At the annual conference of the American Business Media yesterday, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) outlined the provisions of a data privacy bill he expects to release today. The bill would provide consumers the right to opt out of having their personal information, including internet surfing habits, social networking sites visited, and the products and services they purchase, collected by companies engaged in behavioral targeting.

It would apply to the collection of personal information from consumers both online and offline and "initially require that all Web sites that collect information from consumers give consumers notice with respect to what information is collected, how it is used, who it is shared with, and the circumstances under which it is shared," Boucher said. Unaffiliated third party websites that collect data from multiple unaffiliated websites as well as those seeking to use sensitive personal information such as medical or financial data would be required to have the consumer's specific consent before using and collecting the information from them.

A letter cosigned by the Consumer Federation of America, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group decried the inclusion of the “opt out” provision as “a blow to consumer protection” by allowing firms to collect and use data unless consumers specifically request that it not be collected. The letter also called for the right for consumers to review and correct the information and to prevent the linking of an individual’s name or address through an IP address, cookie or other identifier.

More on the implications of bill concerning the collection and use of data on a consumer’s energy use provided by SG meters will be determined once the bill is released.

Mike Assante, the current Vice President and Chief Security Officer of NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation), will be leaving the organization at the end of May 2010. This announcement came from NERC President and CEO Gerry Cauley who said that Assante will be pursuing an “excellent opportunity to lead a new national effort to measure and enhance the skills of the cyber security work force on which industry and government depend.”

Assante has been in this position since August 2008 which was newly created at the time to address Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) as part of NERC’s program functions. He was directly involved in the NERC-CIP standards setting process to enhance the cyber security of the grid and proposed federal legislation to address threats to and vulnerabilities of the bulk power system (BPS). NERC had come under sharp criticism from Congress in regards to its efforts to alert owners and operators to the vulnerability which came to be known as the “Aurora incident”. Read more »

The argument is being made that smart grid supporters should support “net-metering” since it will spur renewables, which will in turn require smart grids to integrate them efficiently. What the argument ignores is the fact that net-metering requires those who can least afford it, to subsidize the very rich. Moreover, there already are alternative ways of spurring renewables in more cost effective ways. Support of smart grid deployments should be based upon the value that it will provide to consumers and their utilities, not on its ability to create subsidies from those who can least afford it.

Net-metering requires utilities to overpay for renewable generation by paying for the energy delivered to the utility using a bundled retail rate that includes not only the generation charge (which would be more appropriate), but also all distribution, transmission and other utility costs. The end result is that those consumers/suppliers fail to pay their fair share of the utility’s fixed costs and consequently the revenue shortfalls are ultimately added to the bills of all other consumers. Additional financial problems are created for utilities and ultimately their consumers when energy supplied to the utility at night, which generally has a very low value, is netted out against energy taken from the utility during the peak of the day, which is the most expensive power to purchase or generate. Alternatively, “net-billing” prices energy sold to consumers at the normal state set retail rate, but prices energy delivered to the utility at prices that reflect the real market value to the utility of the energy. While this might mean payments at rates that exceed non-renewable energy prices, the payments reflect least cost renewable alternatives. Read more »

In the wake of the FCC's announcement last week that it intends to adopt an order and further rulemaking on pole attachments during its May 20, 2010 open commission meeting, UTC and other utility industry advocates have been meeting with the FCC to express their continued opposition to rate subsidies and new access requirements for pole attachments that would threaten safety and reliability of critical infrastructure.

UTC met with FCC commissioners, their staff, and the staff at the Wireline Competition Bureau and urged the FCC not to adopt many of the recommendations in the FCC's National Broadband Plan (NBP). Specifically, UTC opposed recommendations for a broadband rate based upon the current rate for cable television attachments and recommendations for one-size-fits-all standards and timelines for access as well as the establishment of a pole attachment database that would be publicly accessible and searchable. UTC and utility representatives explained such a database would be impractical and would take resources away from the deployment of broadband. UTC has been informed that many if not all of the NBP recommendations will be included as part of the further rulemaking, but the order itself will address nondiscriminatory access for pole attachments in general, rather than imposing specific requirements.

North Carolina is looking to restrict municipal broadband, and UTC is fighting against it. This week UTC and seven other signatories (including the American Public Power Association, Alcatel-Lucent, Google and Intel) sent a letter to the North Carolina legislature opposing a bill that would place a moratorium on public broadband deployments, such as those by municipal utilities. That succeeded in getting legislators to back off a complete ban, but they did decide to consider legislation that would restrict the funding of such broadband deployments.

