September 2009

Levin Says FCC's Broadband Plan Is Start of 'Dynamic Process'

Federal Communications Commission broadband czar Blair Levin dismissed critics of the commission's process in creating a national broadband strategy and promised a steady push forward with clear goals in mind. There is no "secret plan," nor "multiple choice" option that the commission will choose from, Levin cautioned. "It doesn't work like that," he said. Complicating the problem is a lack of good data on broadband availability nationwide. The U.S.'s mapping data "doesn't add up" enough to be useful, he said. The workshops the commission has been conducting are to allow staff to take ownership of parts of the plan and narrow down action items on broader issues, Levin told the group. But the commission will be requesting more information through hearings and "more specific" public notices this fall, he said. The notices will be "very narrow - very focused," he said. "We have a very steep mountain to climb." The overall goal of the broadband plan is the start of a "dynamic process" including Congress and other agencies with the authority to implement the strategy, Levin said. The plan is a "mechanism to drive a dynamic process to improve the broadband ecosystem," he said. He added that the commission's report to Congress will only be the beginning of the process. The plan will not be "self-executing," he cautioned, since the job of the commission is to give options to decision-makers, and not to make any decisions itself.

Will Google or Cisco Determine Our Future Broadband Networks?

At a Federal Communications Commission broadband plan panel titled The Future of the Internet, researchers argued for a new Internet architecture built upon infrastructure currently used in large data centers that would be capable of adapting itself to deliver each individual application. Meanwhile, those associated with think tanks and the broadband industry argued that the most significant Internet-related innovation is already behind us and that we need to think about embedding more intelligence into the network we have. David Clark, professor at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Taieb Znati, division director for the National Science Foundation, talking up the idea of virtualizing communications networks in order to create several networks optimized for delivering different types of applications. By the way, this focus on the ability to deliver a specific application vs. delivering a set speed is a sticky topic when it comes to defining broadband. Going

House Panel Will Get Broadband Update

Officials from the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service are expected to give the House Commerce Committee an update on implementation of the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program on Thursday September 10.

US Broadband Growth Continues to Slow

[Commentary] The number of new broadband subscribers continues to slow in the US, according to data gathered by UBS Research, driven primarily by market saturation. The Wall Street firm estimates that there are 67 million broadband subscribers in the US, or roughly 60 percent of the nation's households and about 70 percent of those with a PC. The number of net new broadband subscribers during the first half of 2009 was down 27 percent from the first half of 2008, to about 2.1 million. UBS Research expects this downward trajectory to continue. Broadband subscription providers need to counter the slowing growth by offering higher-speed (both up and downstream) subscription packages that command higher monthly fees. Instead, some backward-looking cable operators such as Time Warner Cable are looking to impose bandwidth metering to protect their revenues.

Net Neutrality and the Law

A Q&A with Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott. He defines network neutrality as "something that you take for granted every time you go online. When you're surfing the web and you're moving from website to website, whether it's your Facebook page or cnn.com or Amazon, you're pretty much in control of your Internet experience. You can go wherever you want, you can read anything you want, you can watch anything you want, you can hear anything you want, and everyone who is offering content on the Internet for you to find is treated the same by the network operator. The phone companies and cable companies that give you access to the Internet through their wires have nothing to say about what you do, content-wise, on the Internet. That concept is known as network neutrality, and it was built into the engineering when the Internet was created. That was the whole idea behind the Internet. That's net neutrality."

Advocates: Google Books can bridge digital divide

A coalition of civil-rights and disability groups in favor of Google's book-scanning project held a press conference Thursday to marshal support for improving access to knowledge, the key benefit of Google's deal with authors and publishers to create a new kind of digital library. They fear that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gain digital access to knowledge previously stored in libraries at expensive universities or rich communities could be hampered by the opposition to the settlement from some authors and privacy advocates. Blind people, for example, have access to a special library run by the Library of Congress that converts print books into formats readable by the visually impaired, but that library--in existence since 1931--only has 70,000 texts, said Chris Danielsen, director of public relations for the National Federation of the Blind. If the settlement is approved in October, it will give "print-disabled" people "access to more books than we have ever had in human history," he said. Providing digital access to literature and textbooks would allow libraries at all schools to simply maintain PCs, rather than having to devote resources toward acquiring and maintaining books, several supporters argued. Many communities in poorer parts of the country don't have the resources to maintain libraries competitive with those in richer communities, and lack of access to knowledge makes it harder for students in those communities to learn, according to Wade Henderson of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights.

FTC: Google Books Raises Privacy Fears

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz on Thursday expressed concern about Google's plan to digitize mass quantities of books, saying it "raises serious privacy challenges because of the vast amount of user information that could be collected." He said he was pleased that Google is taking steps to protect the privacy of Google Books users and noted that the Commission will have an ongoing dialogue with Google and others to ensure consumer privacy is protected when new technologies emerge. "As Google Books evolves we'll work to ensure that the privacy of online readers is fact, not fiction," he said.

Healthcare debate gives Internet advertising a huge shot in the arm

Internet advertising has been growing for years. But the healthcare fight, which has erupted in confrontational town hall meetings over the summer, has generated more Internet ad buying than any public policy debate so far. Interest groups of all sizes and perspectives have been buying ads linked to Internet search terms, often tweaking their "ad words" to keep up with the latest developments in fast-moving news cycles.

Fox unlikely to air president's speech

None of the Big Four broadcast networks have indicated that they will air President Barack Obama's address to Congress on health care. Among other things, the nets have been waiting to hear when the address will start, with sources indicating Thursday night that the White House was leaning toward 8 p.m. After a brief honeymoon after Obama's January inauguration, the broadcast networks have become increasingly frustrated by the frequency of his requests for primetime coverage. The pre-emptions wreak havoc on the networks' schedules and cost millions of dollars in lost ad revenue. Regardless of the White House's final start-time decision, Fox is expected to sit out the Obama speech again, referring its viewers to sister cable channel Fox News.

Memo to ABC: Ditch High-Priced Anchor and Hire Actual Reporters

[Commentary] The nightly news broadcasts produced by CBS, NBC, and ABC may have become irrelevant to smart news consumers, yet the nation's dailies continue to pretend it matters who anchors the broadcasts. As the network news audience has dwindled over the past three decades, broadcasters have reconfigured the shows as "infotainment" to boost ratings, aping the dreadful local news that they once disdained, says George Washington University media professor Mark Feldstein. "The journalistic value of these programs is marginal at this point," says Feldstein, and the appointment viewing of tuning in to the nightly news at 6:30 or 7 p.m. is a "relic of the past." If the nightly programs add so little to our news diet and attract so few viewers, then why do they still air? Because they are very profitable. According to a 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer piece by Gail Shister, ABC News was paying Charlie Gibson an estimated $8 million to anchor World News. Whatever they're paying Sawyer to replace him, it's too much. My advice to Sawyer is this: If you really want to improve World News, if you really want to make an indelible mark on journalism, turn down the job and persuade ABC News to divert the millions it ordinarily pays its anchor and spend it on 50 or 80 additional reporters to break stories.

Benton

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