December 2013

House Commerce Committee Approves Federal Spectrum Incentive Act

The House of Representatives Commerce Committee approved, by unanimous voice vote, the Federal Spectrum Incentive Act (H.R. 3674), authored by Reps Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and Doris Matsui (D-CA).

The bill would create a new path for government spectrum users to relinquish spectrum and receive a portion of net auction revenues instead of relocation costs. Reps Guthrie and Matsui are co-chairs of the subcommittee’s bipartisan Federal Spectrum Working Group, which continues to examine how the federal government can use the nation’s airwaves more efficiently.

NSA Phone Data on US Locations Incidental, Chief Says

The National Security Agency can inadvertently intercept mobile phone data revealing the location of US citizens, the agency’s chief said. The collection of cell site location data occurs abroad when the NSA is conducting electronic surveillance on a suspected foreign terrorist, Army General Keith Alexander told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing. “We’re not targeting Americans and we’re not going after Americans’ data,” Alexander said. “The fact that that’s collected is incidental.”

Verizon Open to Airwave Swap as T-Mobile Seeks More Capacity

Verizon Wireless said it’s open to accepting unused airwave licenses as payment for at least part of the spectrum it’s trying to sell, giving likely bidder T-Mobile US more flexibility to prepare an offer.

Verizon may consider trading the 700-megahertz, A-block spectrum to gain capacity in other areas, Verizon Communications Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam said. Swaps are a common transaction between carriers that have a surplus of spectrum in some cities and a need for more in others. “T-Mobile has plenty of cash from their recent financings,” said Walt Piecyk, an analyst with BTIG LLC in New York. “That cash can be used to make future spectrum purchases.”

The Major Tech Companies Missing From the Surveillance Reform Letter

Eight major American tech giants have teamed up for a government surveillance reform campaign, decrying the National Security Agency’s sweeping power and demanding the end of bulk data collection in a letter to President Barack Obama and lawmakers. But missing are a few Silicon Valley companies ignoring the possible damage done by leaks from NSA former contractor Edward Snowden.

Most notably, online retail giant Amazon and marketplace eBay were not among the tech signatories. Hardware-driven companies like Oracle, Cisco Systems, Intel and HP were also absent. So where is the rest of Silicon Valley? Perhaps the public denouncement strategy is most beneficial to consumer-facing entities -- of which Amazon is part of -- that offer services to a broad swath of the public. Amazon’s cloud technology and web services make it an equally important player in the internet ecosystem and a tempting target for the NSA. Meanwhile, telecom companies like AT&T, Verizon and Level 3 remain sharply divided on the privacy values in Silicon Valley. Telecom companies have the least incentive to complain, enjoying multi-million dollar government contracts annually.

Nuala O’Connor Named President & CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology

The Center for Democracy & Technology’s (CDT) Board of Directors announced that Nuala O’Connor has been named President & CEO, effective January 21, 2014.

O’Connor will succeed Leslie Harris, who is stepping down after leading CDT for nearly nine years. O’Connor is an internationally recognized expert in technology policy, particularly in the areas of privacy and information governance. O’Connor comes to CDT from Amazon, where she served both as Vice President of Compliance & Customer Trust and as Associate General Counsel for Privacy & Data Protection. Previously she served as the first Chief Privacy Officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). At DHS, O’Connor was responsible for groundbreaking policy creation and implementation on the use of personal information in national security and law enforcement. Beyond her experience at Amazon and DHS, O’Connor has also worked in consumer privacy at General Electric, and as Chief Counsel for Technology at the U.S. Department of Commerce. She also created the privacy compliance department at DoubleClick and practiced law at Sidley Austin, Venable, and Hudson Cook. O’Connor, who is originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, holds an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.Ed. from Harvard University, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. She currently serves on numerous nonprofit boards.

Poll: Voters support ban on in-flight calls

A broad majority in a new poll believes cellphone calls should continue to be restricted on airplanes.

