DALLAS -- A leading government advocate for a Lifeline overhaul went a step further and sought sunset of the existing program to make way for updates reflecting current technology. In a Q&A Thursday at the Telecommunications Industry Association conference and in a subsequent interview, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn backed a rethinking of the program that she previously has said others have derided as "Obamaphone" though it "was created under President [Ronald] Reagan, and expanded to include cellphone service under the administration of President George W. Bush." Clyburn, who has long sought changes (see 1505220044), said an NPRM on the program is set for a June 18 FCC meeting vote. That item will seek to have the phone service subsidy pay for broadband connections (see 1505280037).

DALLAS -- Cybersecurity is a bigger data protection concern to some telecom executives than government surveillance, with IoT security a growing issue, and outsourcing of high-tech manufacturing a vulnerability. Speaking at a Telecommunications Industry Association breakfast Wednesday, executives from Cisco, Ericsson and XO Communications said cybersecurity should be emphasized at U.S. companies, which should get security assurances from vendors, contractors and subcontractors. International coordination also was recommended.

DALLAS -- Carriers and others in the wireless industry should embrace software's role in automating functions across networks and specifically software-defined networking, said an executive of SDN backer Verizon.

The coming 5G cellular networks may rely on telecom cloud computing to meet their full breadth of uses and super-fast data transfers with virtually no latency, said vendor executives in Dallas Tuesday at a Telecommunications Industry Association conference. The link between 5G and the cloud will require carriers and other industries to work closely together, often using open-source software, they said. "We will have to bring a lot more computing power, processing power, to where the demand is" to get to the level of latency and throughput for which 5G is designed, said Pierre Mathys, a director at Red Hat. "It will require time, it will require an industry effort, because let's remember we are talking about the telco cloud, because the benefits are only realized where we are operating in an open context." Nokia Networks' Claudio Frascoli, head of sales-telco analytics, said 5G won't just be for the connected car, but many "use cases" that can't now be predicted. "The only thing we know is that we don't know." He mentioned the potential for surgery, among other real-time 5G applications.

DALLAS -- Wi-Fi for cellphone calls and texts is catching on as U.S. carriers' views of the technology are evolving from seeing it as a competitive threat toward viewing it as a way to complement the cellular network, said carrier and vendor executives. Participants on Telecommunications Industry Association panel Tuesday called T-Mobile a leader in this area. Sprint also has many Wi-Fi capable phones, said T-Mobile Director-Coverage Solutions Della Conley in response to our question. Conley said she wouldn't be surprised if other carriers begin to offer Wi-Fi calling, and a Sprint spokesman later confirmed that the carrier also offers it. A Verizon spokesman said it plans to begin offering Wi-Fi calling this year.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler may use an NPRM the agency must begin by Sept. 4 on retransmission consent as a way to crack down on what some see as abuses in deals for TV stations to be carried by multichannel video programming distributors, lawyers on all sides of the issue said in interviews Thursday. A day before and toward the end of his speech at INTX, Wheeler mentioned the upcoming proceeding. Some read that as signaling he's open to changing retrans rules, after a previous look at the rules under then-Chairman Julius Genachowski didn't advance past an NPRM. Others noted that, given the partisanship seen on retrans, where some Republicans have been hesitant to regulate, Wheeler may not try to change rules and if he did would have to rely on both of the FCC's other Democratic members agreeing.

The FCC will start a proceeding on foreign broadcast ownership, in the wake of Monday evening's OK of Pandora's request it be allowed to exceed a 25 percent threshold (see 1505040065). Amid Republican commissioners' concern about the almost two-year process that led up to the declaratory ruling, industry lawyers expect the agency to begin a rulemaking soon on the waiver process for radio and TV stations. It may be an NPRM, said Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council senior adviser David Honig.

Some ISPs aren't doing enough to reduce "massive congestion" between them and Cogent, and if that doesn't change soon, they may face FCC net neutrality complaints threatened by the backbone provider (see 1504060026), CEO Dave Schaeffer said in an interview Friday. Verizon likely won't face such a complaint at the points where that telco's network and Cogent's interconnect, because the two agreed to an interconnection deal, he said. While some cable operators including Charter and Cox never had congestion with Cogent, AT&T, CenturyLink and Time Warner Cable do and that affects those broadband providers' residential customers, Schaeffer said.

ISPs likely will follow many net neutrality rules, even if February's FCC order (see 1504100046) is overturned by a court or overridden by Congress, said two lawyers on different sides of the issue. The order's prohibition on blocking or throttling likely will be followed by broadband providers even absent rules, said Center for Democracy & Technology General Counsel Erik Stallman, who supports the order, and Convergence Law Institute Vice President Solveig Singleton, who calls herself skeptical of net neutrality. Speaking Thursday at a Reed College legal network event, they said experimentation with paid prioritization might happen without the order, which bans it unless a waiver allows certain content to receive higher priority. Real-time video could be subject to such experimentation if allowed, Singleton said. ISPs "view the Internet as essentially a two-sided market, and they would like the ability to charge both sides of the market" through paid prioritization, Stallman said.

The FCC offered 10 telcos a total of up to $10.1 billion over six years to extend broadband to almost 9 million rural residents. If the companies accept the full amount of the Connect America Fund Phase II USF money, at $1.68 billion annually, they would have to build out service of at least 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream by the end of 2020, the agency said Wednesday. The telcos have until Aug. 27 to decide whether to accept the CAF Phase II offers state by state, and in states where the price-cap carriers decline, "the subsidies will be offered to providers on a competitive basis," according to a commission news release and Wireline Bureau public notice (see here and here).