"Data centers provide high-wage jobs to highly skilled employees, and Duffield has much to offer a company seeking a location for a data center," said Boucher, Communications Subcommittee Chairman. "It is home to the Scott County Business and Technology Park, which is fully outfitted with the water, wastewater and telecommunications infrastructure necessary to accommodate a data center. In addition, its multi-tenant Crooked Road Technology Center is available for occupancy."

TVA, according to a statement from Boucher, considered 50 sites throughout the Southeast for the distinction of "prime location" and chose 12 including Duffield. As part of a data center recruitment initiative, TVA will partner with local power distributors and economic development leaders to begin marketing the sites.

"I have been working with local officials for several years to transform the Duffield community into a prime location for technology based jobs, and today's announcement signals that our work has been successful," Boucher said.
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The greatest growth in new users is expected to come from developing nations, making up 162 million of the 226 million new Internet users in 2010, the ITU said in news release Tuesday.

Nonetheless, the United Nations agency found there is still a digital divide between developed and developing countries. Far more people in developed countries, 71 percent, are online compared with those in developing nations, where only 21 percent of the population use the Internet. The ITU also found that 65 percent of users in developed countries access the Internet from home compared to users in developing countries, where only 13.5 percent have access at home. In those countries, "Internet access in schools, at work and public locations is critical," the ITU said.

While fixed broadband subscriptions are still low in the developing world, about 4.4 subscriptions per 100 people, mobile broadband is becoming more widely available. The ITU data found that 90 percent of the global population has access to mobile networks.

"Mobile phone penetration in developing countries now stands at 68 percent -- higher than any other technology before," Sami Al Basheer, director of the ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau, said. "These countries have been innovative in adapting mobile technology to their particular needs and will be able to draw even greater benefits from broadband once adequate and affordable access is available."

The center noted that at least a quarter of the U.S. population only have cell phones and do not have a landline telephone, according to the latest statistics released in May by the National Center for Health Statistics.

"In three of four election polls conducted since the spring of this year, estimates from the landline samples alone produced slightly more support for Republican candidates and less support for Democratic candidates, resulting in differences of four to six points in the margin," the report said.

While some polling organizations include cell phones in their surveys, "virtually all" automated polls only call landlines, the center said. The center said the polls it conducts include samples of landline and cell phones.

In the center's latest poll of 2,816 registered voters, including 786 reached by cell phone, 44 percent favored the GOP candidate for Congress in their district or leaned Republican, while 47 percent said they would vote for the Democratic candidate or leaned Democratic. Among landline phone respondents, the poll, conducted Aug. 25-Sept. 6, found that 46 percent favored the GOP candidate, while 45 percent favored the Democratic candidate, a four-point shift in the margin, the center noted.

Featured speakers include Neil Freed, senior counsel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; David Quinalty, Senate Commerce Committee staffer; Daniel Sepulveda, senior adviser to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Bruce Wolpe, senior advisor at the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The Aspen Institute hosts a noon roundtable discussion on transforming teaching through technology. Featured speakers include Blair Levin, lead author of the national broadband plan. *the event is invite only

Wednesday
The National Institute of Standards and Technology hosts a two-day meeting of the Visiting Committee of Advanced Technology. Speakers include Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra.

The Center for American Progress hosts a noon discussion on "Avoiding Cell Phone Bill Shock." FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will discuss his consumer agenda and outline the findings of a new white paper on bill shock, when customers find unexpected increases in their mobile bills.

Thursday
The FCC hosts its monthly open meeting at 10:30 am. Cell phone bill shock, among other issues, will be considered.

NextGenWeb hosts a 10:00 am discussion on "telework-commuting on the super broadband highway."

Instead, the commission will deal with enforcement on a case-by-case basis. Broadband providers who violate the law will face a maximum penalty of $2 million by the FCC, under the bill.

The absence of the rulemaking authority, along with other provisions of the bill, is consistent with information reported by Tech Daily Dose last week.

The bill is a last-minute effort by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman to shepherd net neutrality legislation through the lower chamber before recess. Waxman hopes to advance the measure through the Senate during the lame-duck session after the November elections, according to an industry source.

Under the proposed legislation, the FCC would be prohibited from reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Communications Act, a change FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed in order to allow the government to impose rules designed to preserve the Internet's openness. Although he has sought to protect broadband from more onerous regulatory requirements under Title II, such as price regulation, the industry regards the reclassification approach as the "nuclear option."

To ensure net neutrality, the House bill would stipulate that wireline providers may not block lawful Internet traffic and or "unjustly or unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful traffic over a consumer's wireline broadband Internet access service."

Notably, the nondiscrimination language does not apply to wireless providers. The legislation would prohibit wireless providers from blocking lawful websites, but leaves open their ability to block applications and peer-to-peer activity.

The draft bill also sets a Dec. 31, 2011 deadline for the FCC to deliver to the House and Senate commerce committees a report regarding additional authority needed by the commission to implement its national broadband plan and ensure the further protection of consumers with respect to their Internet use.

