January 2010

NIST Issues First Release of Framework for Smart Grid Interoperability

The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued an initial list of standards, a preliminary cyber security strategy, and other elements of a framework to support transforming the nation's aging electric power system into an interoperable Smart Grid, a key component of the Obama administration's energy plan and its strategy for American innovation. The new report presents the first release of a Smart Grid interoperability framework and roadmap for its further development. It contains:

a conceptual reference model to facilitate design of an architecture for the Smart Grid overall and for its networked domains;
an initial set of 75 standards identified as applicable to the Smart Grid;
priorities for additional standards—revised or new—to resolve important gaps;
action plans under which designated standards-setting organizations will address these priorities; and
an initial Smart Grid cyber security strategy and associated requirements.

Governing Board of Smart Grid Standards Panel Announces Officers

The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today that John D. McDonald, general manager of marketing for GE Energy's transmission and distribution business and an IEEE Fellow, will serve as chair of the governing board of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, the organization launched by NIST in November to sustain and coordinate development of interoperability standards for a modernized electric power grid.

The unanimous choice of governing board members, McDonald will serve as the board's chief spokesperson and will have primary responsibility for organizing its meetings and activities. As required by the SGIP bylaws, McDonald's selection to lead the board was confirmed by George Arnold, NIST's national coordinator for Smart Grid interoperability. The board also chose John F. Caskey, senior director of the Power Equipment Division at the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, to be vice chair and George Bjelovuk, managing director for marketing, research, and program development at American Electric Power, to serve as secretary. All three officers will serve one-year terms. NIST established the SGIP, which now has more than 450 participating and observing member organizations, to help it fulfill its Smart Grid responsibilities under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. The governing board manages and coordinates the technical efforts of the SGIP. In turn, the SGIP is both a forum for discussing Smart Grid technical issues and a vehicle for inter-organizational collaboration to respond to these issues and to address emerging requirements for Smart Grid standards.

Communicating in a disaster

[Commentary] What if a massive earthquake struck the U.S? How prepared are we for interoperable communications during emergencies (or day to day)?

Even as the U.S. rushes to aid Haiti, we have to ask ourselves that question. By coincidence, the day the Haiti earthquake hit, leading police chiefs, fire chiefs, and sheriffs representing tens of thousands of public safety officers throughout the U.S. visited policymakers and members of Congress in Washington. Their purpose was to request that Congress devote more radio frequency spectrum for the creation of a nationwide public safety wireless broadband network. This impressive and unusual show of unity among the diverse public safety community is evidence of a much larger message to the nation: The United States must have a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband wireless network. This network will help provide first responders with the reliable, interoperable broadband communications they need and will address a glaring vulnerability in our nation's emergency communications and response capabilities. The creation of this public safety network is not inevitable; it will take concentrated effort and leadership. We must work together to implement a national framework with appropriate funding support that will give public safety the interoperable broadband communications they need, utilizing the most advanced technologies, uniformed technical standards, and economies of scale. We must invest now in our first responders. We should not wait for a disaster to make us wish that we had.

(Barnett is a retired Navy rear admiral who is serving as the Federal Communications Commission's Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau.)

Is Google's China Problem a Groundswell of the Closed Internet?

[Commentary] The US government's concern with maintaining a free and open Internet is beginning to look like a global anomaly.

Around the world, governments both authoritarian and democratic are taking ever-more aggressive steps to regulate Internet and online service providers and to monitor what their citizens do online. While those measures have provoked fierce political battles in many of the countries where they've been introduced or proposed, they also threaten to complicate the investment environment for companies offering consumer-facing web services. The trend toward greater and stricter regulations of web services is gaining momentum around the world.

Eventually, it could make the debate in the U.S. over P2P throttling look quaint.

Google vs. China Round 2: China Underlines Its Laws, Google Stops Android Roll-Out

The political/ethical/financial spat between Google and the Chinese authorities has entered its second phase: The Chinese government is underlining its legal position, and Google's responding by postponing the launch of Android phones.

