March 2011

Improving Our Nation's Cybersecurity Through the Public-Private Partnership

For the first time, industry groups and civil liberties interests have come together to advocate a comprehensive, common approach to cybersecurity. That approach is reflected in the release of a cybersecurity white paper that rejects government mandates and advocates for a stronger partnership between industry and government. The 20-page white paper is a joint release from the Center for Democracy and Technology, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Software Alliance, TechAmerica, and the Internet Security Alliance.

The white paper makes a number of recommendations, including:

Government and industry should work together to strengthen international standards for cybersecurity, and the government should provide incentives for security levels that go beyond what the market delivers on its own.
Information sharing for cybersecurity purposes should be transparent and should comply with fair information practice principles.
A national cybersecurity R&D plan aimed at protecting the most critical and strategic national interests.

63% under 30 admit driving while on phone

Car crashes are the leading cause of teen deaths. Nearly 5,500 people in the U.S. were killed in distracted driving accidents in 2009. And according to a poll LaHood released, 63% of drivers under 30 acknowledge using a handheld phone while behind the wheel.

30% say they've sent text messages while driving. "Distracted driving has become a deadly epidemic on America's roads, and teens are especially vulnerable because of their inexperience behind the wheel and, often, peer pressure," said Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. He came to the headquarters of Consumer Reports magazine to announce a partnership aimed at getting young people to realize that "the safest way to get from one place to another is to hang up and drive." The program includes a flier that lists six steps parents can take, including setting a good example and setting and enforcing ground rules. The brochure is available online and will be distributed to schools and volunteer groups; a public service announcement has been produced and is being sent to TV stations nationwide; and a video meant to be played in retail stores including Wal-Mart could be seen by as many as 100 million people, Sec LaHood said.

Canada regulator approves BCE's takeover of CTV

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said BCE can proceed with its C$1.3 billion ($1.34 billion) purchase of broadcaster CTV, but it must await further hearings before it can offer exclusive content via the Internet or mobile devices.

BCE, Canada's biggest telecommunications company, must invest C$245 million in broadcasting over seven years, mostly to improve programming. BCE offered C$221 million. The CRTC also said BCE, which operates under the Bell brand, will not be allowed to offer exclusive content from CTV, the country's largest private broadcaster, on Bell's mobile or online services until the regulator completes an industry review later this year.

Sprint, Deutsche Telekom Said to Discuss T-Mobile USA Merger

Deutsche Telekom AG has held talks to sell its T-Mobile USA unit to Sprint Nextel Corp. in exchange for a major stake in the combined entity, said people with knowledge of the matter.

Talks have been on and off, and a deal may not be reached, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks are private. The companies haven't been able to agree on the valuation of T-Mobile USA, which reported a drop in profit in the fourth quarter, the people said. Sprint and Deutsche Telekom shares jumped. A merger of Sprint and T-Mobile USA would combine the third- and fourth-largest U.S. wireless providers behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. T-Mobile USA may be worth $15 billion to $20 billion.

How Many Wireless Networks Can the US Support?

Sprint and T-Mobile are reportedly back at it again, talking about a possible deal that would have Deutsche Telekom selling T-Mobile USA to Sprint in exchange for a stake in the combined company. And if the story wasn't T-Mobile in talks with Sprint it would likely involve one or the other in talks with LightSquared, the startup network backed by Harbinger Capital Partners, Clearwire or even MetroPCS. In fact, you can pretty much shuffle the players around and still find a story about them in some sort of talks or negotiations around spectrum or an outright merger.

The fundamental question here is what can the U.S. market support, both in terms of carriers and in terms of the amount of spectrum available? The FCC clearly isn't worried about Verizon and AT&T, judging by its wireless competition report released last year, but how many more nationwide networks will survive? But ultimately, the latest rumors confirm that the wireless market is evolving quickly and what worked before — four national carriers with a gaggle of smaller competitors — may not work in the future as spectrum becomes more difficult to find and data usage booms. T-Mobile and Sprint may be today’s speculative couple, but this is a high-stakes game with a lot of players running down the clock waiting to see who they will team up with before their cash runs out.

FTC Releases List of Top Consumer Complaints in 2010; Identity Theft Tops the List Again

The Federal Trade Commission released the list of top consumer complaints received by the agency in 2010. The list showed that for the 11th year in a row, identity theft was the number one consumer complaint category.

