Jimm Phillips

FirstNet should expand its proposed categorical exclusions (CEs) from National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) assessments, Nokia Solutions and Networks and PCIA said in comments released Monday. The Department of the Interior (DOI) urged FirstNet to revise the proposed CEs to reflect DOI policies on migratory birds. FirstNet had sought public comment on the proposed CEs, which it said in the Federal Register “do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment and, thus, should be categorically excluded from the requirement to prepare an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement.” Comments were due Wednesday (CD Jan 8 p10).

The House Homeland Security Committee unanimously approved the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (HR-3696) Wednesday, advancing the bill to the full House. The bill, supported by both parties’ committee leadership, would codify the Department of Homeland Security’s existing public-private collaboration on cybersecurity issues without extending the agency’s powers. The bill would also allow critical infrastructure companies to seek liability protections under the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act (SAFETY) Act for cybersecurity efforts.

Federal agencies remain underprepared to defend their own information systems against most cyberthreats, said Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee Tuesday. Committee Republicans, led by ranking member Tom Coburn, R-Okla., released a report outlining “real lapses by the federal government” on internal cybersecurity, even as the government has taken on a larger role in protecting the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure components. Cybersecurity experts told us that federal agencies need to improve their own cybersecurity, but said the report doesn’t give a complete picture of the situation, and risks politicizing the cybersecurity issue.

Frontier Communications’ $2 billion purchase of AT&T’s Connecticut wireline business is unlikely to mean major telcos are prepared to sell off similar statewide assets en masse, said industry experts in interviews. But they said telcos could consider similar deals in the future if it makes sense from a business perspective. Frontier said in December it’s buying AT&T’s wireline residential and business services in Connecticut, including that state’s portion of AT&T’s fiber network, as well as its U-verse video customers and some satellite-TV customers. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2014 (CD Dec 18 p9).

The FCC circulated Wednesday night a draft program comment it plans to submit to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) that seeks to streamline the FCC’s review process for wayside poles that railroads are building for the positive train control (PTC) safety system. The draft would also exempt some PTC infrastructure from review (http://bit.ly/1ffJpho). The FCC began developing the program comment last year amid railroads’ concerns they wouldn’t be able to meet Congress’s mandate to complete work on PTC infrastructure by Dec. 31, 2015. The railroads were concerned the existing preview process under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act would not be able to expeditiously clear each of the more than 20,000 poles in time to meet the deadline (CD Dec 19 p2). An FCC official told us the railroads have “essentially agreed” that the rules in the program comment would create a timeline that “works for them to get everything into our system, reviewed by the tribes and the states and still allow them to get everything constructed by the statutory deadline."

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) plans to “begin a multistakeholder dialogue” in early March on how to improve the notice-and-takedown system instituted as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), said PTO Chief Policy Officer and Director of International Affairs Shira Perlmutter during a speech Wednesday. The multistakeholder consultation on notice and takedown was one of several recommendations PTO included in a green paper on Internet-related copyright policy issues it released in July (http://1.usa.gov/1bySZcG).

The year 2014 “may well be a watershed year for the multistakeholder model of Internet policy making,” and the U.S. plans to continue to continue defending the model while encouraging it to evolve, said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling during a speech Tuesday. Strickling and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy Daniel Sepulveda said at the State of the Net conference that multistakeholder bodies that have governed Internet processes need to evolve to become more inclusive of stakeholders in the developing world.

Net neutrality advocates said the best way for the FCC to reinstate a nondiscrimination rule for broadband ISPs -- akin to the rule the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit just struck down -- was to reclassify broadband Internet as a Title II service. Reclassification is one of several options the FCC could take to regroup on net neutrality following the D.C. Circuit’s Tuesday ruling (WID Jan 15 p1), though other non-prescriptive measures could also work, the advocates and other industry experts said Friday during a Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee event.

The House Cybersecurity Subcommittee cleared the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act Wednesday, sending HR-3696 on to the full House Homeland Security Committee. The bill, which had the support of both Republican and Democratic committee leaders, would codify the Department of Homeland Security’s existing public-private collaboration on cybersecurity, but would not give the agency new powers. It would also allow new liability protections for companies that deploy anti-terrorism technology to also deploy cybersecurity tech. The subcommittee cleared HR-3696 with multiple amendments, including two that dealt with concerns stemming from recent data breaches at Target and other national retailers.

Top U.S. wireless carriers Verizon Wireless and AT&T told the FCC it should move forward with its original proposal to license the 600 MHz band and AWS-3 spectrum based on Economic Areas, rather than adopt the Competitive Carriers Association’s alternate proposal to license the spectrum based on Partial Economic Areas (PEAs). The PEAs, as proposed by CCA, would essentially be a subdivision of EAs and would be based on EA and Cellular Market Areas (CMA). The FCC had sought public input on the CCA proposal, which also has support from other rural carriers, and comments were posted online Thursday and Friday.