House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said there is “plenty of blame to go around” but the current data on the program “doesn’t paint a picture of success,” in his opening remarks. He said the Lifeline fund grew 226 percent since 2008 and, in 2012, the FCC spent $2.2 billion on the program. “Specifically, it spent $2.2 billion of your money, my money -- virtually every American’s money -- since the Lifeline program and the entire Universal Service Fund is paid for through a charge on phone bills,” he said. “We are spending large sums of money and probably squandering much of it.”
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Friday he will leave the FCC in a matter of weeks. Industry officials told us they expect an announcement from the White House as early as this week on a replacement, with former CTIA and NCTA President Tom Wheeler still considered the likely front runner. In the interim, industry and government officials expect the White House to designate Commissioner Mignon Clyburn as the first woman to chair the commission, until a new permanent chairman is confirmed and in place.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Friday he will leave the FCC in a matter of weeks. Industry officials told us they expect an announcement from the White House as early as this week on a replacement, with former CTIA and NCTA President Tom Wheeler still considered the likely front runner. In the interim, industry and government officials expect the White House to designate Commissioner Mignon Clyburn as the first woman to chair the commission, until a new permanent chairman is confirmed and in place.
The state of Washington may change how it taxes telecom. Legislators introduced House Bill 1971 Feb. 27 and held a House Finance Committee hearing last week. Sponsored by one Democrat and one Republican, the bill would remove some tax exemptions from the law and draw millions of dollars more in taxes, as well as create a five-year state USF. The bill’s central purpose is tax parity, said House Finance Committee Chairman Reuven Carlyle (D), a bill sponsor, at the hearing. The state’s tax policies “are behind the age and the era,” he said. “We're also trying to recognize that issues like bundling ... really call us to try to get a much simpler, more consistent approach to taxation that is a better reflection of what’s happening in the marketplace."
Georgia legislators’ attempt to restrict municipal broadband failed Thursday night in a 94-70 House vote. But House Bill 282, introduced last month, echoing a failed Georgia bill last year and laws in other states, skyrocketed into a national debate about municipal networks this year before dying on the House floor. Vigorous back and forth occurred among legislators before the evening vote and carried over into stirrings of victory and lamentation Friday.
Georgia legislators’ attempt to restrict municipal broadband failed Thursday night in a 94-70 House vote. But House Bill 282, introduced last month, echoing a failed Georgia bill last year and laws in other states, skyrocketed into a national debate about municipal networks this year before dying on the House floor. Vigorous back and forth occurred among legislators before the evening vote and carried over into stirrings of victory and lamentation Friday.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai threw his weight behind an IP pilot program, based on AT&T’s proposal for deregulatory trials in various wire centers around the country, in a speech Thursday at the Hudson Institute (http://bit.ly/WNAjif). The program would allow “forward-looking companies” to select wire centers where they could “turn off their old TDM electronics and migrate consumers to an all-IP platform.” Some criticized Pai’s proposal as going even further than AT&T’s original “beta trials,” warning that the deregulatory proposal could harm consumers without leading to any real data.
Commenters generally supported a process proposed by the FCC Wireline Bureau to let parties challenge census blocks misidentified by the National Broadband Map (NBM). The process would let parties challenge census blocks identified as eligible to receive Connect America Fund Phase II support, when the parties argue they're actually unserved by an unsubsidized competitor. Cable and wireless ISPs offered some tweaks to the process. USTelecom and several rural associations offered alternative proposals that would involve recommendations by state authorities.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn spoke alongside several entrepreneurs in a discussion about how to promote innovative technologies and what regulatory structures should oversee them, at a lunch event Wednesday in Washington. In the State of the Union, President Barack Obama talked of jobs and other economic developments tied to “digital opportunity,” said National Coalition on Black Civic Participation President Melanie Campbell. “All of us have to be advocates.” Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter argued that “mobile innovators” flourished even as the recent recession hit and credited “communities of color” with leading the way in smartphone adoption, noting the data of the Pew Research Center on these trends. Clyburn, a former state regulator, discussed developments in the states, including a recent bill in Georgia that would make it “extremely difficult if not impossible” for a community to build its own broadband network, she said. Her home state of North Carolina already moved in that direction with a law in 2011, she said. She contrasted that bill with the broader stated mission of the government to encourage ubiquitous, affordable and high-speed service. House Bill 282 was introduced into the Georgia Legislature last Friday and proposes that any municipal networks, after July 1, “can only offer broadband service to unserved areas” unless they've already been serving census blocks prior to June 30 of this year (http://xrl.us/bogrny). It would give the Georgia Public Service Commission authority to oversee any such municipal networks, to deal with any petitions from municipalities interested in building them and to determine whether areas are unserved. Groups such as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance have asked Georgians to write to legislators objecting (http://xrl.us/bogroe). “The Kansas City examples are incredible,” Clyburn said of Google’s efforts to build gigabit-fiber in Missouri and Kansas. That project involved a company trying to work with local governments effectively and more such examples will follow, she predicted. On a national level, “the USF is how we're attempting to be smarter,” as the president advocated to the country, she said. Panelists emphasized education in furthering broadband adoption and the opportunities out there now. “Our mission is to break down the digital divide through creative and measurable ways,” said Kathryn Finney, founder of the minority-focused digitalUNdivided. CodeNow Executive Director Ryan Seashore described a major change: “I realized coding is the new literacy,” he said. His two-year-old startup focuses on teaching children how to be “builders” rather than merely consumers, he said. Education is important but organizers have to teach young people how to market and monetize the knowledge, said Marvin Dickerson, vice chairman of development for 100 Black Men of America and Dickerson Technologies CEO. He helps run weeklong camps to teach students about robotics and the fundamentals of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Politic365 editor-in-chief Krystal High described broadband as “a huge equalizing factor” in many communities and the importance of health apps: “There’s a huge economic tie to lack of adequate healthcare,” she said of their benefits to some users. “Mobile is everything to my business,” said Janine Hausif, responsible for an app that identifies black-owned businesses. Overly high wireless taxes and the need for more spectrum are key regulatory concerns, said High. Not only is broadband adoption important but a sense of broadband ownership and the need to make tech issues sexy in competing for attention with Beyoncé and Honey Boo Boo, she said: “You have to start speaking in the language that people care about.” Communities need Internet access “at their doorstep,” Dickerson said. Think of broadband as a utility, advised Finney, pointing to what she judged to be positive examples in the Kansas City area and in Chattanooga, Tenn. The world of tech and telecom needs to be fully inclusive and perhaps look to a new “evaluation matrix,” Clyburn said. Other panelists run good programs for fostering broadband adoption for young people but that’s only half the battle “if you don’t hire them,” she said of companies. She worried about the consequences of “lost opportunities” and encouraged seizing on innovation, mentioning a teen pancreatic cancer researcher who attended the State of the Union: “Are we doing all we can to be inclusive?”
The FCC’s November 2011 USF order reflected the goals in President Barack Obama’s Tuesday State of the Union address, said Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at a lunch event Wednesday in Washington. The president’s message, as Clyburn interpreted it, was “we need to do things smarter” and “more with less,” making use of coalitions, partnerships and more, she said. She framed the FCC’s actions in recent years as emblematic of this approach. At the event, hosted by Mobile Future, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and the National Association of Neighborhoods, she spoke alongside several entrepreneurs in a discussion about how to promote innovative technologies and what regulatory structures should oversee them.