Verizon said its holding a national disaster-recovery exercise this week at its Ashburn, Va., facilities. The scenario is that a commercial airliner and a smaller private aircraft collide over northern Virginia, affecting the telco’s facilities. “One of the best ways we can test our emergency response procedures and skills is during training exercises,” said Dick Price, the chief business continuance officer for Verizon wireline. “Training also helps us improve our response time.” The carrier brought several vehicles and trailers from its disaster recovery fleet, including the company’s new 51-foot mobile communications command center, to use in the exercise. The company also has involved its 30-member Major Emergency Response Incident Team, experienced at protecting and restoring network assets during hazardous-materials situations throughout the U.S. The team will run additional drills during its annual weeklong training.
AT&T said Tuesday it will work with the University of California to advance telehealth under a three-year, $27 million contract. The university is a partner in the California Telehealth Network to use technology to improve care in urban and rural areas. The network, a project of a coalition of health care, technology, government and other bodies, will get as much as $22.1 million over three years from an FCC pilot program on rural health care. The California Emerging Technology Fund and others also are underwriting the network, which will involve more than 860 sites, linking smaller facilities to larger hospitals, their specialists and experts. “We are excited to move to implementation of broadband to support healthcare throughout California,” said university Associate Vice President Dr. Cathryn Nation, the network’s co-director. The carrier’s state president, Ken McNeely, said, “AT&T is eager to work with the University of California on this exciting and groundbreaking telehealth initiative."
The NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service have awarded 53 percent of the first-round money in the broadband stimulus program, said a Congressional Research Service report released Sunday. Of the infrastructure money awarded, 55 percent is for middle-mile projects and 45 percent for last-mile work, CRS said. Almost 70 percent of the money is for projects serving mostly rural areas, it said. All winning last-mile projects have been rural, but most middle-mile projects aren’t, the service said. And last-mile rural projects for areas that are remote got more money than projects for areas that aren’t, it said. Incumbent service providers filed public-notice responses for 71 percent of funded first-round infrastructure projects, 91 percent of middle-mile projects and 69 percent of last-mile projects that aren’t remote. But incumbents filed responses to only 8 percent of last-mile applications for remote areas, the service said. “To the extent that Congress may consider whether certain broadband grant and loan programs should be expanded, the funding patterns and trends that emerge during rounds one and two could provide insights into whether such programs should be expanded, and if so, how these or similar programs might be fashioned within the context of a national broadband policy."
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has posted Chairman Tenenbaum's remarks at a recent DRI product liability conference. Among other things, she stated that the Web page for the publicly available consumer product safety database called "SaferProducts.gov" has been activated to help track and preview the database's development before its March 2011 launch. (Remarks, dated 04/07/10, available at http://www.cpsc.gov/PR/tenenbaum04072010.html)
The NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service have awarded 53 percent of the first-round money in the broadband stimulus program, said a Congressional Research Service report released Sunday. Of the infrastructure money awarded, 55 percent is for middle-mile projects and 45 percent for last-mile work, CRS said. Almost 70 percent of the money is for projects serving mostly rural areas, it said. All winning last-mile projects have been rural, but most middle-mile projects aren’t, the service said. And last-mile rural projects for areas that are remote got more money than projects for areas that aren’t, it said. Incumbent service providers filed public-notice responses for 71 percent of funded first-round infrastructure projects, 91 percent of middle-mile projects and 69 percent of last-mile projects that aren’t remote. But incumbents filed responses to only 8 percent of last-mile applications for remote areas, the service said. “To the extent that Congress may consider whether certain broadband grant and loan programs should be expanded, the funding patterns and trends that emerge during rounds one and two could provide insights into whether such programs should be expanded, and if so, how these or similar programs might be fashioned within the context of a national broadband policy."
The Senate Commerce Committee’s cybersecurity bill may have elicited kudos from industry following amendments and committee approval (WID March 25 p1), but it drew barbs from members of the federal Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board at a meeting late Thursday. The committee’s top lawyer told the board the bill had been scaled back in some places to get industry support but defended other criticized provisions, especially a “dashboard” interface that would pull together security incidents under a single reporting structure. A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee aide said its own bill would soon debut with provisions from a subcommittee chairman’s earlier bill.
3D trial runs continued Thursday in New York with Time Warner Cable’s presentation of the first round of the Masters golf championship. Camping out in temporary tent space in its own Time Warner Center in Manhattan, the cable giant used the invitation-only event to demonstrate the capabilities of the fledgling technology to guests.
Give the D-block to public safety, not commercial entities, the National Criminal Justice Association said Thursday. The National Broadband Plan recommends auctioning the D-block and giving the proceeds to public safety. In a letter to Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees, NCJA Executive Director Cabell Cropper said the association’s members “are concerned that decisions are being made which will undermine the ability of our nation’s first responders to have reliable access to the 700 MHz spectrum in times of emergency.” Cropper urged legislation to add 10 MHz to the spectrum currently designated for public safety use. The National Association of Counties and the Police Executive Research Forum also urged policymakers to give the D-block to public safety. “Major city police chiefs are telling us that the FCC’s plans for auctioning the D Block will stymie plans for dozens of new wireless technologies in policing, such as live video at crime and disaster scenes,” said PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler. FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett took tough questions from police and fire chiefs about the commission’s proposal at a PERF forum last month (CD March 22 p1).
The FCC Thursday put forward a list of 64 items for FCC action, along with time lines. The list includes most of what was recommended by the National Broadband Plan, released last month. The FCC had a similar list of items to work from when it implemented the 1996 Telecom Act, said a former FCC official. Eighth floor advisers were briefed on the plan Wednesday.
On April 6, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed rule to add 16 chemicals to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list of reportable chemicals1. (EPA's proposed additions to the TRI would be the first in over ten years.)