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June 2008

One Man, One Long List, No More Web Ads

A machinist and self-described "blue-collar guy" in his mid-50s from upstate New York, Rick752, as he's known online, spends most nights upstairs in his den assembling a list of Internet ad sites and related data. That work, dubbed EasyList, enables millions of Web surfers to filter and freeze out nearly all advertising that would otherwise appear on their screens. Yet the effort to block millions of Internet ads, while drawing raves from users, is feared by some who say that if it continues to grow in popularity, it could threaten the financial underpinnings of much of the Web, where publishers are largely dependent on advertising.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/24/AR200806...
(requires registration)

More states say phones and driving don't mix

California will become the largest state to ban unlimited cellphone use by drivers. The law prohibits drivers under 18 from talking on the phone, and it requires older drivers to use a hands-free headset. A similar law goes into effect the same day in Washington state. Legislation has already been passed in New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere — and more laws are pending. What's a chatty driver to do?
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20080625/tech_cellcar.art.htm

Those DEMs and the FISA Update

On Friday, the House passed "the most significant revision of surveillance law in 30 years," and the Senate is expected to soon follow suit. House leaders insisted the bill was a "compromise" with conservatives, but as the New York Times noted, it was actually "a major victory for the White House after months of dispute."

While progressives succeeded in forcing the White House to accept some important concessions, the deal fails to give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court the authority to protect law-abiding Americans from being spied on by their government. It also essentially shields telecoms from civil lawsuits for their participation in the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program after 9/11 and almost certainly ensures that the approximately 40 lawsuits that have been filed against telecoms for complying with the administration's illegal spying will be dismissed.

Although both were absent from Washington and did not participate in the negotiations, Sens Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) on Friday offered qualified approval of the compromise. Dennis McDonough, a foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign, said that the legislation is acceptable to Sen Obama because the United States Inspector General will ensure accountability. In other words, the Obama campaign's position is now that the duty and power to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, now resides primarily not with the President, not with the Congress or the Courts, but with a bureaucrat created by administrative law whose job is to conduct internal investigations of government agencies.

On March 14, 2008, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity for phone carriers who helped the National Security Agency carry out the illegal wiretapping program without proper warrants. Ninety-four House Democrats voted in favor of this measure -- rejecting immunity -- and then ‘changed’ to vote in favor of the June 20 House bill -- approving immunity. “Why did these ninety-four House members have a change of heart?” asked Daniel Newman, executive director of MAPLight.org, “Their constituents deserve answers.” MAPLight.org's research department compiled PAC campaign contributions from Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint and correlated them with the voting records of all House members who voted on last week’s FISA bill. Here are the findings:

1) $8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems),

2) $4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems),

3) 88 percent of the Dems who changed to supporting immunity (83 Dems of the 94) received PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint during the last three years.

"Campaign contributions bias our legislative system,” said Newman. “Simply put, candidates who take positions contrary to industry interests are unlikely to receive industry funds and thus have fewer resources for their election campaigns than those whose votes favor industry interests."

On Tuesday, Sens Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) announced the will "oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President's warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans."
(sources listed below)

Universal Service, Broadband and the Death Star

Ed Markey (D-MA), the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, held a hearing exploring the core principles of universal service, which historically has provided a baseline level of affordable voice telecommunications service to everyone in the United States, in light of the rise of Internet-based broadband communications technologies and the changing marketplace. He said it was time to begin a "conversation about what we believe universal service should be in the 21st Century. This will allow us to effectively manage both the imposition of fees as well as justify the eligibility and purpose of disbursements."

Chairman Markey wanted to begin with questions: What level of service should be supported for rural consumers? Should the supported services include just plain old telephone service or broadband, wireline or wireless service too? If competition fails to achieve affordability for a particular service in a rural community, should extremely wealthy rural consumers be subsidized or should the program be targeted to assure affordability for non-wealthy consumers in some way? For low income consumers in non-rural areas, should their supported service or services be comparable to the level of service provided to rural consumers? How should Congress or the FCC adjust the program for rural health care? What about the future of the e-rate?

