The FCC updated its online maps site with a variety of new features as part of broader efforts toward better usability and performance of its information technology systems and easier public access to data, said Richard Mansfield, associate chief information officer-stakeholder relations in the Office of the Managing Director; Allison Baker, senior data analytics manager in the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis; and Perryn Ashmore, associate CIO-tailored platforms and data in OMD, in a blog post Tuesday. The FCC said the map site changes include better display through simplified page layout, better filter and search capabilities, better reliability through a cloud-based platform, integration with fcc.gov content management system "to maintain a common look-and-feel" and more streamlined publishing, and enabling of embedded externally hosted content. The agency said 53 maps "on topics ranging from nationwide LTE coverage to fixed broadband deployment data" have been posted on the site, including 15 this year.

The FCC Technological Advisory Council will meet Sept. 20, 12:30-4 p.m., in the Commission Meeting Room, said a notice scheduled to be published in Wednesday's Federal Register.

“A small portion” of the U.S. job growth’s pickup in June “was due to the end of a strike of 35,100 workers in the telecommunications industry that temporarily lowered job growth in May,” said White House Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Jason Furman in a statement Friday. He referred to the Verizon workers’ strike, an issue he cited a month ago when describing a dip in the job numbers (see 1606030028). The information services sector had “an increase of 44,000 jobs due in part to the bounce-back from May’s strike in the telecommunications industry,” Furman said.

Polycom terminated its $1.96 billion merger agreement with Mitel after receiving a better offer, Mitel said in a news release Friday. Polycom agreed to $2 billion deal with Siris Capital Group, Siris said in a separate announcement. The change in plans occurred more than a month after the FTC OK’d Polycom’s buy of the Ottawa-based unified communications provider (see 1605190035). The deal was announced in April. Polycom gave Mitel the chance to match the new offer, as required in their agreement, but Mitel decided against it, the Canadian company said. As a result, Polycom will pay Mitel $60 million to terminate the deal, Mitel said. “The agreement announced on April 15 resulted from a detailed due diligence and negotiation process that we feel accurately determined fair value for Polycom,” said Mitel CEO Rich McBee. “We feel it would not be in the best interest of Mitel shareholders to adjust the existing agreement.” Polycom said it expects to close the Siris deal in Q3 after receiving stockholder and regulatory approvals.

PwC plans a local number portability administrator transition webinar July 20, 3-4 p.m., said the FCC Wireline Bureau. Officials from PwC, which is managing the planned LNPA transition from Neustar to Telcordia, will be available to meet with interested parties Wednesday, 1-5 p.m., at the Durham Convention Center in Durham, North Carolina. Registration is needed for the webinar; it isn't needed for the in-person meetings, nor do parties have to schedule appointments, but they can express a time preference, said a public notice in docket 09-109 listed in Thursday's Daily Digest.

The National 911 Program is seeking comment on a nationally uniform data system for 911 public safety answering point call data and local and state 911 system operations data, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. The NHTSA published a request for information June 30 in the Federal Register. The proposed data system “would provide essential information to assist strategic planning, governance decisions, and improvements to the 911 system and its operations at all levels of government,” NHTSA said. “These data would also be useful to private sector companies providing services to local and State 911 agencies.” Comments are due Sept. 28.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's telecom plan “expands handouts to political allies,” “increases government role in broadband,” “makes empty promises of less regulation” and “promises an open Internet, but delivers a closed one,” said American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communication and Technology visiting fellow Mark Jamison in a blog post Thursday. Clinton released her agenda last month (see 1606280071). “Despite this enthusiasm, there is much to worry about in this agenda as it provides a blueprint for diminishing US leadership in tech,” Jamison said. “The plan will expand subsidies from the federal government to cities, regions, and states to invest in dark fiber, broadband in recreation centers and transportation centers, and free public WiFi. Of course these programs will be wrought with political favoritism and waste.” The agenda is "particularly impotent on the most pressing digital issues," glossing over "critical topics such as the role of encryption for enhancing privacy and safety, and the critical need for greater transparency into how algorithms increasingly impact everyday lives," Pennsylvania State University Palmer Chair in Telecom Sascha Meinrath wrote in the Christian Science Monitor. "We need policies to drive universal access to low-cost, high-speed connectivity, and for the two-thirds of Americans already online, we need truth-in-labeling that addresses the quarter-of-a-trillion dollars in overpayments US consumers will make by 2025. The baby steps made thus far are necessary but insufficient to address both the digital and information divides that currently exist in broadband service provision." He cited priorities such as consumers having control over their data and laying the groundwork for intelligent transportation systems. Clinton's platform "ignores nearly all of the big problems," he said, noting her one remaining Democratic challenger, Bernie Sanders, and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump "haven’t released anything meaningful at all."

The 2016 Democratic Party draft platform advancing to a full platform committee consideration this week includes language on net neutrality, broadband infrastructure and data localization requirements. The full 187-member platform committee will review the 39-page document during a meeting in Orlando Thursday and Friday and, once approved, the platform will be submitted for ratification at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month. “Democrats support a free and open internet at home and abroad, and will oppose any effort by Republicans to roll back the historic net neutrality rules that the [FCC] enacted last year,” said the draft platform, released Friday. Democrats will “continue to support the expansion of high-speed broadband networks” and the creation of an independent national infrastructure bank to provide loans and other funding for broadband infrastructure investment, it said. The draft platform also said: “We will protect the intellectual property rights of artists, creators, and inventors at home and abroad. … Democrats will fight against unfair theft of intellectual property and trade secrets. We will also increase access to global markets for American intellectual property and other digital trade by opposing quotas, discriminatory measures, and data localization requirements.” A section on cybersecurity pledges Democrats will protect industry, infrastructure and government from cyberattacks, with strengthened security and an effort to “establish global norms in cyberspace” with “consequences on those who violate the rules,” all “while protecting the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.” Republicans haven't released their 2016 platform.

The FCC began a proceeding to revoke authorizations held by LDC Telecommunications for failing to pay delinquent regulatory fees to the commission, said an Enforcement Bureau "pay or show cause" order in Tuesday's Daily Digest. The order directed LDC to pay the fees plus any penalties, collection charges and interest payments in a 2014 commission demand letter, or show cause why the payments are inapplicable or should otherwise be waived. LDC, which was granted authorizations to provide facilities-based and resold international telecom services in 2008, couldn't be reached for comment.

FCC-proposed privacy rules are based on a “fundamentally flawed premise” that ISPs rather than edge providers are “uniquely able to see and harvest users’ ‘very sensitive and very personal’ data,” said Larry Downes, project director of the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, in replies. “Thanks to a highly successful encryption campaign accelerated in large part by fears of government abuse of such information, broadband providers are now effectively blind to data traveling between users and the Internet.” Because the FCC has jurisdiction over ISPs, it ignores edge providers like Facebook or Netflix, he said. “They alone have the capacity to use that information not just for commercial purposes but for the kinds of nefarious uses the Commission worries may be the latent intent of access providers.” But Downes also said the “happy reality” is that FCC concerns “are almost entirely hypothetical.” The FTC, through “extensive and assertive oversight” of data practices has kept problems from developing, he said in comments posted Tuesday in docket 16-106.