The poor economy has made more people eligible for discount telephone service under Universal Service Fund low-income programs, but awareness is low, said FCC Consumer Bureau Chief Joel Gurin at a lunchtime Capitol Hill briefing Monday. Gurin and other officials at the event urged Congress to spread the word about the program to constituents. The event was intended to kick off National Lifeline Awareness Week. The Lifeline and Link-Up programs “are being used now by only about a third of eligible Americans,” but enrollment did increase somewhat after last year’s Lifeline Week campaign, said Gurin. The FCC is reviewing comments on ways to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in the assistance programs, including on a proposal to use a centralized database for online certification and verification, he said. The commission is also looking at ways to address consumer complaints about accessing the low-income services, and expanding the program to support broadband, he said. It’s “unacceptable” that “millions of people remain disconnected to the outside world,” said National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners President David Coen. Members of Congress can help raise awareness by issuing press releases and calling attention to the program in newsletters and other constituent communications, said Charlie Acquard, executive director of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. Also, lawmakers should educate caseworkers about the low-income programs and ask carriers about ways to improve Lifeline and Link-Up when the companies’ lobbyists come in for meetings, Acquard said. The name “Lifeline” is “not hyperbole,” said Mark Andersen, social services director of We Are Family in Washington, D.C. “Your telephone is your lifeline.” Senior citizens that Andersen works with on average collect $800 monthly and, after other bills, have little left over for phone service, he said. In 2009, the low-income programs accounted for about $1 billion of the $7.3 billion USF, said Irene Flannery, deputy chief of the FCC Wireline Bureau’s Telecommunications Access Policy Division.
The House Judiciary Competition Policy Subcommittee plans a hearing 10 a.m. Thursday on competition in the digital market, a House staffer said Friday. A topic of the session in Room 2141 Rayburn Office Building will be “whether Apple was intentionally making it difficult for developers to create applications across a variety of operating systems, thus trying to choke off competition from Android phones and BlackBerry devices, among others,” Subcommittee Chairman Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said in a written statement last week. He applauded Apple’s announcement that the company will remove its restrictions on developers making apps for the iPhone, iPad and iTunes store. Apple said it’s “relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code.” That will add flexibility for developers while preserving security, the company said. Apple said it also plans to publish the review guidelines for its app store, so the process is more transparent to developers.
The Senate Commerce Committee may have a public safety hearing Sept. 23, an APCO spokeswoman said. It’s expected that the hearing would discuss a bill (S-3756) by Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., that would give the 700 MHz D-block to public safety. The committee didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday. A spokeswoman earlier had said the committee was considering a public safety hearing in the fall (CD Aug 25 p2).
A markup on Universal Service Fund legislation may still be a ways off, telecom industry officials said after the House Communications Subcommittee set plans for a USF hearing next Thursday. The subcommittee plans to discuss but not mark up HR-5828 by Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., the subcommittee said Thursday. “The hearing could make a potential markup in subcommittee an easier lift,” but “I'm not sure there’s enough days left on the calendar,” said Vice President Paul Raak of the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance. “The hearing will provide a good opportunity for members of Congress and the FCC to hear the broad industry support the legislation has.” Boucher wants a subcommittee markup and probably will try to get one before the mid-term elections recess starting Oct. 8, but it’s unclear if there’s enough time, said another telecom industry official. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building. It’s a hearing rather than a markup because the bill differs from a draft that got a hearing last December, a House staffer said. Getting the legislation to markup remains a priority for Boucher, but no date is set, the staffer said.
Cybersecurity still isn’t a priority for the U.S. government, and it may take a major attack to wake people up, cyberspace experts and industry executives said Thursday at the University of Nebraska College of Law’s Space and Cyber Conference. Some said a cyber attack could potentially cause as much havoc as an atomic bomb, at least in terms of damage to the economy.
Legislation is the best way to dispel uncertainty regarding net neutrality policy, but Congress doesn’t need to act right away, representatives of business associations said on a teleconference Thursday. Congress is unlikely to tackle the issue this year, they said. Policymakers should allow industry talks to continue meanwhile, they said.
Three Democratic co-sponsors of a proposed House resolution calling on Congress to decide the FCC’s regulatory authority over broadband hadn’t before publicly expressed reservations about reclassification. HRes-311 has been signed by 64 members. But 254 House members, including 81 Democrats, have publicly opposed commission reclassification of broadband services under Title II of the Communications Act. Resolution co-sponsors John Boccieri, D-Ohio, John Garamendi, D-Calif., and Ralph Hall, D-Texas, didn’t sign previous letters to the FCC about reclassification. Forty-three senators, including five Democrats, have publicly urged a congressional solution.
Largely dismissing an April plea from the U.S. Copyright Office to cast the Performance Rights Act (HR-848) in a more favorable light, GAO maintained that the bill would raise costs for broadcasters and boost revenue for the recording industry. A GAO report dated August 2010 and released Friday reached the same conclusion as a February preliminary report made public in June. That earlier version had prompted an April rebuke from the Copyright Office (CD June 8 p11).
September is expected to be busy for public safety issues in Washington, but time and funding concerns are working against passing any legislation this year, said public safety and telecom industry officials. Legislation to set up a $70 million NTIA grant competition for public safety communications devices (CD July 30 p5) may have a better shot than bills involving the D-block, they said. The House and Senate have introduced nearly identical bills, HR-5907 and S-3731, sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and neither has generated opposition.
"A well-grounded but flexible governance structure is critical to the future of public safety communications if it is to be national in scope, interoperable, and cost-effective,” said the Congressional Research Service in a report dated Wednesday. But such a governance structure “does not exist,” the Service said. Congress gave the FCC and Department of Homeland Security authority to act on behalf of public safety, but it “would appear that neither agency has the needed depth of experience or resources to develop and deploy a leading-edge broadband network in a timely, cost-efficient manner.” Public safety bills introduced so far would increase the FCC’s powers and responsibilities, placing Homeland Security in an advisory role, the Congressional Research Service said. “Governance of the public safety network at a national level would be dependant almost entirely on the FCC and its willingness to write and enforce regulations.” After 9/11, Congress passed several laws empowering Homeland Security, the service noted. “By choosing to focus on interim solutions, the Department seems to have passed on the opportunity to provide the needed leadership and planning to move public safety toward a next-generation communications network.” An FCC spokesman said the report “missed important aspects that would shed light on the considerable expertise that the FCC brings to this issue.” The report’s author didn’t talk to senior agency officials, he said. However, the paper “affirms much of what the FCC has been calling for over the last six months: a well-grounded, flexible governance system which does not currently exist.” The DHS didn’t comment.