1. Monthly archive
  2. September 2015

September 2015

FCC and Columbia Team to Reduce Mobile Device Theft

The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets -- the mobile revolution -- has brought with it very real safety concerns in both the United States and in the Republic of Colombia. The Federal Communications Commission and the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MINTIC) acknowledge the importance of creating a mutual cooperation strategy in the effort to reduce mobile device theft. The FCC, together with MINTIC and the Comisión de Regulación de Comunicaciones (CRC) pledge to work together with industry partners to ensure that the mobile device marketplace for consumers in each country is more secure by taking steps designed to prevent stolen mobile devices from being introduced and/or used in each other's country. Steps taken include:

  • Continue to promote and work with their participating mobile service providers to block activation or use of device identified as lost or stolen from the other country' mobile operators.
  • Monitor progress on reducing theft and disrupting the illegal market for stole mobile devices in their respective countries.
  • Encourage other countries to urge their mobile service providers to exchange information on stolen and lost mobile devices through state of the art, secure, online data exchanges.
  • Encourage industry participants to establish methodologies to benchmark progress on these efforts.
  • Collaborate on best practices, technology and other solutions on this topic and share information on consumer education and outreach efforts.
  • Jointly encourage industry to work together to develop a toolkit of solutions that discourage mobile device theft.

Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Historical Low

A Gallup survey finds that four in 10 Americans say they have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust and confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly. This ties the historical lows on this measure set in 2014 and 2012. Prior to 2004, slight majorities of Americans said they trusted the mass media, such as newspapers, TV and radio. Americans' confidence in the media has slowly eroded from a high of 55 percent in 1998 and 1999. Since 2007, the majority of Americans have had little or no trust in the mass media. Trust has typically dipped in election years, including 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2014. However, 2015 is not a major election year. This decline follows the same trajectory as Americans' confidence in many institutions and their declining trust in the federal government's ability to handle domestic and international problems over the same time period.

Trust in the media continues to be significantly lower among Americans aged 18 to 49 than among those 50 and older, continuing a pattern evident since 2012. Prior to 2012, these groups' trust levels were more similar, with a few exceptions between 2005 and 2008. For more than a decade, Republicans and independents have been significantly less likely than Democrats to trust the media. This pattern continues in the latest survey.

New America Foundation Slams 'Anti-Wi-Fi' Coalition

The New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute is no fan of the new Evolve coalition of mobile wireless carriers pushing for the rollout of LTE-U, a wireless technology using unlicensed spectrum to compete with cable Wi-Fi and improve wireless' speeds and rural reach.

Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at the Open Technology Institute, called it an "anti-Wi-iF coalition. “It is more than a bit ironic that the mobile carriers are finally recognizing the enormous and undeniable benefits of unlicensed spectrum as part of a campaign for a technology that could hobble the use of Wi-Fi by potential competitors," said Calabrese. "Consumers now use Wi-Fi to transmit the majority of mobile device data traffic. This has avoided the predicted spectrum crunch and makes mobile broadband more affordable. Our public interest coalition fears that if carriers use LTE-U to control access to the unlicensed commons, consumers could end up paying more and missing out on the potential competition of Wi-Fi first offerings by wireline providers and mobile virtual network operators such as Republic Wireless.” OTI says that If the FCC approves LTE-U--it's backers say the FCC only has to approve LTE-U devices, not the "permissionless" use of unlicensed 5 GHz spectrum -- they could move downlink data onto unlicensed spectrum as an add-on to their licensed spectrum.

USTelecom says special access regulation 'distorts the scope' of FCC's discretion

The United States Telecom Association (USTelecom) fired back against competitive local exchange carriers (CLECS), saying that regulating incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) special access services would overstep the Federal Communications Commission's legal boundaries. The association referred to a joint letter filed by Birch Communications, BT Americas and Level 3 in which the trio said the FCC has broad power to adopt regulations governing rates for ILEC special access services. However, USTelecom said in its own filing that the FCC can't rewrite existing laws and that the letter "distorts the scope of the agency's discretion, which is constrained by the Communications Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Commission's own decisions, and mischaracterizes the level of deference that courts typically afford agencies under Chevron and other precedent that hold agencies to a considerably higher standard in carrying out their rulemaking responsibilities."

USTelecom said that while the joint CLEC letter asks the FCC to re-regulate Ethernet and increase regulation of ILEC special access pricing, "the current regulatory scheme has been in place for some time, and enterprise broadband services, in particular, were deregulated by a grant of forbearance almost a decade ago."

