INCOMPAS last week announced its support for the MOBILE NOW Act, draft legislation led by Sen. John Thune (R-SD), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. This legislation reflects the evolution of several bills seeking to expand licensed and unlicensed spectrum for broadband use and promote broadband deployment on federal property.

"INCOMPAS welcomes Chairman Thune's MOBILE NOW Act, and commend him and his Senate colleagues' efforts to enable private investment and lower deployment barriers to spur broadband growth and availability in both rural and urban communities," said Chip Pickering, CEO of INCOMPAS. "Increasing the availability of spectrum, licensed and unlicensed, along with much needed siting reforms, are an important barrier breaker that will unleash more broadband choices, innovation and investment to communities across the nation. We look forward to working with the committee and outside stakeholders on these key provisions as the legislation moves forward."

LightRiver Hosts Webinar on Strategies to Deploy Optical Networks 50 Percent Faster

LightRiver's Factory Built Network model has been used to deliver more reliable networks in less time, with less disruption and lower cost.

In an INCOMPAS Webinar Program exclusive, Dean Campbell, CTO of member company LightRiver Technologies, discusses this innovative methodology and how it can help service, content and cloud providers deploy optical transport networks better and faster.

During the webinar entitled "Factory Built Networks: Strategies to Deploy Optical Networks 50 Percent Faster," you can expect to learn:

Best practices in deploying transport networks
Initial failure rates of optical networking hardware
Baseline requirements for testing newly installed networks

To access this FREE, pre-recorded webinar, visit the INCOMPAS website.

House to Vote on FCC

Process Reform Act of 2015

The House of Representatives was scheduled to vote today on Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2015 (H.R. 2583), as amended. The bill was introduced by Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, and subcommittee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).

The bill requires the FCC to set minimum comment periods for rulemakings, prevents it from placing large amounts of information in the record on the last day of a comment period, requires publication of the text of proposed rules, and allows more than two commissioners to get together outside of public meetings so long as certain criteria are met.

House to Hold FCC Oversight Hearing on November 17

On Tuesday, November 17, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will hold a hearing on "Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission." All five FCC Commissioners are scheduled to appear to give the subcommittee an update on the commission's work on the upcoming incentive auction, the open Internet order, video reforms and the status of process reform efforts.

The hearing is scheduled for 10:15 a.m. in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The Majority Memorandum and witness testimony will be available here as they are posted.