Broadband
FCC Chief Says Broadband Deployment Is Top Priority
     The continued development and rollout of high-speed Internet access will be the "No. 1 priority" for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, he said this week in an interview with National Journal's Technology Daily. "Making sure that all consumers have the opportunity and are connected to those advanced telecommunications services increases productivity, allows more overall economic growth, makes it easier for people to do work from home, take medical information to and from home [and] communicate and gather information in all kinds of ways," Martin said. "It affects the way that we entertain ourselves, the way that we educate our children, the way that we work," he said. "I think that the opportunity for the growth of individuals and for our society by increasing that connectiveness through broadband is critical, so I think that is our No. 1 priority." In the interview, one of his first since he became chairman, Martin also highlighted the importance of public safety telecommunications issues such as emergency 911 communications.

Digital Television
Panel Chairman To Attach Bill To Budget Package
     The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has said that he plans in September to attach legislation providing a fixed date for the end of analog television broadcasting to the budget reconciliation package. Speaking at a hearing on draft legislation setting Dec. 31, 2008 as the "hard date" for the completion of the transition to digital television, Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, said he was open to negotiation on almost all aspects of the measure -- except that date. Barton said his decision to attach the bill after it has passed the committee to the annual reconciliation package was driven by budgetary considerations.

Digital Television
Devil Is In The Details On DTV Transition Bill
     Debate about draft legislation to end analog television broadcasting on Dec. 31, 2008, centered not on the date but on implementation details regarding its likely impact upon consumers, cable companies, broadcasters and consumer electronics companies. For members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, the crux of the debate at a hearing was how to design a program ensuring that over-the-air households receive free or low-cost "converter boxes" to view digital television on existing TVs. None spoke against the need for setting a fixed date. For the private-sector interests on the other side of the witness table, the key questions were when to require all television sets to include digital tuners and what kind of flexibility cable companies will enjoy when it comes to "downconverting" digital television broadcasts so that analog television viewers will still be able to see them.

Broadband
U.S. Drops Two Spots On OECD Broadband Ranking
     Last year, the United States dropped from 10th place to 12th place in a per-capita ranking of developed nations with high-speed Internet access, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). High-speed Internet services in the United States are growing steadily, at almost exactly the average of the 30 countries within the OECD. Of all residents, 12.8 percent of Americans had broadband in December 2004 compared with 24.9 percent in world-leader South Korea and 19 percent in runner-up the Netherlands. The dip in U.S. position was expected. In April, the International Telecommunication Union reported that the U.S. global broadband penetration rate dropped from 13th place to 16th place among 175 nations. Those rankings line up with the more select group of developed nations in the OECD.

Telecom
Internet Telephony Firms See Challenges In E911 Order
     Technology companies that facilitate Internet telephone calling have said that meeting the enhanced emergency 911 requirements imposed last week by the FCC will be challenging. "There is a significant amount of infrastructure that we are going to have to put in place," said Jon Cummings of Vonage, speaking at a Capitol Hill roundtable about how voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) companies like his own can meet the FCC's requirement to facilitate E911 calling within 120 days of a finalized order. Cummings said there was much work that needed to be done, such as installing physical wires that connect Vonage customers to more than 6,000 Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) where emergency responders take calls and linking up to the "selective routers" that Bell companies use to pass cellular calls to PSAPs. The Internet telephony firms also must establish working relationships with hundreds of rural telecommunications carriers over high-speed Internet services.

E-Government
Lawmakers Grill FBI Chief Over Virtual Case File System
     The Justice Department needs a more thorough oversight plan for its information systems overhaul, and Congress might play a larger role in that process, the chairman of a Senate appropriations subcommittee has said. "I expect results, and I will do everything I can to ensure that there is congressional oversight for" the FBI's Virtual Case File system, said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who heads the new Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee. Like the other senators on the panel, Shelby expressed dismay at the failure of the FBI to successfully upgrade its digital case-management system, and he called for more accountability in Congress and within the agency to follow up. He also told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he should ensure that all the systems under development within the Justice Department are interoperable. After many delays over five years and $170 million, FBI Director Robert Mueller in March said the agency is abandoning its department-wide implementation of the electronic filing system. It has embarked on building a new system called Sentinel.

Security
GAO: Still Not Enough Work On Cyber Security
     Though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made strides in its cyber security efforts, the agency has not adequately addressed any of its key responsibilities in that area, an assertion the agency disputed, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). GAO praised DHS for establishing a computer emergency readiness team with stakeholders from the public and private sectors, as well as for setting up information sharing forums for federal and law enforcement officials. The department, however, has failed to address in full any of its 13 responsibilities, including the development of a national plan for critical infrastructure protection and identifying cyber threats and vulnerabilities, the GAO said.

Antitrust
Analysts Say Telecom Mergers Must Consider Antitrust Concerns
     Approval of the two current major mergers between Verizon Communications and MCI and SBC Communications and AT&T must have provisions addressing divestiture and anti-competitive conduct, an economist has told an antitrust analysis group. "The telecommunications mega-mergers -- AT&T/SBC and Verizon/MCI -- pose a unique and serious threat to competition," said Jonathan Rubin, a senior research fellow at the American Antitrust Institute. "The proposed mergers promise to entrench SBC and Verizon as vertically integrated monopolists possessed of remarkable market power allocated between two well-defined geographic markets." In other news, Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle has announced his resignation after nearly eight years of outspoken support for free-market solutions to online privacy and information security threats. Swindle, a Republican, took the position in 1997 under President Clinton. He will leave the FTC June 30 and be succeeded by George Washington University law professor William Kovacic.