Jimm Phillips

The U.S. government needs to continue to push for expanded cybersecurity information sharing capabilities as a way to protect critical infrastructure sectors, federal officials said Tuesday during a Billington cybersecurity conference. Recent federal efforts have focused on expanding information sharing via legislation like the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), but former federal officials and industry stakeholders expressed doubts that Congress can complete effective legislation during the 113th Congress. The Senate Intelligence Committee cleared its own CISPA equivalent, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), but industry officials have said they're increasingly pessimistic that the full Senate will vote on the bill this year (CD July 30 p6 ).

Recent shifts in the makeup of FirstNet’s board will likely improve its relations with state governments, while other changes within the authority in recent months have significantly improved prospects for success, said participants and observers in interviews last week. The Department of Commerce said earlier this month that it was appointing five new members to FirstNet’s board, and reappointing board member Ed Reynolds. The new members include ex-Vermont Republican Gov. Jim Douglas and Houston Mayor Annise Parker, a Democrat. Salt Lake City Chief of Police Chris Burbank, telecom executive Frank Plastina and Richard Stanek, sheriff of Hennepin County, Minnesota, are also new to the board (CD Sept 5 p13). The board set its first meeting with the new members for Tuesday and Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1uLMJca).

The California Public Utilities Commission put on hold Thursday plans to submit reply comments to the FCC supporting its net neutrality Title II NPRM. The decision came on a vote to overturn an earlier 3-2 decision to submit comments urging the commission to reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II service and use that authority in conjunction with other authorities as jurisdiction bases for new net neutrality rules. Commissioner Carla Peterman, who had originally voted in favor of reclassification, decided later in the meeting to officially abstain, tying the vote 2-2. The tied vote means any comments are on hold, a CPUC spokeswoman said. Commissioners Mike Florio and Catherine Sandoval had voted in favor of the staff’s set of recommendations, while Commission President Michael Peevey and Commissioner Michael Picker voted against them.

FCC consideration of petitions to pre-empt municipal broadband laws in North Carolina and Tennessee remains controversial, more so than the issue in states, said industry observers and lawmakers in interviews this week. There’s been some partisanship in the national debate over the petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina (CD July 28 p5). But lawmakers and officials see any state-level debate on pre-emption as not falling along strict party lines. They differed on what a more unified response at the state level would look like and said it’s too early to call the issue’s impact on state elections.

Several groups representing state government entities urged the FCC not to pre-empt North Carolina and Tennessee state laws restricting municipal broadband deployment, saying in filings posted Tuesday that pre-emption would constitute bad public policy. They also said the FCC doesn’t have authority under Telecom Act Section 706 to pre-empt state laws. Pre-emption opponents have repeatedly said the FCC can’t use Section 706 as a basis for granting pre-emption petitions from the Electric Bower Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the city of Wilson, North Carolina (CD Sept 2 p2). Comments in the two proceedings -- dockets 14-115 and 14-116 -- were due Friday. Other pre-emption opponents and supporters who filed comments also noted the public policy implications of the petitions.

California’s enactment of the Smartphone Theft Prevention Act (SB-962) and recent industry commitments will likely result in anti-theft kill switch technology in smartphones nationwide, but that may not entirely quell interest in enacting further legislation at the federal and state levels, lawmakers and industry observers told us. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB-962 into law last week, requiring all smartphones sold in the state after July 1, 2015, to be pre-equipped with a kill switch that can be activated if the device is lost or stolen (CD Aug 27 p14).

Pay-TV rivals, trade associations and public interest groups clashed with makers of consumer electronics, academics and advocacy organizations over whether Comcast’s planned buy of Time Warner Cable will have anti-competitive effects. The argument continued in many of the 75,317 comments posted online in docket 14-57 Tuesday. Dish Network, Free Press, NTCA and many others attacked Comcast’s assertion (CD Aug 26 p1) that the deal won’t limit consumer choice or provide Comcast with too much bargaining power over video and broadband.

Gigabit broadband deployment has made “enormous progress” over the past 12 months, including a “radical change” in incumbent ISPs’ involvement in broadband development, but more work is necessary through 2015 and 2016 to accelerate growth, Gig.U said Monday in a report. Founded in 2011 to encourage next-generation broadband deployment at research universities and elsewhere, Gig.U said a combination of its and others’ efforts have resulted in a “new dynamic” in the market.

Spectrum sharing is a better incentive for government spectrum use than market-based user fees, said Freedom Technologies President Janice Obuchowski and Vice President Mary Greczyn, a former Communications Daily editor, in an article in the August issue of IEEE Wireless Communications. When market-based user fees have been used as an incentive in the U.S. and elsewhere, they either have not been widely adopted or have achieved mixed results, the executives said. The U.K.’s Administered Incentive Pricing program began operating in 2005, but the nation is only now set to hold an auction of spectrum belonging to its Ministry of Defence, Obuchowski and Greczyn said. Governments can get the hoped-for results of the fees, including federal agencies reducing their spectrum footprint and increasing accountability for spectrum, through more spectrally efficient technology, commercial substitutes or improved sharing techniques, the Freedom Technologies executives said. Government spectrum users are also going to mainly respond to non-market-based factors for reducing their spectrum footprint, rather than the revenue-based factors that commercial users prioritize, they said. To be effective, user fees have to better address agencies’ opportunity costs, such as how they will meet future spectral needs, Obuchowski and Greczyn said. Spectrum sharing provides a “near-term” option that encourages spectral efficiency, efficient technologies and transparency, they said. Sharing also ensures underutilized spectrum is “put to use” and better aligns the incentives public and private users seek, the executives said.

FCC proceedings on petitions to pre-empt North Carolina and Tennessee laws on municipal broadband are likely to become a showdown about the extent of the commission’s authority under Communications Act Section 706 and the applicability of the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League, industry observers told us. The FCC is reviewing pre-emption petitions from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina. Matthew Berry, chief of staff to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, said in a speech Wednesday that the FCC’s authority to pre-empt state laws municipal broadband laws under Section 706 was weak and that the precedent the Supreme Court set in Nixon would likely doom pre-emption in court (CD Aug. 21 p10).