State and federal regulators need to be focused on making broadband work, experts said during a National Regulatory Research Institute webinar Wednesday. The NRRI event expanded on a panel -- with the same participants -- held at a NARUC meeting in Washington last week (see 1602160004).

The National Institute of Standards and Technology should concentrate on improving its existing Cybersecurity Framework rather than make any move toward developing an entirely new iteration of the framework, cybersecurity stakeholders said in filings. NIST had been seeking comments on how entities are using the existing framework, which the agency released in 2014, and whether a full update is needed. Communications and tech sector stakeholders were particularly supportive of the existing NIST framework, confirming NIST officials' earlier assessment that stakeholders didn't view a full framework update as necessary (see 1602180068). However, many stakeholders said the NIST framework's implementation tiers guidance hasn't worked as planned, and several suggested NIST remove them from the framework.

A USTelecom bid for ILEC relief was backed by incumbents but opposed by rivals and a state regulatory commission, as six parties responded to an FCC request to refresh the record by Monday in a proceeding that started three years ago. CenturyLink, USTelecom and Verizon said the FCC should grant the ILEC group's December 2012 petition asking the FCC for a declaratory ruling that incumbent telcos are nondominant in the provision of switched access services. CenturyLink called the petition's factual foundation "indisputable," given the "remarkable transformation" in "the competitive landscape, whereby almost 50% of U.S. households are 'wireless only'" and traditional ILEC phone service is being eclipsed by interconnected VoIP. "The record overwhelmingly demonstrates that ILECs are not dominant carriers in the provision of voice services and, therefore, dominant carrier regulation of ILEC switched access services is unnecessary," CenturyLink commented in docket 13-3. "There is no question that some relief here is warranted, and declaring ILECs to be non-dominant would be the cleanest approach," USTelecom said. "We do not seek blanket deregulation of ILEC switched access voice services; rather, we seek a narrow scope of relief that would result in the consistent treatment of all providers in this highly competitive marketplace as 'non-dominant' providers." Verizon agreed, saying the petition "seeks only regulatory parity" among local phone competitors. But General Communications Inc., the Michigan Public Service Commission and Sprint opposed the petition. The FCC should deny the petition "as vague, unsupported, and inconsistent with precedent," GCI said. "To the extent it grants any relief, the Commission should ensure that it does nothing to backpedal on the reforms of the [2011] USF/ICC Transformation Order and the subsequent implementing orders or to prejudice ongoing proceedings or other carriers." The Michigan PSC said ILECs remain dominant in the provision of switched access services. "The data provided in the petition is outdated and not applicable to every area. Although wireless and broadband technologies continue to experience growth, not every customer currently has access to these options. ILEC carriers remain the most reliable, and in many cases the only option for customers in rural and underserved areas," the PSC said. Sprint said that all the reasons it listed for opposing the bid three years ago remain valid.

The FCC should resist calls for major special access regulation and uphold incentives for facilities-based competition, NCTA said Friday in a filing weighing in for the first time on the agency’s broad review of the business telecom market and its regulatory framework. The cable group expressly called on the commission to reject “CLEC proposals for substantial new rate regulation.” Meanwhile, CLECs and others continued to make arguments for the FCC to bolster special access regulation, while ILECs opposed those calls. Many parties filed detailed reply comments due Friday in docket 05-25 responding to initial comments (see 1601290053, 1601270072 and 1601260056).

FCC-proposed rules for invigorating the third-party set-top box market (see 1602180065) would “encourage innovative developers to create products which will lower consumer costs, increase the selection of content available to consumers and allow new applications for TV,” said Hauppage, which was on the agency's Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee and is a member of the Consumer Video Choice Coalition, along with Public Knowledge and TiVo. The NPRM is seen as being largely derived from the CVCC-supported recommendations in the DSTAC report. Hauppauge also helped create demos of the CVCC-backed concept for both Congress and the FCC. The demos showed consumer devices can deliver both live TV content and over-the-top content “without requiring a change to the TV distribution systems of current cable and satellite providers,” Hauppage said. The FCC's proposed rules will give more minority programmers the opportunity to “have their content seen and their voices heard,” said BET founder and RLJ Entertainment Chairman Robert Johnson in an emailed statement. Johnson praised Commissioner Mignon Clyburn for joining Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel “in supporting the universal set-top box proposal.” The FCC inserting itself into the video market is “unlikely to serve consumers or competition,” said USTelecom President Walter McCormick in a statement. “The FCC’s thumb on the scales will inevitably straightjacket innovation and harm competition, neither of which will serve the public interest.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler hailed a "bipartisan" draft rural USF order aimed at modernizing high-cost support mechanisms for rate-of-return carriers by shifting to a broadband focus. Wheeler said in a Friday blog post that he and Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Mignon Clyburn agreed on principles for reforming the subsidy program and boosting broadband deployment to unserved rural Americans

The White House's Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP) includes “a few big-ticket items” like the formation of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity (CENC), but “in many ways it's corralling a lot” of the work President Barack Obama's administration has done on cybersecurity since 2009, said Department of Commerce Senior Adviser-Cybersecurity and Technology Clete Johnson Thursday during a USTelecom event. Federal officials highlighted many of the cybersecurity programs pulled into CNAP. The programs include the National Institute of Standards and Technology's ongoing assessment of the Cybersecurity Framework and the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council's (CSRIC) continued work on cybersecurity issues. CNAP, which the White House announced last week, also includes the creation of the Federal Privacy Council and a federal chief information security officer position. The White House released CNAP in conjunction with the release of its FY 2017 federal budget proposal, which includes a 35 percent hike in cybersecurity spending (see 1602090068).

The FCC is well positioned to write privacy rules to protect broadband consumers, Public Knowledge and allies said Wednesday. Broadband providers are collecting huge amounts of information, leaving consumers, in effect, “sitting naked in a glass house,” said PK Senior Vice President Harold Feld at a news conference hosted by the group and New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI), joined by members of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and the Alarm Industry Communications Committee. The FCC may consider a broadband privacy NPRM at its March 31 meeting, informed sources have told us.

Members of the ad hoc Governance and Reliability working group, led by the National Emergency Number Association, reported on a meeting with FCC staff on a previously submitted consensus proposal by the group on improving 911 reliability, said a filing posted Tuesday to docket 14-193. Members of the group discussed its vision on the collaborative management of roles and responsibilities in the changing 911 market, the filing said. Members from associations including the National Association of 911 State Administrators, National Emergency Number Association and USTelecom took questions from staff on the proposal, the group said. Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson was among the attendees from the FCC.

Competify hammered USTelecom white papers that cited competitive success of the broadband business market served by special access services (see 1602110061). "USTelecom represents an industry in denial," Competify emailed Thursday night. The USTelecom white papers "follow the same tired logic that we’ve heard for years," said the group of CLECs, tech companies and others. "Connections to individual buildings remain a competitive bottleneck. Twenty years after monopoly services were allegedly opened to competition, the majority of business still have only one dedicated connection -- the incumbent telco's. Over the past ten years, there have been multiple studies, including the FCC’s own data, demonstrating what every consumer knows to be true -- that broadband incumbents are overcharging all of us billions of dollars annually.”