WWEEEEKKLLYY UUPPDDAATTEE WSTA would like to recognize our 2012 GOLD and SILVER Annual Partners: GOLD – Finley Engineering Company, Inc. SILVER - Interstate Telcom Consulting, Inc., Kiesling Associates LLP, and National Inform ation Solutions Cooperative, Inc. (NISC) Thank you National Information Solutions Cooperative and HickoryTech for your sponsorship of WSTA electronic publications! HAssociate members, click here to join them! Weekly Update September 21, 2012 Legislative and Political Wisconsin Senate race: Voters in the middle are key Republican Tommy Thompson and Democrat Tammy Baldwin are miles apart on the political spectrum, but both are courting the middle in the race for U.S. Senate. Thompson appears recently to have lost ground -- for the moment, at least -- with this small but influential voting bloc, according to polls released last week. That picture could change between now and the Nov. 6 election as Thompson sharpens his message and spends more on TV ads. In a statewide election, "the race is won or lost in the middle," said Evan Zeppos, a Democratic strategist. "It's always been that way in Wisconsin and it always will be." Wisconsin has traditionally been closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. It's a purple state with a fluid middle, said Charles Franklin, who directs the Marquette University Law School poll. "It doesn't take a lot for the independents to tip the race, one way or the other," said Franklin, noting that independents helped Republican Scott Walker win the 2010 race for governor and survive this summer's recall. Baldwin leads Thompson in new poll Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) leads former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) in their Senate race in a new poll, the latest to show her with momentum in the state. The poll shows Baldwin leading Thompson by 48 to 46 percent in a poll conducted for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal by Marist College. Two other nonpartisan public polls released this week showed the race tied and Baldwin up by 9 points, a big shift from one month ago, when Thompson led in all public polling by a comfortable margin. Baldwin has been able to outspend Thompson on the air since he clinched the GOP nomination because he spent most of his campaign funds to win the August primary, and Thompson himself admitted he'd slipped in the polling earlier this week, partly blaming his financial disadvantage and partly blaming Mitt Romney for his standing. Romney trails President Obama in the same NBC poll by 5 percentage points despite having home-state Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on the ticket. Recalls this year cost taxpayers more than $14 million The recall election against Gov. Scott Walker and a related primary together cost state and local taxpayers more than $14 million - less than originally expected but still a hefty unbudgeted expense. The rough totals for the May 8 recall primary and the June 5 general election were put together by the Government Accountability Board and included both the state elections agency's own costs and those of local governments. Previously, the accountability board had estimated the state and local costs for the two elections would reach $18 million. The somewhat lower costs were no consolation to Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester), a supporter of the GOP governor who is seeking to limit future recall elections to cases of misconduct in office. "I'm more committed than ever to recall the recalls in the state of Wisconsin. It's an outra ge that (this money) was wasted on these unnecessary elections, with most of the financial burden on local governments," Vos said. Regulatory and Industry Adelstein Departs Rural Utilities Service Jonathan S. Adelstein, who headed up the Rural Utilities Service during a time of major changes in the rural telecom industry, left his position as of September 15. John Paladino, who has served as special assistant to Adelstein since 2009, has been designated acting administrator. In a statement, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack — Adelstein’s former boss – thanked Adelstein for his service. “During his three years at USDA, he helped make significant investments through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and this work will strengthen rural America for decades to come,” said Vilsack. T-Mobile, US Cellular, 43 Smaller Carriers Vie for 3G/4G Rural Funding The FCC has announced 52 qualifying bidders in the Connect America Fund Mobility Fund reverse auction to be conducted on Sept. 27. Qualified bidders include five units of U.S. Cellular; four units of T-Mobile; Alaska’s GCI Communication; Commnet Wireless, which operates a rural wholesale roaming network, and numerous small rural wireless carriers. Commnet’s participation is no surprise, considering that the mobility fund auction targets roadways where 3G wireless service is not available. A total of $300 million is up for grabs in the auction, which will bring 3G or 4G wireless to rural areas where 3G is not available today. The money for the program was freed up through cost savings in other areas of today’s Universal Service fund and will be the first test of the FCC’s long-expected reverse auction approach. Carriers will bid to deliver service to at least 75% of the service area, and funding will be awarded to the carrier that offers to deliver service at the lowest level of support. AT&T's Stephens: Hope to have decision on rural wireline assets by end of the year AT&T senior executive VP and CFO John Stephens said on Thursday during the Bank of America 2012 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in Beverly Hills that the telco they could have a solution for what to do with its rural wireline assets by the end of the year. "With regard to our wireline business, particularly some of the non-urban wireline access lines, the process is ongoing," Stephens said. "There's been a lot written about what to expect or whether things have changed, but I pull us back to the beginning of year (when) we thought it would take 18-24 months to do a full evaluation and we shortened that time frame to 12-18 months and we're hopeful to have something done by the end of the year." What's fueled rumors about the fate of AT&T's rural lines was its failed move to buy T-Mobile. When the deal was announced, the service provider hoped that the purchase would help it solve its rural broadband problem with wireless service. Ohio advocate groups rail against plans to disconnect guaranteed landline phone service Consumer advocate groups descended on Columbus, Ohio Wednesday to make it clear to state legislators that they don't like a proposal to end guaranteed landline telephone service in the state. The Ohio Senate approved the legislation 30-3 in February and the debate moved on to the House, where it will likely resume after the November elections. The state is proposing legislation, backed by the telecommunications industry, that says it is a "waste of resources to continue maintaining archaic landline equipment at a time when more and more consumers are walking away from the service," a story on NBC4i.com said. Broadband and Internet Calix: Peak Download Speed Below 3 Mbps for 55% of Rural Customers More than half (55%) of rural broadband subscribers received maximum peak downstream speeds of less than 3 Mbps in the second quarter of 2012, according to new research from broadband equipment manufacturer Calix. Nevertheless rural subscribers are generating substantially more Internet traffic than they did just one quarter ago, with traffic rising 53%. Calix’s research was based on data from 65 privately and publicly held independent operating companies and cooperatives in rural areas nationwide. The data was collected through Calix’s Compass Flow Analyze network utilization software. Companies studied had an average of more than 5,000 lines, but some had as few as 1,000 and others had as many as 50,000. A total of more than 250,000 endpoints were included in the research. Senate panel unanimously opposes giving U.N. more Internet control The fight for control of the Internet goes on with the United States taking a stance against what appears to be much of the rest of the world. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is now on record as unanimously opposing a proposal to give the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over governance of the Internet. The issue is expected to come up at a conference in Dubai in December, and the committee wanted to be ahead of it with its resolution and potentially the support of the full Senate. The committee resolution is another step in wide-scale U.S. opposition to a proposal that is reportedly being backed by China, Russia and other U.N. members to give the ITU more control over cybersecurity, data privacy, technical standards and the Web's address system. Cellular and Wireless Could an AT&T Rural 4G LTE Program be on the Way? AT&T is changing gears on its approach to its rural telecommunications business – and potentially that new approach could be good for rural AT&T customers. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told investors at a Goldman Sachs Cornucopia conference in New York this week that the company is looking at investing in its rural operations as an alternative to divesting that business. He also said the company is considering using a fixed broadband solution based on LTE to serve sparsely populated rural areas. “LTE can become a fixed-line replacement or even better than what you get from fixed line,” said Stephenson, according to a report written by a Dow Jones Newswire reporter and published on the Total Telecom site.