Brian Fung

Why Google Fiber is no longer rolling out to new cities

After rolling out its Fiber product in about a dozen cities, Google is hitting pause on its project to deploy superfast Internet across the country. The news may come as a disappointment to those who were hoping the search giant would bring competition and faster speeds to their area. So, what happened? Here are a few explanations:

Financial pressure from higher-ups: Like many of its siblings in the broader Alphabet family, Google Fiber is likely feeling the heat from top executives who are trying to show investors that their money is being well spent.
Not enough demand: Just like Google Glass — the company's ill-fated attempt to build an augmented-reality visor — Google Fiber may be just a little ahead of its time.
Big incumbents made Google's job harder: Google had an unenviable task in many of its chosen cities: It had to compete with large, established broadband providers who were already there or could benefit from regulations that raised the bar for new entrants.
Providing bundled TV is expensive: There was another major cost Google had to account for when offering its Fiber service. Americans love their double- or triple-play bundles, which reduce the cost of buying Internet from traditional providers.
Wireless broadband is the future: Even as Google Fiber pays lots of money to lay down cables and secure access to TV programming, a different type of technology is coming down the pike: wireless fiber.

How the AT&T-Time Warner deal could escape deeper regulatory scrutiny

AT&T's $85.4 billion purchase of one of America's top media conglomerates could radically reshape the digital economy, making the deal's next step — regulatory review — hugely important to the way consumers access their media. But missing from the process could be the Federal Communications Commission, a key player in the battery of megadeals to hit the market recently.

The Justice Department is likely to analyze whether the transaction could hurt competition, and it could impose requirements on AT&T that might restrain anticompetitive practices stemming from the deal. The FCC, as the nation's top telecom, cable and broadband regulator, could seek to impose different — but no less important — conditions. But the FCC's involvement hinges on whether Time Warner sells certain assets to AT&T.

If the FCC is excluded from the process, it could weaken regulators' ability to prevent harm to competition, said Gene Kimmelman, a former Justice Department antitrust official who is now president of the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. “The kinds of things I can think of that would potentially prevent anticompetitive behavior may include detailed regulatory oversight that DOJ is not inclined to engage in — and doesn't think it has the capacity to engage in,” he said. “They may be tools that are not available without the FCC being involved.”

The FCC generally has a say in acquisitions that involve the sale of assets regulated by the agency. This may include, for example, TV stations owned by one of the two companies. But in the deal involving AT&T and Time Warner, no such assets may change hands. Time Warner owns just one Atlanta-based TV station, and it has not announced whether the station will be sold to AT&T. The station could be spun off and excluded from the deal — which would also eliminate any reason for the FCC to become involved, said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG

AT&T’s Time Warner deal looks like bad news for Verizon

AT&T's $85.4 billion megadeal to acquire Time Warner is an unprecedented bid to diversify the telecom giant as network operators nationwide scramble to marry their communications pipes with exclusive content. For many of these firms, it's no longer enough to be the conduit to TV shows, films and other creative media. A growing number of them want to be making money from the production and cross-promotion of content, too.

Against this backdrop is Verizon, AT&T's biggest rival in the wireless industry, which has made its own moves toward gaining access to content. But some analysts say the outlook for Verizon is beginning to look gloomier. “You've got the big-league players, and you've got the second-string players,” said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst. “Verizon — the moves they've made, they make it look more like a second-string player.”

We’re finally starting to see what Trump’s stance on tech might look like

Trump's transition team has tapped Jeffrey Eisenach, a visiting scholar at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, for advice on tech and telecom policy. A closer look at Eisenach's policy papers signals how Trump might try to shape the digital economy of the future, should he be elected as president.

Eisenach thinks there may be legitimate concerns about Internet providers wielding their "market power", but he doesn't believe network neutrality rules are the right way to address them. In fact, he views net neutrality more as a regulatory gift to online businesses who lobbied hard for the rules. "It is best understood as an effort by one set of private interests [the tech industry] to enrich itself by using the power of the state to obtain free services from another [Internet providers]," Eisenach told a Senate committee in 2014, "a classic example of what economists term 'rent seeking.'" Eisenach and Trump are both pointing to a system that, in a sometimes flawed manner, allows businesses and wealthy individuals to extract gains by outmaneuvering their fellow peers in the policy arena. This view basically holds that so long as the system is set up this way, it is perfectly legitimate to seek out advantages within it; the government just shouldn't grant any new ones. On net neutrality, for example, Eisenach's preferred approach is to forgo any proactive regulation, letting companies and regulatory agencies duke out their disputes with big lawsuits. This should also please Trump, a businessman who has not been shy about litigation.