House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell said, "Broadband is the communications platform of the future. Any successful universal service program for the future must account for this reality. Universal service is about access and affordability. A proper universal service program should ensure access and affordability in places and situations where market forces cannot or do not. Properly targeting universal service support must ensure consistency, efficiency, and fairness." Chairman Dingell said Congress, not the Federal Communications Commission, is better suited to make the tough political choices on how best to reform the system.

Rep Mike Doyle (D-PA) may grab all the headlines saying, "Generally, I think the Universal Service Fund needs to be blown up like the Death Star." He continued, "We need to completely reform the Fund by moving away from subsidizing telephone service and instead put our money toward the broadband future. For now, I'll call this needed reform Universal Service 2.0."
(sources listed below)

June 24, 2008 (Universal Service)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY JUNE 24, 2008

The House Telecom Subcommittee discusses Universal Service reform today (see story below and more at http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.062408.Witness.List...) For this and other upcoming media policy events see http://www.benton.org/calendar/2008/6

INTERNET/BROADBAND
The Future of Universal Service is Broadband
Supreme Court to hear AT&T antitrust case
Study: 44% Of Internet Traffic Is Peer-to-Peer
Online bandwidth hogs to be cut off at trough?
Technology Leaders Favor Online ID Card Over Passwords
What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer

BROADCASTING/CABLE
Iowa Broadcasters to Martin: This Is Localism
Cable Channels Gain on Broadcast Networks
Tough economy might be good for broadcast TV
Kohl to FCC: Tighten Program-Access Rules
July 18 Deadline for Cross-Ownership Move Requests
Japan lags on digital TV, study finds

QUICKLY -- Martin Unhappy with FCC’s Verizon Decision; Mirror Awards Announced -- Russert Honored; Knight, Tow aim to save newspapers; Who You Running With? Campaign Coverage June 16-22

INTERNET/BROADBAND

THE FUTURE OF UNIVERSAL SERVICE IS BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Charles Benton]
[Commentary] On Tuesday, a House hearing will consider the future of communications in America. The question of the day is whether America's future communications system should be based on 19th century technology - the telephone - or on 21st century digital broadband. In determining how to modernize the multi-billion dollar annual Universal Service Fund (USF), created to bring telecommunications services to all Americans, policymakers must come to grips with the fact that the copper wire telephone system - once the foundation of our communications networks - is now holding us back. The future of telecommunications in America is access to high-speed Internet or broadband. Reform of the USF is essential to making that access a reality. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet is holding a hearing titled, The Future of Universal Service: To Whom, By Whom, For What, and How Much? These are critical questions that deserve future-focused answers: 1) The future is broadband. 2) To whom should broadband reach? Everyone. 3) By whom should broadband be deployed? By any willing company. 4) For what reason do we support broadband deployment? For a more competitive and better America. 5) How much should we spend on broadband deployment? No more than we're spending now. Its time to transition the universal service program to broadband and set a national goal of making broadband Internet service available and affordable to all Americans.
http://benton.org/node/14876
* Hearing witness list
http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.062408.Witness.List...

SUPREME COURT TO HEAR AT&T ANTITRUST CASE
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Stephen Lawson]
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an antitrust case that alleges AT&T squeezed out small ISPs by charging too much for wholesale access to its phone network. The case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. AT&T appealed the case to the Supreme Court, and in May, the solicitor general of the United States filed a brief in support of having it heard there. On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. In 2003, linkLine Communications and other small California ISPs sued predecessors of AT&T in a federal district court in Los Angeles and said they were forcing small competitors out of business by setting wholesale prices too high. "It's one of those cases where the wholesale price is higher than the retail price, which makes competition virtually impossible," said Maxwell Blecher of the law firm Blecher & Collins, which is representing the plaintiffs. The issue is whether this type of dispute, in a regulated industry, is covered by antitrust law. It's also likely the Supreme Court will tackle the question of whether AT&T could violate antitrust law without setting its retail prices below its own cost.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/06/23/Supreme_Court_to_hear_ATT_anti...

