Next-generation 911 deployment should be overseen at the national level, with the FCC in charge, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials said in a filing at the agency. “A current challenge facing stakeholders in NG911 deployment is the lack of coordination among the myriad federal and state roles,” APCO said (http://xrl.us/bn63ui). “A number of federal agencies are involved with NG911, each with specific areas of jurisdiction and different tasks depending on prior federal legislation. Accordingly, at the national level, there should be a multi-federal agency program to guide NG911 consisting of the Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security that leverages and combines each individual agency’s expertise.” State coordination is critical, APCO said. “To best create an effective working relationship between the federal program and the states, the FCC should recommend that Congress craft incentives for state-level (or multi-state) NG911 coordination. Congress could do so, as it has with prior grant programs, by imposing as a condition of receipt of federal funding that states create a state-level NG911 office."
Sprint Nextel’s successful bid to buy full ownership of Clearwire is unlikely to face a tough time winning regulatory approval, industry legal experts told us. Sprint, which already owned 51 percent of Clearwire, said Monday that Clearwire’s other shareholders had unanimously agreed to sell Sprint their 49 percent stake for $2.2 billion. That deal represented an improvement from the $2.1 billion Sprint offered last week (CD Dec 14 p15).
The FCC sees a “clear benefit” to rules requiring all carriers and other providers of text messages to send bounce back messages to their customers when text-to-911 service is unavailable in a particular area, according to a further notice of proposed rulemaking (FNPRM), which was posted by the commission (http://xrl.us/bn6h8u). “This automatic feedback may be life-saving, allowing a person in need of assistance to immediately seek out an alternative,” the further notice said. “Providing this type of error message may also be particularly critical during the transition to NG911, as the record to date suggests there are likely to be numerous instances where consumers attempt to send text messages to [public safety answering points] in areas where text-to-911 is not yet available.” The notice clarifies that the FCC isn’t proposing to require that IP-based messaging applications allow for automatic bounce back messages. “We believe it is less likely that consumers will expect such applications to support emergency communications. Nevertheless, we encourage providers of such messaging applications to inform their users that these applications do not support communication to 911.” The notice asks whether the FCC should impose a “mandatory regulatory framework and timetable” for all carriers to make their systems ready to transmit emergency texts. The notice concedes it could takes years before all PSAPs are ready to receive texts. “We recognize that substantial progress has been achieved through the voluntary initiatives of the four major CMRS providers, 911 service providers, and PSAPs described above,” the notice states. “However, we are concerned that continuing to rely solely on voluntary measures could result in the four major CMRS providers implementing text-to-911 while other service providers -- including regional, small, and rural CMRS providers and third party interconnected text providers -- do not, or could lead to non-uniform and uncoordinated implementation, inconsistent technological approaches, and widely varying implementation timelines to the detriment of consumers. This in turn could lead to a longer transition period, increased transition costs, and increased consumer confusion regarding when and where text-to-911 will be supported, what functionality it will provide, and when and how consumers should use it where it is available.” “Given the clear need for consumer education,” the FNPRM also directs the Public Safety and Consumer and Governmental Affairs bureaus to “implement a comprehensive consumer education program concerning text-to-911, and to coordinate their efforts with state and local 911 authorities, other federal and state agencies, public safety organizations, industry, disability organizations, and consumer groups."
Mobile apps are becoming an increasingly important part of political campaigns, speakers said Thursday during a Brookings Institution event on mobile technology. Mobility is “more and more becoming an essential part of campaigns,” said Katie Harbath, a public policy manager at Facebook and former chief digital strategist for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It wasn’t just the [Federal Election Commission] finally allowing text donations, or people building mobile apps, which the campaigns did. … It’s just becoming the method of communication that people are using to get their information into interactive campaigns.” Barack Obama’s strategy evolved during his two successful campaigns for president, Harbath said. “The 2008 campaign was really about SMS and basic uses of SMS to communicate, to organize, to a certain extent,” she said. But, “2012 really introduced smartphones and mobile apps.” Obama also did a better job with data than did challenger Mitt Romney, she conceded. Obama officials “brought all their data into one database,” she said. “Very often all your data is siloed, your political data, your polling data, your fundraising data. Republicans don’t have a data problem. Republicans have a ton of data. Where we need to catch up is analyzing that data and acting off of that data.” Because of Twitter and other social media, campaigns find themselves very often playing catchup, said Chris Spence, chief technology officer at the National Democratic Institute. “It’s a very different communications strategy,” he said. “Conversations are happening in real time now and therefore the spin rooms are less effective, almost ineffective.” Rebecca Rosen, associate editor at The Atlantic, said the Obama campaign had a better mobile strategy than the Romney campaign. Obama officials “just tested everything very thoroughly and had much more success on election day with their apps and their database,” she said. “I think it’s easy to put way too much stock into what that translated into on the ground.”
