April 2010

Mobile Future: Proposed Network Neutrality Regulations Put Damper on Broadband Jobs, Revenue

Mobile Future -- a group pushing for marketplace, rather than government, spurs to broadband deployment and adoption -- says proposed network neutrality regulations will put a damper on jobs and revenue in the broadband sector.

That is according to a study by Brattle Group economist Coleman Bazelon and paid for by the group, which includes AT&T, various chambers of commerce, the Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership and others who have registered reservations about the FCC's plans. According to Bazelon, the FCC's proposed expansion and codification of network neutrality guidelines, which would include a specific rule on nondiscrimination, could slow revenue growth in the broadband business by a sixth over the next two years, and result in the loss of almost 15,000 jobs in 2011 alone, over a third of a million broadband jobs in the next ten years, and over 1.4 million jobs in the greater economy.

Free Press research director Derek Turner, said, "This industry-funded research is based on deeply flawed assumptions. The Mobile Future study's central premise that Network Neutrality rules would lower broadband industry revenues by one-sixth over the next decade incorrectly extrapolates from the past impacts of telephone regulations on DSL growth, and erroneously assumes that light-touch Network Neutrality rules would have the same overstated impact. The study also completely ignores the practical reality that we have for years, and are now, living in a world of defacto-Net Neutrality, and that revenues are soaring. AT&T was put under a strict Network Neutrality regime as a result of its merger with Bell South, and its revenues saw healthy growth during that time."

Substantial Profits in the Broadband Ecosystem: A Look at the Evidence

The Phoenix Center released a report claiming the profitability of the larger broadband service providers (BSPs) is generally equal to or below average for firms in the S&P 500. The report also finds that content firms like Google and EBay are substantially more profitable than BSPs, implying the BSPs are not benefiting as much as others in the Internet eco-system from the surge in broadband adoption and use. Across all measures of profitability, Google and Ebay are two-to-four times more profitable than the better performing broadband providers.

AT&T U-verse TV Would Not Meet FCC's AllVid Gateway Requirement

AT&T's U-verse TV service -- as it is currently implemented -- would not be able to meet the Federal Communications Commission's proposed requirements for an "AllVid" IP gateway that would let third-party consumer electronics access pay-TV services, according to a Multichannel News analysis.

AT&T's IPTV service is able to deliver a maximum of only four standard-definition and two or three HD streams to each subscriber. In its Notice of Inquiry, the FCC envisions a devise that provides at least six simultaneous video streams within the home (which would allow picture-in-picture in three different rooms). AT&T's U-verse fiber-to-the-node network architecture relies on DSL to deliver voice, video and data to the customer premises. The bandwidth limitations of DSL prevent the telco from delivering more than three concurrent HD video streams per household.

Seeing new media in a different lens

[Commentary] Why do I put so much emphasis on constituent communications through new technology? As a former educator, I have always believed that involving stakeholders in decision-making yields the best results. This method works in the classroom, and is essential when governing.

The American people are our nation's greatest resource. Empowering the public with information can lead to better public policy. Representing the interests of constituents becomes easier when technology enables elected officials to more easily tap into the knowledge and expertise of the public. I have spent my career in Congress pushing for this and promoting technologies, developed in my Silicon Valley, which can enable citizens to have better access to their representatives, and also leading to increased transparency too. My work in the New Media field has focused on making sure that people are receiving the information they want, and in the format they want, so that they can properly express their opinions and participate in the political process. This includes involving people from all walks of life into my work. Social media has a wonderful way of involving people with varied backgrounds and interests, including communities that have language or cultural barriers. Having innovative programs is critical to this involvement. The American public now expects a new media government something that was hard to imagine even four years ago. They expect their elected officials to be responsive and dynamic. It is our job to be so.

Deputy Promoted To Head FBI's Cyber Division

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller has promoted Gordon Snow to assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, where he will be responsible for leading the agency's efforts to help combat cyber attacks and other technology crimes.

Snow most recently served as the Cyber Divisions' deputy, a post he has held since November. He began working for the FBI in 1992 as a special agent and has held numerous FBI posts. In recent years, Snow has focused on cybersecurity issues including working in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2008 where he helped lead a government-wide effort to draft the Cyber Counterintelligence Plan.

