Parents have a desire, and congressionally mandated claim, to help their children use the Internet safely, said FTC Commissioner Julie Brill at a Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) conference Thursday. Since the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act took effect in 2000, the FTC has brought 20 enforcement actions resulting in $7.6 million in civil penalties, she said. Those actions were “to ensure that parents were empowered, just as Congress had intended, about which online and mobile entities can collect information about their kids,” Brill said. With recent changes to the online landscape, including the rise of social networks and mobile apps, COPPA “clearly, needs an update” to keep parents empowered, she said.
In the aftermath of Sandy, Verizon has replaced much of the older copper infrastructure hit by the superstorm with fiber, which the company said is much more resilient to sea water. Some federal regulators and industry observers worry that in the move to fiber and all Internet Protocol networks, the next phone system might lose the 99.999 percent reliability that’s characterized the copper public switched telephone network (PSTN) since the 1930s. AT&T’s announcement that it will upgrade its wireline network and replace its rural copper lines with wireless (CD Nov 8 p11) could bring the issue to the forefront, observers say. Hank Hultquist, AT&T vice president-regulatory affairs, says it’s “too late” to save independent line powering: “The horse has left the barn."
Parents have a desire, and congressionally mandated claim, to help their children use the Internet safely, said FTC Commissioner Julie Brill at a Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) conference Thursday. Since the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act took effect in 2000, the FTC has brought 20 enforcement actions resulting in $7.6 million in civil penalties, she said. Those actions were “to ensure that parents were empowered, just as Congress had intended, about which online and mobile entities can collect information about their kids,” Brill said. With recent changes to the online landscape, including the rise of social networks and mobile apps, COPPA “clearly, needs an update” to keep parents empowered, she said.
The National Emergency Number Association seeks submissions of less than 20 pages each on issues related to local, state and federal governance. Sample topics include “effectively conveying issues to decision makers, enabling NG9-1-1 through regulatory review, public safety funding opportunities, and restructuring of local/region/state planning, acquisition, and ongoing management of NG9-1-1 services to better enable economic and operational effectiveness,” NENA said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnzotc). Submissions are due Dec. 17, it said, saying they should follow American Psychological Association-backed formatting style and can be submitted electronically.
The National Weather Service issued 17 wireless emergency alerts (WEA) during superstorm Sandy, and one NWS/National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration official said Wednesday that feedback from East Coast residents who received the text alert messages on their mobile phones was mostly positive. “We've had numerous reports of messages being sent within seconds, and only one or two reports of delays,” said Michael Gerber, NWS/NOAA Emerging Dissemination Technology Program Lead. The WEA broadcast system will need improvement in other areas of the country, particularly the West, but results on the East Coast are positive, he said during a FEMA webinar on its Internet-based integrated public alert and warning system (IPAWS).
Spending obligations for navigable waterways have decreased from over $3 billion in fiscal year 2009 to about $1.8 billion in fiscal year 2011, the Government Accountability Office said in a report. DOT does not specifically track formula funding used to maintain or improve ports or port connectors, GAO said, so officials were unable to provide GAO with the extent to which these funds were used for port improvements, although the officials said the number of port-specific projects was likely small.
Federal users need financial incentives to get off their spectrum, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said Tuesday at a conference on the next ten years of spectrum policy. Giving federal users the proceeds from spectrum auctions could be a “catalyst” to get federal frequencies into the hands of commercial users, and let the commission reach the 500 MHz benchmark for new wireless broadband use called for in a 2010 executive order, she said. Rosenworcel urged creating model rules for tower siting, and an “honest conversation” about network reliability after storms like superstorm Sandy. The conference was presented at the Pew Research Center by CTIA, Public Knowledge and the Silicon Flatirons Center.
BALTIMORE -- The recent series of natural disasters, including superstorm Sandy and the summer derecho, rattled officials and regulators this week at the NARUC meeting in Baltimore. They brainstormed about the best practices to keep communications networks resilient in the face of what may be increasingly volatile weather and discussed potential 911 innovations and strategies.
National Religious Broadcasters asked the FCC to let noncommercial educational stations help raise funds for nonprofit organizations at times other than during emergency relief efforts. NRB praised the FCC for saying it would give waivers to stations to raise funds on-air to support efforts to clean up after so-called superstorm Sandy, the group said in a news release. Waiving broadcast rules for these efforts is one more reminder “why the FCC rule change advocated by NRB, and now before the commission, is so critical,” the association said. The FCC said last week that it is accepting requests from NCE stations for waivers (CD Nov 8 p23). The commission earlier this year proposed to change the NCE fundraising rules to do away with the waiver process (CD April 27 p8).
Cybersecurity could be one of the few telecom issues that sees action during the lame-duck Congress, industry officials told us. But a cybersecurity expert at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged lawmakers Friday to punt the bill and make a “fresh start” in the 113th Congress. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said last month he'll again bring cybersecurity legislation to the Senate floor when Congress reconvenes after the election (WID Oct 16 p1). Legislators and administration officials have said the White House is consulting with stakeholders to develop a cybersecurity executive order to harden the nation’s networks against attack.