March 3, 2014 (IP Experiments; Broadband; Research)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, MARCH 3
This week’s event http://benton.org/calendar/2014-03-02--P1W/
INTERNET/TELECOMMUNICATIONS
AT&T Picks Two Areas for Advanced-Services Test
FCC Seeks Comment on AT&T’s Proposed Technology Transitions Experiments - public notice
Leading to the gigabit promised land? - op-ed
Netflix, Comcast and Our Changing Internet - analysis
Rep Barton: Courts or Congress Will Strike Down FCC's Latest Net Neutrality Effort
Five faulty premises, part 5: Things are better in Europe, Asia, or somewhere else - op-ed [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
Telecom Giants Paid Millions To 'Honor' Minority Lawmakers Before The Merger
Don't Expect A Charter-Cox Merger After Time Warner Cable Marries Comcast [links to web]
Liberty Media Watching TWC, Comcast Deal With Interest [links to web]
EDUCATION
New E-Rate Funding Will Take Time to Reach Schools
What Does 21st Century Connectivity Look Like… and Are We There Yet? - analysis
The ABCs of school technology programs [links to web]
New All-Digital Curriculums Hope to Ride High-Tech Push in Schoolrooms [links to web]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
TV Is Dead. Now What?
A Short History of the Next Campaign - op-ed
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Carriers say they support mobile kill switch effort [links to web]
Web-Enabled Toothbrushes Join the Internet of Things [links to web]
RESEARCH
FCC “Will Not Move Forward” on Critical Information Needs Study - press release
The real story behind the FCC’s study of newsrooms - op-ed
The Third Rail of Regulation - editorial
Which is better: Ignorance or Knowledge? - analysis
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Senators blast NSA for webcam spying [links to web]
Hill draws criticism over NSA oversight [links to web]
Can We all Block the NSA? [links to web]
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
Obama's Trauma Team [links to web]
House Subcommittee Continues Review of the FTC at 100 in Effort to Modernize Agency for the Innovation Era - press release [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Thousands Take to the Streets to Support Hong Kong Press Freedom [links to web]
China speeds past Europe on 4G mobile rollout [links to web]
INTERNET/TELECOMMUNICATIONS
AT&T PICKS TWO AREAS FOR ADVANCED-SERVICES TEST
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Todd Shields]
AT&T proposed offering digital-only telephone service in towns in Alabama and Florida as it moves toward abandoning its aging copper-wire network and escaping the US regulation that goes with it. The regional experiments will help regulators decide whether AT&T and other telephone companies will be allowed to stop offering traditional wired phone service as customers migrate to wireless and Internet-based communications. The experiments are to take place in West Delray Beach, Florida, and Carbon Hill, Alabama. In rural Carbon Hill, which began as a coal-mining community, about 55 percent of subscribers will be offered only a wireless system, according to AT&T documents. All customers in suburban West Delray Beach trial are to be offered wired and wireless services, the company said. AT&T chose Carbon Hill, where 21 percent of households have income below the poverty line, in part to address challenges of changing systems in a poor, rural area. AT&T initially will ask customers in the test areas to switch to the new technologies. In a separate phase that would require US approval, the company would stop offering plain old telephone service to new customers, said Hank Hultquist, AT&T vice president-federal regulatory. “We want to make sure our customers are comfortable with the new services,” Hultquist said. Later, the company wants to switch all customers to the newer technologies, he said.
benton.org/node/175587 | Bloomberg | read the proposal | AT&T’s Operating Plan | additional info from AT&T | Washington Post | B&C | telecompetitor
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FCC SEEKS COMMENT ON AT&T’S PROPOSAL FOR SERVICE-BASED TECHNOLOGY TRANSITIONS EXPERIMENTS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
On February 20, 2014, AT&T Services submitted a letter reporting that it would submit a proposal for conducting service-based experiments in certain of its wire centers in its wireline footprint on February 27, 2014.5 On February 27, 2014, the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau released two protective orders to govern the submission of certain proprietary or confidential, or highly confidential information. Also on February 27, 2014, AT&T submitted a Proposal for Wire Center Trials for experiments involving the transition of two wire centers -- one rural and one suburban -- to all IP services and, in part, to wireless-based service. The FCC seeks comment on the AT&T Proposal. Comments are due by Friday, March 31, 2014. Reply comments are due by Thursday, April 10, 2014.
benton.org/node/175609 | Federal Communications Commission
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LEADING TO THE GIGABIT PROMISED LAND?
