April 2014

[Commentary] Recently, the New York Times had a story about the benefits of fiber, entitled “For the Tech-Savvy with a Need for Speed, a Limited Choice of Towns With Fiber.”

The article correctly identifies the superiority of all-fiber networks over older copper-based technologies, as demonstrated by an accompanying graphic from Ookla showing that, nationwide, Verizon FiOS is providing the fastest connections and that 8 of the top 10 states are states where FiOS has been deployed. Fortunately, for thousands of towns -- and major metropolitan areas, such as New York and Washington, DC -- throughout Verizon’s footprint, and for millions of our landline customers, the transition to fiber is already well underway. Fiber-based services from Verizon are available to more than 16 million homes, and soon, about 70 percent of our footprint will be fiberized.

In contrast, fewer than 1 million (about 6%) of the homes in those areas are still getting service over copper lines. While that small percentage (and shrinking every day) is on the copper network, keeping that network up and running still generates 100 percent of its costs. There are also hidden costs, such as environmental impacts, given that it takes much more power to run the copper network than a fiber network. Unfortunately, there are some who for a variety of reasons are trying to put the brakes on fiber upgrades, and by extension, fiber deployment. They think that the old copper networks should be kept indefinitely.

Needless to say, no existing telephone company will be able to make the investment necessary to build a new fiber network if it is forced to keep the old, redundant, and costly copper network running, too. Policymakers at all levels of government must recognize that the upgrade from copper to fiber provides significant benefits for consumers and for the communities where this takes place. The social benefits of a transition to fiber must outweigh the preference that a few holdouts might have for a more familiar technology.

Policy makers must be courageous and enable the upgrade to fiber to proceed. Getting the fiber networks that are critical for the future of their communities will not happen as long as a small minority of residents are clinging to the copper networks of the past.

Univision Communications is restructuring its radio division, eliminating dozens of workers at stations around the country as the company centralizes its programming functions.

Univision just confirmed that there had been layoffs, but it declined to say how many people had lost their jobs as part of the realignment. The nation's largest Spanish-language media company, which owns 68 radio stations, began trimming programming staff and some on-air hosts, including in Chicago, in an effort to cut costs.

Rather than rely on staff at the various stations, the company instead is creating three programming centers -- in Los Angeles, San Antonio and Miami -- to produce entertainment for the station chain. “The content teams ... will provide customized and localized content across all of our markets, digital, and beyond,” Jose Valle, president of Univision Radio, said in an open letter distributed by Univision.

Stations will continue to employ local staff members to work with advertisers.

President Barack Obama's plan for overhauling the National Security Agency's phone surveillance program could force carriers to collect and store customer data that they are not now legally obliged to keep, according to US officials.

One complication arises from the popularity of flat-rate or unlimited calling plans, which are used by the vast majority of Americans. While the Federal Communications Commission requires phone companies to retain for 18 months records on "toll" or long-distance calls, the rule's application is vague for subscribers of unlimited phone plans because they do not get billed for individual calls. That could change if the Obama Administration pushes through with a proposal to require carriers -- instead of the NSA -- to collect and store phone metadata, which includes dialed numbers and call lengths but not the content of conversations.

Under the Administration's proposal, the phone companies would be required to turn over the data to the NSA in response to a court-approved government request. US officials said the carriers might be forced to create new mechanisms to ensure that metadata from flat-rate subscribers could be monitored. They said these issues will require further discussion between the White House, Congress and industry.

[Commentary] The Obama Administration set forth a proposal to reform one part of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program: the indiscriminate collection of American phone records.

Under the President’s proposal, the government would no longer collect call data in bulk but would be allowed to ask for it from phone companies with court approval, and only for numbers linked to terrorism.

But the White House proposal leaves plenty of room for reporters’ information to be caught up in the NSA’s -- albeit smaller -- dragnet: The government would still be allowed to collect data for numbers “two hops,” or degrees of separation, from the targeted number, down from three. And once the government has that data, there are few restrictions on what they can do with it. In other words, the proposed reforms don’t appear to do anything to address journalists’ concerns about this administration’s crackdown on national security leaks.

“Journalists are at risk if they communicate by phone with potential NSA targets -- or even if they simply talk with others who happen to speak with those targets,” said Patrick Toomey, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.