STUDY: 44% OF INTERNET TRAFFIC IS PEER-TO-PEER
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
According to a survey by Sandvine, a vendor of bandwidth-management systems, the three biggest overall generators of Internet traffic according to Sandvine’s May survey were: peer-to-peer file sharing (43.5%); Web browsing (27.3%); and streaming media (14.8%). Other applications, ranked by overall usage, were: tunneling into private networks (5.9%); newsgroups (5.6%); online games (1.4%); and voice over IP (0.2%). P2P accounted for an even bigger portion of upstream direction, consuming more than twice as much traffic as all other traffic combined. The three biggest traffic generators in the upstream direction are peer-to-peer file sharing (75.0%); tunneling (9.9%); and Web browsing (9.1%). Downstream traffic was also primarily generated by P2P (35.6%), followed by Web browsing (31.6%) and streaming (17.9%). Sandvine plans to make the report available on its Web site (http://www.sandvine.com/) Wednesday.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6572401.html?nid=4262

ONLINE BANDWIDTH HOGS TO BE CUT OFF AT TROUGH?
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Ryan Kim]
The era of carefree, unlimited Internet browsing and downloading might be coming to an end. Industry leaders Comcast and Time Warner Cable have started testing traffic-metering and management techniques that seek to rein in heavy usage, and AT&T says such limits are inevitable for the most extreme users of its network. That means that for the first time since the era of dial-up access, Internet providers are looking to count how many bytes a customer uses, potentially ending or significantly altering the practice of all-you-can-eat broadband consumption. The providers say the initiatives - which are only tests at this point - are aimed at a certain subset of heavy users who consume an inordinate amount of bandwidth, threatening the performance of the network for other customers. Time Warner said the top 5 percent of users, largely peer-to-peer file sharers, consume more than half its capacity. Likewise, AT&T said 5 percent of its users consume about 46 percent of its bandwidth. But critics are worried that the limits may eventually stifle Internet consumption and frustrate technology innovations that have created an Internet economy upon which many have come to rely. "The message is we're maintaining a scarcity and we'll charge you for this scarce resource, but that's not a good model for infrastructure," said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a media advocacy group.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/23/BU9V11CIVA.DTL

TECHNOLOGY LEADERS FAVOR ONLINE ID CARD OVER PASSWORDS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Laurie Flynn]
Microsoft, Google and PayPal are among the founders of an industry organization that hopes to solve the problem of password overload among computer users. The Information Card Foundation is an effort to create a single industrywide approach to managing identity online that promises to reduce drastically the use of passwords and create a system that is less vulnerable to fraud. The idea is to bring the concept of an identity card, like a driver’s license, to the online world. Rather than logging on to sites with user IDs and passwords, people will gain access to sites using a secure digital identity that is overseen by a third party. The user controls the information in a secure place and transmits only the data that is necessary to access a Web site. In addition to simplifying online shopping, such information cards will reduce the number of phishing incidents — that is, the fraudulent use of someone’s identity to gain access to financial records.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/technology/24card.html?ref=todayspaper
(requires registration)

WHAT'S OBSCENE? GOOGLE COULD HAVE AN ANSWER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Richtell]
Judges and jurors who must decide whether sexually explicit material is obscene are asked to use a local yardstick: does the material violate community standards? That is often a tricky question because there is no simple, concrete way to gauge a community’s tastes and values. The Internet may be changing that. In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought. In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.” The publicly accessible data is vague in that it does not specify how many people are searching for the terms, just their relative popularity over time. But the defense lawyer, Lawrence Walters, is arguing that the evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that interest in the sexual subjects exceeds that of more mainstream topics -- and that by extension, the sexual material distributed by his client is not outside the norm.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/technology/24obscene.html?hp
(requires registration)

BROADCASTING/CABLE

IOWA BROADCASTERS TO MARTIN: THIS IS LOCALISM
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Iowa Broadcasters Association Executive Director Sue Toma has written Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to let him know that some broadcasters there have been going 24/7 with commercial-free coverage of the devastating flooding while they help to marshal volunteer efforts and battle flood waters themselves. "I can't help but note that the Iowa floods come at a time when well-meaning but misguided activists are questioning broadcasters' commitment to localism," she wrote. The answers to those questions, she suggested, could be found in Iowa, where "many" broadcasters have "once again proven their commitment to the communities that we serve," capping it off with the assertion: "This is our finest hour."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6572551.html?rssid=193
* IBA letter
http://www.nab.org/xert/corpcomm/pressrel/releases/062008_IBA_Martin.pdf