How Donald Trump’s Internet policy could benefit Russia

Reporting has uncovered extensive ties between Donald Trump and Russia. Trump has made little secret of his personal admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has praised as having "great control over his country." The Republican presidential nominee even appeared to openly solicit Russian hacking of Hillary Clinton's e-mails — to the point that critics have accused him of treason. So it may seem surprising to hear the Trump campaign suddenly change its tone on Russia over an obscure battle on Internet policy.

Taking a swipe at Russia's support for Internet censorship, a Trump policy adviser warned Sept 21 against giving the Kremlin too much say in how the Internet should be governed. The statement reads like a snub to Putin — that is, until you realize that Trump's own policy could wind up giving the Russian leader precisely what he wants. According to critics, Trump's call to stop the transition would actually wind up helping Putin rather than undermining the Russian leader. "If the US is forced to abort the transition now it would play right into the hands of authoritarian states," said Milton Mueller, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "'Look,' they will say, 'the US wants to control the Internet. Why can’t we?'"

The real issue with New York’s free Internet kiosks isn’t adult content

New York City's free Internet kiosks are getting a big downgrade after the company that operates them said users were hogging the on-street machines to watch movies and pornography. A spokesperson for LinkNYC said that no filter is perfect and that it's difficult to strike a balance between blocking content that some people might deem innocuous and maximizing the kiosks' usefulness to members of the public. The spokesperson said that LinkNYC faced a bigger problem: People are overturning newspaper boxes and pulling up chairs in front of the kiosks to settle in, keeping others from using the devices. The company said it is weighing policies that might prevent the nuisance, such as time limits and cooldown periods where the kiosk's Web browsing feature becomes inactive. While that could deter some from abusing the tablets, it may also make life more difficult for the next people who want to use them.

That SpaceX explosion blew up one of Facebook’s most ambitious projects

SpaceX is reeling after an early-morning explosion took out its rocket on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral. The incident is a major setback for chief executive Elon Musk. But odds are the tragic news is disappointing another U.S. tech billionaire, too. The rocket destroyed Sept 1 was bearing a satellite that Facebook intended to use to beam Internet access to developing nations. When the rocket went up in smoke, so did the cargo inside, according to SpaceX.

In 2015, Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said he was eager to use the AMOS-6 satellite to deliver broadband connectivity to hard-to-reach parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Facebook has some 84 million users in the region. "As I'm here in Africa, I'm deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. "Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well."

How America’s tech companies could wriggle out of the nation’s consumer protection laws

Companies such as Google and Facebook thrive on your personal data — the bits of information that tell advertisers how old you are, what brands you like and how long you lingered on that must-see cat video. Historically, how these companies use this data has been subject to oversight by the Federal Trade Commission, the government's top privacy watchdog. But a big court defeat for the FTC is putting the agency's power to protect your online privacy in jeopardy, analysts say. The ruling could wind up giving Google and Facebook, not to mention other companies in the Internet ecosystem, the ability to escape all consumer-protection actions from the FTC, and possibly from the rest of government, too, critics claim, unless Congress intervenes.

In the wake of the setback, the FTC is mulling an appeal — which would mean either asking for a rehearing at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, or escalating to the Supreme Court, according to a person close to the agency. But unless regulators can persuade the courts to overturn Aug 29's decision, the result will be "a fatal blow" to consumer protection, said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

Most Americans streamed the Olympics from PCs, not mobile devices. Here’s why.

With the 2016 Summer Olympics now a memory, it's time to look back at how Americans took in all that sports coverage. How we watched the Rio games can tell us a lot about the current state of media and technology and give us insights on trends in mobile device adoption and cord-cutting. Mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, accounted for almost 20 percent of the Aug 10 Olympics stream. An additional 17 percent went to set-top boxes, such as Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. Of these, Roku boxes were the overwhelming favorite among Olympics viewers, eating up a 10 percent share. In the end, however, PCs took the prize, accounting for more than 60 percent of that night's consumption.

