Arkansas passed a law on the implications of communications companies posting their prices. If it’s authorized to offer such telecom services, if “a competing local exchange carrier, or an interexchange carrier posts on a publicly accessible Internet website its generally available prices and terms of service for telecommunications services, the electing company, competing local exchange carrier, or interexchange carrier is not required to file or maintain with the [state regulatory] commission any tariff or price list setting forth the rates, rentals, charges, privileges, facilities, rules, regulations, or forms of contract for telecommunications services,” said the text of what’s now Act 1098 (http://bit.ly/14hfHrx). The law, originally known as Senate Bill 948, also specifies that the commission can’t regulate commercial mobile and VoIP services and providers except in certain ways regarding universal service and Sections 251 and 252 of the U.S. Communications Act. Arkansas passed a law earlier this year restricting state regulation of VoIP.
ISPs are failing to use well-known traffic filtering techniques that could counter major incidents, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) said Friday in a “flash note” (http://bit.ly/10Q6dgs). The measures could have prevented a major attack across Europe in March against Spamhaus, it said. The incident, dubbed the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack ever, caused noticeable delays for Internet users in the U.K., Germany and other parts of western Europe, ENISA said. It said Spamhaus, based in Geneva and London, helps fight spam by providing a service that allows operators of email servers to see if a sender’s email server is known to be transmitting unsolicited commercial email. While there’s no clear evidence, the attack on Spamhaus is generally attributed to a hosting provider flagged by Spamhaus as a spammer, it said. The attack, which Spamhaus noticed March 16, lasted for over a week and happened in three phases, ENISA said. The first stage was directed at Spamhaus, followed by an assault on CloudFlare, which Spamhaus contracted to deal with the incident, the agency said. It said the enormous amount of traffic generated caused problems at the London Internet Exchange. The technique used for the DDoS attack isn’t new, and was possible because most Internet-connected hosts are still able to send Internet Protocol packets with forged source addresses, ENISA said. Another factor that contributed to the size of the cyberattack is the large number of “open recursive resolvers” in the Internet. These are domain name system (DNS) servers that answer all requests sent to them, not just those related to the DNS domain for which they are authoritative resolvers, it said. ENISA chided network providers for failing to implement recommendations that have been around for 13 years. If they had done so, traffic filtering on border routers would have blocked the Spamhaus attack, it said. Other existing recommendations for operators of DNS servers could help reduce the number of servers that can be misused for DNS amplification attacks, it said. The Spamhaus incident teaches several lessons, ENISA said: (1) It’s a reminder that the Internet overall can be considered resilient, but this doesn’t necessarily hold true for the local part of the Internet infrastructure serving a particular region or country. (2) Even disputes between private, non-government actors can have significant effects on Internet infrastructure, because of the high number of interconnections and the cross-border nature of the Internet. (3) Attacks are getting bigger. The largest publicly reported DDoS attack up to 2012 had been around 100 gigabits of data per second; the Spamhaus incident reached more than 300 Gbps. (4) In cyberattacks of this size, the capacity of commercial Internet exchanges can be exhausted. (5) There is no widely agreed system to gauge the impact of the factors that played a role in the attack, making it hard to assess the associated risks. ENISA recommended that operators serving as upstream or transit providers to end-customer networks implement the longstanding recommendations, and that Internet exchange points make sure they have proper security measures in place.
Correction: The FCC doesn’t plan to move Enforcement Bureau staff from Columbia, Md., to its Washington, D.C., headquarters (CD April 11 p17).
Disney said it’s expanding the amount of content available through its Disney Junior Appisodes iPad app. The $5 app is targeted at children 2-7 and includes full episodes of some TV shows, with activities embedded in some shows that use the iPad’s touchscreen and gyroscope, it said. “We are allowing kids to move the narrative of their favorite show forward by interacting with the characters, giving them the opportunity to take an active role in the story,” said Lauren DeVillier, Disney Channels Worldwide vice president-digital media. “And from a content perspective, it gives our shows a whole new life on another platform."
Midcontinent Communications launched TiVo’s Premiere Q DVRs along with Mini and Stream products in Rapid City and Spearfish, S.D., and will phase them in across its Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin markets during the next nine to 12 months, Tom Simmons, senior vice president-public policy, told us. Other “larger” South Dakota and North Dakota markets will get the products in July, with the remainder receiving them in early 2014, Simmons said. The DVR carries an $18 monthly fee, while Mini and Stream are an additional $8 and $5, Simmons said. The cable operator will continue to carry Motorola and Pace set-top cable boxes/DVRs with 160 GB to 500 GB storage capacities and TiVo “will be a choice of equipment” for Midcontinent customers, Simmons said. Customers are required to subscribe to Midcontinent’s video and Xstreme broadband services to get the Premiere DVRs, Simmons said.
