| issue
highlights |
December 8, 2008 | A
Penton Media, Inc. Publication |
editor's
perspective
What
the FCC didn't tell us about the USF audit
By Joan Engebretson
As they were leaving the White House in 2001, certain disgruntled
Clintonites allegedly removed the W keys from
government-owned keyboards in presidential offices in an apparent
display of spite for the our
current president and his single-letter nickname. I can't help thinking
there might be something
similar going on involving a report recently issued by the FCC
estimating that telcos had been
overpaid by $970 million, or 23%, from the High-Cost Universal Service
Fund.
The late-November report from the FCC drew predictably snide or irate
comments from people who
never bothered to look at the actual document. And even though the FCC
is not actually trying to
collect $970 million from USF recipients nor accusing them of fraud, the
FCC report casts an
unfortunate shadow on Independent telcos just as policymakers are
considering USF reform.
I put some effort into deciphering the report and have some serious
questions about the amount of
the estimated overpayment, which appears way too high — by a
factor of five or more.
Read more of "What the FCC didn't tell us about the
USF audit"
online.
E-mail me at joanengebretson@cs.com.
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Telephony!
Take a break and join us Decemeber 11 for Telephony University's "The
Positive Side of DPI Webcast," December 11 at 12:30. DPI enables a
variety of different new service possibilities for network operators,
along with the ability to manage network resources more effectively.
Matt Davis, broadband analyst with IDC, explains how DPI can be used to
offer better security and corporate network protection; in-network
parental controls, automated bandwidth boosts for high-quality video
traffic, quality assurance for VoIP services and more. Davis also will
explain how service providers can use subscriber and traffic profiles to
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|
Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst for Parks
Associates, which hosted a workshop on the Business Cases for Emerging
Video Services at TelcoTV this week in Anaheim, Calif., speaks with
Associate News Editor Sarah Reedy about the year's biggest trends in
video.
|
We talked with the chairman of the TM Forum's Keith Willetts about
how service providers can survive the economic downturn and took a tour
of the Content Encounter area in this report from the the Management
World show in Orlando this week.
|
Content vs. Knowledge Management: What's the difference and
why is it important?
Many make the mistake of thinking that Content Management and Knowledge
Management are synonymous since both deal with creating, managing and
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different and require different workflow processes and solutions to
manage effectively. Read this
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|
At Conklin Intracom's Perspectives on IPTV Workshop, held yesterday
in advance of TelcoTV, several telecom service providers in various
stages of IPTV deployments shared what they learned from being in the
trenches.
|
When Embarq accepted CenturyTel's $5.8-billion acquisition offer
last month, it rejected a slightly higher offer from another company,
according to regulatory filings made by CenturyTel last week.
|
Crossroads Wireless is building an Independent-centric mobile
virtual network operator offering that aims to leverage the economics of
open-source software to make a splash in underserved rural service
markets.
|
For a company that specializes in local wireless calling plans, Leap
is starting to look a lot more like an operator with a nationwide
coverage.
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As DSL numbers keep trending down, telephone companies are fighting
back but may not be doing enough, according to one industry analyst.
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"When there is blood in the streets, buy real estate." In the last
few months, we have all witnessed the widespread financial panic that
this old adage refers to …
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"Efficiency is doing better what is already being done," according
to Peter F. Drucker, a noted economist, author, and pioneer in
management theory.
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After years of selling faster speeds and more high-definition TV
channels, Comcast is now pitching cheaper services, offering a
triple-play bundle of basic voice, video and data offerings for less
than $30 each, with the promise that this isn't introductory pricing
that goes up later.
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U.S. businesses have added almost 700,000 wireline access lines in
the past five years to hit 5.3 million landline connections in total,
according to a Vertical Systems Group report, but the past four months
have actually seen a downturn …
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A diverse group of 55 signatories, including major telecom companies
and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, today
released a call to action for a national broadband strategy aimed at
making broadband deployment and adoption a priority for the Obama
administration.
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Utah's multicity Utopia network is taking perhaps one last shot at
making its wholesale municipal fiber project work, with a revised model,
new management and a new focus on business customers.
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TelcoTV's
emerging video trends