IPhones, Android devices and iPads account for almost one-third of general Internet consumption, a large discrepancy from the Olympic numbers. Analysts say this discrepancy highlights the particular way in which Americans could access their Olympics coverage online. To watch the Internet live stream, viewers needed to log in through their cable subscription. The downside to this meant being chained to a cable provider, but the upside was that once you authenticated you could watch from any device — mobile or otherwise. Add to that the dismal reviews of NBC's mobile streaming app and you have a powerful incentive to watch from a laptop. Although much of our media consumption is increasingly shifting toward mobile devices, live-stream events such as the Olympics may be one area where PCs could remain dominant for some time.

Google wants to help you vote. Could it affect the election?

One of the things that makes Google so powerful is that the sheer amount of data it gathers makes it possible to understand what the people as a whole are interested in. Now, the company is using all that data to make it easier for Americans to vote.

Google says it will now provide what it calls an "in-depth" search result when users look for information on how to cast a ballot — a search that's seen triple-digit growth in contested states like Arizona since the last presidential election. Basically, this means telling you exactly what you need to bring to the polls and when the registration deadlines are. The information, which is tailored to the exact state you're in, will also tell you precisely how to register. In-depth results are what Google gives you when it has the exact answer to a question, such as what today's date is. The company has increasingly been using these to supply information directly, as opposed to presenting users with links to sources that may have the right information. What will be the practical outcome of all this information?

‘Wireless fiber’ could give us gigabit Internet speeds with no cables at all

So, you're on the hunt for a new home-Internet provider. The one you like seems to offer fast, reliable service, but its footprint ends just short of where you happen to live — and there aren't many other options in your area. Too bad: Looks like you'll be sticking with slow speeds and lackluster customer support while your luckiest neighbors get to surf without interruption. For many Americans, this isn't hypothetical. It's reality.

Until now, there weren't many ways around this problem. But thanks to a technology some Internet service providers (ISPs) expect to roll out next year, Americans dreaming of better, faster broadband may actually be able to get it.

To understand how, let's start with key concepts about how Internet service works. Most residential broadband today runs over cables that are laid in the ground or strung on telephone poles, that then branch off and tunnel directly into your house. Laying these cables is costly, which is why many Internet providers expand slowly — or not at all, if they're worried the returns can't justify the outlays.

Cellular Internet is a little different. Cell towers are expensive, too, but they create a one-to-many connection that serves thousands of mobile devices wirelessly — rather than creating a dedicated pipe to a single, fixed destination such as a home or business. The speeds aren't quite as fast on mobile data as what you get with fixed broadband, but for basic Web browsing and video, it's good enough.

Now, imagine if you could take the convenience of cellular data and combine it with the superfast download speeds associated with fixed, wired broadband. What might that look like?

The copyright case that should worry all Internet providers

Will Internet providers have to start cracking down harder on their own customers for suspected copyright infringement? That's one of the big questions being raised in the wake of an obscure court ruling that finds that Cox Communications is liable for the illegal music and movie downloads of its subscribers.

A federal judge said Cox Communications will have to pay a $25 million penalty that a jury had awarded in December to BMG, the music rights company. BMG had been using a third-party company called Rightscorp to monitor the Internet for filesharing activity and notify Internet providers when it found evidence of it. The expectation was that Cox would pass along Rightscorp's notices to consumers. BMG claimed that Cox was dragging its feet and using a variety of technical means to keep the notices from reaching its affected customers. The court ruled in favor of BMG's argument that Cox should be held liable because it not only knew that its users were illegally downloading copyrighted content, it also took actions that contributed to it.

The finding that Cox is liable for its customers' piracy should absolutely worry other Internet providers, according to legal analysts at the consumer group Public Knowledge.

Your Internet privacy shouldn’t be a ‘luxury item,’ FCC Chairman Wheeler says

Should your online privacy depend on whether you've paid your Internet provider a little extra this month? That's one of the key policy questions concerning the future of the Web. And the nation's top telecom and broadband regulator, Tom Wheeler, signaled that he's not a fan of the idea.

