UNIVERSAL SERVICE
Cuts in U.S. Wiring Program Delay Schools Plans, Study Finds
(CyberTimes)
TELEPHONE REGULATION
Consumer Groups Ask FCC to Order Lower Residential
Long Distance Rates (TelecomAM)
Bell Atlantic Tells FCC to "Halt the Leaks" (TelecomAM)
Kennard Again Says He Didn't Pressure AT&T on Phone Bills (TelecomAM)
Most Replies Filed With FCC Support Consolidation of USAC (TelecomAM)
RADIO
Radio Free Oxon Hill (WP)
PRIVACY
Web Site Agrees to Safeguards in First On-Line Privacy Deal (NYT)
FTC Curbs Web Site Data (WP)
GeoCities Broke Privacy Pledge FTC Declares (WSJ)
MERGERS
Ohio PUC Sets Deadlines for Hearings on Ameritech-SBC Merger
(TelecomAM)
INTERNET
Filmmaker Sues ISP Over Termination of Email Service (CyberTimes)
Vatican Steps Up Digital Efforts With Papal Address (CyberTimes)
=================
UNIVERSAL SERVICE
=================
CUTS IN U.S. WIRING PROGRAM DELAY SCHOOLS PLANS, STUDY FINDS
Issue: E-rate
The National School Boards Association recently surveyed 12 states and 26
school districts to try to determine the effect of the cuts in the new
federal "E-rate" programs -- funding intended to subsidize Internet
connections for schools and libraries. "A lot of schools are going to be
delaying wiring projects because of the cuts," said Michelle C. Richards,
director of federal programs for the organization and editor of the report.
"Others will go ahead because of contractual obligations, but won't have the
resources to purchase hardware." Richards points out that the report is not
a scientific look at the cuts, but instead meant as a snapshot of the
situation many school districts are now facing. She believes that the
schools most at risk are those located in poor, but not the lowest income,
areas. Officials in those districts fear that their schools will be
considered too affluent to receive funding for Internet hookups, but too
poor to raise money for the wiring on their own.
[SOURCE: New York Times (CyberTimes), AUTHOR: Pamela Mendels]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/08/cyber/articles/14erate.html
====================
TELEPHONE REGULATION
====================
CONSUMER GROUPS ASK FCC TO ORDER LOWER RESIDENTIAL LONG DISTANCE RATES
Issue: Long Distance
Long distance carriers have shifted $2.1 billion in lower access fees to other
projects -- perhaps even subsidizing lower business rates -- rather than pass
the savings on to consumers, two consumer groups charged August 13. In a letter
to the FCC, the Consumers Union (CU) and Consumer Federation of America (CFA)
asked the Commission to order long distance carriers to account for their
savings and further reduce costs, TelecomAM reports. Mark Cooper, CFA
research director, suggested that the companies have been using the savings
to provide discounts and other incentives to keep corporate accounts. The
groups said long distance companies have paid less to connect calls through
local companies than last year, but rate plans have remained unchanged. At
the same time, the FCC has ordered new charges placed on customer bills: 1)
$1.50 per month for the new subscriber line charge; 2) up to $675 million in
new per-line access fees, with each company charging different rates; and 3)
a Universal Service Fund fee of nearly $500 million. The charges total about
$2.97 billion.
[SOURCE: Telecom AM]
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
BELL ATLANTIC TELLS FCC TO "HALT THE LEAKS"
Issue: Telephone Regulation
Responding to the August 13 story in the Washington Post, Bell Atlantic said
that it is not missing phone equipment from its offices and scolded the FCC
for leaking a Commission audit on the matter to the paper. Bell Atlantic
Vice President Tom Tauke asked the FCC to "halt the leaks" on a preliminary
audit that, according to a Post report, finds that the Bell companies are
missing about $5 billion in equipment that they claimed on accounting
reports filed with the FCC. Mr. Tauke said the article "calls into question
the integrity of the audit process at the FCC. Before members of the FCC
staff have determined the facts, they are briefing players on Capitol Hill
and state commissions and they are apparently briefing news reporters."
Further, Bell Atlantic said, two points in the article are "simply wrong."
