Telecom Policy Report articles from August 2005

Telecom Policy Report archives from August 2005

Ensign's Senate Bill Offers Revamp Ideas; More Work Needed.
August 1, 2005... USF Attention, House Action Needed To Fill All Reform Gaps A proposed telecommunications-industry bill unveiled last week in the U.S. Senate appears to go a long way conceptually toward a sweeping revamp of federal deregulatory intent,...

Senators Unveil Another USF Bill.
August 1, 2005... The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) is lauding the just-before-we-leave-for-vacation telecom-reform legislation introduced by Sens. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). S.1583,...

TPR Special: Telecom Thinkers Assess The Ensign Bill.
August 1, 2005... There have been and will be plenty of third parties assessing Sen. John Ensign's BICCA legislation, but few were as prolific as the Progress and Freedom Foundation's Randolph J. May, a senior fellow and director of communications policy...

VoIP E911 Gathers Steam Among Regulators, Carriers.
August 1, 2005... VoIP service providers' enhanced 911 capabilities are in the limelight again as a series of developments on the matter drew attention to the pressure faced by regulators, carriers and industry to make good on a the FCC's tight deadline for...

New FCC NOI May Dull International 'Whipsaws'.
August 1, 2005... The FCC may be ready to open a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) concerning the effects of anti-competitive conduct and circuit disruption by foreign carriers on U.S-international routes that sometimes are called "whipsaw" acts in the trade. The...

FCC Hot Seats In Play, And The Candidates Change Daily.
August 1, 2005... At press time, speculation inside the Beltway is that there soon could be a complete panel of star players at the Federal Communications Commission. Suggestions are circulating that the White House will make public its nominations for the...

FCC Orders Telco-Cableco Broadband Parity.
August 8, 2005... Deregulating DSL Closes Open-Access Door After pushing its monthly meeting back by a day and some hours, the Federal Communications Commission late last week set into motion a series of long-expected controversial steps to deregulate...

BellSouth Gov't-Affairs Chief Sizes Up The USF Scene.
August 8, 2005... Despite all the talk about and attention paid to emerging competitors, cable company inroads and multiple service providers, much of the current regulatory and legislative debate on the state and federal levels remains focused on such...

Hill Bills, FCC Acts Reflect Capital's USF Sanctity.
August 8, 2005... The 11th-hour introduction of a U.S. Senate bill on applying the universal service fund (USF) to broadband deployment (TPR, Aug. 1, page 1) underscores how the FCC-mandated subsidy program appears to be a virtually untouchable if not a...

Indecency Critic Joins FCC Staff.
August 8, 2005... The FCC reportedly has hired a vocal critic of TV indecency as a special part-time advisor on broadcast/cable-related consumer and social issues in the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. Sources quote FCC aides as confirming...

FCC Modifies AWS Spectrum Rules.
August 8, 2005... Besides the high-profile wireline broadband deregulation decision, the FCC's other major action last week was to change spectrum allocation and market entry conditions for the 90 megahertz of RF blocks that could be auctioned next year for...

Telco Video Franchise Bill At Texas Crossroads.
August 15, 2005... The Texas Legislature's passage of a bill allowing state-wide video franchising clearly is a victory of incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) Internet Protocol television (IPTV) plans over cable TV interests, yet there are ponderables...

Fiber Group Urges Video Franchise, Muni Net Support.
August 15, 2005... Early last week, shortly before the Texas Legislature acted on telco video franchising (see related story in this issue), the Fiber-to-the-Home Council (FTTH) weighed in on what it called "the two major barriers to next generation broadband...

Nuvio Appeals VoIP E911 Deadline.
August 15, 2005... At press time, Overland Park, Kan.-based Nuvio Corporation, a provider of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, filed an appeal of the FCC's order requiring VoIP providers to make E911 available to their customers nationwide by the...

Laggard IPv6 Standard Gets An OMB 'Policy' Boost.
August 15, 2005... Federal policy-making normally is associated with legislation and regulation or often even attributed to the power of taxpayer-based grants and subsidiary programs. But segments of the government and industry data communications community...

U.S. Funds Sought For Security R&D.
August 15, 2005... The latest round of pocketbook policy-making has the Bush administration and lawmakers being urged to pay more budget attention to funding programs on cyber security concerns. The Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA) recently urged the...

Canada Weighs Telecom Options In One Fell Swoop.
August 22, 2005... The Canadian government is in the midst of a broad review of telecom regulation that, in many ways, parallels the current U.S. debate, although the major effort north of the border targets potential all-encompassing decisions on regulatory...

Telstra Mirrors BT For Retail/Wholesale Split.
August 22, 2005... Australian legislators during the next few weeks will weigh a telecom- restructuring proposal hammered out by the national administration to split national incumbent Telstra into separate wholesale and retail operating units, to divest the...

Update: FCC Denies 'Whipsaw' Appeal, Moves Elsewhere.
August 22, 2005... The Federal Communications Commission last week disposed of a Philippine appeal of its 2004 decision on foreign carriers' alleged international route- blocking retaliation or "whipsaw" practices against U.S. service providers. Instead, the...

Transitioning The Current E911 System To IP.
August 22, 2005... A consortium of Internet Protocol (IP)-based communications services and applications providers has teamed with a Columbia University professor to make a series of suggestions to the Federal Communications Commission on the development of a...

Federal-State Joint Board Eyes New USF Rules.
August 22, 2005... The Federal Communications Commission's Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service seeks comment on various internally proposed modifications or reforms to the universal service fund's "high-cost" program for eligible telecommunications...

'Broadband Principles' Eye IP User/Vendor Self-Control.
August 29, 2005... A set of "broadband principles" articulated by one industry group suggests the deregulation direction taking shape among federal policy makers for all Internet Protocol (IP)-based services is likely to require more self discipline, more...

Everyone On The Bus: Telecom Elite Boost Rural Broadband Morale.
August 29, 2005... It may not be entirely surprising but, while visiting his home state of South Dakota last week, FCC Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein apparently said and did a lot to boost the morale of rural communities and telecom users about the future...

VoIP Carriers Breathe Easier Re: User 911 Notices.
August 29, 2005... The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) late last week topped off several days of distinct 911-related developments by giving voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers for the second time another 30-day reprieve on proving...

DOT Maps Out FY07 Next-Gen 911 Initiative.
August 29, 2005... An emerging U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) initiative on next- generation 911 (NG911) envisions a federally promoted program through fiscal year 2007 enabling transmission of voice, data or video from different types of communication...