October 2010

Obama tries to net youth vote via the Net

President Obama has been making an elaborate effort to appeal to younger voters in the final weeks before the midterm elections. On Oct 12, President Obama fielded the first presidential question via the Internet-calling service Skype.

Although Obama is widely thought to have triggered a surge in young voters in the 2008 campaign, that is not the case. About 18 percent of the electorate was voters age 29 and younger, compared with 17 percent four years earlier. But Obama won a much higher share of those voters - 34 percent - than Sen. John F. Kerry had four years earlier, giving him a significant advantage. Now, Democratic officials are hoping those same voters will break from historical trends and make their mark on the midterms, instead of leaving it to more reliable, older voters. For Tuesday's event, which was billed as a town-hall meeting, officials solicited questions through Facebook, Twitter and Skype. An official with the Democratic National Committee said the questions that were used were selected in advance, to be integrated into the technology of the event, but were chosen to be representative of all of those submitted.

Politicians', staffers' gaffes put on replay

The 2010 midterm elections have given new meaning to the age-old warning: What you say could come back to haunt you.

A combination of political neophytes and digital technology has made for a stream of gaffes, most of them caught on tape or camera for endless repetition. As a result, some close races for Congress or governor could tilt on stealthy opposition research, musings that were intended to remain private, and ancient admissions that have gone viral on YouTube and Twitter. "The digital revolution means everything is recordable, sortable and findable," says Joe Lockhart, a Democratic media consultant and former White House press secretary in the Clinton administration. "There's a much greater impact when you can actually see and hear somebody saying something stupid. You get moving pictures in high definition, and there's no way to wriggle out of it."

Clearwire Is Said to Seek Up to $5 Billion in Spectrum Auction

Clearwire, the high-speed wireless carrier, is seeking to raise $2.5 billion to $5 billion in a wireless spectrum auction that has attracted telephone and cable companies.

The company is selling up to 40 megahertz of spectrum per market, only a slice of its wireless capacity. AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Deutsche Telekom AG, Time Warner Cable and Clearwire's majority owner, Sprint Nextel, are among potential buyers of the spectrum. The bidding is in its second round and is being managed by Deutsche Bank AG.

Tech Buoys San Francisco

San Francisco is enjoying a renaissance as a technology center, as numerous Web and digital-media companies move in or expand in a burst of economic activity not seen since the dot-com boom of the 1990s.

While there has long been plenty of high-tech ferment 30 miles to the south in Silicon Valley, San Francisco itself has traditionally been the region's finance and cultural center rather than a tech magnet. Now, the city is seeing growth from start-ups such as micro-blogging service Twitter and social-gaming company Zynga Game Network. At the same time, the city's design talent, cheaper office rents and mix of amenities are drawing an influx of smaller tech firms, such as social-gaming start-up Booyah Inc. and help-desk software start-up Zendesk. It isn't clear how sustainable San Francisco's tech boom is, though, especially since start-ups are by definition unproven. Many of the Web-based ones aren't yet generating revenue, much less profit. And most rely largely on the same cadres of venture capitalists, so if funding dried up, the impact would be widely felt.

Chinese reformers push on censorship

A group of veteran reformers in China's Communist party has demanded that the country dismantle its elaborate censorship apparatus, an appeal for accelerated political reform which Beijing quickly moved to silence.

In an open letter to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, 23 former senior party cadres and one-time editors at party media called on the legislative body to pass laws entrenching the freedoms of speech and publishing that are guaranteed in the constitution but often denied in practice. "The 'socialist democracy' with Chinese characteristics propagated by [our] country has become just too embarrassing," said the letter. It called for publishers and editors to be put in full control of the content of books and newspapers and for the ending of pre-publication screening by outside censors. It also calls for an end to Internet censorship.

The document was published on the blogging platform of sina.com, China's largest news portal, on Tuesday morning, but was taken down a few hours later.

Ukraine starts telecoms privatization process

Ukraine's government on Oct 13 formally launched a privatization tender for Ukrtelecom, the state's fixed-line telephone company.

