Dear Friends of Wireless Messaging,

Flora and Fauna in Southern Illinois
Greetings from Southern Illinois where the flowers are blooming and spring is coming in full force. This is a beautiful time of year. Here is a photo that I shot this morning:

And here is one that I shot just a few days ago in my back yard:

Look at the deer eating the corn, it has a white stripe running down its back. It is a frequent visitor.

On Broadband

Most of the news this week is about broadband. So why is broadband so important?

Just a few years ago most of us had no idea what the Internet was or how we could use it. Today it has become an essential part of our lives — and it has become a very important part of our national infrastructure. Almost as important as the railroads, the inter-state highway system, the airports, the electrical grid, and the telephone network.

So the topic broadband really means, not just access to the Internet, but fast access to the Internet. I am sure we can all remember the "dial-up" access we had to the Internet in the "early days." That was when we jokingly referred to "WWW" as the World Wide Wait.

In those early days, we found "interesting" things to do over the Internet. Now much of business and government rely on the Internet. It is no longer just interesting—it is necessary.

“Knowledge Is Power”

One of the more fascinating benefits is how the Internet has become the great social leveler.

Sir Francis Bacon's famous aphorism, "knowledge is power", is found in the Meditations. He published The Proficience and Advancement of Learning in 1605. [source]

Sir Francis Bacon

So, the point is that a person doesn't have to be born into a privileged family today in order to have access to the vast pool of information, which when learned, produces knowledge.

Poor little kids in many remote villages around the world today have access to more information than the privileged few did at prestigious universities only twenty short years ago.

Now that is “power to the people.” I am not saying that education alone will solve the world's problems, but it certainly is an important part of the solution.

BIG PROBLEMS WITH THE NEWSLETTER

I am sorry that many readers have not been receiving their notifications about the availability for download of the latest newsletters. In an attempt to control the terrible abuses of e-mail that we all suffer from, ISPs frequently classify the newsletter notification as SPAM. It's hard for a computer/server to tell the difference between legitimate traffic going to many recipients and SPAM. Verizon took me off their blacklist this week:

Thank you for contacting Verizon Online Security.

After a thorough investigation of your issue, Verizon Online Security has determined that normal e-mail delivery should be restored within 72 hrs.

Sincerely,

Verizon Online Security

If you think you have missed an issue, you can always check on my web site for the latest issue. Here is an index of this year's issues.

Now on to more news and views.

Wireless Messaging News
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There is no charge for subscription and there are no membership restrictions. Readers are a very select group of wireless industry professionals, and include the senior managers of many of the world's major Paging and Wireless Data companies. There is an even mix of operations managers, marketing people, and engineers — so I try to include items of interest to all three groups. It's all about staying up-to-date with business trends and technology. I regularly get readers' comments, so this newsletter has become a community forum for the Paging, and Wireless Data communities. You are welcome to contribute your ideas and opinions. Unless otherwise requested, all correspondence addressed to me is subject to publication in the newsletter and on my web site. I am very careful to protect the anonymity of those who request it.

Editorial Opinion pieces present the opinions of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of AAPC, its publisher, or its sponsors.

Brad Dye, Ron Mercer, Allan Angus, and Vic Jackson are friends and colleagues who work both together and independently, on wireline and wireless communications projects. Click here  for a summary of their qualifications and experience. They collaborate on consulting assignments, and share the work according to their individual expertise and their schedules.

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Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

By Kevin Poulsen March 17, 2010 | 1:52 pm

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.

Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.

“We initially dismissed it as mechanical failure,” says Texas Auto Center manager Martin Garcia. “We started having a rash of up to a hundred customers at one time complaining. Some customers complained of the horns going off in the middle of the night. The only option they had was to remove the battery.”

The dealership used a system called Webtech Plus as an alternative to repossessing vehicles that haven’t been paid for. Operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies, the system lets car dealers install a small black box under vehicle dashboards that responds to commands issued through a central website, and relayed over a wireless pager network. The dealer can disable a car’s ignition system, or trigger the horn to begin honking, as a reminder that a payment is due. The system will not stop a running vehicle.

Texas Auto Center began fielding complaints from baffled customers the last week in February, many of whom wound up missing work, calling tow trucks or disconnecting their batteries to stop the honking. The troubles stopped five days later, when Texas Auto Center reset the Webtech Plus passwords for all its employee accounts, says Garcia. Then police obtained access logs from Pay Technologies, and traced the saboteur’s IP address to Ramos-Lopez’s AT&T internet service, according to a police affidavit filed in the case.

Ramos-Lopez’s account had been closed when he was terminated from Texas Auto Center in a workforce reduction last month, but he allegedly got in through another employee’s account, Garcia says. At first, the intruder targeted vehicles by searching on the names of specific customers. Then he discovered he could pull up a database of all 1,100 Auto Center customers whose cars were equipped with the device. He started going down the list in alphabetical order, vandalizing the records, disabling the cars and setting off the horns.

“Omar was pretty good with computers,” says Garcia.

The incident is the first time an intruder has abused the no-start system, according to Jim Krueger, co-owner of Pay Technologies. “It was a fairly straightforward situation,” says Krueger. “He had retained a password, and what happened was he went in and created a little bit of havoc.”

Krueger disputes that the horns were honking in the middle of the night; he says the horn honking can only be activated between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.

First rolled out about 10 years ago, remote immobilization systems are a controversial answer to delinquent car payments, with critics voicing concerns that debtors could suffer needless humiliation, or find themselves stranded during an emergency. Proponents say the systems let financers extend credit to consumers who might otherwise be ineligible for an auto loan.

Austin police filed computer intrusion charges against Ramos-Lopez on Tuesday.

PAGING & WIRELESS
NETWORK PLANNERS LLC
WIRELESS SPECIALISTS

www.pagingplanners.com
rmercer@pagingplanners.com

R.H. (Ron) Mercer Consultant 217 First Street South East Northport, NY 11731
Cell Phone: 631-786-9359

Connecting America:
The National Broadband Plan

PREFACE

The staff of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) created the National Broadband Plan. To an extraordinary extent, however, the author of this plan is America itself.