The draft includes a sunset provision calling for the enacted measure to expire at the end of the 2012 calendar year.

All of the rules regarding Internet traffic are subject to "reasonable network management," the draft bill says.

"This bill represents a giant retreat by some of those who claim to support net neutrality and sends the wrong signal to the FCC who will ultimately deal with this issue," said a source familiar with the situation.

Tuesday
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will hold a 9:00 am workshop on the importance of the adoption and deployment of Internet Protocol version six (IPv6) addresses for industry, the U.S. Government, and the Internet economy. Speakers include Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and NTIA Deputy Assistant Secretary Anna Gomez

The Center for Democracy & Technology will host a 10:00 am press briefing to discuss the enormous impact the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act will have on Internet free speech, governance, and global Internet freedom. At the briefing CDT also will release a memo detailing its concerns with the bill.

Wednesday
The Aspen Institute will host a 10:00 am forum to unveil a new policy paper by Blair Levin detailing a plan for deploying broadband to 99 percent of the population in 10 years without additional funding. Speakers include FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (via video); Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission; and Rey Ramsey, president and CEO of TechNet.

Thursday
The House Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation will hold a 10:00 am hearing on "Standards for Health IT: Meaningful Use and Beyond."

Friday
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation will hold a 10:00 am event on paid prioritization. Speakers include Hank Hultquist, vice president of federal regulatory issues at AT&T and your Tech Daily Dose blogger, Eliza Krigman.

During a taped segment of C-Span's "The Communicators" program, House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and subcommittee ranking member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said they plan to push forward on comprehensive online privacy legislation regardless of which party wins control of the House following the November elections.

Boucher and Stearns released a draft bill in May and have been seeking input on the measure since then from key stakeholders. "We've accumulated a lot of information," Stearns said.

Both Boucher and Stearns said the work they have been doing this Congress should allow them to proceed to hearings and a markup in the 112th Congress. Boucher added that "it's a bipartisan issue" and that Stearns has been involved with the measure from the start. Stearns indicated he would press forward on privacy legislation if he is chairman of the subcommittee in the next Congress.

Boucher noted that he is still aiming to merge his measure with a similar bill introduced by Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., whose panel shares jurisdiction over the issue with Boucher's subcommittee.

Boucher also said that he is not sure if he will introduce the bill this year, but said "we've gotten the issue well tee'd up" for action next year.

When asked about criticism from business groups that it goes too far and claims from privacy advocates that it doesn't do enough, Boucher said he believes this shows that the measure has found the right middle ground on the issue. He noted it will provide the first set of comprehensive online privacy guarantees, while also ensuring that it will not interfere with the ability of online firms to provide advertising that helps support free content on the Internet.

"We don't want to interrupt this successful business model," he added.

Both lawmakers also voiced interest in seeking a rewrite of the 1996 telecommunications act, saying it has become outdated amid today's rapidly changing technology sector. "It's obsolete," Stearns said.

Boucher added that the FCC's sector-by-sector approach to telecom regulation needs to be overhauled to be more "functional" so that the agency is better able to deal with today's communications landscape where firms are offering multiple telecom services including voice, data and video.

Two rules LaHood announced at a similar summit last year have now become law. The rules ban commercial bus and truck drivers from texting on the job and restrict train operators from using wireless devices while driving.

LaHood has made stamping out texting while driving and other forms of distracted driving one of his signature initiatives. In a blog post Tuesday, he noted 5,500 people were killed in distraction-related crashes last year, while 450,000 others were injured.

"The research presented today will confirm what I've been saying over and over for the past 12 months: You cannot text or talk on the phone while driving safely. You just can't do it," LaHood said in the blog post.

The department also announced nearly 1,600 U.S. companies and organizations, covering 10.5 million workers, have signed on to a program aimed at persuading private firms and groups to implement policies that discourage distracted driving. Another 550 organizations have agreed to adopt distracted driving policies in the next year that cover 1.5 million additional U.S. workers, the department said in a news release.

Top aides to Genachowski -- Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus, Senior Counselor Josh Gottheimer, Chief Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor Rick Kaplan and agency spokeswoman Jen Howard -- gave reporters plenty to chew on.

As word leaked out about the off-the-record gathering, they were mum about who cooked up the idea and whether it was part of a new charm offensive aimed at burnishing the image of the agency, which was raked over the coals this summer during a protracted battle over broadband policy.

In an e-mail, Howard said the event was "the first in a series of informal chats with those who are on the FCC reporting beat." Officials declined to answer other questions about the event.

The dinner featured cheese pizza, Heineken beer and both red and white wine. A few journalists who attended said they didn't find the gathering particularly useful and that in typical form, the notoriously scripted Genachowski did not reveal anything substantive. While there were attempts to pepper the regulators with questions, one source panned the dinner as more akin to a "schmooze" than a news briefing.