CABLE CHANNELS GAIN ON BROADCAST NETWORKS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
Preliminary figures for advance sales indicate that the cable channels will collectively sell about $8 billion in airtime to advertisers this season, up 7 to 8 percent from last year’s total. By contrast, the broadcast networks sold about $9.1 billion to $9.2 billion, up about 1 percent over last season. The shift in advertising dollars from broadcast to cable is not new, but it is particularly pronounced this year. There are several explanations, analysts say, including the fact that the most popular cable channels on their best nights, now attract nearly as many viewers as some of the less popular broadcast networks. Over all, the ratings gap, once vast, has been gradually narrowing. While all the broadcasters, save for Fox, posted significant ratings declines in the television season that ended in May, many cable networks are setting new ratings records. But ratings are not the only explanation. Other factors include the increasing fragmentation in media, which forces advertisers to place more bets in different places; the development of new niche channels, which can siphon ad dollars away from general-interest programming; and last winter’s writers’ strike, which made the fresh content available on cable look more attractive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/business/media/24adco.html?ref=todaysp...
(requires registration)

TOUGH ECONOMY MIGHT BE GOOD FOR BROADCAST TV
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Nellie Andreeva]
In uncertain times, Americans cling to their TVs. For those putting their dreams for a new home and car on hold, a flat-screen TV seems like a comforting alternative. The share of consumers planning to buy a TV set in the next six months hit an all-time high of 12.2 percent in May. "Households now seem bent on cocooning by staying at home to watch television rather than drive to the local theater and shell out more than $11 to watch a film (and an extra $5 on gas to get there)," Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg wrote recently. "Travel plans have sunk to their lowest in 30 years, so what else is there to do but stay home and watch TV?"
http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN2344305820080624

KOHL TO FCC: TIGHTEN PROGRAM-ACCESS RULES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Sen Herb Kohl (D-WI) has written Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to let him know the chairman of the Senate Antitrust Committee wants the FCC to toughen up its program-access rules to make sure that independent programmers don't get squeezed out of the marketplace. Chairman Kohl would like the FCC to set a "prompt and reasonable" deadline for responding to program-access complaints; to come up with a better definition of what constitutes discrimination in carriage disputes; to prevent multichannel-video providers from moving channels to a "disfavored or costly" tier during disputes, and anything else it might need to do. Sen Kohl also asked the FCC to adopt rules to prevent program tying that disfavors independent programmers.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6572356.html?rssid=193

JULY 18 DEADLINE FOR CROSS-OWNERSHIP MOVE REQUESTS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave broadcasters and media activists until July 18 to file their requests for moving the appeal of the Federal Communications Commission's decision to loosen the ban on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership. Oppositions to those requests for transfer are due Aug. 14.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6572654.html?rssid=193

JAPAN LAGS ON DIGITAL TV, STUDY FINDS
[SOURCE: Variety, AUTHOR: Mark Schilling]
With three years until the analog signal is switched off, only 43.3% of TV households in Japan own TVs able to receive digital broadcasts, according to a report released by the National Assn. of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB). However, only 34.8% of TV households are actually able to watch digital broadcasts, meaning that many with digital-ready sets cannot yet tune into digital broadcasts. The figures come from a NAB survey of 18,000 TV households conducted in March, with an 80.2% response rate. The far north and south of the country have the lowest digital diffusion rates -- not surprising since both areas are among the most economically depressed. According to the survey, 61% of households with annual incomes of 10 million yen ($93,210) had a digital TV, while only 24.2% of households with incomes of $18,550 or less had a digital TV.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117987966.html?categoryid=14&cs=1&nid=...