The FCC started the process of creating this plan with a Notice of Inquiry in April 2009. Thirty-six public workshops held at the FCC and streamed online, which drew more than 10,000 in-person or online attendees, provided the framework for the ideas contained within the plan. These ideas were then refined based on replies to 31 public notices, which generated some 23,000 comments totaling about 74,000 pages from more than 700 parties. The FCC also received about 1,100 ex parte filings totaling some 13,000 pages and nine public hearings were held throughout the country to further clarify the issues addressed in the plan.

The FCC also engaged in significant collaboration and conversations with other government agencies and Congress, since the scope of the plan included many issues outside of the FCC’s traditional expertise. Many people from across government contributed expertise and advice along the way, for which the FCC staff is eternally grateful.

The Internet also provided new ways to involve the public. Through an innovative Web presence at www.broadband.gov, the FCC posted more than 130 blog entries and received nearly 1,500 comments in return. The FCC’s Twitter feed now has more than 330,000 followers, making it the third most popular government Twitter feed after the White House and the Centers for Disease Control.

The FCC staff digested this extensive record and worked long hours analyzing and debating the record. Every comment cannot be referenced in the plan, but they were all read, considered and valued.

Public comment on the plan does not end here. The record will guide the path forward through the rulemaking process at the FCC, in Congress and across the Executive Branch, as all consider how best to implement the plan’s recommendations. The public will continue to have opportunities to provide further input all along this path.

This is America’s plan, written by and for Americans. It’s now time to act and invest in our nation’s future by bringing the power and promise of broadband to us all.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Broadband is the great infrastructure challenge of the early 21st century.

Like electricity a century ago, broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life. It is enabling entire new industries and unlocking vast new possibilities for existing ones. It is changing how we educate children, deliver health care, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organize and disseminate knowledge.

Fueled primarily by private sector investment and innovation, the American broadband ecosystem has evolved rapidly. The number of Americans who have broadband at home has grown from eight million in 2000 to nearly 200 million last year. Increasingly capable fixed and mobile networks allow Americans to access a growing number of valuable applications through innovative devices.

But broadband in America is not all it needs to be. Approximately 100 million Americans do not have broadband at home. Broadband-enabled health information technology (IT) can improve care and lower costs by hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decades, yet the United States is behind many advanced countries in the adoption of such technology. Broadband can provide teachers with tools that allow students to learn the same course material in half the time, but there is a dearth of easily accessible digital educational content required for such opportunities. A broadband-enabled Smart Grid could increase energy independence and efficiency, but much of the data required to capture these benefits are inaccessible to consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs. And nearly a decade after 9/11, our first responders still lack a nationwide public safety mobile broadband communications network, even though such a network could improve emergency response and homeland security.

Fulfilling the Congressional Mandate
In early 2009, Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to develop a National Broadband Plan to ensure every American has “access to broadband capability.” Congress also required that this plan include a detailed strategy for achieving affordability and maximizing use of broadband to advance “consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety and homeland security, community development, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, employee training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth, and other national purposes.”

Broadband networks only create value to consumers and businesses when they are used in conjunction with broadband-capable devices to deliver useful applications and content. To fulfill Congress’s mandate, the plan seeks to ensure that the entire broadband ecosystem—networks, devices, content and applications— is healthy. It makes recommendations to the FCC, the Executive Branch, Congress and state and local governments.

The Plan
Government can influence the broadband ecosystem in four ways:

1. Design policies to ensure robust competition and, as a result maximize consumer welfare, innovation and investment.
2. Ensure efficient allocation and management of assets government controls or influences, such as spectrum, poles, and rights-of-way, to encourage network upgrades and competitive entry.
3. Reform current universal service mechanisms to support deployment of broadband and voice in high-cost areas; and ensure that low-income Americans can afford broadband; and in addition, support efforts to boost adoption and utilization.
4. Reform laws, policies, standards and incentives to maximize the benefits of broadband in sectors government influences significantly, such as public education, health care and government operations.

1. Establishing competition policies. Policymakers, including the FCC, have a broad set of tools to protect and encourage competition in the markets that make up the broadband ecosystem: network services, devices, applications and content. The plan contains multiple recommendations that will foster competition across the ecosystem. They include the following:

• Collect, analyze, benchmark and publish detailed, market-by-market information on broadband pricing and competition, which will likely have direct impact on competitive behavior (e.g., through benchmarking of pricing across geographic markets). This will also enable the FCC and other agencies to apply appropriate remedies when competition is lacking in specific geographies or market segments.
• Develop disclosure requirements for broadband service providers to ensure consumers have the pricing and performance information they need to choose the best broadband offers in the market. Increased transparency will incent service providers to compete for customers on the basis of actual performance.
• Undertake a comprehensive review of wholesale competition rules to help ensure competition in fixed and mobile broadband services.
• Free up and allocate additional spectrum for unlicensed use, fostering ongoing innovation and competitive entry.
• Update rules for wireless backhaul spectrum to increase capacity in urban areas and range in rural areas.
• Expedite action on data roaming to determine how best to achieve wide, seamless and competitive coverage, encourage mobile broadband providers to construct and build networks, and promote entry and competition.
• Change rules to ensure a competitive and innovative video set-top box market, to be consistent with Section 629 of the Telecommunications Act. The Act says that the FCC should ensure that its rules achieve a competitive market in video “navigation devices,” or set-top boxes—the devices consumers use to access much of the video they watch today.
• Clarify the Congressional mandate allowing state and local entities to provide broadband in their communities and do so in ways that use public resources more effectively.
• Clarify the relationship between users and their online profiles to enable continued innovation and competition in applications and ensure consumer privacy, including the obligations of firms collecting personal information to allow consumers to know what information is being collected, consent to such collection, correct it if necessary, and control disclosure of such personal information to third parties.

