The Senate Judiciary Committee approved three data breach bills Thursday during a rapid fire markup session that left Republican members feeling ignored. Members passed S-1151, the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act, S-1408, the Data Breach Notification Act, and S-1535, the Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act each by a 10-8 vote along party lines. Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, loudly protested the costs and “over-notification” requirements that the bills would impose on American businesses at a time when he said “we need to help businesses create jobs."
Efficiencies will be the core of the T-Mobile transaction debate in court, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said during a Goldman Sachs investor conference Thursday. AT&T is confident that a resolution will be reached on the Department of Justice’s complaint and it will complete the transaction, he said.
GENEVA -- Major European administrations pushed for approval of an ITU-R recommendation to spur sharing between International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT), the international standard for advanced wireless communications, and the fixed satellite service (FSS) at 3.4 to 3.6 GHz, according to a submission to an ITU-R satellite group meeting here. Satellite interests say more time is needed to accommodate their concerns. The satellite group meets through Sept. 28.
Judge Ellen Huvelle left little doubt Wednesday she plans to move quickly to consider and rule on the Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking to block AT&T’s buy of T-Mobile. Huvelle said she wanted to start a trial in mid-February, asking AT&T and DOJ lawyers to confer on a start date. A preliminary hearing on the legal challenge to the transaction took a little more than an hour and was well attended. Among those in the crowd was FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Rick Kaplan and Renata Hesse, aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski on transactions.
The House and Senate Commerce Committees are working largely behind the scenes on the LightSquared matter rather than in a public forum, despite the increasingly political nature, including claims of undue political influence. The approach likely reflects a willingness to let the FCC, in its role as the expert agency, sort out the spectrum interference issue, said observers. Other committees, including the House Science Committee and House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, haven’t been reluctant to criticize the FCC for its handling of the issue.
Three thousand TV stations that aren’t full service upped their lobbying in Washington this week. Translator and low-power TV station executives said they want those outlets to be held harmless in any voluntary incentive auction the FCC may hold to shift broadcast spectrum to wireless broadband. They want rules changed so LPTV and translator stations can offer broadband themselves, as a secondary service to TV. There haven’t been concrete results yet from the stepped-up lobbying, which also includes the FCC, though some aides to legislators were open to parts of the proposal. The CTIA, which has attacked the efforts in the past, again criticized them. And the low-power proponents said they may not get much of what they want.
Cable advocates have taken their fight against the right-of-first-refusal provisions in America’s Broadband Connectivity plan to Capitol Hill, hoping to keep Congress from supporting the incumbent-backed plan, NCTA Executive Vice President James Assey told us Wednesday. President Michael Powell and Comcast/NBC Universal Washington President Kyle McSlarrow have been pressing their cases on the Hill. The goal is to keep legislators from signing incumbent-circulated letters to the FCC supporting the ABC plan, he said.
Verizon is making progress on labor negotiations with unions representing 45,000 wireline workers, and expects a proposal before Oct. 1, CEO Lowell McAdam said during a Goldman Sachs investor conference Wednesday. The unions have committed to deliver a proposal before Oct. 1, and recent dialogues were encouraging, he said. Verizon seeks to improve margins in its traditional wireline business through a new labor contract, restructuring its business services and continuing to cut costs, he said. The company wants a labor contact that helps improve efficiency, he said.
Cloud computing shows potential but there remain security and infrastructure concerns, House members said at a hearing Wednesday of the House Science Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation. Broadband buildout and spectrum will be critical to maintaining U.S. leadership on cloud systems, a Microsoft official said. Later, at a Hill briefing hosted by TechAmerica, Congressional High-Tech Caucus Co-Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., announced a task force to work on policies promoting advancement of cloud technologies.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is on track to start building its Kansas City fiber network in a month or two, an executive said Wednesday. The biggest surprise in the Google Fiber for Communities program has been difficulty negotiating pole attachments for a company that doesn’t consider itself to fall under the Communications Act regulatory titles for telcos and cable providers that the FCC has given the right to attach, Rick Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel, told us after speaking at the NATOA conference.