FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will open the agency’s privacy workshop Tuesday, followed by an “Overview of the Collection and Use of Broadband Subscriber Data,” by University of Pennsylvania associate professor Matt Blaze, a commission news release said Wednesday. The first panel, on “Privacy Implications Associated with Broadband Internet Access Services,” includes Connecticut Assistant Attorney General Michele Lucan; Senior Policy Counsel for the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute Laura Moy; AT&T Senior Vice President-Federal Regulatory & Chief Privacy Officer Robert Quinn; NTCA Vice President-Policy Joshua Seidemann; Catherine Tucker, associate professor of management science at MIT Sloan; and NTIA Director-Privacy Initiatives John Verdi. Panelists on the second panel, “Application of Section 222 of the Communications Act to Broadband Internet Access Services,” include Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld; DLA Piper high-tech and privacy lawyer Jim Halpert; Wilkinson Barker Knauer attorney Nancy Libin; Center for Democracy and Technology General Counsel Erik Stallman; and Georgia Institute of Technology professor Peter Swire. The workshop starts at 10 a.m. EDT at FCC headquarters, the FCC said.

AT&T expects to close its buy of DirecTV this quarter and its purchase of Nextel’s wireless properties in Mexico should also be wrapped up “shortly,” AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said Wednesday during an earnings call. Stephens declined to detail why the carrier believes the DirecTV deal will soon close. On the Mexican deal, the remaining hurdle is sign-off from Mexican regulators, he said. AT&T reported 61 cents diluted earnings per share in Q1, compared with 70 cents in the year-ago quarter. Revenue was $32.6 billion, up 0.3 percent vs. the year-earlier period, and up 1.2 percent after adjusting for the sale of Connecticut wireline properties, AT&T said. AT&T reported 1.2 million total wireless net adds, including 441,000 postpaid adds and 684,000 connected cars. Churn came in at 1.02 percent for post-paid subscribers, which Stephens said was the lowest rate ever for AT&T despite a “noisy” environment in the wireless market.

The FCC is still working on the cybersecurity assurance process that the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) recommended last month in its report on suggestions for communications sector cybersecurity risk management, but assurance meetings “won’t be depositions,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler during a speech Tuesday. The CSRIC report was meant to adapt the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework for communications sector use (see 1503180056) “We do not envision an adversarial process in which corporate officials are cross-examined in an attempt to draw out embarrassing admissions about security lapses,” Wheeler said during an RSA Security conference, according to a prepared version of the speech released by the FCC. “The sweet spot is a process that is open, honest, and interactive, with the parties working as partners in addressing a matter of national concern.” Adequate safeguards will need to be in place to ensure that sensitive information that companies disclose during assurance meetings doesn’t go public, Wheeler said. The FCC also will need to assure companies that the information they disclose won’t be used to “generate regulatory proposals,” he said. Wheeler said information sharing will be the “biggest challenge” to implementing the CSRIC report’s recommendations, noting that the FCC has established a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center that allows the FCC to share outage information. Information sharing is “essential” and “my view is that there are no insurmountable barriers to making this work, and the public interest demands nothing less,” Wheeler said.

Correction: The office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., reported the voting schedule for the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (HR-1560) and the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (HR-1731) (see 1504200047).

The FCC is getting set to launch a new website by the end of September, said Chief Information Officer David Bray Monday in a blog post. More changes are also on the way, he said. By the end of May, the agency will offer a new search application aggregating results for both FCC.gov and the FCC’s Electronic Document Management System, he said. By Sept. 30, the commission will “launch an improved FCC.gov featuring the new design, information architecture and search application,” Bray said. “The initial site launch will include website content approximately three levels deep into the new site. Work will continue after launch to integrate the more complex content and data not originally included at site launch. This content and data is currently being assessed and prioritized for integration into the new website.” Bray emphasized that the site is tailored to smartphone and tablet use. The FCC last made major changes to the website in 2011, to widespread complaints from industry (see 1106060097). Bray said the new website was developed based on interviews and other research. It recognizes the site isn't used the same way by all users, he said. “We learned typical website users do not come to FCC.gov to browse content; they want to get the information they are looking for quickly and in as few clicks as possible,” he said. “Practitioners use the website daily and prefer ‘cut and dry’ information. General consumers prefer informational content on a broad range of topics.” The FCC has already put a version of the prototype online, complete with a Twitter feed on the agency's main webpage.

