Official FCC Blog

• Print
• Email

Technology continues to advance rapidly in today's fast paced world.  Smart phones and tablets are being sold in numbers that increase exponentially each year, and innovation is thriving at the same speed.  What is particularly exciting is the advancement of communications technologies that enhance the lives of people with disabilities.  The Accessibility and Innovation Initiative at the Federal Communications Commission has an ongoing goal to recognize outstanding private and public sector ventures in such accessibility and innovation.

Chairman Julius Genachowski is holding the second Awards for Advancement in Accessibility (Chairman's AAA) to honor engineers, researchers and other technologists who contribute to technological innovation for people with disabilities in communication-related areas. 

At last year's award ceremony, Chairman Genachowski stated "harnessing the power of technology to benefit all Americans is at the core of the FCC's mission."  This mission is especially critical when it comes to accessibility.  Empowering persons with disabilities and giving them tools to participate through new technologies enriches their lives and makes the possibilities for their future advancement seem endless.

This year's award winners were chosen in six different categories: Consumer Empowerment Information; Mobile Applications; Civic Participation Solutions; Education: College or University; Video Programming; and Geo-Location Solutions.  In addition to the winners in each of these categories, two honorable mentions will also be recognized.  

The winners of this year’s Chairman’s AAA are:

Please provide comments to the issue below as part of the 2012 WCB cost model virtual workshop for inclusion in the record. Comments are moderated for conformity to the workshop's guidelines.

Background

On December 11, 2012, WCB announced the availability of version one of the Connect America Cost Model. Version one of the model provides the ability to calculate costs using a variety of different inputs and assumptions, allowing the Bureau to choose among different network deployments to serve funded locations (e.g., fiber to the premises or fiber-fed digital subscriber line), different assumptions about the amount of existing facilities assumed to exist (e.g., green-field or brown-field deployments, the mix of aerial, buried or underground plant), as well as different assumptions about unit costs for capital and operating expenses.

While version one of the Connect America Cost Model is similar to the CQBAT model submitted into the record by the ABC Coalition, it contains a number of key differences, including an estimate of the cost of providing not only broadband services, but also voice services, and an updated calculation of brown-field costs to include replacement capital expenditures. The Bureau anticipates that a second version of the Connect America Cost Model will be available in the coming weeks and will include an update to 2010 census geographies and updated SBI data. The Bureau expects to adopt the final version of the Connect America Cost Model, with specific inputs, in 2013, which it will use to set Phase II support amounts to be offered to price cap carriers.

Please provide comments to the issue below as part of the 2012 WCB cost model virtual workshop for inclusion in the record. Comments are moderated for conformity to the workshop's guidelines.

Background

The Commission required that the HCPM calculate the average cost of serving lines to at least the wire center level. The USF/ICC Transformation Order requires that the Connect America Phase II cost model be capable of calculating cost "on a census block or smaller basis"—a much more granular level.

Connect America Cost Model: To allocate costs within a census block, the first version of the CACM (CACM v.1) uses a "cost causation" allocation method where the fraction of shared costs is allocated according to the number of customers attached to each line.

In the Model Design Public Notice, the Bureau proposed to model the costs associated with the entire network, and then assign shared costs between eligible and ineligible areas. The Bureau sought comment on the appropriate methodology for allocating costs between these areas. The Bureau noted in the Model Design Public Notice that cost allocations can be problematic, and the "subtractive" method—determining the costs of supported areas by taking the cost of both supported and unsupported areas and then subtracting the cost of the unsupported areas—could be too complicated to calculate. Although some commenters urged the Bureau to adopt the subtractive approach, none have proposed a computationally tractable method for actually implementing such an approach.

For over two years, the Commission has welcomed public input in our pending Quadrennial Review of our broadcast ownership rules.  We began with the first of six public workshops on November 2, 2009 and continued by inviting two rounds of comments on a Notice of Inquiry released on May 25, 2010 and two further rounds of comments on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released on December 22, 2011.  We offered opportunities to comment on eleven economic studies we commissioned in 2010 and released for public review in July 2011, and we have accepted and continue to accept numerous ex parte submissions expressing a range of views throughout the proceeding.  This process stands in contrast to the Commission’s 2006 Quadrennial Review, where the Third Circuit criticized the Commission for failing to offer detailed rule proposals in the NPRM, issuing new proposals via Op-Ed/Press Release, and giving the public insufficient time to provide input on the new proposals.  Indeed, the same court opinion praised our current process even in its early stages, noting that the NOI alone contained a significant amount of specifics.

The Media Bureau released a report on November 14, 2012 about the ownership of commercial broadcast stations. This report provides, for the first time ever, detailed information by race, ethnicity, and gender about ownership of commercial television and radio stations.  The report was made possible by the Commission’s revamping of its Form 323 broadcast ownership report to enable the collection in electronic form of information about all attributable owners of these stations.  Data were first collected via the new form as of November 1, 2009 and again as of October 1, 2011.  Further biennial filings will enable the Commission for the first time to track ownership trends in a systematic way.