October 2010

FCC Chairman: Why We Need More Wireless Spectrum

[Commentary] If there's one bright spot for Federal Communications commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, it's been the recent order to free up under-utilized TV spectrum and use it for broadband and other open wireless transmission purposes.

This is the first time in 25 years that the FCC has passed an order that frees up wireless spectrum and makes it available unlicensed for innovation. "Wireless in general is very central to our economic growth," Chairman Genachowski said. He believes that wireless and wireless broadband will have a wide-ranging impact on everything from health to entertainment to education. The FCC is working on ways to make more licensed spectrum available, he said, but he wants to make a big push on the unlicensed spectrum. "A full spectrum strategy needs both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and I am really happy with this order," he said. "Twenty-five years ago, when the FCC released spectrum, we didn't know Wi-Fi [would] happen." Today, it's hard to find devices that don't have Wi-Fi capabilities.

EPIC: Privacy should be central election issue

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a group that advocates for stronger online privacy regulations, will launch a campaign to make privacy a central issue in the elections. EPIC says its wants to put privacy, consumer protection and civil liberties "at the forefront of the election agenda. We aim to raise awareness among candidates from all parties and educate voters...this election cycle." The Privacy 2010 Campaign will launch a website to help voters figure out where candidates stand on the issues EPIC finds critical.

AT&T buying up ads on Google searches for 'FCC'

What do you get when you Google the term "FCC"? The AT&T public policy blog. Ditto for search terms "net neutrality" and "Internet regulation." That just means the company is buying up ads so its message appears on the side of the search page when users Google this term. "Find out what we think of the FCC's Internet regulations," one of the ads reads. AT&T is among the top spenders for Google AdWords. AT&T Mobility spent more than $8 million on search ads in June, timed with the release of the iPhone 4, according to reports.

ACA Targets Case For Comcast/NBCU Conditions

The American Cable Association continues to push the Federal Communications Commission to adopt conditions on the Comcast/NBC Universal deal that it says would reduce the competitive harms to its members.

In a filing with the FCC, ACA said its proposals did not go much beyond previous conditions on vertical mergers -- like DirecTV/News Corp. and Time Warner Cable -- and would "temper both the vertical and horizontal harms." ACA wants Comcast/NBCU to have to make its TV stations and regional sports networks available to other pay TV distributors on a stand-alone basis, something station and cable news channel owner Allbritton Communications is also arguing strongly for. It also wants independent baseball-style arbitration for stations, RSNs and national cable nets, a prohibition on charging smaller cable operators more than 5% more than the lowest price paid by a competing pay provider in a market for the NBC station or RSN.

Twitter Founders: Gladwell Got It Wrong

"Laughable," "absurd," "ludicrous" and "pointless" were words Twitter founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone used to describe a recent Malcolm Gladwell story in the New Yorker about the futility of social media to create real social change.

Stone said he could see validity in Gladwell's point that effecting meaningful and sustained social change requires strong relationships and hierarchical structure. But he added, "The real-time exchange of information — a service like Twitter — it would be absurd to think it's not complementary to activism. When it really comes down to it, it's not going to be technology that's going to be the agent of change. It's going to be people; it's going to be humanity. "Anyone who's claiming that sending a tweet by itself is activism, that's ludicrous — but no one's claiming that, at least no one that's credible," said Williams.

"If you can't organize you can't activate," Williams said, criticizing Gladwell for at one point conflating the editability of Wikipedia with Twitter. "I thought [the article] was entertaining but kind of pointless."

Amazon Expands Publishing Horizons With Short-Form Kindle Singles

Locked into a pricing battle with some publishers over the pricing of e-books with print counterparts, Amazon is expanding its digital-only options -- and its own publishing horizons -- with Kindle Singles.

Described as "twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book," the 10,000-to-30,000 word e-books (roughly 30-90 pages) will have their own section in the Kindle Store and will sell for "much less" than the typical e-book. The content options are wide. Amazon suggests anything from a business lesson to politics, science and essays on current events and includes in the announcement "a call to serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers to join Amazon in making such works available to readers around the world." Amazon says it is reaching out to publishers and "accomplished" writers.