2. Ensuring efficient allocation and use of government-owned and government-influenced assets. Government establishes policies for the use of spectrum and oversees access to poles, conduits, rooftops and rights-of-way, which are used in the deployment of broadband networks. Government also finances a large number of infrastructure projects. Ensuring these assets and resources are allocated and managed efficiently can encourage deployment of broadband infrastructure and lower barriers to competitive entry. The plan contains a number of recommendations to accomplish these goals. They include the following:

• Spectrum is a major input for providers of broadband service. Currently, the FCC has only 50 megahertz in inventory, just a fraction of the amount that will be necessary to match growing demand. More efficient allocation and assignment of spectrum will reduce deployment costs, drive investment and benefit consumers through better performance and lower prices. The recommendations on spectrum policy include the following:
  • Make 500 megahertz of spectrum newly available for broadband within 10 years, of which 300 megahertz should be made available for mobile use within five years.
  • Enable incentives and mechanisms to repurpose spectrum to more flexible uses. Mechanisms include incentive auctions, which allow auction proceeds to be shared in an equitable manner with current licensees as market demands change. These would benefit both spectrum holders and the American public. The public could benefit from additional spectrum for high-demand uses and from new auction revenues. Incumbents, meanwhile, could recognize a portion of the value of enabling new uses of spectrum. For example, this would allow the FCC to share auction proceeds with broadcasters who voluntarily agree to use technology to continue traditional broadcast services with less spectrum.
  • Ensure greater transparency of spectrum allocation, assignment and use through an FCC-created spectrum dashboard to foster an efficient secondary market.
  • Expand opportunities for innovative spectrum access models by creating new avenues for opportunistic and unlicensed use of spectrum and increasing research into new spectrum technologies.
• Infrastructure such as poles, conduits, rooftops and rights-of-way play an important role in the economics of broadband networks. Ensuring service providers can access these resources efficiently and at fair prices can drive upgrades and facilitate competitive entry. In addition, testbeds can drive innovation of next-generation applications and, ultimately, may promote infrastructure deployment. Recommendations to optimize infrastructure use include:
  • Establish low and more uniform rental rates for access to poles, and simplify and expedite the process for service providers to attach facilities to poles.
  • Improve rights-of-way management for cost and time savings, promote use of federal facilities for broadband, expedite resolution of disputes and identify and establish “best practices” guidelines for rights-of-way policies and fee practices that are consistent with broadband deployment.
  • Facilitate efficient new infrastructure construction, including through “dig-once” policies that would make federal financing of highway, road and bridge projects contingent on states and localities allowing joint deployment of broadband infrastructure.
  • Provide ultra-high-speed broadband connectivity to select U.S. Department of Defense installations to enable the development of next-generation broadband applications for military personnel and their families living on base.

3. Creating incentives for universal availability and adoption of broadband. Three elements must be in place to ensure all Americans have the opportunity to reap the benefits of broadband. All Americans should have access to broadband service with sufficient capabilities, all should be able to afford broadband and all should have the opportunity to develop digital literacy skills to take advantage of broadband. Recommendations to promote universal broadband deployment and adoption include the following:

• Ensure universal access to broadband network services.
  • Create the Connect America Fund (CAF) to support the provision of affordable broadband and voice with at least 4 Mbps actual download speeds and shift up to $15.5 billion over the next decade from the existing Universal Service Fund (USF) program to support broadband. If Congress wishes to accelerate the deployment of broadband to unserved areas and otherwise smooth the transition of the Fund, it could make available public funds of a few billion dollars per year over two to three years.
  • Create a Mobility Fund to provide targeted funding to ensure no states are lagging significantly behind the national average for 3G wireless coverage. Such 3G coverage is widely expected to be the basis for the future footprint of 4G mobile broadband networks.
  • Transition the “legacy” High-Cost component of the USF over the next 10 years and shift all resources to the new funds. The $4.6 billion per year High Cost component of the USF was designed to support primarily voice services. It will be replaced over time by the CAF.
  • Reform intercarrier compensation, which provides implicit subsidies to telephone companies by eliminating per-minute charges over the next 10 years and enabling adequate cost recovery through the CAF.
  • Design the new Connect America Fund and Mobility Fund in a tax-efficient manner to minimize the size of the broadband availability gap and thereby reduce contributions borne by consumers.
  • Broaden the US F contribution base to ensure USF remains sustainable over time.
• Create mechanisms to ensure affordability to low-income Americans.
• Expand the Lifeline and Link-Up programs by allowing subsidies provided to low-income Americans to be used for broadband.
  • Consider licensing a block of spectrum with a condition to offer free or low-cost service that would create affordable alternatives for consumers, reducing the burden on USF.
• Ensure every American has the opportunity to become digitally literate.
  • Launch a National Digital Literacy Corps to organize and train youth and adults to teach digital literacy skills and enable private sector programs addressed at breaking adoption barriers.

4. Updating policies, setting standards and aligning incentives to maximize use for national priorities. Federal, Tribal, state and local governments play an important role in many sectors of our economy. Government is the largest health care payor in the country, operates the public education system, regulates many aspects of the energy industry, provides multiple services to its citizens and has primary responsibility for homeland security. The plan includes recommendations designed to unleash increased use, private sector investment and innovation in these areas. They include the following:

