February 2014

Muni Wi-Fi: Another One Bites the Dust?

The future of Riverside (CA)’s Wi-Fi network remains undecided after a contentious discussion during a Jan. 28 City Council meeting.

Chief Innovation Officer Lea Deesing presented a summary of the network’s history, which dates back to 2006, along with the costs of several options the city has going forward. Deesing recommended “winding down” the existing network and focusing new Wi-Fi efforts on more high-use areas. The City Council, however, had concerns about costs and possible lapses in service, while several residents shared concerns that their neighborhoods have no other way to access the Internet. The one thing everyone agreed on was that the people want Internet access -- the problem is finding a cost-effective solution that makes good on Riverside’s promise to provide Internet to the people

Peter Marx Appointed Los Angeles' Chief Innovation Technology Officer

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Peter Marx as the city's first Chief Innovation Technology Officer.

Marx, a Los Angeles native, is charged with improving the LA information portal service, MyLA311, upgrading the city's websites, and applying data sharing and analysis to upgrade city government performance. He will work in the Mayor's Office as a technology coordinator, strategist and advisor across city organizations. Before joining the Mayor's Office, Marx served as the vice president of Business Development at Qualcomm Labs, commercializing a variety of emerging technologies. Previously he was the VP of the Technology and Digital Studio at Mattel, and managed Analog Protocol, a media-technology consultancy, to name a few. Marx says that if you look at the city as a set of services -- such as police, fire, power, water and transportation -- those classic services are becoming more and more digital, which enables them to be delivered, controlled and measured digitally. And those services can be leveraged by organizations and civic technology efforts through application programming interfaces. For example, he said the city's MyLA311 now allows residents to submit service requests like pothole repair, graffiti removal or they can pay water and power bills. But that's just the beginning of where city services are going, he said.

Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast Projects Nearly 11-Fold Increase in Global Mobile Data Traffic from 2013 to 2018

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2013 to 2018, worldwide mobile data traffic will increase nearly 11-fold over the next four years and reach an annual run rate of 190 exabytes by 2018. The projected increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections, such as personal devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, which will exceed 10 billion by 2018 and be 1.4 times greater than the world’s population (the United Nations estimates 7.6 billion people by 2018).

Security company Vivint is testing a wireless home broadband service in Utah

Vivint, a security company that’s pushing into the home automation and energy management markets, is also trying its hand at a wireless broadband service that offers 50 Mbps for $55.

Jeremy Warren, Vice President of Innovation at Vivint, said that Vivint is testing the service in Utah where Vivint is based, and that it uses a mesh networking topology as opposed to a traditional tower-oriented network design that many Wireless ISPs deploy today. He said the company is taking advantage of off-the-shelf radios and using unlicensed and “semi-licensed” spectrum in a variety of ranges including the 5GHz and 2.4Ghz range used for Wi-Fi.

Rural carriers start connecting customers to doctors via mobile video chat

If you’re a Cellular One customer in Louisiana or Texas and need to talk to a doctor, you now have a very high-tech option. You can conduct a video chat using Skype or Facetime, or just have a phone conversation with a board-certified physician on your mobile phone. It costs $30 per consult and is billed to your mobile account. The service is powered by iSelectMD, a telemedicine outfit founded in 2010 that is trying to create a health network via mobile phones. iSelectMD is working with companies as a supplemental healthcare service for non-emergency medical services, but it’s also trying to work directly with mobile carriers to make mobile health an element of their service plans.

Now That Everyone’s Got A Smartphone, We Need Apps That Serve Low-Income Groups

There are 1 million apps in Apple’s app store. They fulfill all manner of needs, real and imagined. But what if you are a smartphone owner who needs food stamps? Or you want to access a “daily deal” that offers free museum admissions to low-income New York City families? While there are no apps for that, increasingly there’s a demand for smartphone software that serves a broader income base in the US.

