Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on February 2, 2012 at 3:52 pm
By Xavier Williams, AT&T Senior Vice President of Public Sector and Healthcare:
Yesterday, I participated in a great town hall event here in Washington to kick off the first ever National Digital Learning Day, of which AT&T is a proud sponsor. For several months now, AT&T has been working closely with the Digital Textbook Collaborative, composed of other members of the industry, to determine ways to bring digital textbooks into our country’s K-12 school system.
After combining years of expertise in education technology, it was a pleasure this afternoon to present the results of our efforts to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Through what has been dubbed the Digital Textbook Playbook, we are providing school district leaders with guidance on how best to bring effective digital learning opportunities to fruition in their respective classrooms. It is a planning resource for schools to transition into digital learning by classifying broadband infrastructure, distinguishing home and community broadband to extend access, and indentifying necessary device considerations.
The Playbook is a unique and exciting development that can help the United States achieve the goals laid out in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan along with the Education Department’s National Education Technology Plan.
This has been an extraordinary collaboration in education technology among the public and private sectors, and it has been a privilege for AT&T to play a part in this effort. We look forward to continuing our work in this area.
Read More 
Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on February 2, 2012 at 12:23 pm
As reported in today’s Communications Daily, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt concedes Commission mistakes in the spectrum auction that involved NextWave, yet he is still pushing for FCC discretion in future spectrum auctions. The following may be attributed to Jim Cicconi, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External & Legislative Affairs:
“As Reed admits, Congress gave the FCC discretion in the PCS C Block auction, and it used that discretion in a way that resulted in an auction that was a disaster for the industry and for the Treasury. And the flaw, in our view, was not simply a function of installment payments. It was the decision to have a closed versus an open auction. Our point is that an auction should be open to all competitors, not just to those hand picked by the FCC. Reed was a good and diligent chairman, and it’s characteristic of him that he’d acknowledge a mistake. But Congress has every right to learn from those mistakes, and to insist the FCC not repeat them. That’s what the House spectrum bill does. The FCC should get behind it and put the interests of the country first so that we can quickly move forward to address the looming spectrum crisis that we all agree is the biggest threat to innovation, job creation and growth for the wireless industry.”
Read More
Posted by: AT&T Blog Team on February 1, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Jim Cicconi, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External & Legislative Affairs, responds to comments made by former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt regarding spectrum auctions:
“Despite Reed Hundt’s recollection, the FCC’s track record on auctions is not an unbroken string of successes. In fact, Hundt’s tenure saw perhaps the biggest single fiasco of this sort, the PCS C Block auction. In that situation, the FCC used its discretion in a way that set aside valuable spectrum for ‘designated entities’, and excluded otherwise qualified companies from bidding. Over half of the 493 licenses from that auction were later returned to the government for non-payment, and the licenses of the largest winner, NextWave, were tied up in bankruptcy litigation for years. In that case, the FCC’s use of its ‘discretion’ ended up costing the U.S. Treasury billions, and left vitally needed spectrum unused for years.
“No one is suggesting the FCC’s conduct of auctions be micro-managed. But Congress – not the FCC – sets policy, especially when it directly impacts revenue needed for deficit reduction. And there is no more fundamental policy point than whether a spectrum auction should be open or closed. Congress has every right to tell the FCC it should not be picking winners and losers in the wireless market, or using its ‘discretion’ to tilt the playing field. We need open auctions where every competitor has a fair chance to participate, and that is what the House bill provides.”
Read More