When Google announced it was going to uncensor its Google.cn search engine last week, it came as a surprise--not many organizations have taken such a bold stance against the human-rights suppression of the Chinese authorities. The move was celebrated all over the Web, even while Google's real motivations weren't too deeply investigated. If Google does pull out of the nation, its slightly relaxed stance on Internet censorship will be lost: Chinese Net users will only have the more popular (and more highly censored) government-sponsored search engine Baidu to use. It seems that the Chinese sensors were pushing Google to up its self-censorship to match Baidu's policies--and this also played into Google's decision.

But if Google pulled out of China, there were also worries about the future of the Android smartphone OS in the nation--and that worry has now come true, with the AP reporting that Google has "postponed" plans for its Android phone there.

Alibaba Hasn't Heard From Yahoo Since Issuing Comment

Alibaba hasn't heard from Yahoo! since the Chinese company criticized its US shareholder as "reckless" in supporting the position adopted by Google in China, Chairman Jack Ma said.

Ma has "no idea" about who was responsible for the cyber attacks against Google that prompted the world's largest Internet search engine operator to review its business in China. Alibaba, China's biggest online commerce company, said on Jan. 16 that it didn't support Yahoo's decision to align with Google over the cyber attacks. The stance taken by Yahoo, Alibaba's largest investor, may have generated assumptions about the Chinese government's role in the attacks that are not supported by facts, Alibaba spokesman John Spelich said.

Yahoo, which owns 39 percent of Alibaba, said on Jan. 13 it was aligned with the position adopted by Mountain View, California-based Google, which didn't identify the perpetrators of the attacks.

Twitter and Government Transparency

Social networking technologies are creating potential challenges for government transparency.

As more agency employees use Twitter, Facebook and similar external sites, some state and local IT officials are asking whether those communications should be archived for public viewing. The problem is that agencies don't know how to archive communications made on third-party social networks. For now, CIOs are delaying this puzzler because the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has no mandates related to them.

But Melinda Catapano, city records manager for Grand Junction (CO), who also is a lawyer, predicts that courts will eventually force agencies to provide this data. Examining the potential risks of this issue could help CIOs discern the appropriate priority level for solving it.

Private Sector Keeps Mum on Cyber Attacks

The biggest surprise to computer-security experts isn't that Google Inc. was targeted by attackers from China. It's that the Internet giant chose to disclose the incident.

Despite repeated efforts by the U.S. government to get the private sector to share information about threats, many companies have long kept such incidents confidential. "There's a culture of secrecy around any bad news, and data breaches are always bad news," said Larry Ponemon, a security and privacy consultant with the Ponemon Institute. "Organizations don't like to reveal it." The reticence can apply both to public disclosure of attacks as well as information-sharing among companies and government agencies—exchanges that can help organizations prevent future break-ins.

Why TV Needs To Keep Its Spectrum

A Q&A with Association for Maximum Service Television President David Donovan. Asked about reallocating broadcast TV spectrum for wireless broadband, Donovan answers, "[W]ireless reception of video content is the future."

He estimates over-the-air only homes in the US will increase by 36% between now and 2014 when approximately 59% of all homes will have at least one TV set that relies on over-the-air signals. Broadcasting, he says, the most efficient way to distribute high-quality video content in real time. When combined with DVR technology in receivers, it becomes an on-demand system.

He warns that services provided by local television stations -- provision of news, emergency information and public interest programs -- cannot be duplicated in an all-cable world because: 1) local cable news channels either are joint ventures or supported directly by local television stations, 2) we'd likely only see one local cable news channel per market, and 3) cable systems do not have universal reach.

France Offers Loans To Boost Web Speed

The French government will provide €2 billion ($2.88 billion) to improve the country's high-speed Internet networks, as part of a national loan program to boost the economy through investment in infrastructure.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Monday the government would make a series of low-interest loans to telecommunications groups, to encourage them to develop fiber-optic networks outside major cities. Telecommunications operators are already deploying fiber optic networks in heavily built up areas, such as Paris. But they have been slow to extend these to the provinces, though regular high-speed broadband is available in most of the country. "We are at the dawn of the era of high-speed Internet and fiber-optic networks," Fillon said in a speech. "However, 500,000 French people don't have access to high speed Internet at all. This is not acceptable."

The French government wants high-speed Internet connections in smaller cities and rural areas in order to boost productivity. French telecommunications operators have been slow to build the new fiber optic networks in these areas, as there are fewer potential customers in the provinces.

Benton

Search