The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court, issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Regulatory Bulletin.
TELECOM
IP Transition
Public Knowledge recently released a new study entitled “Consumers and the IP Transition: Communications patterns in the midst of technological change.” The study concludes that even though many Americans have become “wireless only, ” a majority still have landlines at home and nearly half have both a wireless phone and a landline. Among those with two telephone plans:
- 65% say their calls at home are mostly on their landline. That figure is higher (72%) for households whose annual incomes are under $25,000.
- 82% say they keep their landline because they like its reliability.
- 73% keep their landline because they like its connection quality.
- 45% keep their landline because it works when there is an electric outage.
The study also reports that online Americans see the telephone as an anchor for household communications services and that most believe that telephone service should support features such as emergency services, interconnection, and location-based services. In addition, 36% of respondents cited at least one of these three things as a reason that they keep their landline phone service: for a fax machine (26% and about one-third of respondents over the age of 45); to receive medical alerts (24%); and because of a home security system (17%).
FCC
The FCC is seeking comment on the implementation and effectiveness of the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council IV (CSRIC IV)’s recommended voluntary best practices to improve the security of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). Comment is also sought on alternatives to those practices which are included in the Appendix to the FCC’s Public Notice. Areas for comment include: (1) What progress have EAS Participants including broadcast stations, cable operators, satellite radio and television providers and wireline video service providers made in implementing these best practices? (2) What barriers have EAS stakeholders encountered in implementing the recommendations? (3) What significant success stories or breakthroughs have been achieved? (4) How effective are the recommendations at mitigating security risk when they have been implemented? and (5) What, if any, actions have EAS stakeholders taken, in addition, to these basic security best practices to help enhance the security of the EAS?
