December 2011

Statement From FCC Chairman Genachowski On House Passage Of Voluntary Incentive Auction Legislation

House passage of incentive auction authority is a major achievement. The House legislation, like S. 911, which was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee, would authorize the Federal Communications Commission to conduct voluntary incentive auctions as recommended in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. This would free up new spectrum for mobile broadband, driving investment, innovation, and job creation; generating many billions of dollars of revenue; and helping foster U.S. leadership in mobile broadband.

Incentive auction authority, which has broad bipartisan support, needs to become law. Unless we free up new spectrum for mobile broadband, the looming spectrum crunch risks throttling our mobile economy and frustrating mobile consumers.

The House bill also provides funding for a public safety broadband network for the nation’s first responders, which was another recommendation of the National Broadband Plan. I further applaud the House for adopting this important proposal.

As the bill moves forward, I look forward to working with Congress to ensure that the FCC has the flexibility it needs on spectrum policy, a hallmark of our legal and regulatory structure that has been in place for decades. Communications technologies and markets change rapidly and unexpectedly. The FCC’s ability to adapt nimbly to these changes and to manage spectrum for the benefit of the American public and our economy will be even more critical in the years ahead.

Over the last weeks and months, we have conveyed to Members of Congress and their staff concerns about provisions that would reduce FCC flexibility to maximize the overall value of freed-up spectrum, enhance spectrum efficiency, and promote robust innovation and investment. Several provisions of the House bill would tie the agency’s hands in ways that could be counterproductive, reducing economic value and hindering innovation and investment. One important example is the legislation’s seeming limitation on the Commission’s ability to accommodate new technologies, including those that use unlicensed spectrum, like super WiFi or machine-to-machine Internet connected devices. I encourage Congress to leave no doubt that the FCC can continue its policies to promote unlicensed spectrum use alongside licensed uses. “These policies to promote unlicensed spectrum contribute tens of billions of dollars to our economy each year. Wi-Fi hot spots across the United States increase the value of licensed broadband service by an estimated $25 billion a year. Wireless providers rely on Wi-Fi to “offload” nearly 40 percent of traffic from their networks, resulting in a reduction of the cost of wireless broadband service by at least another $25 billion each year. Unlicensed spectrum stimulates innovation, investment, and job creation in many ways, including by providing startups with quick access to a testbed for spectrum that is used by millions, bringing new technologies to consumers in a rapid fashion. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cordless phones, garage door openers, wireless car keys, and baby monitors—industries generating billions of dollars of revenue—would not exist without unlicensed spectrum. As CTIA, The Wireless Association, recently explained in a letter to Congress, licensed and unlicensed should be accommodated in any spectrum legislation and should be viewed as “complementary rather than an either-or proposition.

Precluding the FCC from adopting innovation-enhancing policies around unlicensed spectrum could threaten U.S. global leadership in spectrum-related innovation. The same is true for the bill’s restrictions on the Commission’s ability to construct band plans and structure auctions in ways that maximize the value of licensed spectrum. Ensuring that the Commission retains the flexibility to determine the optimal band plan for new spectrum that becomes available, including the creation of guard bands and other interference safeguards, will enhance the value of the new commercial mobile licenses, as will ensuring that the Commission can conduct auctions in ways that will best further innovation, investment, and competition in the wireless space.

Again, I commend the House of Representatives for its passage of historic incentive auction legislation. The Commission will continue to serve as resource to Congress as this measure moves forward so we can help seize the enormous mobile opportunity and meet the growing demand for mobile services.

FCC Seeks Comment on Verizon-US Cellular Spectrum Deal

Verizon Wireless and US Cellular have filed an application seeking consent to the proposed assignment of the cellular Block B license KNKN800 and associated common carrier fixed point-to-point microwave licenses from US Cellular to Verizon Wireless. The proposed assignment of license involves two counties in one CMA in Pennsylvania.

The Applicants state that Verizon Wireless will transition the customers acquired from US Cellular to Verizon Wireless’s service within a period of nine to twelve months after closing. The Applicants assert that the proposed assignment will serve the public interest because it will enable Verizon Wireless to enter this market, which it currently does not serve, as a new competitor offering voice and 3G services, and that this entry into the market will enhance the breadth of wireless product and service offerings to US Cellular’s customers. The Applicants also state that the existing cellular operations will be supplemented by Verizon Wireless’s planned deployment of 4G LTE in the market in the near future.

Preliminary review of the application indicates that in the two counties, Verizon Wireless would hold, post-transaction, 59 megahertz of spectrum below 1 GHz.

Petitions to deny the transaction are due December 28, 2011; Oppositions to the petitions are due January 9, 2012. Replies are due January 17, 2012.

Proposed First Quarter 2012 Universal Service Contribution Factor – 17.9%

The Federal Communications Commission announces that the proposed universal service contribution factor for the first quarter of 2012 will be 0.179 or 17.9 percent.

DC Fiber Network Waiting for ISPs to Join

Washington (DC) might finish its 100 gigabits-per-second fiber network ahead of schedule, said the district’s CTO. But to fully realize the potential of the blazing-fast network, Rob Mancini is hoping Internet service providers (ISPs) decide to utilize the district’s middle-mile capacity ahead of the project’s 2013 deadline.

