December 2011

FCC workshop participants: Interconnection critical to PSTN phase-out

Before the traditional phone network can be phased out, steps should be taken to ensure that the networks replacing it are interoperable, said several stakeholders who participated in a Federal Communications Commission workshop convened to explore issues associated with a public switched telephone network (PSTN) phase-out -- an idea floated by AT&T a couple of years ago that is now gaining momentum.

Ensuring interoperability is no easy task, considering that the tightly integrated and monolithic phone network of yesteryear has been gradually transitioning to a more competitive and fragmented marketplace. Walter Johnson of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology framed the issue in a question at yesterday’s workshop. “How do [we] create a common language when so many [parties] bring a piece of the solution to the table?” he asked. “This is the critical question,” answered Harold Feld of consumer group Public Knowledge. “It starts with interconnection.”

Definitive Answers Elude FCC Workshop on PSTN Phase-Out

A Federal Communications Commission workshop about transitioning the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to new technologies helped frame the issues involved but ultimately raised more questions than it answered.

Perhaps that’s not surprising considering the complexity of the issue. The potential phase-out of the PSTN has been top of mind within the telecom industry, given the ongoing transition to IP based networks. AT&T has gone as far to say it would like to be relieved of the requirement to provide traditional POTS service throughout its local service territory. And the FCC’s recent decision to transition today’s voice-focused Universal Service program to focus instead on broadband has given the issue even more prominence.
FCC organizers and others came up with several important questions that received little or nothing in the way of constructive answers, including:

Should a sunset date for the PSTN be established and if so, when should it be?
Are there certain elements inherent in today’s PSTN—such as 24-hour battery backup–that might not need to be a requirement of the replacement infrastructure?
Should carrier-of-last-resort requirements be maintained and if so, how should they be structured?

Perhaps a second FCC workshop about transitioning the PSTN, scheduled for December 14 and targeted to focus on “economic, technological, and policy issues” will hold more answers.

IT Dashboard: Accuracy Has Improved, and Additional Efforts Are Under Way to Better Inform Decision Making

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established a public website, referred to as the IT Dashboard, that provides detailed information on about 800 federal IT investments, including assessments of actual performance against cost and schedule targets (referred to as ratings). According to OMB, these data are intended to provide both a near-real-time and historical perspective of performance. In the third of a series of Dashboard reviews, GAO was asked to examine the accuracy of the Dashboard’s cost and schedule performance ratings. To do so, GAO compared the performance of eight major investments undergoing development from four agencies with large IT budgets (the Departments of Commerce, the Interior, and State, as well as the General Services Administration) against the corresponding ratings on the Dashboard, and interviewed OMB and agency officials.
GAO is recommending that the General Services Administration disclose on the Dashboard when one of its investments is in the process of a rebaseline. Since GAO previously recommended that OMB improve how it rates investments relative to current performance, it is not making further recommendations. The General Services Administration agreed with the recommendation. OMB provided technical comments, which GAO incorporated as appropriate.

[GAO-12-210, November 7.]

Justice Department Confirms E-Book Probe

The Justice Department confirmed that it is conducting an antitrust investigation into the pricing of electronic books, the latest antitrust watchdog to probe whether there was improper collusion by publishers and Apple Inc. to prevent discounting.

At a congressional hearing, Sharis Pozen, the Justice Department's acting antitrust chief, said: "We are also investigating the electronic book industry, along with the European Commission and the states attorneys general." The Wall Street Journal and other media have reported that the Justice Department has been investigating the matter since last year. However, Pozen's comments were the first time the Justice Department publicly confirmed the existence of the probe. The issue that antitrust enforcers are examining is the agency pricing model, which Apple employed when it introduced its iPad tablet in April 2010. The model allowed publishers to set the prices of their books sold through Apple's iBookstore, avoiding the kind of discounting employed by Amazon's rival service.

Officials urge John Deere to drop campaign against LightSquared

A group of rural public officials and farmers wrote a letter to agriculture device manufacturer John Deere, urging the company to drop its lobbying campaign against wireless firm LightSquared.

