Last week,  in advance of the FCC's April 20 open meeting, INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering published a blog in Medium discussing reform of the business data services (BDS) market. He stated that FCC Chairman Pai's current draft Order will cut off competition and will likely result in one of the biggest broadband price hikes in history, with businesses seeing increases of at least 25 percent. He called for the Commission to release the counties that will be affected, as well as a cost-benefit analysis of its proposal, so that the public could better understand and comment on the Order. Pickering noted that, "[i]f the Commission takes the proposed route that puts main street America at risk of higher prices and less competition, it needs to adopt a sound transition timeline."  INCOMPAS has called for a three-year transition.

The U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy called on the FCC to delay their controversial vote on business data services next week to prevent massive price hikes on small business across the country.

INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering commended the SBA Advocate, saying that "[t]he Small Business Administration Advocate is sounding the alarm on the FCC's broadband price hike, which threatens to take away choice and competition from small businesses across America. Giant broadband monopolies and duopolies fail to address the cost and service needs of small business customers. We hope the FCC will heed the warnings from the SBA Advocate, delay the vote and provide a better transition plan for the future."

Mark your calendars!  Start making plans!  The INCOMPAS Show: Fall 2017 is coming to San Francisco October 15-17.  

Buyers interested in participating in the popular INCOMPAS Show Buyers Forum can get a jump on their plans for the fall. The Buyers Forum is our hosted buyer program that provides qualified industry buyers the opportunity to meet and do business with sellers from across the country. For buyers, this is the perfect way to make effective use of your time at the show and take care of meeting with several potential vendors in one place. In the Fall, we'll be holding both a scheduled buyer power hour, as well as buyer meetings on the show floor. Qualified hosted buyers will receive complimentary registration. 

For more information about participating in the Fall Buyers Forum, email Amanda Darvill.

Join INCOMPAS and ShareTracker this Wednesday, April 19, at 12:30 p.m. for a Brown Bag webinar featuring the early returns of recent Internet of Things (IoT) research. 

The webinar will examine results from ShareTracker's quarterly research project, designed to track IoT emergence and market share trends. The Q4 2016 study found that traditional internet-connected devices, including PC,s, laptops and cell phones account for 56 percent residential IoT devices, once the most common connected devices (routers/access points) are removed from the calculation. Printers and smart TVs follow, both accounting for 14 percent of the device family share. Security, entertainment, energy management, gaming and automotive round out the devices the devices families measured.

ShareTracker will review the results of this research project in an effort to keep INCOMPAS members abreast of a topic that can impact their businesses. Register today.

The FCC recently announced the composition of its previously announced Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). The first meeting of the 29-member committee will be at 10 a.m., Friday, April 21, 2017 at FCC headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

INCOMPAS members Sprint, Google Fiber and Rocket Fiber are represented on the committee, which will be tasked with accelerating the deployment of broadband by reducing and/or removing regulatory barriers to infrastructure investment.

In related news, the FCC opened a new docket (GN Docket No. 17-83) for the BDAC and members of the public may submit comments to the BDAC in the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System.