August 2011

Delay on Spectrum Models Raises Suspicion

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission was supposed to make public its technical models for its proposed spectrum reallocation that would make its proposed auction plan possible. Broadcasters are still waiting. It keeps promising, but it never delivers and that's straining the commission's credibility. Until the modeling is made public, broadcasters should remain skeptical — and wary — of the anything having to do with incentive auctions. And Congress, too.

In spectrum battles, Mom & Pop TV loses

As far as cord cutting goes, it’s hard to beat Warren Trumbly. Not only did he turn a painting in his office into a DIY antenna capable of receiving free over-the-air TV signals, Trumbly is also the president of KAXT One, a broadcaster that is behind a dozen niche over-the-air TV stations in the Bay Area that exclusively cater to cord cutters. KAXT One is only broadcasting over the air and has been flourishing ever since the digital switch-over two years ago, but Trumbly now fears that all of this could be lost if the Federal Communications Commission goes through with its plan to sell TV spectrum to mobile operators.

Power to become White House telecom aide

Tom Power, current chief of staff for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, will join the White House as its new deputy chief technology officer for telecommunications.

Power will fill the position vacated by Scott Deutchman, who left earlier this year to join Neustar, according to sources familiar with Power’s plans. Filling Power’s position at NTIA while he is on detail with the White House will be Angela Simpson, who has served as a senior NTIA adviser on broadband issues. Power is a notable addition to the White House tech and telecom team, which is housed under the administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. He joined NTIA as chief of staff in 2009, and served at a time when the agency was doing considerable work to dole out and monitor billions in new stimulus grants meant to grow broadband availability nationwide. Prior to arriving at the Commerce Department agency, Power worked for years as a top lawyer for Fiberlink Communications. Before that, he served as a senior legal adviser for former FCC Chairman William Kennard.

New White House CIO Was Obama Campaign Donor

Steven VanRoekel's years of experience at Microsoft and the Federal Communications Commission make him well suited for his new job as White House chief information officer. But VanRoekel was making friends with the Obama Administration even before Obama took the White House.

In 2009 VanRoekel contributed $50,000 to Obama's Inauguration celebration. (Obama capped donations at $50,000.) VanRoekel gave Obama's campaign $4,600 in 2008, when he was an executive at Microsoft. In 2009 and 2010 he contributed $7,300 to the Democratic National Committee while working at the FCC, according to Federal Elections Commission disclosures. And in 2006 Washington Women for Choice received $1,000 from VanRoekel. In congressional races, VanRoekel donated $1,000 to Rep. Michele Bachman's opponent Tarryl Clark last year. He also contributed $1,750 to Rob Miller, who launched a failed challenge to South Carolina GOP Rep. Joe Wilson, in 2010.

Pentagon cyber program to fund hacker innovation

In the latest attempt to pull cybersecurity expertise into government, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched the "Cyber Fast Track" program, intended to cut red tape for hackers to apply for funding for projects that would help the Defense Department secure computer networks.

Smartphones Are 'A Tool For Modern Families'

Consumer electronics in general, and the smartphone in particular, are becoming an indispensable part of family life.

According to a survey of more than 1,000 moms conducted by The Parenting Group publishing company and BlogHer, 71% of moms do not go more than one day without using the Internet, with 40% saying they can go only a few hours without using a mobile phone and the Internet. (Comparatively, only 18% say the same about television.) In fact, 79% said that cell phones are a necessity, compared with 42% saying the same about a typical landline. But it's not just the moms who are using their cell phones. According to the survey, parents are allowing their children to use electronic devices at ever-earlier ages. While parents in a similar survey last year said 13 was the average age to let children have their own mobile phone, respondents this year said they began allowing kids as young as toddlers to use the phone (25% said they allow their 2-year-olds to use the phone). Of course, they're not using them to communicate. According to the survey, the moms are giving the phones to their toddlers as a toy or diversion (23%) or as a game device (15%).

Mobile phones shifting from fun to fundamental

Anyone who’s taken Psych 101 should remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a chart that organizes people’s needs, from basic physiological to safety and ultimately self. So what’s that have to do with mobile technology? It’s a helpful guide in showing where consumers are currently spending their money in mobile and where it’s headed in the future, said analyst Chetan Sharma, in a new white paper called How mobile will change the way we spend.