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Blair Levin]
[Commentary] US broadband pundits endlessly debate where we are instead of where we need to be, quarreling over interpretations of today's international broadband rankings or, in the case of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, urgently holding a hearing on a program that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission already shut down. These discussions are about headlines, not about progress. By design, they only look backward, implicating the policies of previous generations. Worse, they distract us from tackling the real task at hand: how we help our country develop the infrastructure we need to lead in the 21st century information economy. Press-driven, short-term thinking has consequences. Washington's habit of pointing fingers and obsessing about the past obviously hasn't convinced business leaders that future-proofing our country is a US priority. Wouldn't it be nice if, instead, we had hearings on what we need to do today to lead 5, 10, or 15 years hence? Surely, a timeless lesson of the last four books of the Old Testament is this: The point is not to debate one's location in the desert. It is to get to the Promised Land. In the US, old policies continue to drive private capital to outmoded networks, and FCC policies under the previous chair actually made it more difficult to build world-leading networks. Until recently, incumbent providers waved off communities' desires for next-generation networks, insisting that customers don't want higher speeds. Meanwhile, in our schools, when students take online assessments, the rest of the district must refrain from sending e-mail to avoid a network overload; our health care facilities find it quicker to send a thumb drive with CAT scan results via messenger than wait for the data to transfer; and a third of our homes don't even have broadband, which, among other things, is becoming the only way to apply for a job. We need to stop debating the past and start figuring out the future.
[Levin heads up the Gig.U project, a consortium of 36 research university communities seeking to accelerate the deployment of next generation networks]
benton.org/node/175608 | C-Net|News.com
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NETFLIX, COMCAST, AND OUR CHANGING INTERNET
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] The Wall Street Journal broke the story reporting that Netflix had agreed to pay Comcast to ensure Netflix movies and television shows stream smoothly to Comcast customers. In exchange for payment, Netflix is to get direct access to Comcast's broadband network. Why would Netflix need to do that? Earlier this month we learned that Netflix’s video streaming performance on Verizon and Comcast networks has been dropping for the past three to four months. Verizon and Comcast have each been involved in disputes with video streaming services like Netflix and YouTube. When these negotiations fail, users suffer. In other words, bad video performance is often caused not just by technology problems but also by business decisions made by the many companies involved in delivering Internet traffic from content providers to end users.
http://benton.org/node/175498
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REP BARTON: COURTS OR CONGRESS WILL STRIKE DOWN FCC'S LATEST NET NEUTRALITY EFFORT
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Rep Joe Barton (R-TX), former chairman of the House Commerce Committee, warns that the Federal Communications Commission's latest effort at network neutrality rules will be struck down, either by the courts or Congress. He thinks that, "on the surface," the Congress would be generally receptive to the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger. In an interview for C-SPAN's Communicators series, Rep Barton said that Congress would want to look into any "local issues" where there was market dominance or a "disproportionate share of concentration." On network neutrality and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's decision not to close the Title II docket, Rep Barton said the FCC, under President Barack Obama, who has long championed net neutrality rules, "just doesn't get it." He pointed out that the FCC's efforts to regulate net neutrality had been struck down twice, and suggested the third time would not be the charm. "This latest proposal will be struck down again in court, or by the Congress." Rep Barton suggested a one-price-fits all model of the Internet is "just wrong." Using the analogy of buying a gallon of milk at the store at $3.50 a gallon, he said: "Tom Wheeler's FCC wants to say you can use as much milk as you want and you only have to pay $3.50."
benton.org/node/175574 | Multichannel News
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OWNERSHIP
TELECOM GIANTS PAID MILLIONS TO 'HONOR' MINORITY LAWMAKERS BEFORE THE MERGER
[SOURCE: Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Paul Blumenthal]
Comcast and Time Warner Cable are heading into the lobbying stage of their proposed merger with a strong hand. They boast large teams of lobbyists, a history of massive campaign contributions to members of both political parties and close ties to the White House. Over the last several years, the two telecom giants have also contributed millions of dollars to "honor" members of Congress and congressional caucuses. The biggest recipients of this money have been nonprofits linked to minority lawmakers, traditionally some of the most progressive members of Congress. Disclosure of so-called honorary contributions -- ostensibly philanthropic gifts that go to organizations tied to congressional lawmakers or events designed to honor politicians -- became mandatory starting in 2008. Since 2008, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have contributed more than $990,000 to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, more than $180,000 to the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, nearly $800,000 to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, $135,000 to the Congressional Black Caucus Policy and Leadership Institute, and $281,000 to the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies. In the years since, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have directed more than $3.7 million to celebrate lawmakers. Nonprofits affiliated with the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus have benefited the most.
