April 2010

Comcast owes P2P users $16; yes, they should take it

Robb Topolski, the man who helped unearth Comcast's peer-to-peer (P2P) interference, wants Comcast customers to opt out of the $16 they have coming to them from a class action lawsuit. But Eric Somers, the lawyer leading the class-action case, just can't understand the sentiment.

"This is a good settlement," he told Ars. "If you opt out, you're basically giving that money to Comcast." At issue is the settlement of the Hart v. Comcast class action, a resolution three years in the making. When John Hart noticed that his BitTorrent connections would "hang" -- sometimes for an entire night -- he called up Somers and asked if he knew anything about it. Comcast was still denying that P2P upload blocks were in place on its network, and it took the legal team time to figure out what was happening. Hart's case was the first one filed, and his lawyers were eventually certified as counsel for the entire class of affected Comcast users. Since 2008, Somers and his team have argued that Comcast violated the FCC's Internet Policy Statement (PDF); the FCC famously agreed. Comcast agreed to settle the class action suit rather than proceed to trial. The deal puts Comcast on the hook for $16 million, plus up to $3 million extra for the lawyers. That $16 million will be split up between every Comcast subscriber who was affected, with a cap of $16 per person -- but no one gets any money unless they sign onto the class at the official settlement website. Any unclaimed money goes right back into Comcast's coffers.

Groups: RCN Case Highlights Need For FCC Authority

Public interest groups Free Press and Public Knowledge said Tuesday that recent reports that telecom provider RCN has settled a class action lawsuit alleging it interfered with the ability of some of its broadband subscribers to use peer-to-peer file-sharing services highlights the need for FCC authority to address such issues.

In a notice of settlement posted on its Web site and dated Monday, RCN, "without admitting any wrongdoing or liability, has agreed to cease and desist all network management practices" for 18 months starting as of May 1, 2009. A hearing on whether to approve the settlement is set for June 4 in federal district court in New York, according to the notice.

"This is yet another example showing why the Federal Communications Commission needs to be given the authority over Internet access service," Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said in a statement. "As of now, there is no federal cop on the beat to protect consumers. Not every consumer will take a case to court, and not every cable company would be willing to settle what could be prolonged litigation."

Free Press Research Director Derek Turner argued in a statement that "RCN appears to have been utilizing tactics that enabled the company to block or degrade its users' Internet experience. These suspicious 'network management' techniques appear to be occurring throughout the industry. ... This company's behavior provides further evidence that we need strong Net Neutrality rules and clear disclosure to protect consumers and to prevent these deceptive practices from becoming the norm among Internet providers."

BET Makes Submission of National Sustainable Broadband Adoption Project

BET Networks announced on Monday its submission of a proposal to the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) for a grant under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The BET program, called the National Sustainable Broadband Adoption Project would, if successful, increase broadband adoption among African Americans by providing compelling reasons for new households to adopt broadband, BET said in a release.

The program will address three specific problems: Increase the awareness of "the promise" of broadband technology; Increase the relevance of broadband technology to marginalized African Americans; And increasing the digital literacy of those who have been "left behind" in as many targeted communities as possible.

Communications Law Is Outdated, Panelists Agree

Congress needs to update telecommunications law to better address broadband issues.

That's a single idea that united speakers with starkly different ideas on Federal Communications Commission authority at the Politics Online conference on Monday. Panelists disagreed on the merits of net neutrality regulation, arguing over whether the FCC should regulate traffic management practices by Internet access providers. But they all thought that Congress should clarify who regulates broadband issues. "Frankly, the law -- the Communications Act -- just doesn't fit the communications technologies we have today," said Link Hoewing, Verizon's vice president of Internet and technology policy. "We don't disagree that there may be a need for new legislation," said Staci Pies, director of government and regulatory affairs for Skype. But, she said, "Just knowing the way Congress works, it's not around the corner."

That's something else the panelists agreed on: Congressional action is unlikely this year.

AT&T Bets Big on the Internet of Things

On April 21 AT&T reported first-quarter earnings of $2.5 billion and sales that were largely unchanged from the year before, at $30.6 billion — but the flat sales mask the gains made in its wireless business, which grew to account for 45 percent of revenues.

