Telecom
FCC Orders Internet Phone Firms To Provide 911 Service
     All Internet phone services that connect to traditional telephones will be required to provide 911 emergency service to customers within 120 days, under an FCC order announced Thursday. The unanimous action, the first significant agency decision since Kevin Martin became chairman in March, sets the stage for an expensive and controversial scramble by voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) companies to retrofit their technologies to meet the mandate. The issue of whether or how to regulate Internet-based communications, including Internet telephone service, has been hotly debated at the FCC for more than a year. The order requires Internet services like Vonage -- defined as "interconnected VoIP providers" -- to deliver 911 calls directly to the customer's local emergency operator as a standard feature. Further, VoIP providers like Vonage must provide "enhanced" or E911 data, including call back and location information, when public safety answering points are capable of receiving such data. They also must inform new and existing customers of the limitations of their 911 service.

E-Commerce
High Court Strikes Down Ban On Interstate Wine Sales
     The Supreme Court has struck down laws in two states that forbid interstate wine sales, including Internet-based sales, calling the laws discriminatory. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that Michigan and New York laws that ban out-of-state wine shipments directly to residents of those states violate the Constitution's Commerce Clause. The court ruled that states have the authority to regulate in-state alcohol sales, as granted by the 21st Amendment, but states cannot discriminate between inter- and intrastate sales. "It is evident that the object and design of the Michigan and New York statutes is to grant in-state wineries a competitive advantage over wineries located beyond the states' borders," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. "The differential treatment between in-state and out-of-state wineries constitutes explicit discrimination against interstate commerce," he wrote, thus limiting emerging revenue streams. Kennedy pointed to technological improvements that enable wineries to sell wine over the Internet, which "have helped make direct shipments an attractive sales channel."

Telecom
Industry Offers Universal Service Reform Plan
     The cellular phone industry has announced plans to reform the "broken" Universal Service Fund (USF) and a system of payments between telecommunications carriers by effectively ripping up the current compensation framework and redirecting monies from the fund. The wireless association CTIA brings an aggressive voice to a debate that has more traditionally been dominated by the rural carriers and by the long-distance companies. The CTIA plan comes as the FCC is about to release a regulatory proceeding that could dramatically change the existing system of telecommunication industry payments. "The current systems rely on uneconomic distinctions between technologies, service providers and categories of traffic, encourage and reward inefficiency, and have unnecessary administrative complexity," Paul Garnett, CTIA's director of regulatory policy, said during a briefing on the plan. Rural companies benefit extensively from subsidies stemming from inter-carrier payments and from the USF, a federally-created fund designed to ensure universal telephone service.

Crime
FTC Commissioner Blasts Firms For Lax Data Control
     A member of the FTC has blasted companies for their lax data security practices, and said their boards should put more pressure on managers to do a better job of securing customer information. "Industry has been irresponsible, and someone's got to pay," said FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle. "Boards have to pay attention to this stuff. What we're really talking about is a failure to protect currency." In referring to "currency," Swindle was alluding to a speech delivered by Secret Service Director Ralph Basham earlier during a mid-day forum on global cyber crime. At the event organized by the Business Software Alliance and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Basham said information is the world's new currency, and industry and the private sector need to take steps to protect it and to aggressively investigate intrusions. Swindle said Congress' current obsession with attacking the explosion in identity theft was misplaced. Swindle also said he suspected companies never make assertions about how they secure their data because they have been advised by their lawyers to stay silent for fear of legal liability.

Lobbying
Senate Democrats' High-Tech Group Announces Agenda
     Senate Democrats have unveiled a technology agenda that calls for improved innovation and competitiveness, expanded broadband deployment and enhancing healthcare information technology. The Senate Democrat High Tech Working Group is co-chaired by Maria Cantwell of Washington and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. During a meeting at the Capitol, the member senators met with business executives from Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and several high-tech industry lobby groups. They discussed research and development (R&D) funding and healthcare IT, according to several sources who attended the meeting. High on the group's list of priorities are sustained public and private investments in R&D, a permanent R&D tax credit, establishing the United States as a leader in clean energy, more money for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, improving science and math education, and promoting international trade for technology goods.

Science
U.S. Lead On Nanotech Coming Under Pressure
     While the United States is currently the leader in nanotechnology research and development, that position is under increasing competitive pressure from other countries, according to the final version of a report released Wednesday by the President's Council on Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). "On the whole, the report is very encouraging," House Science Research Subcommittee Chairman Bob Inglis, R-S.C., said during a hearing on the report. "But one of the things I find troubling is that other countries are catching up, and not just in funding." Nanotechnology is the study of matter at the atomic and nuclear levels. Though President Bush's nanotech funding request for fiscal 2006 was down $27 million from last year and falls below authorization levels, federal investment in the sector has more than doubled over the last five years.

Trade
U.S. Urged To Take Action To Maintain Competitive Edge
     While the Bush administration has been fighting the war on terrorism, China and India have catapulted themselves into the world economy, and economists and a key lawmaker say it is time for the United States to go on the offensive to maintain its competitive global edge. "Our policy is increasingly divorced of reality" of how to meet the challenges globalization presents, said Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., at a Progressive Policy Institute discussion on the rise of Asia. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman also discussed his new book on the globalization phenomenon, "The World is Flat." While the United States was not looking, the global economic playing field was leveled, Friedman said. Events that led to the great dot-com boom have coalesced, creating a global platform for competition. Friedman said these events include the commercialization of the Internet browser, interoperable computer applications, outsourcing, off-shoring, open-sourcing, the Wal-Mart supply-chain business model, in-sourcing, and informing.