June 29, 2009
The new FCC really started to take shape late last week. On Thursday Julius Genachowski was confirmed as FCC Chairman. As the Benton Foundation reported, that wasn’t the end of the good news for the Obama Administration. They also confirmed Commissioner Robert McDowell for a second FCC term. And Larry Strickling is now named assistant secretary of Commerce for communications and information.
Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps will return to being Commissioner Michael Copps. Obama has also nominated Mignon Clyburn and Meredith Attwell Baker for the FCC.
And while I’m on the FCC, they have recently approved the merger of Centurytel and Embarq. The criticism is that the FCC haven’t put enough demands on the merger.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
June 9, 2009
The FCC is looking for comments as they prepare to create the National Broadband Plan. They are accepting comments through July 7 – so now’s a good time to speak up or forever hold your peace.
I notice that a few folks have spoken up. I’ve tried to highlight their comments below. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ann Treacy
April 14, 2009
Last week, The Federal Communications Commission began the process of developing a national broadband plan that will seek to ensure that every American has access to broadband capability. (Mike O’Connor wrote a more timely post on the topic with some great links.)
They are looking for input from all stakeholders: consumers, industry, large and small businesses, non-profits, the disabilities community, governments at the federal, state, local and tribal levels, and all other interested parties. The Commission must deliver the plan to Congress by Feb. 17, 2010. You can get a list of information they are looking for in the Notice of Inquiry. The topics range greatly – from high level to specific. (I was going to pull out the specific questions – but the list got too long and not as helpful as reading it from the horse’s mouth.)
It’s a great opportunity to chime in!
Ars Technica mentions an earlier opportunity for community where the FCC asked for more help in terms of helping them serve the NTIA and RUS, specifically they were/are looking for:
- the definition of “unserved area,”
- the definition of “underserved area,”
- the definition of “broadband,”
- the non-discrimination obligations that will be contractual conditions of BTOP grants,
- the network interconnection obligations that will be contractual conditions of BTOP
grants.
I mention this because I think the earlier questions (definitions et al) will be the basis of funds distribution and scaffolding for the National Broadband Plan. So if you want to comment at the very fiber of the plans (National broadband and funds distribution) I’d look at the earlier opportunity. If you had more detailed advice, look to the more recent opportunity.
Or you could send your comments directly to the NTIA/RUS, which is what others have done – such as Blandin and Main Street Project, Institute for Local Self Reliance and others.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
March 30, 2009
Thanks to Richard Dechert for the heads up on the changes at the federal level. Julius Genchowski has been nominated for FCC Chair. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein has been named Rural Utilities Service division of the Agriculture Department. Larry Strickling has been nominated as new head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration.
Here’s a little info on each:
Julius Genochowski – had been part of Obama’s transition team. He went to Harvard with Obama, has previously worked with the FCC and was the managing director of venture capital firm Rock Creek Ventures.
Jonathan Adelstein – “A life-long public servant, Adelstein has dedicated his career to fighting for the public interest. As a Commissioner, his approach is guided by the key principle that the public interest means securing access to communications for everyone, including those the market may leave behind.” (Taken from the FCC site.)
Larry Strickling – was the policy coordinator for the Obama for America, has worked for the FCC, and was Chief Regulatory and Chief Compliance Officer at Broadwing Communications.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
March 2, 2009
Thanks to Deb Miller Slipek for sending me the Rural Broadband at a Glance report from the USDA Economic Research Service. The statistics are from 2007.
Here are some of the stats I found most interesting:
Percent of households with at least one person going online somewhere (US):
Urban: 72.6
Rural: 63.3
Total: 71.1
Percent of households with Internet access (US)
Urban: 63.7
Rural: 51.9
Total: 61.8
Percent of households with at least one person going online somewhere (Midwest):
Urban: 74
Rural: 65.7
Total: 72.1
Percent of households with Internet access (US)
Urban: 63.1
Rural: 53.7
Total: 60.9
I thought the discrepancies in the Midwest were interesting. That’s nearly a 10-point difference in Internet access!
The report gave plenty of uses for Internet and broadband, pointing out the general need for broadband for education, healthcare, business and consumer use. I don’t know that they emphasized as strongly as I might have the greater need for broadband in rural areas to take advantage of remote services in these areas.
They expressed the need for more and better data around rural broadband use – providing information to the zip code level, they point out, is not enough. They also point out the fact that the FCC has been slow to up the definition of broadband and even the most recent definition is insufficient because “includes a wide array of technologies with varying reliability and quality, making economic impact analysis and discussion of broadband Internet service challenging.”
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Posted by Ann Treacy
February 17, 2009
Today was the day that we were suppose to transition to DTV – but that transition has been delayed until June. I hope that gives people time to prepare. I know there are some good people on that mission.
I have been wondering how the delay will impact the use of White Spaces. To refresh your memory, the FCC decided last fall to open up the unlicensed use of the “white spaces” between digital television signals. One possible use is broadband, especially broadband in rural areas.
Well, the delay doesn’t seem to be slowing down the folks who hope to use those spaces. In fairness, I hadn’t heard many big plans for rapid use of the space and I haven’t heard any big complaints since the postponement.
I have heard that some of the bigwigs are collaborating on a tool to move the whole process forward – a database to oversee the use of white space spectrum per the FCC requirements. Specifically, the FCC requires white space devices to have sensing technology linked to a geolocation database, allowing the device to detect and avoid broadcast signals. (remember that’s what all of the testing was about last summer.)
The founding members of the White Spaces Database Group include Comsearch, Dell, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Motorola and NeuStar.
So it looks as if the windfall of time for White Spaces will be well used. Hopefully come June 12 – people will be ready to watch DTV and companies will be ready to broadband via White Spaces.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
December 31, 2008
Ars Technica reported yesterday that Kevin Martin has revised the FCC free wireless broadband plan so that providers no longer have to filter out smut. So the proposal is to auction off a portion of the Advanced Wireless Services 3 band (2155-2180MHz) for a free Internet service at a minimum 768Kpbs.
Up until now the proposal has also insisted that the provide filter out adult material.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
December 6, 2008
Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Brita Sailer held a roundtable discussion in Park Rapids yesterday. It sounds as if broadband was a hot topic. Here are some of the specifics that came up:
- We need broadband to keep jobs and businesses. They knew of at least one business who didn’t relocate to the area due to deficient broadband.
- We need broadband to keep safe. There are a lot of cell phone dead zones, which mean the difference between life and death when there’s been an accident.
- We need broadband for education to do homework, to take tests, to allow parents to access student work and progress reports.
They also talked a bit about how FCC broadband policy will have an impact on the local phone companies (CLECs) such as Paul Bunyan. Clearly there are real concerns about the future of the universal service fund.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
