Canadian lawmakers and telecom regulators are facing heat from federal, provincial and territorial privacy officials and telcos that rely on others’ facilities to provide Internet access. Privacy officials last week urged lawmakers to scale back bills that were tabled in June, but expected to return next year, that would expand surveillance powers, especially over wireless communications. A coalition of ISPs also launched a campaign to pressure the Cabinet of Canada to overrule a Canadian Radio-TV and Telecom Commission decision last year that found “wholesale ethernet services” by incumbents such as Bell Canada aren’t “essential” -- and thus not subject to government-regulated wholesale rates.
Satellite broadband companies are combining efforts to convince the FCC and Congress to define “broadband” within a range that satellite technology could handle. Failure to do so could be a major blow to the industry, giving competitive advantage to other technologies, industry officials said.
The FCC will move forward “quickly” on an order concerning a national wireless broadband network for first responders, Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett said Tuesday. He said the timing of an order on the future of the 700 MHz D-block probably will be tied to the commission’s development of a national broadband plan, due Feb. 17 to Congress. Barnett’s comments came as the FCC released part of a bureau report on the commission’s preparedness for a major disaster. He gave Chairman Julius Genachowski the report July 30.
Some small rural phone companies are asking if Google and other content providers should contribute to the Universal Service Fund. In filings and meetings this summer at the FCC, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association has urged the FCC to open a rulemaking on the subject (CD Aug 31 p9). Content providers impose significant costs on companies’ networks, and charging them for USF would further the FCC’s broadband deployment goals, said NTCA Vice President Dan Mitchell in an interview. But a Google spokesman disputed the credibility of NTCA’s evidence. And some phone companies aren’t sure the proposal can be implemented.
Cooperation among federal and local agencies and companies is vital to overcome broadband adoption barriers in cities, especially among disadvantaged communities, city and county officials said late Tuesday at an FCC broadband workshop.
The FCC focuses squarely on spectrum scarcity and how to put more spectrum into play in its wireless innovation notice of inquiry released late Thursday. One surprise, wireless industry sources said Friday, was the level of detail on spectrum issues. In a recent interview, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski left open the door for a separate spectrum task force of some kind, possibly similar to the spectrum policy task force under former Chairman Michael Powell (CD Aug 21 p1).
A federal appeals court threw out the FCC’s cable ownership caps in a ruling highly critical of the commission. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed Friday with challenger Comcast that the 2007 ownership limit is “arbitrary and capricious.” The limit of 30 percent of U.S. cable subscribers doesn’t take into account the growth of pay TV by satellite and from telcos as alternatives to cable, the ruling said.
Many factors affect what actual impact broadband availability has on economic growth, economists cautioned the FCC in a broadband workshop Wednesday. Historically, broadband deployment has spurred economic growth in some -- but not all -- areas, they said. “If all we did is provide broadband to underserved communities, it would probably not provide any benefits at all,” said University of Maryland Prof. Brent Goldfarb.
Network connectivity is crucial to building a smart grid that enables more efficient electric power use in the U.S., government and electric industry officials said at an FCC broadband workshop Tuesday afternoon. However, panelists disagreed about whether the public wireless network is robust enough to support applications that go beyond basic metering.
The FCC said it started a blog called Blogband to stimulate public discussion about the development of a national broadband plan. The blog will chronicle the commission’s work on the plan. Ideas, comment and other discussions on the site are critical to the plan, Chairman Julius Genachowski wrote in the blog’s first post. The FCC also started using the microblogging site Twitter. The commission will tweet about plan progress and other work. Collecting information is important in making the plan, but “data means nothing if we don’t exercise good judgement about what it all means,” Blair Levin, the FCC’s plan coordinator, said on the blog.