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FCC preps a bipartisan bigfoot for cities and counties

12 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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But only the bad actors. Honest.

Local governments will have even less to say about how and where broadband infrastructure will be built. That was the clear and bipartisan message from two members of the Federal Communications Commission when they testified in front of a U.S. senate committee on Wednesday. Michael O’Rielly, who reliably takes conventional republican positions, went straight for the jugular…

Standing in the way of greater Internet access nationwide are barriers imposed by state, local, and tribal entities.

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Wikileaks shows there's no such thing as a top secret hack

11 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Not the latest version.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s guide to cracking is getting bad reviews from the tech community. Published earlier this week on Wikileaks, the thousands of files of internal documentation maintained by the CIA’s engineering development group are mostly openly available cook books and mundane advice on how not to get caught.

A story by Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica steps through some of it and concludes it amounts to an outdated “Malware 101” textbook…

It’s not clear how closely tool developers at the CIA followed the tradecraft advice in the leaked document—in part because they realized how dated some of the advice was.

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AT&T's national 911 wireless fail is business as usual

10 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Consider this your notification.

No one knows yet why AT&T’s mobile phone customers couldn’t connect with 911 centers on Wednesday night. AT&T refuses to explain and the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t know either, saying only that its “public safety professionals are on the case”. The extent of the outage is unknown as well, with reports varying from “nationwide” to “likely thousands. Maybe millions”.

It appears that AT&T let a few public safety agencies know about the outage, but not all and probably not most.… More

FCC is still the privacy police, even without common carrier rules

9 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Ajit Pai steered away from discussing the plans, or at least the intent, he has to roll back the Federal Communications Commission’s classification of broadband as a common carrier service during his first congressional appearance as chairman yesterday. But he did indicate that the FCC might not be washing its hands of all responsibility for regulating what Internet service providers do with private customer information.

His appearance in front of the U.S. senate’s commerce, science, and transportation committee came two days after he met with Donald Trump and a day after the news broke that the president had re-appointed him to another five year term on the commission.… More

Love or hate his agenda, but Pai makes good on transparency pledge

7 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Less than six weeks into his term as chairman, Ajit Pai is making significant, and welcome, reforms to the way the Federal Communications Commission does business. There’s plenty of room to take issue with the substance of some of the decisions that the new republican FCC majority has made, or plans to make, but the way it’s going about doing it is far more transparent than past practices were, including particularly those of recently departed chairman Tom Wheeler.… More

California bill tells telephone, cable companies to take rural 911 seriously

6 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Press 1 to pay your bill. If you’re having a heart attack, stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.

When broadband or phone service goes down in rural California, the last people to know are often the dispatchers at emergency 911 centers. When they do figure it out, there’s not much they can do about it except hope for the best. Such notification requirements that exist have thresholds that are set with urban areas in mind – hundreds of thousands of households, for example – and can leave rural communities in a telecoms black hole for hours or days on end.… More

Internet TV eclipsing satellite services, says Ergen

5 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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When one of satellite television’s great visionaries says that over-the-top (OTT) Internet delivery is the future of video, it’s worth taking him at his word. Charlie Ergen is the chairman and CEO of DISH Network, and the founder of EchoStar, a pioneering satellite TV manufacturer and distributor during the big dish days of the 1980s. According to a story by Daniel Frankel in FierceCable, Ergen believes that traditional linear television, the kind that DISH, DirecTv and cable companies sell, needs an overhaul if it’s going to remain a viable product…

Speaking to investment analysts and reporters during Dish’s fourth-quarter earnings call…Ergen said Dish had been “dragged into” this brand positioning by competitors such as AT&T’s DirecTV Now and Sony PlayStation Vue.

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Rosenworcel loses FCC nomination, again

4 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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For the second time, Jessica Rosenworcel is out of the running for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission. Donald Trump withdrew her nomination, which was re-submitted to congress by Barack Obama in the final days of his administration. It doesn’t appear to be personal. Her name was on a long list of last minute appointments made by Obama to various jobs throughout the federal government that Trump reversed in a batch – a common move when a new president takes office.… More

FCC scraps consumer privacy rules for ISPs

3 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Internet service providers won’t be held to a higher privacy standard. In a two to one party line vote, the Federal Communications Commission put consumer privacy rules it adopted in October on indefinite hold, and passed the buck over to the Federal Trade Commission. The new rules would have, for example, required ISPs to get affirmative, opt-in permission from customers before selling sensitive personal data, such as web browsing history.

In a joint statement, FCC chair Ajit Pai and (temporary) FTC chair Maureen Ohlhausen said consumer protection rules shouldn’t be in the FCC’s domain…

We still believe that jurisdiction over broadband providers’ privacy and data security practices should be returned to the FTC, the nation’s expert agency with respect to these important subjects.

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Broadband capacity crunch looms as 4K adoption accelerates

2 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Broadband hits the video wall.

On current trends, at least 25 million U.S. consumers will be watching ultra high definition video programming via 4K television sets within two years. That’s a very rough estimate, but if it’s off, it’s probably low. But let’s run with it for the moment.

It means that at least 20% of U.S. homes will be looking for 4K-quality video programming. Satellite is a natural source for it and cable companies will try to push some through as well.… More