January 2010

McDowell at FCC Media Ownership and Diversity Workshop

Speaking at the Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau Workshop on Media Ownership & Diversity, Commissioner Robert McDowell warned that changes in FCC ownership rules alone won't achieve much if the intended beneficiaries can't obtain the financing they need to make their aspirations a reality.

He'd like to see the FCC help Congress fashion a legally sustainable tax certificate program to promote ownership of communications companies by economically disadvantaged businesses. he wonders if the economic downturn and the trend of large broadcast ownership groups to "de-consolidate" may provide opportunities for new ownership.

Strikes' Policies For Infringers Debated

As more countries weigh whether to punish serial copyright infringers by taking away their Internet access, critics debated Wednesday whether such efforts have a deterring effect.

A panel discussion at the Congressional Internet Caucus's State of the Net conference examined such laws as one awaiting final approval in France that give infringers three chances to stop before their Internet access is cut off by a court and legislation working its way through the British Parliament that would impose graduated levels of notice against infringers with the ultimate sanction being a cutoff of Internet service.

When wireless is not wireless

[Commentary] It's easy to confuse, or equate, broadband wireless access (BWA) with the mobile cellular communications that we've lived with for 25 years. After all, wireless is wireless, right? Sure, just like Fords and Mercedes are both cars.

But like cars, different wireless technologies are designed to serve different markets. It is important to note some key distinctions. Cellular is optimized for mobile voice calling; data was added as an upgrade. BWA is purpose-built for high-speed Internet connections, initially fixed; voice, specifically voice over IP (VoIP), follows as an application. We should know by now that one broadband technology solution does not fit all applications. BWA fills an important role in extending high-speed Internet connections to customers over a wide area, rapidly and more cost-effectively than wires, fibers or conventional wireless technologies.

Yeah, it's wireless. Just don't think of it as wireless.

If You've Got More Than 150 Facebook Friends, They're No Friends at All

New research is suggesting that if you're friends with over 150 people on Facebook, the extras are meaningless.

This is a conclusion of some thinking by Oxford professor of evolutionary anthropology Robin Dunbar. Dunbar's theory is that it can only handle a maximum capacity of roughly 150 ongoing, fully interactive friendships. If you know or are "friends" with more people than this, then actually you're probably merely acquaintances instead. Dunbar's original research was based on people engaged in face-to-face, flesh and blood friendships...so he's updated it to consider the possibility that online friendships could actually enable a larger number of friends. His new research looked at the traffic of people with thousands of online friends to those with hundreds of pals or less. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given then very biological roots of his theory, it looks like Dunbar's 150 friend figure even holds true for online relationships--even with the ease and speed of the Internet, you can't overcome your basic brain programming relating to how many people you can be friends with. And that means that all those folks with hundreds or even thousands of Facebook friends aren't really friends with that many people at all. A bit of common sense thinking would suggest the same conclusion, of course, but to see it measured at a limit of merely 150 is a bit of a surprise.

Boucher: Finding More Wireless Spectrum Key Congressional Priority

House Communications & Internet Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) says finding more spectrum for wireless broadband is one of panel's top priorities. Speaking at the State of the Net Conference, he laid out his legislative agenda for 2010, and spectrum reclamation or sharing led the list.

Chairman Boucher said another priority for the committee was reforming the Universal Service Fund and expanding it to include broadband. He said the committee's discussion draft has been supported by stakeholders on both sides of the fund, contributors and beneficiaries alike. Those include AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Frontier, and rural carrier trade associations, bridging what he said has been a classic divide between the two sides.

Other legislative priorities are passage of the satellite reauthorization bill and privacy legislation. On the former, he said he House and the Senate have agreed to language on a satellite reauthorization bill. He said that now the issue was finding the right legislative vehicle, but that he expected the legislation to pass and be signed by the president "well before" the Feb. 28 deadline. On the latter, he promised to circulate a discussion draft of legislation to inform consumers what information is being collected about them and how it is used, and then give them control via a "combination of opt-in and opt out opportunities."

Oversight priorities include the Comcast/NBCU merger, which he called "one of the largest media acquisitions proposed in American history," the new National Telecommunications & Information Association and Rural Utilities Service guidelines for broadband stimulus dollars, and the national broadband plan.

More than 300 public-records lawsuits filed in Obama's first year

More than 300 individuals and groups have sued the government to get records in the year since President Obama pledged that his administration would be the most open in history.

In case after case, the plaintiffs say little has changed since the Bush administration years, when most began their quests for records. Agencies still often fight requests for disclosure, contending that national security and internal decision-making need to be protected. The lawsuits cover a wide range of issues. Despite the administration's opening scores of documents, court dockets show a slight increase in the number of lawsuits -- 319 -- filed under the Freedom of Information Act since Obama was sworn into office last January. In the final two years of the Bush administration, by comparison, there were 278 records suits filed in 2007 and 298 in 2008. People seeking records can sue only after the government repeatedly rejects their requests, usually after months of attempts and appeals. The White House disputes the numbers in the court logs. It says the Justice Department's own figures show that 328 records lawsuits were filed in 2008 and 306 in 2009. Justice Department officials say the difference could be because some cases are mislabeled in court records, and because others never show up in the agency's count because the department does not get involved.

White House officials say the release of huge volumes of records -- including once-secret Bush administration memos on interrogation methods, White House visitor logs and data about birds endangering planes -- has been nothing short of historic. They argue that a year's worth of lawsuits does not reflect the commitment to transparency.