Tauke said that "there is no significant amount" of equipment missing from
Bell Atlantic's central offices -- and the company has given the FCC
"extensive documentation" to show that the "vast majority" of equipment is
in place. Also, because rates are not based on property records, as the
article says, they are not affected by any "alleged discrepancy" in those
records.
[SOURCE: Telecom AM]
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
KENNARD AGAIN SAYS HE DIDN'T PRESSURE AT&T ON PHONE BILLS
Issue: Telephone Regulation
In a July 10 letter to House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley
(R-VA), FCC Chairman Bill Kennard wrote "I want to assure you, as I assured
the Senate [Communications] Subcommittee in my testimony, that I have no
intent of causing carriers to hide on their bills any lawful rate increases
they need to impose." The FCC "questioned the need for carriers to burden
consumers with a separate line item on bills because no overall rate
increases would be required under the plan" adopted in May, Chairman Kennard
wrote. When the agency learned that carriers were going to require an
additional surcharge, through the universal service line item, its reaction
"was one of surprise and concern, given the corresponding access charge
reductions. It was in that context that the staff held discussions with the
carriers in the fall of 1997."
[SOURCE: Telecom AM]
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
MOST REPLIES FILED WITH FCC SUPPORT CONSOLIDATION OF USAC
Issue: Universal Service
According to more than 40 comments and replies filed with the FCC in the
past week, most "generally" agrees with the FCC plan to consolidate the
three entities that administer the federal universal service programs into a
single administrator. But most also agreed that the FCC should "make it
clear" that neither the USAC nor its high-cost, rural health care and
schools and libraries divisions should be allowed to craft "substantial
rules or guidelines that determine the rights of carriers intended to
receive support." And officials from dozens of hospitals and independent
health care organizations asked the FCC to add two more health care
representatives to the committee that oversees telecom subsidies to health
care facilities.
[SOURCE: Telecom AM]
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
=====
RADIO
=====
RADIO FREE OXON HILL
Issue: Radio
In Washington D.C.'s Oxon Hill neighborhood, a low power radio station has
been broadcasting daily for the past four years from a tiny studio at the
back of a crowded Discount Mart chain store. Last week, the station's
operator, Steven Franco was told to shut down operations by representatives
from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). While it is illegal to
operate a radio station without a license from the FCC, there are estimated
1,000 pirate stations like Franco's operating without FCC approval. Around
the nation people are using the radio to broadcast everything from radical
politics to school board meetings and local bands. Although the FCC has shut
down 255 of such stations in the last year alone, Chairman William Kennard
is considering action that would allow citizens to operate low-power
stations - costing as little as $1,500 to get on the air -- in their
communities. In the meantime, Steve Franco could face fines of up to
$10,000 and a visitation by federal marshals if he doesn't take WISD D-Mart
off the air.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (D1), AUTHOR: Marc Fisher]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-08/14/134l-081498-idx.html
=======
PRIVACY
=======
WEB SITE AGREES TO SAFEGUARDS IN FIRST ON-LINE PRIVACY DEAL (NYT)
FTC CURBS WEB SITES' DATA (WP)
GEOCITIES BROKE PRIVACY PLEDGE, FTC DECLARE (WSJ)
Issue: Privacy
One of the World Wide Webs most popular sites, GeoCities, has settled A
privacy complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC
alleged that the Web site had lied to consumers when it claimed it would not
disclose their personal data. "GeoCities misled it customers, both children
and adults, by not telling the truth about how it was using their personal
information," said director of FTC's consumer protection bureau. "This case
is a message to all Internet marketers that all statements made about their
information-collection practices must be accurate and complete." Under the
settlement, GeoCities agreed to not give out any personal data collected
during registration and not to gather any personal data from children under
13 without parental approval. Many hail this agreement as a major step
toward privacy protection on the Internet. "There is a cop on the beat,"
says Deirdre Mulligan, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and
Technology. " This is the first real statement the FTC not only has the
power, but they're
going to use it."
