September 2009

YouTube's Bandwidth Bill Estimated At $300M For 2009

YouTube, the Internet's most popular video site, will spend approximately $300 million on bandwidth in 2009 -- meaning it won't be profitable for the year, according to a revised analysis by Credit Suisse. In a previous report, in April, Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena pegged YouTube's bandwidth costs at about $360 million for the year. However, that original estimate was criticized for not accounting for "peering," the voluntary interconnection among large Internet networks to more efficiently exchange traffic in which no money changes hands. In an updated analysis issued Wednesday, Wang and Sena included the assumed benefits of peering agreements on YouTube's bandwidth costs but said the difference was not enough to change their original conclusions.

Did Family Guy cause 179,997 FCC indecency complaints?

Every three months the Federal Communications Commission comes up with its Quarterly Report on indecency complaints, and we sit around scratching our heads. How come the latest stats, in this instance for the first quarter of this year, show the viewers relatively calm at 578 complaints in January, then 505 in February, followed by 179,997 in March? 179,997? Um, did we miss something? Did television really get that much more indecent in March? No worries. In these situations, we know what to do. We go over and check out the Parents Television Council's website. And sure enough, there's a plausible instigator—a PTC viewer action alert crusade against a March 8 episode of the animated comedy show the PTC just loves to hate, Fox TV's Family Guy. PTC's parental advisory system rates Family Guy "red for sex," it should be noted. "Should a Sunday night cartoon show YOUR children bestiality, gay orgies and babies eating sperm?" the PTC alert declared. "Fox thinks so." Well, that definitely got our attention. So we ran over to another institution that the PTC keeps sharp eyes on, youtube, and got some clips of the episode. Frankly, it's not one of the better Family Guy episodes, but...

Telecom in the telemedicine value chain

Telecom service providers are methodically addressing the business side of the telemedicine value chain by focusing new resources on the health care industry, in particular hospitals and medical practitioners. They are finding opportunities in developing managed services specifically aimed at health care needs and in helping improve healthcare IT efficiency. But the larger question looming is whether US telecom service providers have a bigger role to play in helping knit together the disparate parts of the complex value chain that is health care in this country. And that's a question that is yet to be answered.

Is the FCC drawing a new regulatory map?

While FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is digging into wireless matters such as competition, innovation and third-party application control perhaps more swiftly (and publicly) than his predecessor, the Federal Communications Commission is only asking questions at this point. Questions are cheap. Policymaking is an entirely different matter that must measure political fallout against results. And more important: the nation is still digging out of the greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression. Even while the FCC's recent inquiries have surely rattled some nerves, it would be a tough stretch to suggest Genachowski has a pre-determined goal of radical regulation.

How You -- Yes, You! -- Can Read Comments Filed at the FCC

There have been over 10,000 comments filed about the National Broadband Plan. And there will be a lot more in response to the Public Notices issued by the Commission to drill deeper into specific issues. So here's instructions on how to access and read those comments using the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System, known as ECFS.

A docket number is key to using ECFS, and this link takes you to the ECFS retrieval form with the docket number for the National Broadband Plan, 09-51, already filled in. Just hit "Retrieve Document List" to get a list of all filings. Yes, there are lots of them, and you need to click on each individual filing to read it. But there are many ways you can focus your search, which include:

Entering the name of a specific individual whose comments you want to see in Field 4 (Filed on Behalf of)
Narrowing your search to people in your community by using the "City," "State," or "Zip Code" fields
Entering "FCC" in Field 5 - (Law Firm) - to see FCC filings.
Clicking on the box in field 15 (Eliminate Brief Text Comments) to narrow the search considerably by retrieving only longer comments
Finding comments for a specific public notice by using a date range on either side of the comment due dates
If you want to file your own comments in the broadband proceeding, you can use ECFS Express (or our standard submission page if you need to attach a file).

You can contact ECFS staff during business hours at (202) 418-0193 or by email at ecfshelp@fcc.gov. Join in the broadband dialogue by reading and writing comments!

