Cisco completed its acquisition of Cariden Technologies, a network planning and traffic management supplier for telecoms. The $141 million purchase includes Cariden’s capacity planning and management tools for IP/Multi-Protocol Label Switching networks, Cisco said Monday. Cisco said the purchase will also advance Cisco’s nLight technology for IP and optical convergence, and will allow service providers to improve network programmability and utilization. Cisco said it will integrate the Cariden team into its service provider networking division (http://xrl.us/bn6v6t).
Florida’s Lifeline program grew notably from July 2011 to June 2012, the state’s public service commission said in a report (http://xrl.us/bn6v8k). The annual report was released Monday and will be presented to the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott later this month, the PSC said (http://xrl.us/bn6v8n). The FCC killed the state’s Link Up program, which helped fund installation expenses, except for on tribal lands, in April, it added, but the number of Lifeline customers grew by 9.7 percent to 1,035,858 as of June, largely due to the “designation of prepaid wireless providers” as eligible telecommunications carriers, the PSC said. Five companies account for 98 percent of subscribers: SafeLink Wireless, Assurance Wireless, AT&T Florida, Verizon Florida and CenturyLink. The report cited high numbers of state residents receiving food stamps and noted that it’s the largest qualifying program for Lifeline in Florida. “Staff anticipates that Lifeline enrollment of new customers will continue to grow due to the current economic conditions,” the report added. The report also described how Florida is meeting the FCC’s Lifeline reform requirements. Florida Universal Service Administrative Co. Lifeline disbursements amounted to $111.39 million over this period.
Legal and political gaps are hampering national/governmental computer emergency response teams (n/g CERTs) from handling their core duties as well as they should, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) said in two reports published Monday. The first (http://bit.ly/T436R1) looked at the current situation in Europe regarding CERTs’ capabilities in mandate and strategy, service portfolios, operations and cooperation. It found that CERTs’ roles are usually backed by government mandates whose details and form vary widely across the EU. But the mandate isn’t always clear enough, and CERTs often have problems of limited authority when requiring ISPs to handle incidents, it said. And “a great deal of work needs to be done regarding the proper inclusion of n/g CERTs in national cyber-security strategies” because fewer than half of EU members even have such strategies now, ENISA said. CERTs’ services vary based on which constituents they serve, it said. Governmental bodies get the full scope of CERT services, end-users and other customers only a subset, it said. Many CERTs have expertise that’s highly sought after by law enforcement agencies, it said. But when they handle incidents internationally, partnering CERTs don’t act in accordance with the information provided, it said. Moreover, CERTs often don’t develop their own tools and services, don’t make general incident statistics public, and usually aren’t involved in disaster recovery planning, it said. Operationally, many teams have only minimal staffing levels, and they report difficulties in hiring highly qualified staff in areas such as digital forensics and reverse engineering, it said. Money is a problem because many CERTs rely on national funding. Moreover, there aren’t many opportunities in Europe for training in deep technical aspects, it said. In the area of cooperation, ENISA said, CERTs are increasingly visible on the world stage and there’s a good deal of bilateral and regional cooperation among them. But stakeholders at the national level often aren’t sufficiently aware of the existence of CERTs and their responsibilities, and ISPs aren’t willing to share information with competitors, it said. Recommendations in ENISA’s second report (http://bit.ly/VLZosC) for remedying the situation include: (1) Better clarification of the role of CERTs, including funding provisions. (2) Identification of best practices and development of templates to comply with data protection rules. (3) Creation of a standardized approach to information exchange among CERTs. (4) Determination of alternate funding sources. (5) Hiring of PR experts to give CERT activities more visibility. Despite clear progress in putting their baseline capabilities in place, CERTs “still have a number of obstacles mainly (but not exclusively) of a political, legal and financial nature,” ENISA said.