While 82.5 percent of homes with school-age children have broadband access, 5 million such households don't, Pew Research Center said in a report released Monday. “Low-income households -- and especially black and Hispanic ones -- make up a disproportionate share of that 5 million,” Pew said. “Roughly one-third (31.4 percent) of households whose incomes fall below $50,000 and with children ages 6 to 17 do not have a high-speed internet connection at home.” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel flagged the report in a statement released Monday. “There was a time when doing basic schoolwork required no more than a little bit of quiet, a clear workspace, and a pencil,” she said. "No more. Today, 7 in 10 teachers assign homework that requires Internet access. Kids may be connected in the classroom, but if they are disconnected at home getting basic schoolwork done is hard.”

The eighth meeting of the Advisory Committee for the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) will be May 20 at 11 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room, the FCC said in a public notice Thursday in docket 04-286. The WRC-15 Advisory Committee will review status reports and recommendations from Informal Working Groups, the commission said. Comments can be sent in advance of the meeting by emailing WRC-15@fcc.gov.

On April 19, 1965, three years before co-founding Intel, Gordon Moore put forward what became Moore’s Law, predicting that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit would double roughly every 24 months. In recognition of the 50-year anniversary of Moore’s Law, Intel Product Evangelist Ryan Tabrah said in a blog post that Moore’s projection became a layman’s explanation of the "exponential" introduction of new devices and technology over the past 50 years. Putting Moore’s comment into historical perspective, Tabrah noted that at the time the computer mouse was still a prototype; DRAM hadn’t yet been invented; development of Arpanet, forerunner to the Internet, hadn’t begun and no one had received a Ph.D. in computer science. Moore said the theory wasn’t about technical hurdles but about the associated economics, and Tabrah reminded engineers and developers that economics should inform the way the industry views the IoT market and “the eventuality of technology.” Competition, advancements in technology, and scale will automatically provide more affordable and smaller computing devices, he said. Those devices will continue to become less about “nice to have” and “more of a vehicle, forcefully driving human advancement and raising the standard of living for everyone on earth,” Tabrah said. Recalling the anniversary of Moore’s Law, Tabrah urged tech society “to think about how we use these economies of scale.” With the much-anticipated Apple Watch on pre-sale, Tabrah referred to “everyday technology enthusiasts struggling to get the latest digital watch that costs more than most people in the world make in a week.” He urged enthusiasts to “take some time to pause and think about the rest of the world: how are most going to get clean water tomorrow, or survive tomorrow’s traffic as millions of people stress overloaded transportation infrastructures.” He said we should all try together to “create and extend computing technology to connect and enrich the lives of every person on earth,” which he called the “truly amazing legacy of Moore’s law.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he expected the “big dogs” to appeal the commission’s net neutrality order. It is “no surprise,” he said, during the press conference following the Friday FCC meeting. Allegations in the legal challenges that the FCC violated federal process also are no surprise, Wheeler said. “We feel very confident on both the processes that were followed and the conclusions that were reached,” he said. Wheeler also announced Friday that Gigi Sohn, who was a key player on net neutrality, is now counselor to the chairman. “Ms. Sohn will serve as the Chairman’s representative at a variety of public forums across the country,” the FCC said. “She will also continue her role as an advisor to the Chairman and a principal contact for third-party stakeholders in the Office of the Chairman.” Sohn was CEO of Public Knowledge 2001-2013. Also joining the chairman’s office is Emmaka Porchea-Veneszee, as special and confidential assistant. She was formerly executive assistant to the executive director of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. Wheeler was on that board before becoming chairman of the FCC.

Alison Neplokh was named the FCC’s deputy chief technologist, said an agency news release Thursday. Neplokh will be based in the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, working on “complex and cross-cutting technical issues,” the release said. She’ll remain chief engineer with the Media Bureau and manage the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee, according to the agency. Neplokh has been with the FCC since 2002, primarily working in the Media Bureau on issues like the incentive auction, open Internet and the DTV transition. She also was an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the agency said. Rosenworcel in a separate release said Neplokh’s “institutional knowledge, technical know-how, and background in both electrical and computer engineering make her an excellent choice.”