Matthew Starr Posts

On February 27, the House passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) by a 388-25 vote. Given the overwhelming support for the bill reflected in the vote, you might think this bill was largely non-controversial, but you’d be mistaken. Despite FOSTA’s vital goal of curbing online sex trafficking and protecting its victims, the bill has been opposed by groups like the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, as well as many tech companies and trade associations, including CompTIA.

On the afternoon before Thanksgiving, the FCC released a highly-anticipated draft of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order its commissioners will vote on in the Commission’s December 14 open meeting. The order, which will likely pass on a 3-2 party line vote, follows through on Chairman’s Pai’s proposal earlier this year to reclassify broadband back to an “information service” and largely eliminates all of the net neutrality rules the Commission passed in 2015.

In July, CompTIA filed comments with the FCC in response to its Restoring Internet Freedom NPRM. As you may know, the FCC released this NPRM in May, and its primary point of focus was a proposal to reclassify broadband internet access service (BIAS) as an information service.

Last week, CompTIA submitted comments in two different FCC proceedings focused on reducing barriers to broadband infrastructure deployment. The first focused on wireless deployment, and particularly on finding ways to speed up the process for deploying small cells. The second focused on wireline infrastructure and how to improve the processes for getting access to utility poles and local rights-of-way. Our proposed changes should help increase broadband competition, improve speeds, lower customer costs, and help pave the way for the next generation of wireless networks.

Congress has bandied about reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) for years, but there’s suddenly momentum to get something done in 2015. The Email Privacy Act (H.R. 699) introduced by Congressmen Kevin Yoder (R-KS) and Jared Polis (D-CO) in February currently has 287 cosponsors, the second highest total of any bill in the House.

Recently, CompTIA filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission on FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal for new net neutrality rules. CompTIA believes that transparency, no-blocking and nondiscrimination rules are essential to protect and promote the interests of small businesses operating online. Without such rules, broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) could charge any business operating online for access, or prioritized access, to an ISP’s customers. Small busines ...

Last Thursday, representatives from two CompTIA member companies, Michael Paynter of Tier3 Technologies and Cameron Camp of ESET, flew to accompany me on a full day of meetings at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to discuss unlicensed use of TV white space spectrum and its value to small tech businesses, which can use it to innovate and grow. We met with staff members from all five FCC commissioners’ offices to make a final push to leave sufficient spectrum available for unlicen ...