Seven Rockland, New York, residents were arrested Wednesday, accused of a multiyear scheme to defraud the E-rate program, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Between 2009 and 2016, the seven applied for $35 million in E-rate funding and received $14 million, prosecutors alleged. Simon Goldbrener, Ben Klein, Peretz Klein, Susan Klein, Aron Melber, Moshe Schwartz and Sholem Steinberg, who were vendors, consultants and yeshiva school officials, were charged with fraud. “As alleged, for years, these defendants stole money from the E‑rate program, billing the E-rate program for equipment and services which were not in fact provided,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. “The defendants allegedly fraudulently obtained millions of dollars in E rate funds to which they were not entitled, and which should lawfully have been spent to help provide access to technology to educate underprivileged children.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai tweeted he's grateful prosecutors are clamping down on E-rate fraud.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau established a pleading cycle on two Sprint petitions on IP captioned telephone service rules (see 1807300022 and 1807100066). Oppositions are due Sept. 7, replies Sept. 17 on dockets including 13-24, CGB said.
The FY 2019 fees for telemarketers accessing lists of phone numbers on the National Do-Not-Call Registry are going up slightly, the FTC said Monday. It said telemarketers will pay $63 for yearly access to lists of Registry phone numbers in a single area code, up $1 from FY 2018, up to a maximum charge of $17,406 for all area codes nationwide -- an increase from the $17,021 maximum in FY 2018.
DOJ and the FTC created email addresses for filing written notifications on the National Cooperative Research and Production Act, Justice said Monday. Notifications to NCRPAnotifications@usdoj.gov for DOJ and NCRPAnotifications@ftc.gov for the FTC.
The FCC and an employee alleging she was penalized after complaining about a hostile work environment in the Office of Communications Business Opportunities (see 1606010060) could come to a settlement agreement within the next 30 days, or should know by then if a settlement isn't achievable, the agency and plaintiff Sharon Stewart said in a docket 15-cv-00057-CKK joint status report (in Pacer) Friday.
Applicants to the 911 grant program must submit by Sept. 10 an initial package including identifying a designated 911 coordinator and required certification, NTIA said Friday. “Once applicants have submitted their initial application, NHTSA and NTIA will publish preliminary funding allocations for each of the States or Tribal Organizations meeting the certification requirements on www.grants.gov.” Revised 911 grant program rules took effect earlier this month (see 1808020021).
Questions remain about the best strategy for bringing broadband to rural America and whether subsidies are the answer, American Enterprise Institute scholar Bret Swanson blogged Thursday. “Federal and state programs designed to subsidize rural broadband deployment have done some good over the past 20 years,” he wrote. “And the US, contrary to much conventional wisdom, actually leads the world in most broadband categories. Yet the dilemma remains: Just how much money should we spend and in what format, or what other incentives can we design, to most effectively extend access to the last few percentage of the population?” For decades, the U.S. population has been shifting to urban areas where broadband is nearly ubiquitous, Swanson said. “What’s the right way to think about serving a shrinking proportion of Americans in high-cost geographies?”
AT&T said it wrapped buying cybersecurity company AlienVault. With the acquisition (see 1807100006), the new AT&T cybersecurity business division will be led by AlienVault CEO Barmak Meftah, AT&T said Wednesday. “AT&T’s new standalone … business division will focus on making AT&T’s extensive cybersecurity capabilities and technologies accessible to businesses of all sizes around the globe.”
Wells Fargo Wednesday downgraded AT&T to market perform, citing questions about the Time Warner takeover. “While we agree in the longer term story of [AT&T’s] strategic perspective, we believe the stock will be range-bound over the near-to-medium term,” wrote analyst Jennifer Fritzsche. The cut from outperform is driven by “pressure on entertainment margins and enterprise stability not yet seen,” the many “new balls to juggle (and invest in)" and that “achieving delevering targets might push other priorities down,” she said.
Sckipio Technologies and Siklu said they jointly launched fast broadband service for low-income apartments under the Cleveland Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority. They said they're deploying the “first commercial solution to use Gfast and wireless millimeter technology to connect fiber from the street to a low-income, multi-dwelling units. Gfast is a digital subscriber line protocol standard for local loops shorter than 500 meters. “This installation proves that Gfast is helping to solve the urban digital divide by bringing the Internet to those who had no access or very slow speeds,” said David Baum, CEO of Sckipio, which makes Gfast chipsets. “In this installation, Siklu’s millimeter wave solution was used to bring ultrafast speeds to the building -- avoiding the disruption and pollution from digging up streets and installing fiber,” the companies said.