A report by NTIA shows that broadband adoption has progressed faster than any other communications technology, but efforts to increase adoption aren’t complete. The data in the report released last week (see 1410160046) shows home adoption is still growing “despite the fact that the remainder of non-adopting households are some of the most difficult to reach,” NCTA said in a news release (http://bit.ly/10enCWs). Data also shows that relevance is a difficult and “entrenched” problem “that requires creative solutions targeted at the diverse communities that are affected,” it said, referring to the finding that 48 percent of non-Internet households claimed not to have an interest in home broadband. While the report acknowledges expense as a reason for non-adoption, it "fails to unpack the variety of hardware, software, and service components that together make up the expense of adopting broadband.” Without data on these expense elements, some may wrongly attribute the totality of such costs solely to ISPs, “when in reality such expenses can be related to several factors,” it said.

The FCC International Bureau formally terminated docket 04-398, following up on a 2004 notice of inquiry seeking data and analysis on the effect of foreign mobile termination rates on U.S. customers. “With the passage of time, this Notice and the record in this proceeding have become outdated,” the bureau said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1v9IzNy). The FCC also recently revised reporting requirements “to track more effectively the different settlement rates for fixed and mobile networks,” the bureau said.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study lends credence to the view that Netflix “allowed congestion to increase until it affected its performance” in order to “gain bargaining leverage” with Comcast, wrote Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology Executive Director Fred Campbell in an op-ed (http://bit.ly/1scg0xN) in the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman Wednesday. Campbell cited an MIT and Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis study (http://bit.ly/1oGQoJG) that said Netflix forced its traffic “through clogged delivery routes, when less congested channels were available.” Netflix was not immediately available for comment.

Privacy advocates and the government faced off in oral argument Wednesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. The case, Under Seal v. Eric Holder, Jr., was on the National Security Letter authority that the FBI uses in the course of government surveillance. Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl argued to limit the authority -- he “will urge a federal appeals court today to uphold a groundbreaking ruling that the National Security Letter (NSL) provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional,” an EFF media advisory said (http://bit.ly/1rXAxFb). EFF initially predicted that audio from the oral argument would be streamed live, but it was not. EFF was told audio would be available later, it said. The judges were Sandra Ikuta, Mary Murguia and N.R. Smith.

The NSA listed several safeguards to prevent improper surveillance of individuals, in an NSA Director of Civil Liberties and Privacy Office report released Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1oO6I6v). NSA employees whose training is incomplete or outdated aren’t allowed to use targeted surveillance systems and such surveillance must fall under the requirements in the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, it said. An NSA senior analyst or supervisor must review all targeting requests before they take place, it said. Senior officers must review data recovered by such targeting to verify that the data contains “foreign intelligence on foreign targets,” said the report. If an individual is mistakenly targeted, those involved in the surveillance must end operations; if the mistaken individual is a U.S. citizen, all collected data must be removed from NSA systems, it said. Initial collection and related decisions are “auditable,” it said.

NTIA will seek comment on the current and potential availability of communications services in the Arctic region, in a notice scheduled for Friday’s Federal Register (http://bit.ly/1xFRTeo). Comments are due 30 days after the publication. The NTIA efforts follow a January implementation plan from the White House seeking an assessment of “current and potential availability of telecommunications services in the Arctic region, including local and long-distance terrestrial, commercial mobile cellular, public safety services, emergency services, navigational safety and satellite voice, and broadband channel availability by the end of 2014.” NTIA also seeks comment on investment in the region and management of Arctic spectrum.

The FCC has been using “sandbox thinking,” used in the technology sector to test out ideas in practice, but the agency needs to do more, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told the Democracy Symposium Tuesday, according to prepared remarks posted by the agency (http://bit.ly/1mMLv0X). Citing broadcast channel-sharing in Los Angeles and AT&T’s IP trials, she said that “this sandbox thinking is yielding dividends -- at the FCC and in the communications sector. But we need to expand it.” Rosenworcel said that “if we need our regulatory state to be more agile and more innovative, why not take a page from technology itself?"

New Media Rights, a nonprofit at the California Western School of Law, told the White House that broadband should be reclassified as a Communications Act Title II telecom service, in comments on the Obama administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council’s request for information on U.S. innovation strategy. It attached the comments it made to the FCC on the issue. Reclassification “is necessary because internet access is a distinctly different service from other ‘information services,'” the group said. “Broadband internet access has been wrongly grouped together with services that like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others and have thus been able to maintain enormous market power while being subject to very little oversight.” Several university groups focused on the importance of a strong patent system. “Unfortunately, in recent years, legitimate patent holders across the spectrum, including universities and their licensees, have been victimized by abusive practices that impair the ability of the U.S. patent system to foster innovation and economic competitiveness,” they told the White House (http://bit.ly/1t2Uk3I). “Any proposals targeting abusive practices must be structured so that they curb abuses without undermining the ability of legitimate patent holders to enforce their patents and, by extension, diminishing the value of patents.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation took aim at “low-quality patents” and focused on open access. “EFF urges the Administration to support needed legislative reform to improve patent quality and reduce abusive litigation,” it said (http://bit.ly/1vmfoov).

Wearables, as the “advanced consumer face” of the Internet of Things, will rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.56 percent and “cross” $11.6 billion in global sales in 2020, MarketsandMarkets said Friday in a report (http://bit.ly/1u3gc3e). The U.S. is more than 72 percent of the market, making it the “single largest revenue base” for global wearables, it said. The U.S. also “is expected to maintain its dominance” through 2020, but Asia-Pacific, “with China leading the way, is likely to grow at the highest CAGR during the next six years,” it said.

The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) structure, policies and procedures are consistent with standards in the Inspector General Act of 1978, but there are areas for improvement, said the GAO Wednesday. It recommended that the DHS OIG establish additional automated and supervisory controls to protect the identities of DHS employees who file complaints, having found that existing procedures involve manual recording and are thus subject to “human error.” GAO recommended the OIG develop a policy for obtaining legal advice from counsel, having found that OIG doesn’t have such a policy in place. Twenty-eight reports dealt with IT management, while two dealt with infrastructure protection, GAO said (http://1.usa.gov/1ruR8RV). OIG told GAO it’s revising its online complaint forms to protect employee confidentiality.