The FCC Connect2Health Task Force unveiled a broadband health mapping tool to enable and inform "more efficient, data-driven decision making." The online tool allows users to ask and answer broadband and health questions at the local level to provide "critical data that can help drive broadband health policies and connected health solutions," said an FCC release Tuesday. Users can generate customized maps displaying broadband access, adoption and speed data combined with health information in urban and rural areas, which can be used to identify gaps and opportunities, it said. “The unique insights revealed by this mapping platform can be utilized by businesses and policymakers to effect change and innovation,” said Chairman Tom Wheeler. The release said: "The picture of health is vastly different in connected communities vs. digitally isolated communities. This holds true across access to care, quality of care and health outcome metrics. For example, obesity prevalence is 25 percent higher and diabetes prevalence is 35 percent higher in these counties (i.e., where 60 percent of households lack access to broadband and over 60 percent lack basic Internet connections at home.)" There's "a significant gap between rural and urban counties," it added. "What we have found in too many places, are skyrocketing rates of chronic disease, crippling access by way of care, and a lack of broadband-enabled health resources that could make a real difference," said Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in prepared remarks on the mapping tool at the Microsoft Innovation and Policy Center. "These are the so-called 'double burden' counties: communities where high health needs and poor connectivity intersect. The Priority 100 and Rural 100 lists we release today identify those counties by name, with the hope this will catalyze action and provide a roadmap for private investment and coordinated public support to follow. Many of these priority counties are concentrated in the South and Midwest, where they average 8% fixed broadband access, have a 34% higher diabetes prevalence and 24% higher obesity prevalence than the national average."

Integration of drones in the national airspace, their innovative commercial and government uses, the role of R&D in drone policymaking, and privacy and safety concerns will be topics at a White House workshop Tuesday, 9-11 a.m. Hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the live-streamed event will feature remarks by Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, who co-leads the FAA's Drone Advisory Council (see 1605040017). Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International CEO Brian Wynne will moderate a panel on the technical progress of drones at the event, which will convene a number of other academic, federal and industry experts. Following the White House event, a live flight demo of a drone will be at the Newseum at 1:30 p.m. In June, the FAA finalized new rules for the commercial use of drones weighing less than 55 pounds (see 1606210025).

The FCC advisory committee for the next World Radiocommunication Conference laid out its timeline for the remainder of 2016. The advisory committee meets for the first time Tuesday (see 1607210051), with the next meeting of the full group Oct. 24. The next WRC is in 2019.

Monday was the first day that U.S. companies could self-certify under Privacy Shield to comply with EU data protection requirements in the collection, storage and use of people's personal data. The trans-Atlantic data agreement, which the European Commission approved a little more than two weeks ago (see 1607120001) is still under a legal threat from privacy activists and others, who said the framework doesn't go nearly far enough to protect people's data from government access. For now, U.S. businesses can go to a Department of Commerce-managed site to begin the online self-certification process. It says an organization has to confirm its eligibility to participate, develop a privacy policy statement that complies with the agreement's principles, make "an independent resource mechanism available to investigate unresolved complaints at no cost" for people, put procedures in place to verify it's complying with Privacy Shield, and designate a contact, among other steps. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said in a statement that Privacy Shield will provide "concrete and practical results" for individuals and businesses. "More than $260 billion in digital services trade is already conducted across the Atlantic Ocean annually, but there is significant potential for this figure to grow," she said.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai sent a further Lifeline USF query to Universal Service Administrative Co. CEO Chris Henderson Monday. Pai said he appreciated Henderson's answers to previous queries (see 1606080062) about the waste, fraud and abuse that has "riddled" Lifeline since wireless resellers entered the low-income subsidy program. He asked the USAC administrator to answer a series of new questions by Aug. 15. "If American taxpayers are to have faith in the Universal Service Fund, they must know that the Lifeline program only supports actual, eligible subscribers, not phantoms," Pai said in a letter posted on the FCC website.