• Health care. Broadband can help improve the quality and lower the cost of health care through health IT and improved data capture and use, which will enable clearer understanding of the most effective treatments and processes. To achieve these objectives, the plan has recommendations that will:
  • Help ensure health care providers have access to affordable broadband by transforming the FCC’s Rural Health Care Program.
  • Create incentives for adoption by expanding reimbursement for e-care.
  • Remove barriers to e-care by modernizing regulations like device approval, credentialing, privileging and licensing.
  • Drive innovative applications and advanced analytics by ensuring patients have control over their health data and ensuring interoperability of data.
• Education. Broadband can enable improvements in public education through e-learning and online content, which can provide more personalized learning opportunities for students. Broadband can also facilitate the flow of information, helping teachers, parents, schools and other organizations to make better decisions tied to each student’s needs and abilities. To those ends, the plan includes recommendations to:
  • Improve the connectivity to schools and libraries by upgrading the FCC’s E-Rate program to increase flexibility, improve program efficiency and foster innovation by promoting the most promising solutions and funding wireless connectivity to learning devices that go home with students.
    • Accelerate online learning by enabling the creation of digital content and learning systems, removing regulatory barriers and promoting digital literacy.
    • Personalize learning and improve decision–making by fostering adoption of electronic educational records and improving financial data transparency in education.
• Energy and the environment. Broadband can play a major role in the transition to a clean energy economy. America can use these innovations to reduce carbon pollution, improve our energy efficiency and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. To achieve these objectives, the plan has recommendations that will:
  • Modernize the electric grid with broadband, making it more reliable and efficient.
  • Unleash energy innovation in homes and buildings by making energy data readily accessible to consumers.
  • Improve the energy efficiency and environmental impact of the ICT sector.
• Economic opportunity. Broadband can expand access to jobs and training, support entrepreneurship and small business growth and strengthen community development efforts. The plan includes recommendations to:
  • Support broadband choice and small businesses’ use of broadband services and applications to drive job creation, growth and productivity gains.
  • Expand opportunities for job training and placement through an online platform.
  • Integrate broadband assessment and planning into economic development efforts.
• Government performance and civic engagement. Within government, broadband can drive greater efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery and internal operations. It can also improve the quantity and quality of civic engagement by providing a platform for meaningful engagement with representatives and agencies. Through its own use of broadband, government can support local efforts to deploy broadband, particularly in unserved communities. To achieve these goals, the plan includes recommendations to:
  • Allow state and local governments to purchase broadband from federal contracts such as Networx.
  • Improve government performance and operations through cloud computing, cybersecurity, secure authentication and online service delivery.
  • Increase civic engagement by making government more open and transparent, creating a robust public media ecosystem and modernizing the democratic process.
• Public safety and homeland security. Broadband can bolster efforts to improve public safety and homeland security by allowing first responders to send and receive video and data, by ensuring all Americans can access emergency services and improving the way Americans are notified about emergencies. To achieve these objectives, the plan makes recommendations to:
  • Support deployment of a nationwide, interoperable public safety mobile broadband network, with funding of up to $6.5 billion in capital expenditures over 10 years, which could be reduced through cost efficiency measures and other programs. Additional funding will be required for operating expenses.
  • Promote innovation in the development and deployment of next-generation 911 and emergency alert systems.
  • Promote cybersecurity and critical infrastructure survivability to increase user confidence, trust and adoption of broadband communications.

Long-Term Goals
In addition to the recommendations above, the plan recommends that the country adopt and track the following six goals to serve as a compass over the next decade.

Goal No. 1: At least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second.

Goal No. 2: The United States should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.

Goal No. 3: Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.

Goal No. 4: Every American community should have affordable access to at least 1 gigabit per second broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings.

Goal No. 5: To ensure the safety of the American people, every first responder should have access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable broadband public safety network.

Goal No. 6: To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

Meeting these six goals will help achieve the Congressional mandate of using broadband to achieve national purposes, while improving the economics of deployment and adoption. In particular, the first two goals will create the world’s most attractive market for broadband applications, devices and infrastructure and ensure America has the infrastructure to attract the leading communications and IT applications, devices and technologies. The third goal, meanwhile, will ensure every American has the opportunity to take advantage of the benefits broadband offers, including improved health care, better education, access to a greater number of economic opportunities and greater civic participation.

Budget Impact of Plan
Given the plan’s goal of freeing 500 megahertz of spectrum, future wireless auctions mean the overall plan will be revenue neutral, if not revenue positive. The vast majority of recommendations do not require new government funding; rather, they seek to drive improvements in government efficiency, streamline processes and encourage private activity to promote consumer welfare and national priorities. The funding requests relate to public safety, deployment to unserved areas and adoption efforts. If the spectrum auction recommendations are implemented, the plan is likely to offset the potential costs.

Implementation
The plan is in beta, and always will be. Like the Internet itself, the plan will always be changing—adjusting to new developments in technologies and markets, reflecting new realities, and evolving to realize the unforeseen opportunities of a particular time.

As such, implementation requires a long-term commitment to measuring progress and adjusting programs and policies to improve performance.

Half of the recommendations in this plan are offered to the FCC. To begin implementation, the FCC will:

• Quickly publish a timetable of proceedings to implement plan recommendations within its authority.
• Publish an evaluation of plan progress and effectiveness as part of its annual 706 Advanced Services Inquiry.
• Create a Broadband Data Depository as a public resource for broadband information.

The remaining half of the recommendations are offered to the Executive Branch, Congress and state and local governments. Policymakers alone, though, cannot ensure success. Industry, non-profits, and government together with the American people, must now act and rise to our era’s infrastructure challenge.

Source:

Broadband.gov Click here to download the complete "pdf" document.

The complete document is 360 pages long. The portions reproduced above are only the PREFACE and the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.

FCC's plan for broadband Internet access falls short

By Rob Pegoraro
The Washington Post
Sunday, March 21, 2010; G01

The government has a big plan for broadband — big enough that you'll want a broadband connection to download its full text.

But despite the bulk of the National Broadband Plan that the Federal Communications Commission published Tuesday at http://broadband.gov — a 376-page, 11.5-megabyte file — this set of blueprints doesn't represent much of a change from the existing market for high-speed Internet access.

The FCC hopes to speed up and expand broadband access, which are both big problems: 35 percent of adult Americans lack high-speed Internet access at home, and those who do connect at slower speeds than residents of other countries. A 2009 study by the International Telecommunications Union ranked the United States 17th in adopting information and communication technologies.

But the commission's plan relies on a rearrangement of the airwaves, a reshuffling of existing subsidies and tweaks to current regulations.

If those measures work as planned, we should have more choices for wireless broadband. But wireless carriers may not charge any less and could exert the same control over which devices we can run on their networks.

For faster connections, most of us will continue to be stuck with the same two wireline providers: the phone company and the cable company. Which, in turn, means that the cost of connectivity — what the FCC's own research identified as the biggest factor holding back broadband — isn't likely to get much lighter.

For most Internet users, the part of the FCC plan to focus on its fifth chapter, "Spectrum." This is where the Feds propose to scrounge around the airwaves to free up 500 MHz of capacity for broadband services by 2020, with a full 300 MHz due by 2015 — up from a mere 50 MHz open for broadband today.

The FCC would first cobble together 180 MHz of spectrum unsold in past auctions, kept vacant by too-cautious interference rules or left unused by such firms as satellite-phone services.

The FCC would extract another 120 MHz from television broadcasters by encouraging them to give up unused frequencies and squeeze together on the dial (like how you'd rearrange a bookshelf to make room for a bound copy of the FCC plan). Those measures would not necessarily yank channels from the airwaves but would require viewers to re-scan them.

