April 2014

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014

Today’s busy agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2014-04-03/

INTERNET/TELECOMMUNICATIONS
   Underscoring Commitment to Free and Open Internet, Subcommittee Continues Robust Oversight of Latest Administration Proposal - press release
   Rep Blackburn: President Obama hypocritical on Internet control
   ICANN chief: Russia, China will not hijack Internet oversight
   Sens Thune, Rubio Demand Answers from Administration on Internet Transition
   Tech advocacy groups back Internet oversight shift [links to web]
   The Autocrat-and-Mouse Censorship Game - Andy Kessler op-ed [links to web]
   For the Tech-Savvy With a Need for Speed, a Limited Choice of Towns With Fiber
   Crawford’s faulty arguments -- in all their naked glory - AEI analysis
   Google Fiber faces 'issues' as it seeks public rights of way
   Sprint, T-Mobile Caution FCC on AT&T All-IP Trials
   Ridgeland Second MS City To Qualify Multiple Areas For C Spire’s 1 Gbps Fiber To The Home Internet Technology Initiative - press release [links to web]
   Telcos Outsource Rural Call Completion Reporting [links to web]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   More on Auction Limits - AT&T analysis [links to web]

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Supreme Court Strikes Down Overall Political Donation Cap

TELEVISION
   FCC’s Wheeler defends broadcaster crackdown
   Rep Eshoo calls for ‘rebalancing’ video law
   Why Amazon wants to rule your television - analysis
   ACA: Small Cable Companies Offer Communications Service to 14% of US Homes [links to web]
   What We All Pay for Sports - analysis

CONTENT
   Mobile Video Forecast to Comprise Half of Online Video By 2016 [links to web]
   Hulu Plus Inks Exclusive Licensing Deal With Parent NBCUniversal [links to web]
   Lofty Newspaper Project Is Closed After Two Years [links to web]

PRIVACY/SECURITY
   Consumers are souring on Web, post-NSA, survey says [links to web]
   Companies e-mail sensitive data to law enforcement
   SEC defends email privacy practices [links to web]
   FTC wants stronger rules on consumer data [links to web]
   DHS Quietly Delivers Hacker Footprints To Industry
   State and Local Government Cybersecurity - White House press release [links to web]
   Yahoo now encrypting traffic from its data centers, and plans to encrypt Messenger too [links to web]

LABOR
   Writers Guild, Hollywood Producers Agree on New 3-Year Contract [links to web]

EDUCATION
   Building smart networks to improve learning - CoSN op-ed [links to web]

GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
   After Healthcare.gov, can the government make its technology suck less? [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   EU votes network neutrality into law, abolishes mobile roaming charges
   Turkish Court Overturns Countrywide Twitter Ban [links to web]
   A Nudge on Digital Privacy Law from EU Official
   ITU drives global effort to strengthen cybersecurity - press release [links to web]