The Wright petitioners backed an FCC draft order to raise inmate calling service rate caps. The group, which advocates for inmates and their families, said the order is needed to reinstate caps on all domestic ICS calls after a court stayed rate caps from a 2015 order, which left only interim 2013 interstate rate caps in place. The FCC-proposed rate cap increases, which it plans to vote on Thursday (see 1607140087), would give ICS providers a windfall beyond their costs, but also would "eliminate any basis for ICS providers and correctional facilities to argue that any aspect of their cost to provide ICS to inmates and their loved ones will not be reimbursed," said a filing posted Monday in docket 12-375 by the group summarizing a meeting with agency officials, including an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler. The petitioners provided evidence they said showed ICS providers and correctional authorities had recently amended their contracts to preserve revenue -- which would otherwise be lost under the FCC's 2015 ancillary fee restrictions -- by raising uncapped intrastate rates and adopting new fees. "The information provided in Exhibit B highlight the extent to which the ICS providers and correctional authorities will go to ensure that their profit margins are untouched by Commission ICS reform," the Wright group said. "If Telmate, Securus and GTL [Global Tel*Link] are willing to propose amendments to their existing contracts to keep each party 'whole,' the Commission is correct in its decision not to ban site commissions. Instead, it is clear that, should the Commission ban site commissions as these parties suggest, ICS providers and their correctional partners simply will devise new attempts to divvy up the unjust, unreasonable and unfairly earned ICS revenue." Telmate, Securus and GTL didn't comment to us Monday. Telmate asked the commission "to pause before it imposes yet another set of new rates" on ICS providers. "If the Commission is concerned about the legal validity of its most recent Order, it should revisit that decision in an orderly fashion, on a full record and with a meaningful opportunity to comment," said a Telmate filing Friday summarizing meetings with FCC officials. Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a short order (in Pacer) suspending the briefing schedule in the current ICS litigation "pending disposition" of an FCC motion to hold the case in abeyance (see 1607200053).

Nebraska Rural Independent Companies urged a Federal-State Joint Board to recommend the FCC make USF contribution system changes similar to what NRIC has advocated in a state proceeding, said a filing in docket 96-45 on a meeting with FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the joint board, and an aide. "NRIC supports implementation of a connections-based contribution mechanism applicable to residential consumers, and continuation of the revenues-based contribution mechanism for business/enterprise and special access at least for a transition period," said an attached summary of the group's state positions. "A connection would be defined as 'a wired line or wireless channel used to provide end users with access to any assessable service.' Assessable service would be defined as 'a service which allows a connection to other networks through inter-network routing as a means to provide the telecommunications.'” In other meetings it summarized, NRIC made the same pitch to Commissioner Chris Nelson of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission and Commissioner Ronald Brise of the Florida Public Service Commission, two state members of the board.

ISP privacy rules should track current rules for protecting customer proprietary network information, AT&T officials said in a meeting at the FCC. Aligning the rules with traditional rules for protecting CPNI “would allow providers to manage data security in line with prevailing industry standards by considering such factors as data sensitivity, cost and the seriousness of the threat or vulnerability,” AT&T said. Breach reporting requirements “should be limited to breaches of genuinely sensitive information that are likely to harm customers,” AT&T said. “A number of the proposed or suggested reporting requirements do not meet those criteria and would also likely lead to excessive noticing that would not be helpful to customers.” AT&T said the “clock” for notifying customers “should not begin running until the provider has determined with substantial certainty that a breach has occurred.” The AT&T officials met with Matt DelNero, chief of the Wireline Bureau, and other FCC officials, said a filing in docket 16-106. The FCC is considering privacy rules for ISPs, with a final order likely later this year (see 1607070052).

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton touted her planned infrastructure investment package, which will include a focus on broadband deployment (see 1607280047), both Thursday during her Democratic National Convention speech and Friday during a campaign speech, both in Philadelphia. “Within the first 100 days of my administration, we’re going to break through the gridlock in Washington and make the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II,” she pledged Friday, saying “we’re going to do it in infrastructure, technology,” among other areas. Clinton would “work with both parties” to advance this package, creating jobs in “technology and innovation,” she said in her convention speech. “If we invest in infrastructure now, we'll not only create jobs today, but lay the foundation for the jobs of the future.” An American Enterprise Institute scholar criticized the broadband policy efforts the Clinton campaign laid out. “Clinton’s broadband plan is largely a subsidy program,” said Mark Jamison, visiting fellow with AEI’s Center for Internet, Communication and Technology, in a blog post Friday. “The agenda says it would grow broadband by expanding and extending to new government institutions the subsidies currently provided under the Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the FCC’s E-rate program, growing the FCC’s Lifeline program, continuing the Rural Utilities Service program for broadband, and providing broadband grants to governments from a $25 billion Infrastructure Bank that she intends to create. All of these elements of the plan allow significant political discretion regarding who receives money. If experience is any guide, these initiatives will be replete with failed and uncompleted projects, political favoritism, and little if any positive impact.” The path would “create waste,” Jamison argued.

The FCC should revisit its 2003 Equal Employment Opportunity Order that requires companies to use local newspapers to widely circulate job openings, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post. “It no doubt can be proven that, in today’s world, the circulation of online job sites is significantly greater than that of almost any newspaper.” Oxenford said. The issue was highlighted by an $11,000 EEO forfeiture handed down by the commission earlier this week (see 1607270063), Oxenford said. Revisiting the matter is likely to come up in appeals of decisions like that recent forfeiture, or in response to recent criticisms of the FCC's stance by Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, Oxenford said.