Stations would keep a chunk of the proceeds from spectrum resold for broadband use, but expect most to fight this idea. One reason: The plan suggests that the FCC could impose more drastic changes to TV spectrum if broadcasters don't cooperate.

To extend wired broadband to places without it, the FCC plan would convert today's subsidies for phone service into a program to underwrite broadband deployment. That doesn't seem too objectionable; if you can upgrade a phone line to a data link fast enough to support Internet phone calling, why not?

But the plan suggests financing this by shifting the burden from phone users to Internet users. This change need not increase the total bill for voice and online service, but it will inevitably be labeled a Tax On The Internet (cue shrieking violins).

To ease the deployment of both wired and wireless access, the FCC plan recommends fine-tuning dozens of regulations and laws governing such details as how Internet providers can set up equipment on telephone poles and the "special access" rates large carriers charge competitors for upstream links.

The FCC also proposes to collect more data about the price, performance and coverage of Internet services. Instead of only knowing that a company advertises downloads of "up to" whatever speed, you could check its average downloads, uploads and uptime. This research would also determine whether the plan's most ambitious goal — 100 million bits-per-second access in 100 million homes by 2020 — can be met.

The plan concludes with a series of chapters outlining how universal broadband will serve such "national purposes" as health care information technology, an energy-efficient "smart grid" for electricity and open access to the workings of government.

But even after all these changes, many requiring Congressional action, many people will probably shop from the same cast of characters and pay about the same as today. Our wired services may be faster, and we may have more wireless choices, but we won't find the United States transformed into a land of cheap, fast bandwidth like South Korea.

That's the unavoidable result of a plan that doesn't rewrite history and eschews such ambitious but politically unfeasible measures as "open access" rules through which other countries require incumbent carriers to rent lines to competitors at wholesale rates. In that sense, it's not too different from the administration's health-care plan — another middle-of-the-road measure that keeps much of the current market intact.

So will we have a grown-up debate about the ways and means of building out broadband, or are we in for a round of uninformed yammering about FCC disconnection panels?

www.daviscommsusa.com

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FCC Sends NBP To Congress

The FCC today delivered its National Broadband Plan (NBP) to Congress. In early 2009, Congress directed the FCC to develop such a plan to ensure every American has “access to broadband capability." Congress also required that this Plan include a detailed strategy for achieving affordability and maximizing the use of broadband to advance consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety, homeland security, and other national purposes. Much more will be learned about the details of the Broadband Plan as the FCC issues Notices of Proposed Rulemaking to develop the rules that will implement the new plan. However, it is clear that the plan will largely dismantle the Universal Service Fund (USF) as we know it, and it is not at all clear that the replacement programs will benefit rural America enough to compensate for this impact.

The Plan

Government can influence the broadband ecosystem in four ways:

1. Design policies' to ensure robust competition and, as a result maximize consumer welfare, innovation and investment.

2. Ensure efficient allocation and management of assets, government controls or influences, such as spectrum, poles, and rights-of-way, to encourage network upgrades and competitive entry.

3. Reform current universal service mechanisms to support deployment of broadband and voice in high-cost areas; and ensure that low-income Americans can afford broadband; and in addition, support efforts to boost adoption and utilization.

4. Reform laws, policies, standards and incentives to maximize the benefits of broadband in sectors government influences significantly, such as public education, health care and government operations.

1. Establishing competition policies. Policymakers, including the FCC, have a broad set of tools to protect and encourage competition in the markets that make up the broadband ecosystem: network services, devices, applications and content. The plan contains multiple recommendations that will foster competition across the ecosystem. They include the following:

• Collect, analyze, benchmark and publish detailed, market-by-market information on broadband pricing and competition, which will likely have direct impact on competitive behavior (e.g., through benchmarking of pricing across geographic markets). This will also enable the FCC and other agencies to apply appropriate remedies when competition is lacking in specific geographies or market segments.
• Develop disclosure requirements for broadband service providers to ensure consumers have the pricing and performance information they need to choose the best broadband offers in the market. Increased transparency will incent service providers to compete for customers on the basis of actual performance.
• Undertake a comprehensive review of wholesale competition rules to help ensure competition in fixed and mobile broadband services.
• Free up and allocate additional spectrum for unlicensed use, fostering ongoing innovation and competitive entry.
• Update rules for wireless backhaul spectrum to increase capacity in urban areas and range in rural areas.
• Expedite action on data roaming to determine how best to achieve wide, seamless and competitive coverage, encourage mobile broadband providers to construct and build networks, and promote entry and competition.
• Change rules to ensure a competitive and innovative video set-top box market, to be consistent with Section 629 of the Telecommunications Act. The Act says that the FCC should ensure that its rules achieve a competitive market in video "navigation devices," or set-top boxes—the devices consumers use to access much of the video they watch today.
• Clarify the Congressional mandate allowing state and local entities to provide broadband in their communities and do so in ways that use public resources more effectively.
• Clarify the relationship between users and their online profiles to enable continued innovation and competition in applications and ensure consumer privacy, including the obligations of firms collecting personal information to allow consumers to know what information is being collected, consent to such collection, correct it if necessary, and control disclosure of such personal information to third parties.

SPECTRUM ISSUES

2. Ensuring efficient allocation and use of government owned and government-influenced assets. Government establishes policies for the use of spectrum and oversees access to poles, conduits, rooftops and rights-of-way, which are used in the deployment of broadband networks. Government also finances a large number of infrastructure projects. Ensuring these assets and resources are allocated and managed efficiently can encourage deployment of broadband infrastructure and lower barriers to competitive entry. The plan contains a number of recommendations to accomplish these goals. They include the following:

Spectrum is a major input for providers of broadband service. Currently, the FCC has only 50 megahertz in inventory, just a fraction of the amount that will be necessary to match growing demand. More efficient allocation and assignment of spectrum will reduce deployment costs, drive investment and benefit consumers through better performance and lower prices. The recommendations on spectrum policy include the following:

• Make 500 megahertz of spectrum newly available for broadband within 10 years, of which 300 megahertz should be made available for mobile use within five years.
• Enable incentives and mechanisms to repurpose spectrum to more flexible uses. Mechanisms include incentive auctions, which allow auction proceeds to be shared in an equitable manner with current licensees as market demands change. These would benefit both spectrum holders and the American public. The public could benefit from additional spectrum for high-demand uses and from new auction revenues. Incumbents, meanwhile, could recognize a portion of the value of enabling new uses of spectrum. For example, this would allow the FCC to share auction proceeds with broadcasters who voluntarily agree to use technology to continue traditional broadcast services with less spectrum.
• Ensure greater transparency of spectrum allocation, assignment and use through an FCC-created spectrum dashboard to foster an efficient secondary market.
• Expand opportunities for innovative spectrum access models by creating new avenues for opportunistic and unlicensed use of spectrum and increasing research into new spectrum technologies.

