Jimm Phillips

The BroadbandUSA initiative under the NTIA’s auspices uses the agency’s experience with the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) “and brings that skill set to share with communities around the country to help them with the issues they’re facing to ensure” they can improve their broadband access, Douglas Kinkoph, acting associate administrator of the Office of Telecommunications and Information Applications, said in an interview. The White House announced the BroadbandUSA initiative Wednesday as part of its package of plans to improve access to affordable high-speed broadband. President Barack Obama also declared his support for ending state laws that restrict municipal broadband deployments as part of that plan (see 1501140048). BroadbandUSA is “a continuation in some ways of NTIA’s mission of always pushing and helping in the broadband space, but we’re not funding this time,” Kinkoph said Thursday. “We’re providing expertise and sharing it on a no-cost basis.” New NTIA grants would have required legislation from Congress, and the White House emphasized that its new broadband plan would focus on initiatives that didn’t require Congress. NTIA’s BTOP experience means it has “expertise that cuts across infrastructure, broadband mapping, broadband adoption, digital inclusion and public access,” which can all be integrated into advice the agency can provide to local communities, said Laura Breeden, program director-public computing and broadband adoption.

President Barack Obama declared his support Wednesday for ending state laws that restrict or prohibit municipal broadband deployments and said he would file a letter with the FCC urging the commission to use its authority to remove barriers to local broadband deployments, as expected (see 1501130067). “I believe a community has the right to make its own choice” on deploying broadband free from state restrictions, Obama said in a speech in Cedar Falls, Iowa, which has a municipal broadband network. He said “all of us,” including the FCC, “should do everything we can to push back on those old laws.”

The White House advanced new proposals on cybersecurity Tuesday ahead of President Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 State of the Union speech, releasing further details about legislative proposals on information sharing, cybercrime and grants for cybersecurity education at historically black colleges. The set of proposals partially mirrors aspects of the White House’s May 2011 cybersecurity legislative proposals. Obama plans to make cybersecurity a major focus in his State of the Union speech, as he has in previous years.

President Barack Obama will declare his support Wednesday for FCC pre-emption of state laws restricting municipal broadband and will file a letter with the agency in support of pre-emption, said National Economic Council Director Jeff Zients on a call Tuesday with reporters. The commission is currently considering whether to pre-empt laws in North Carolina and Tennessee in response to petitions filed by the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the city of Wilson, North Carolina. Obama is expected to announce his support for FCC pre-emption during a speech in Cedar Falls, Iowa, as part of a proposal to increase access to affordable high-speed broadband, Zients said. The administration “is making its view clear,” as it did when Obama announced his support for Communications Act Title II reclassification in November (see 1411100035), Zients said.

The Missouri House’s HB-437 is the latest “attempt to erect barriers to the deployment of broadband networks,” the Coalition for Local Internet Choice said Monday. The bill, introduced Thursday, would bar any municipality from offering broadband or other competitive services unless the municipality already offers the service, a private company isn’t offering the service within the municipality’s boundaries, the service would have an annual fiscal impact of less than $100,000 or a majority of voters approve the service offering. “It is ironic that while the International CES show in Las Vegas spotlighted hundreds of new devices and applications that require big bandwidth, legislation would be introduced in Missouri that would impair the development of networks that enable that bandwidth,” CLIC said in a statement. HB-437 “is about fairness,” Rep. Rocky Miller, the Republican who sponsored the bill, emailed us. “This bill is meant to even the playing field and eliminate socialized/non-commercial services provided by municipalities. I simply want to vote to allow for my city to provide a service if that service is already being provided by another company.” Miller said the bill would prevent “unfair competition” and still lets municipalities offer services if voters approve them. Missouri law restricts all political subdivisions from providing certain telecom services but exempts 911 and “Internet-type” services.

President Barack Obama’s proposal for improving cybersecurity information sharing will center on a plan to work with the private sector to expand the nation's information sharing apparatus, two industry officials who attended White House briefings on the proposals told us Monday. Obama is to discuss cybersecurity information sharing during a speech Tuesday at the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC).

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., reintroduced the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) Friday, but a new year and a new session of Congress hasn’t substantially changed the bill’s prospects for enactment, industry lawyers and lobbyists told us. Ruppersberger cited North Korea’s December data breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment as the impetus for his early reintroduction of the bill, saying in a statement that “we must stop dealing with cyber attacks after the fact.” The version of CISPA for the 114th Congress (HR-234) is a near facsimile of the version the House passed during the 113th Congress (see report in April 19, 2013, issue). The Senate didn’t vote on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), which was substantially similar to CISPA, before the 113th Congress adjourned in December.

FairPoint Communications continued negotiations Monday with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) to end a monthslong strike in northern New England, though none of the parties would say how the talks are progressing. More than 1,700 FairPoint workers affiliated with the CWA and IBEW have been on strike since mid-October in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont over what the workers view as unacceptable conditions included in a new FairPoint contract proposal. FairPoint is also contending with related broadband and wireline service quality issues in New Hampshire and Vermont that have attracted state governments’ scrutiny.

Sony said its PlayStation Network was “back online” Sunday, after a multiday outage resulting from a Christmas Day distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the system. Hack activist group Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for the DDoS attack, which also downed Microsoft’s Xbox Live network. Sony Entertainment Vice President Catherine Jensen confirmed in a blog post that a DDoS attack caused the PlayStation Network outage, saying the network “and some other gaming services were attacked over the holidays with artificially high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity and online gameplay.”

Lawmakers in California and Florida bowed legislation this month to overhaul ethics rules within their states’ utility regulatory commissions in response to recent controversies. Both the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) have faced similar legislation before. This time, legislators have shied away from focusing on provisions to reform state revolving door laws related to the private sector. Public interest advocates who continue to support strengthening revolving door laws say they believe strengthening existing laws can be difficult.