An interesting phenomenon occurred during yesterday’s hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet “How Internet Protocol-Enabled Services Are Changing the Face of Communications: A Look at Video and Data Services.”
Issues presented by the panel to the Subcommittee -- which included representatives from two telcos, a large and a small cable company, a broadcaster and a software media provider -- essentially grew in size and complexity as the panel went down the line. While one might think that complications might be expected in a Telecom Act rewrite, it’s another thing altogether to absorb what the various industry sectors want from Congress, which, in one case, would seem to be nothing at all.
Testimonies of the panelists and an archived hearing webcast may be found on the Subcommittee’s webpage.
The FCC has posted documents from the first meeting of the Technological Advisory Council (TAC) under its renewed charter. The first meeting was held April 15, 2005, and focused on wireless device security and strategic challenges for cybersecurity.
The purpose of the TAC is to provide technical advice to the FCC, and to make recommendations on the issues and questions posed to the TAC by the FCC. Ciena’s Steve Alexander has been appointed to the TAC by the FCC.
The Public Notice and Agenda, detailed Agenda, and presentations may be found on the FCC’s website at http://www.fcc.gov/oet/tac/meetings_2004-2005.html.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recently announced worldwide broadband figures, with the US falling from 13th in the world to 16th, calculated on the basis of penetration per 100 inhabitants as of January 1, 2005.
While Korea, Hong Kong and China remain atop the list from 2004, the fall in rankings by the US has the potential to be used for political ends to criticize US telecommunications policies, particularly with respect to broadband deployment. In other words, you're probably going to hear about it again, given that revising telecom regulations is currently the subject of considerable debate in the 109th Congress.
While there has been some criticism of the FCC's approach in a series of rulings affecting broadband over the past several years, in part dealing with the role of the states, the FCC was concerned with establishing a "national framework" and "regulatory certainty" and "promot[ing] consistency in federal and state regulations" in 1999, and not everyone was happy with the rules back then.
One conclusion that may fall into the "Highlights of the Fairly Obvious" category: that this potentially politically charged statistic is most likely to be used by those critical of the current regulatory approach, given that the numbers would appear to be going in the right direction, as it were, for the purposes of argument.
