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Please provide comments to the issue below as part of the 2012 WCB cost model virtual workshop for inclusion in the record. Comments are moderated for conformity to the workshop’s guidelines.

Background

Hybrid Cost Proxy Model: The HCPM is built for a narrow-band network. Network sizing in the HCPM is a matter of ensuring sufficient capacity to handle voice calls and provide appropriate levels of call blocking (e.g., using an Erlang model, which is used in telephony as a measure of offered load or carried load on service-providing elements such as telephone circuits or telephone switching equipment).

CQBAT: The CQBAT model sizes the network according to the digital throughput required at the time of peak usage based on a busy-hour offered load. This method is basically the same approach that was taken in the National Broadband Plan modeling.

In today's connected world, it's surprising to learn that more than 60% of doctors use a fax machine as a predominant form of clinician communication and only 1 in 5 doctors use a smartphone as part of their work. While email and smartphone use alone could create greater efficiencies for doctors, the promise of mHealth goes far beyond this to encompass innovations such as remote patient monitors that automatically send diagnostic information – such as fetal heart rate, blood pressure, or glucose levels – back to doctors and databases.

These innovations not only have the potential to save money across the U.S. health care system, but they could fundamentally transform patient care and improve health care delivery.

The co-chairs of the mHealth Task Force are Dr. Julian Goldman, Medical Director of Biomedical Engineering, Partners Healthcare System; Robert Jarrin, Senior Director of Government Affairs, Qualcomm; and Douglas Trauner, CEO, Health Analytic Services, Inc (TheCarrot.com). The event was moderated by Robert Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Imagine for a moment what your life would be like without a phone, corded or wireless. How would you contact emergency services if there was a fire or a serious injury? How would you contact a potential new employer, or keep in touch with a current one? How would you contact your utility company about a power outage, or a doctor about your sick child? How would you keep in touch with your loved ones and your community?; In this day and age, telecommunications services are a real necessity, and not being able to afford them is a real liability.

Since the creation of the Lifeline benefit program in 1984, millions of low-income Americans have depended on it to make basic telecommunications services affordable to them. Without this program, countless households would be deprived of contact with health care providers and government services, access to work opportunities, and communications with family and their communities.; As more and more essential functions and services of our economy and our public sectors shift to wireless and online formats, the Lifeline program has been reformed to help low-income Americans overcome obstacles to Internet access and wireless communications. As part of this effort, the FCC has adopted an express goal for the program of ensuring availability of broadband for all low-income Americans, allowing Lifeline support for bundled services plans combining voice and broadband or packages including optional calling features.

There's no place like home.

I grew up in the great state of Kansas. When I was four years old, my family moved to Parsons, a small town of about 10,000 people in the southeastern corner of the state. My parents and many childhood friends still live there, and it's always a pleasure to visit. It is an area of the country that I care deeply about.

I'm therefore happy to report that I'll be heading back to the Sunflower State this week-for the first time in my capacity as a Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-to meet with a wide range of Kansans to talk about communications policy, technology, and rural deployment, and how they are helping to transform our way of life. Given the rapid transition to high-speed broadband networks and services globally, we are at a critical crossroads as regulators. It is important that the FCC work to remove barriers to investment and innovation and help unleash a wave of economic growth and job creation all across the country.

As I stated in my congressional testimony during my confirmation hearing, the world of communications was much less advanced when I was growing up. We made long-distance calls using a bulky phone connected to the wall by a thick wire, and our "data" connections to the outside world, such as they were, consisted primarily of analog video and local newspapers. In order to see how far we've come since then and where we still can improve, I'll visit a number of towns nestled in the southeast corner of the state.