BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, FEBRAURY 9, 2012
Mobile Disconnect: Can Mobile Solutions Really Combat Global Poverty? – and more today http://benton.org/calendar/2012-02-09/
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
Smaller cell carriers urge Congress to give FCC flexibility in spectrum auctions
Cybersecurity experts: Major telecom providers are secure
Transportation official: LightSquared 'not compatible' with flight-safety devices
Groups Want better Look at Verizon-SpectrumCo Marketing Agreements
The iPhone is a nightmare for carriers
For example… Sprint Loss Widens After IPhone Demand Boosts Subsidy Costs [links to web]
AT&T: We did fine at the Super Bowl, but give us more spectrum
Apple hoping to secure standardized royalties for 3G wireless patents [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
ICANN seeks volunteers to evaluate applicants
Momentum growing for sales taxes on online purchases [links to web]
Security Bills Bruised by Lingering Fight
Senate in search of consensus on data breaches
BTOP Case Study Three: Mark Shlanta, CEO, SDN Communications
CONTENT
Enough, Already: The SOPA Debate Ignores How Much Copyright Protection We Already Have - op-ed
Reddit founder: SOPA showed democracy works
Czech, Slovak governments backing away from ACTA, too [links to web]
Social and online games drive growth in audience [links to web]
PRIVACY
Make FTC Act Against Google, Privacy Advocates Ask Court
Google paying users to track 100% of their Web usage via little black box [links to web]
TELEVISION
Youths Are Watching, but Less Often on TV
Boxee clashes with cable companies over encryption
Chrysler Dealers Defend 'Halftime in America' Ad
TELECOM
AT&T: FCC Roaming Rules Save Sprint $15 Billion - editorial [links to web]
JOURNALISM
GigaOM Acquires paidContent [links to web]
Chicago Tribune eyes price tag for online news [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
State Department Eyes Smartphones As Policy Tool
NIST Focuses On Big Data, Cloud [links to web]
Want an iPad? Pentagon CIO thinks you should be able to have one. [links to web]
Ohio Broadband Network Speeds to Hit 100 Gbps [links to web]
A New Weapon Against Nukes: Social Media [links to web]
Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian Governments - research [links to web]
High-Tech Surveillance Comes to Small Towns [links to web]
AGENDA
FCC’s Feb 15 Agenda
PATENTS
US to Clear Google's Deal
Chutzpah: Google also wants 2.25% of every iPhone sale
Microsoft’s Shift Over Industry-Standard Patents Timed to Undercut Google
Apple Loses Bid to Ban German Samsung Sales [links to web]
Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
COMPANY NEWS
Apple's $90 billion run [links to web]
Apple Gets the Credit (And the Cash) for Growth of Mobile Computing Revenue [links to web]
Apple Tightens Up on Apps [links to web]
Facebook’s Mobile Plan: Carrier Billing, Analytics For Apps Via Bango Deal? [links to web]
Facebook Governance Resembles Dictatorship, Gamco’s Haverty Says [links to web]
Zuckerberg Takes Control, You Get $100 [links to web]
Facebook Timeline ads plan raises fresh privacy fears [links to web]
With Viacom deal, Amazon looks like a real competitor to Netflix [links to web]
Amazon, Up in Flames [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
Step 1: give every kid a laptop. Step 2: learning begins? [links to web]
Startup Turns Data Crunching into a High-Stakes Sport [links to web]
Data Analysis for the People [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
CARRIERS BACK FCC ON AUCTIONS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
A coalition of wireless carriers urged Congress to give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) flexibility in how it manages proposed auctions of wireless airwave licenses, widely known as spectrum. The companies signing onto the letter included Sprint and T-Mobile, as well as regional carriers such as Atlantic Tele-Network, Bluegrass Cellular, C Spire Wireless, Cricket Communications and NorthwestCell. The groups warned that tying the FCC's hands would allow "the two largest, best-funded wireless carriers" to buy up all of the available airwaves in the auctions. In their letter to conference committee lawmakers, the smaller companies argued that restricting the FCC would reduce revenue in the long-run by limiting competition and discouraging smaller firms from participating in future auctions.