FCC Chairman Genachowski Announces Enforcement Bureau Chief

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the appointment of P. Michele Ellison as Chief of the Enforcement Bureau. Ms. Ellison will take the helm of the Enforcement Bureau starting on September 28, 2009. Ellison is currently Deputy General Counsel, a position she has held for the last twelve years, and most recently served as Acting General Counsel of the FCC through July 2009. In addition to her other duties, she also was named Transition Counsel to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Ellison has co-chaired the Commission's Localism Task Force, lead a Task Force on expanding communications opportunities to small businesses and developing countries, and served as senior advisor to former Chairman Kennard on a variety of agency-wide substantive and operational matters.

FCC: Radio, TV On School Buses Should Be Decided At Local Level

The Federal Communications Commission has concluded that the decision on whether radio and TV programs on school buses are in the public interest are best decided at the local level "where individual school districts in close partnership with parents and other stakeholders can weigh the particular benefits and potential harms of the service in their communities." BusRadio is the only service currently serving school buses with such a system. The FCC pointed out that since BusRadio holds no FCC licenses, it is not subject to the regulatory oversight the Commission has over broadcast services. But it did refer to its children's television programming rules to suggest that BusRadio, and by extension any other service that wanted to operate in that space, could follow the same guidelines. Those include prohibitions on over-commercialization and host-selling. The Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood, which pressed Congress for the report, called it "essential reading for any school district considering a contract with BusRadio." It pointed to the FCC comments about the commercial load and sufficient buffer between ads and content.

Silicon Valley is shrinking

The number of high-tech jobs in all industries Silicon Valley declined by 86,000, or 16.5 percent, between 2001 and 2008, according a federal study of employment trends in the valley. In the study released last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) identified 11 industries as high-tech employers in Silicon Valley and then assessed what happened to them after the 2001 dot com bust. The study found that while paychecks in those industries increased by nearly 36 percent from 2001 to 2008 to an overall annual payroll of some $58 billion, only three of the 11 industries -- aerospace, pharmaceuticals and scientific research -- boosted their Silicon Valley workforce numbers. Increasing salaries among the Valley's declining high technology workforce may suggest "that the types of people that continue to be employed in Silicon Valley are a higher skill set people," said Mark Roberts, executive director of the TechServe Alliance (formerly the National Association of Computer Consultants). Among other findings, the alliance analyzes federal labor data compiled about IT-related occupations.

How can media firms keep pace?

What started as a panel discussion about how media companies make money off the Internet evolved into a discussion of how entertainment companies -- even such recent entrants as Google, Hulu and YouTube -- remain relevant as the pace of change accelerates. Tuesday's panel on the future of new media in the digital age was presented by the Hollywood Radio & Television Society. Moderator and Disney president Robert Iger framed the first part of the debate by questioning how to get enough money out of new media to keep paying the costs of producing and distributing television shows, movies, games and other content if consumers think they are going to always get everything for free online. "Will we ever be able to monetize our content on new platforms as we did on traditional platforms?" he asked his four panelists, all of whom were from the cyber side of the equation. Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, said the question implies that everything will always be free, but that isn't the case. "Free and pay are going to co-exist and compete," he said.

Comcast Will Look at Cable Purchases at 'Good Price'

Comcast Corp., the biggest U.S. cable-television provider, will consider buying other cable operators at a "good price," Chief Operating Officer Stephen Burke said. "If there is a way to acquire cable systems for what we consider a good price, ones that are well managed, we would certainly look at whatever is out three," Burke, 51, said today at a Bank of America Corp. conference in Marina del Rey, California. Still, the company "isn't waking up every morning" evaluating how it can become bigger, he said. Comcast won a legal victory last month, allowing it to own more than 30 percent of the national cable market. Without the ownership limit, "Comcast has greater freedom to buy cable assets if it so desires," David Kaut, a Washington- based analyst for Stifel Nicolaus & Co., said today in an e-mail. The company's first priority may be acquiring content companies, Burke said. Comcast owns the Golf Channel, E! Entertainment and Style Network among others.

Benton

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