The FCC plans to promote broadband adoption efforts targeting four groups -- seniors, veterans, persons with disabilities and students -- said Gigi Sohn, counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. The commission’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau will “explore and highlight best practices” helping these groups gain broadband access, she said Thursday in a speech to the Partnership for Progress on the Digital Divide Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. “One of the goals of this effort is to develop a roadmap for these communities that can be used by advocates and the philanthropies and companies that support their work,” she said, according to her posted remarks. Sohn said achieving universal broadband adoption is like running a marathon: The final stage before the finish line is the hardest part. In thinking about the broadband challenge, she cited a “50/50” concept, with two categories of people who have “pretty much reached universal adoption -- people under the age of 50 and people earning over $50,000.” That shows “that for those populations that face no significant barriers, market forces can be sufficient to get us to our goal of universal adoption,” she said. But the flip side is market forces won’t be enough to achieve universal broadband adoption because some people face significant barriers, she said. “Getting where we are now was relatively easy. Getting from here to universal adoption is the hard part,” she said. “Think of our adoption challenge as a marathon. They say that the race really starts at mile 20, and those last 6 miles are a bear. Considering we have about 75 percent home adoption, that math is about right.” She said the FCC is attempting to close various broadband gaps based on income, education, location and disabilities through USF programs -- the high-cost Connect America Fund, E-Rate school and library discounts, and Lifeline low-income support -- and certain accessibility and adoption efforts, including the new best-practices initiative. But the digital divide is "less of an infrastructure challenge and more of a civil rights and human rights challenge," she said.
AT&T hires Raquel Noriega, ex-Connected Nation, as director-federal regulatory, working on USF issues and focused on E-rate ... Univision Communications adds to responsibilities of John Eck, naming him chief local media officer, succeeding Kevin Cuddihy, who is stepping down as president-Local Media ... Activision Blizzard starts e-sports division, names Steve Bornstein, ex-ESPN and NFL Network, division chairman, and Mike Sepso, ex-Major League Gaming, senior vice president ... ZoneTV, digital platform for pay TV that was renamed from ES3, hires Jeff Weber, ex-AT&T, as CEO ... Coalfire hires cybersecurity experts Luke McOmie as director-penetration testing and Ryan Jones, ex-Cisco, as managing director, Labs division, which they will help run ... ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee members named GAC vice chairs for 2016-17 Olga Cavalli, representing Argentina, Henri Kassen, Namibia, Gema Campillos, Spain, and Wanawit Ahkuputra, Thailand, GAC said after ICANN's just-completed meeting in Dublin ... Lobbyist registrations: DraftKings, Morgan Lewis, effective Sept. 17 ... MSG Sports & Entertainment, Liz Robbins Associates, effective Oct. 1 ... Univision, The Raben Group, effective Sept. 11.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., fears the effects of the FCC’s direction on USF and what it has done to rural telecom companies’ ability to invest. Moran. a member of the Commerce Committee, also chairs the Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, where he held a hearing on rural development Wednesday and aired many concerns about how FCC policies may affect investment.
SAN FRANCISCO – The FCC has “a lot more competition policy to go” and needs the support of Incompas and its members, as well as their customers' stories, said Gigi Sohn, counselor to Chairman Tom Wheeler at the Comptel Plus meeting Tuesday. “We're going to rely on you,” Sohn said, providing an overview of the Wheeler agenda on the incentive auction, special access, IP technology transition, broadband deployment, Lifeline, USF and video reform. “Keep telling those stories and we'll get more and more people on the side of competition and bigger, faster broadband,” she said.
The FCC reminded all eligible telecommunications carriers receiving support from the USF’s high-cost program they must follow agency rules and face sanctions if they don't. Commissioner Ajit Pai complained that the FCC had “turned a blind eye” to such conduct for too long by Hawaii’s Sandwich Isles Communications, a company whose former owner, Albert Hee, was convicted of tax violations in July. Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O’Rielly said in a joint statement that Monday’s public notice doesn't go far enough.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Comptel renamed itself Incompas Monday, as it seeks to expand its reach and membership across communications sectors. Promoting competition remains its top focus, said CEO Chip Pickering at the group's Comptel Plus conference (which kept its name for this year). FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said there that advancing competition is central to the agency's mission and she repeated support for Internet openness and USF Lifeline and E-rate broadband moves. Pickering and Incompas members urged the commission to complete its special-access review and address Bell business service rates and practices the competitors believe are anticompetitive.
Campaigning will distract more than a third of the Senate Commerce Committee in the months ahead. Eight Senate seats belonging to Commerce Committee members are up for grabs in the 2016 elections, six held by Republicans and two by Democrats. Two GOP Commerce members also are scrambling for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, which means its own intense string of town halls, debates and travel.
Rep. Richard Nugent, R-Fla., alerted FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to a problem that Wheeler agreed would be cause for great concern. “It has come to my attention that contractors for the Universal Service Fund are setting up booths outside of Veterans Administration locations offering free cellphones with service, implying strongly that it is a government benefit specifically for veterans,” Nugent told Wheeler in a letter. “However, mere months later, the veterans receive a notice that they must provide proof that they meet the income threshold.” He blasted this as “an abuse” of USF intentions, with veterans “misled” and the targeting of veterans disgraceful. Wheeler responded in an Oct. 2 letter released this week. “I am as outraged as you are that agents of a wireless phone company would target veterans with false and misleading information with the goal of scamming those veterans and the Lifeline program,” Wheeler told Nugent. “It is an insult to the veterans who were targeted, and it undermines the integrity of the Lifeline program. We will not stand for it.” Commission staffers have worked with the veterans, who should be held harmless, Wheeler said. Tracfone “has promised that the affected veterans will be able to use the service at least through the end of the year,” Wheeler added. “Tracfone must better police its agents and ensure that they immediately stop this activity, so that no additional veterans are victimized.” He has asked staffers to investigate further and is open to, “if necessary, withholding future remittances to Tracfone.” Wheeler referred the case to the FCC Office of Inspector General “with a request that they work to bring appropriate legal action,” he said. “Our referral of this matter to OIG reflects the gravity of the alleged violations.” Tracfone had no immediate comment.
The FCC Wireline Bureau further revised its broadband cost model for rural telcos that could choose to rely on model-based USF support under possible revamping of rate-of-return carrier subsidy mechanisms (see 1510050062). The latest Alternative Connect America Cost Model (A-CAM v2.0) incorporates various changes, including to rural carrier "study area" (service territory) boundary lines and node locations, based on updated data collection, said a public notice released Thursday. The bureau said because of the boundary line changes, "it will be difficult to draw meaningful comparisons" between results from ACAM v2.0 and prior versions, the most recent of which was released on Aug. 31 (see 1508310060). The model-based approach is one part of an overhaul envisioned by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who recently said the reform effort was close to bearing fruit but could also still fall apart (see 1509210029).
CTIA’s request that the FCC revisit its Lifeline privacy authority drew opposition from consumer and media watchdog groups, and support from the American Cable Association. The consumer and media groups said Thursday the commission could rely on the two Communications Act provisions targeted by a CTIA petition for reconsideration, which they called substantively and procedurally flawed. The ACA supported the Lifeline USF program and the need for customer privacy, but it backed CTIA’s petition and argued the commission was exceeding its congressional mandate.