Center for Democracy and Technology President Leslie Harris said Tuesday she plans to step down in March 2014 (http://bit.ly/19nwISg). A search committee comprised of Harris and the CDT board’s Danny Weitzner, Bill Bernstein and Chair Deidre Mulligan has been assembled to find Harris’s replacement. Harris has held that position for eight years. “I plan to take some time once I leave CDT to enjoy our first grandchild arriving this fall, and to consider my next steps, albeit with a greater focus on work-life balance,” Harris said, also pointing to “many roads left untraveled that I also intend to explore as I consider my future path."

Rural regions will face bigger telecom and broadband funding challenges and states must act accordingly, said the professional services firm Balhoff & Williams in a 45-page white paper (http://bit.ly/1a51Qor) released Tuesday. “State legislators and public service commissions have a short period to affirm their long-standing commitment to terrestrial rural voice and broadband networks, and it will be difficult to recover if the networks fail or falter,” the firm said in a news release (http://bit.ly/ZK3ZBv). “The ultimate concern is the potential damage to local economies, emergency preparedness, and social environments in rural regions.” The paper highlights the importance of state USF funds, pointing to communities’ need for broadband access as well as declining federal support. The paper details the history of support companies receive and lays out the stakes associated with the funding challenges: “States must adjust their approach to funding service in high-cost areas (which historically have accounted for up to 75 percent of the total funding need) or risk leaving thousands of communities and millions of households without adequate broadband and voice services,” the document said, saying states must understand the urgency and many aspects of providing universal service. This challenge makes it more important for states to supplement funding with their own USFs and begin analyses immediately, Balhoff & Williams said. State commissioners Larry Landis of Indiana and Jim Cawley of Pennsylvania praised the paper’s findings, in statements. The paper “underlines the importance of State USF mechanisms for supporting the redefined concept of universal service for all Americans that now includes retail broadband access services, and for meaningfully sustaining the carrier of last resort (COLR) obligations of wireline ILECs in general and rural ILECs in particular,” Cawley said.

Correction: The FCC is reviewing whether to permit unlicensed use in both the guard bands and duplex gap, depending on which band plan is ultimately selected, Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman said (CD June 12 p4).

Ohio legislators are planning an Ohio Telehealth Summit, June 19 at the Ohio Statehouse, said Ohio-based healthcare tech company HealthSpot Wednesday (http://yhoo.it/1bwM1oq). Ohio Rep. Lynn Wachtmann (R) is sponsoring the event as well as House Bill 123, which was introduced April 10 and is designed to expand insurance coverage to include telehealth visits. The summit is intended to be an open house for both legislators and the public, HealthSpot said. Its goal is “to identify the barriers to telehealth adoption, discuss relevant regulations and rules, and demonstrate how solutions like the HealthSpot Station ... increase access to care and provide high quality visits with board-certified health professionals, while decreasing overall costs,” the company said.

Governments including the U.S. must balance national security concerns with their citizens’ basic rights to online and offline privacy, the Internet Society said in a press release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/14XqC42) after news reports detailed National Security Agency programs that collect large amounts of U.S. phone records and online communication data. The reports on the NSA programs highlight the need for “an open global dialogue regarding online privacy in the realm of national security and the need for all stakeholders to abide by the norms and principles outlined in international agreements on data protection and other fundamental rights,” including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it said. “Users need clear and realistic expectations of online privacy that are respected by governments and enterprises alike, so that they can continue to use the Internet in ways that enhance all of society,” the group said.

Comcast and NBCUniversal were honored at the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications Awards Breakfast for their work to create diversity in the cable and television industry Wednesday at the NCTA Show (http://bit.ly/17HDstx). In 2011, NAMIC reported 33 percent of all full-time employees in cable and television were people of color, and at Comcast NBCUniversal, nearly 40 percent of employees are people of color, said David Cohen, Comcast executive vice president. Cohen highlighted NBCUniversal’s Writers on the Verge program in its eighth year. “More than 50 percent of Writers on the Verge alumni are currently staff on television shows across the landscape,” said Cohen. Comcast has launched four new networks in the past 18 months: ASPiRE, BabyFirst Americas, El Rey Network and Revolt TV, said Cohen.

Dish Network urged the FCC to determine whether Sprint Nextel has de facto control over Clearwire. The national security significance of Sprint’s control over Clearwire emerged “only once it was disclosed that the NSA [national security agreement] is premised on the assumption that Sprint lacks operational control over Clearwire today,” Dish said in a letter in docket 12-343 (http://bit.ly/13Caasd). If SoftBank acquires Sprint, and Sprint’s current rights in Clearwire are not expanded, “then the requirements for the decommissioning of certain Chinese-manufactured equipment and the review of new equipment purchases under the NSA would not be triggered.” Sprint’s extensive rights in Clearwire make that central notion questionable “both under the commission’s own control analysis and the standard applicable under the national securities laws,” it said: “Given Sprint’s majority equity position and majority board participation in Clearwire, it is incumbent on SoftBank and Sprint to explain why de facto control does not exist.”

Northrop Grumman delivered the second of two payloads hosted on government satellites to help bring communications to users in the north polar region. The payload was developed for the U.S. Air Force’s Enhanced Polar System, Northrop said in a press release (http://bit.ly/11vY27G). It uses flight-proven components, “dramatically lowering development risk, cost and schedule of the highly advanced anti-jam payloads,” it said: The company “kept nonrecurring engineering costs and other expenses associated with first article satellites to an absolute minimum."

Space Systems/Loral will provide a satellite to Sky Perfect JSAT of Japan. JC Sat-14 will replace JC Sat-2A at 154 degrees east “and expands on its capacity to meet the growing demand for telecommunications infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region,” SSL said in a press release (http://bit.ly/14wU8Ro). The satellite has 26 C-band transponders and 18 Ku-band transponders for service in Asia, Russia, Oceania and the Pacific Islands, it said. The C-band coverage will be used for broadcast and data networks “and the satellite’s Ku-band regional beams will provide high-speed connectivity for maritime, aviation and resource exploration use,” it said.

Gilat extended its contract with the Colombian Ministry of Information Technologies and Telecommunications by $6.75 million. Gilat will continue providing broadband Internet connectivity “to over 1,500 schools throughout the country’s outlying areas,” it said in a press release (http://bit.ly/18x8ipH). The network, based on the Sky-Edge II WebEnhance very small aperture terminal, will provide the schools with data rates of up to 2 Mbps, it said.