March 2009

American Broadband Bill of Rights

The Rural Mobile Broadband Alliance has proposed a Broadband Bill of Rights, containing five key guiding principles in the debate over broadband connectivity in rural and underserved areas. RuMBA believes all Americans should have access to a network that is: 1) Ubiquitous - Services and devices should work seamlessly everywhere: in rural, suburban and urban areas. America needs an additional two million square miles of coverage. 2) Safe - Americans need E911 with location service and an emergency Cell Broadcast System with weather and disaster alerting. Katrina-like outages are unacceptable. 3) Mobile - Whether in the car, on the tractor, at home, in school, at work and all areas in between, our nation relies on mobility; our networks must reflect our lifestyle needs. 4) Affordable - Rural Americans demand competitive pricing for services and devices. We need the same or better services and devices as the rest of the country, at a fair price. 5) Sustainable - America must invest in next generation systems that can be operated at a profit and maintained by our local small town carriers. We must leap ahead, buy tomorrow's technologies, not yesterday's.

NTIA/RUS Not Requiring A Minimum Speed Is Absurd

[Commentary] More than anything else, what's gotten Daily most upset watching the NTIA/RUS public meetings has been the oft-repeated stance that somehow it'd be a bad thing for a minimum speed to be set in order to qualify for a government grant. The argument goes something like this: "Well if you set the bar too high you'll dissuade investment and cut a number of providers out of the running to upgrade their networks." First off, for anyone to claim that the government's going to have any trouble finding people to give money away to is absolutely ridiculous. Secondly, if by setting a higher bar for minimum speeds we shut out lesser "broadband" projects, how is that a bad thing? We can't let private interests supersede the public good. We must be vigilant in insuring whatever projects get these government funds worry more about supporting what's best for the public than on protecting private interests. And the best way to do this is by setting a minimum speed threshold to establish eligibility for these broadband grants.

Few US hospitals have electronic medical records (Updated)

Less than 2 percent of U.S. hospitals have adopted fully functional electronic medical records, with most citing cost as the biggest barrier, US researchers said on Wednesday. "The data collectively show we are at a very early stage in adoption, a very low stage compared to other countries," said Harvard's Dr. David Blumenthal, who last week was tapped to lead President Barack Obama's $19 billion push to increase the use of information technology in healthcare. President Obama has made electronic medical records a central piece of his plan to cut costs out of a U.S. healthcare system that consistently ranks lower in quality measures than other rich countries. Blumenthal said the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, clearly shows the United States has room to improve. He said financial incentives in the economic stimulus bill should help, given that most hospitals reporting that cost as their biggest stumbling block.

Update:
In a second article in the journal, two experts in health information technology at Children's Hospital Boston assert that spending billions of dollars of federal funds to stimulate the adoption of existing forms of health record software would be a costly policy mistake. The authors argue that the government should be a rule-setting referee to encourage the development of an open software platform on which innovators could write electronic health record applications.

Streaming games could be bane or boon for ISPs

Parents might get a new reason to yell at their kids for playing video games too much: In the future, it could rack up their Internet bills. A service unveiled this week aims to stream video games over the Internet, setting gamers on a collision course with cable and phone companies that are seeking to curb growing demands on their networks by charging for heavy usage. OnLive Inc., a startup from Palo Alto, Calif., revealed its service Tuesday night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users would get a small, simple device to connect to their TVs, or they could run the application on a PC. Their screens would receive the game video from OnLive's servers, which would do the data-crunching needed to render a richly detailed environment. No game console or high-end gaming PC would be needed. It's uncertain how well OnLive would work in homes — there has been no widespread customer trial. It is clear, though, that it would consume large amounts of bandwidth, far higher than that required for current online games, where most of the content is stored on the computer or console. Derek Turner, policy director at media and Internet advocacy group Free Press, said the bandwidth caps are "misguided" because they can stifle new applications like OnLive that add value to an Internet connection. Also, he said, the profit margins on Internet connections are very high, and it's not clear that ISPs need to increase their fees to finance upgrades, especially since the cost of network hardware keeps falling.

Boucher: DTV Transition On "Very Good Path"

House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology & the Internet Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) will hold a digital television transition oversight hearing on Thursday, but is already indicating that the transition is on "a very good path." He has praise for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps, the TV industry and the national telecommunications and Information Administration's converter box coupon program.

Shield Law Bill Passes House Judiciary Committee

The House Judiciary Committee has once again passed the Free Flow of Information Act (HR 985), a federal shield law, which will now go to the full House for a vote. The bill would extend a qualified privilege from testifying in federal court to journalists and their sources. A similar bill moved through the House during the last congress but was stalled in the Senate. At the time, the Justice Department strongly opposed it, saying it gave too much protection to leakers and not enough to national security.

NAACP Writes Advertisers in Diversity Push

The effort to substantially increase African-American representation in the advertising industry has shifted to a client outreach phase, with the NAACP writing letters to the leaders of top-spending advertisers, including Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley. In a letter dated Monday, NAACP interim general counsel Angela Ciccolo asked Lafley to "instruct your advertising agencies to use diverse teams in creative and account management positions" and to address the relative paucity of African-Americans in advertising "as forcefully and effectively as its importance to your firm and the nation requires." The letter further suggests that P&G identify a senior executive to meet with the NAACP, which is partnering with civil rights law firm Mehri & Skalet on the diversity initiative, known as the Madison Avenue Project.

Sen Collins asks DHS for cybersecurity documents

Sen Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Ranking Member on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is requesting detailed information, including financial figures, from the Department of Homeland Security to explain why the department has been seemingly unable to fulfill its cybersecurity responsibilities. In a letter sent to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano on Tuesday, Sen Collins said that in light of the recent resignation of National Cybersecurity Center Director Rod Beckström, she would like DHS to send the Homeland Security Committee a number of documents to show how the department spent its $6 million NCSC budget and provided other means of support for the NCSC.

Bergmann Leaving FCC, Joining Wireless Lobby

Federal Communications Commission member Jonathan Adelstein, nominated by President Obama to head the Rural Utilities Service and the USDA, announced that Scott Bergmann, the Commissioner's Senior Legal Advisor, will be leaving the FCC to join CTIA -- the Wireless Association. Bergmann advised Commissioner Adelstein on a broad range of issues including broadband, universal service, wireline competition, and access for persons with disabilities. Before joining Commissioner Adelstein's office, Mr. Bergmann served as Legal Counsel to the Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau.

Beyond advertising: Choosing a strategic path to the digital consumer

Today, the distinctions between advertising and marketing have blurred, as new forms of communication combine the ROI-characteristics of direct marketing with the brand characteristics of traditional advertising. With digital consumers increasingly in control of their media experience and advertisers shifting their spend to more interactive, measurable formats, companies must move beyond traditional advertising to combine granularity of targeting and measurement with cross-platform integration. To adapt and succeed - especially in the current economic environment - content owners, media distributors and agencies need to build a new set of capabilities now: cross-platform innovation, greater insights, open collaboration and digital processes.

Benton

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