Unlicensed spectrum is needed to bring broadband access to more schools, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., told a CQ Roll Call Tech in the Classroom Forum Thursday, according to a copy of her prepared remarks. “The FCC has an opportunity to unlock new unlicensed innovation as part of the upcoming voluntary incentive auction,” she said. Eshoo said modernizing the FCC’s E-rate program is another way to help keep schools up to date with broadband applications and services. Additionally, she pointed to the Congressional Apps Competition as a way to foster interest in science, technology, engineering and math education among students.
The FCC Wireless and Media bureaus identified 85 applicants that are qualified to bid in the auctioning of 112 construction permits in the FM broadcast service. The Auction 94 bidding will begin April 23, the bureaus said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/YqFB8F). The public notice also provides information for qualified and non-qualified bidders, such as registration and bidding access, bid amounts and continuing obligations. The commission will conduct the auction with four rounds of bidding each business day, it said. “Round results will be available approximately 10 minutes after the close of each round.” Qualified bidders include Alex Media, Palm Harbor, Fla., Family Life Broadcasting, Tucson, Ariz., and Sunnylands Broadcasting, Bellevue, Wash., according to a list of such bidders and their upfront payments (http://bit.ly/XFSVql). The bureaus also list 24 non-qualified bidders (http://bit.ly/16Q5YWL).
Sinclair will buy Fisher Communications in a $373.3 million merger agreement, Sinclair said Thursday. It said Fisher shareholders will receive $41 in cash for each share of Fisher common stock they own. The transaction represents a 44 percent premium above the closing price of Fisher common stock on Jan. 9, the final trading day before Fisher announced that it was reviewing strategic alternatives. Fisher owns 20 TV stations in eight markets, and three radio stations in the Seattle market. Sinclair owns or is involved with the running of 139 TV stations. Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker called the sale a “positive catalyst for the sector and [Sinclair] in particular,” in an email to investors Thursday. The sale still needs to be approved by the FCC and receive an affirmative vote from two-thirds of Fisher’s outstanding shares to become final (http://bit.ly/14eXwTr).
Nearly a dozen former White House, FCC and Capitol Hill advisers wrote President Barack Obama Thursday endorsing Tom Wheeler to be the next FCC chairman (http://bit.ly/17tN754). The letter said Wheeler would be able to “hit the ground running” as chairman and listed his achievements in the private sector and as an advocate for the cable and wireless industries “when they were the insurgents challenging the established players.” Wheeler “has consistently fought on the side of increasing competition,” said the letter. “He understands the importance of reclaiming the pro-competition, pro-innovation, pro-growth regulatory ideal.” The letter’s signatories said Wheeler’s work on the digital TV transition makes them “confident that the focus and knowledge of spectrum issues that Tom brought to that undertaking will serve the Commission well once again in the execution of the upcoming auction of broadcast spectrum.” It was signed by Susan Crawford, former special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy; Phil Weiser, former senior adviser for technology and innovation; Sonal Shah, former director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation; Phil Verveer, former U.S. ambassador and deputy assistant secretary of state for international communications and information policy; Larry Irving, former NTIA administrator; Decker Anstrom, former U.S. ambassador and head of delegation for the 2012 World Radio Conference, as well as an ex-NCTA president; Terry Kramer, former U.S. ambassador and head of delegation for the World Conference on International Telecommunications; Andrew Schwartzman, former president of the Media Access Project; Kevin Werbach, former co-leader of the Obama-Biden transition team on the FCC; David Aylward, former chief counsel/staff director at the House Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee; and Paul de Sa, former chief of the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning. Crawford confirmed the existence of the letter and said she had not yet received a response from the White House.
Multiple civil rights groups urged FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to release the commission’s plans for Telecom Act Section 257 minority media ownership studies and commit the agency to considering them by 2015, said an ex parte filing by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights on Thursday. “We write to urge you to release, before you step down from your post as Chairman, the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed methodology on the long-planned studies.” The letter was signed by the NAACP, ACLU and Asian American Justice Center, along with many other organizations (http://bit.ly/10RF2mZ). The organizations criticized the commission for dragging its feet on the ownership studies, saying that while they “support the Commission’s apparent desire not to rush to an imperfect decision in the Quadrennial Review docket, we are concerned that the decision to await input from a single, narrowly focused, study before the Commission makes a decision” could further delay action. “From public statements and meetings with your staff, it appears that the Section 257 studies are ready to move ahead to [the public comment stage] and that there is therefore no reason for further delay,” said the letter.