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  2. January 2013

January 2013

Growing Pains As Doctors' Offices Adopt Electronic Records

Information technology has transformed much of the American economy, but its use in health care still lags, especially when it comes to electronic medical records.

The number of doctors and hospitals using electronic records has doubled in the past two years thanks in part to federal stimulus money for doctors who adopted electronic records, says Farzad Mostashari, the national coordinator for health information technology at the Department of Health and Human Services. He admits there are growing pains but says the government's strategy is helping, though it will need six more years before it can show significant savings. Both he and Dr. Art Kellermann, a policy analyst with the Rand Corp agree that patients would get better care, at lower cost, if health care systems could share patient records easily. But that won't happen until doctors and hospitals start getting paid for being smart about IT. Right now, duplicative testing also means duplicative payments.

Google Fiber 'not a hobby,' could expand, tech giant's execs say

During Google's fourth-quarter earnings call, Google Chief Executive Larry Page and Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette made it clear Google Fiber is not a "hobby" for the company.

"It's been great to see the success there with the initial roll-out," Page said. He cautioned: "We are still in the very early stages of it." But he emphasized: "We are excited about the possibilities there." Pichette said Google Fiber installations are growing each week. "People just love the product," he said. "It’s not a hobby," he added. "We really think we should be making a good business with this opportunity." "We are going to continue to look at the possibility of expanding." For the time being, Pichette said Google is "debugging" the product and the experience for users. But, he said, such super-fast Internet is "what people are dying to get everywhere."

AT&T to buy Alltel for $780 million

The parent company of Alltel, a mobile telephone network serving rural customers in six states, has agreed to sell the business to AT&T for about $780 million, Atlantic Tele-Network announced.

The all-cash transaction will give Alltel customers access to a nationwide 4G mobile network, a larger selection of mobile devices and additional retail locations, said Michael Prior, Atlantic Tele-Networks CEO. Many of the company's employees will benefit from new career opportunities at the larger company, he added. The deal will give AT&T a larger presence in some rural areas where it did not have a lot of customers, Prior said during a conference call with press and analysts. Atlantic Tele-Network purchased Alltel from Verizon Wireless for $200 million in a deal that closed in April 2010, and Atlantic Tele-Network spent an additional $85 million to set up Alltel, Prior said. The sale to AT&T represents a "strong return on our investment," Prior said. "It is clear this is the right time to enter into this strategic transaction." It has become "increasingly challenging" to operate a stand-alone rural mobile network spread across six states, Prior said. Atlantic Tele-Network believes Alltel is best operated as part of a larger, national network, he said. Atlantic Tele-Network's Alltel serves 585,000 mobile customers in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Ohio and Idaho, while AT&T has about 106 million mobile customers across the U.S. Alltel had about $350 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2012.

The transaction is subject to approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

House Commerce Committee Approves Rules

The House Commerce Committee approved the rules of the committee during the organizational meeting for the 113th Congress. The first resolution established the Rules of the Committee. The second resolution established the jurisdiction of the subcommittees. The third resolution established the Republican chairmen, vice-chairmen, and membership of the subcommittees. The fourth resolution established the Democratic ranking members and membership of the subcommittees.

The jurisdiction of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee: Electronic communications, both Interstate and foreign, including voice, video, audio and data, whether transmitted by wire or wirelessly, and whether transmitted by telecommunications, commercial or private mobile service, broadcast, cable, satellite, microwave, or other mode; technology generally; emergency and public safety communications; cybersecurity, privacy, and data security; the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Office of Emergency Communications in the Department of Homeland Security; and all aspects of the above-referenced jurisdiction related to the Department of Homeland Security.

Rep Waxman: Communications Subcommittee Success Depends on Bipartisanship

House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent committee chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) a memo as the committee began its work in the new Congress suggesting that bills fare better when they are bipartisan.