benton.org/node/112778 | Hill, The
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CYBERSECURITY HEARING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
The major telecom providers have done a good job securing their networks and don’t require further regulation by the government, experts testified. James Lewis, the director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said telecom companies have addressed cybersecurity on a level that other sectors have not. "The [telecom] sector is already heavily regulated and it is in the business interests of major telecommunication’s companies to provide reliable service," Lewis said during a hearing of the House Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on Communications and Technology. "Their business models makes them the only sector with the expertise and incentives to take cybersecurity seriously, but even then there are issues and problems were uncoordinated private action is inadequate and government intervention is needed," he added.
benton.org/node/112716 | Hill, The | B&C | National Journal | recap from Subcommittee staff
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LIGHTSQUARED HEARING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Transportation deputy secretary John Porcari told the House Transportation and Infrastructure's subcommittee on Aviation that LightSquared's planned wireless network is "not compatible" with flight-safety GPS devices used in commercial aircrafts. He told lawmakers that LightSquared would disrupt GPS systems that pilots use to help them navigate in low altitudes, including devices that warn them when they are getting too close to terrain. Porcari said the Federal Aviation Administration has spent $2 million testing LightSquared's network. He called spending that amount of money to review a private company "quite unusual." Porcari said testing confirmed that LightSquared's signal is not bleeding into the GPS band, but he said GPS receivers are too sensitive too filter out LightSquared's powerful cell towers operating on nearby frequencies.
benton.org/node/112775 | Hill, The | National Journal | B&C | Bloomberg
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VERIZON-SPECTRUMCO MARKETING AGREEMENTS
[SOURCE: Media Access Project, AUTHOR: Andrew Schwartzman]
In the Federal Communications Commission’s review of Verizon’s acquisition of spectrum currently owned by cable television companies, Verizon Wireless and the cable companies files copies of commercial agreements that provide the parties to those agreements with the ability to act as agents selling one another’s services. The companies claim that the agreements are neither anticompetitive nor relevant to this proceeding, claims that cannot be evaluated without reviewing the agreements themselves. The agreements are subject to the stringent confidentiality provisions of the protective orders issued by the FCC in this proceeding. But the companies filed them with redactions concerning pricing and compensation. Now groups participating in the FCC review are asking that:
The FCC should direct the parties to produce complete and unredacted versions of the Commercial Agreements for the record of this proceeding, subject to the Protective Orders.
Given the centrality of the information withheld to the public interest analysis, the FCC should also suspend both the pleading cycle in this proceeding and the informal 180-day “transaction clock,” and reset them to zero once the parties have provided full disclosure of their arrangements.
benton.org/node/112734 | Media Access Project
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NIGHTMARE FOR CARRIERS
[SOURCE: CNNMoney, AUTHOR: David Goldman]
The iPhone may be great for consumers, but takes a nasty toll on wireless carriers' bottom line. The price of Apple's iconic smartphone is heavily discounted by carriers. Those subsidies almost single-handedly devastate profit margins for Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. Since Apple's iPhone debuted on Verizon's network in February 2011, Verizon's "EBITDA service margin" -- a closely watched metric that carriers use to measure their core profit as a percentage of their sales -- has tumbled. Between 2009 and 2010, Verizon averaged EBITDA service margin of 46.4% per quarter. In the first quarter that the iPhone went on sale, that fell to 43.7%. Last quarter, when Verizon sold a record 4.2 million iPhones, its margin plunged to 42.2%. AT&T and Sprint suffered an even worse fate. Those swings are a big problem in an industry where tiny, fractional changes in margin can cause investors to either throw temper tantrums or ticker-tape parades.