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INTERNET/TELECOMMUNICATIONS

UNDERSCORING COMMITMENT TO FREE AND OPEN INTERNET, SUBCOMMITTEE CONTINUES ROBUST OVERSIGHT OF LATEST ADMINISTRATION PROPOSAL
[SOURCE: House of Representatives Commerce Committee, AUTHOR: Press release]
The House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep Greg Walden (R-OR), held a hearing on “Ensuring the Security, Stability, Resilience, and Freedom of the Global Internet.” Members sought answers regarding the Obama administration’s proposal instructing the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to explore ways to remove the United States from its oversight role of the Domain Name System and replace it with a different multistakeholder governance model. Members expressed concern about any change that could leave the Internet vulnerable to power grabs from international governments and sought commitments that the administration would not permit any outcome that fails to protect the ideals of Internet freedom and openness. As part of their review, members also discussed H.R. 4342, the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act of 2014, legislation authored by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), which would direct the Government Accountability Office to study the proposed changes and present a non-partisan evaluation before NTIA is permitted to modify the current Domain Name System.
benton.org/node/179745 | House of Representatives Commerce Committee
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REP BLACKBURN: PRESIDENT OBAMA HYPOCRITICAL ON INTERNET CONTROL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kate Tummarello]
Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) criticized the Obama Administration for praising a “multistakeholder” approach to Internet governance while pushing for rules that would place limits on Internet providers’ business models. “We are not setting a good example,” Rep Blackburn, vice chairwoman of the House Commerce Committee, said during a hearing held by the House Commerce subcommittee on Technology. During the hearing, Rep Blackburn questioned how the Administration could push for Internet governance by global stakeholders through the Commerce Department while the Federal Communications Commission attempts to rewrite its network neutrality rules. Those rules kept Internet providers from slowing or blocking access to certain websites before they were struck down by a federal court in early 2014. The agency is in the process of rewriting those rules under a different legal justification.
benton.org/node/179744 | Hill, The
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ICANN CHIEF: RUSSIA, CHINA WILL NOT HIJACK INTERNET OVERSIGHT
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Alina Selyukh]
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) chief Fadi Chehadé defended the US government's move to cede oversight of the body, and downplayed concerns that Russia, China or other countries could exert control and restrict the web's openness. said the multi-stakeholder model -- with governments, the private sector and other interested parties reaching consensus with equal power -- will continue to restrain countries seeking to limiting the web's openness and freedom. "Everyone is focused on these three, four countries ... but in between we have 150 other countries that value the same values we do," Chehadé said in an interview after a congressional hearing. "Our commitment to the multi-stakeholder model is not so much for the few who do not believe in it, it should be to the great middle mass that would like to see us stand by it and they will stand with us. This is the bet we need to make."
benton.org/node/179743 | Reuters
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SENS THUNE, RUBIO DEMAND ANSWERS FROM ADMINISTRATION ON INTERNET TRANSITION
[SOURCE: US Senate Commerce Committee, AUTHOR: Press release]
Sens John Thune (R-SD) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) and 33 of their Senate Republican colleagues sent a letter to Assistant Secretary of Commerce Larry Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), seeking clarification regarding the recent announcement that NTIA intends to relinquish responsibility of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions to the global multistakeholder community. The letter expresses strong support for “the existing bottom-up, multistakeholder approach to the Internet governance,” and cautions: “We must not allow the IANA functions to fall under the control of repressive governments, America’s enemies, or unaccountable bureaucrats.” The letter goes on to say: “The global community of Internet stakeholders should act deliberately and transparently as it formulates a possible proposal to transition the IANA functions to a nongovernmental entity. The multistakeholder model of Internet governance and the IANA functions are far too important for this process to be rushed or to be done behind closed doors.” Among other things, the letter asks the administration to “explain why it is in our national interest to transition the IANA functions,” and how NTIA will ensure “the IANA functions do not end up being controlled, directly or indirectly, by a government or inter-governmental entity.”