On the Communications Subcommittee, for example, the three bills in the committee's jurisdiction that were either reported out of the committee or that went directly to the floor without the support of the Democratic majority did not pass. Those were the FCC Process Reform Act, a resolution disapproving the FCC's network neutrality rules, and one that would have defunded National Public Radio. By contrast, of the four bills in their jurisdiction that were supported by Dems -- the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011 (which included incentive auctions), a resolution backing a multistakeholder model of Internet governance, a bill to return unused broadband stimulus funds to the Treasury and H.R. 3310, the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act of 2011 -- two passed. Those were the tax relief bill and the multistakeholder resolution. That is a 50% success rate, Rep Waxman pointed out.

Rep Eshoo Threatens Net Neutrality Bill If FCC Rules Overturned

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) said that if the D.C. Circuit overturns the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet order, she will be ready with a bill to clarify the FCC's authority to make such rules.

In a speech at the annual State of the Net Conference of the Congressional Internet Caucus (she is co-chair), Rep Eshoo said that "clarifying" the commission's ability to ensure "a free and open Internet" was a consumer protection issue and that, "should the court overturn the FCC's rules, I will be prepared to introduce legislation." That will be an uphill climb in a Republican-controlled House, where leadership has expressed no love for the FCC's network neutrality rules. Rep Eshoo put in a plug for the FCC's proposal to adjust its spectrum screen, which is the amount of spectrum owned by one company in a market that triggers additional concentration concerns. She said the screen should be reformed, including by treating spectrum less than one gigahertz different from other spectrum because it was more valuable.

DARPA unveils robotic plan to reuse, recycle satellites in 2015

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced the next stage in an ambitious project called Phoenix, which it hopes will bring about the first demonstration of robotic, in-orbit satellite servicing in 2015.

The servicing, however, won't involve the repair of an existing satellite -- instead, one that has already been retired will be scavenged for spare parts. If all goes well, the antenna (or aperture) of the defunct satellite will be linked with one or more small "satlets" that will return it to active duty. "[Phoenix is a] modest effort to increase the return-on-investment for DoD [Department of Defense] space missions," Dave Barnhart, a DARPA program manager, said at a recent press conference. It costs a lot of money to put something into geosynchronous orbit, and not everything that's been put there remains active. In many cases, this is because of the failure or obsolescence of only some of their hardware, while other parts remain perfectly viable and functioning. (In fact, we already know they've functioned after launch and deployment.) In short, the Phoenix project is essentially a very complicated recycling program.

The FCC Chief Is Awesome at His Job if You Own a Big Cable Company

[Commentary] In a recent column, Chairman Genachowski explains why the U.S. Needs 'Gigabit Communities.' He's right, but refuses to do anything meaningful to get us there. It starts off with an accurate observation...

“Walking the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show last week, I kept thinking of that line from Jaws, ‘You're going to need a bigger boat.’ All the Internet-connected, data-hungry gadgets that are coming to market sent a strikingly clear message: we're going to need faster broadband networks.... It's essential to economic growth, job creation and U.S. competitiveness.”

Yes! If only the head of the Federal Communications Commission understood what is preventing us from building those networks. Hint: It isn't a lack of demand. Google was inundated with applications for its gigabit service. Hundreds of communities have built their own networks (some of which he praises).

[Christopher Mitchell is the Telecom Director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance]

Digital Rights Groups Slam Associated Press

A lawsuit by The Associated Press against paid clipping service Meltwater has drawn the attention of digital rights advocates, who are siding against the wire service in a new friend-of-the-court brief.

The AP sued Meltwater last year, alleging that the clipping service infringes copyright by copying news stories and "selling that content to its subscribers for a profit." But Meltwater counters that it merely offers a search engine that allows users to "discover, monitor, research, and analyze information made freely available on news Websites across the Internet." Now Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation argue in a friend-of-the-court brief that Meltwater, like other search engines or aggregators, is protected by fair use principles when displaying fragments of news articles. The groups add that a ruling against Meltwater on that point could set a troubling precedent by curtailing "the essential role fair use plays in facilitating online innovation and expression."

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