Not all New York State Public Service Commission members agreed on how to authorize Verizon’s Voice Link service. Commissioner Maureen Harris “dissented, in part,” a PSC notice said (http://bit.ly/10VF147). Voice Link is a fixed-wireless service with which the telco will replace its landline service on Fire Island, where it is the sole provider. The PSC conditionally approved the telco’s request to use Voice Link on Fire Island Thursday (CD May 17 p8). The order (http://bit.ly/111Nq02), released after our deadline, addresses some concerns that different groups have brought up, such as Voice Link’s lack of data services: “Verizon Wireless will make available wireless data services and devices to support point-of-sale credit card processing and similar data functionalities required by small businesses.” The tariff specifies that Verizon can use Voice Link due to damaged facilities, such as on Fire Island due to Superstorm Sandy, or presence of competition but requires PSC approval for any deployments beyond Fire Island. The order affirmed the traditional regulation the PSC will apply to Voice Link and the report it demands of Verizon by November. “We are suspending that portion of Verizon’s tariff amendment related to the expansion of the use of Voice Link to other areas of the State,” the PSC said, pointing to potential wholesale and market exit concerns. “We will seek comments from interested parties on this aspect of Verizon’s proposal.”
Verizon will pay New York regulators $400,000 due to a service quality failure, said the New York Public Service Commission Thursday (http://bit.ly/19Em5WO). The telco opted to pay the amount, set at $100,000 per month, to avoid further PSC action. The PSC reports that Verizon failed to meet its repair metric for out-of-service troubles lasting more than 24 hours in its New York City wireline network in January through April of this year. The PSC learned of these shortcomings, which Verizon acknowledged, through a report from PSC staff.
The industry-led Cybersecurity Framework being facilitated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Homeland Security must include flexible solutions that will allow for multiple sectors to use the framework, NIST said Thursday in its initial analysis of public comments on the agency’s request for information on the framework’s development. NIST collected public comments as part of the framework’s development. Those comments will help facilitate further discussion, NIST said, noting that its second Cybersecurity Framework workshop is set for May 29-31 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The analysis also showed commenters want to see the framework include an understanding of its impact on global and international operations, as well as focus on risk-based approaches and leverage existing approaches, standards and best practices, NIST said (http://1.usa.gov/10u8IYf).
There’s a “tension” between language in the USF/intercarrier compensation order and the FCC’s Part 69 rules, representatives from several ILECs told Wireline Bureau officials Monday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/10v15AK). The rules “on one hand, appear to direct companies to allocate certain legacy high-cost support (IAS, ICLS and LSS) to the calculation of interstate access charges but, on the other hand, also appear to direct companies to spend increasingly larger amounts of this same legacy high-cost support on building and operating broadband networks in certain areas,” said the USTelecom filing. That tension could have “potential fiscal effects” on support, access and subscriber charges, said the association and members AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon and Windstream.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System allows localities to reach those a normal EAS alert wouldn’t by triggering multiple alert systems, officials said during a FEMA webinar Wednesday on how localities can plan for, test and use the IPAWS system. The system allows officials to send out warnings using the Emergency Alert System, Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) and other public alerting systems from a single interface. IPAWS Program Manager Manny Centeno said that because IPAWS alerts across multiple systems, it can be used to reach people beyond those a standard EAS alert would reach. He used the example of WEAs, which send short text alerts to mobile devices. “WEA can wake people up with their phone,” he said. Centeno pointed out that though the short WEA messages don’t convey much information, they can be used to get people’s attention, so that they will go check for other information that might be provided by EAS or another system through IPAWS. Centeno also said it’s important for localities new to the system to test it extensively, through tabletop exercises and other methods. “We certainly don’t want to go out there and press the big red button before we know how to press the big red button,” he said. The seminar included a presentation on the Joint Interoperability Test Command, a federal organization affiliated with the Department of Defense that helps FEMA test alert systems like IPAWS without accidentally triggering a real response. Because IPAWS involves so many different systems working together, JITC’s work is especially important, said Centeno. “Knowing that the message I put into the system is going to be properly represented elsewhere in the system -- that’s interoperability hand-in-glove.”
