1. Monthly archive
  2. July 2016

July 2016

NSF to build four city-scale advanced wireless testing platforms

The Advanced Wireless Research Initiative will build on President Obama’s seven-and-a-half-year track record of accomplishment in wireless and wireline broadband policy.

The National Science Foundation is committing $50 million over the next 5 years, as part of a total $85 million investment by NSF and private-sector entities, to design and build four city-scale advanced wireless testing platforms, beginning in FY 2017. As a part of this investment, NSF also announces a $5 million solicitation for a project office to manage the design, development, deployment, and operations of the testing platforms, in collaboration with NSF and industry entities. Each platform will deploy a network of software-defined radio antennas city-wide, essentially mimicking the existing cellular network, allowing academic researchers, entrepreneurs, and wireless companies to test, prove, and refine their technologies and software algorithms in a real-world setting. These platforms will allow researchers to conduct at-scale experiments of laboratory-or-campus-based proofs-of-concept, and will also allow four American cities, chosen based on open competition, to establish themselves as global destinations for wireless research and development.

NSF is also announcing plans to invest $350 million over the next 7 years in fundamental research on advanced wireless technology projects that can utilize NSF’s share of time on these platforms. This will allow a broad base of NSF-funded experiments on potential breakthrough technologies to be taken from proof-of-concept to real-world testing at scale, here in the United States.

In addition to these testing platforms and research investments, the Administration is also announcing additional coordinated efforts and investments across Federal agencies to help accelerate the growth and development of advanced wireless technology.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee makes a last-minute plea to save net neutrality in Europe

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the world wide web, is calling on regulators in Europe to protect network neutrality and "save the open internet." Berners-Lee, Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, and Harvard law professor Larry Lessig urged European regulators to implement guidelines that would close loopholes in net neutrality legislation that the European Parliament approved in October 2015. They also called on internet users to voice their opposition online, before the public consultation period on the guidelines ends on July 18th.

"Network neutrality for hundreds of millions of Europeans is within our grasp," their letter reads. "Securing this is essential to preserve the open Internet as a driver for economic growth and social progress. But the public needs to tell regulators now to strengthen safeguards, and not cave in to telecommunications carriers’ manipulative tactics." The rules approved by European lawmakers last year contained several loopholes that activists say could be exploited to undermine net neutrality. Among the most troubling, according to Berners-Lee, Lessig, and van Schewick, is a provision that would allow ISPs to create "fast lanes" for "specialized services," and a guideline that would allow for "zero-rating" — a practice whereby select apps and services are exempt from monthly data limits.

A Busy Summer Continues

For all our progress on accessibility issues, there’s more to be done. We’ll have an opportunity to build on this progress at our August meeting. The Federal Communications Commission will consider a draft report and order to convert the pilot National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program (NDBEDP) into a permanent program. Known as “iCanConnect,” this program provides equipment needed to make telecommunications, advanced communications and the Internet accessible to Americans who have significant vision and hearing loss. The new NDBEDP would be able to spend up to $10 million annually to distribute equipment to low-income individuals who are deaf-blind. The program would also provide training and other technical support, including individual assessments of each consumer’s specific accessibility needs, to help low-income people who are deaf-blind better utilize the communications equipment they need to fully participate in society.

I also circulated a proposed report and order that would further strengthen our hearing aid compatibility rules and increase the number of wireless handset models that must be hearing aid compatible. The item builds off new rules and a further proposal that the FCC adopted unanimously last November. The new order would enshrine a consensus plan developed collaboratively by the wireless industry and groups representing people with hearing loss that puts us on the path to achieve hearing aid compatibility for 100 percent of new handsets within eight years. This evolution will greatly expand options for people with hearing loss, simplify the task of finding handsets that work with hearing aids and ensure that people with hearing loss have full access to innovative handsets. At the same time, the implementation time line would ensure that manufacturers and service providers will include HAC features from the earliest stages of the design process.

In addition to these accessibility items, the FCC’s August meeting will also feature an item that will both ensure that the rates for inmate calling services (ICS) are just, reasonable, and fair for local and long-distance calls, and that the nation’s jails and prisons are compensated for reasonable costs associated with the provision of inmate calling services. The proposed item takes a careful look at the costs that facilities incur as a result of ICS and covers these ICS-related costs through modest increases in the inmate calling rate caps previously set by the FCC. As always, special thanks are due to Commissioner Clyburn for her leadership on this issue.

CTA Calls on Trump and Johnson to Release Tech Agenda

Two weeks ago, Sec. Hillary Clinton released a detailed technology and innovation agenda demonstrating her awareness of how vital our sector is to the success of the US economy. I am encouraged not only with the range of the issues she covered but an implicit awareness that our national strategy and economy require encouraging innovation through smart government strategy and free market principles.

