September 2014

The Federal Communications Commission announced the winners of the Excellence in Economic Analysis (EEA) and Excellence in Engineering Analysis (EIE) Awards. These awards are intended to recognize Commission staff for outstanding economic analysis, and engineering, scientific or technical contributions that they have performed in the course of their work at the FCC.

• Octavian Carare and Jay Schwarz of the Wireline Competition Bureau share the 2014 EEA Award for their joint paper “The Willingness to Pay for Broadband of Non-Adopters in the US: Estimates from a Multi-State Survey.” The paper concludes that up to 10 million households in the US for which broadband is currently available might be willing to subscribe if a subscription discount is offered and that a 15% reduction in price would lead to a 9% increase in adoption.
• Janet Young of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau is the winner of the 2014 Excellence in Engineering Analysis Award. Ms. Young, the sole FCC member of the first Technical Panel created under the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, provided significant engineering analyses that shortened the transition timelines of Federal incumbents that will relocate or implement sharing arrangements with commercial licensees in two frequency bands that are part of the “AWS-3” spectrum. Her work will allow for faster deployment of new commercial services in this spectrum, which is scheduled for auction November 13, 2014.

Public interest groups say there aren't nearly enough tech geeks working for nonprofits and in government. New research from Mozilla and its partner, the Ford Foundation, finds that barely 10 percent of computer science students wind up working in those sectors.

The vast majority -- 70 percent -- go to big, wealthy tech companies. While that's great for Google and Facebook, Mozilla believes building good public policy around technology means attracting more technologists directly to public service. So the maker of the popular Firefox browser is kicking off a fellowship program designed to put young engineers in a position to affect how tech policy, particularly when it comes to managing the Internet, gets crafted in Washington. With a beginning budget of $4 million and an eye toward hiring five fellows this year, Mozilla and the Ford Foundation eventually intend to scale up the program to a total of 23 fellows over the next three years. The first fellows to be selected will spend their time at public interest groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Free Press, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, and Public Knowledge.

NBC's "Sunday Night Football" charges $627,300 for a 30-second advertisement, more than any other program in prime-time broadcast television, according to a survey by Advertising Age. On its heels is CBS' new Thursday night football telecast, being shown this fall for the first time, at $483,333. Television's top-rated comedy, "The Big Bang Theory," is the scripted show with the priciest ads, at $344,827, Advertising Age said. Otherwise, ad prices don't always mesh with the Nielsen company's measurements of which programs get the biggest audience. That's because advertisers pay a premium to reach a younger audience.

Cisco Systems is making an unusual case for itself: The Internet must be subject to a higher amount of control, and big companies will work with governments to make that possible.

The message came in an announcement rich in corporate partners and allies, that was intended to show Cisco’s progress in creating its so-called Intercloud, a proposed network of cloud computing systems with high performance, security and control. In addition to improving security, the Intercloud is meant to help companies comply with the regulations of countries regarding the information that moves within their borders. For example, in Germany, where personal data privacy is a priority, that sort of technology can help personal information stay out of public hands. Also, important infrastructure like traffic control systems are increasingly run over the Internet. It’s important that those systems have better security and control.