Why You Should Never Pay for a Premium Online Subscription

To the average user, free media sites such as Hulu, YouSendIt, Rhapsody and others operate on the same business model as a corner crack dealer: Take a taste for free. When you need more, you'll pay.

After hooking millions of U.S. users, Hulu, for example, recently unveiled a $9.99/month Hulu Plus service in hopes of converting its free user base into paying customers who want more and newer content. Free photo sharing site Flickr offers unlimited uploads and storage in an upgraded pro account for an annual fee. Free online streaming music services such as Spotify (in Europe and supposedly soon in the U.S.) and Pandora offer commercial-free play or mobile downloads as premium services in hopes of increasing subscriptions.

But the assumptions most people have about the freemium model are wrong, say some of the most successful service providers. They're not dependent on your premium bucks. "It's not the goal," Pandora founder Tim Westergren tells Fast Company. "We're fundamentally believers in free. The subscription business is growing nicely, but it's not the cornerstone of our business. It's not that we are trying to push people into subscription, or cripple our free service. That's not our strategy." Instead, Westergren is focused on one thing: expanding market share. It seems to be working.

Broadband survey shows UK's best and worst download speeds

A new survey has revealed areas with the fastest and slowest broadband speeds across the United Kingdom. Liverpool has the highest average broadband speed of 7.72Mbps, with Dumfries in Scotland polling the lowest with average speeds of only 2.89Mbps. The survey reveals that 3.5 million people receive average download speeds of less than 4Mbps, with customers in Scotland, the West Midlands and Wales receiving the lowest download speeds. At the other end of the scale 2.5 million people have average download speeds over 7Mbps, with Liverpool, Manchester, Middlesbrough and Lincoln polling the highest.

Google Bets on Cheap Smartphones for India

Google is pushing to become a significant player in India's huge wireless industry as a range of little-known Indian handset makers release low-cost devices that include the tech giant's Android operating system in coming months.

Android lends functionality to smartphones, including touch-screen capability and a large marketplace of small software "apps." It has gained market share quickly this year in developed countries such as the U.S., powering several devices that have sold briskly. Android lends functionality to smartphones, including touch-screen capability and a large marketplace of small software "apps." It has gained market share quickly this year in developed countries such as the U.S., powering several devices that have sold briskly. Google is setting its sights on the masses in developing countries like India, which has 670 million cellphone subscribers and has been adding about 18 million a month recently.

Most of the initial Google-powered phones in India from global handset makers such as Motorola Inc. and HTC Corp. cost upward of $400—a high price for a market where 42% of the population of 1.2 billion people earns less than $1.25 a day. To target India's vast middle class, Google is banking largely on a crop of inexperienced Indian smartphone manufacturers including Micromax Informatics Ltd., Spice Mobility Ltd., and Olive Telecom to make Android phones in the $150 range, and eventually the sub-$100 level.

European Antitrust Deal With Microsoft Barely Affects Browser Market

When Europe settled an antitrust case over Web browsers with Microsoft in December 2009, it hoped to dislodge the world's biggest software maker from its dominant position in that market by requiring it to offer rivals' products. As part of that, Microsoft in March started sending software ballot screens to 200 million Windows users in Europe. The screens ask users to choose a default from a list of 12 browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google's Chrome, Opera and Apple's Safari.

Six months into the process, the initiative appears to be having only a minor influence on consumers, prompting a renewed debate about the effectiveness of such antitrust remedies.

According to StatCounter, Microsoft's leading share of the European browser market fell to 39.8 percent in October from 44.9 percent in January. In 2009, Microsoft's share declined by 5.5 percentage points; in 2008 by 8 points.

Most of the decline has come amid gains by Google, which introduced Chrome in September 2008. Google's share of the European market doubled this year, to 11.9 percent in October from 5.8 percent in January.

But it is impossible, browser makers and market researchers say, to isolate the effect of the ballot from general market trends, and there is no way to measure consumer participation in the balloting or its direct outcome.

Benton

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