December 2013

See how Florida lags in broadband Internet

Florida’s access to high-speed broadband Internet has expanded, but the state is still lagging in many areas that have an impact on jobs and economic development, according to a new survey by Cherrystone Management Consultants.

Cherrystone’s survey said the average Florida broadband connection speed has increased from 4.2 megabits per second to 8.0 Mbps, up 89 percent, since 2010. But, Florida's broadband infrastructure lags significantly behind other states, ranking between 21st and 30th on four indicators. Dale Gregory, executive VP at Cherrystone, called on Florida policymakers “to encourage local and regional government initiatives to create anchor institution networks” including infrastructure installed by state agencies and railroad networks.

AOL Chief’s White Whale Finally Slips His Grasp

Tim Armstrong, the chief executive of AOL, is finally winding down Patch, a network of local news sites that he helped invent and that AOL bought after he took over.

Expert Poll: A Sprint/T-Mobile Merger Unlikely To Be Approved

A rumored potential merger of the nation’s number three and number four largest wireless carriers appears unlikely to pass regulatory scrutiny based on an informal poll that included three former Federal Communications Commission chairmen and other former FCC officials.

Financial research firm Moffett Nathanson Research conducted the survey of what it called an “extraordinarily august group” of respondents after the Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Sprint was considering purchasing T-Mobile. In addition to the former FCC people, respondents also included telecommunications and antitrust attorneys, telecommunications lobbyists not directly involved with the carriers, regulatory academics and antitrust scholars. “The preponderance of respondents put the probability of success at below 50%,” the researchers wrote. “But it was by no means an overwhelming or definitive majority.”

Can a Journalist 'Plead the Fifth' to Avoid Having to Name a Confidential Source? A Federal Judge Says Yes

[Commentary] Several years ago, when journalists by the dozen were being threatened with jail for refusing to name their confidential sources, I wrote an article urging them to invoke the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination -- to use the Fifth Amendment to reinforce the First Amendment-based "journalist's privilege."

This idea hasn't gotten much traction, until now: a federal judge in Michigan, in a civil suit against the Justice Department, ruled in November 2013 that a journalist could assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to reveal a confidential source. The Fifth Amendment defense is not a substitute for a strong federal shield law or evidentiary privilege. It may not be available, for example, to journalists caught up in a leak investigation or federal prosecution for leaks of classified information. Prosecutors in those cases typically will have the option of granting a journalist immunity for testimony about sources. And immunity removes the "incrimination" threat. But the Fifth Amendment defense can be used in nearly any civil litigation involving leaked information in which the source, by providing the information to a journalist, may have acted illegally -- in which case the journalist could, in theory, be subject to prosecution on a conspiracy, solicitation or aiding and abetting theory. This is so regardless of whether such a prosecution could succeed.

[Peter Scheer is Executive Director of the First Amendment Coalition]

San Francisco Gets Fast, Free Public Wi-Fi on Market Street

Nearly 10 years after international tech hub San Francisco first said it wanted to offer free public Wi-Fi, the city’s first big deployment is finally being unveiled.

There’s a new mayor and a new tech boom in town, and -- perhaps most importantly -- the technology for providing reliable, high-capacity access has improved dramatically over the past decade. San Francisco will offer free Internet access along the Market Street corridor, from the Embarcadero to the Castro, under the network name “_San_Francisco_Free_WiFi” (with the awkward punctuation so as to show up first in search results). The network is built to reach speeds of up to 50 Mbps both up and downstream, better than what many people receive in their own homes. (Of course, factors like the device used, congestion on the network and the physical distance to the access point may lower the speed.) Wi-Fi is increasingly useful for people on the go. Paired with free, fast Wi-Fi, this kind of service could be seriously helpful for the city’s poorest residents. “It’s not a gadget; it’s not a luxury; it’s not a nice-to-have,” said San Francisco CIO Marc Touitou. “It’s a basic service of connectivity.”

The quest for high-speed fiber: a conversation with Susan Crawford

The web may be growing, but in America the physical infrastructure most people use to access it is barely keeping pace. Eighty-five percent of the country is still stuck with cable modem service as its fastest available internet, and if we want to move towards a future of telepresence and widespread streaming video, that's not going to cut it. It's a huge problem for the growth of the web, and Cardozo School of Law professor Susan Crawford laid out in a Q&A how it happened as telecommunications companies consolidated power and colluded to escape regulation. "We don't make progress until you can see something," she says. "In America, we don't see how badly we're doing." Since the federal government isn’t interested in fiber, she’s making the case city by city, convincing mayors of the benefits of a wired populace.

NAB: Include UHF In Broad Ownership Review

The National Association of Broadcasters told the Federal Communications Commission that it thinks the commission should not make any decision on eliminating the UHF discount -- a long-time loophole in the agency’s national ownership rules that some broadcasters have been relying on to beef up their station portfolios -- unless it’s part of an overall review of the commission’s television station ownership rules. “NAB believes that it would be arbitrary and capricious to eliminate the UHF discount without simultaneously considering the impact of that change on the broader rule and its goals,” the group said in comments.

Wireline Competition Bureau Announces Timeline for Completion of Urban Rates Survey

On April 3, 2013, the Wireline Competition Bureau adopted an order setting the form and content for a survey of urban rates for fixed voice and fixed broadband residential services.

The information collected in this survey will be used to establish a rate floor for voice services that eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) receiving high- cost loop support (HCLS) or frozen high-cost support must meet to receive their full support amounts, and to develop benchmarks to help evaluate whether rates for fixed voice and broadband services in rural areas are reasonably comparable to offerings in urban areas. To obtain statistically valid samples, the Bureau will be collecting the rates offered by providers of fixed services identified using the most recent FCC Form 477 data in 500 urban Census tracts. There will be separate samples for fixed voice and fixed broadband services. Because some providers serve many urban Census tracts, these providers may receive surveys for multiple Census tracts.

Notifications that a provider is required to complete an online survey will be sent via email to each selected provider’s FCC contact person and certifying official on or around December 16, 2013. The email notification will provide detailed information on how to access and complete the survey online report form and how to obtain technical assistance. Completed surveys will be due on January 17, 2014.

Low Power Lobby Names Executive Director

Louis Libin, former director of engineering and CTO at NBC, has been named executive director of the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance (ATBA), formerly the Coalition for Free TV and Broadband. ATBA has not had an executive director, according to a spokesperson for the group. Instead, it has been working as a committee with volunteers. Hiring Libin is a move to "step up activity" said the spokesman, with a full-time Washington presence. ATBA is currently lobbying for the preservation of low power TV stations and translators in the face of the Federal Communications Commission's incentive auction and repacking of stations.

Here’s what you’ll save by ditching cable TV

Do you want to see live programming, new shows the day they premiere, and premium channels such as HBO and Showtime? In that case, don’t cut the cord. But if you’re willing to part with some live TV, it’s worth reviewing your options if you’ve had enough of paying through the nose for cable TV.

As Internet streaming services improve, more Americans are deciding what’s lost by abandoning traditional cable. Cable bills have more than doubled over the last decade and the national average bill -- currently hovering at $90 a month -- will reach $200 in 2020, estimates market researcher The NPD Group. What’s more, over 80% of consumers already say their cable bills are too high, according to another survey by deal aggregator TechBargains.com. Increasingly, people watch shows illegally. “Cutting the cord for most people is easier said than done unless they go pirate,” says Craig Moffett, senior analyst at Moffett Nathanson Research.

Benton

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