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October 2015

FCC Commissioner Clyburn Remarks before the Competitive Carriers Association

A number of communications companies have asked that we start this proceeding to help spur deployment of the next generation, or 5G, of commercial mobile networks. 5G networks promise to offer higher data speeds with lower latency than current networks, and I believe we should ensure that our spectrum management policy, with regard to allocations above 24 GHz, should promote competition as much as our spectrum policies below 3 GHz. I plan to carefully consider the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with that goal in mind. Once the NPRM is released, I encourage Competitive Carriers Association to participate and share its expertise, so we can take a course in this proceeding that best promotes competition in the commercial wireless market.

It is important for CCA to continue to educate policymakers on key issues, like competition, spectrum, access to devices and networks, universal service fund reform, Next-Gen 911 solutions, and consumer protection, because this is not only necessary for you to thrive, but it is necessary in order for our communities to thrive.

Broadband's Future: Where Will We Be in 10 Years?

Our 10 government, industry and nonprofit representatives answer to what extent universal access to broadband will be accomplished in 10 years.

Joanne Hovis: The prognosis for the next 10 years is relatively good, particularly for metropolitian areas. Incumbent phone and cable companies respond [to competition] by investing and offering better and more affordable services. The key question for progress in the next 10 years will be how much new investment goes into building competitive networks, thus stimulating innovation, competition and new broadband opportunity.
John Jones: As entertainment has become more and more a driver of data usage, the consumer market is really wanting more speeds where they don’t have buffering and pausing, whether they’re watching a movie or gaming or whatever. So the demand for speed is really a key driver in today’s market and that will probably continue to increase over time as more and more robust applications start riding over the Internet.
Robert Bell: Not everybody is going to be online and not everybody wants to be online, and that’s fine, but I think in 10 years from now, we’ll be pretty close to saturation.

[Joanne Hovis is a member of the Benton Foundation's Board of Directors]

Barriers to Broadband (Infographic)

Recently the Federal Communications Commission estimated that about half of the residents living in rural America can’t get the advanced broadband service that metropolitan areas take for granted. Some rural residents can't get any Internet connection at all. And even some city dwellers lack access: At Government Technology’s Los Angeles Digital Government Summit in August, CIO Ted Ross said that almost a third of the city does not have broadband Internet access.

But as broadband in the United States inches toward utility status, Government Technology asks representatives from government, industry and nonprofits why the broadband equity gap exists and how to fix it in our five-part series: The Need for Speed. In the fifth and final installment of our series, we give a quick look at the states that restrict municipal broadband -- along with each state's average connection speed and percentage of citizens that live in a home with high-speed access.

Disadvantaged Twin Cities households face loss of Internet

About 14,000 low-income Twin Cities (MN) households are at risk of losing their low-cost Internet service, which they receive over an old Sprint data network that is expected to disappear Nov. 6. The Internet service, provided by a St. Paul (MN) nonprofit called PCs for People, has permitted cash-strapped Twin Cities residents to ditch dial-up service for a much-faster broadband connection at a comparable cost. But the service taps a wireless-data technology called WiMax that is not long for this world.

Mobile phone giant Sprint is abandoning its WiMax network as it shifts to the more-modern Long Term Evolution standard, which the other major carriers also use. That is good for typical consumers, but bad news for PCs for People's disadvantaged customers. And other nonprofit organizations that offer similar low-cost, high-speed Internet access around the country face a similar dilemma. What happens now is up for debate. PCs for People said Sprint is required to put in place a substitute service that works on its LTE network. This would involve a swap of customers' WiMax-based wireless modems for LTE-based gear of comparable functionality on or before Nov. 6. The wireless devices are the equivalent of cable modems, but get their online connectivity over the air instead of via physical wires. Sprint said it is sympathetic but cannot move forward with a new low-cost Internet offering without contract terms it considers fair.

Time Warner Cable-Cogent Strike Interconnection Deal

Time Warner Cable says it has struck a long-term interconnection agreement with Cogent. "Cogent and Time Warner Cable have entered into a long-term, bilateral interconnection agreement for their public IP networks," the companies said. "This agreement allows the exchange of Internet traffic in a scalable and reliable manner to accommodate the growing use of the Internet."

Charter and Time Warner Cable are trying to get the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department to approve their proposed merger and one of the issues the FCC is looking at is interconnection. Charter has pledged settlement-free interconnection, a policy that would be extended to TWC systems if the deal were approved, though a TWC spokesperson had no comment on whether the Cogent deal was such a settlement-free deal. Cogent supports the merger, citing Charter's settlement-free peering policy, as does another major peering player, Netflix.

NCTA: No Need for Another FCC Video Mandate

Reiterating its view, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) urged the Federal Communications Commission to reject calls to create new technology mandate aimed at bringing pay TV programming to retail devices, noting that the “apps revolution” has brought pay TV services to twice as many consumer video devices as there are set-top boxes currently in use.

The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comments on the final report that the Commission-appointed Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee (DSTAC) submitted August 28. Reply comments are due Nov. 9, 2015. The FCC has not announced plans to follow with a larger Notice of Inquiry or a full Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the matter.

Moving forward on spectrum policy

What kind of spectrum policy do we need to keep meeting consumer demand? First, we need to continue the flow of spectrum. In most countries, including the United States, the federal government is the largest spectrum holder. Clearing and deploying new spectrum takes years -- more than 10 years on average. Second, we need to experiment with novel ways to utilize spectrum, including various forms of spectrum sharing. Third, in the US we have benefitted tremendously from policymakers having the foresight to make spectrum available under flexible exclusive use terms. That needs to continue. Fourth, we need to continue to improve the utilization of the spectrum already in use. One example of this is the experimentation that various parties currently are doing with LTE Unlicensed. Finally, in parallel with all of these efforts in today’s spectrum bands, we need to begin planning for the next wave of wireless technology, 5G.

Netflix is raising its prices again. Here’s why.

Netflix announced that it will raise its prices again, this time by $1 to $9.99 a month, giving the streaming video service more money to develop original content. The price increase will take effect on Nov. 11 for new customers. Existing customers will continue to pay the current rate, $8.99 a month, until October 2016. Longtime customers who still pay $7.99 a month will hold onto that rate until at least May 2016.

The change may reflect that it is getting more expensive for Netflix and other video distributors to secure deals for television and movie content. The price hike will allow the company to offer more original content, said company spokeswoman Anne Marie Squeo. Even as Netflix has surged past 65 million users globally, the firm faces pressure from other new streaming video apps including Dish’s SlingTV, HBO Now and even offerings from Verizon and Comcast.

House Inspector General: 'Everybody' Needs to Fight in the Current Cyberwar

Whether it’s a nation state-sponsored hack or simply a teenager with a laptop, Congress comes under cyberattack on a daily basis, said House of Representatives Inspector General Theresa Grafenstine. But this is not a challenge specific to the House. The country is in the middle of a cyberwar, she told the audience on Oct 7 during the National Town Hall Meeting on Minority Underrepresentation in Cybersecurity in Washington (DC). And to effectively compete in this war, the US is going to have to bring every able-bodied individual into the fight.

“If we think we're going to engage in this with only half of our soldiers, we're going to lose; they're going to eat our lunch,” she said. “We need to make sure we're getting everybody involved; every single one of us.” This approach means reaching beyond the typical selection of cybersecurity job candidates and actively training and recruiting individuals from the country’s minority populations.

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