Verizon’s proposed sale of wireline assets in California, Florida and Texas and its plan to lease or sell more than 11,400 cell towers show the telco is continuing to increase its focus on its wireless business, industry analysts said Friday. Verizon said Thursday that it would sell its wireline assets in three states to Frontier Communications for $10.54 billion. The deal would add 3.7 million voice connections, 2.2 million broadband connections and 1.2 million FiOS video connections to Frontier, essentially doubling the company’s size. Verizon said it reached a deal with American Tower to lease the rights to 11,300 of Verizon’s towers and sell 165 more. The telco also announced a $5 billion accelerated share-repurchasing program (see 1502050059).
Washington, D.C., safety officials and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Interim General Manager Jack Requa said their agencies are working to increase testing of public safety radios in the wake of a Jan. 12 incident near WMATA’s L’Enfant Plaza Metrorail station in which first responders found their radios didn’t work properly during the rescue of passengers from a smoke-filled tunnel. D.C. Councilmen Jack Evans and Kenyan McDuffie, both Democrats, said during a D.C. Council hearing Thursday that they're seeking further answers on the incident, in which one passenger died and 84 others went to area hospitals. The incident has also attracted scrutiny from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and other D.C. area members of Congress (see 1501230066 and 1502030055). All area public safety agencies have radio infrastructure throughout the Metrorail system independent of WMATA’s infrastructure and are responsible for testing their own equipment, Requa said. WMATA is working with local agencies and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to “put in place formal protocols and procedures for regular radio testing with sharing of results and prompt action to correct deficiencies,” he said. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration also is taking immediate steps to improve radio communication connectivity, said Acting Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kevin Donahue. Bowser has directed the city’s Office of Unified Communications, which is responsible for maintaining all of D.C.’s public safety radios, to conduct weekly radio tests in all Metrorail stations within city limits. Tests during the week of Jan. 19 found radios failed in nine Metrorail stations, while testing the following week found a failure in one station, Donahue said. The city’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services (FEMS) Department also issued improved protocols for communication between first responders when radios aren’t working properly, he said. Representatives for unions associated with WMATA and public safety agencies indicated that public safety radio connectivity is often intermittent in the Metrorail system, with D.C. Firefighters Association President Ed Smith saying it “remains to be seen” if FEMS’ recent encryption of its radio channels played a role in the communications failures at L’Enfant Plaza but noting the union has continually opposed encryption. First responders routinely encounter problems with radio connectivity in many large facilities in D.C., including federal buildings, Smith said. D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh, a Democrat, said she believes the radio problem in federal buildings “needs to be corrected” quickly.
Senate Commerce Committee members used a hearing Wednesday on the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework to call for further cyber legislation, including cybersecurity information sharing and data breach notification. NIST released its “Version 1.0” framework almost a year ago (see report in the Feb. 13, 2014, issue) and continually has emphasized that private sector use of the framework is entirely voluntary. NIST Information Technology Laboratory Director Charles Romine told Senate Commerce that the Cybersecurity Framework needed to remain voluntary for NIST to continue receiving active participation from industry stakeholders in developing the framework. NIST is set to lead a technical workshop on the framework at Stanford University Feb. 12, the day before a planned White House-sponsored cybersecurity summit. President Barack Obama is expected to outline executive actions at the summit that will facilitate cyber information sharing via the Department of Homeland Security, an industry lobbyist told us.
Smartphones will become the majority type of cellphone globally by 2018, driving continued growth in smart device technology that's predicted to account for 97 percent of global mobile data usage by 2019, Cisco said Tuesday in its annual mobile data forecast. Smart devices like smartphones and tablets currently account for 88 percent of mobile data usage, Cisco said. The number of smartphones is expected to be 4.6 billion by 2019, at which point there will be 3.1 billion feature phones, the company said. Cisco forecasts that mobile data usage will grow to 292 exabytes -- 292 billion gigabytes -- annually by 2019, up from the 30 exabytes of data transmitted during 2014.
The North Carolina and Tennessee state governments are likely to take the lead on any legal challenge to expected FCC pre-emption of their states’ municipal broadband laws, with North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery initiating the lawsuits, industry lawyers told us Monday. FCC officials said Monday that Chairman Tom Wheeler would circulate a draft order this week approving petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga and Wilson, North Carolina. The draft order would directly address only the Chattanooga and Wilson petitions but is likely to set a precedent for FCC handling of future petitions (see 1502020037).
The Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Wednesday hearing on cybersecurity information sharing is the clearest sign yet that the committee and its House counterpart are seeking a significant role in writing information sharing legislation, but it remains unclear whether they or the Intelligence committees will take the lead role, industry executives and lobbyists told us. Senate Homeland Security members said Wednesday that they will write their info sharing bill based on the White House proposal released earlier this month, along with two controversial bills from last Congress -- the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and its Senate counterpart, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) (see 1501280060).
The Senate Homeland Security Committee tested possible parameters of cybersecurity information sharing legislation Wednesday. Ranking member Tom Carper, D-Del., said the committee is examining how to combine elements of the White House’s cybersecurity information sharing legislative proposal with provisions in previous legislation. Industry witnesses said they preferred many provisions of the White House’s proposal to coordinate private sector information sharing with the government through the Department of Homeland Security rather than tactics outlined in the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA).
House Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee members said they're optimistic that the House can produce a bipartisan national data breach notification bill. Still, their questions during a Tuesday hearing revealed lingering concerns about the bill's details. Subcommittee Chairman Michael Burgess, R-Texas, said he believes it’s “achievable” for Congress to pass a national data breach bill this session. House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said Congress will need to “get it right” on data breaches “before we try to tackle some of the other concerns” about cybersecurity.
NARUC filed an appeal with the Supreme Court Monday of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision upholding the FCC’s USF/intercarrier compensation order (see report in the May 27 issue). NARUC's petition for writ of certiorari sought review of the lower court decision, which the group said upheld the FCC’s “radical interpretations of the Communications Act that fundamentally restructure” the telecom sector. NARUC said it's seeking court clarification of whether statutory construction rules in the Communications Act and the 1996 Telecom Act “place any limits on either the FCC’s or a reviewing Court’s interpretation of agency authority.” The group is also seeking a decision on whether Chevron deference allows the 10th Circuit to confirm a change in the definition of “reciprocal compensation” that directly conflicts with the 1996 Telecom Act.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is demanding improved emergency communications interoperability coordination between the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) in response to issues first responders encountered during a Jan. 12 rescue on WMATA’s Metrorail system. “It is apparent that the process" WMATA and its partners currently employ to address communication problems "needs greater oversight and urgency,” Warner said in a letter Thursday to COG board Chairman William Euille and WMATA board Chairman Mort Downey. WMATA interim General Manager Jack Requa said Thursday that WMATA was unaware that the Washington city government had altered D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services (FEMS) radios until after the Jan. 12 incident at the L’Enfant Plaza Metrorail station (see 1501220067).