benton.org/node/112704 | CNNMoney
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AT&T AND SPECTRUM
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
AT&T had quite the Super Bowl. At the game AT&T’s networks carried 215 GB of traffic, placed 74,204 phone calls and transmitted 722,296 SMS messages. AT&T reported no problems in handling the traffic and had, in fact, been prepping for game day by adding permanent and temporary capacity. But in what is now becoming a common refrain, AT&T used the event to lobby regulators for more spectrum. It’s a bit strange for AT&T to use a one-off event as justification for more licenses, since a big annual sporting event is exactly the type of scenario where more spectrum wouldn’t help. Operators scale network capacity to meet average peak demands. If carriers built their networks nationwide to handle Super Bowl-levels of traffic, they would go broke, regardless of whether they had the spectrum to do so. If AT&T had permanently doubled its normal peak capacity in Indianapolis for the game, that bandwidth would have sat their idle for the remaining 364 days.
benton.org/node/112766 | GigaOm
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
ICANN PROCEEDING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) asked for volunteers to help evaluate whether applicants for new Web domain endings should qualify for a reduced application fee. ICANN, a California-based nonprofit that manages the Internet’s address system, began accepting applications last month for new Web addresses ending in almost any word or phrase, such as “.sport” or “.food,” instead of just traditional endings such as “.com” or “.org.” The full application fee for a new address ending, or generic top-level domain, is $185,000, but public-interest groups with limited resources can qualify for a reduced fee of $47,000. ICANN said the steep price tag is necessary to ensure that applicants have the resources to manage a new Web address ending. Volunteers will help the group decide which applicants qualify for the reduced fee, and should have experience running a small business, working in developing economies, analyzing business plans, serving the public interest, managing a domain name registry service or awarding grants.
benton.org/node/112719 | Hill, The | ICANN
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SDN COMMUNICATIONS
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
SDN Communications, a partnership of 27 independent telecom providers covering 80 percent of South Dakota, is using a Recovery Act grant to expand its 1,850-mile, 300-gigabit-per-second fiber-optic network by another 360 miles and add an additional 100 gigabits of bandwidth along high-capacity routes. The project will enable SDN to deliver broadband speeds of at least 10 megabits per second to 300 anchor institutions that will be added to the network, including schools, libraries, hospitals, clinics, public safety agencies, government buildings and National Guard facilities. It will also deliver faster connections to more than 220 anchor institutions already on the system. Shlanta said that in a rural state like South Dakota, broadband brings critical new opportunities in healthcare and education. Broadband allows patients who live in rural communities located far from big hospitals to consult with doctors and other healthcare specialists across the state. Broadband also allows school districts to share staff and resources by making it possible for students to remotely attend classes hosted by other districts. One institution that will get faster connections is the Telecommunications Lab at the Mitchell Technical Institute in Mitchell, S.D., which prepares students for careers in the telecom industry and is training workers to operate broadband networks such as those being built with BTOP funds.
benton.org/node/112772 | National Telecommunications and Information Administration
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CYBERSECURITY BILLS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta]
The ghosts of two doomed antipiracy bills hang over a new and unrelated issue on Capitol Hill: proposed legislation to help secure the nation’s nuclear plants, water systems and other essential infrastructure from hackers and terrorists. In both houses of Congress, legislation is gaining steam that would authorize the federal government to regulate the security of privately owned critical infrastructure, much of which is controlled by Internet-connected systems and susceptible to being hacked. The legislation is already riven by competing interests and fears. National security interests want the government to be able to collect and analyze information from private companies about how they protect themselves from attack. Those companies are skittish about government regulation generally. Civil liberties advocates warn against excessive information-gathering by the state in the name of computer security. And members of Congress are wary of taking any steps that could infuriate the Internet lobby, which scored a surprise victory against would-be antipiracy laws last month.
benton.org/node/112802 | New York Times
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DATA SECURITY BILLS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
Congress failed to pass a new federal law last year requiring the litany of companies affected by data breaches — from gaming giant Sony to shoe e-tailer Zappos — to notify consumers. But now some lawmakers believe they have a new route for passage: the Senate’s upcoming cybersecurity reform bill. While the draft cybersecurity proposal by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and others currently lacks any data security element, lawmakers could use the amendment process to tack on to the bill new rules for how companies should secure their users’ personal information. There’s already some momentum: The Senate Judiciary Committee cleared three distinct data security bills at one markup last year, and the Senate Commerce Committee has been working on its own version for months — though it has been unable to hold a markup or solicit much Republican support. Yet it remains to be seen whether lawmakers can agree on a solution.