Adak Eagle Enterprises and its subsidiary Windy City Cellular submitted their long-term plan to transition “as close to the $250 per line monthly cap on high-cost USF support as possible” (http://bit.ly/12ev5iH). The companies have sought waivers of some of the caps on high-cost USF support, without which they say operations would become unsustainable (CD Sept 19 p10). Adak and Windy City’s plan reflects several “assumptions,” the companies said, including high-cost support for Adak being maintained at its current interim relief levels, and high-cost support for Windy City being maintained at 70 percent of its 2011 levels. The actual transition plan was redacted in the publicly filed version. “The companies remain committed to operating as efficiently as possible in order to continue providing essential service to Adak Island, one of the most remote areas in the country,” they said.
The Telecom Act “succeeded in what it was designed to achieve,” but lately it’s been causing the FCC to struggle as the agency tries to “shoehorn” Internet technology into legacy regulations based on legacy regulation, said Craig Silliman, Verizon senior vice president-public policy. Despite the 1996 update, “most of the fundamental concepts” from an earlier time were carried forward, he said: The “DNA” of the law is “railroad regulation from the 1880s.” The industry can’t expect Congress to update legislation at the pace of technological change, he said at a Media Institute luncheon Thursday. “The answer is to move away from large technology-specific legislative set pieces, and focus on a “technology agnostic” framework that puts consumer protection at its center.” The FCC should take a “strategic” view of policymaking, he said, with four core objectives: protecting consumers, encouraging innovation, encouraging investment and being technology-agnostic. People in the private sector aren’t smarter than government officials, he said. “The benefit of the private sector is that 1,000 groups can try 1,000 solutions.” In contrast, he said, “government only gets one chance to get it right.” Silliman is “realistic” about how long it will take to rewrite the law. It won’t come during this Congress, but it’s “possible” there might be a new Telecom Act in four to eight years, he said. There’s an “increasing tension,” he said, between a regulatory and legislative infrastructure that “no longer corresponds” with the technology that’s rolling out.
Dish urged the FCC to hold the proceeding on SoftBank’s bid for Sprint Nextel in abeyance or review the would-be acquirer’s relationship with Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba by holding a hearing. In an ex parte filing, the DBS company cited a report from Reuters last week on claims that SoftBank warned banks that funding Dish’s $25.5 billion offer for Sprint would hurt their chances of participating in Alibaba’s planned IPO (http://reut.rs/11ZsOHX). SoftBank “is trying to force its offer on Sprint’s shareholders by underhandedly seeking to undermine a superior bid,” Dish said. The reported conduct raises questions about the relationship between SoftBank and Alibaba and it highlights the problems of the proposed foreign ownership in this case “because SoftBank is subject to fewer relevant restrictions than a U.S. company would be,” it said. Dish separately offered $2.6 billion in bonds to help fund its bid for Sprint. If on or before the escrow end date, Dish doesn’t acquire or merge with Sprint, or it abandons its efforts to buy Sprint, “Dish DBS will be required to redeem all of the notes,” said Dish in a news release (http://bit.ly/104GnVr). The offering is expected to close May 28, it said. The DBS company said Wednesday that it’s offering $2.5 billion in debt toward the bid (CD May 15 p25). SoftBank had no immediate comment.
The FCC’s broadband measurement group got more details Thursday on how it might determine whether a poky Internet experience is due to a bottleneck upstream, or interference in the house. The commission is planning on conducting a special study on how what happens inside the home might affect Internet speeds (CD May 3 p1). Nick Feamster, an associate professor of computer science at Georgia Tech, led the group through how his “WTF” equipment -- standing for “Where’s the Fault” -- works. By looking at the “coefficient of variation” -- packet arrival times -- and seeing whether they are smooth or erratic on either side of the transmission, WTF can determine where the bottleneck is, Feamster said. When the wireless link is the bottleneck, the throughput is much more variable, he said: That’s caused by the variability in packet “interarrival” times. The equipment also looks at the MAC-layer retransmission rate and the wireless bitrate. If it sees a high wireless retransmission rate, or a bitrate that’s continually changing, “both of those things tend to be indicators of something shady going on in the wireless link,” Feamster said. The problem could also be caused by “contention” between several clients trying to access the access point, he said. FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Senior Attorney-Adviser James Miller reiterated that the purpose of this effort is not to compare ISP performance, but rather “to look at whether or not we could add to the consumer’s understanding” of where congestion lies.