December 2009

The Rise of the Middle Mile in Obama's Theory of Broadband Stimulus

Last Thursday's announcement of broadband stimulus - even if it was about two-and-a-half percent of the total broadband stimulus funding - was like manna to broadband industry. Whether or not broadband activists and broadband builders believe that the federal government will end up playing a significant part of the telecommunications industry, the tension-in-waiting for action has been palpable and long-building. By the time of Thursday's announcement, it had already been 10 months, to the day, since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In light of these awards, what probably got less attention was a key policy document released on Thursday by the White House's National Economic Council. Titled "Recovery Act Investments in Broadband: Leveraging Federal Dollars to Create Jobs and Connect America," this document represents a manifesto for the value of federal engagement in broadband's "middle mile."

The Media Bureau v. The National Broadband Plan

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau seems set on undermining two of the National Broadband Plan's biggest initiatives — reallocation (or re-examination, if you prefer) of broadcast spectrum and reform of the set top box rule. Which is why it would make sense for some of the responsible folks in the Chairman's office to exercise some adult supervision here. The Chairman has the responsibility to balance among the competing goals of the agency when the various delegated processes start to interfere with each other. A wise Chairman consults the other Commissioners as well, of course, but management of the Bureaus is squarely in the Chairman's list of responsibilities.

Could Stimulus Grants Be about the Path of Least Resistance?

[Commentary] Even though it probably the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's intention, it has established in this first round of broadband stimulus awards parameters for following the path of least resistance. Many of those funded are middle mile projects, each serving a lot of people and/or covering a huge amount of geography. It's probably easier (read: faster) for a reviewer to make award decisions to fund five middle mile projects, each covering 10 counties, than to make decisions for 50 individual county proposals. A sizable portion of infrastructure grants went to public/private partnerships and nonprofits versus private entities that are the sole operator of the network. Smaller telecommunications companies seemed to win the day. Traditionally in technology and in telecommunications, it is most often the small companies that are the leaders of innovation. They are the problem solvers. Almost all of NTIA's grants were awarded to projects recommended by their respective states' governors.

European Rules Aim to Accelerate EU's Broadband Take Rate

Long-awaited European Union telecommunications rules are set to take effect this week, the EU Commission said Monday. The rules, which must be adopted by EU member states by June 2011, will establish a new national governing authority for the field of telecommunications. "The establishment of the new European Telecoms Authority BEREC is a very visible sign that we are serious when we say that Europe's telecoms operators and consumers should no longer feel national borders in network access and the delivery of communication services," said Viviane Reding, the EU's Telecoms Commissioner, in a statement. "From spring 2010 onwards, BEREC will help national telecoms regulators and the European Commission to ensure that telecoms services can be delivered under consistent and competitive conditions across the EU. Now that the reform Directives have been published in the Official Journal, I ask Member States to start work on the swift transposition of these rules into national laws. A rapid and correct transposition will be crucial for achieving legal certainty, enhancing competition and stimulating investment in Europe's evolving single telecoms market," she said.

Google's creed: 'Open will win'

As a year winds down in which criticism of Google was perhaps never louder, the company used a quiet preholiday afternoon to post a manifesto on what it means to be "open." Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president of product management, originally wrote the "The meaning of open" as a memo to employees, but posted it on Google's official blog Monday. In the essay, Rosenberg lays out Google's belief that the use of open technologies and open information are two of Google's most important core values, although reasonable people can disagree on the meaning of "open" in various contexts. "This [disagreement] is happening often enough for me to conclude that we need to lay out our definition of open in clear terms that we can all understand and support," Rosenberg wrote. "What follows is that definition based on my experiences at Google and the input of several colleagues. We run the company and make our product decisions based on these principles, so I encourage you to carefully read, review, and debate them," he told Google employees in the memo.

Should Motorola And Sony Ericsson Merge?

[Commentary] view of Motorola's and Sony Ericsson's low global handset market share - less than 5% each - shouldn't they merge? The geographies work: Sony Ericsson has a decent market share in Europe (12.4%), Motorola has a good share of the U.S. (17.3%), Sony Ericsson does OK in India (10%), while Motorola is fine in China (10%). Sanford Bernstein estimates, that by merging, the companies could reduce operating costs by 10%.