benton.org/node/175586 | Huffington Post
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EDUCATION
NEW E-RATE WILL TAKE TIME
[SOURCE: Education Week, AUTHOR: Sean Cavanagh]
The pressure on school districts to upgrade their technology is growing, as the financial support to make those changes is limited. States are scheduled to begin giving online tests aligned to the Common Core State Standards in a year -- exams that many district officials say will greatly tax their bandwidth and their ability to give tests with their current stock of laptops, desktops, and other devices. Meanwhile, schools' demand for bandwidth is also rising because of the growth of technology-enhanced lessons in classrooms, as well as students' increasing reliance on mobile devices and other new technologies. The Federal Communications Commission, the agency that oversees the E-rate, announced a series of steps that officials said would not only put more broadband funding into the program over the next two years, but also redirect the funding to pay for the most in-demand technologies, such as broadband. Yet most of the tangible benefits of the new money for broadband will not be felt in districts for a while, a number of observers predict. They cite a variety of reasons, including the fact that the E-rate application process for 2014 is already far along, as well as the limits on how quickly districts can arrange to make technology upgrades.
benton.org/node/175585 | Education Week
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WHAT DOES 21ST CENTURY CONNECTIVITY LOOK LIKE… AND ARE WE THERE YET?
[SOURCE: New America Foundation, AUTHOR: Lindsey Tepe]
[Commentary] “In a country where we expect free Wi-Fi with our coffee, we should definitely demand it in our schools.” That’s a nice sentiment, Mr. President, but it’s going to take a lot to get there. The Federal Communications Commission’s E-rate Program serves a key policy lever to build out high-speed connectivity to schools and libraries, but to achieve that goal the program is in desperate need of reform. New America’s Education Policy Program and Open Technology Institute released a brief, Connected Communities in an Age of Digital Learning, which highlights our recommendations for program reform, also including a timeline for E-rate reform efforts. Experts across the fields of education, library sciences, and technology weighed in on how far we still have to go, and why we’re driving there in the first place.
benton.org/node/175584 | New America Foundation | NAF
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
TV IS DEAD. NOW WHAT?
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Clay Shirky]
[Commentary] In mid-century America, with the entire country tuned in to the same three networks -- and with social and economic pressures keeping ABC, CBS and NBC all in a zone of centrist consensus -- broadcast television put the mass in mass media. Naturally, this made it a tremendous platform for political campaigns to reach an enormous audience with one message. Today, though, the mass audience is dwindling, TV audiences are shrinking by the day, and the result is an upheaval for those in the business of winning elections using ads no less subtle than Johnson’s. But as the utility of TV wanes, savvy campaigns are adapting in a way that’s transforming their relationship to voters -- they’re treating supporters less like targets and more like participants. The fragmenting that disrupted broadcast television is now happening to cable TV. Committed voters, the ones who didn’t turn off TV news and read the political Internet avidly, used to be the ones a campaign could take for granted. They would always show up and always vote the party line. Now, though, they are becoming a critical media asset, a way to reach the ones -- and there are more every year -- who ignore the news in favor of the latest YouTube viral hit and never ever watch the ads now that they don’t have to.
[Shirky is professor of new media at New York University]
benton.org/node/175583 | Politico
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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE NEXT CAMPAIGN
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Nicco Mele]
[Commentary] Campaigning is a brutal business, with winners, losers -- and a fickle American public making the choice. In the age of Moneyball, it’s getting even tougher. In the old days, media teams had one main job: to make TV ads and buy time on the networks. But there’s no such thing as a “TV ad” anymore; video needs to find voters on their laptops and phones, too. On a fast-changing campaign, analytics have to be continually updated to keep pace. It’s conceivable that, in the future, yard signs and billboards will be able to measure how many cars pass by. T-shirts and other campaign gear worn by field workers could automatically tally how many doors are knocked on and transmit this data back to a campaign’s central hub. We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.” Polling -- a kind of science built on sampling and models -- is about to become obsolete.