[SOURCE: New York Times (A1, A15), AUTHOR: Joel Brinkley]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/08/biztech/articles/14geocities.html
[SOURCE: Washington Post (G1), AUTHOR: Robert O'Harrow]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-08/14/065l-081498-idx.html
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (), AUTHOR: ]
http://wsj.com/
=======
MERGERS
=======
OHIO PUC SETS DEADLINES FOR HEARINGS ON AMERITECH-SBC MERGER
Issue: Mergers
TelecomAM reports, The Ohio Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has set a
September 3 due date for public comments on the proposed merger of Ameritech
into SBC Communications. The PUC also set an August 26 date for public
presentations by opponents of the merger, similar to the opportunity
afforded last month to SBC and Ameritech. The PUC also set an October 21
date for a prehearing conference on the merger docket.
[SOURCE: Telecom AM]
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
========
INTERNET
========
Filmmaker SUES ISP OVER TERMINATION OF EMAIL SERVICE
Issue: Consumer Protection
Last summer, Peter Hall, a New York-based independent filmmaker, turned on
his computer to check his email only to find that his password was refused.
This was a huge problem for Hall as he was preparing to premier his first
feature film and coordinating much of the promotion by email. When he
contacted his Internet service provider (ISP), Earthlink Network Inc., he
was told that the company had closed his account because he had "illegally
accessed another providers service." Hall said that the accusation was
complete gibberish. Six days after the email issue began, Hall was given the
full account when a security official at UUNET Technologies Inc., which
carries network traffic to many ISPs, told him that it had mistakenly told
Earthlink that he was a spammer. The mixup was evidently due to a false
tracking number on the real spammers output. Earthlink tried to make up with
Hall by offering him six months of free service, but by this time Hall said,
"I had already spent more money than the offer was worth on telephone calls,
letters" and trying to find a savvy lawyer to represent him. Now, almost a
year later, Peter Hall has gone to court to seek over $7 million in damages
from Earthlink, claiming injuries to his film business and mental health
stemming from the allegedly wrongful disruption of email service. Online and
legal experts say that this novel case could help establish much needed
rules for ISP's who want to shut down an email account -- which can be a
lifeline for many small entrepreneurs. Andrew Grosso, a lawyer for Hall,
said he believed the case was legally significant because it could result in
a ruling that ISPs have a legal duty to give a customer notice of an
impending account termination and a reasonable opportunity for the customer
to respond to such charges. Ken Bass, a Washington-based lawyer who has a
large Internet-related practice, said, "This is a new area of law, but I
have no doubt that courts will find that ISPs have some liability for the
erroneous, intentional blocking of email."
[SOURCE: New York Times (CyberTimes), AUTHOR: Carl S. Kaplan]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/08/cyber/cyberlaw/14law.html
VATICAN STEPS UP DIGITAL EFFORTS WITH PAPAL ADDRESS
Issue: Internet Use
Since, Easter 19997, the Vatican has been online. For the first time, on
Saturday, an address by Pope John Paul II will be broadcast over the
Internet. This transmission is the beginning of a larger effort to deliver
the Pope's message over the Internet in real-time video and audio each
Sunday and Wednesday. "We can reach people in places like China where loyal
Catholics have been forced underground," said David Early, spokesman for the
U.S. Catholic Conference. "If people have a modem, they have direct contact
with the Pope." Critics argue, however, that the Catholic church could be
doing much more to appeal to some 1 billion members around the world. "One
problem is that the diffuse, grass-roots nature of the Internet offers a
stark contrast to the top-down, hierarchical management structure of the
church, according to Jeff Rutenbeck, director of Digital Media Studies at
the Univ. of Denver." Rutenbeck, who studies how large institutions adapt to
new media, said the Catholic church has not yet determined how to maintain
sufficient control over its directives and content on the Internet. "They're
just getting a good grasp on how malleable and uncontrollable digital
content is," Rutenbeck said. "That's a large basis for their reservation."
Brother Mary Aquina Woodworth, a Santa Fe monk, said the church "is losing
the battle badly" in communicating its message via the Internet. The bishops
"have a lot of legitimate concerns" about making sure the message they
deliver is keeping with church doctrine, Woodworth said. "But if the church
can't figure out how to communicate its word in the digital age, the word
will disappear."
[SOURCE: New York Times (CyberTimes), AUTHOR: Matt Richtel]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/08/cyber/articles/14vatican.html
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
...and we are outta here. Enjoy your weekend!