QUICKLY

MARTIN UNHAPPY WITH FCC'S VERIZON DECISION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has written a statement to let everyone know he is not happy with the announcement Saturday that a bipartisan majority of the commission overturned his staff's decision rejecting a cable challenge to Verizon Communications’ marketing practices. "I am concerned that today’s decision promotes regulatory arbitrage and is outcome-driven," he said. “It could thwart competition, harm rural America and frustrate regulatory parity. Therefore, I must dissent from today’s decision.” Chairman Martin said it was "arbitrary," "capricious" and "indefensible" to say that cable companies are telecommunications carriers for the purposes of voice over Internet protocol, but not otherwise.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6572339.html?rssid=193

MIRROR AWARDS ANNOUNCED -- RUSSERT HONORED
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: ]
Joseph Nocera of The New York Times and Ken Auletta of The New Yorkers were among the winners of the annual Mirror Awards. The late Tim Russert, as was planned months ago, was honored with the Fred Dressler Lifetime Achievement Award. NBC anchor Brian Williams accepted it for him and delivered a brief tribute. The awards, sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, went to Nocera for Best Commentary, Auletta for Best Single Article, Jeff Coplon for Best Profile in New York Magazine, a team from Frontline (PBS) for Best Investigative Piece, and The New York Times' Monday media section for Overall Excellence.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...
* Murdoch Top of Mind at Mirror Awards (Broadcasting&Cable)
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/blog/60000406/post/1140028714.html?nid=...

KNIGHT, TOW AIM TO SAVE NEWSPAPERS
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Stephanie Olsen]
Hurt by declining ad sales and cutbacks, local newspapers have seen better days. That's why at least two charitable organizations are funding projects designed to spur innovation in journalism and ensure people's access to regional news. On Monday, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation said it will spend $24 million over five years to fund challenges for innovation involving access to local information. Its project, called the Knight Community Information Challenge, asks community foundations across the country to propose new ideas on how to serve people information on their local area. Also Monday, philanthropist Leonard Tow said he would donate $8 million to two colleges toward the study of ensuring the survival of newspapers on the Web and training new-media journalists. His foundation, the Tow Foundation, pledged $5 million to Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and $3 million to the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9975760-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=...

WHO YOU RUNNING WITH?
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
A key narrative in last week’s campaign focused not on Barack Obama and John McCain themselves, but on two people whose public roles reflect crucial challenges facing the candidates -- Michelle Obama and George Bush. Since Obama is a relatively unknown quantity to many Americans, his wife, Michelle, is virtually certain to be scrutinized for clues to his character and philosophy. She may come to represent a proxy for whether Obama can establish a comfort factor with enough voters to win the White House. For McCain, the challenge is whether he is too closely tied to an unpopular incumbent President in George W. Bush. Both of those storylines were evident last week in the coverage. The role of Michelle Obama filled 9% of the campaign newshole, according to PEJ’s Campaign Coverage Index for June 16-22. And President Bush’s relationship with the GOP hopeful filled another 7% of the newshole.
http://www.journalism.org/node/11632

Coalition seeks federal nudge for universal broadband

Vint Cerf and Federal Communications Commission member Jonathan Adelstein joined forces Tuesday in renewing calls for the U.S. government to more actively expand broadband service. They and other members of a new coalition promised hearings across the country and set up a Web site at InternetForEveryone.org to outline principles such as universal access and competition to ensure lower prices and faster Internet connection speeds. But the group offered few specifics, including any proposed legislation. Josh Silver, executive director of the Free Press advocacy group, said that given the complexities of broadband policy, the new coalition was focusing instead on raising awareness and establishing ideas for the next administration to consider. Other members of the coalition include leading Internet scholars Lawrence Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain; Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America-East, which recently battled Hollywood over online rights; and Robin Chase, co-founder of the Zipcar automobile-rental service.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080624/ap_on_hi_te/broadband_policy