benton.org/node/112801 | Politico
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CONTENT
WE ALREADY HAVE COPYRIGHT PROTECTION
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Margot Kaminski]
[Commentary] In the past weeks, Americans have been realizing that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) might not have been the Great War, but a short battle in hostilities of grander proportions. This is not the first time copyright policy-making has lacked balance, lost its sense of proportion, or threatened civil liberties. It's just the first time the Internet has won. Two things are missing from the current conversation. First, the recent debate all but ignores the broad arsenal of responses to copyright infringement already available to rights-holders, without SOPA. Second, the public has not been informed on how America's free trade negotiations have been used to circumvent the democratic process, accomplishing much of what SOPA was meant to do. If the United States continues its dalliance with censorship as copyright enforcement, it will be the laughingstock of other countries, which see how disproportionate our enforcement of copyright has been, relative to our protection of other freedoms. As one Chinese man commented, "I've come up with a perfect solution: You can come to China to download all your pirated media, and we'll go to America to discuss politically sensitive subjects."
benton.org/node/112763 | Atlantic, The
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SOPA DEBATE SHOWED DEMOCRACY WORKS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
Social news website Reddit, Wikipedia and scores of other smaller websites that went dark in protest of anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA helped turn the inside-the-Beltway lobbying racket on its head, said Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The outcry from Internet users proved “that Americans actually still can dictate policy and not just lobbyists,” Ohanian said. “It’s motivating because this was a decentralized movement. Lots of people with great ideas started contributing and it started to get momentum,” Ohanian added. “This idea went viral. It’s powerful when you think we’ve now hit this critical mass. We can get a message out there that actually affects politicians.” While the Reddit team had talked behind the scenes about shutting down the website for a day in protest to the bills moving through Congress, Ohanian said it was the calls from the site’s users to take the drastic move that ultimately convinced the company to black out the site for the day. In an unprecedented move, Wikipedia and thousands of other sites participated in the blackout and Google also blocked out its colorful logo to show opposition to the bills.
benton.org/node/112730 | Politico | NYTimes
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PRIVACY
EPIC SUES FOR FTC ENFORCEMENT
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Advocates asked a federal court to order the Federal Trade Commission to enforce its privacy settlement against Google, saying the company’s new privacy policies violate the agreement. The Electronic Privacy Information Center said it would file a motion in U.S. District Court in Washington. A complaint from the same group led to an FTC settlement last March with Google over allegations that it engaged in unfair and deceptive practices when it automatically signed up Gmail users for its now-defunct social-networking service Buzz. “Google’s recent announcement that the company intends to consolidate users’ personal information without individuals’ consent violates the consent order and threatens to harm consumers,” EPIC said in a document it filed with its motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. “The FTC is required to enforce the consent order. But the commission has failed to do so.” The settlement prohibits the Internet giant from misrepresenting its privacy practices. It also requires Google to obtain users’ consent before disclosing their personal data and to comply with a comprehensive privacy program, subject to periodic independent audits for two decades. EPIC argued that the proposed privacy changes Google announced last month violate the FTC settlement by “misrepresenting the extent to which it maintains and protects the privacy and confidentiality” of the information covered by the agreement. In addition, Google also violated its FTC settlement by failing to obtain its users’ consent before sharing their data with third parties, EPIC claimed.
benton.org/node/112732 | National Journal
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TELEVISION
YOUTHS WATCHING LESS TV
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
Television is America’s No. 1 pastime, with an average of four hours and 39 minutes consumed by every person every day. But more and more young people are tuning in elsewhere. Americans ages 12 to 34 are spending less time in front of TV sets, even as those 35 and older are spending more, according to Nielsen, a company that tracks media use. The divide along a demographic line reveals the effect of Internet videos, social networks, mobile phones and video games — in short, all the alternatives to the television set that are taking up growing slices of the American attention span. Young people are still watching the same shows, but they are streaming them on computers and phones to a greater degree than their parents or grandparents do.