Installation of the fiber network, called the DC Community Access Network (DC-CAN), began last year. So far, 24 anchor sites — public health-care clinics, charter schools and other institutions — have been connected and 37 miles of fiber have been laid, Mancini said. When completed, the network will have 173 miles of fiber and is expected to connect to 223 sites within the entire district. “I’d like to see us get done by the end of September 2013,” Mancini said. “If we keep going at the rate we are, we should make that.” The deadline is important in order to fulfill grant obligations attached to $17.5 million in federal stimulus money that’s funding the project. The fiber network’s total cost is $25 million. The network’s aim is to help bring broadband to underserved areas, but officials also anticipate that it will make possible new government applications. Already, the district has started connecting sites in areas east of the Anacostia River where broadband adoption rates are less than 40 percent, according to an announcement this month from Mancini’s office. The project is managed by the District Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCTO) DC-Net program.

Chairman Smith fires back at SOPA critics

In a blistering statement, House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) accused a cast of star tech execs criticizing his Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) of not understanding the bill — and he singled out Google’s opposition to the measure as “self-serving.”

“Companies like Google have made billions by working with and promoting foreign rogue websites so they have a vested interest in preventing Congress from stopping rogue websites,” Chairman Smith said. “Lawful companies and websites like Google, Twitter, Yahoo and Facebook have nothing to worry about this bill,” he added. Tech executives wrote that the bills would “undermine security online by changing the basic structure of the Internet.” Nonsense, responded Chairman Smith. The manager’s amendment that he unveiled this week, Chairman Smith said, addresses the major criticisms of SOPA. The revision “narrows the scope of the bill to ensure that it only applies to foreign rogue websites,” Chairman Smith said. The changes also clarify the definition of rogue sites “as foreign websites primarily dedicated to the sale and distribution of illegal or infringing material or foreign websites that market themselves as websites primarily dedicated to illegal or infringing activity,” he said. Chairman Smith said critics have ignored his attempts to address their issues. He charged that they are “spreading lies about the legislation in an attempt to stall efforts by Congress to combat foreign rogue websites.”

FCC's 'star' media regulator Copps bows out

The Federal Communications Commission is losing its rock star regulator. At 71, Commissioner Michael Copps is retiring after 10 years, and while he may not look like a glamour boy, few regulators have received a standing ovation like he did at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis in 2007.

The FCC is defined by whoever is chairman. The chairman is the Mick Jagger; he has the mic and controls the policy agenda. The commissioners are the bandmates and over the past 10 years Commissioner Copps has often been the heart and soul — the Keith Richards — of the panel. Media consolidation was and still is Copps’s policy anthem. He reminisced with POLITICO recently about how the issue took him on the road and brought him face to face with thousands of people across the country. The Copps Road Show made him a hero to what the Occupy Wall Street protesters refer to as “the 99 percent.” “I believe in taking this commission out on the road so that the American people can see us and get to know us and we can get to know the American people and see more of them,” he said. “It’s so important as we transition to our media to the digital realm.”

Making the Most of Broadband: Think Small

The town of Three Lakes in northern Wisconsin relied on its powers of tech-persuasion twice: first to convince broadband companies to set up shop there, and a second time in using its broadband capacity to attract residents who would boost the local economy. It wasn’t easy, but the community is already reaping rewards for both efforts.

For Amazon, Lashes and Backlashes

If Amazon had a secret agenda in 2011 to fuel a backlash against itself, the retailer has scored another triumph.

Its refusal to collect sales tax in California despite a new law compelling it to do so prompted some well-publicized criticism not only from politicians but the tech community. Its hiring of ambulances at its Pennsylvania warehouse to wait for workers to keel over in the summer heat conjured up a Dickensian sweatshop. The retailer apparently brought its Kindle Fire tablet to market before it had all the kinks out, disappointing some of its biggest fans. Now there is the Price Check flap, where Amazon asked customers to go into physical stores, scan the prices with a special app on their smartphone and then buy from Amazon.

Although the campaign was geared more against Wal-Mart and Best Buy than independent bookstores — anyone who does not know that the price of any book in a bookstore is significantly more than the Amazon price has been napping for 10 years — it was the bookstores that voiced their outrage. Americans love efficiency. Anyone who has spent 45 minutes waiting in line at a post office this holiday season could only hope that Amazon would take over that moribund institution and knock some reforms into it. But all of Amazon’s efficiency, all of its selection and low prices, comes at a cost. The retailer’s continued success will be determined by whether people are willing to pay it.

The secret behind the Apple iPad 2’s success

[Commentary] I believe that hardware specs — speed, memory, screen size — do make a difference in hardware, but that difference can only take you so far. Although CPU speed and RAM might dictate what’s possible to do with a gadget, developers and designers now have to actually deliver on those promises.

Take, for example, the disparity between the iPad 2, which has a 1GHz CPU, and most new Android tablets, which run far faster than that. Would anyone who has used both devices argue that the experience of the Android tablet is superior to that of the iPad 2? Doubtful. The more I thought about this question of hardware versus software, the more intrigued I became with thinking about the future of our technology, and how it will develop over the next five or 10 years. As the importance and relevance of great applications grows for our devices, the divide between the great experiences and the ones that leave you wanting is becoming clearer with each passing day. In fact, you could almost argue there’s a kind of fundamental split between the platforms that have been tailored to provide a consistent, elegant experience and those that have been left more open. The more advanced our products get, the more subtle and sophisticated our software has to be. Today, we’re just starting out with touch screens and voice recognition. Tomorrow, everything we touch might be an experience waiting to happen.

Let’s hope the computer makers touting specs today learn this lesson for the future: It’s the software, stupid.

Feds probing Carrier IQ

Federal investigators are probing allegations that Carrier IQ software found on about 150 million cellphones tracked user activity and sent the information to the cellphone companies without informing consumers, according to government officials. Executives from Carrier IQ traveled to Washington and met with officials at the Federal Trade Commission, which is responsible for protecting consumers and enforcing privacy laws. The executives also met with the Federal Communications Commission.

Benton

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