benton.org/node/179731 | US Senate Commerce Committee
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LIMITED CHOICE FOR FIBER CONNECTIONS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Kate Murphy]
In the United States only 7.7 percent of broadband subscribers have optical fiber connections, the fastest and highest quality available. While there are few “fiber to the home” locations, and they are not exactly metropolitan, tech-savvy entrepreneurs and individuals are flocking to them. They are pulling up stakes and moving to places like Lafayette (LA); Chattanooga (TN); Wilson (NC); and Mount Vernon (WA). These digital carpetbaggers aren’t just leaving behind jittery Netflix streams and aggravating waits for Twitter feeds to refresh. They are positioning themselves to be more globally competitive and connected. The United States ranks in 14th place behind countries like Sweden, Japan, South Korea, Romania and Macau in fiber connectivity. For a comparison, Ookla’s NetIndex shows Internet speeds by city worldwide. The fastest are in countries where the government has paid for fiber upgrades. But in the United States it has been left to cable and telecom companies, which have been slow to make the investment.
benton.org/node/179751 | New York Times
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CRAWFORD’S FAULTY ARGUMENTS -- IN ALL THEIR NAKED GLORY
[SOURCE: American Enterprise Institute, AUTHOR: James Glassman]
[Commentary] Susan Crawford is talking again, this time in a long interview with Ezra Klein of Vox. Klein pushes her more than most of her interlocutors, and, as a result, we see her arguments in all their naked glory. Crawford’s is not just a statist view of communications, but also a deeply pessimistic and nostalgic one. It must be. Otherwise, she would have to concede the success of a “private market… left to its own devices.” Crawford selectively cites statistics that show US consumers getting poor service compared with Swedes, Slovenians, Singaporeans and the like. My colleagues Rosyln Layton and Bret Swanson dispose of such deceptive comparisons easily. For example, the current generation standard of 4G/LTE networks are available to 97% of Americans but just 26% of Europeans. But where Crawford truly fails is her confusion between these selective inputs and America’s spectacular outputs. What the cable companies, the telecoms, and the satellites provide is an infrastructure, a platform. On top of that platform has been built a magnificent, rapidly changing edifice. Further, the Klein interview reveals Crawford’s fixation on delivery of Internet by wire. But the growth and the future of broadband are mobile. Just ask Facebook. The mobile broadband market has ignited major capital spending by US companies -- six times more per subscriber than global counterparts. [Glassman is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on Internet and communications policy in the new AEI Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy]
benton.org/node/179689 | American Enterprise Institute
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GOOGLE FIBER FACES 'ISSUES' AS IT SEEKS PUBLIC RIGHTS OF WAY
[SOURCE: The Oregonian, AUTHOR: Mike Rogoway]
Google set politicians and netizens abuzz in February when it suggested it might bring that fiber to the Portland area, perhaps as soon as 2015. But building a faster network could invite years of disruption as Google installs networking equipment around the city and buries fiber along suburban streets. The service could also necessitate new rules about what’s allowed in the public right of way -- and open the door to other companies installing their own gear on public property. “There’s issues,” said Portland city commissioner Steve Novick, who runs the transportation bureau, which oversees rights of way. “But we’re very hopeful we can work out the issues.”
benton.org/node/179729 | Oregonian, The
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SPRINT, T-MOBILE CAUTION FCC ON AT&T ALL-IP TRIALS
[SOURCE: Wireless Week, AUTHOR: Andrew Berg]
Sprint and T-Mobile are calling into question AT&T's recently announced IP-network trials in Florida and Alabama, saying the initiative is holding back the rest of the industry's move to develop cross-carrier IP interconnections. "AT&T’s proposed experiment is putting the cart before the horse," Sprint wrote in a filing at the Federal Communications Commission, arguing that many of the benefits of AT&T's transition to an all-IP infrastructure will be lost if carriers do not first migrate their wholesale and inter-carrier interconnections to IP. Calling AT&T's experiment "isolated" and "complicated", Sprint argued that "carriers should not have to wait for this experiment to finish before migrating their networks from Time Division Multiplex (TDM) to IP or to interconnect in IP format with other carriers. T-Mobile expressed similar reservations in a separate filing, urging the commission not to let trials such as AT&T’s distract it from ensuring interconnection amongst all carriers. T-Mobile suggested that the commission ensure AT&T’s trials do not involve "unnecessary, inefficient, and consumer-impacting TDM-IP conversions or needlessly inefficient" Points of Interconnection (POI).
benton.org/node/179698 | Wireless Week
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