Of 1,339,265 complaints received in 2010, 250,854 – or 19 percent – were related to identity theft. Debt collection complaints were in second place, with 144,159 complaints. The report breaks out complaint data on a state-by-state basis and also contains data about the 50 metropolitan areas reporting the highest per capita incidence of fraud and other complaints. In addition, the 50 metropolitan areas reporting the highest incidence of identity theft are noted. For the first time, “imposter scams” – where imposters posed as friends, family, respected companies or government agencies to get consumers to send them money – made the top 10. The FTC also has issued a new consumer alert, “Spotting an Imposter”, to help consumers avoid imposter scams.

The top consumer complaints were:

Identity Theft
Debt Collection
Internet Services
Prizes, Sweepstakes and Lotteries
Shop-at-Home and Catalog Sales

FCC Seeks Comment on Spectrum for Broadband

The Federal Communications Commission seek comment on the steps it can take to best promote wireless broadband deployment in the 1695-1710 MHz and 3550 3650 MHz bands recently identified by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for accommodating wireless broadband.

The FCC also seeks input to inform ongoing assessment of several additional bands NTIA has identified for potential deployment of wireless broadband. These bands include the 1755 1850 MHz, 4200 4220 MHz and 4380-4400 MHz bands, and others identified by NTIA as candidates for commercial use.
The seek specific comment on whether and to what extent these bands could be made available for broadband deployment.

The FCC is particularly interested in comments on the following issues:

How do the technical assumptions upon which NTIA based its analyses affect how broadband services could be deployed in each band?
How do the conditions placed on the bands (e.g., exclusion zones) affect their usefulness for broadband deployment?
What types of broadband technologies could be deployed in these bands and is equipment readily available? Does this equipment meet the technical assumptions in NTIA's analyses? If not, how would the use of different technologies affect the availability of each band for broadband use?
Will future broadband services require paired spectrum bands and, if so, what are the most suitable band pairings for the spectrum identified by NTIA? If the spectrum identified by NTIA is not paired, what broadband technologies might be deployed?
Could broadband services share use of each band with Federal users and what techniques would be most effective for sharing (e.g., coordination in time, geography, or policy, and / or the use of cognitive technologies)? If sharing would not be feasible, what process should be used to relocate or phase out incumbent users (both Federal and non-Federal) and what are candidate relocation frequency bands?

(ET Docket No. 10-123)

Digital Learning in the 21st Century

From Des Moines to Charlottesville school districts across the country are making sure there is a laptop in the hands of every high school student. California’s e-textbook initiative augurs the nationwide rise of digital course materials. Teachers now use web videos to reinforce the quadratic formula or impart a civics lesson. Technology is moving forward. Our classrooms and our curriculum need to catch up. The FCC is joining with the New York City Department of Education March 9 for an event on digital learning in the 21st century. The FCC will speak on the promise of wireless and present a roundtable on the future of K – 12 education, as America begins to employ digital learning solutions. This includes the adoption of digital textbooks and the possibilities of wireless technology to enhance learning in the classroom. Wednesday’s event will explore both the benefits and the obstacles to this shift.

Supremes to decide if public domain works can be re-copyrighted

The Supreme Court says it will hear a case considering whether public domain works can be pushed back into the copyright closet. And advocacy groups say that free speech is at stake in this fight.

Congress' decision to uphold an international treaty allowing for public works to be "restored" into copyright will create an atmosphere of uncertainty for libraries, they warn, caretakers of the public domain. "Because it protects our cultural commons, the public domain is equally essential, in turn, to free speech, helping to give meaning to the First Amendment right to receive information," wrote the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Internet Archive in a brief asking the Supremes to hear the matter. "Given the large number of works in the collections of US libraries, libraries must reasonably fear that they could be sued multiple times if they continued to provide access to the materials in their collections that might be withdrawn from the public domain."

Making Your Wi-Fi Free to Roam

Most people take roaming agreements between cellular operators for granted, if they even think of them at all. These agreements — which allow consumers to wander in and out of a cellular coverage area without losing their calls — are set up between the major carriers for voice and even for data, but they may soon encompass Wi-Fi.

According to a Cisco product manager, operators are becoming more interested in Wi-Fi roaming, which could enable consumers to hop onto more Wi-Fi networks and may even make such hopping seamless. The rationale for Wi-Fi roaming is simple. Carriers need it to deliver a good customer experience. The demand for mobile data will far exceed the capacity of cellular networks according to most sources, so having a decent alternative network that can handle data makes sense. Cisco, for example, predicts that mobile data will grow 26-fold in the next four years. Much of that growth will come from video, which is more challenging to stream over networks, since it depends on a continuous connection of bits that are assembled in real time to make up the content, as opposed to a single download that can be reassembled later.

Benton

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