House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., were among GOP lawmakers meeting Thursday in Washington with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Telecom policy observers have said they are unsure of what to expect on telecom policy from a Trump administration (see 1603070038). Thune and Walden support the GOP presidential nominee. Walden chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee and Thune is the third-ranking Republican in Senate leadership.
Amazon, AT&T, LG Electronics and Samsung were among tech companies marking the fifth anniversary Thursday of Joining Forces, the White House veterans initiative, by pledging that a big proportion of all their new hires in the next five years will be veterans and their spouses. The pledges of the companies collectively will mean the hiring in the next five years of 110,000 veterans and their spouses and the enrollment of 60,000 more in training programs, first lady Michelle Obama told business leaders at a Thursday ceremony streamed live at WhiteHouse.gov. Veterans and their spouses “are simply the best employees around,” Obama said. Training and hiring them “isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do for your bottom lines,” she said. That's “especially true when it comes to tech jobs and industries,” she said. For years, “some of the biggest technological innovations, from the Internet to GPS, have come from the U.S. military,” she said. If veterans now working in military tech jobs “can set up wireless networks in Baghdad or do satellite reconnaissance in the mountains of Afghanistan, I’m pretty confident that they can handle whatever’s happening in Silicon Valley,” she said. LG Electronics USA every day sees “first hand the commitment, skills and values that veterans bring to the tech sector," said CEO William Cho in a Thursday statement. In the U.S., LG employees include U.S. military veterans and spouses who have served in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Gulf Wars, Vietnam, on embassy duty and at bases across the country and around the world, the company said. Amazon will hire 25,000 veterans and spouses in the next five years, and will enroll an additional 10,000 in cloud computing training programs, CEO Jeff Bezos said at the ceremony. AT&T will hire 20,000 military veterans by 2020, the company said in a Thursday statement. “Military experience is great preparation for a successful career at AT&T," said CEO Randall Stephenson. "Veterans’ leadership, integrity and commitment to service make them outstanding employees.” LG isn't disclosing a specific number to be hired, but is vowing a target of up to 10 percent of new hires, "based on annual hiring needs," spokesman John Taylor texted us Thursday.
The next president needs to work with the tech sector to “advance an agenda” that “ensures Americans possess the skills and talents needed for 21st century success” and “fosters a business climate that rewards risk and promotes innovation,” said CTA, the Information Technology Industry Council and 11 other tech groups Wednesday in an open letter to the remaining presidential candidates. The next administration also should work to encourage “a fair and open global market for goods and services” and to maintain “cutting-edge U.S. infrastructure that supports entrepreneurs,” said the groups, which also included Allied for Startups, BSA|The Software Alliance, CCIA, the Internet Association, CompTIA, the Semiconductor Industry Association, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the Technology CEO Council, the Software and Information Industry Association, TIA and TechNet. Their letter included a tech sector “presidential platform” with main points including boosting skills of the U.S. workforce and promoting an economy that nurtures innovation. The next president should “welcome high-skilled immigrants” as part of the effort to boost the skills of the U.S. workforce, the platform said. Doing so will “improve the ability of companies operating in the United States to recruit and retain highly educated foreign graduates and professionals to meet hiring needs and supplement our talented U.S. workforce,” it said. In working to “propel innovation,” the next president should “encourage policies that protect expression and creativity online,” promote and ease access to new spectrum and develop an IoT “strategy,” it said. That strategy should promote policies “to encourage innovation, competition, and private investment that are essential elements for IoT technologies to thrive,” it said.
The White House touted its ConnectED progress Tuesday, outlining in both a fact sheet and a report how the broadband initiative has done. “Through two separate orders adopted in 2014, and, as a result of the President’s urging, the FCC committed $5 billion over five years specifically for expanding access to high-speed wireless Internet and boosted the amount of funding available annually to schools and libraries through E-Rate from $2.4 billion to $3.9 billion,” said a 60-page report jointly released Tuesday by the White House and Department of Education. “All told, this amounts to an additional $8 billion of federal support over five years. Through these efforts, we have been able to cut the connectivity gap by more than half and are on-track to meet the President’s goal. In 2013, only 30 percent of school districts had access to high-speed broadband, leaving 40 million students without access to that connectivity.” In 2013, President Barack Obama “launched his ConnectED initiative with the goal of unleashing education technology in schools and connecting 99 percent of America’s students to high-speed broadband in their schools and libraries by 2018,” said an administration fact sheet released Tuesday. “We are on track to meet that goal -- 77 percent of school districts and an additional 20 million students now have access to high-speed broadband.” The report also recaps Obama’s attention to E-rate. “The Connectivity Divide in Schools Was Cut in Half,” reads the text accompanying one graphic in the report. It cited “dramatic” results. “In his final year in office, President Obama continues his work to ensure that all students have access to the fast broadband connections, modern devices, and new digital teaching tools they need to ensure they can thrive at school, at home, in college, and in the workplace,” the report said. “The administration continues to work with public and private organizations to build capacity among leaders and educators across the country so they are able to confidently lead the transition to transformative learning experiences powered by technology for all students.” Obama gathered with teachers at the White House Tuesday and mentioned the broadband initiative. "By 2018, we're going to make sure we reach the goal I set," Obama told the crowd of the 99 percent connectivity goal.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will be the focus of four public workshops over the next few months, said the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Tuesday. OSTP will be co-hosting the sessions with academic institutions, nonprofits and the National Economic Council. It said information gleaned from the discussions will be used to help develop a public report later this year. Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ed Felten wrote in a blog post the meetings will be May 24 in Seattle, June 7 in Washington, June 28 in Pittsburgh and July 7 in New York City. While AI is "confined to narrow, specific tasks," its influence is growing in areas such as education, healthcare, image- and voice-recognition, self-driving cars and drones, wrote Felten. But the technology also carries risks such as eliminating old jobs even as it creates new ones and predicting its behavior in certain scenarios, he said. Issues such as law, privacy, regulation, research and development and security also need to be taken into consideration, said Felten. Plus, he said the National Science and Technology Council's new Subcommittee on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will have its inaugural meeting next week. The group, he said, will monitor AI and machine learning advances and technology milestones within the federal government, private sector and internationally and help coordinate federal activity on this issue.
