Despite this week’s passage of broadband mapping legislation, which is a critical first step in developing a national broadband policy, the much larger issue on everyone’s mind in Washington right now is on negotiating the terms of emergency legislation to stabilize the U.S. financial system.
Today, USTelecom President Walter McCormick sent a letter to members of Congress calling on them to act expeditiously on the matter. “Failure to act will jeopardize not just the financial industry,” McCormick wrote, “but also the telecommunications industry and our customers.” Noting the substantial contribution of the broadband industry to the U.S. economy, McCormick continued, “This investment on broadband represents 20% of the nation’s overall private sector investment. This investment in our future - and the productivity enhancements and improvements to the quality of life that it provides - is being put at risk by Congressional inaction.”For the sake of USTelecom’s members, their customers, and the economy, McCormick concludes, “We ask that Congress support bipartisan Congressional leadership efforts to stabilize the nation’s financial markets. It is imperative that you act responsibly, and act now.”
Our second annual Executive Business Forum–this year focusing on “Disruptive Technology, Demanding Consumers and Your Broadband Future“—kicks off today in San Jose. The schedule starts this afternoon with a special tour of Google’s Silicon Valley campus, offered as an exclusive benefit to telecom carriers and service providers attending the Forum. Over the rest of the week, attendees will hear from a number of distinguished speakers on the agenda, representing many companies and covering a range of topics, including lessons learned from non-US IPTV deployments, IPTV content acquisition and delivery, management and operations in a changing industry, leveraging IPTV services to generate new sources of revenue through advertising, and much more. With featured speeches from representatives of some of the industry’s leaders—including Windstream President and CEO Jeff Gardner, as well as AT&T’s Chris Boyer and Verizon’s Link Hoewing—attendees are sure to leave the Executive Business Forum with a new understanding of the potential of broadband and new technologies to meet evolving customer needs and to expand your business.
Following passage in the House of Representatives on Monday, yesterday the Senate passed S. 1492, the “Broadband Data Improvement Act,” known more generally as broadband mapping legislation. The bill updates the FCC’s broadband data collection standards and authorizes the Department of Commerce to undertake a program of public-private partnerships to increase broadband deployment and adoption. Lauding Congress’s approval of the bill, USTelecom President and CEO Walter B. McCormick stated:
We are very pleased that Congress has acted on this critical legislation that will increase broadband adoption and bring broadband service to underserved and unserved parts of the country. As this legislation acknowledges, using public-private partnerships to accelerate investment and deployment depends on accurate broadband mapping and effective targeting of resources.
USTelecom is pleased to have played a role—through Congressional testimony, work with various members of Congress and their staffs, and advocacy—in the ongoing effort to bring about broadband mapping legislation, which is a critical first step in developing a comprehensive national broadband policy.
Several barriers stand in the way of more widespread, mass-market femtocell deployments, according to a recent survey of service provider professionals by Heavy Reading, with the two greatest obstacles being a lack of standardization and the potential for interference with the macro network. However, responses to the survey also indicated that 87% of respondents plan to launch femtocell services in the coming years, with 54% planning to launch by the end of 2010. Although there is interest in using femtocell deployments to offer consumers new in-home services, the survey indicated that the primary goal of femtocell service is simply to improve basic voice coverage. Carriers are also debating whether customers should bear some of the costs of buying their own femtocell hardware. Each femtocell can cost several hundred dollars for a typical household, and consumers aren’t exactly ready to go out and buy another gadget to configure and maintain.
As speeds go up and prices go down, the digital divide continues to shrink, thanks to the tens of billions of dollars invested in our nation’s communications infrastructure each year. The goal of a fully connected nation is closer than ever. For a closer look at how we’re doing in our efforts to increase broadband deployment, adoption, and education, don’t miss the newest installment of Broadband Now:
While e-health technologies drive down the cost of health care-with some estimates predicting an average annual savings from health IT of almost $81 billion over 15 years-service and hardware revenues for digital health technologies to monitor and care for elderly patients could climb as high as $1.8 billion by 2013, according to Parks Associates. Technologies contributing to that revenue growth include devices that can monitor vital signs, track locations and activities, and measure fitness progress.
For more facts about health care and broadband, check out our E-Health fact sheet. Some highlights:
One remote health monitoring study showed that effort resulted in a 40 percent cut in emergency room visits and a 63 percent reduction in hospital admissions.
Health IT could eliminate around 200,000 adverse drug events at a national savings of $1 billion annually.
Broadband-based monitoring could cut medical costs for senior citizens by about 30 percent.
Also, be on the lookout in the coming weeks for our next edition of Broadband Now, which is all about the ways broadband is improving our lives through better access to medical care.
Over the last few months, TelephonyOnline has been running a series on how the telecom industry is implementing various environmental initiatives. So far, the series has highlighted the efforts of specific companies to cover everything from company wide initiatives to lower power VoIP equipment to home automation services to solar powered data centers.
The newest in the series, which was released today, suggests that the next step for companies who have already made some changes to cut costs and increase energy efficiency may be adopting a comprehensive approach to the goal of reducing energy consumption. The article looks at a plan incorporating 12 strategies that “addresses existing network inefficiencies and spells out actions required to save energy in each case.”
Of course, telecom companies are also helping others go green. With the high-speed broadband connections our companies provide, millions of customers are reducing their energy consumption too. For more on how broadband helps our environment and reduces our energy needs, check out our “10 Ways Broadband Can Help Change the World.”
Today, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce marked-up H.R. 3402, the Calling Card Consumer Protection Act. The goal of the bill—providing consumers with “clear and conspicuous” information disclosure about pre-paid calling cards—is certainly a worthwhile objective, but the problem is that the bill as passed by the Committee contains provisions that are likely to result in consumer confusion and higher costs.
Yesterday afternoon, USTelecom CEO Walter McCormick sent a letter to Reps. John Dingell (D – Mich.) and Joe Barton (R – Tex.), the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the committee outlining our concerns. Walter’s letter enumerated ways the bill’s goal of protecting consumers is undermined, including for example, a long and prescriptive list of disclosures that, under the approach contemplated in the bill, must appear on the calling cards themselves. He wrote:
Even if all these disclosures could fit onto a 2-by-3 inch calling card, as the bill requires, they would have to appear in a type size so small that the average consumer would derive little real benefit at all. Moreover, while it is clear from the two recent congressional hearings on this subject that the business practices of our membership in this area are not in question, the bill could subject telecom providers to duplicative and inconsistent regulation and enforcement from two different federal agencies and a multitude of state and local authorities.
In short, USTelecom wants to ensure that the legislation avoids duplicative FTC and FCC regulation and enforcement; inconsistent federal, state, and local enforcement regimes; and impractical disclosure requirements that are unfriendly to consumers.
As November’s elections draw nearer, the 110th Congress is working to finish up remaining legislative business before members head home to campaign. As we reported in last Friday’s Crossroads Express, several issues of interest to telecom companies remain on the table, including broadband mapping and regulatory forbearance. In our newest vidcast, we heard from USTelecom Vice President for Government Affairs Bill Deere about what to expect before Congress adjourns.
Tomorrow, I’m going to be taking part in the FCC’s Summit on Pandemic Preparedness here in Washington. According to the FCC, the summit will “focus on communications and coordination between the health care sector, first responders, government and the communications industry in preparation for a pandemic” and “highlight ways that communications may be expanded and enhance in response to a pandemic.”
I’ll be speaking on the second panel, which is at 11:30. We’ll be discussing ways the industry can remain operational during a pandemic in order to support response efforts from first responders, the health care industry, and government.
