Lauren Frayer

[Commentary] NBC News released the results of a survey a few days ago showing that 49% of US consumers say they’re less likely to buy a product endorsed by the current US president. Despite the benefits AT&T and Charter might obtain from the Trump Administration, it might not make good business sense for these guys to fly too close to the sun. Not when he’s perceived as a black hole to more than half of the consumer base.

Indeed, captains of telecommunication industry need to understand that bedding with this administration could have serious long-term public-perception consequences. Just on an average Tuesday this week, the press secretary had to issue an apology for using a bad Nazi-era analogy. During Passover. If things were to get much worse, a CEO who got in too tight with the Oval Office could end up with a figurative public head-shaving.

The shift to mobile learning, student data privacy and budget constraints are top of mind for school district technology leaders. These are among the key findings CoSN revealed today from its . Conducted annually, the CoSN survey provides the education community with insights on how U.S. school system technology leaders are leveraging technology and the current challenges they face.

Key findings:

• Mobile learning is the top priority for IT leaders, ranked atop the list for the first time. The number two priority is “Broadband & Network Capacity.
• Cybersecurity and student data privacy continue to grow as major concerns with 62 percent of respondents rating them more important than last year.
• Budget constraints and lack of resources are ranked as the top challenges for the third straight year. More than half of school technology leaders said their IT budgets have stayed the same since last year and do not sufficiently meet current needs and demands.
• Understaffing remains a key issue for technology departments in school systems. More than 80 percent of IT leaders do not have enough staff to meet district needs. Nearly two-thirds of respondents indicated that their staff size has remained constant even in the face of increasing needs.
• Single-Sign-On (SSO) is the most implemented interoperability initiative with 60 percent of school technology leaders having partially or fully implemented SSO. Data interoperability, meanwhile, was the next most popular solution, with 73 percent of respondents indicating they were in planning or implementation stages.
• Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), more than one-third of IT leaders expressed “no interest” in such initiatives, up from 20 percent in 2014.
• Open Educational Resources (OER) interest is high, with nearly 80 percent of respondents indicating it was part of their district’s digital content strategy.
• Education technology experience is common among IT leaders – 73 percent have worked in the K-12 education technology field for more than 10 years.
• Strong academic backgrounds are also prevalent among IT leaders. Nearly 80 percent of IT leaders have some college beyond a bachelor’s degree and 61 percent of IT leaders hold a master’s degree.
• Lack of diversity continues to be an issue for school district technology leaders. Ninety percent of IT leaders identify as white, the same percentage as the prior year.

Reverse Auction:
$10.05 billion Revenues to winning broadcast stations
$304 million Largest individual station payout
$194 million Largest non-commercial station payout

Forward Auction:
$19.8 billion Gross revenues (2nd largest in FCC auction history)
$19.3 billion Revenues net of requested bidding credits
$7.3 billion Auction proceeds for federal deficit reduction

Today marks a major accomplishment for the Commission: the ‘auction’ portion of the world’s first incentive auction is officially over. The reverse and forward auctions have concluded and the results have been announced. But this process is far from over. Now, we begin the post-auction transition period. This day has been a long time coming. We congratulate all bidders who were successful in the incentive auction, and we applaud all of those past and present Commission staffers who worked so diligently on every aspect of this complex undertaking. We have only reached this point because of their tremendous skill and dedication to this groundbreaking endeavor. Again: While we celebrate reaching the official close of the auction, there is still much work ahead of us. It’s now imperative that we move forward with equal zeal to ensure a successful post-auction transition, including a smooth and efficient repacking process.

T-Mobile has made an enormous investment in wireless spectrum in a very expensive bid to put its LTE network on par with Verizon’s and AT&T’s. The carrier is spending almost $8 billion to acquire more than 1,500 wireless licenses that span across the United States. The licenses are for spectrum in the 600MHz range, which in terms of spectrum, is some seriously high-quality stuff. It’s at a relatively low frequency, which means it’s good at traveling long distances and penetrating walls — attributes that make for a strong network. This move is all about catching up to Verizon and AT&T. Both of those carriers made big investments in spectrum in the 700MHz range — which has similar properties — years ago, and they’ve been able to use it to build strong, nationwide LTE networks.

Dish Network, which already sits atop a pile of mid-range spectrum and has announced its intentions to build an NB-IoT network, was the second-biggest bidder, committing $6.2 billion. Comcast, which recently outlined plans to deploy its own wireless service, will spend $1.7 billion.