Expect telecom policy continuity with some wrinkles if Democrat Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, said New Street Research analysts in a Sunday note. A Clinton administration would resemble a "third Obama term" in communications policy, but the agenda could evolve as it did in President Barack Obama's second term, when the FCC carried out broadband reclassification under Title II of the Communications Act, said the analysts. They said the Obama administration's sensitivities eased some after facing a deep recession at the outset. "It is difficult to exaggerate the abyss Obama's economic advisers peered into during the 2008 transition and continuing well into 2010," creating much concern about the investment impact of decisions, they said. But the bigger factor, they said, was the change from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to Tom Wheeler, who has been more activist, in line with Democratic preferences, on many issues beyond Title II, including municipal broadband, USF changes, set-top boxes, special access, privacy, the IP transition, inmate calling rates and general enforcement. New Street said political forces favor a new FCC chairman in the "Wheeler mold," including Wheeler's popularity with most Democrats and the strong primary challenge of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., which has pushed Clinton toward "a more activist approach." Few Clinton advisers are likely to argue in favor of Genachowski's approach over Wheeler's, though there is some unpredictability, since it's unknown whom Clinton would nominate as FCC chairman and which party will control the Senate confirmation process, they said. "Bottom Line: Early Continuity But Then Circumstances Start to Change Outcomes," New Street concluded. Regardless of "Clinton's choice, we do not see any Democratic Chair stepping away from the core Title II choice, unless a court totally overturns that 2015 decision. Of course, there are still a number of related decisions, such as how to evaluate different zero-rating approaches and how to respond to court decisions chipping away at FCC authority, that will give a new Chair a chance to put meaning to the decision, rather than reversing it wholesale. It’s also likely the first Clinton Chair will continue a number of other Wheeler initiatives, such as supporting municipal broadband efforts, opening up the set-top box market, reforming special access, and imposing a new privacy framework on ISPs." New Street had suggested the communications policy of GOP front-runner Donald Trump would fall within the GOP "Republican norm" (see 1603020020). Former FCC official Blair Levin consults with New Street on telecom policy notes.
Groups including the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, National Urban League, National Newspaper Publishers Association and the NAACP urged the 2016 presidential contenders to address minority media ownership through their advertising. “We write to appeal to each of you to confirm that minority-owned media will be included as a major component of your advertising plans throughout the 2016 campaign,” they said in a letter Monday. “Our constituents, comprising nearly 30% of the electorate, want and deserve to hear from all sides of public policy debates.” They requested a response within 10 days. “At your disposal are a host of minority-owned media outlets: over 400 newspapers, over 500 radio stations, over two dozen widely read minority-owned political and social justice websites, and over a dozen widely viewed cable channels,” they said.
The White House budget office said drone safety is one area that needs to be improved within the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization package that a Senate panel approved in mid-March. The Office of Management and Budget in a statement Thursday said the administration wants "fast and efficient integration" of drones or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace, but the FAA needs regulatory flexibility. OMB said, for example, the Senate's FAA Reauthorization Act of 2016 (S-2658) "would direct the Department of Transportation to develop certification standards for small UAS so that companies could engage in the widespread transportation of property two years from passage. This kind of overly prescriptive means of integrating UAS using legislation would disrupt the ongoing rulemaking process." FAA was said (see 1604060069) to have begun drafting rules for allowing small drones or microdrones to fly over populated areas, which eventually could lead to commercial applications such as package delivery, news gathering and inspections. The Senate Commerce Committee approved the legislation in mid-March (see 1603160028), but a full Senate vote hasn't been scheduled.
Stakeholders who participated in Wednesday’s White House Rural Council telemedicine event are expected to “report back to the Council in two weeks with thoughts, best practices, action items and pilot project ideas,” NTCA said in a blog post Thursday. It mentioned that officials from NTCA, the administration, the FCC, academia and elsewhere participated. “Building on the Obama administration’s ongoing commitment to expanding access to opportunity through quality, affordable health care, the event highlighted the essential role of telehealth in reaching high-need rural families and communities,” NTCA said. Several NTCA members were present, the group said. “NTCA had been working with the White House Rural Council to host this event because we really do believe that telemedicine can be a game changer for bringing economic development into rural America,” NTCA President Shirley Bloomfield said in a different blog post, calling it a “banner day.” Bloomfield said she had implored stakeholders “to work together to take some next steps and get some real action done before the end of this administration and to leave some good steps for the next administration to build upon.”