benton.org/node/112803 | New York Times
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BOXEE CLASHES WITH CABLE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Janko Roettgers]
Boxee’s live TV dongle has only been available for a few weeks, but the company is already embroiled in a fight with cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner Cable over it, and it is now getting support from groups like Public Knowledge and the Consumer Electronics Association. At the core of the issue is whether cable companies should be allowed to encrypt their basic cable programming, something that existing regulation doesn’t allow. Unencrypted signals can be used by tuners built into most modern TV sets as well as equipment like Boxee’s live TV tuner to access these basic cable channels straight from the coax cable that comes out of your wall, without the need for any set-top box. Cable companies have asked the Federal Communications Commission for waivers to these restrictions, arguing that encrypted channels would reduce piracy and that encrypted cable connections can be remotely serviced, eliminating the need for many service visits. The FCC is currently hearing all sides of the issue as it contemplates whether to do away with the restrictions and allow all cable companies to encrypt basic cable.
benton.org/node/112723 | GigaOm | Multichannel News | The Verge
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CHRYSLER DEFENDS AD
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jeff Bennett, Suzanne Vranica]
Chrysler Group's US dealers swung into action to rebut complaints that the auto maker's emotional Super Bowl ad provided support to President Obama's re-election campaign. "We have no doubt that this ad had no political agenda of any kind but rather [was] a statement of fact and hope for the future for all of us and America," the company's National Dealer Council said following an emergency meeting. The single airing of the auto maker's "Halftime in America" two-minute commercial during the Super Bowl sparked debate from living rooms to dealerships across the country. The controversy boosted viewership with more than five million people viewing the ad on YouTube. Oliver Francois, Chrysler's chief marketing officer and architect of the ad, said he finds the controversy perplexing. "It was designed to deliver emotions and I don't think emotions have a party. There was zero political message. It was meant more of a rally cry to get together and what makes us strong is our collective power and not our individual disagreements."
benton.org/node/112796 | Wall Street Journal
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PATENTS
GOOGLE-MOTOROLA OK
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Thomas Catan, Ian Sherr]
The Justice Department is poised to clear Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter, giving Google a powerful armory of technology patents to deploy in the smartphone wars. However, antitrust enforcers in the US and Europe remain concerned about Google's commitment to license Motorola patents to competitors on fair terms, those people said, and will closely monitor Google's use of the patents. The European Commission has set a Feb 13 deadline to decide whether to approve the acquisition. The Justice Department also is set to clear a second tech-patent deal that has raised antitrust concerns in the smartphone industry. It will allow a consortium of tech companies including Apple, Microsoft and Research In Motion to acquire a trove of patents from bankrupt Canadian telecom-equipment maker Nortel Networks for $4.5 billion, people familiar with the matter said. Investigators had been looking at whether those tech companies were planning to use the patents to unfairly hobble competing smartphones using Google's Android software.
benton.org/node/112792 | Wall Street Journal
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GOOGLE PATENTS
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Philip Elmer-DeWitt]
In a letter to the IEEE -- the nonprofit organization that sets technical standards for everything from AC/DC converters to Wi-Fi networks – Google states that when it is through buying Motorola (MOT) and its 17,000 patents, it is prepared to ask for the same "maximum per-unit royalty of 2.25%" that Motorola is demanding of Apple for every iPhone sale. Apple has complained in European courts that Motorola's demand is unfair, unreasonable and totally discriminatory. To outsiders, 2.25% may not seem like a lot, but consider this: The online database maintained by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute lists 4,956 standards covering 117,964 patents filed by 175 companies. If each of them demanded 2.25% every time a competitor tried to build a compatible device, the industry would grind to a halt. One can only imagine what Steve Jobs would say to Google's latest gambit. The proprietary technology he felt Google had "stolen" (his word) from Apple to build Android was original work, and not something Apple had asked to be made an industry standard. To try to create an equivalence with so-called essential patents -- at least one of which dates back to the age of the pager -- that Motorola promised at the time to share fairly with all comers may be the modern definition of chutzpah.
