The Department of Justice has improved its FOIA.gov website, although some room for upgrading still exists, the GAO said in a report (http://xrl.us/bnda7g). The improvements include data consistency checks for print and electronic reports submitted to Justice, a website search feature, and information in Spanish, the GAO said. The “Advanced Reporting” feature, however, requires improvement, the GAO said. The feature, designed to generate custom reports, failed to consistently produce complete results -- for example, not including data from enough agencies, the GAO said. It said Justice officials reported they have attempted to improve the incomplete reports identified by the GAO. Justice explained that some agencies were left out of the reports because they had no data to relay, the GAO said. It conducted the FOIA.gov investigation at the request of Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The FCC designated a “single point of contact” as the auxiliary broadcast frequency coordinator for three political events, said a Media and Wireless bureaus public notice Friday (http://xrl.us/bnda95). Chairman Louis Libin of the Frequency Coordinating Committee for the 2012 Political Conventions is the contact for this year’s Democratic and Republican national conventions and for the 2013 presidential inauguration. Broadcast auxiliary service stations licensed under Part 74 of the FCC rules let radio and TV stations send programming between each other or for other reasons before it’s broadcast. “Political conventions and inaugurations attract extensive broadcast coverage, and consequently require extensive use of wireless equipment,” the notice said: “Broadcast networks and other major content distributors require major wireless communications infrastructures, along with spectrum,” though there’s “no one broadcaster who holds rights to control spectrum” in such situations. The broadcast-network committee Libin heads had asked the commission to name Libin special frequency coordinator and RF spectrum manager for the three events, which the bureaus approved along with a distance separation waiver. The designation allows for coordination around the time of the events within a 100 kilometer radius of the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fla., for the Republican gathering, and Time Warner Cable Arena and Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., for the Democrats, and for the inauguration at the White House and U.S. Capitol.
The Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) is prepared to receive outage information on interconnected VoIP and broadband Internet services, the FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced Friday (http://xrl.us/bnda37). The FCC expanded DIRS to VoIP and broadband in February (CD Feb 16 p3). Given that “hurricane season” began June 1, the commission “strongly encourages all carriers and providers of communications” to submit and update information through DIRS at fcc.gov/nors/disaster, the public notice said.
LTE handset sales in North America are expected to climb to 178 million units in 2017, at which point approximately 70 percent of all handsets sold will be LTE-enabled, Pyramid Research said in a report.
New Mexico wants to be part of the FirstNet vanguard, according to recent filings at the FCC and NTIA. The state “remains an ideal location for maintaining a lease for the purposes of acting as an operational test bed, as originally envisioned and supported by the [FCC],” the New Mexico Department of Information Technology (NM DoIT) said in a June 27 meeting with the FCC’s Public Safety Bureau (http://xrl.us/bndatt). New Mexico has already begun operating on the 700 MHz public safety spectrum as part of its Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant funding and supports “a two-year extension of the lease allowing New Mexico’s operational deployment on this spectrum,” the state said. Several factors make New Mexico ideal for testing, NM DoIT said, including “a range of geographic, population and public-safety entity diversity that provides a robust environment from which to test interoperability at the federal, state and municipal levels” and “an extensive digital-microwave backhaul network, including 100 towers, that can immediately be used in exploring relevant issues such as last-mile and public-private partnerships, particularly for rural areas of the state.” In June 15 comments to NTIA (http://xrl.us/bndauf), NM DoIT referred to its extensive help in preparing for FirstNet and encouraged outreach to utilities: “Funds should be made available as part of the planning process for states to reach out to explore partnership opportunities with the utilities."
The South Carolina House voted 95-0 to approve H-3508 Wednesday after the Senate passed the bill 42-2 June 7. The AT&T-backed bill has floated through the state’s legislature since early last year with little movement prior to recent amendments and votes. The bill would change how South Carolina permits its communities to establish broadband, favoring industry action over municipal, and has encountered some controversy since its introduction. Several companies, including Google and Alcatel-Lucent, opposed the measure in a May letter (http://xrl.us/bndaq4). “This bill will harm your state’s economic growth and do little if anything to promote competition or to bring advanced communications services to the citizens of South Carolina,” wrote Steve Traylor, executive director of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, in a Jan. 23 letter to South Carolina officials(http://xrl.us/bndaom). “Hamstringing local government efforts to provide fiber networks will simply result in the further flow of millions of investment dollars to neighboring states such as Tennessee.” H-3508 has now received three readings in both chambers and is enrolled for ratification as of Thursday.