“What we’re seeing is kind of a major growth in the ownership of smartphones with Internet access within our population,” says Zach Goldstein, director of systems and technology at HealthLeads, a nonprofit that works with hospitals to help doctors write and fill “prescriptions” for life-saving social services alongside their usual prescriptions for medicine. “The advent of smartphones has helped our clients overcome the digital divide,” he says.

Congress, not the FCC, should set Internet policy

[Commentary] For years, the federal government regulated telecommunications providers as if confining them to lanes on a racetrack: one lane for traditional telephone service, another for wireless and yet another for cable. Each lane was assigned different rules by the government because it came along at a different time, operated with a different business model and utilized service-specific technologies. This system of rules worked reasonably well until broadband Internet turned those old business models on their heads.

Recognizing this, committee chairmen in both the Senate and House of Representatives have intimated that we will begin looking at reforming the entire body of communications law. We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the start of this long overdue discussion. The old assumptions that led previous generations of legislators to confine each communications service within its own regulatory lane are simply no longer true. If we were to double down on this “regulate first” mentality of the 20th century, it could eventually force the Internet to become a heavily regulated public commodity like electricity and water. And just like power and water utilities have not changed or innovated in decades, today’s Internet would become stagnant rather than remain vibrant. A freer marketplace, not more regulation, promotes innovation and competition, and innovation and competition empower consumers by increasing the choices they have, be it for voice services, video content or the next breakthrough application.

Big media still has plenty of muscle

There may be 500 channels and almost $80 billion in advertising and subscriber revenue in the television industry, but most of that content and cash is controlled by a handful of companies.

In a new report on the US media industry, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger notes that a handful of media giants control the advertising and subscription pies. According to Juenger, fees that pay-TV distributors pay for content is now about $40 billion while advertising is an additional $37 billion. Walt Disney -- parent of ESPN, ABC Family, Disney Channel and the ABC broadcast network -- accounts for more than 20% of the distribution fee figure. Time Warner, whose holdings include HBO, TNT, TBS and CNN, is the second-biggest media company in terms of subscriber fees. Its networks get about 18% of that $40 billion.

How Facebook has changed the way we govern

[Commentary] There’s no doubt Facebook has changed the way we communicate with each other. What can often be lost, however, is that it’s also changed how we communicate with institutions, brands and, perhaps most importantly here in Washington, with our elected officials.

Got a question for Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)? Ask her on Facebook, where she writes her own updates. Curious how Rep Justin Amash (R-MI) voted? Go to Facebook. Want to offer your ideas for your country’s new constitution? If you’re Icelandic, you could have gone to Facebook. Facebook’s evolution into a political tool may not have been in the original blueprint, but it illustrates one of the many odd turns the social network has taken in its 10 years of existence. Facebook is open to all, and the 2007 addition of politician profiles gave candidates a way to reach more followers than the original 5,000-person cap would allow. Plus, the site has 180 million users in the US -- a greater percentage of the country than the part of it that votes. Now, a campaign team has to think about Facebook (and Twitter) in the earliest stages of their campaigns or risk looking woefully out of touch. And it’s become a prime way to advertise. Facebook has also had a surprising effect on voter turnout.

Time to Cut 500 Jobs Ahead of Spinoff

Time -- the magazine giant with brands including People, Sports Illustrated and Fortune -- began a new round of layoffs as part of a companywide restructuring that will result in the loss of about 500 jobs, according to a person briefed on the matter. Joseph Ripp, Time's chief executive, unveiled plans for the job cuts, but not the number of layoffs, in a letter to employees. The cuts were announced as Time prepared to be spun off from its parent, Time Warner. “When we enter the public markets in a few short months, our success will depend on how investors view the momentum we are generating at the new Time Inc.,” Ripp wrote. Ripp called the layoffs “painful” and said they were a necessary response to new financial realities. Five hundred jobs represent about 6 percent of Time’s 7,800 workers worldwide.

Benton

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