benton.org/node/112791 | Fortune
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MICROSOFT SHIFT
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Susan Decker, Edmund Lee]
Microsoft’s vow to negotiate with competitors over industry-standard patents, instead of trying to block their products, marks a change from the company’s position less than a year ago. Microsoft, Google and Apple are staking out positions on standard-setting patents amid global litigation over wireless devices and tighter regulatory scrutiny. The Microsoft pledge, and an Apple policy made public Feb. 7, were timed to undermine Google, said Andrew Updegrove, a lawyer with Gesmer Updegrove in Boston. “You already have Google increasingly under the spotlight,” said Updegrove, who advises standard-setting boards on intellectual property policies. “They’re living in a tighter and tighter confinement just because their market power is increasing.” By issuing policies that contrast with Google, Microsoft and Apple “are playing to the marketplace and they’re playing to the regulators,” he said.
benton.org/node/112789 | Bloomberg | PCWorld
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KEEPING THE WEB FREE
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Joe Mullin]
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, testified in a courtroom Tuesday for the first time in his life. The web pioneer flew down from Boston, near where he teaches at MIT, to an eastern Texas federal court to speak to a jury of two men and six women about the early days of the web. His trip is part of an effort by a group of internet companies and retailers trying to defeat two patents — patents that a patent-licensing company called Eolas and the University of California are saying entitle them to royalty payments from just about anyone running a website with “interactive” features, like rotating pictures or streaming video. The defendants -- including Google, Amazon, and Yahoo -- are hoping that Berners-Lee’s testimony -- combined with that of other web pioneers like Netscape co-founder Eric Bina, Viola browser inventor Pei-Yuan Wei, and Dave Raggett (who invented the HTML “embed” tag) -- will convince the jury that the inventions of Eolas and its founder, Michael Doyle, aren’t worth much. The stakes couldn’t be higher — if Berners-Lee and the defendants don’t succeed, Eolas and Doyle could insist on a payout from almost every modern website.
benton.org/node/112786 | Wired
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
STATE DEPT EYES SMARTPHONES AS POLICY TOOL
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Dawn Lim]
The smartphone's rise in overseas markets is a "key development" that the State Department is watching over the next year, signaling the agency's interest in using mobile technology to advance foreign policy goals. The deployment of 3G and 4G mobile networks will enable more people to connect to the Internet at the same time and "up the stakes politically," said Ben Scott, Policy Advisor for Innovation at the Office of the Secretary of State. Mobile broadband penetration in the Middle East and Africa has lagged behind basic cellphone use. How international networks grow over the next 12 to 18 months will be monitored closely, said Scott. With that expansion, "there is going to be a whole lot more money on the table for pushing policies for attracting investment," he said.
benton.org/node/112765 | nextgov
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AGENDA
FCC AGENDA RELEASED
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on Wednesday, February 15, 2012. Here’s the agenda. The FCC will consider:
A Report and Order that protects consumers from unwanted autodialed or prerecorded calls (“robocalls”) by adopting rules that ensure consumers have given prior express consent before receiving robocalls, can easily opt out of further robocalls, and will experience “abandoned” telemarketing calls only in strictly limited instances.
A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Order proposing a staged approach to revising the licensing model for the Cellular Service from site-based to geographically-based licensing. The proposal will offer greater flexibility and reduce regulatory requirements, while enabling greater rural deployment of wireless service. The item also includes several other proposals to update the Cellular Service rules, as well as interim procedures for Cellular Service applications.
A Report and Order to extend outage reporting under Part IV of the rules to interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers. Extended reporting will enable the Commission to fulfill statutory E9-1-1 obligations and help protect the growing number of Americans who rely on VOIP phone service.
benton.org/node/112773 | Federal Communications Commission
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