With an estimated price starting in the region of $1.3bn, the sale is expected to raise badly needed fresh funds for cash-strapped Ukraine, which was battered heavily by the 2009 global recession and is being kept financially afloat thanks to a $15bn IMF assistance package. The winning bid is expected to be chosen by December 28. The sale is the first big privatization tender being held by Viktor Yanukovich since he took over as Ukraine's president in February. It is being watched closely to gauge how transparently privatization will be conducted under his leadership.

Nigeria approves $2.5bn bid for Nitel

Nigeria has approved a controversial $2.5bn offer for the country's main fixed-line telecoms group, but has demanded that the winning consortium come up with a $750m downpayment to secure the sale.

The approval follows years of ill-fated efforts to sell off Nitel, which has withered since liberalization a decade ago enabled MTN and Zain to make Africa's most populous nation one of the world's fastest-growing telecoms markets. The winning bid at February's privatization auction caused consternation when it valued a 75 per cent stake in Nitel at five times the $500m that industry experts estimated to be the group's top-end valuation.

Apple Summoned by Korea Lawmakers Over IPhone Queries

Apple was summoned by South Korean lawmakers to answer questions about the company's iPhone-service policy amid complaints from local users, parliamentary officials said.

Farrel Farhoudi, senior director for Apple's iPhone service, will appear in parliament on Oct. 21 at the request of lawmakers led by You Won Il, You's assistant Kim Se Ho said. South Korean buyers of the iPhone have complained that Apple mostly gives refurbished used phones to customers with faulty devices, instead of providing new handsets, free repairs or refunds, Kim said. Apple's local service warranty gives buyers the four options when they have trouble within 14 days of purchase, he said.

Debate Rages Over Broadband Regulation

Key congressional staffers said they believe Congress should address issues related to the Federal Communications Commission's authority over broadband but they broke down along party lines as to how quickly lawmakers need to act.

During a Capitol Hill forum sponsored by the Free State Foundation on the future of broadband regulation, staffers from the House and Senate Commerce Committees discussed the recent breakdown in efforts to pass network neutrality legislation being led by House Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) The legislation was aimed at addressing the stalemate over the issue of whether the FCC should reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service after its authority over broadband providers was put in doubt following an April federal appeals court ruling in a case involving broadband provider Comcast. Reclassification would allow the FCC to move forward on its network neutrality proceeding, aimed at barring broadband providers from discriminating against Internet content. Waxman's legislative effort stalled late last month before Congress recessed after he said he was unable to persuade Republicans to sign on to a draft bill that had the support of large broadband providers, some Internet firms and some public interest groups. The draft bill would have applied nondiscrimination principles to wireline broadband but not to wireless and directed the FCC to deal with enforcement on a case-by-case basis, rather than through rulemaking. Chairman Waxman "is open to revisiting [the issue] in the lame duck session," after the November midterm election, Tim Powderly, senior counsel on the Commerce Committee's Communications Subcommittee said. "He thinks that if Congress can't act, the FCC must go forward with what it's going to do on reclassification."

Neil Fried, senior counsel to the Commerce Committee's Republican staff, however, argued that the GOP did not sign on to the effort because "there wasn't sufficient time to get Republicans comfortable with the approach being taken." He said Communications Subcommittee ranking member Cliff Stearns (R-FL) would have liked to have seen lawmakers attempt to resolve the issue much earlier than they did.

Time Warner, Free Press Have Their Say on Broadband Reclassification

Glenn Britt, the president and chief executive of Time Warner Cable, called Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski to discuss two issues: network neutrality and the reclassification of broadband services under Title II.

According to a disclosure form, Britt said his company is happy to work with stakeholders and the agency "to address any genuine policy concerns in a manner that preserves investment and innovation in the broadband arena."

Meanwhile, Free Press filed comments at the FCC saying, "The basic answers in the open Internet debate have not changed, and the FCC now has more than enough information to move forward to preserve Net Neutrality. Efforts in Congress are stalled, and leaders in both the House and Senate have already called on the FCC to reassert its authority over broadband and protect Internet users. The longer the FCC delays action on Net Neutrality, the longer the public will be left unprotected.... The FCC must act now to make clear, meaningful open Internet rules, and re-establishing the agency's authority over broadband is a necessary first step. FCC action to protect the open Internet, consumer choice and free speech online is long overdue."

Benton

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