The Kentucky Public Service Commission chose what it calls the “least disruptive” option for western Kentucky residents in area code 270, it said. The PSC’s decision, released Monday (http://xrl.us/bn6v3q), is the state’s first to create an overlay. To help customers get used to the change, transition will last Aug. 3, 2013, to Jan. 31, 2014, with a permissive dialing period that allows local calls to 270-numbers using either seven or 10-digit dialing, the PSC said. The 10-digit dialing requirement becomes mandatory in February of 2014, with introduction of 364 as an area code starting March 3, 2014. “The need for a new area code is driven largely by demand for new numbers associated with wireless devices, but also is suggestive of increasing economic activity,” Chairman David Armstrong said in a statement, calling it “a positive development.” Telecom providers can issue 270 numbers as long as they last, the PSC said. Comments “overwhelmingly favored an overlay” rather than a split, it added: “Overlays have been used for all but one (in New Mexico) of the last 24 area codes created nationwide.”
Reply comments filed by Charter and Beyond Broadband Technology (BBT) “amplify rather than refute” concerns raised by CEA that granting Charter a waiver of CableCARD rules so it can develop and deploy a downloadable security system would “eviscerate” FCC CableCARD rules and offer consumers no benefits, CEA said in an ex parte letter filed last week. “Like BBT, Charter invites other MSOs to conform to its own preferred chip and technology, but cannot predict that a single other MSO will do so,” CEA said (http://xrl.us/bn6i2k). “Charter and BBT effectively admit that they are asking for a Bureau-level action to allow any system ... to opt out of common reliance by moving from an integrated security to a ‘downloadable’ integrated security,” it said. “This would not be permissible even for a Commission-level action by waiver grant rather than by rule,” it said.
Disney and Cox said they reached a new, comprehensive distribution agreement that includes online access to some Disney-owned networks for Cox video subscribers. Under the deal, Cox’s cable subscribers will get access to WatchESPN, Watch Disney Channel, Watch Disney XD, Watch Disney Junior along with Watch ABC and Watch ABC Family when they become available, the companies said.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will hold meetings and seek comments on the introduction of a new area code, the agency said. There will be several meetings in January (http://xrl.us/bn6iz2), the CPUC said Friday, to take place at the commission headquarters in San Francisco and in the San Rafael City Council Chambers. The 415 area code will be exhausted by October 2015 and be overlaid by 628 for the region of San Francisco and Marin, the CPUC said. Comments can be written or submitted online. The CPUC will work with the North American Numbering Plan Administrator and industry to determine the best path forward after the meetings, it said.
Verizon asked the FCC to issue a protective order covering Comcast petitions for effective competition in several New Jersey communities. Verizon needs the protective order to prevent the information, which was given to Comcast under a nondisclosure agreement, from becoming public, Verizon said (http://xrl.us/bn6izq). “The subscriber count information is highly confidential commercial information,” it said. “Making this information available to the public would be competitively harmful to Verizon as it would allow competitors to focus their marketing, pricing and services activities based on Verizon’s penetration,” it said.
The FCC appears poised to vote out early this week an order that will clear the way for AT&T to buy wireless communications service licenses from various other market players, as AT&T seeks to deploy LTE in the band, FCC and industry officials said Friday. Only Commissioner Mignon Clyburn has yet to vote on the order, officials said. Officials from Clyburn’s office couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. In 2010, the FCC approved an order reallocating the band as a first step toward the National Broadband Plan’s goal of freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum over 10 years for wireless broadband (CD May 21/10 p5). AT&T will add 10-25 MHz of A, B, and C block WCS spectrum from Comcast in 149 cellular market areas, 10 MHz of A block WCS spectrum from Horizon Wi-Com in 132 CMAs and 5-30 MHz of A, B, C, and D block WCS spectrum from NextWave in 476 CMAs, according to FCC documents. The agency sought comment on the proposed transactions in August (http://fcc.us/Y2F3oR). Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated an order on the transactions Dec. 6.
The National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors lauded Seattle for its newly announced partnership with Gigabit Squared and the University of Washington (CD Dec 14 p10). The partnership hopes to leverage the city’s fiber to provide a gigabit-capable network in fall 2013. “As America’s local governments bring their communities the benefits of fiber optics and gigabit speeds, Seattle and Gigabit Squared offers an exemplary model for public-private partnership,” NATOA President Joanne Hovis said in a statement. The country has reached a point “where our networks are no longer barriers to the imagination,” President-Elect Tony Perez, a Seattle resident, added in a statement.