Monty Tayloe

A lack of higher Internet speeds in schools could slow implementation of digital textbooks and online assessments designed to replace standardized tests, said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at NCTA’s Cable Show Wednesday. Urging the cable industry to support President Barack Obama’s recently announced initiative to improve school bandwidth, Duncan said to take advantage of the latest wave of education resources, “most schools will require bandwidth they don’t have right now.” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said she expects her agency’s efforts to make Obama’s ConnectED initiative happen to be “well under way” by the start of the school year in the fall, though she said it would “take a lot of work.” Rosenworcel said the effort represents a chance to update policies and infrastructure that haven’t been updated since 1998, the era of the “Information Superhighway.” Duncan said the cable industry needed to assist with ConnectED “as fast as you can,” saying providing schools with faster Internet could be accomplished for a small fee added on to monthly cable bills, which he compared to the price of a postage stamp. Duncan said digital textbooks could represent a significant change for students, since typically textbooks are purchased in seven-year cycles. “We know information is changing by the minute,” said Duncan. “In education, we change far too slowly.” Discovery Education Senior Vice President Scott Kinney said that with digital textbooks, educators can “take that content and literally update it overnight.” Duncan told the NCTA audience that he hoped children would look back and “know the cable industry did the right thing.” Technology has changed how teachers and parents deal with education, Douglas Levin, State Educational Technology Directors Association (STEDA) executive director, also said at the show Wednesday. Technology is different because kids have access to smartphones and tablets and the content is rich, said Levin. For educators to make full use of this technology, they must understand how to use it, said executives from Common Sense Media, Discovery Education, STEDA, Cable in the Classroom and Partnership for 21st Century Skills. While 96 percent of teachers think technology programs are important to prepare young people for their future, only 18 percent understand how to bring technology into the classroom, according to the Leading Education by Advancing Digital Commission, a group that advises the FCC and Department of Education. This technology enhances teaching and learning because it speeds up the delivery of content and teachers can get updated information overnight. “We deliver our services over a browser on a cloud platform. When the Higgs Boson particle was discovered, we had the capability with this cloud database to include an article or video that is published overnight so teachers who go back that service, they have access to that content,” Kinney told us. Common Sense Media President Amy Guggenheim Shenkan identified three key initiatives for the organization. It wants to empower parents to make good decisions about what their kids should watch, create learning ratings to assess potential in digital content and deal with education to help kids and educators develop learning inside and outside the classroom, she said. “We want to create a learning system for consumers and make it easy for educators to find great content,” said Shenkan. Creating digital citizenship education was key to Cable in the Classroom and Common Sense Media. “We want to have Internet safety and security and for kids to have a positive media footprint,” said Frank Gallagher, Cable in the Classroom executive director. Close to half of the K-12 schools across the country use Common Sense digital literacy media, said Shenkan. Shifts in technology allow schools to meet long-standing goals that were previously unachievable, said Levin. As school districts continue to slash budgets, schools are “trying to meet their needs with technology” while they are “starting to compete with schools at a global level,” said STEDA’s Levin. “Learning is 24/7 and opportunities need to be available inside and outside the classroom,” he said. Systems need to focus on student needs, said Steve Paine, Partnership for 21st Century Skills president. “Good systems are student-focused and student-centered. Technology in the hands of an unskilled teacher is irresponsible,” said Paine.

The communications industry and policymakers will spend too much time discussing “usage based pricing” for wireless carriers, said FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. The agency has only limited authority to regulate usage-based pricing, and “too much oxygen” will be consumed by debate over that topic, he said Wednesday at a Cable Show luncheon. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel predicted the industry would focus unnecessarily on a la carte cable pricing, which she said would eventually happen due to market forces. “That change will be driven by consumers, not by legislation or regulation,” said Rosenworcel.