Infrastructure such as poles, conduits, rooftops and rights-of-way play an important role in the economics of broadband networks. Ensuring service providers can access these resources efficiently and at fair prices can drive upgrades and facilitate competitive entry. In addition, testbeds can drive innovation of next-generation applications and, ultimately, may promote infrastructure deployment. Recommendations to optimize infrastructure use include:

• Establish low and more uniform rental rates for access to poles, and simplify and expedite the process for service providers to attach facilities to poles.
• Improve rights-of-way management for cost and time savings, promote use of federal facilities for broadband, expedite resolution of disputes and identify and establish "best practices" guidelines for rights-of-way policies and fee practices that are consistent with broadband deployment.
• Facilitate efficient new infrastructure construction, including through "dig-once" policies that would make federal financing of highway, road and bridge projects contingent on states and localities allowing joint deployment of broadband infrastructure.
• Provide ultra-high-speed broadband connectivity to select U.S. Department of Defense installations to enable the development of next-generation broadband applications for military personnel and their families living on base.

UNIVERSAL SERVICE ISSUES

3. Creating incentives for universal availability and adoption of broadband. Three elements must be in place to ensure all Americans have the opportunity to reap the benefits of broadband. All Americans should have access to broadband service with sufficient capabilities, all should be able to afford broadband and all should have the opportunity to develop digital literacy skills to take advantage of broadband. Recommendations to promote universal broadband deployment and adoption include the following:

Ensure universal access to broadband network services.

• Create the Connect America Fund (CAF) to support the provision of affordable broadband and voice with at least 4 Mbps actual download speeds and shift up to $15.5 billion over the next decade from the existing Universal Service Fund (USF) program to support broadband. If Congress wishes to accelerate the deployment of broadband to unserved areas and otherwise smooth the transition of the Fund, it could make available public funds of a few billion dollars per year over two to three years.
• Create a Mobility Fund to provide targeted funding to ensure no states are lagging significantly behind the national average for 3G wireless coverage. Such 3G coverage is widely expected to be the basis for the future footprint of 4G mobile broadband networks.
• Transition the "legacy" High-Cost component of the USF over the next 10 years and shift all resources to the new funds. The $4.6 billion per year High Cost component of the USF was designed to support primarily voice services. It will be replaced over time by the CAF.
• Reform intercarrier compensation, which provides implicit subsidies to telephone companies by eliminating per-minute charges over the next 10 years and enabling adequate cost recovery through the CAF.
• Design the new Connect America Fund and Mobility Fund in a tax-efficient manner to minimize the size of the broadband availability gap and thereby reduce contributions borne by consumers.
• Broaden the USF contribution base to ensure USF remains sustainable over time.

Create mechanisms to ensure affordability to low-income Americans.

Expand the Lifeline and Link-Up programs by allowing subsidies provided to low-income Americans to be used for broadband.

• Consider licensing a block of spectrum with a condition to offer free or low-cost service that would create affordable alternatives for consumers, reducing the burden on USF.
• Ensure every American has the opportunity to become digitally literate.
• Launch a National Digital Literacy Corps to organize and train youth and adults to teach digital literacy skills and enable private sector programs addressed at breaking adoption barriers.

4. Updating policies, setting standards and aligning incentives to maximize use for national priorities. Federal, Tribal, state and local governments play an important role in many sectors of our economy. Government is the largest health care payor in the country, operates the public education system, regulates many aspects of the energy industry, provides multiple services to its citizens and has primary responsibility for homeland security. The plan includes recommendations designed to unleash increased use, private sector investment and innovation in these areas. They include the following:

Health care. Broadband can help improve the quality and lower the cost of health care through health IT and improved data capture and use, which will enable clearer understanding of the most effective treatments and processes. To achieve these objectives, the plan has recommendations that will:

• Help ensure health care providers have access to affordable broadband by transforming the FCC's Rural Health Care Program.
• Create incentives for adoption by expanding reimbursement for e-care.
• Remove barriers to e-care by modernizing regulations like device approval, credentialing, privileging and licensing.
• Drive innovative applications and advanced analytics by ensuring patients have control over their health data and ensuring interoperability of data.

Education. Broadband can enable improvements in public education through e-Iearning and online content, which can provide more personalized learning opportunities for students. Broadband can also facilitate the flow of information, helping teachers, parents, schools and other organizations to make better decisions tied to each student's needs and abilities. To those ends, the plan includes recommendations to:

• Improve the connectivity to schools and libraries by upgrading the FCC's E-Rate program to increase flexibility, improve program efficiency and foster innovation by promoting the most promising solutions and funding wireless connectivity to learning devices that go home with students.
• Accelerate online learning by enabling the creation of digital content and learning systems, removing regulatory barriers and promoting digital literacy.
• Personalize learning and improve decision-making by fostering adoption of electronic educational records and improving financial data transparency in education.

Energy and the environment. Broadband can play a major role in the transition to a clean energy economy. America can use these innovations to reduce carbon pollution, improve our energy efficiency and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. To achieve these objectives, the plan has recommendations that will:

• Modernize the electric grid with broadband, making it more reliable and efficient.
• Unleash energy innovation in homes and buildings by making energy data readily accessible to consumers.
• Improve the energy efficiency and environmental impact of the ICT sector.

Economic opportunity. Broadband can expand access to jobs and training, support entrepreneurship and small business growth and strengthen community development efforts. The plan includes recommendations to:

• Support broadband choice and small businesses' use of broadband services' and applications to drive job creation, growth and productivity gains.
• Expand opportunities for job training and placement through an online platform.
• Integrate broadband assessment and planning into economic development efforts.

