Senate negotiators are looking to a lame duck session instead of September to pass an omnibus cybersecurity bill, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., told us Wednesday. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is undecided about attaching cyber measures to the fiscal 2011 Defense Department appropriations bill, said an analyst, though Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., is considering it.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., urged Congress to quicken the pace on bipartisan spectrum and public safety network bills. Congress’ sense of urgency about building a public safety network must be raised if it’s to pass any legislation, he told an Information Technology & Innovation Foundation conference Tuesday. Meanwhile, Warner’s spectrum relocation bill is held up by questions about paying for the bill and the roles of agencies, he said.
LAKE GRAPEVINE, Texas -- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will take a hard line on deep packet inspection (DPI), online and telecom lawyer Ron Del Sesto of Bingham McCutchen told a CompTel audience Tuesday. Even harsh restrictions on the practice may well “open an industry that nobody’s willing to touch” because there will be some needed regulatory clarity, he told us after his panel.
VILNIUS, Lithuania -- The growing arsenal for cyberwarfare in the hands of countries and their citizens and statements by some military officials, including those of the U.S., that attacks on the critical network infrastructure would justify armed responses has raised concerns among diplomats. When the Council of Europe presented a draft on “Duties of States” on protecting Internet resources at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), international law experts warned about possible consequences.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Software developers making applications for smartphones and new platforms need to keep in mind the looming bandwidth caps and usage-based billing models of network operators, executives said at the Appnation conference late Monday. Wireless bandwidth caps are inevitable, said David Zilberman, a principal at Comcast Interactive Capital, the cable operator’s investment arm. The app developer “ecosystem needs to evolve a bit in the way they build applications and deliver content to devices,” he said.
The FCC’s proposal to allocate more spectrum to wireless broadband has broad support and could face an easier time politically than most key communications issues before Congress and the FCC, Qualcomm Vice President Dean Brenner said Tuesday at an Information Technology & Innovation Foundation conference. The commission’s National Broadband Plan recommended that 500 MHz of additional spectrum be allocated for wireless broadband within 10 years.
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee said it marked up Tuesday a fiscal 2011 appropriations bill for the Department of Defense without major amendments on cybersecurity in the chairman’s mark. The measure could be used to attach cybersecurity reform amendments if Senate negotiations on an omnibus reform bill break down, said an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
LAKE GRAPEVINE, Texas -- The FCC will consider whether it can support broadband directly through the Universal Service Fund without reclassification, Deputy Wireline Bureau Chief Don Stockdale told the CompTel convention Monday. He said some have filed comments mentioning that there’s already direct broadband support for schools and libraries. Others have pointed to a November 2008 rulemaking that required companies to agree to build-out requirements in exchange for high-cost subsidy. “This is an issue clearly the commission will be asking about,” Stockdale said. He spoke at two sessions at the CompTel conference. In the first, Stockdale discussed inter-carrier compensation and in the second, USF overhaul under the National Broadband Plan.
The FCC is no longer proposing 2012 as the year for all of the thousands of low-power TV stations to make the digital transition (CD June 10 p7), under recent changes to a draft rulemaking notice that’s likely to be made public soon, agency officials said. They said a recent draft of the item seeks comment on a transition for all low-power stations of 2012, 2015 as proposed in the National Broadband Plan, or other proposed dates. A version of the notice initially circulated in 2008 during Kevin Martin’s tenure as chairman with the 2012 analog cutoff. The current version may soon be approved by all FCC members and released as early as this week, agency officials said. Executives said the industry can meet a 2015 deadline, and may be able to do so for 2012.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski faces a very different political playing field if, as many predict, Republicans take control of either house of Congress, or both, in the Nov. 2 elections. Genachowski has in effect pushed off decisions on net neutrality and broadband reclassification until after the election. History shows that the job of an FCC chairman whose party loses control of Congress changes considerably.