The Leawood, Kan., City Council voted on Monday to become the 14th Kansas City, Kan., community to bring Google Fiber to their residents, said Google Fiber in a blog post (http://bit.ly/12lXMx5). “We look forward to bringing service to Leawood, but there’s quite a bit of planning and construction work to do before we can actually start hooking up homes,” said Rachel Hack, Google Fiber community manager.

The EAGLE-Net Alliance will appear before a Colorado Legislative Audit Committee hearing on Sept. 16, said the audit committee Friday. On July 16, the audit committee said it asked EAGLE-Net management to provide records for the committee’s review and testify to answer questions about its “business practices and future sustainability” (CD July p6). Kenneth Feldman, EAGLE-Net general counsel, said EAGLE-Net needed clarification from the audit committee on the term “limited number of possible users” to clarify what number of users the audit committee is referencing. Feldman said the audit committee wants information outlining “all services offered, fees and costs associated with those services and services planned to be offered in the future, and fees and costs associated with those planned services,” and EAGLE-Net said it provided this information April 12 to the audit committee. The audit committee asked for information “on the basis and method for EAGLE-Net’s calculation of fees it charges for broadband services,” and Feldman responded that “it would put EAGLE-Net at significant competitive disadvantage if it were required to publicly disclose the detail of its pricing mechanism,” since other entities in Colorado are not required to do so. Lastly, the audit committee requested agreements between private providers and EAGLE-Net, and Feldman said EAGLE-Net will begin to contact multiple providers to seek permission to disclose the information the committee requested. “I'm cautiously optimistic that EAGLE-Net recognizes the importance of working with the committee and the Office of the State Auditor to address the countless concerns raised by the entity’s business practices and future,” said Colorado State Rep. Angela Williams (D), who chairs the audit committee, in a statement. “Unfortunately, EAGLE-Net’s management is still refusing to release the additional records that my colleagues and I believe should be available to anyone seeking information about a publicly funded entity."

Don’t buy your kids cellphones before you talk to them about wireless safety and other rules of the road, CTIA President Steve Largent said Tuesday on the group’s blog. “Yes, it’s true,” Largent wrote (http://bit.ly/1bPvBJB). “I am the head of the trade association that promotes wireless technology, but I am strongly advising you to avoid getting your kids mobile devices ... until you are ready to work with them to create rules for their wireless use. My kids are adults, but once my grandkids are ready to have their personal wireless devices, I can guarantee that conversations will be had on what’s okay and what’s not.” Cellphone rules are a “tough conversation for parents because today’s kids take to technology like fish to water, but it is an important one,” he said. “Studies have shown that kids expect rules, look to their parents for advice and parents are key to preventing/stopping unwanted behavior.”

EU privacy chiefs will investigate the U.S. spy program Prism, the U.K.’s Tempora and other intelligence-gathering systems, they said in an Aug. 13 letter to Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Commissioner Viviane Reding made public Monday (http://bit.ly/14XqCHR). The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (WP29), whose members are national data protection authorities, said it’s particularly alarmed at recent revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency’s XKeyscore, which allegedly permits the collection and analysis of the content of Internet communications from around the world. Although the U.S. has offered some clarifications, “many questions as to the consequences of these intelligence programs remain,” the group said. The WP29 is part of the joint EU-U.S. panel established to discuss mass surveillance (CD June 20 p10), but it “considers it its duty to also assess independently to what extent the protection provided by EU data protection legislation is at risk and possibly breached and what the consequences of PRISM and related programs may be for the privacy of our citizens’ personal data.” The WP29 wants answers to several questions, including: (1) What information is actually collected through the intelligence programs of the U.S. Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendment Act, Executive Order 12333 and related measures; (2) Whether metadata on non-U.S. individuals collected as a by-product of investigations of U.S. citizens may then be used to investigate the non-U.S. individuals and, if so, under what provisions; (3) Since data may apparently only be accessed if it comes from non-U.S. persons and is collected from sources inside the U.S., when U.S. authorities consider personal data to be inside the U.S., given the use of cloud and other online services; (4) What the FISA Court’s involvement is in terms of procedures, and whether its processing of personal data aligns with the data protection principle of purpose limitation; (5) What the relationship is between the intelligence programs and organizations’ compliance with third-country personal data transfer rules such as Safe Harbor; (6) Whether American intelligence programs are in line with European and international law. Reding welcomed the WP29’s “strong support” for European Commission efforts to build an ambitious EU data protection regulation to safeguard fundamental rights, including in relation to third countries. She urged WP29 members to “exert their influence” in their respective nations to help ensure that governments “support unequivocally a robust level of data protection in the new EU data protection regulation that is also effectively enforceable in PRISM-type situations.” Privacy authorities should help get the new regulation approved “as soon as possible and at the latest in spring 2014,” she said in a written statement.

Europe’s 79 major e-communications outage incidents in 2012 hit mobile telephony and Internet users the hardest, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) said in a report published Monday (http://bit.ly/14S5Imv). It analyzed data on outages reported by national regulators and reached several conclusions, including: (1) About 50 percent of the incidents affected mobile telephony or Internet, and the average outage hit around 1.8 million users, which is consistent with the high penetration rate of mobile services; (2) In over a third of the failures, the pan-EU emergency number 112 was affected. (3) The most common cause of the incidents was system failure resulting from such things as hardware failures and software bugs; (4) Incidents categorized as having resulted from third-party failures mostly involved power supply glitches; (5) Natural phenomena such as storms and heavy snowfall caused the longest-lasting outages; (6) Overload followed by power failure had the biggest impact in terms of number of users times duration; (7) Overall, switches and home location registers were the network components most affected by incidents. ENISA said it will discuss specific outages in more detail with national regulators and, if needed, agree on mitigating measures.