In short, AT&T is betting big on wireless through the sale of phones with data plans (it added 1.9 million wireless subscribers), prepaid plans and an emphasis on providing wireless connectivity for the Internet of things. The irony here is that machine-to-machine connectivity in many ways represents the dumb pipe future that AT&T is so worried about -- it's not providing anything to its partners but the bits. AT&T executives explained that the number of bits sent via the network are high-margin bits and the machine-to-machine clients have very low churn. Total wireless operating margin rose for the carrier to 44.5 percent. AT&T also said it had improved its wireless network in New York and that dropped calls in the region declined by 6 percent. For everyone on the wireless network, AT&T said its HSPA network upgrades are boosting download speeds by 32-47 percent in places where AT&T has deployed fiber backhaul.

Bell Labs Pushes DSL Speeds to 300 Mbps

In this era of fiber to the home, it's easy to dismiss copper-based DSL, the broadband connectivity technology commonly sold by phone companies worldwide. Looks like it's too soon to completely write off this technology, however.

Alcatel-Lucent, a company whose lineage is as old as the phone itself, says its research arm, Bell Labs, has been able to achieve downstream speeds of about 300 Mbps (over a distance of 400 meters) or 100 Mbps over a distance of one kilometer. This is possible using a technology called DSL Phantom Mode which involves the creation of a virtual or "phantom" channel that supplements the two physical wires that are the standard configuration for copper transmission lines. The idea behind DSL Phantom Mode is that incumbent phone companies such as AT&T, which are heavily invested into the aging copper infrastructure, can keep using those pipes for a lot longer. However, phone companies such as Qwest will need to install new gear in the central office and in consumer homes.

Coburn blocks floor action on bipartisan spectrum bill

Sen Tom Coburn (R-OK) is blocking legislation that seeks to implement a key spectrum-related recommendation in the national broadband plan.

The bill, sponsored by Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA), requires the Federal Communications Commission and National Telecommunications and Information Administration to conduct an inventory of government-controlled airwaves to identify additional frequencies that could be devoted to wireless broadband service.

Multiple efforts to "hotline" the legislation to gauge whether it could pass by unanimous consent -- including an attempt late last week -- were stymied by Sen Coburn, who is concerned that taxpayers would be forced to pick up the tab to conduct the inventory, estimated at roughly $22 million. The senator has a history of delaying measures he believes would increase the federal deficit because they lack offsetting funds.

The offices of Sen Kerry and co-sponsor Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have been reaching out to Sen Coburn with ideas for paying for the legislation and hope the delay won't last more than a few weeks. They're also emphasizing that the bill would benefit taxpayers by enabling the auction of unused and underutilized airwaves, with the proceeds going to the Treasury.

"Dr. Coburn believes our budget crisis is more pressing than our bandwidth crisis. Congress should pay for this bill by reducing wasteful spending instead of borrowing more from future generations," said John Hart, the senator's communications director.

The House passed -- on a 394-18 vote -- a similar bill on April 14.

The 'Dumb Pipe' Video Model

Leaders of several small cable operators at the American Cable Association conference are OK with the cable industry evolving to provide access to a "dumb pipe" that delivers video from broadband-based over-the-top (OTT) firms or other outside providers.

"That [OTT] business model is probably better than the economics of our current video business," Wave Broadband COO Steve Friedman said. Friedman and other executives pointed to the high cost of sports programming and contracts with programmers that offer little flexibility in explaining why it may be more profitable to sell access to programming distributed by another provider. Cable ONE Inc. CEO Tom Might warned that cable operators would also have to charge subscribers based on the amount of bandwidth they consume if the industry transformed into a dumb pipe business.

Justice moves closer to secure sharing

Soon user names and passwords will no longer be necessary for law enforcement officials across the country to access federal information.

The Justice Department is expanding a pilot program nationwide to implement federated identity management capabilities for popular databases such as the Law Enforcement Online (LEO), the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) and Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS). "Federated identity management is about leveraging identity management work being done by individual organizations so they can be used elsewhere," says Jeremy Warren, Justice's chief technology officer. "If you are a detective and you are trying to access some system at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement or DoJ or the Chicago Police, then those organizations are going to need to look you up, verify your identity and decide if you are trustworthy. They will have to give you a user name and password and it's very wasteful. It takes a lot of time and wastes a lot of money."

Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable Competition Status Report

The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable has filed with the Federal Communications Commission the recently-released Competition Status Report.

Through this Report, the MDTC compiles and analyzes information about the status of competition in the telephone and cable television markets in Massachusetts. Although limited in scope, the MDTC hopes that the FCC and other interested parties will be able to utilize the Report's data as a tool to assist in making decisions regarding policy.

Benton

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