When Hulu introduced a commercial-free option in 2015, NBC executives were frustrated. Despite owning a stake in Hulu, they could only watch even though they preferred that streaming-video provider stick with an advertising-supported model, apparently. For the past six years, the media giant has been barred from having any say over Hulu, which is also owned by Walt Disney Co., 21st Century Fox Inc. and Time Warner Inc. It’s one of dozens of restrictions that Comcast accepted to win approval to buy NBCUniversal, home of the NBC broadcast network, cable channels like USA and MSNBC, theme parks and a film studio. Now, Comcast and NBC can start to contemplate a world without government constraints. The last restrictions expire in September 2018. NBC is planning an online video service with shows from its own TV networks in the next 12 to 18 months, apparently.That sort of thing has been difficult for the media company to do up to now. “The handcuffs are off,” said Amy Yong, an analyst at Macquarie. “Now that the conditions are expiring, they’re more free to explore their options.”

Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), former chair of the House Communications Subcommittee, says she has serious concerns about Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal to reinstate the UHF discount. A vote is scheduled April 20 on that proposal. Rep Eshoo said she had worries about preserving viewpoint diversity following what she said would be the resulting consolidation and added that broadcast TV represents a "bulwark" against fake news, but only a media with "vibrant and diverse ownership."

Part of rescinding the UHF discount's elimination, Chairman Pai signaled, was to review the rules more holistically. Chairman Pai has said the discount may have outlived its usefulness, which Eshoo noted, but he took issue with the FCC, under predecessor Tom Wheeler, eliminating it without at the same time raising the national ownership cap or perhaps adding a VHF ownership discount. Rep Eshoo also has issues with Pai's consideration of raising that national ownership cap. She warned that a proceeding to consider increasing that cap "runs contrary to congressional intent."

Internet download speeds are glacial once you get into neighborhoods like Glenville in Cleveland (OH), where AT&T willfully avoided rolling out its U-Verse service a few years back. The company has been accused of "digital redlining," specifically of leaving the poorest neighborhoods out of its infrastructure improvements in cities like Cleveland, Toledo (OH), Dayton (OH), Louisville (KY), Detroit (MI) and Milwaukee (WI).

Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center works closely with Connect Your Community, a local organization that in 2016 began a comprehensive investigation into the real story behind Cleveland's incongruous internet access — the digital divide. The group ended up uncovering a web of discriminatory practices authorized in full by the state of Ohio.

Roy Stewart, 78, former chief of the Federal Communications Commission's then-Mass Media Bureau and subsequently of the Office of Broadcast License Policy, died April 10 at Fairfax Hospital, Fairfax (VA) after what was described as a brief illness. Stewart joined the FCC in 1965, became head of the Mass Media Bureau in 1989, then moved to the license policy office before retiring in 2009.

“I am sad to learn of the passing of Roy Stewart, former Chief of the FCC’s Mass Media Bureau," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. "In his over four decades at the Commission, Roy was a charismatic leader. He started at the Commission in 1965 in the TV Applications Branch of the Broadcast Bureau, and was Chief of the Mass Media Bureau for a venerable 13 years, before heading the Media Bureau’s Office of Broadcast License Policy until his retirement in 2009. Roy’s memory will live on, as he continues to be a legend in the broadcast industry. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Patricia Zimmer Stewart, and his family.” Former FCC chairman Dick Wiley called Stewart "the finest regulatory official I ever worked with," both inside and outside the FCC. Wiley became partner in mega-Communications firm Wiley Rein after leaving the commission.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced a transition in the leadership of the agency’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB). Current Bureau Chief Alison Kutler has decided to leave the agency, and Chairman Pai intends to appoint Patrick Webre as her replacement.

Webre has most recently worked at Jenner & Block in Washington, DC. He served for nine years in several leadership roles at the FCC, including as an Associate Bureau Chief and Chief Programs Officer in CGB, where he helped lead the FCC’s historic transition of broadcast television from analog to digital. He also served as a legal advisor to the chief of the Media Bureau and as an attorney in the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. Webre has also practiced law in Louisiana, where he earned a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University and a juris doctorate from Tulane University Law School. Kutler will be moving to the private sector. Her last day at the agency is expected to be Friday, April 14. Webre is expected to take over as Acting Bureau Chief on Monday, April 17.