The Regulatory Mix - Thursday, December 10, 2015

The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.

TELECOM

FCC

The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) adopted two Protective Orders designed to permit parties to the WCB’s business data service tariff investigation and parties to the FCC’s broader special access rulemaking proceeding to access and use confidential and highly confidential data submitted in connection with either proceeding. The first protective order will allow parties to the tariff investigation to access the confidential and highly confidential data and information that was submitted in response to the Special Access Data Collection (SADC), which was part of the rulemaking proceeding. The other protective order will protect allow parties in the tariff investigation to access and make use of the confidential and highly confidential data and information submitted in both the tariff investigation and the rulemaking proceeding. TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 12/08/15.

Use of Mobile Services

According to data released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Americans are increasingly connecting to the Internet through mobile devices, with 52% in 2013 using two or more Internet-connected devices, up from 41% in 2011. Americans are also using a wide variety of devices to access the Internet, including tablets, laptops, mobile phones, and TV-connected boxes such as gaming consoles or streaming video players. The data shows a big shift in Americans’ use of mobile devices, with double-digit percentage-point increases in Internet-connected tablet and mobile phone usage. Use of mobile phones to connect jumped from 27% in 2011 to 45% in 2013, while tablet use rose from 6 percent to 22%. This enthusiasm for mobile devices was accompanied by a drop in desktop computer use, which fell from 45% to 40% from 2011 to 2013. The data also shows that Americans with higher incomes and levels of education are more likely to use multiple devices to go online.