But there may be another factor: Next year, there will be a whole new raft of phones based on Google's Android operating system. Android has only been up and running commercially since the summer and is a long way behind Apple Inc.'s iPhone by any metric. But only around a dozen handsets have been available so far and around 30 more are expected next year, many of which will come from Asian suppliers. It would be fair to expect a widening of the Android product range to appeal to different pockets, depending on the graphics cards, accelerometers, GPS, touch screens and keyboards on the device. The general expectation is that they will appeal more to the mid-market than the high-end market. The Android system also differs from Apple as it is a more open ecosystem, with less control of the applications. Not the same as the old 'walled garden versus Internet debate' of a few years ago, but with enough elements for commentators to draw comparisons. While walled-garden approaches tend to be short-to-medium term winners due to the ease of integration and use, open systems have always eventually taken over. The upshot is that while Motorola has its Droid, and it's likely Sony Ericsson will soon have Android phones as well, they will be competing against a raft of new handsets all of which will be utilizing the same operating system.

Mobile core wars

The mobile packet core is emerging as the new battleground in wireless, pitting the big mobile vendors against a new generation of specialty core suppliers. The 4G mobile core isn't just an ancillary component to the network anymore. Its role in the wireless network is not only becoming more prominent as networks migrate to all-IP architectures and the sheer volume of network data exponentially multiplies, the 4G core is now becoming a key point of differentiation for wireless vendors. The highly standardized nature of the long-term evolution (LTE) and WiMax architectures makes it hard to distinguish between the major vendors' radio access portfolios, but in the 4G core those differences are becoming quite pronounced. Philosophical camps are emerging, pitting the relative importance of the data plane versus the control plane. Vendors have adopted wildly different development strategies, some focused on evolving existing 3G architectures for 4G, while others start from scratch. Perhaps there no is bigger evidence of the growing importance of the mobile core than the sudden spurt of acquisition activity in recent months.

AT&T Hiking U-verse TV, Internet, Voice Rates

Obviously, the Great Recession is over. AT&T will increase rates for many U-verse video, data and voice packages effective Feb. 1, 2010, with TV subscribers facing monthly rate increases of up to 10%. According to AT&T's Web site, rates for the U-verse U100 and U-family TV packages will increase by $5, from $49 to $54 per month. The U200, U300 and U400 tiers will each go up by $3, to $67, $82 and $112 per month respectively. The telco's U-basic tier, which provides 20 or fewer channels, will remain unchanged at $19 per month. In a statement AT&T said that the "modest price adjustments that we're making are far outweighed by the additional value we've added to U-verse TV in the last year alone." The telco cited the addition of 30 HD channels; enhancing whole-home DVR capabilities; and introducing other new features like U-verse TV Multiview. In addition, AT&T is increasing rates on the three lower tiers of U-verse Internet, effective Feb 1, but only for new subscribers. Starting monthly retail pricing will be: Express (up to 1.5 Mbps downstream) to $30 versus $25 currently; Pro (up to 3 Mbps) to $35 versus $30; and Elite (up to 6 Mbps) to $40 versus $35.

NIST seeks firms to analyze health IT standards

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is seeking firms to analyze whether certain health information technology standards are suitable for federal health information priorities, including meaningful use, the nationwide health information network and population health and public health. The project will test and analyze existing standards that support health information exchange, security and quality measurement, according to a Dec. 18th notice outlining the project. NIST is pursuing the project as part of a role assigned to it by the HITECH Act to study and test technical standards pertinent to establishing a nationwide e-health system. The notice said NIST's search for vendors was a part of its Healthcare IT Testing Infrastructure Project, under which it plans to offer services to validate health data exchange standards and test health work flows that use multiple messaging and document standards. NIST will also supply feedback loop to healthcare vendors and providers to improve use of the health IT standards.

Glenn Beck is 2009 Misinformer of the Year

Glenn Beck's well of ridiculous was deep and poisonous before he launched his Fox News show, but the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States -- and the permissive cheerleading of his Fox News honchos -- uncorked the former Morning Zoo shock jock's unique brand of vitriol, stage theatrics, and hyperbolic fright, making him an easy choice for Media Matters' 2009 Misinformer of the Year. When he wasn't calling the president a racist, portraying progressive leaders as vampires who can only be stopped by "driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers," or pushing the legitimacy of seceding from the country, Beck obsessively compared Democrats in Washington to Nazis and fascists and "the early days of Adolf Hitler." He wondered, "Is this where we're headed," while showing images of Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin; decoded the secret language of Marxists; and compared the government to "heroin pushers" who were "using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state." Like his predecessor, Beck spat on scruples, frequently announcing his goal to get administration officials fired. He increasingly acted not as a media figure, but as the head of a political movement, while helping to bring fringe conspiracies of a one-world government into the national discourse. And he all too frequently helped to set the mainstream media's agenda.

Benton

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