Government performance and civic engagement. Within government, broadband can drive greater efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery and internal operations. It can also improve the quantity and quality of civic engagement by providing a platform for meaningful engagement with representatives and agencies. Through its own use of broadband, government can support local efforts to deploy broadband, particularly in unserved communities. To achieve these goals, the plan includes recommendations to:

• Allow state and local governments to purchase broadband from federal contracts such as Networx.
• Improve government performance and operations through cloud computing, cybersecurity, secure authentication and online service delivery, ecosystem and modernizing the democratic process.

Public safety and homeland security. Broadband can bolster efforts to improve public safety and homeland security by allowing first responders to send and receive video and data, by ensuring all Americans can access emergency services and improving the way Americans are notified about emergencies. To achieve these objectives, the plan makes recommendations to:

• Support deployment of a nationwide, interoperable public safety mobile broadband network, with funding of up to $6.5 billion in capital expenditures over l0 years, which could be reduced through cost efficiency measures and other programs. Additional funding will be required for operating expenses.
• Promote innovation in the development and deployment of next-generation 911 and emergency alert systems.
• Promote cybersecurity and critical infrastructure survivability to increase user confidence, trust and adoption of broadband communications.

Long-Term Goals

In addition to the recommendations above, the plan recommends that the country adopt and track the following six goals to serve as a compass over the next decade.

Goal No.1: At least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second.

Goal No.2: The United States should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.

Goal No.3: Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.

Goal No.4: Every American community should have affordable access to at least 1 gigabit per second broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings.

Goal No.5: To ensure the safety of the American people, every first responder should have access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable broadband public safety network.

Goal No.6: To ensure that America leads in the clean open and transparent, creating a robust public media energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

Meeting these six goals will help achieve the Congressional mandate of using broadband to achieve national purposes, while improving the economics of deployment and adoption. In particular, the first two goals will create the world's most attractive market for broadband applications, devices and infrastructure and ensure America has the infrastructure to attract the leading communications and IT applications, devices and technologies. The third goal, meanwhile, will ensure every American has the opportunity to take advantage of the benefits broadband offers, including improved health care, better education, access to a greater number of economic opportunities and greater civic participation.

Budget Impact of Plan
Given the plan's goal of freeing 500 megahertz of spectrum, future wireless auctions mean the overall plan will be revenue neutral, if not revenue positive. The vast majority of recommendations do not require new government funding; rather, they seek to drive improvements in government efficiency, streamline processes and encourage private activity to promote consumer welfare and national priorities. The funding requests relate to public safety, deployment to unserved areas and adoption efforts. If the spectrum auction recommendations are implemented, the plan is likely to offset the potential costs.

Implementation
The plan is in beta, and always will be. Like the Internet itself, the plan will always be changing-adjusting to new developments in technologies and markets, reflecting new realities, and evolving to realize the unforeseen opportunities of a particular time. As such, implementation requires a long-term commitment to measuring progress and adjusting programs and policies to improve performance. Half of the recommendations in this plan are offered to the FCC. To begin implementation, the FCC will:

• Quickly publish a timetable of proceedings to implement plan recommendations within its authority.
• Publish an evaluation of plan progress and effectiveness as part of its annual 706 Advanced Services Inquiry.
• Create a Broadband Data Depository as a public resource for broadband information.

The remaining half of the recommendations are offered to the Executive Branch, Congress and state and local governments. Policymakers alone, though, cannot ensure success. Industry, non-profits, and government together with the American people, must now act and rise to our era's infrastructure challenge.

BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, John Prendergast, and Mary Sisak.

FCC PROPOSES RECORD 15.3% USF CONTRIBUTION FACTOR FOR SECOND QUARTER: The FCC’s Office of Managing Director (OMD) has proposed a record universal service contribution factor of 0.153 or 15.3% for the second quarter of 2010. This compares with 14.1% for the first quarter; 12.3% for the fourth quarter of 2009; and 12.9% for the third quarter of 2009. The second quarter increase to 15.3% appears, in part, to result from a decrease in the 2Q contribution base of $14.312935 billion from the 1Q base of $14.996218 billion; and (2) an increase in projected 2Q Low Income support of $358.22 million over $309.97 in 1Q 2010. Projected High Cost Fund support increases only slightly in the second quarter (from $1106.31 to $1119.57). If the Commission takes no action by March 26, the 15.3% contribution factor for the second quarter of 2010 will be deemed approved by the Commission. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

USAC SEEKS GUIDANCE ON LIFELINE FORM 497: On February 23, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) filed a letter with the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau seeking guidance on certain aspects of Line 9 of FCC Form 497, the Lifeline and Link Up Worksheet. Line 9 of FCC Form 497 is used by eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) to report pro-rated low-income support amounts claimed. Specifically, USAC notes that audits of the low-income program have identified carriers that have not pro-rated requests for Lifeline support amounts for customers whose Lifeline service is initiated or terminated mid-month, and asks the Commission what recovery action, if any, USAC should take against an ETC that has failed to pro-rate support claims for partial-month Lifeline customers. Additionally, USAC seeks Commission guidance on whether ETCs may use Line 9 for any purpose other than to report the amount of support attributed to partial-month Lifeline customers. Comments in this WC Docket No. 03-109 proceeding are due April 9, and replies are due April 23. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

COURT UPHOLDS FCC IN EXCLUSIVE CONTRACTS CASE: In Cablevision v. FCC (consolidated cases beginning at 07-1425), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied the petitions for review of the Commission’s decision to extend for five years a statutory prohibition against exclusive contracts between cable operators and cable affiliated programming networks. Petitioners asserted that the Commission misinterpreted the plain meaning of the underlying statute. In addition, they argued the Commission’s decision was arbitrary and capricious and therefore violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Lastly, petitioners claimed the decision fails under First Amendment intermediate scrutiny. The Court held that the Commission’s interpretation of its statutory mandate was reasonable. Because the Court also held that the Commission’s decision satisfied arbitrary and capricious review, and that intermediate scrutiny is not applicable, it denied the petitions for review. BloostonLaw contacts: Ben Dickens, Gerry Duffy, and Mary Sisak.

This newsletter is not intended to provide legal advice. Those interested in more information should contact the firm.

