Hill pressure on the idea of cellphone conversation on airplanes while in-flight escalated Thursday as all five FCC commissioners faced the House Communications Subcommittee, hours before the agency took up an item to propose allowing such conversation from a technical perspective (see separate report in this issue). At the hearing, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler defended the proposal and said he’s talked with others in government about what will happen next. Members of both houses of Congress have raised the controversial issue, and the U.S. Department of Transportation is kicking off a process that may ban voice calls on planes, officials said.
New FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who took office Nov. 4, has yet to have to make a hard or controversial decision, and plenty will follow, but instead has been busy setting a tone for his chairmanship. That started his second day when Wheeler met with staff, promising he would be open to ideas and plans to be the kind of chairman who walks the halls at the commission. The same day he released a lengthy blog post (http://fcc.us/1cCIDhM) offering his broad view on the role the FCC must play in a changing world.
The partial federal government shutdown, in its fourth day Friday, is raising varying levels of anxiety among members of the communications bar. The shutdown’s effects rippled through the Washington area last week, giving most federal workers an unexpected, possibly unpaid, vacation, and raising some fundamental questions for those whose business is dealing with the government. Further adding to problems lawyers face, the FCC unexpectedly took almost all filings and other documents offline for the duration of the shutdown, a much more draconian response than many federal agencies (CD Oct 3 p2).
The partial federal government shutdown, in its fourth day Friday, is raising varying levels of anxiety among members of the communications bar. The shutdown’s effects rippled through the Washington area last week, giving most federal workers an unexpected, possibly unpaid, vacation, and raising some fundamental questions for those whose business is dealing with the government. Further adding to problems lawyers face, the FCC unexpectedly took almost all filings and other documents offline for the duration of the shutdown, a much more draconian response than many federal agencies (WID Oct 3 p7).
Mike O'Rielly, Republican nominee to the FCC, pledged to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., to work on improving the E-rate program. Focused on connecting schools and libraries, it faces many changes as both President Barack Obama and the FCC have pledged to alter the program to accommodate faster broadband connections. These processes have been called both ConnectED and E-rate 2.0. The committee questioned O'Rielly, policy adviser to Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, and FTC nominee Terrell McSweeny in a hearing Wednesday.
ASPEN, Colo. -- The impending spectrum auctions and electronic communications privacy are likely to be issues this Congress tackles, former members said during a Monday panel hosted by the Technology Policy Institute at its Aspen Forum. The panel included former Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., now a partner at Sidley Austin; Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., now a senior adviser at APCO Worldwide; and Thomas Tauke, R-Iowa, formerly an executive vice president at Verizon.
ASPEN, Colo. -- The impending spectrum auctions and electronic communications privacy are likely to be issues this Congress tackles, former members said during a Monday panel hosted by the Technology Policy Institute at its Aspen Forum. The panel included former Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., now a partner at Sidley Austin; Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., now a senior adviser at APCO Worldwide; and Thomas Tauke, R-Iowa, formerly an executive vice president at Verizon.
If the FCC’s quantile regression analysis (QRA) caps were in place from 2006-2012, they would have caused “tremendous financial uncertainty” that could have prevented carriers from investing in broadband, said industry-sponsored research. The study (http://bit.ly/1bhvQAv), by former FCC Chief Economist Simon Wilkie, examined the effects of the FCC’s 2011 modifications to the USF’s high-cost loop support mechanism. A better implementation would be to use the caps not as an immediate limit on support, but as a “trigger” for further individualized attention from the agency, Wilkie said. An FCC spokesman said the reforms “provide much-needed fiscal discipline” on the fund.
The FCC should use unclaimed money from the Connect America Fund to jumpstart the development of “gigabit communities,” proposed the Fiber to the Home Council Americas on Tuesday. In a petition, the association of telecom providers, utilities and municipalities said the unspent CAF USF money should be distributed as “catalyst funding” to support deployment of ultra-high speed networks with symmetrical gigabit services for community anchor institutions and surrounding neighborhoods.
The FCC should use unclaimed money from the Connect America Fund to jumpstart the development of “gigabit communities,” proposed the Fiber to the Home Council Americas on Tuesday. In a petition, the association of telecom providers, utilities and municipalities said the unspent CAF USF money should be distributed as “catalyst funding” to support deployment of ultra-high speed networks with symmetrical gigabit services for community anchor institutions and surrounding neighborhoods.