Study: Poor management of Wi-Fi assets could cost operators $18 Billion in lost revenue

Startup XCellAir is trying to drive home the point to carriers that they might want to take a closer look at how they're managing Wi-Fi. According to research released during the week of Sept 21, operators collectively could be leaving up to $18 billion on the table by failing to properly manage unregulated spectrum.

The study, which also highlights XCellAir's relevancy in the current debate over LTE in unlicensed spectrum and the forthcoming Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) standard, was conducted in partnership with Real Wireless. It showed that poor management of Wi-Fi assets severely limits their usefulness in dense urban areas where many access points are deployed to serve large numbers of users and large volumes of data. Interference between access points and minimal spectral management often result in sub-optimal experiences for users, they noted. XCellAir, which came out of stealth mode earlier in 2015, conducted an analysis of 250 live Wi-Fi access points around its offices in Montreal, Canada, modeling common urban scenarios in which public Wi-Fi is in everyday use. The study revealed that 92 percent of access points do not adjust their operating frequency, no matter how badly performance is degraded by interference.

Tools for Public Safety Answering Points

As we come to the end of September, National Preparedness Month, I'd like to highlight two tools that Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) – America's 911 operations centers – can use: one to alert their communities, and the other to alert the Federal Communications Commission to local public safety communications issues. These tools -- emergency alerts and the FCC's new Public Safety Support Center -- can help public safety communicators carry out their lifesaving missions.

There is an effective tool already available that local public safety officials can use for alerting. The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, or IPAWS, maintained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is an integrated gateway through which authorized public safety entities, including PSAPs, can initiate alerts. The second important tool is a new one created to specifically accelerate issue spotting with the 911 system itself. To ensure that PSAPs and other public safety organizations have an efficient way to request support and information from the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, we have launched the Public Safety Support Center. I hope that PSAPs and other public safety stakeholders will consider using these resources and provide us with feedback as we continue to work together to improve community emergency response.

FTC misses mark with new 'unfair methods of competition' statement

[Commentary] In addition to having co-enforcement authority of the nation's antitrust laws with the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission is charged with administering its own eponymous statute, the Federal Trade Commission Act. Among other requirements, Section 5 of the FTC Act declares that any "unfair methods of competition in or effecting commerce" to be unlawful. Significantly, Congress deliberately chose not to define the specific acts and practices that constitute "unfair methods of competition" (UMC), opting instead to delegate this task to the FTC to apply the statute on a flexible case-by-case basis as facts evolve. Surprisingly, over the last several years, the FTC has provided little guidance on how it views the UMC standard.

To remedy this shortcoming, at the urging of just-departed FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright, this August the FTC reversed course and issued a "Statement of Enforcement Principles Regarding 'Unfair Methods of Competition' Under Section 5 of the FTC Act". Rather than remedy the guidance deficit by providing detailed analysis, however, the UMC statement is rather perfunctory. My recommendation is that before we go too far down the road and the omelet is too hard to unscramble, prudence would dictate that we go back to the drawing board. Indeed, in light of the admitted vagaries of the statute and the FTC’s increasing oversight over major sectors of the economy (particularly the technology sector), the American public deserve a well-reasoned and cohesive approach to Section 5’s unfair methods of competition standard, not a bullet-point press release filled with cliches.

[Spiwak is the president of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]

A Lifeline Argument Not Rooted in Reality

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission is now modernizing its Lifeline program, originally designed to connect low-income Americans to the telephone network. The reform now underway would broaden the program to cover high-speed Internet service. That change is urgently needed. Only 36 percent of individuals with incomes below $10,000 have access to broadband, even though broadband is the bridge to success in today’s economy. Lifeline is unique in that service providers, and not the government, today determine whether consumers qualify for and remain in the program. That means service providers maintain an incentive to qualify as many subscribers as possible, which can lead to waste and misallocation of program resources.

That’s why my organization, the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), has joined FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn and many others in calling for fundamental reform of the Lifeline program. We seek to enhance consumer choice, expand the number of carriers willing to offer Lifeline-supported services and promote greater financial accountability to ward off waste, fraud and abuse. To enhance accountability, IIA supports having states, not self-interested companies, determine who is eligible to receive Lifeline service. A state agency determination that an individual is eligible for other federal benefit programs, such as food stamps, would automatically qualify that person in the Lifeline program.

[Rick Boucher was a member of the US House for 28 years (D-VA) and is honorary chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA). He is a partner in the Washington office of law firm Sidley Austin]

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