CAMPAIGN FINANCE DECISION
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Adam Liptak]
The Supreme Court continued its abolition of limits on election spending, striking down a decades-old cap on the total amount any individual can contribute to federal candidates in a two-year election cycle. The ruling, issued near the start of a campaign season, will very likely increase the role money plays in American politics. The 5-to-4 decision, with the Court’s more conservative members in the majority, echoed Citizens United, the 2010 decision that struck down limits on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. The new decision seemed to alter campaign finance law in subtle but important ways, notably by limiting how the government can justify laws said to restrict the exercise of First Amendment rights in the form of campaign contributions. The Court’s 88-page decision reflected sharply different visions of the meaning of the First Amendment and the role of government in regulating elections, with the majority deeply skeptical of government efforts to control participation in politics, and the minority saying that such oversight was needed to ensure a functioning democracy.
benton.org/node/179752 | New York Times | Associated Press | CommLawCenter | WSJ | Washington Post
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TELEVISION

FCC HEAD DEFENDS BROADCASTER CRACKDOWN
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is defending a controversial move to limit broadcast companies’ ability to cooperate as merely an attempt to defend the laws on the book. At a summit put on the by the American Cable Association, Chairman Wheeler accused broadcasters of carrying on a “charade” to skirt the rules. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out,” he told the supportive cable industry crowd. “This concept of competition and diversity and localism was being undone by legal legerdemain,” he said. “It makes no sense to create a situation where you own a broadcast license, I want to get control of that license but I can’t because I own another station in town, and I’ll tell you what, I’m going to buy 90 percent of all of your assets... and you keep the license because that makes you the owner.” “What we were trying to do was say: ‘Look, this is harmful to competition. It is harmful to the marketplace of broadcast transactions,’” Chairman Wheeler said. “There is a set of rules, a set of concepts, that have been hallowed in communications law. We’re trying to stick to those concepts and say how do those apply in this world?”
benton.org/node/179712 | Hill, The
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REP ESHOO CALLS FOR ‘REBALANCING’ VIDEO LAW
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Communications Subcommittee, wants to shift the balance of power between broadcasters and paid television companies like cable and satellite firms. Rep Eshoo pushed for a “rebalancing” of the federal video laws to prevent broadcast companies like ABC, NBC and CBS from being able to black out local stations during disputes with cable and satellite companies, which pay to retransmit the channels. “I think that there needs to be, obviously, a rebalancing of the law,” she said at the annual summit of the American Cable Association, a group of small cable companies. “Much of the law was written to produce localism, but you see so many trends moving against that today.” Consumers, she added, are getting “screwed and tattooed” in the arrangements allowed under current law, which can add up to billions of dollars but are “a racket.”
benton.org/node/179704 | Hill, The | Multichannel News
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WHY AMAZON WANTS TO RULE YOUR TELEVISION
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
[Commentary] Where's the next major battleground for technology companies? For all the talk of drones, wearables, homes of the future and flying Internet networks, the truth is that tech companies are still keenly interested in the consumer electronics device that's been a fixture in the American living room for decades: the television. Speculation has been flying for years that Amazon will release a streaming video device -- similar to Apple's Apple TV or Google's Chromecast -- that brings online video content, and potentially Android-based games, to the largest screen in your house. Why? Despite what you may think, the TV is still where people turn for the bulk of their screen time, and Amazon wants to be a main portal for all of your entertainment. According to the data from the Nielsen published in February, Americans still spend an average of 185 hours per month with their televisions, as opposed to 34 hours and 21 minutes with their smartphones. And while mobile use is on a steady rise -- up an average of six hours from the same time in 2013 -- much of that time is spent accessing entertainment, with Americans reporting 15 percent of all their mobile time is devoted to that exact purpose.
benton.org/node/179708 | Washington Post
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WHAT WE ALL PAY FOR SPORTS
[SOURCE: CCG Consulting, AUTHOR: Doug Dawson]
[Commentary] The average consumer in a major metropolitan market that has a number of pro sports teams is probably paying around $15 per month to get all of their sports programming. That’s $180 per year. In more rural markets where there are not direct channels for baseball and basketball the bill is probably closer to $11 per month or $130 dollars per year. This is a heck of a deal for sports fans. Let’s face it, paying $180 to get a huge array of the sports is a great deal when you figure it would cost that much for two people to go to one pro football game. But the problem is that not everybody is a sports fan. It’s been estimated through polls that maybe 40% of households are serious sports fans. If you do the math and if only the 40% of households that really want sports had to foot the bill that works out to $37.50 per month, or $450 per year, and that monthly number is climbing a few dollars every year. That’s where the rubber hits the road, because polls also say that a majority of those households would not pay that bill on an unbundled basis if they were asked to pay their fair share. What nobody wants to talk about is that the wheels are slowly starting to come off the cable industry. A recent nationwide poll said that 21% of households were thinking of dropping their cable TV subscription. They won’t all do that, of course, but it is a very bad sign for the industry when that many people say they are thinking about it. We can certainly expect millions of households per year to ditch cable. The average cable bill nationwide is now over $90 per month and many households are deciding that they just can’t afford it.
benton.org/node/179728 | CCG Consulting
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PRIVACY/SECURITY