A Quinnipiac poll found 59 percent of registered voters think calls should not be allowed, while 30 percent support the potential change to allow cell calls. Another 10 percent did not respond. A majority of every major demographic opposes calls on airlines. Young adults aged 18-29 are most open to the change, but even 52 percent of that group opposes the change. Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill also oppose the change and have introduced legislation to keep the ban in place. The Federal Communications Commission has said it would look into the change after it moved to allow passengers to use their phones for texts and emails during flights.

AT&T’s gigabit service is $70 if you let it spy on your searches

AT&T said that it has started service in four Austin neighborhoods with an offer to bring its GigaPower fiber-to-the-home service for $70 a month -- but with a pretty big catch. If you want to pay the lower rate you must agree “to participate in AT&T Internet Preferences.” This means, “AT&T may use your Web browsing information, like the search terms you enter and the Web pages you visit, to provide you relevant offers and ads tailored to your interests.” The gigabit service will have a one terabyte data cap with overage fees of $10 for each additional 50GB, up to an additional $30 per month. The pricing with targeted advertising is in line with what Google charges in Kansas City, although Google does offer a free 5 Mbps service, and has confirmed that it does not inspect your content at the packet level as an ISP.

JetBlue launches inflight Wi-Fi, promising a home broadband experience in the sky

It’s taken a while for JetBlue to get its long-promised Wi-Fi service ready, but its passengers likely will feel it was worth the wait. The airline launched FlyFi, an inflight internet service JetBlue claims will be the first to deliver a broadband experience akin to home connectivity. But that’s not the half of it: JetBlue is also giving away basic access to the network free to all passengers.

While other airlines use Gogo’s ground-to-air connectivity or Row 44’s satellite links, JetBlue has held out for one of the advanced broadband connections in the skies: ViaSat’s next-generation satellite, which beams a constant 140 Gbps link to the ground. JetBlue isn’t tapping all of that capacity, according to Jamie Perry, JetBlue’s director of product development, but JetBlue isn’t rate-limited like other airlines. As more passengers sign on to use the service, overall network speeds won’t decline for all users. Instead ViaSat will pump more capacity into the aircraft, ensuring a decent broadband.

Sec Sebelius asks for investigation of HealthCare.gov

Recognizing that deeper problems may lurk behind the botched rollout of the health care website, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called for an investigation into management and contracting decisions. Sec Sebelius said that she is asking the department's inspector general to investigate the contracting process, management, performance and payment issues that may have contributed to the flawed launch of HealthCare.gov.

In addition to the inspector general review, Sec Sebelius said she has ordered the hiring of a new "chief risk officer" at the Medicare agency, which also oversees the new programs created to expand health insurance coverage under Obama's law. That official will focus on making sure technology programs work as advertised. Secretary Sebelius also said she's ordered a retraining of her department on best practices for outside contracting.

New ITU broadband standard fast-tracks route to 1Gbit/s

International Telecommunication Union membership has reached first-stage approval of G.fast, the new ITU broadband standard capable of achieving access speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s over existing telephone wires. Within 250-metre range of a distribution point, G.fast’s fiber-like speeds give service providers a tool to supplement and further monetize fiber to the home (FTTH) strategies with the customer self-installation benefits of ADSL2.

G.fast, within the fiber to the distribution point (FTTdp) architecture, combines the best aspects of fiber and ADSL2. Consumers will have an over-the-counter solution, self-installed without a technician’s assistance, but equipped to support bandwidth-intensive services such as Ultra-HD ‘4K’ or ‘8K’ streaming and IPTV, advanced cloud-based storage, and communication via HD video. The physical-layer protocol aspects of G.fast defined by Recommendation ITU-T G.9701 “Fast Access to Subscriber Terminals - Physical layer specification” have reached the point of stability required to initiate the standard’s approval procedure. Chip manufacturers will now scale-up G.fast chip design and testing efforts, feeding results of this work into ITU-T Study Group 15 in the interests of finalizing G.fast as early as April 2014.

Benton

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