Lauren Frayer

For years, states and online retailers have bickered over whether the retailers should -- and, if so, could -- collect local and state sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet. The states have said they should and could. The retailers have argued that the complexity of different tax rates and categories among states and localities made it very difficult to do so. Hoping to put an end to that argument, 18 states tomorrow will implement a long-planned move to remove obstacles that the retailers have cited.

There's a growing fight between airport authorities and the wireless and airline industries. The FCC is considering comments concerning the Massachusetts Port Authority’s (Massport) demand for an airline antenna’s removal from an airport. Continental Airline is challenging the move and asking the FCC to declare the it illegal. Continental last year installed a fixed wireless antenna to provide free Wi-Fi service to customers and employees in its Presidents Club frequent flyer lounge at Boston-Logan International Airport.

[Commentary] Finally, the network really is the computer. The real game changer is broadband. More than any development since the late 1990s, the proliferation of inexpensive high-speed Internet connections represents a profound structural shift in the computer business. Among other things, it promises to usher in an era in which network access becomes the equivalent of a global utility. Truth be told, the broadband rollout in this country has proceeded at a snail's pace. While nations like South Korea and Japan surged ahead, the U.S. dithered.

Telephone and cable television companies, long among the most aggressive lobbyists in Washington, also are spending heavily to influence state and local governments on a range of issues, according to a study released today by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity. The companies spent at least $77 million lobbying officials around the country in 2003 and 2004 alone, the analysis of public records showed. That number is likely to be low, however, because many states require only minimal disclosure of lobbying activities, according to the study.

As the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee gears up for a hearing on the state of competition in the cable TV sector, representatives of video satellite providers and other pay-television rivals of the cable industry have been feeling more than a bit left out.

OK, no one "benefited" from the near total destruction of one of our greatest cities and the surrounding area, but the politics of low-power FM may have shifted considerably in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A high-profile experimental license that the FCC recently granted to community activists could spotlight low-power radio's ability to reach segments of the population lacking other media options. Some community activists started a radio station in the parking lot of Houston's Astrodome for Katrina evacuees.

Former Deputy Director of Homeland Security Asa Hutchison Wednesday called on Congress to move up the hard date for the return of broadcasters' analog spectrum to early 2008 from the anticipated 2009 hard date. In a commentary in the Washington Times, Hutchison also said the problem of emergency communications was not primarily one of bandwidth, but instead of '"inadequate radios and other devices." FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has suggested that so-called "smart radios," which seek out unused frequencies, might help with that problem. Sen John McCain (R-AZ) has been pushing for an earlier return of TV spectrum, but the Congressional Budget Office found that the further back the date goes, the more valuable the spectrum becomes and the more money will go to the U.S. Treasury. Congress will need that money to make sure that analog viewers are not left with snow when the DTV switch is pulled. That, too, could be a communications problems in emergencies, not to mention an issue at the polls when legislators try to get re-elected.
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According to the FCC's quarterly report, released Wednesday, indecency and obscenity complaints against broadcast TV and radio dropped from 157,016 in the first quarter of 2005 to 6,161 in the second. That latter figure compares to 272,818 complaints in the second quarter of 2004. The drop since January has also been precipitous, from 138,652 in January to 14,480 in February, to 3,884 in March, to approximately 2,000 per month from April through June.

The Partnership for a Nation of Learners -- a collaboration between the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) -- announced its first-ever community collaboration grants. The grants, totaling $1,447,022, will fund museums, libraries, and public broadcasters in seven communities as they work together to address specific, jointly identified community needs ranging for asthma education to historic material conservation.

In a September 27 article, the Los Angeles Times reported that Cheryl F. Halpern, the newly appointed chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), "indicated" in her opening remarks that she would bring a different "tone" and "style" to the job from that of outgoing chairman Kenneth Y.