The FCC’s efforts to create an “E-rate 2.0” will give students “the opportunity to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter who they are, where they live, or where they go to school,” said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Monday at a Senate Communications Subcommittee field hearing in Little Rock, Ark. “We need to protect what we have already done, build on it, and put this program on a course to provide higher speeds and greater opportunities in the days ahead,” she said. The hearing was meant to examine ways to improve broadband, wireless and wireline communications in Arkansas (CD Aug 16 p12). Rosenworcel and Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., were also expected to discuss the importance of affordable Internet access in schools during a meeting later Monday with Cabot, Ark., public school officials. The FCC issued an NPRM on E-rate reforms last month (CD July 22 p1). E-rate 2.0 “must be built on clear capacity goals,” with a requirement that every school have access to 100 Mbps per 1,000 students by the 2015 school year and 1 Gbps per 1,000 students by the end of the decade, Rosenworcel said. Libraries should have capacity on-par with the school capacity requirements, she said. The FCC should phase down the $600 million it spends on “outdated services” like paging and use those funds to fund additional high-capacity broadband, Rosenworcel said. The FCC also needs to simplify the E-rate application process based on input from stakeholders, Rosenworcel said. The NPRM seeks input on whether multi-year applications are feasible, and seeks ways to encourage more use of consortia applications, she said. Verizon has “invested in Arkansas,” including a Verizon Foundation-provided $50,000 grant to the Cotter, Ark., school district to support adapting broadband to support science, technology, engineering and math education, said David Russell, Verizon vice president-external affairs for its South region. AT&T has invested $480 million in Arkansas over the last four years, and is continuing to “build out and deliver these state-of-the-art, cutting-edge broadband technologies to Arkansas customers,” said AT&T Arkansas President Edward Drilling. Representatives from Comcast, Cox Communications and Suddenlink all said they have partnered in Connect2Compete, a program that offers low-cost Internet access to the families of children who participate in the Free School Lunch Program. Comcast’s Internet Essentials broadband adoption program has helped connect 750 eligible Arkansas families to the Internet, said Mike Wilson, Comcast senior director-government affairs. Len Pitcock, Cox director-government affairs for Arkansas, said the government should “focus its efforts in Arkansas and around the country on increasing broadband adoption through existing broadband providers rather than using taxpayer dollars to fund network construction and overbuilds in areas where broadband service is already available.” Suddenlink’s investments have allowed it to increase its broadband download speeds to 50 Mbps and 107 Mbps in Arkansas, said LaDawn Fuhr, Suddenlink manager-community and government relations for the mid-South. Other FCC initiatives will also benefit communications in Arkansas, with the 600 MHz spectrum that will be made available in the FCC’s upcoming incentive auction being “well-suited for rural applications,” Rosenworcel said. “It has great propagation characteristics because it can cover vast distances with limited tower construction.” Recent FCC overhauls to the USF allowed the agency to distribute additional funds from the Connect America Fund for price cap carriers -- and the FCC “should be willing to make further changes when doing so simplifies our rules, does not break our budget, and brings better service and more investment to rural communities -- Arkansas included,” Rosenworcel said. The FCC’s Healthcare Connect Fund will aid in the development of telemedicine, which will “connect rural healthcare institutions,” she said. The Healthcare Connect Fund will allow eligible healthcare providers to apply to receive funding to cover 65 percent of the cost of broadband services or healthcare provider-owned networks.

The FCC Media Bureau denied petitions from Edward Schober, who requested reinstatement of previously dismissed applications for new FM translator station construction permits in Denton, Md. Schober didn’t submit a preclusion showing for either application by the filing deadline, the bureau said in a letter (http://bit.ly/13AgDHt). The bureau rejected Schober’s claims that reinstating the applications would improve local service to the rural area in Denton. “Our engineering staff has determined that currently there are at least five stations providing service to the area proposed by the Denton applications,” it said.

Gig.U has accomplished its goals to help communities “improve the case for investment in next generation networks” through building a coalition of research universities, said Gig.U in its second annual report released Monday (http://bit.ly/19tUfie). The project was designed as “short-term catalyst to experimentation” and it showed how communities can be “critical in stimulating an upgrade and that process can tap into a reservoir of community support improvements in infrastructure crucial for economic development,” said the report. Going forward, Gig.U said it wants to maintain its learning community and continue its expansion. The report calls for improving and disseminating tools to help communities and community leadership with “articulating the need for faster, cheaper, better bandwidth."

NPR President Gary Knell will leave this fall to become CEO of the National Geographic Society. In the meantime, Knell plans to work with the NPR board “to ensure a smooth transition as it launches a search for his successor,” NPR said in a news release (http://n.pr/1eXmsyl).

A “descending clock” structure for the spectrum incentive auction would prioritize stations that are more valuable for the purpose of reallocating spectrum, said the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition in an ex parte filing Monday (http://bit.ly/1dmBekr). Such a structure would lead to stations being compensated based on their “relative value in repacking,” the coalition said. Any other method of “scoring” or assigning value to stations in the auction could discourage broadcaster participation or cause stations to withdraw from the auction prematurely, said the coalition. The commission should not abandon its original goal of reallocating 120 MHz from TV broadcast use to wireless, the coalition said. Reallocating 120 MHz is “attainable” and “the best solution to encourage competition,” the ex parte said.