COMPANIES E-MAIL SENSITIVE DATA TO LAW ENFORCEMENT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ashkan Soltani, Ellen Nakashima]
There’s a lack of rules governing the secure handling of law enforcement orders for data, industry experts say. Documents posted on Twitter by the Syrian Electronic Army, a collective of hackers and online activists supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, included correspondence between Microsoft’s government compliance team and various law enforcement agencies around the world. The documents contained criminal subpoenas, e-mail addresses of targets and “access keys,” presumably passwords, to the user packages Microsoft makes available to law enforcement. Other documents suggest the hackers also were able to access the account information Microsoft provides to law enforcement agencies, which includes the target’s name, location, Internet Protocol or computer address used by the target to sign-up for an e-mail account or to log-in to his e-mail account.
benton.org/node/179707 | Washington Post
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DHS QUIETLY DELIVERS HACKER FOOTPRINTS TO INDUSTRY
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Aliya Sternstein]
A little-known website sitting behind a firewall has been exchanging sensitive hack intelligence between companies and agencies at a rate of one new threat hallmark per hour, a top Homeland Security Department official said. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Collaboration Program, launched in 2011, virtually convenes about 70 critical industry and analytics organizations – think energy companies -- as well as federal departments. The result is bulletins provided in formats that computers can "read" so they can apply the appropriate protections. And containment recommendations are pumped out in plain text that people can read. "It enables us to identify those threats or organizations" that are a danger, said Roberta Stempfley, DHS acting assistant secretary of cybersecurity and communications. "We have shared through this program more than 26 unique indicators a day. You wouldn't think that that sounds like a large number. But it's unique indicators in a day. That's more than one an hour."
benton.org/node/179730 | nextgov
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

EU VOTE
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Jennifer Baker]
Blocking and throttling Internet traffic will become illegal in the European Union following a parliamentary vote on April 3. Members of the European Parliament voted to close loopholes in a proposed law that some believed would have created a two-tier Internet. The so-called Telecoms Package originally described "specialized services," which would have allowed Internet service providers to charge more for more data-intensive content services such as voice over IP and streaming video. The package also abolishes roaming charges for mobile phone use in the EU. The law is expected to be ratified by member states by the end of the year.
benton.org/node/179749 | IDG News Service | Wall Street Journal
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A NUDGE ON DIGITAL PRIVACY LAW FROM EU OFFICIAL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: James Kanter]
The top data protection official for the European Union called for member governments to restore public trust in the Internet by pressing ahead with an overhaul of the bloc’s electronic privacy laws by the end of 2014. The official, Peter Hustinx, the European data protection supervisor, also called on President Barack Obama to stick to his pledge to review American privacy rules in the wake of disclosures that have exposed the vast reach of government surveillance that has shaken trans-Atlantic relations. Another bill, aimed at providing more equitable access for companies and consumers to the Internet -- “network neutrality” -- and making mobile phone roaming less costly to consumers is now before the European Parliament, which is scheduled to vote on that legislation. Hustinx stressed the urgency of keeping the privacy legislation moving through the Council of the European Union in Brussels, the body in which national governments meet to adopt laws and coordinate policies. Hustinx called on the bloc’s 28 member states to reach a deal with one another and with the Parliament by the end of 2014, because “the 21st century requires stronger rights, stronger responsibilities, more consistency across Europe.” Hustinx also challenged the United States government to do more in updating its own rules. “There are some interesting movements in Washington, but we’d like to see much more,” he said. “If trust should be rebuilt, then it certainly takes a number of actions at the other side as well.” Hustinx suggested that European governments could be given added reassurance they would be in sync with the American approach to data privacy, if a group led by John Podesta, a special adviser to President Obama, issues its report on data privacy this spring as expected.
benton.org/node/179694 | New York Times
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