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel believes the FCC should have a completed band plan for the spectrum incentive action by Q3 of 2013, said Rosenworcel’s aide Alex Hoehn-Saric at one of several panels featuring FCC staff at the NCTA Cable Show Wednesday. Hoehn-Saric said Rosenworcel also believes the commission could have a repacking plan finished by the end of the year.

Clyburn said increasing access to high-speed Internet is especially important in poorer areas, because quick Internet can compensate for a lack of other resources. “Broadband is a great equalizer for a whole host of people,” said Clyburn. She provided an example of a school in a low-income area using the Internet to connect students with a foreign language teacher for instruction the school could otherwise not afford. “At the click of mouse you can transport yourself to another country,” said Clyburn.

Charter Communications fired back at requests by TiVo and CEA that the FCC Media Bureau reconsider a waiver of CableCARD rules granted to the cable operator in April (CD April 22 p3). In separate ex parte letters filed Tuesday (http://bit.ly/14wR1Wj and http://bit.ly/10Qxbb4), Charter said TiVo and CEA arguments that the waiver doesn’t require it to support CableCARDs are “premised on a mistaken understanding” of the commission’s rules and the impact of the January EchoStar decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (http://bit.ly/10nMM3E).

Officials from Time Warner Cable, Verizon and Public Knowledge agreed the FCC should not go back to enforcing net neutrality rules under Title II of the Communications Act if Verizon wins its appeal of the commission’s net neutrality order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A Verizon win is likely, said Time Warner Cable Chief Government Relations Officer Gail MacKinnon. “That is what’s widely believed,” she said at a Free State Foundation luncheon Tuesday on what policies the next FCC chairman should pursue. “Title II should be a last resort,” said Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. “A more narrow fix would be better” than what some consider “the nuclear option” of Title II, she said.

CEA and NCTA have asked the Department of Energy to pause a rulemaking process on energy standards for set-top boxes and instead allow multichannel video program distributors to police themselves, the trade groups said at a joint media briefing Monday. Davis Wright attorney Paul Glist, representing NCTA, said he believes DOE proposals (CD April 10 p19) on whether set-top boxes should be regulated and how they should be tested could be finalized soon. If so, they would be a “switch point” for the cable industry, he said. If the DOE continues with the rulemaking, it will invalidate a voluntary agreement (VA) on set-top box standards that’s already being followed industry-wide, and discourage other industries from working proactively on energy efficiency, “undermining the very thing the DOE wants to encourage,” he said. DOE and the National Resources Defense Council, which backed tighter standards on set-top boxes, didn’t comment.

The FCC released an NPRM on accessibility for user interfaces and video programming guides, implementing Sections 204 and 205 of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (http://bit.ly/19qAKaI). As expected (CD May 1 p6), the NPRM released Friday proposed that Section 205, which governs video program guides for “navigation devices,” would apply to devices from multichannel video programming distributors, while Section 204, which governs user interfaces, would apply more broadly to other electronics that display or receive video.

The FCC will make information on the incentive auction repacking available for “meaningful comment” this summer, said Assistant Wireless Bureau Chief Brett Tarnutzer. At an FCBA panel Thursday, he discussed several issues associated with the auction, including the recent public notice on the 600 MHz band plan and the commission’s reliance on TVStudy software to run the auction. Despite the complications inherent in the auction, the commission still believes it’s on track to release a report and order on it this year, and hold the auction in 2014, said Tarnutzer. “I believe we can do this."

Media cross-ownership has a “negligible” impact on minority and women broadcast ownership, said a Minority and Media Telecommunications Council Study submitted to the FCC Thursday (http://bit.ly/178iVhE). The commission delayed a vote on media ownership rules in February (CD Feb 27 p1) anticipation of the study’s completion. Several communications attorneys told us Thursday that even with the study done, it’s unlikely a vote will occur with a depleted commission and an acting chairwoman. Although MMTC President David Honig said the study satisfies a directive from 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to study the effects of cross-ownership rules, Free Press attacked the study for not being quantitative enough.