Adam Bender

Limits on the independence of inspectors general (IG) hurt the National Security Agency IG’s investigation into warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, former Defense Department IG Eleanor Hill said Wednesday at a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing. Like all agency IGs, the NSA IG cannot be as objective as departmental IGs due to limited resources and a lack of statutory autonomy protecting the office from agency directors, she said. IGs need more independence and more visibility for their reports to conduct strong, objective inquiries like Justice Department IG Glenn Fine’s on FBI misuse of national Security Letters, said Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine), who has proposed a bill to amend the 1978 Inspector General Act. Congress should protect inspectors generals’ job security and raise their pay, so IGs can go after higher-ups without fear of reprisal, she said. And better Web site design could bring more attention to IG reports, lending audits the “juice” they need to succeed, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said. Agency sites tend not to have obvious links to IG sites, and it can be difficult to find reports on IG sites, she said.

National wireless carriers are ready for tonight’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, they said. Sprint Nextel spent months beefing up its San Francisco wireless network for the game, upgrading its AT&T Park site and seven others, a Sprint spokeswoman said. AT&T has made no upgrades specifically for the game, an AT&T spokesman said, but will pitch several promotions, including free Wi-Fi access for fans in attendance. Verizon said Friday it increased San Francisco calling capacity 40 percent and deployed a team of network testers around the city (CD July 9 p10).

VoIP companies hoping to win cost-conscious iPhone buyers last week pushed inexpensive global long-distance services sidestepping AT&T’s international plan. Jajah Inc. and Raketu Communications followed AT&T’s iPhone launch by pushing VoIP alternatives to AT&T’s World Connect service. AT&T adds $3.99 a month to users’ contracts for discounted per-minute rates, but callers to the U.K. still pay 8 cents a minute to dial a land line and 26 cents to a mobile number. Jajah and Raketu Web-based services charge less per minute with no monthly fee. To call the U.K., Jajah users pay 3 cents per minute to dial a land line and 18 cents for mobile, and Raketu users pay 1 cent and 12 cents. AT&T said it will not guarantee either long-distance option will work as well as the AT&T plan.

Google acquired voice management firm GrandCentral Communications, Google Product Manager Wesley Chan said Monday on the company blog. Financial terms were not disclosed. GrandCentral gives users one phone number that can be set to ring multiple phones, and one central voice mailbox. Users can sign up for an invitation to register for the free Google GrandCentral beta. The company does not yet have a post-beta pricing plan, a spokesman said.

Blogs are buzzing about a $3.99 per month Vonage retention plan for customers who try to cancel service, but the “limited usage” plan might not be the steal bloggers think it is. For one thing, the plan is actually $4.99 per month, a Vonage spokesman said. And unlike with Vonage’s normal plans, Vonage charges retention customers $0.039 more per minute, he said. Vonage’s basic $14.99 per month plan gives users 500 minutes with no added charge. A retention customer using 500 minutes in a month would have to pay Vonage $24.49. The four-year-old program is “by no means a new plan” and fewer than one percent of customers are on it, he said. The promotion “does not significantly impact the company’s financial condition,” he added.

Bell Canada Enterprises may have agreed Saturday to a buyout, but that decision is by no means final, Seaboard analyst Iain Grant told Communications Daily. Teachers Private Capital, Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners agreed Saturday to pay $48.5 billion cash to acquire Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) in a private equity transaction larger than last May’s $27.5 billion Alltel buy and the largest in Canadian history, BCE said. But shareholders have not approved the deal, and now that losing bidders know the price another offer could arise, the Montreal-based analyst said.

The name still may be Sprint Nextel, but a new sales pitch might give another impression. A marketing campaign Sprint debuted Wednesday drops the Nextel name. The same day Sprint announced that Keith Cowan will take over as president, strategy planning and corporate initiative, with Sprint/MSO Joint Venture President John Garcia becoming senior vice president of product management and development. The shifts, two days before AT&T’s iPhone launch, reflect “coincidental” good timing, Sprint spokesman Dave Mellin told us.

U.S. investment in Panamanian telecom infrastructure will rise if Congress approves a free trade pact signed Thursday by the countries, said Michael Nunes, Telecommunications Industry Association director- international and government affairs. “We see a lot of investment in next-generation systems in Panama as its broadband and cell infrastructure investment goes up,” he said. The agreement, signed by U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab and Panamanian Minister of Commerce and Industry Alejandro Ferrer, would end tariffs and other trade barriers between the countries. TIA said a similar free trade agreement to be signed Saturday with South Korea will be a “critical pact for the technology sector.”

Colleges’ Universal Service Fund (USF) costs will rise “astronomically” if the FCC moves fund contributions from a revenue- to a numbers-based approach, universities and a higher education group told Communications Daily. Colleges could have to choose between removing dormitory phones and paying the drastically higher fees, they said. Either way, there will be “negative financial, technical and social impact,” said Jeri Semer, executive director of the Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education (ACUTA). FCC chairman Kevin Martin last May said he has “long favored” a numbers-based model and plans to propose to reform USF contribution this fall (CD May 15 p1).

To encourage rural broadband deployment, the FCC should redistribute rural wireless Universal Service Fund (USF) subsidies, Qwest said Wednesday. The Bell filed a plan with the FCC to alter the USF to bring broadband to unserved areas without raising USF fees and surcharges shown on phone bills. The plan would divert money from wireless competitive eligible telecommunications carriers (CETCs) by distributing CETC subsidies per household instead of per connection. About $1 billion of the $4 billion “high-cost” portion of the USF goes to wireless CETCs, but half of wireless customers are on family plans, averaging three lines per household, said Steve Davis, Qwest public policy senior vice president. A per-household system would free funds for use in upping broadband deployment, he said.