Genachowski, who has repeatedly claimed to run an open and transparent FCC, appears to have a penchant for shadowy meetings. In July 2009, shortly after taking the helm at the agency, he held an off-the-record "meet and greet" with reporters who were advised beforehand that he wouldn't be taking tough questions.

Over the summer, the agency drew criticism for a series of clandestine sessions with telecommunications industry lobbyists that it originally insisted were not subject to its public disclosure rules. After an outcry from critics, the agency reversed itself by declaring those rules would apply after all.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Verizon, and Qwest Corporation also expressed support for the bill.

"To say this bill is a product of compromise is the understatement of the year," said Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. "We've worked for years to reach a delicate balance here where we have buy-in from industry and the committee."

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The Coalition for Competition in Media said several concerns have emerged about the merger as part of the FCC's comment process, which the group notes has generated more than 33,000 filings -- "94 percent in opposition to the merger."

"The recent emergence of new opposition and the new, in-depth analysis that they have brought forward adds multiple new dimensions to the discussion," the coalition said in letters Thursday to House and Senate Commerce committee leaders. The coalition includes a broad range of groups and companies such as the public interest group Free Press, financial news provider Bloomberg, the National Coalition of African American Owned Media, and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association.

Opponents of the merger say it will harm competition and consumers by potentially leading to higher prices and fewer choices for programming.

"The emergence of these opponents - many of whom will be forced to compete directly against a more powerful, vertically-integrated Comcast in the distribution, programming and online marketplaces - combined with the intellectual rigor of their arguments and analyses, demonstrates the enormous threat that this merger poses to consumers and competition," they added. "As many of these entities did not participate in prior hearings, and much of their analysis had not yet been performed, there is a great deal of new material that would inform the committee's oversight role."

Despite the strong opposition from the coalition, the Comcast-NBCU merger is supported by key lawmakers including House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and the governors of California, New York and Pennsylvania. A group of members of Congress from New York wrote the FCC last month urging prompt approval of the merger, saying critics have had ample time to comment on their concerns.

UPDATED: In a statement, Comcast Vice President Sena Fitzmaurice urged lawmakers to reject calls for another hearing, saying there have already been an "unprecedented" number of congressional hearings in addition to a lengthy comment period at the FCC.

"Most of these opponents have opposed the transaction since the day it was announced over nine months ago and are only seeking to further delay the review process," she said. "Congress, the FCC and [Justice Department] should reject the delaying tactics of this group driven by a few special business interests, and the review process should continue without interruption."

Both the Senate and House Commerce committees have held hearings on the merger, including a Chicago field hearing in July by the House Energy and Commerce Communications subcommittee.

TIA Chairman Shawn Osborne, president of the tech company Ulticom, said reclassification "could hinder supplier investment, innovation, and then ultimately jobs in our country."

Last spring, after a court ruling cast doubt on the FCC's regulatory authority over broadband providers, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed reclassifying broadband under title II of the Communications Act, a more stringent regulatory regime currently applied to traditional telecom firms. While Genachowski's "third way" proposal calls for exempting broadband from some provisions of title II such as price controls, broadband providers and other telecom industry firms remains uniformly opposed.

They say they are hopeful Congress will develop an alternative to reclassification that would still provide the FCC with the regulatory authority it needs.

During their stay in Washington, TIA board members are meeting with a host of big Washington players in the telecom arena. They include Genachowski, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., Senate Commerce Chairman John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Ensign, R-Nev., and as well as Phil Weiser, senior advisor to the director for Technology and Innovation at the National Economic Council senior.

TIA represents telecom suppliers and vendors including Apple, Tyco Electronics, Qualcomm and others.

Current local, state and federal taxes on wireless devices total on average more than 15 percent compared with 7 percent for most other taxable goods and services, according to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the bill's sponsor. However, the bill, approved by voice vote by the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee, would not affect current state or local taxes on cell phones or other wireless devices.

"By curtailing further increases on wireless taxes and fees, we hope to encourage additional consumer driven development in wireless technology," Lofgren said when the bill was introduced last year. "The Cell Tax Fairness Act does not take away any existing revenue for state or local governments, it simply calls for a period of tax stabilization."

The bill was hailed by the wireless industry who urged House leaders to move the bill quickly to the floor before Congress adjourns in a few weeks.

"By providing a 'timeout' on new discriminatory and unfair taxes this year, Congress can protect wireless customers from new burdens that make broadband connections less affordable and stifle high-tech innovation and growth," Peter Davidson, Verizon's senior vice president of federal government relations, said in a statement.

The small business bill cleared a major legislative hurdle Tuesday after the Senate voted to end debate on the measure. It includes legislation offered by Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., that would repeal a little-enforced provision in tax law that requires that personal use of employer-provided cell phones and similar devices be taxed like other fringe benefits such as use of a company car.

"You can't do business in the modern economy without a cell phone so it's crazy to tax them like some executive perk," Kerry said in a statement. "This law was long in need of modernization and I'm glad we've done right by businesses and abolished this silly and outdated law."

The Senate could vote on passage of the small business bill as soon as Thursday.