Study Calls for 1G Broadband in US

The U.S. should aim for 100M bps (bits per second) of broadband available to all U.S. residents by 2012 and 1G bps by 2015 in order to catch up to other countries that are moving forward with broadband rollouts, recommends a study released Monday. The study, by the Baller Herbst Law Group, also calls on the U.S. to create a national broadband strategy that helps state programs bring broadband to underserved areas. Neither private industry nor government programs alone can build the broadband networks needed for the U.S. to compete globally in the coming years, said Jim Baller, founder of Baller Herbst and the study's co-author. The e-NC Authority, a state program in North Carolina focused on broadband rollout, commissioned the study, and many of Baller's recommendations are focused on how North Carolina can get broadband to the 16 percent of the state's residents who don't yet have it. Among the recommendations: Grants to broadband providers, communities working together to finance broadband networks and funding for new broadband competitors. Several speakers at a forum accompanying the study's release said other states can learn from North Carolina's broadband efforts. The state has used a combination of state, nonprofit and other funding to bring broadband to its rural areas, and in January, it awarded a US$1.2 million grant to help bring broadband to four rural counties. But speakers at Monday's event said the U.S. government needs to step forward and help bring broadband to rural areas across the nation.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147451/study_calls_for_1g_...

Baller: McCain and Obama Should Issue Joint Statement on Broadband

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama should issue a statement underscoring the consensus between Republicans and Democrats on the importance of broadband in the United States, says Jim Baller. Such a statement would illustrate that the federal government is seriously reevaluating its current broadband policy – no matter who assumes the White House on January 21, 2009. Both candidates have solid solutions to improve the current broadband situation in the U.S., said Baller, of the Baller Herbst Law Group which represents municipalities that seek to offer broadband as an alternative to incumbent telecommunications and cable companies. He has also promoted the notion of a national broadband strategy. Baller said that the average “high-speed” service in the U.S. ranged between one and nine megabits per second (8 Mbps), versus countries in Europe and Asia that now average 100 Mbps, and that aim to reach one gigabit (1 Gbps) within the next few years. The US cannot afford to continue to build schools complete with inadequate broadband services, Baller said. Yet he said that 98 percent of North Carolina schools have “the wrong kind” of broadband: one that is already obsolete.
http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=56

CWA Claims Credit for FCC Data Order, But Ignores Local Company Data

[Commentary] Over at the Communications Workers of America’s blog, Speed Matters, the union claimed credit for the Federal Communications Commission’s recent order requiring broadband companies to provide the FCC with more information, including data about availability by Census tract. However, although it is possible that the FCC’s broadband data collection will be improved, the public is not likely to benefit from any improvements. CWA makes no mention of the fact that the FCC will continue to shield the names of the broadband providers that offer service in a particular ZIP code or Census tract. BroadbandCensus.com criticized the FCC for its failure to change this policy. The current policy limits consumers’ and citizens’ ability to benefit from local broadband information. Also, with regards to speeds, the CWA post appears to misstate what the FCC required. The FCC order does not require either the carriers or agency to engage in speed tests about actual broadband performance. It only requires that carriers say what they currently offer. The FCC document has a “further notice” section, in which the agency asks for comments on whether, and how, it should conduct information about “delivered speed[s].”

BroadbandCensus.com seeks to provide the public with information about local broadband availability, competition, speeds and prices. In order to make this information as useful to the public as possible, BroadbandCensus.com believes that the names of the companies that provide broadband – and the speeds and prices at which they actually deliver service – must also be made available as part of any serious effort to map out the state of broadband in America.
http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=57

National Tech Policy: Which Way Forward?

What would you do as part of a new administration to impact tech policy on day 1 in 2009? Vint Cerf would “get rid of the [Federal Communications Commission] and get Congress to work.” Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch would start with an IP bill of rights. Alec Ross, who advises Sen Barack Obama (D-IL), would appoint a Chief Technology Officer. Josh Silver, co-founder of Free Press, would use the Presidential bully-pulpit to explain issues of digital policy to Americans (and open up White Spaces, protect muni-broadband, institute Network Neutrality, and support broadband deployment using the Universal Service Fund). Claudio Prado, who has served in the Ministry of Brazil, would work on explaining tech policy to the rest of his government and make sure every Ministry understands what “Peeracy” is (note: it’s a peer to peer movement and pirates are not allowed). Josh Silver sums it up in four words: fast, affordable, open Internet. For Alec Ross, tech policy should aim to create a citizen-centered government. Claudio Prado would simply like to see a tech policy that empowers people while Erick Schonfeld demands that technologies and policy contribute to better, more efficient governance.
http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=62

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