Handing a major legal victory to cable, satellite and other pay-TV providers, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that broadcasters can’t charge monthly carriage fees for their programming. The 5-4 decision overruled a March 2010 decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to impose some kind of “value for signal” regime on pay-TV providers after four years of battles between the two industries over the proposed carriage fees. Four of Canada’s leading pay-TV providers -- Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications, Cogeco and Telus -- appealed the CRTC’s decision in the federal courts, eventually leading to the high court ruling. Rogers immediately hailed the decision, while Canada’s largest private TV broadcaster, BCE, said it might shut down some of its TV stations.
Minnesota will fall short of its broadband goals, a governor’s task force said this week. The 13-member group assembled its recommendations over 12 months, it told Gov. Mark Dayton, the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party member who created the group in November 2011. Minnesota should offer grants or tax credits to encourage some of its roughly 120 providers to deploy in unserved areas, the task force recommended. Its members include the presidents of AT&T Minnesota, Communications Workers of America Local 7201, MVTV Wireless and the Midwest Region of CenturyLink. The state should also expand a tax credit for central office equipment to cover fiber and broadband equipment purchases, coordinate the efforts of supplying broadband to anchor and safety institutions to help deploy in rural Minnesota, coordinate broadband deployment with highway construction and develop a Minnesota Fiber Collaboration Database, among other proposed initiatives like funding students in need of broadband scholarships and spending more on library and school computer stations, it said.
Partisan strife flared in a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Wednesday over the FCC framework for the spectrum incentive auction. Republican lawmakers and FCC commissioners sparred with Democrats over how the government should acquire and reallocate some of the nation’s most valuable airwaves. Partisan differences over how much spectrum should be preserved to protect licensed spectrum and be used for lower-power unlicensed activities played out in recent days in commissioners’ prepared testimony (CD Dec 12 p7). Democrats separately expressed disapproval of a draft order that would relax media cross-ownership rules (CD Dec 12 p5), which they said would have a negative impact on media diversity and localism.
Republicans and Democrats on the House Communications Subcommittee are likely to spar Wednesday over two particular issues raised by an FCC September notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM): the allocation of unlicensed spectrum and bidder eligibility requirements, according to planning memos. The subcommittee’s majority memo, published this week, said the FCC runs the risk of “short changing” first responders if the commission decides to give away much of the spectrum that is cleared in connection with the forthcoming broadcast incentive auctions. The memo also urged the commission against “picking winners and losers” by excluding parties from the auction. Subcommittee Democrats shot back Tuesday with a minority memo that said Republicans are seeking to “reopen issues that were resolved in the legislation.”
A new FCC task force will provide recommendations on ways to modernize and coordinate the commission’s policies on Internet Protocol interconnection, the resiliency of modern communications networks, business broadband competition and consumer protection on voice services, officials said. Recommendations for the proper focus of the Technology Transitions Policy Task Force were divided. Large telcos and anti-regulation think tanks encouraged deregulation; CLECs, special access purchasers and smaller providers encouraged adoption of IP interconnection policies. All told us their recommended policies would maximize consumer welfare, competition and innovation.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled an agreement with the four major national carriers to “accelerate” their ability to transmit emergency text messages to 911 call centers. The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) also signed the agreement. Industry and government officials conceded Friday much remains to be done to make widespread text-to-911 a reality.