Sharma said Americans overall spend about 15 percent of their income right now on the top of Maslow’s pyramid on self, which includes friendship, esteem, belonging, family and self actualization. Most of the impact of mobile, however, has been on this category but is shifting now to more basic needs, moving down Maslow’s pyramid to things like health care and wellness. Sharma said mobile’s ability to compress time and distance are now having a bigger impact on mobile health care and will help increasingly with remote monitoring, alerts, data collection and management, wellness and information awareness and early detection. Using Maslow’s pyramid is an interesting way of thinking of the shifts in mobile. A lot of the biggest app categories right now are geared toward self-actualization, interpersonal communication and fun. Games, weather and social networking are the top smartphone app categories, according to Nielsen. But health apps, like Azumio’s Instant Heart Rate and RunKeeper, which didn't register as one of the top app categories used in the last 30 days during a survey in June 2010, is now used by 13 percent of respondents in the second quarter of this year.

IDT Opposes AT&T/T-Mobile Deal

IDT, a mobile virtual network operator partner of T-Mobile USA, has formally filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission that oppose AT&T's $39 billion pending acquisition of T-Mobile. IDT vice chairman James Courter said in the filing that "the merger would cause excessive consolidation in the mobile services marketplace and make it impossible for smaller, entrepreneurial companies such as IDT to compete."

IDT is one of several mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that launched during the past decade to target the growing demographic of Hispanic mobile users. It offers pre-paid service under the TuYo brand. Courter said in the filing that AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile could jeopardize IDT's GSM resale deal with T-Mobile because it would "create two super-companies that would dominate the market to the detriment of low-income people who rely upon the availability of low-cost resellers such as TuYo Mobile. AT&T has not committed to making wholesale spectrum available to MVNOs in its application to acquire T-Mobile, and AT&T does not have a favorable track record in providing wholesale access to its spectrum." The filing also noted that the AT&T/T-Mobile merger would take one of only two GSM-based networks in the U.S. out of the wholesale game.

Universal Service Reform and Broadband Caps

Most of the air in Washington has been devoted of late to the debt ceiling deal and deciphering what it means. But that hasn't stopped major developments in how broadband networks will be deployed and used.

At the heart of the National Broadband Plan are the recommendations targeted at modernizing and streamlining the federal Universal Service Fund (USF). Thirty-five recommendations -- approximately 16% of the plan's suggestions -- address this issue. The USF helps provide communities across the country with affordable telecommunications services. The USF has traditionally been focused on making telephone service more available and affordable, but the National Broadband Plan recommended that the Federal Communications Commission modernize the USF, focusing on broadband deployment and affordability.

AT&T announced this week that, starting October 1, it will curb browsing speeds for its heaviest users on unlimited wireless data plans to cope with surging data traffic. Customers on an unlimited plan whose monthly use puts them into the top 5 percent of data consumption may experience reduced speeds until the end of that billing cycle. Verizon Wireless made a similar announcement in early July. The US already ranks highest in mobile Internet costs per month. US users pay more than $40 a month for 2GB of data (the going threshold for new capped data plans). On the other end of the scale, Japanese mobile phone callers pay just a touch over $10 a month for the same plan.

Coalition Urges to FCC To Bring Broadcast Data Collection Into the 21st Century

The Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition wrote to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Julius Genachowski strongly urging the FCC to take action to implement the modernized disclosure recommendations in its recent comprehensive report, The Information Needs of Communities (“INOC”). This report, issued earlier this summer, compiles the most up-to-date and comprehensive review of one of the core areas under the Commission’s authority—mass communications—and the Commission’s statutory obligations to ensure that the mass media serve the public interest, convenience and necessity. The groups praised the report’s top recommendation, to “emphasize online disclosure as a pillar of FCC media policy.”

In the letter, the Coalition urges the FCC to expedite adoption of streamlined online broadcaster program reporting by eliminating paper forms and instead implementing the online public file requirements proposed in the INOC Report. The Coalition proposes allowing broadcasters, who receive their licenses to use the publicly owned airwaves for free, to vastly reduce the data submitted, but retain its statistically validity by submitting programming data using two “constructed” weeks per quarter selected by the FCC – a method used by academics in their studies -- using a standardized and comparable format in the following programming categories: Local News; Local Civic/Governmental Affairs; Local Electoral Affairs; and Closed Captioning/Emergency Accessibility Complaints. Broadcasters would also have the option of reporting on other types of programming, should they choose to do so, in areas such as emergency programming, religious programming, and national news. In addition, because coverage of local electoral issues is critical to an informed citizenry, broadcasters would be required to disclose all local electoral affairs programming aired during the peak campaign periods when the lowest unit charge laws are in effect (i.e., 45 days before a primary election and 60 days before a general election).

Members of the PIPA Coalition include: Benton Foundation, Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Free Press, Media Access Project, New America Foundation, and the Office of Communication, Inc. of the United Church of Christ.

Benton

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