26 Percent of Wired's Mobile Traffic Comes From the iPad

Less than three weeks after its launch, Apple's iPad already accounts for 26 percent of the mobile devices accessing Wired.com. Overall, mobile devices account for between 2.3 percent and 3.5 percent of Wired's traffic.

For April 3 to 19, iPad users represented 0.91 percent of total site traffic. For the past year, the vast majority of mobile visitors to Wired have been using the iPhone. Before April, about 10 percent were using the iPod Touch, and 15 percent to 18 percent other devices, led by the Motorola Droid (with 5 percent to 7 percent of mobile traffic). But with the launch of the iPad on April 3, it seems that many iPhone users have picked up iPads — and are finding them a good way to browse this site. The sudden jump in iPad users is matched by a declining share of iPhone and iPod Touch users, which suggests that most iPad customers are people who were already accustomed to mobile browsing with an Apple handheld, and are trading up to a bigger screen — rather than coming from another platform.

Google Not Suitable for Children Under 12, Says Web Censor

UK Internet service provider Tibboh has just done something rather surprising: It's partnered with the British Board of Film Classification to, basically, age-proof the Internet.

It's for "safety" of course, but does Google really merit a "12" rating? The BBFC, like the MPAA, is responsible for those big, splashy age rating screens that pop up at the start of movies in the theater or on your DVDs at home. In the U.K. the ratings range from U, for universal, through PG for parental guidance (Bambi is a PG) and then films that are suitable for 12-, 15- and 18-year-olds and above. Now Tibboh has partnered with this independent body (the first time an ISP has done so) to age-rate the Internet. And yes, this is apparently technically possible--Tibboh says its servers have crawled around 3 billion Web pages so far and rated them according to the BBFC's classifications. This process is largely automatic, using a bunch of pre-existing services like Netsweeper, but the upshot is pretty simple: Families can pay for group access to the Net via Tibboh and then choose to limit the kind of services that their kids can access over the big, bad Interwolf. It's novel, it uses a familiar and, to a degree, "trusted" censorship brand, and it taps into the current social discomfort over the sort of content the Internet is delivering to your door, at ever higher speeds. But here's the thing: Tibboh's age-assessment algorithm mix has resulted in search engines like Google and Bing getting a "12" rating.

ONC envisions rural HIT 'communities of practice'

Rural healthcare providers should be an early focus for new health IT extension centers, and future "beacon communities" will be a conduit for getting those providers better access to broadband connections, the national health information technology coordinator told attendees at a recent meeting.

"We're hoping there will be a rural community of practice formed as part of (the health IT extension center) process," he said April 22 at a rural health IT conference sponsored by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) is also already working with the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce to improve that access to broadband technology, especially through beacon communities, he said. ONC has awarded $643 million in grants for 60 health IT extension centers across the nation. They will provide hands-on support in the areas where providers practice to accelerate the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs).

Newspaper Web Sites Draw 74 Million

Newspaper Web sites drew a record-breaking average 74.4 million unique visitors per month in the first quarter of 2010, according to new figures from Nielsen Online released by the Newspaper Association of America.

That's up from 72 million unique visitors in the fourth quarter of 2009, and represents the highest quarterly average in history. In proportional terms, the first-quarter number equals 37% of all U.S. Internet users. These visitors generated a monthly average of just under 3.25 billion page views per month from January-March, spending an average 2.34 billion minutes in over 592 million sessions per month -- or an average 31:32 per person, divided among just under eight sessions per month. On average, newspaper Web site visitors viewed 44 pages per month.

The White House unleashes AdWords against Wall Street

[Commentary] When you do a search on Google for 'goldman sachs sec' or 'goldman sachs fraud' and even 'goldman sachs' itself, you're likely to be greeted with an ad from President Barack Obama.

The ads are a very good example of a strategic paid search campaign. Here's why: 1) The keywords are carefully selected, 2) The keywords are timely, 3) The campaign isn't too broad.

All in all, it's clear that the tech savvy of Barack Obama and his staff didn't end when he entered the White House. While many will debate the appropriateness of his administration's use of Google AdWords, and Wall Street reform itself, one thing is clear: politicians looking to deliver a message but who ignore the virtues do so at their own detriment.

Benton

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