Source: Blooston, Mordkofsky, Dickens, Duffy and Prendergast, LLP For additional information, contact Hal Mordkofsky at 202-828-5520 or halmor@bloostonlaw.com

Motorola bosses still earning a fortune despite pay cut

Mar. 15, 2010 (9:14 am) By: Andy Carvell

Motorola’s two CEOs, Sanjay Jha and Greg Brown, will continue a voluntary 25% reduction in salary in 2010.

The pair first decided to reduce their pay from $1.2 million to $900,000 in 2009 and will continue at this reduced rate in 2010, showing sensitivity to the continuing difficult market conditions as well as the public anger at fat-cat executive pay deals.

Readers concerned that the pair will struggle to make ends meet on such meager salaries can rest easy, total compensation (including perks and bonuses) in 2009 for Jha was $3.75 million, whilst co-CEO Brown hauled in $8.5 million.

This is small fry compared to what the pair stand to make over the next few years, however. Jha was brought in as co-CEO to head up Motorola’s mobile division, which the company hopes to spin off into a separate entity in 2011. Under the terms of his contract, Jha stands to gain a fortune whether or not the split occurs; he will make $38 million if the break-up fails and stands to be awarded between 1.8 and 3 percent of the market capitalization of the new entity if it goes ahead.

Jha was also compensated to the tune of $100 million in 2008, although much of this was in share options, which are dependent on improved company performance.

NEWS FLASH — SATELLITE FAILURES

• January 11, 1997—Telstar 401 suffers a short in the satellite circuitry—TOTAL LOSS May 19, 1998—Galaxy 4 control processor causes loss of fixed orbit—TOTAL LOSS September 19, 2003—Telstar 4 suffers loss of its primary power bus—TOTAL LOSS March 17, 2004—PAS-6 suffers loss of power—TOTAL LOSS
• January 14, 2005—Intelsat 804 suffers electrical power system anomaly—TOTAL LOSS

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Court: Pennsylvania DA Can't Bring 'Sexting' Charges

By Michael Rubinkam
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2010

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that a northeastern Pennsylvania prosecutor may not pursue felony charges against a teenage girl who appeared in a racy cell-phone photo.

In the first criminal "sexting" case to reach a federal appeals court, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled against Wyoming County District Attorney Jeff Mitchell, whose predecessor had threatened to pursue felony charges against the girl unless she agreed to participate in a diversionary program and write an essay explaining what she did and why it was wrong.

That violated the teen's constitutional right to be free from compelled speech and infringed on her parents' right to direct her upbringing, the court said.

The district attorney also had no evidence that the teen was involved in the photo's distribution, the court said.

The image, which wound up on students' cell phones, showed the 16-year-old girl just out of the shower and topless, with a towel wrapped around her waist. It surfaced in October 2008, when officials at Tunkhannock Area High School confiscated five cell phones and found that boys had been trading photos of scantily clad, seminude or nude teenage girls.

The students with the cell phones ranged in age from 11 to 17.

Then-District Attorney George Skumanick met with about 20 students and their parents and offered them a deal in which the youths wouldn't be prosecuted if they took a class on sexual harassment, sexual violence and gender roles. Seventeen of the students accepted the offer, but three balked and sued Skumanick.

The two other girls who had filed suit had appeared in a photo showing them at age 12 in training bras at a sleepover. The district attorney's office recently said it would not press charges against the girls, making their claims before the appeals court moot.

In Wednesday's ruling, the court agreed that the prosecutor's threat to charge the topless teen was "retaliation" for her refusal to participate in the class. The panel issued a preliminary injunction against Mitchell and sent the case back to a lower court.

"I think the important message for prosecutors is that there are constitutional limits on their ability to bring criminal charges against kids involved in sexting," said Witold Walczack, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which represents the teens.

Mitchell said Wednesday no decision has been made on whether to continue with the case.

He said he's disappointed "to the extent that the decision appears to limit the discretion a district attorney has when faced with a criminal case, or a juvenile case."

Skumanick could have authorized criminal charges from the outset, but instead sought an alternative way to discourage teens from exchanging sexually explicit photos and e-mails on their cell phones.

"What's ironic about this case is the district attorney got penalized for being too nice," he said.

Under Pennsylvania's child pornography law, it's a felony to possess or disseminate photos of a minor engaged in sexual activity, "lewd exhibition of the genitals" or nudity that is meant to titillate.

A bill moving through the state House would make sexting a less serious offense for teenagers than for adults. Under current law, minors who send sexually explicit photographs from one cell phone to another could be convicted of a felony.

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AT&T Zero phone charger won't draw power by itself

Posted on Mar 18, 2010 7:00 am by Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service

Unlike the guy in your building who likes to talk about how his Amiga was better than any computer sold today, AT&T’s new Zero cell-phone charger knows when to stop.

Unlike conventional chargers, the Zero won’t draw power if there’s no phone plugged into it. AT&T claims the Zero, which it developed with phone accessory vendor Superior Communications, is the first such charger on the market. It will go on sale only at AT&T stores across the U.S. in May, and interested customers can sign up to be notified when it’s released.

AT&T wouldn't specify which phones the Zero charger will be able to charge, though spokesman Mark Siegel said it was designed for the carrier’s major smartphones. But its USB interface suggests it will be compatible with the Apple iPhone.

Most device chargers keep drawing power from the electrical grid even when there’s no device plugged into them. They are among the “vampire” devices that consume energy even while in “standby” mode when they are not being used. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that standby power makes up as much as 20 percent of home energy use in the U.S.

In addition to saving power in the wall socket, the Zero charger can help save the environment because it will work with many different devices, so there is less need to buy multiple chargers, according to AT&T. The charger will cost about the same as current replacement chargers offered by AT&T. The carrier lists several small travel chargers on its Web site that are priced at $30, or $21 with a $9 online discount.

It’s rare for standby power to make up 20 percent of a home’s energy consumption, but the average household may spend $40 per year on it, said Michael Kanellos, a senior analyst at GreenTech Media. And across hundreds of millions of homes, that small amount of electricity taken from the power grid adds up.

“It’s power being generated but not doing anything productive, so you might as well get rid of it,“ Kanellos said.

The Zero charger is a step in the right direction, while other companies are working on even smarter chargers, he said. Those will stop drawing power as soon as the phone is fully charged.

“Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.”

—Psalm 37:5-6

Scripture quotation taken from the NASB.