I am calling on Donald Trump and Gary Johnson to follow suit and release a substantive agenda that specifically outlines their positions on technology and innovation issues. Where do they differ from Secretary Clinton? Where is there common ground? Do they have any plans at all on spectrum, investment, broadband, training and education, and competitiveness? If so, when will their plans be released? Although CTA does not seek government funding for our industry as a matter of principle, we ask that our immigration, tax, trade, communications and education policies reflect a recognition that the US can and should be the world's innovation leader. And our primacy in innovation pulls economic growth, creates jobs and is our best strategy for cutting the debt. The US technology sector is too critical to our country's future to be a policy afterthought.

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda For August 2016 Open Meeting

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the August Open FCC Meeting scheduled for Thursday, August 4, 2016:

Implementation of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, Section 105, Relay Services for Deaf-Blind Individuals: The FCC will consider a Report and Order that would convert the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program from a pilot to a permanent program. (CG Docket No. 10-210)

Improvements to Benchmarks and Related Requirements Governing Hearing Aid-Compatible Mobile Handsets: The FCC will consider a Report and Order that would implement changes to the scope of the wireless hearing aid compatibility rules. (WT Docket No. 15-285)

Ensuring Just, Reasonable, and Fair Rates for Inmate Calling Services: The FCC will consider an Order on Reconsideration, responding to a petition filed by Michael S. Hamden, that would ensure that the rates for Inmate Calling Services (ICS) are just, reasonable, and fair and explicitly account for facilities’ ICS-related costs. (WC Docket No. 12-375)

Providing Affordable, Sustainable Inmate Calling Services

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn asked their fellow FCC commissioners to consider an item that will both ensure that the rates for inmate calling services (ICS) are just, reasonable, and fair for local and long-distance calls, and that the nation’s jails and prisons are compensated for reasonable costs of inmate calling services. The proposed item takes a careful look at the costs that facilities incur by providing ICS and covers these ICS-related costs through modest increases in the inmate calling rate caps previously set by the FCC. The FCC will vote on the item at its August 4 Open Meeting. The Order modifies the proposed rate caps to account for costs facilities incur in offering ICS, particularly the higher costs smaller institutions may face. These changes are as follows:

13 cents/minute for debit/prepaid calls, in state or federal prisons (up from 11 cents/minute stayed Oct. 2015 rate)
19 cents/minute for debit/prepaid calls in jails with 1,000 or more inmates (up from 14 cents/minute stayed Oct. 2015 rate)
21 cents/minute for debit/prepaid calls in jails with 350-999 inmates (up from 16 cents/minute stayed Oct. 2015 rate)
31 cents/minute for debit/prepaid calls in jails of up to 349 inmates (up from 22 cents/minute stayed Oct. 2015 rate)

Remarks of Assistant Secretary Strickling at The Internet Governance Forum USA

I come here today to speak out for freedom. Specifically, Internet freedom. I come here to speak out for free speech and civil liberties. I come here to speak out in favor of the transition of the U.S. government’s stewardship of the domain name system to the global multistakeholder community. And I come here to speak out against what former NTIA Administrator John Kneuer has so aptly called the “hyperventilating hyperbole” that has emerged since ICANN transmitted the consensus transition plan to us last March. Protecting Internet freedom and openness has been a key criterion for the IANA transition from the day we announced it in March 2014.

The best way to preserve Internet freedom is to depend on the community of stakeholders who own and operate, transact business and exchange information over the myriad of networks that comprise the Internet. Free expression is protected by the open, decentralized nature of the Internet, the neutral manner in which the technical aspects of the Internet are managed and the commitment of stakeholders to maintain openness. Freedom House reported that “Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fifth consecutive year ...” Its prescription for defending Internet freedom is to encourage the U.S. government to “complet[e] the transition to a fully privatized Domain Name System.” What will not be effective to protect Internet freedom is to continue the IANA functions contract. That contract is too limited in scope to be a tool for protecting Internet freedom. It simply designates ICANN to perform the technical IANA functions of managing the database of protocol parameters, allocating IP numbers and processing changes to the root zone file. It does not grant NTIA any authority over ICANN’s day-to-day operations or the organization’s accountability to the stakeholder community. The transition plan goes beyond any authority that NTIA or the U.S. government has today by enhancing the power of stakeholders to ensure ICANN’s accountability. For example, the U.S. government has no ability to reject an ICANN budget or to remove an ICANN board member—two of the new enumerated community powers.

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