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By Mercy Gakii, Reporter-Researcher, BroabandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, September 30, 2009 – Federal Communications Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker said at the agency’s workshop on September 30 that security is the most important challenge facing the communications sector. "I think it's really important we get this right, because if this is the part we get wrong, all the rest is for naught." Don Welch, president and CEO of the nonprofit research group Merti Network, told the agency that the internet service providers are lacking the incentives to justify investments in network security are missing. He suggestedthat the federal government provide such incentives by requiring ISPs to disclose information about network breaches. "If I can say my network is more secure than your network, I'll get some justification for investing in cybersecurity,” he said. “Coming up with that return is really what's going to be hard for private industry. John Nagengast, executive director for strategic initiatives with AT&T's government solutions division, pointed out that it is nearly impossible to answer the question that amazes every user: “Where did this attack come from?” Global real-time monitoring is the only way to tackle the problem, he said. An effective information-sharing regime faces the challenge of creating partnerships between the federal government...

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By Mercy Gakii, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, September 17, 2009 – A three-panel workshop on the role of wireless spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission’s national broadband plan considered how one could tell the value of spectrum: by its current use, by its cost, and by demand. These were the central discussions at the agency’s Spectrum workshop on September 17. Among the issues discussed were fourth-generation wireless supply and demand, sources of spectrum, and innovation in spectrum access. The economic efficiency of spectrum becomes a crucial means to measure the efficiency of spectrum, since many bands have been undervalued. Apple’s iPhone is jacking up the capacity of video downloads 75 percent, according to Kris Rinne, the senior vice president of Architecture and Planning at AT&T. “We need to start thinking of global harmonization, and band spectrum efficiency,” Rinne said. “There is [a] need to set apart specific spectrum for backhaul, in order to deal with surge,” said Tarun Gupta, vice president of strategic development at Fiber Tower. “Spectrum also needs to be allocated more in order to be of more use to consumers, which includes those in the rural areas.” The panel could not quantify how much spectrum is needed in the country, but there was a...

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By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, September 17, 2009 – Panelists with divergent viewpoints weighed in at the Federal Communications Commission workshop on September 17 on the question of whether the U.S. broadband policy should take cognizance of intellectual property issues such as copyright infringement Moderator John Horrigan, consumer research director of FCC’s broadband initiative, said that the effort sough to discuss ways in which the content of the creative industries could be protected against piracy. With dial-up internet access, downloading videos could take hours or even days. Then as the Internet has changed, the ability to download unauthorized content has grown easier, with audio or video clips downloadable within minutes. A national plan to promote broadband might also end up facilitating the process of illegally downloading music or a video, some argued. That’s way some of the panelists urged that copyright be included in the national broadband plan. “This tidal wave of piracy would hinder the innovation of broadband,” said Dan Glickman, CEO of Motion Picture Association of America. Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, favored shaming tactics, or “service warnings,” against individuals engaged in copyright infringement. When a person is about to illegally download a digital item, an internet service provider might trigger a pop...

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By Rahul Gaitonde, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, September 15, 2009 - Most hospitals are unable to effectively use telemedicine because of the lack of a truly high-speed connection, said Douglas Van Houweling, CEO of Internet2, speaking at the Federal Communications Commission broadband workshop on September 15. Van Houweling explained that even with a T1 connection, generally dedicated bandwidth of 1.5 Megabits per second (Mbps), it takes 10 hours to send a 500 megabyte image scan coast-to-coast from an MRI or PET scan. By contrast, hospitals which are connected with universities that have Internet2 access, are able to send the same information in under a minute. The ability to send crucial information quickly is a vital portion of telemedicine. Traditionally telemedicine is thought of only to help those in rural America. However, with advanced broadband connections not only to the hospitals but also to the home, individuals will be able to be diagnosed from home. This ability to see a doctor quickly and without infecting others will help the spreading of disease and allow for easy follow up from medical professions to citizens. Distance education for medical students using telepresence technology is one of the other major benefits discussed at the workshop. Instead of having students...

