Seattle needs to shake up its government to be effective and embrace technology, said Bill Schrier, the city’s former chief technology officer, in a Tuesday op-ed on community news website Crosscut (http://bit.ly/18wIqqI). “I'd appoint a Chief Innovation Officer (CInO) to reach out to the technology and start-up communities in Seattle, harnessing their ideas and technologies for use in City government,” he said. “The outreach opportunities here are endless, from huge companies like Microsoft which has a wide variety of innovative software solutions, to smaller companies like Cozi (an app and website that helps organize family life) and Prosodic (smarter use of social media).” Such a position would help the city’s economy and the government’s efficiency, he said. He advocated for the hire of a chief operating officer to “break down walls” of various agencies, citing the “utilities, public safety, parks, etc.” that the city has to help manage. Traditional citizen outreach doesn’t work, he said, criticizing public and committee hearings: “The City should take advantage of video conferencing, Facebook apps, and cool locally developed technologies like Ideascale (for crowdsourcing ideas) and Living Voters’ Guide (for vetting ideas and improving them.”
Nevada has passed what’s commonly known as Kelsey’s Law, a law that determines situations in which carriers must give up caller location information to law enforcement officials during certain emergencies. Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) signed the bill Monday. Senate Bill 268 became effective immediately Monday for purposes of adopting regulations and will become effective on Oct. 1 for any other purposes, according to the bill text. No legislator voted against the bill in the Nevada Senate or Assembly since its introduction in March when it passed through those two legislative bodies.
ITU members should retain the ability to join a single sector rather than the organization as a whole, the U.S. ITU Association said in comments that will be considered during an ITU Council meeting in June. ITU’s three sectors deal with radiocommunication, development and telecom standardization. ITU could encourage members to join all three sectors by offering a three-for-two discount, said the association. It supported efforts to ensure that certain sector member privileges are not inadvertently being accorded to academia or associates. Free memberships to ITU, such as those with reciprocity arrangement with some regional or international organizations, should be reduced, unless there is a clear value to ITU for such an arrangement, it said. Fee exemption arrangements cover more than 150 sector memberships from nearly 100 entities, it said. IEEE falls under the category of free membership, an executive told us. ITU should retain membership rates based on the voluntary choice of class of contribution, using currently defined contributory units, said the U.S. ITU Association. It’s a group of 45 telecom companies, law firms, satellite operators, software manufacturers and others.
NTCA commended the introduction of Senate Resolution 157 to recognize the negative impact that call completion failures have on rural communities. The resolution expresses the sense of the Senate that all providers should complete calls to all areas of the country, no entity should unreasonably discriminate against rural telephone users, and the FCC should pursue those who violate FCC rules on call completion. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Tim Johnson, D-S.D., Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and 10 other senators introduced the legislation Thursday. NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield said: “It is time that rural consumers receive the dependable voice communications services that are mandated under law,” according to a news release. “Too many calls to rural communities have been failing for far too long, and the issue must be escalated and resolved.”
Both FCC Democrats, acting Chairman Mignon Clyburn and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, voted for an order approving Progeny’s proposed rollout of its E-911 location service (http://bit.ly/YWAePD), which has faced opposition from the Part 15 Coalition and advocates of unlicensed wireless. The order was circulated by former Chairman Julius Genachowski before he left the commission (CD May 17 p1). Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai hadn’t voted as of late Friday, agency officials said. They said the two Democrats voted for the order shortly after it was circulated by Genachowski.
Michael Gazarik, NASA associate administrator-Space Technology Mission Directorate, met with foreign counterparts last week about potential cooperation. During meetings with the German Aerospace Center, the European Space Program and France’s National Center for Space Studies, Gazarik “had an opportunity to learn about our partners’ areas of technology focus and expertise and begin the process of identifying areas of potential cooperation in space technology,” he said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/14H9Usa). NASA recognizes that “cooperation and collaboration are critical to meet increasingly global challenges,” he said.
The Texas Public Utility Commission will give money from the Texas universal service fund to help Hill Country Telephone Cooperative make up for federal high-cost support money lost to the FCC’s November 2011 USF order. The approval was expected (CD April 4 p5). The PUC issued its final order last week (http://bit.ly/14IJfLi) and recounted the proceeding that started last fall. Due to the FCC’s order, Hill Country lost $551,601 in 2012, $399,614 in 2013, and $271,221 in 2014 due to prices that fell below new federal benchmarks, the order said. But the PUC, the telco and others worked together to permit Hill Country to hike its prices, which will allow it to recover much of the lost revenue for 2012, the PUC said. Hill Country will recover $181,799 from the Texas USF for that year. The hikes, however, will help avoid federal revenue losses for future years, the order said: “The increases in revenue realized by Hill Country are anticipated to fully replace the current projected 2013 and 2014 reduction of FUSF revenues by Hill Country.”
Recent reports that the U.S. government is looking at the national security implications of a SoftBank/Sprint/Clearwire transaction may actually be a sign the deal is close to gaining regulatory approval, said Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeff Silva in a Friday research note. “Rather than viewing … reports as a heightened risk factor for US government approval of Softbank/Sprint/Clearwire, we suspect the latest headlines actually reflect a national security review process in its waning stages in which firm conditions are being put on the table by the Obama administration for processing by parties to the transactions,” Silva wrote. “Indeed, we regard Dish’s animated behavior on national security issues related to Softbank/Sprint/Clearwire as confirmation that government action is nearing and as representative of a company desperately trying keep its $25.5 billion counteroffer for Sprint in play."
The FCC International Bureau sought comment on a request from the government of Canada for earth station frequency coordination. Canada requested frequency coordination for a fixed earth station in Dorval, Quebec, operating in the 3700-4200 MHz and 5925-6425 MHz bands, the bureau’s Satellite Division said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/16TEcvk). Comments are due June 24, it said. “If no adverse comments are received by that date, these earth stations will be considered satisfactorily coordinated with the USA and Canada will be so advised."
Five VoIP providers proposed to participate in the FCC’s numbering trial for direct access to phone numbers (CD April 19 p1) , the commission said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/ZiOzWZ). Vonage and SmartEdgeNet (CD May 21 p10), WilTel and Intelepeer (CD May 22 p16), and Millicorp petitioned to participate in the trial. The proposals will be approved 30 days after their respective filing dates, unless the Wireline Bureau finds the proposal doesn’t comply with the rules, the public notice said.