April 2013

FCC To Hold Open Commission Meeting Thursday, April 18

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on Thursday, April 18, 2013. The FCC will consider:

A Second Report and Order to streamline the foreign ownership policies and procedures that apply to common carrier radio licensees and certain aeronautical radio licensees under section 310(b) of the Act, significantly reducing regulatory burdens while ensuring the Commission continues to receive the necessary information to protect the public interest.
A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry on expanding direct access to telephone numbers to promote competition and innovation by IP-based providers, while protecting consumers and the reliability of phone calls. It will also consider an Order to allow a limited trial of direct access to numbers for VoIP providers.

In addition, the FCC’s Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau will provide a status report of participating carriers' compliance with CTIA's revision to its Code of Conduct for Wireless Service. CTIA member wireless carriers must provide their subscribers with four specified types of alerts to allow consumers to avoid unexpected charges for wireless usage exceeding their plan limits, and for additional charges for international roaming by April 17, 2013.

Most Google Reader users check it “many” times a day, according to Digg survey

As Digg prepares to launch its own alternative to Google Reader — which is set to shut down on July 1 — the site surveyed about 17,000 Google Reader users to find out how they use the RSS service.

Digg has gotten 8,000 responses so far. One stat that sticks out is that 80 percent of respondents check Google Reader “many times a day,” and 40 percent subscribe to over 100 feeds. “This is a product for power users,” Digg concludes, “and we’ll need to make sure we have some serious infrastructure in place to support that kind of usage for launch.” The survey also finds that most respondents use Google Reader for both work and non-work stuff, suggesting that while this is definitely a product beloved by journalists, they aren’t the only ones using it.

FCC Budget Aids Wireless Broadband

Two programs funded under the 2014 budget show the Obama Administration is moving forward with plans to free up more airwaves for wireless broadband as Americans’ demand for wireless devices grows.

Next year, the Federal Communications Commission plans to begin the process of auctioning television airwaves that have been voluntarily relinquished by station owners. The Administration’s 2014 budget allocates $500 million for broadcasters as they rework their infrastructure during that process. Wireless carriers are expected to be the major bidders at the auction, which hasn’t been scheduled yet, so they can provide customers with better service for smartphones, tablets and other devices. The budget also provides $7.5 million in funding for a spectrum-monitoring program at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversees spectrum used by federal agencies and is within the Commerce Department. Under the program, NTIA would study usage patterns in 10 major metropolitan areas. The goal, according to the budget document, is to find ways to potentially repurpose some of the airwaves currently used by government agencies or the military for commercial uses.

House Oversight Chairman calls IT Budget Request Misleading

The chairman of the House committee that oversees most government information technology spending criticized the $82 billion IT request included in President Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal, saying the figure is likely misleading.

The Obama Administration has prided itself on holding overall IT spending essentially flat following increases of about 7 percent annually between 2000 and 2009. If that growth rate had continued, annual IT spending would be about $111 billion today. The $82 billion figure reported by the Office of Management and Budget does not include IT spending by intelligence agencies or by numerous small independent agencies, however. As a result, it’s difficult to say it represents a genuine slowing or halting of government IT spending growth, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said.

Budget Plan Includes Increased Funding for Health IT

President Obama's fiscal year 2014 budget proposal generally provides increased funding for health IT-related initiatives. The IT portions of Obama's budget do not appear to be controversial. Under the proposal, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT would receive nearly $78 million for FY 2014 -- a 28% increase from the $61 million allocated for ONC in FY 2012.

That total includes:

$56.3 million in public health service evaluation funding;
$20.6 million in budget authority; and
$1 million in certified electronic health record technology fees to support program activities.

PBS FY14 draft budget has $11M content hike, no dues increase, thanks to income influx

PBS’s year-to-date financial results show a net income of $22 million instead of the estimated $100,000 net loss anticipated in its fiscal year 2013 budget, the PBS Board of Directors heard at their meeting April 9.

“I may never get to say this again, but that’s pretty impressive,” said Molly Corbett Broad, finance committee chair. Thanks to the influx, PBS’s FY14 budget contains an increase of $11 million for National Program Service content without a hike in dues for member stations. The draft budget, unanimously approved by the finance committee and full board, will arrive at public television stations in the coming weeks for comment. Total member assessment is $185.5 million, the same as FY13. Broad explained that the 2013 windfall was “primarily driven” by four factors: higher income from PBS Distribution (PBSd) due in part to the “tremendous success” of Masterpiece’s megahit Downton Abbey; ancillary revenues from PBS Kids’ properties; short-term investment gains; and more overhead reimbursements from grants.

Plan your digital afterlife with Inactive Account Manager

Google is launching a new feature that makes it easy to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account. The feature is called Inactive Account Manager — not a great name, we know — and you’ll find it on your Google Account settings page. You can tell us what to do with your Gmail messages and data from several other Google services if your account becomes inactive for any reason.

Verizon CEO: Try a la Carte to Protect Cable

Verizon Chairman-CEO Lowell McAdam said that, in answer to cord-cutting and consumer pressure, the television industry should be open to the idea of a-la-carte cable subscriptions.

Speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters’ confab, McAdam said a move to a-la-carte would answer market pressures and customer feedback. Through its FiOS TV service, he said, Verizon can monitor how many of its 5 million TV subscribers are watching any channel at a given moment. “It might be in the hundreds,” he said. “I think there’s a pressure now from customers about why do I have to have 300 channels?” He called a-la-carte “a novel way that could help protect subscriptions in the long run. … This isn’t a cause celebre for us but I think it’s an early warning that we should pay attention to.” He compared cable bundles to bundled services on cell phone plans. “As more and more smartphones were out there, (customers) said why are you making me buy a text bundle, why are you making me buy a voice bundle? We said, you know, you’re right, so we did away with that.

Internet governance bill advances, but Democrats wary

The House Communications and Technology Subcommittee approved a bill to support Internet freedom despite Democrats' concern that it could undermine existing laws and regulations.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), the subcommittee's chairman, insisted the measure is only a statement of policy and would not repeal any existing rules. "As a matter of law, a statement of policy does not impose statutorily mandated responsibilities on an agency," Chairman Walden said. The bill would make it formal U.S. policy to "promote a global Internet free from government control and to preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet." But the Democrats expressed concern that a person or company could use the law as a basis to sue to overturn regulations, such as the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules, which require Internet providers to treat Web traffic equally. After assurances from Republicans that they would work to revise the bill before a full committee vote, Democrats agreed not to derail the markup with a slew of amendments. The subcommittee approved the bill on a voice vote, with the Democrats dissenting.

Obama Administration: CISPA bill must do more to protect privacy

The Obama Administration indicated it's not likely to support the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2013 (CISPA), a cybersecurity bill approved by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee this week.

While stopping short of an outright veto threat that many privacy activists may have wanted, the statement made clear that the Administration does not believe the bill in its current form does enough to safeguard personal information. "We continue to believe that information sharing improvements are essential to effective legislation, but they must include privacy and civil liberties protections, reinforce the roles of civilian and intelligence agencies, and include targeted liability protections," Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement. "We believe the adopted committee amendments reflect a good-faith effort to incorporate some of the Administration's important substantive concerns, but we do not believe these changes have addressed some outstanding fundamental priorities."

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