Talking to reporters, the head of the Federal Communications Commission implied that the Internet risks becoming divided into privacy haves and have-nots, if companies such as AT&T and Comcast can dangle discounts in front of consumers in exchange for slurping up their search and browsing histories for advertising purposes. "I would hope that privacy doesn't become a luxury item," Chairman Wheeler said. The FCC is waist-deep in crafting a set of privacy regulations for Internet service providers (ISPs). Some, such as Comcast, have met with the FCC to ask that it not restrict the ability of ISPs to tinker with a discount-for-data business model. "Low-income consumers have less disposable income with which to pay for privacy-protective plans, and therefore are much more likely to give up their privacy in exchange for access to the Internet," wrote Eric Null, a policy lawyer at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute. "Low-income consumers should not have to decide between internet access and privacy, but pay-for-privacy forces that decision upon them."

Why Amazon is taking aim at cable companies

Amazon.com says the cable industry's own proposal for how to shift Americans away from the set-top boxes they currently rent for hundreds of dollars a year is riddled with flaws. The online retail giant is arguing that the cable companies' vision for accessing TV content in the future — via apps embedded in smart TVs, phones and other devices — doesn't guarantee the copy protections that currently exist with set-top boxes. (Copy protection has emerged as a key issue in the ongoing fight to determine how cable viewers will someday get their shows and movies.) The cable-backed "app-based approach" to getting your programs is an alternative to what some federal regulators want instead: A system that forces cable companies to hand over all their programming so that any other company — including, perhaps, Amazon — could build and sell their own set-top boxes straight to consumers.

In a nutshell, cable companies are saying new regulations could disrupt the copy-protection regime that undergirds the economics of TV. Amazon's saying the cable industry's counterproposal isn't worth its salt, in part because Amazon potentially stands to gain from a more stringent set of requirements on cable companies.

Why some in Silicon Valley don’t like Trump’s VP pick, Mike Pence

Many in the tech industry are already none too pleased with the idea of a President Trump. But Trump's selection of Gov Mike Pence (R-IN) may drive them even further from the Republican ticket.

For starters, Gov Pence is at odds with one of the wealthiest, most popular companies on the planet: Apple. He and the company's chief executive, Tim Cook, faced off in 2015 over a bill that let business owners and workers cite religious objections as a reason not to serve customers. The result, said Cook, would lead to unjust discrimination against consumers based on their physical appearance or sexual orientation. The bill was widely criticized by execs across Silicon Valley, including from Twitter, Yelp, Lyft and LinkedIn.

Guns, butter and broadband: How technology has finally emerged as a viable campaign issue

[Commentary] The New York Times has endorsed Tim Wu, the progressive candidate for New York lieutenant governor, in its editorial pages. The endorsement is a sign that technology, long relegated to the fringes of political discussion, has finally become a dinner-table issue and the basis for a viable campaign platform.

As the Web keeps taking over ever larger chunks of the economy, the policies that govern it have become increasingly relevant to the average consumer. Large, public debates like the one involving SOPA and PIPA, or cellphone unlocking, or net neutrality, have a direct effect on what Americans can do with their connected devices and the services layered on top of them. And that's made tech a hot-button issue.

Why the economics of the Internet look totally different in North America

[Commentary] The interconnection market might be complicated and opaque to most of us, but it's a vital part of our Internet experience. A Cloudflare analysis shows that in North America (which basically means the United States, because Cloudflare operates only one Canadian data center and none in Mexico) companies engage in much more paid transit than free peering than in other regions of the world.

Cloudflare's data offers more insight on the bigger picture, which is that paid transit is very common. That's a talking point often advanced by people who say Netflix is complaining a lot about nothing, or that efforts to ban "Internet fast lanes" overlook the fact that the Internet is already non-neutral thanks to paid transit. If there's already an existing market where companies pay each other to carry traffic, the argument goes, then what's the big deal about paid peering or, in the last-mile Internet, paid prioritization?

What New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and others want from the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger

From New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to cable advertising firms to state public service commissions, there are those who believe that the Federal Communications Commission should impose stronger merger conditions on Comcast and Time Warner.

Here are a few of those ideas.

  • Make sure Internet Essentials actually works for more people.
  • Extend Comcast's previous commitments by another two years.
  • Limit Comcast's control over the cable advertising market.

