May 2010

The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of Google's proposed acquisition of mobile advertising network company AdMob after thoroughly reviewing the deal and concluding that it is unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for mobile advertising networks.

In a statement, the FTC said that although the combination of the two leading mobile advertising networks raised serious antitrust issues, the agency's concerns ultimately were overshadowed by recent developments in the market, most notably a move by Apple Computer Inc. - the maker of the iPhone - to launch its own, competing mobile ad network. In addition, a number of firms appear to be developing or acquiring smartphone platforms to better compete against Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, and these firms would have a strong incentive to facilitate competition among mobile advertising networks. "As a result of Apple's entry (into the market), AdMob's success to date on the iPhone platform is unlikely to be an accurate predictor of AdMob's competitive significance going forward, whether AdMob is owned by Google or not," the Commission's statement explains. The FTC stressed that mergers in fast-growing new markets like mobile advertising should get the same level of antitrust scrutiny as those in other markets. The statement goes on to note that, "Though we have determined not to take action today, the FTC will continue to monitor the mobile marketplace to ensure a competitive environment and to protect the interests of consumers."

Whoops. The title of this blog post is wrong. It should be "utility poles," which points to one of the many ironies in the hidden life of the ubiquitous utility pole.

Most of what are commonly known as telephone poles are actually owned by the electric utility -- 70% of them, in fact. But whether a telephone company or other utility owns the poles, every other kind of company that hangs anything on these poles pays the utility company for the privilege, and under current federal rules a cable company and a telephone company pay different rates for attaching their lines to a pole. But now that broadband and IP communications are merging voice, data and video, charging different rates for different types of communications services seems to make less and less sense. Make no mistake about it: the humble telephone, er, utility pole, is hot real estate. Companies pay, on average, anywhere between $7 per foot and $20 per foot for a pole attachment. Multiplied by hundreds of thousand of poles, that can have an impact on whether services are delivered to a community or not. Utility poles are essential infrastructure, and infrastructure costs can affect the price or availability of service, the National Broadband Plan found. In rural areas, where there may be more poles per mile than people, the cost of pole attachments could deter broadband deployment. Or in other instances, a cable company planning to bundle voice, data and video in the coaxial cable might be deterred if the voice service would subject the company to a higher pole attachment rate.

On May 12, 2010, the Federal Communications Commission released an order (Waiver Order) granting conditional waivers to twenty-one public safety entities (Waiver Recipients) for early deployment of public safety broadband networks in the 700 MHz public safety broadband spectrum (PSBB Block). The Waiver Order establishes technical, operational and governance conditions for early deployment and requires each Waiver Recipient to submit to the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau), within a specified time window, a detailed plan for achieving interoperability with other public safety broadband networks (Interoperability Showing). In this Public Notice, the FCC provides further guidance to the Waiver Recipients on the required contents of the Interoperability Showing. After receiving approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to perform the information collections contemplated in the Waiver Order, the Bureau will release a Public Notice announcing the opening of a thirty-day window during which a Waiver Recipient must submit its Interoperability Showing to the Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC).

On Friday the White House relaunched Data.gov, its online clearinghouse for government data.

The site launched one year ago with the aim of providing the public and developers with a one-stop shop for all federal data feeds and databases. After starting with only 47 data sets, the site now boasts more than 270,000 on a wide range of topics. Traffic has increased from 2 million hits May 21, 2009, to an expected 98 million today, according to federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra. In the future, the White House wants to post new statistics in as close to real time as possible, he said, adding the Obama administration does not want too many people massaging the data before it is released.

The administration also is making an effort to reach beyond techies and advocacy groups and lure the general public to Data.gov. The new site will add more feedback mechanisms for people to tell the government what kinds of applications and other electronic information they want featured on Data.gov. For assistance, the White House has hired a former NASA official, who is well-versed in citizen outreach, to drive interest in statistical analysis among grade school students.