[Mele, lecturer, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government]
benton.org/node/175582 | Politico
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RESEARCH
STATEMENT ON CRITICAL INFORMATION NEEDS STUDY
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission will not move forward with the Critical Information Needs study. The FCC will reassess the best way to fulfill its obligation to Congress to identify barriers to entry into the communications marketplace faced by entrepreneurs and other small businesses. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said, “I am pleased that the FCC has canceled its Critical Information Needs study. In our country, the government does not tell the people what information they need. Instead, news outlets and the American public decide that for themselves. I look forward to working with my colleagues to identify and remove actual barriers to entry into the communications industry. This newsroom study was a distraction from that important goal.”
benton.org/node/175612 | Federal Communications Commission | Commissioner Pai | The Hill
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THE REAL STORY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Lewis Friedland]
[Commentary] In much of the 20th century, Americans received the information that they depended on through newspapers. The decline of newspapers as economic institutions is now a truism. But whether the information they provided is no longer needed, or is being provided by some alternative source (usually asserted to be the Internet) is not clear. Why does this matter? Because more and more of the basic institutional needs of Americans depend on local information markets. There is much about community information needs that we just don’t know. And the only way to know more is through high quality research. That’s exactly what the Federal Communications Commission is trying to do before making critical decisions on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership that could further reduce the production of local community information, or allowing the expansion of national cable concentration and greater control of local broadband markets that, for most Americans, are poorly performing, overpriced duopolies. To fail to even ask the questions would be an abnegation of its responsibility to the public interest.
[Friedland is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison]
benton.org/node/175611 | Washington Post
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THE THIRD RAIL OF REGULATION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L Gordon Crovitz]
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission dropped a planned study of newsrooms, following objections that the government has no business meddling with journalism. The critics were right, but it's a shame the FCC gave up so quickly. Even the brief experience of being micromanaged by regulators reminded reporters and editors of the kind of government overreach every other industry routinely experiences. Thanks to the First Amendment, journalists operate in the least regulated industry. Even broadcasters, whose licenses have to be renewed every eight years, are supposed to have free speech. The FCC made the mistake of touching the third rail of regulation by applying the heavy hand of government to journalism. The spectacle of the FCC's abandoning this study is a reminder that this remains the agency posing the greatest threat to the open Internet. Lobbyists for "net neutrality" want the FCC to set rules for the Internet on everything from how content is sent across the network to pricing. Will the agency now also invoke "net neutrality" for a study on how bloggers make their news decisions? Will bureaucrats review the demographics of people posting YouTube videos? Can regulators require Facebook and Twitter to have a "fair" representation of links to news and opinion articles by their users around the world? If overregulation is the norm for every other industry, it would be understandable if critics of the news media objected that this should be should be fine for the news industry, too. A better response would be to use this episode to demand that regulators do more to liberate every other industry.
benton.org/node/175610 | Wall Street Journal
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WHICH IS BETTER: IGNORANCE OR KNOWLEDGE?
[SOURCE: United Church of Christ, AUTHOR: Cheryl Leanza]
Federal Communications Commission Chair Tom Wheeler concluded that he was not comfortable with part of a comprehensive study of the media marketplace and decided to eliminate the portion of the study that gave him concern. The truth of the matter is that conservative activists scored a victory in favor of ignorance over facts. This so-called controversy has a lot in common with the false debate over whether greenhouse gas causes climate change or whether smoking causes cancer. It is entirely possible we'll hear accusations that the studies are really all about affirmative action or voting fraud or some other conservative lightening rod. This lack of knowledge has been a real problem for the FCC. In fact, a number of policies that many of the critics presumably support have been overturned in court because the FCC did not have the facts and analysis to support its decisions. And what of the so-called secret army of "media monitors" spreading out across the country to intimidate journalists into giving the "right" answers and covering the "right" stories? They don't exist. What we did have government-funded researchers conducting a voluntary, anonymous series of questions to understand better the decision-making process in newsrooms generally.
benton.org/node/175579 | United Church of Christ
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