LightSquared plans to launch a wholesale wireless broadband service, but tests earlier this year revealed its network interferes with GPS devices. The company has since modified its plan to mitigate the interference problem, but its network would likely still cause problems for some high-precision GPS devices, which are often used in agriculture. John Deere, which makes GPS devices, is a member of the Coalition to Save Our GPS, a group trying to stop LightSquared from deploying a network that would cause problems for GPS users. In their letter to Deere & Company, the state officials and farmers argue that LightSquared's network could improve Internet access in rural areas.

Spectrum auctions might be included in GOP's payroll-tax bill

Republicans are considering including Rep Greg Walden's (R-OR) spectrum bill in a proposal to extend the payroll tax holiday, Speaker John Boehner's office confirmed. The spectrum legislation, which could raise as much as $15 billion through government auctions of airwaves, could help offset the cost of extending a payroll tax holiday and federal unemployment benefits. Republicans have insisted that the payroll tax deal not increase the deficit.

Sunlight Foundation chides Obama administration on transparency

The Obama administration has failed to live up to many of its promises to open the government, according to transparency watchdog the Sunlight Foundation.

Sunlight policy director John Wonderlich published an assessment of the administration's progress on transparency Wednesday, one day ahead of the two-year anniversary of the Open Government Directive. In it he calls out agencies for failing to meet goals they set for themselves. "The results are decidedly mixed," wrote Wonderlich, acknowledging that in some cases agencies have clearly met their goals and many planned data sets are now available on Data.gov. "Often, however, agencies have failed to live up to the standards that they set for themselves as a result of the Open Government Directive." As examples Wonderlich notes the Commerce Department failed to post a schedule, the Office of Science and Technology Policy posted only four years of budget data and the Department of Justice failed to publish any of the data identified for public release.

Two lawsuits filed over FCC's Universal Service order

Core Communications, a small telephone company, and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission are suing the Federal Communications Commission over its recent order to convert a multibillion dollar telephone fund into a subsidy to expand Internet access.

Both suits allege that the agency's order was "arbitrary and capricious" and a "departure from reasoned decision-making." The Pennsylvania PUC, a state agency, also argues in its filing that the FCC order violates the 10th Amendment, which leaves powers not given to the federal government to the states. Core Communications filed its lawsuit in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond (VA) and the Pennsylvania PUC filed its suit in the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia. Groups seeking to block the order must file their cases by Friday. A lottery will then determine which court will hear the challenges to the order.

Senate Ponders Cameras In High Court... Again

Sen Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has teamed with Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) to introduce the Cameras in the Courtroom Act of 2011, the latest effort to get cameras in the Supreme Court.

The bill would require TV coverage of all open sessions of the Court unless the majority of justices decided that "doing so would constitute a violation of the due process rights of one or more of the parties before the Court." A similar bill was approved by the full Judiciary Committee in the last Congress. Sen Grassley has been pushing for opening up the high court to cameras for over a decade. He said at a hearing on the bill Tuesday in the Senate Subcommittee on Administration, Oversight and the Courts, that his push stemmed from the audio tapes of the Bush vs. Gore oral argument that were released after he and others pressed the court to broadcast the proceedings live. He said that was a sign of progress. He noted as further progress the court's decision last year to start releasing audiotapes regularly at the end of each week -- they had previously only been available at the end of each term. "But it is not enough," he told the committee. "I believe that the nature of our government and the fundamental principles upon which it was built require more."

Cablevision Sues Verizon Over Claims in Advertisements for Internet Speeds

Cablevision Systems, the fifth- largest U.S. cable-television provider by subscribers, sued Verizon Communications for allegedly running an advertising campaign that misrepresents Cablevision’s Internet speeds.

The TV, radio, direct-mail and Internet spots claim that a “just released” Federal Communications Commission study shows Cablevision delivers at most 59 percent of its advertised speeds during peak hours, according to the complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. “The FCC report cited in Verizon’s ads reported the results of speed tests performed in March 2011,” Cablevision said in its complaint. “Cablevision has made significant upgrades to its broadband network in 2011 that render the March 2011 results obsolete.”

Benton

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