Roundtable on Broadband and New Media Strategies for Minority Radio

Minorities comprised one-third of the overall U.S. population in 2009. Yet they control only 815 radio stations out of a total of 11,249 operating in the US - just 7.24%.

Today, small, local and minority-owned radio stations are struggling to stay afloat in the current economic crisis and in a marketplace where the Internet is getting a larger and larger bite of the advertising apple. Bankruptcies in the radio industry are at record numbers; and while no group, minority or otherwise, is immune to the economic downturn, minority radio has been hit particularly hard. As a result, we will likely see a continued decline in the percentage of minority ownership in radio. Despite these troubling circumstances, minority radio continues to inform and entertain its listeners and provide the type of viewpoint diversity that is essential to a robust marketplace of ideas and voices on the airwaves. On Tuesday, the FCC's Office of Communications and Business Opportunities held an interactive round-table discussion entitled "Broadband and New Media Strategies for Minority Radio."

The workshop explored digital and new media applications that present the most promising opportunities for radio. We looked at innovative ideas that could augment radio service areas, increase the size of listening audiences, and create multiple streams of income for small/local/minority radio. We also examined the role minority-owned radio continues to play in supplying news content, politics, and entertainment to communities around the country that still lack broadband access. We asked a diverse group of experts to share their thoughts on these important topics and had a dynamic conversation.

Cawley Added to Universal Service Board

James H. Cawley, Chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, has been appointed to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, replacing Commissioner Lisa Edgar of the Florida Public Service Commission.

Cawley was appointed PA PUC chairman by Governor Edward G. Rendell (D) on August 19, 2008. He has served on the commission since June 9, 2005 and originally appointed by Gov Rendell. His current term expires March 31, 2010.

Chairman Cawley is a 1967 graduate of St. Bonaventure University and a 1970 graduate of Notre Dame Law School. He began his legal career in 1970 as one of the seven original law clerks serving the judges of the newly-created Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. He was later appointed Majority Counsel to the Pennsylvania Senate Consumer Affairs Committee where he drafted several major amendments to Pennsylvania's public utility laws and assisted with codification of those laws. In 1977, he was appointed Chief Counsel to the Senate Majority Floor Leader. Thereafter, he was twice nominated and confirmed as a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, serving from November 1979 until September 1985. Then he returned to the private practice of law with a concentration on administrative law and appellate practice. His clients included a wide array of public utilities and competitive telephone, electric and natural gas providers. He currently serves as Adjunct Professor of Administrative Law at Widener University School of Law and is a frequent faculty member of Pennsylvania Bar Institute courses on appellate advocacy, public utility law and ethics.

HHS preparing to award $50 Million for Health IT Research Center

The Health and Human Services Department is preparing to award a series of task orders totaling about $50 million to establish a national Health Information Technology Research Center (HITRC) to support promotion of electronic health records, a senior official said.

The HITRC will assist about 60 health IT regional extension centers, which aim to help 100,000 priority providers to adopt and meaningfully use digital record systems, said Joshua Seidman, acting director of the meaningful use division in the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. He spoke at a conference today sponsored by the eHealth Initiative, a nonprofit organization devoted to improving health care quality and efficiency through health IT. HHS expects to designate about half the extensions centers within weeks, Seidman said. The extension centers are funded with $598 million in funding under the economic stimulus law. Overall, the stimulus law provided $20 billion for health IT, including $17 billion for incentive payments to doctors and hospitals that buy and meaningfully use electronic record systems.

Roberts Selling Comcast-NBC Merger to Washington Press Corp

Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts is in Washington (DC), scheduled to speak at the State of the Net conference and pitch, of course, the proposed takeover of NBC. In an Q&A attended, apparently, by every media outlet, Roberts touched on the pending merger, the Leno-O'Brien late night dust-up, and Network Neutrality.

He says any thought of migrating the NBC network to cable is "right off the table." Comcast is committed to a free, over-the-air NBC with local station affiliates. Comcast is at heart a "local company." Roberts noted that existing law would prevent the cable TV operator from denying satellite TV companies and other rivals access to NBC Universal programming on reasonable terms. Roberts expressed frustration at watching the turmoil over late-night programming at NBC as he awaits regulatory approval to take over the network. Roberts said he wanted an expeditious review by regulators of the cable company's deal for General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal unit, proposed last month. "It's a frustrating period of time because we are unable, legally, to be involved," Roberts said when asked about the situation surrounding television hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. "We can't talk about it. We can't really have any discussions about. And so we, like you, read about it."

On Network Neutrality, Roberts it was a mistake" to slow down Internet traffic to file-sharing site BitTorrent, an event that helped escalate consumer advocates' argument that the government needs to enact rules to prohibit such action. "We changed it," Roberts said. "We realized it was not the right solution." Comcast's temporary traffic throttling was one of only two instances that interrupted access to content or Web sites, Roberts said, and the company changed its practice without needing government intervention. "We don't block websites and we don't do anything to not have an open and free Internet," Roberts said, adding that broadband service is the fastest growing area of the company's business. "In this space, there's nothing prohibiting Apple or Google from doing whatever they want," he said. "The Internet is still growing at 50 to 60 percent a year. It's an explosion and none of us want to get in the way of that innovation." The net neutrality regulations now under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission, and favored by Democrats in Congress, will create a "bad cloud," Roberts said. "Wall Street will pull capital spending" for Comcast, he said, echoing Republicans' fears that FCC intervention will get in the way of investments for bigger, faster broadband networks. "You're regulated before you've even invented."

Benton

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