State and local support for prison phone rate reform remains strong, Public Knowledge and other public interest groups told aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Monday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/Zxr2fZ). Continued FCC leadership has “the salutary effect of mobilizing supports at all levels of government,” the groups said, urging the commission to move quickly to “alleviate the unjust” carrier practices. The commission has authority under sections 201 and 202 of the Communications Act to prohibit carriers from paying commissions to prison officials, the groups said. “Such a prohibition no more treads on federalism or intrastate communications than the prohibition on exclusive contracts with landlords trammels on the rights of landlords, or the newspaper broadcast cross-ownership rule treads on the rights of newspapers."
Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., asked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to “quickly distribute incremental support from the first phase of the Connect America Fund (CAF) while it debates the next phase” of the program. In his March 7 letter, Rockefeller said releasing the support as soon as possible “will further our shared goals of promoting broadband deployment and bringing the benefits of broadband to the millions of Americans who currently do not have service.” Also this week, CenturyLink encouraged the FCC to adopt the “modest and easily-implemented” CAF Phase I proposal filed jointly by the ABC Coalition, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and USTelecom, in meetings with aides to several commissioners Tuesday (http://bit.ly/ZxsfEf). That proposal (http://bit.ly/ZxsyPj) broadens the areas that would be eligible for Phase I support, making it available to all census blocks that lack 4 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream service. It also proposes a specific challenge process the groups said would ensure that funding goes only to areas where it is needed. “Moving quickly to distribute the available funds with the revised rules would produce significant broadband deployment in unserved areas, starting this year,” CenturyLink said. Using the funding now “would facilitate rather than distract from the transition to [CAF] Phase II support by maintaining the momentum of broadband deployment in rural America,” it said.
NATOA updated the FCC on the association’s “ongoing efforts” with PCIA to create best practices for the siting of wireless facilities, according to a Thursday ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/15CmSre). NATOA Executive Director Steve Traylor said there are issues raised in Section 6409 of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act regarding this. The parties also discussed the FCC engaging in more education outreach efforts, the filing said, referring to recent webinars on FirstNet. “Similar webinars could be used effectively to educate local government officials on issues surrounding the deployment of additional wireless broadband facilities, including the proposal of increased collocation on public safety facilities,” Traylor said.
Staff from the FTC voiced concern about a Colorado Public Utilities Commission proceeding targeting Uber, the mobile app company that provides transportation services. The Colorado proceeding would place regulations on companies like Uber, making them the equivalent of a motor carrier and subject to certain limitations. FTC staff from the Office of Policy Planning and bureaus of Competition, Consumer Protection and Economics is “concerned that these three proposed changes may significantly impair competition in passenger vehicle transportation services, including innovative methods of competition enabled by new software applications,” according to a filing the Colorado PUC posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/13JPuQJ). The FTC recommended flexibility in the PUC’s regulation, suited to the new technologies. The FTC voted 4-0, with one abstention, to approve the comments, it said (http://1.usa.gov/YEw1MS). The framework should “promote innovation and experimentation that benefit consumers,” it said. Uber has run into similar regulatory trouble in other cities (CD Sept 20 p11).
Software-defined network (SDN) and large-scale network virtualization will combine to drive a more software-centric and programmable telecom infrastructure and services ecosystem, research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) said Thursday. Both technologies will have a “sustained impact” on current communication service providers, IDC said. “Rapid global growth of data and video traffic across all networks, the increasing use of public and private cloud services, and the desire from consumers and enterprises for faster, more agile service and application delivery are driving the telecom markets toward an inevitable era of network virtualization,” said Nav Chander, IDC’s research manager-Telecom Services and Network Infrastructure. CSP networking of large data centers will be the first battleground for SDN because it will be driven by requirements for hyperscale networked data centers like the ones being built by Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Rackspace, IDC said (http://bit.ly/Z31Myd).
NTCA and the Western Telecommunications Alliance offered a “roadmap” to address concerns with the FCC’s regression analysis-based caps that limit recovery of high-cost loop support (http://bit.ly/Yful9r). Even after the commission’s sixth reconsideration order that made some changes to the caps (CD March 1 p6), some additional changes “would be necessary to seek greater predictability and certainty” in high-cost support distribution, the rural associations said. Suggestions included correcting study area boundaries and errant census block data, restructuring independent variables, and giving individual carriers the opportunity to review the corrections, they said (http://bit.ly/WYVrbh). The groups also called for more “intuitively correct” geographical indicators, and a study to determine timing of updates of independent variables.
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on a request by Conexion Wireless for review of a Universal Service Administrative Co. decision rejecting its Form 499-Q as untimely, a public notice said (http://bit.ly/13JuY2Z). Comments in WC docket 06-122 are due April 8, replies April 22.
Operators of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) should determine if the registration policy requires applications to be open or closed to public comment, Technology Policy Institute President Thomas Lenard said in comments to ICANN. “In order to bring the benefits of a competitive TLD market to consumers, ICANN should generally take as light-handed a regulatory stance as possible, as long as it meets its technical responsibilities,” he said. In comments to ICANN, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Senior Analyst Daniel Castro advocated keeping both options. “There are pros and cons of each approach, but ICANN should avoid giving preference to one business model over another and allow both open and closed generic TLDs,” Castro said in a statement. ICANN’s decision “will have a fundamental, long-term impact on what the Internet looks like over the next few decades,” Castro said.
A bill that would require public release of unclassified Congressional Research Service reports drew applause from the Data Transparency Coalition Thursday. The Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Act is sponsored by Reps. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., and Leonard Lance, R-N.J. The coalition includes Teradata, Adaptive, Iphix, Level One Technologies, SAP and WebFilings among other companies. The bill is important because CRS reports -- which cost $100 million in taxpayer money a year -- to date “have only been available from private companies, which charge for access,” the coalition said in an email. The bill also would make CRS reports machine-readable using a standard data format “so that they can be easily searched, sorted, and downloaded,” said coalition Executive Director Hudson Hollister.
The FCC Media Bureau decided to stay the “Benchmark Condition” of the commission’s order approving Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal. The order gave online video distributors the right to license Comcast-NBCU programming if a similar deal is reached with an industry peer (CD Jan 7 p1). The order will be stayed until the commission has the opportunity to consider the content companies’ application for review, the bureau said in an order (http://bit.ly/XYKvF9). Because an OVD may seek programming under the condition at any time, staying the implementation of the “Benchmark Condition Order” will avoid “potential confusion in the event that the commission determines that disclosure of third-party agreements either is not required by the Comcast-NBC Universal Order or is not in the public interest, or that the terms of disclosure should be modified.”