A top net neutrality defender is trying to poke holes in Mozilla’s plan for the open Internet

[Commentary] Leading network neutrality proponent Barbara van Schewick, a Stanford University law scholar, pointed out three tiny words that threaten to undermine Mozilla's proposal to heavily regulate the relationship between Internet service providers (ISPs) and digital content companies as telecommunications services.

"The definition of 'telecommunications service' requires that telecommunications is offered 'for a fee,'" van Schewick wrote. That's problematic, van Schewick argued, for a couple of reasons. If the FCC adopts Mozilla's proposal, then the FCC's net neutrality regulations wouldn't cover Internet providers that don't charge content companies an access fee.

More troubling to van Schewick, though, is how the phrase "for a fee" would complicate efforts to ban fee-based content prioritization. At a basic level, what Mozilla is asking the FCC to do is to single out fee-charging ISPs (because non-fee-charging ISPs would be exempted under the definition of "telecommunications service") and then turn around and tell them, based on that very same part of the Communications Act, that they can't charge those fees.

The real world is undermining Silicon Valley’s apolitical fantasyland

[Commentary] Like Hollywood, Silicon Valley has an idea of how politics works. And that idea is generally wrong. But some tech startups are finding that they can't get ahead without grappling with bureaucrats and lobbyists -- a dirty, petty business that reminds us more of the fading 20th century than the sleek, futuristic promise of the 21st.

Most of the time, tech companies would simply rather disengage from the squabbling that's characteristic of Congress and city hall. George Mason University researcher Adam Thierer calls this the principle of "permissionless innovation": When businesses don't have to justify their experiments to anyone, they can simply focus on building the next great tool or platform. This is the bedrock of startup culture, in which low barriers to entry allow the best ideas to bubble to the top whether you're a college dropout or have a Ph.D hanging on your wall.

A belief in permissionless innovation is what gives the tech industry its libertarian streak. Silicon Valley is in the throes of another tech bubble. Only this time, instead of ballooning stock prices, the bubble is one of political culture. Insulated from the challenges facing more established companies, the Bay Area's youngest have been socialized to believe that most problems can be fixed with enough money and engineering. As some companies are discovering, the reality is less straightforward.

Why the Congressional Black Caucus is urging the FCC to save the sports blackout rule

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus want to save a controversial rule whose critics say makes it impossible for sports fans to watch their local teams.

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, over a dozen black lawmakers said repealing the sports blackout rule, as at least one FCC commissioner has suggested, would hurt the business model that supports sports leagues like the NFL, as well as broadcasters.

"Without this rule in place," the lawmakers wrote, "cable and satellite television providers would potentially be able to undermine contractual agreements between professional sports leagues and broadcast networks that both support attendance at games and improve the viewing experience for fans in the stadium, as well as those watching at home."

Aereo’s on the ropes, and now broadcasters are trying for a knockout punch

Aereo's just waiting for a court to determine if it'll be allowed to make a backup legal argument for its survival -- but television broadcasters are determined to shut that effort down before it even gets started.

Aereo's best hope of survival is if it qualifies for a special kind of content license called "Section 111" as a cable company in the eyes of the Copyright Office.

But broadcasters are arguing that Section 111 is irrelevant and calling for a nationwide ban on Aereo. They're also demanding that any injunction address not just Aereo's retransmission of content in near real-time, but also even content that's played back online hours or days after the original broadcast.

Why are Telegraph stories about the ‘right to be forgotten’ disappearing from the Internet?

Google and a British newspaper are currently embroiled in a confusing cycle of link deletion and reporting on said deletions, which has led to still more deletions.

In recent days, Google's been removing links from its European search results that point to stories published on the Web site of The Telegraph. That's in deference to the right to be forgotten, a European law that requires search companies to scrub links to Web sites if members of the public submit a request.

First New York, now California: State regulators vow to examine Comcast-TWC merger

California's public utility commission published a memo laying out questions for Comcast as part of a merger review, adding California to the number of states looking critically at the merger from New York up to two.

"The ultimate test of a proposed change of control is whether or not it is in the public interest," California officials wrote. To that end, the California commission is requiring that Comcast explain how a merger with Time Warner Cable would benefit California voice and broadband customers, as well as to prove that the deal will improve Internet access among students and the poor.

Findings from the California review will be submitted to the FCC ahead of the federal government's decision on the deal, officials said.