Specifically, the draft bill would require localities to go through a referendum process to obtain funding, and UTC and other proponents of municipal broadband are concerned that these restrictions could have the same practical effect as a ban because incumbent providers such as AT&T and Time Warner can launch massive advertising campaigns against any such referendum. Although the sponsor of the bill, Sen. Hoyle stated that the bill would grandfather existing municipal broadband deployments, the bill would require any municipal broadband financing, improvement, upgrade or repair to be funded with general obligation bonds. As such, it may restrict existing and future deployments. Although the bill has been introduced, it has not been given a bill number yet. UTC will post the bill and report developments as they become available.

The FCC held a workshop on May 6th to discuss the development of its new Consolidated Licensing System (CLS). The CLS will become the vehicle by which all UTC members will access their license information. The purpose of the workshop was to explore legal and technical challenges the Commission is likely to encounter as it develops and deploys the agency-wide CLS.

The CLS is intended to replace all of the Commission’s current licensing systems used for the different services it regulates, among them the ULS, ASR, COALS, CDBS, ELS and IBFS. Participants in the roundtable workshop included representatives from the legal community, broadcast, wireless, and tower industries, amateur operators, and associations and frequency advisory committees including UTC. Read more »

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-United States of America (IEEE-USA) filed a letter to both the FCC and NTIA on May 6, 2010, seeking to revive an effort that would provide a defined harmful interference metric. The standards organization states that "the intent of this letter is to offer suggestions to both agencies to improve the transparency and speed of spectrum allocation decisions. These suggestions focus on how the two agencies can develop a more transparent framework for making “harmful interference” determinations."

The letter comes on the heels of the rapidly moving spectrum inventory legislation making its way through Congress. IEEE-USA states that any spectrum inventory that seeks to reallocate spectrum must have a clear definition of harmful interference to ensure protection of incumbent users. Failing to define interference could deadlock spectrum reallocation and the IEEE-USA letter cites a few examples. Read more »

UTC Spectrum Services is pleased to announce that we have rebranded our popular Frequency Guard and License Guard services as Frequency Sentry and License Sentry. The new names better reflect the high caliber defense that these products add to your frequency management. Frequency Sentry is a unique service that notifies participants when applications are filed that are co-channel with, or on adjacent channels to, their designated PLMRS or MAS frequencies, within your own preferred parameters. Most of the time, you notification of potential interfering facilities BEFORE the FCC grants the license. License Sentry enables UTC Spectrum Services to monitor, modify, renew and report on your FCC licenses automatically – taking all the work off of your plate and on to ours. If you are looking for better ways to manage your frequency, look no further than UTC Spectrum Services. Contact us today for a specialized quote at 202.872.0030 or spectrumservices@utc.org.

UTC believes that the Department of Energy (DOE) Request for Information (RFI) for its study of the communications needs of utilities will be published in the Federal Register tomorrow.

Based on UTC’s understanding of the RFI, the DOE wants utilities to quantify their communications requirements to the extent possible. The DOE wants information on the current and future communications needs of utilities, including for smart grid. It also wants to know the basic requirements, such as coverage, latency, throughput, for smart grid and electric utility communications in general. It also wants to know about other factors, such as terrain, foliage, customer density and size of service territory, to consider. Using these requirements and factors, it asks for use cases and technology options for smart grid and other utility communications; and it seeks recommendations for solutions to meet these use cases. Finally, the DOE asks various questions about the use of commercial networks, including improvements that would be necessary to meet utilities’ requirements; and it asks utilities to predict how they will meet their future communications requirements.

The comment cycle will be short (60 days for initial comments and 75 days for reply comments). UTC will provide more details on the UTC Insight, as they become available. Stay tuned!

As noted in UTC's blog post yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued a Request for Information (RFI) to guide its study on the communications requirements of utilities in the Federal Register today. The DOE is looking for information to help it understand utility communication needs, including, but not limited to, the requirements for the deployment of the Smart Grid.

The RFI also seeks to collect information about electricity infrastructure’s current and projected communications requirements, as well as the types of networks and communications services that may be used for grid modernization. Specifically, DOE seeks information on what types of communications capabilities that the utilities think that they will need and what type of communications capabilities that the communications carriers think that they can provide. Read more »