October 2015

CTIA-The Wireless Association and participating wireless companies announced a new effort to update the Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment and encourage the widespread adoption of anti-theft tools, which will be made available on all smartphones at no cost to US consumers, as of July 2016. This is in direct response to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s request to update the Commitment.

The Commitment updates promote the widest possible adoption of anti-theft tools while respecting the importance of consumer choice and privacy. In addition, CTIA developed a list of apps to locate, erase and/or lock, many of which are free, for the various operating systems. CTIA also created step-by-step video instructions on how to set up a PIN/password on various mobile devices.

COMPTEL and NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association said in separate Federal Communications Commission filings that the regulator should work to alleviate service providers from the burden of having to verify Lifeline service recipients. One of the issues COMPTEL raises on the Lifeline program is foregoing an electronic signature requirement for recipients. The organization agrees with the joint commenters that consumers understand the legal validity of consenting in an electronic format by clicking an "I ACCEPT" button. Joint commenters said by requiring additional safeguards would be "unnecessary, burdensome and ultimately harmful to Lifeline subscribers because such a change would fail to treat them like non-low-income consumers interacting with the digital economy."

Taking it a step further, NTCA says the FCC should not require service providers -- particularly smaller rural telecommunications companies that have limited staff -- to have to oversee the Lifeline eligibility approval process.

It has recently been reported that the Federal Communications Commission is planning to conduct a “goodwill tour” on Wall Street in the coming days. At first, I thought that this must have been a clever bit of satire. But apparently, it isn’t.

According to one press account, this tour will be an “attempt to message that the Commission is still ‘open for business’ and not hostile to the industries it regulates.” With broadband providers’ capital expenditures falling, widespread concerns about the design of the incentive auction, and an enforcement scheme unconstrained by the rule of law, the Commission shouldn’t be focused on better marketing. What’s needed are better policies -- policies that make economic sense, that spur greater investment in and deployment of broadband infrastructure, and that give entrepreneurs the certainty they need to innovate and succeed.

A Cabinet-level council (The Broadband Opportunity Council) released a report on ways the Obama Administration can do a better job to support broadband for low-income and rural communities. The recommendations are good but need to go further to encourage and support small communities, advocates say. The recommendations would make adjustments in programs such as the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service and the Department of Commerce’s New Market Tax Credits.

Rural broadband advocates praised the Broadband Opportunity Council’s recommendations, though some expressed disappointment that the administration couldn’t do more to support broadband in rural areas. “These actions and reforms are heading in the right direction,” said Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “But we need to go in that direction much faster.” The recommendations show that the president “is more serious about expanding broadband in rural areas than Congress,” Mitchell said. “Unfortunately, the kind and amount of funding that needs to be available – ideally in the form of loans for co-ops and municipal networks – need to come from Congress.” Communications scholar Sharon Strover, a University of Texas at Austin professor, said the report could have placed more emphasis on making broadband affordable. “What a lot of our research suggests is that two factors figure in explaining why people don’t use broadband connections: affordability and lack of interest,” Strover said. “I don’t really see much in the report that grapples with affordability.”