps. But the friendship turned sour last year during a conflict over the Google Voice application and Apple's refusal to allow the software into the iTunes App store.

TechAmerica announced Wednesday that CEO Chris Hansen is giving up his post to head the group's foundation, leaving TechAmerica President Phil Bond as the tech association's sole leader.

Hansen and Bond have worked together to lead the tech association since it was created from the merger of the Information Technology Association of America, which Bond led, and AeA, where Hansen served as president and CEO. Bond will assume his new role of both president and CEO immediately, the group said in a news release.