European insurance policies may not adequately cover cyber insurance, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) said Friday. Despite a finding by the World Economic Forum that cybersecurity concerns are one of the top five global risks identified by senior executives and decision-makers, there’s apparently still uncertainty about whether Europe’s market for cyber insurance is mature, it said in a report on incentives and barriers to the market. The U.K. has only a few insurers that offer specialist cyber-insurance products, compared to 30-40 U.S. carriers, it said. Its study found several possible factors slowing the European market: (1) Not enough robust actuarial data about the extent of risk and magnitude of potential losses. (2) Uncertainty about what risk is being insured. Companies seeking to cover losses from cybercrime or cyberterrorism may cause market fragmentation, particularly where theft or general or professional indemnity insurance might already cover general “cybersecurity” risks, it said. (3) Technology-driven fluctuations in risk and threats, making it hard from an actuarial perspective to predict future losses from past events. (4) Lack of upper limits on losses and absence of government intervention as “insurer of last resort.” (5) Visibility in the insurance market of the efficacy of other types of cybersecurity measures. (6) The perception that existing insurance products are enough to handle cyber risks. Other possible barriers to more cyber insurance are insureds’ lack of incentives to take steps to reduce the probability of loss after having purchased insurance; and the fact that insurance writers may not have enough private information at the time a contract is made to allow them to differentiate among different types of customers and price accordingly. Those theoretical roadblocks have been well documented, but there’s little empirical evidence about the strength and maturity of the market, ENISA said. It made four recommendations to try to kick-start the cyber-insurance market. They are: (1) Gather empirical evidence on the use of such products in Europe to determine current and future market trends. (2) Explore the possibility of collective action or redress -- in the form of class action lawsuits in combination with data breach laws -- to offer firms an incentive to take measures to mitigate financial risks of their cybersecurity programs. (3) Consider mechanisms to help companies gauge the value of their information. (4) Explore the role of government as insurer of last resort. There’s potential for Europe’s cybersecurity policies and laws to be complemented by a prevention-based cyber-insurance market, said ENISA Executive Director Udo Helmbrecht. A better market would help boost cybersecurity levels by putting a true cost on cyber incidents and showing the benefits of putting good security practices in place, he said.
FCC commissioners are slated to hear presentations on three different topics at the July 19 meeting -- with no votes scheduled. Updates are scheduled on next-generation mapping, white spaces for wireless broadband and the Measuring Broadband America Report 2012. The agenda is comparatively light for July, with no votes. Last year, the FCC took up a number of items at its July meeting, including wireless E911 location accuracy and a rulemaking notice on cramming. In July 2010, the FCC launched a proceeding exploring the future of the mobile satellite service band.
Comcast asked to be let out of local basic rate regulation in six franchise areas around Damascus, Ore., a petition for special relief shows (http://xrl.us/bnc8a3). Comcast is subject to effective competition in those franchise areas from competing providers, it said in the petition. The cable operator filed a similar petition to be let out of basic rate regulation in three franchise areas in Derry and East Hanover, Pa., a separate petition shows (http://xrl.us/bnc8bb).
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters Thursday that more Republicans are beginning to support the Senate cybersecurity bill, S-2105. Republicans have generally opposed the Rockefeller-backed bill because they say it imposes costly cybersecurity mandates on the private sector. But Rockefeller said: “I think the bill is coming together. I can think of five Republicans at least who I think we will get on that, which I think will be more than adequate and maybe more. If certain people decide to sign on we will get substantially more.” Rockefeller credited the work of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., to forge a cybersecurity compromise between Democrats and Republicans. Whitehouse came up with an “incredible set of suggestions which take away the whole fear of mandates,” Rockefeller said. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that he plans to bring S-2105 to the floor in July despite heavy opposition from supporters of an alternative cybersecurity bill, the SECURE IT Act (S-2151).