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By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, September 9, 2009 – The second panel at the Federal Communications Commission’s “consumer context” panel on September 9 focused on the tools and techniques that will enable consumers to utilize new broadband-friendly applications. The continuing growth of possible uses of the Internet brings “good stuff” to consumers; but doing so safely was a cause for discussion. “For the past nine months, we have noticed that over 65 million people are checking their Facebook’s using their mobile devices,” Timothy Sparapani, director of the public policy for Facebook. Do children and adolescents who post online do so with an awareness of the privacy consequences associated with doing so, panelists asked. Sparapani said that Facebook was in the process of refining its privacy disclosures for that reason. “Children need to gain media literacy. They need the ‘rules of the road’ for the internet,” said Sparapani. To make this possibility a reality, Alan Simpson, director of policy for Common Sense Media, said, “This calls for the funding and implementing of digital literacy.” With the digital literacy, the lessons would include policies for security and privacy as well as policies of “authorship and authority of information found on the internet,” said Simpson. He also said that...

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By Drew Clark, Editor, Broadband Census.com

WASHINGTON, September 9, 2009 – The Internet can serve as a means for enhancing consumer protections, provided that government agencies play their appropriate role in regulating and disclosing the practices of broadband providers, according to a several consumer advocates. Speaking at the September 9 workshop of the Federal Communications Commission, the advocates observed that the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission could each play a significant role in enhancing consumer knowledge about broadband. Mike Nelson, a visiting professor of communications, culture and technology at Georgetown University, and a former Clinton administration internet official, said that the flowering of the e-commerce in the 1990s owed was “due in large part to the decision [by the government] NOT to regulate.” “I was involved in the [Ira] Magaziner e-commerce report,” said Nelson. “Almost every page had a promise about what the administration will not do.” The certainty provided by that report was helpful” because in enabled internet application companies to be free from “having to hire as many lawyers” as they otherwise would have to, he said. Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, a “tech tank inside a think that that provide support for open architecture,”...

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By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, September 3, 2009 -  The Federal Communications Commission broadband workshop on Thursday addressed “big ideas” with the “potential to substantially change the Internet,” in which a range of prominent thinkers attempted to peer into the future of connectivity. Although there is reason why internet service speeds remains at the center of the policy discussion,  “speed of broadband is not the only essential topic of expansion,” said David Clark, professor and senior research scientist at the MIT computer science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. “However, it is the most obvious.” Increasing speeds of broadband have created a domino effect on applications. A concern brought up by Van Jacobsen, research fellow at Palo Alto Research Center, is that advancing broadband speeds do not ensure higher quality of security. That will need to be addressed as new services roll out, he said. “Internet is a big part of our lives,” said Jacobsen. We use it for online banking, to pay bills and to check updates on our checking account. When you want to transfer funds online, are you giving your account number to the bank or to the host that is supposedly representing your bank?” University of California at Berkley Professor of Computer Science...

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By Jennifer Soffen, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, September 2, 2009 – The Federal Communication Commission’s Wednesday workshop on how to best benchmark broadband for evaluating the various dimensions of broadband across geographic areas highlighted the difference between measuring the current network versus focusing on internet users’ needs. Richard Clarke, assistant vice president of public policy at AT&T, said that the FCC should benchmark broadband very broadly. This would allow the agency to cope with different classes of user necessity and service differentiation across user capabilities and time of day. Clarke also argued that the FCC must establish benchmarks that do not vary over time. Taking a different point of view was Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge and Catherine Sandoval, Assistant Professor of Law, Santa Clara University. Feld and Sandoral said that the focus of benchmarks should be upon the American citizens’ right to use broadband – and should not be limited by usage availability or cost. They also said that FCC benchmarks must somewhat be adaptive to the changing needs of consumers, and will inevitably change over time. Where Clarke said that broadband should be tailored to different service levels depending upon the needs of different types of consumers, Feld, Sandoral and Scott Berendt said...

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