July 2014

The battle for better broadband access across the UK

For Sajid Javid, the pragmatic former banker turned UK culture secretary, improving the UK’s much criticised broadband and mobile networks is his most important goal ahead of the next general election.

But the government’s focus on pushing operators to improve mobile services in rural areas of the UK, in particular, faces mounting industry opposition, even as work progresses on other parts of a digital strategy that hopes to create national networks that will rival any in Europe. The Department for Culture, Media & Sport faces a potential quagmire of objections about plans to bridge gaps in mobile coverage using “national roaming”, whereby a customer of any operator would be able to use the network of another.

Britain’s need for broadband speed

[Commentary] Since coming to office in 2010, David Cameron has striven to be Britain’s prime minister for broadband.

A technophile whose admiration for Silicon Valley is well known, he has extolled the virtues of faster connectivity as a means of reviving the UK’s industrial fortunes and bringing more tourists to the country’s shores. Targets have been set to wire up the UK, eliminate so-called “not spots” and increase average download speeds. During the past four years, the coalition has earmarked more than £1.3bn of public money for the construction of broadband networks and mobile infrastructure in digitally excluded areas. Cameron is right to harp on about the importance of “bringing China to Cardiff, Brazil to Bristol and the Emirates to Edinburgh”. Not least, this is an important mission if the coalition is to rebalance the British economy away from its pre-crash bias towards the London and the south east and financial services.

But the UK tech revolution is a work in progress. Like the nation’s broadband speeds themselves, it needs to move faster.

Senator 'within inches' of NSA reform deal

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is close to an agreement with Obama Administration on how to rein in government surveillance. Sen Leahy said that he is “impressed” with the Administration’s efforts to work towards a compromise.

“A whole lot of people are coming together, from the intelligence agencies, law enforcement, the administration,” he said. According to an aide to Sen Leahy, the senator and the Administration are “within inches” of an agreement on legislation. If a deal is reached, the bill could head straight to the Senate floor, the aide said.

House Homeland Security Committee To Hold 9/11 Hearing

The House Homeland Security Committee has scheduled a hearing for July 23 on the just-released Tenth Anniversary Report from the members of the 9/11 Commission.

Among the recommendations of that new report were that Congress needs to drop the partisan brickbat swinging long enough to pass cybersecurity legislation and that data collection is important to national security so long as civil liberties are protected.

Mobile-Ad Spending Leaps, but Trails User Growth

After less than a decade of existence, smartphones and tablets in 2014 will draw more money from advertisers than the centuries-old newspaper industry or the nearly century-old radio sector, a sign of just how rapidly technology is transforming media habits.

But given how much time Americans spend on their devices, mobile-ad spending could be much higher, an indication that marketers remain uncertain about the medium's effectiveness. Research firm eMarketer estimates that spending on mobile advertising, which includes both smartphones and tablets, will soar 83% to nearly $18 billion in 2014. Newspapers will draw nearly $17 billion, while radio will bring in $15.5 billion.

Still, the imbalance remains stark: American adults now spend almost a quarter of their media time on mobile devices, eMarketer estimates, yet 2014 spending growth will raise mobile's share of the ad market to only 9.8%. By contrast, American adults spend only 2% of their media time reading newspapers but ad spending for the sector hangs just under 10% of the overall market, eMarketer estimates.

Verizon Beats Earnings Estimates on Stronger User Gains

Verizon Communications, the largest US wireless carrier, exceeded profit estimates on stronger customer gains even as rivals including T-Mobile US brought more price competition to the industry.

While subscriber growth drove the profit gains, wireless margins and the size of customers’ phone bills were smaller than analysts expected. More than 82 percent of those new customers were tablet buyers, Verizon said.

With the company selling more tablets than phones and offering discounts on data plans, customers’ monthly phone bills will likely shrink, putting more pressure on wireless margins, said Kevin Smithen, an analyst with Macquarie Securities USA.

The average size of customers’ monthly bills grew 4.7 percent to $159.73. Verizon’s wireless service margins expanded to 50.3 percent. Verizon’s Edge plan spreads the phone charges over 20 months and lowers service plan charges by $10 or $25 a month depending on the data allotment.

While the shift threatens to erode wireless service revenue and margins, the move may help keep customers from switching to T-Mobile, which was the first carrier to offer phone financing in early 2013.

Keynote Address by Assistant Secretary Strickling at the American Enterprise Institute

I want to focus on what has been happening in response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) announcement in March that we intend to transition our stewardship role with respect to the Internet domain name system (DNS).

What is NTIA’s role today with respect to the domain name system? And what is changing?

This transition is the last step in a process that started 16 years ago when the US government committed to allowing the private sector to take leadership for domain name system management. In 1998, the Department of Commerce designated the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to perform what are known as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

First, as ICANN has performed the IANA functions over the years, it has matured as an organization and has taken important steps to improve its accountability and transparency as well as its technical competence.

Second, as witnessed so strongly in the past several months, international support has continued to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance.

And as a result, many of the Internet’s key stakeholders support this transition. NTIA's contract with ICANN simply designates it to perform the IANA functions.

Neither ICANN nor the United States pays anything to each other under this contract. Now that ICANN has demonstrated its ability to perform these functions with the support of the community, there is no longer a need for the United States to designate ICANN to perform these functions and we are not obligated to maintain a contract when it is no longer needed.

House Approves Bipartisan Satellite Television Reauthorization

The House of Representatives approved bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the nation’s satellite television law to ensure that millions of satellite subscribers continue to receive broadcast programming.

H.R. 4572, the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (now christened the STELA Reauthorization, or STELAR, act) of 2014, which was approved by voice vote, reauthorizes the communications and copyright provisions of existing law for five years and makes a number of narrow reforms to better meet the needs of today’s video marketplace.

The legislation is a joint product of the House Commerce and Judiciary Committees. Authored by Upton, Walden, full committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), and Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo (D-CA), H.R. 4572 makes the following targeted reforms to the video marketplace:

Prohibits joint retransmission consent negotiations;
Provides broadcasters additional time to unwind business arrangements deemed no longer in the public interest by the FCC through its recent changes in how it calculates ownership interests under the media ownership rules;
Eliminates the “sweeps” week prohibition on signal change; and
Eliminates the set-top box integration ban.

STELAR Passage Gets Stellar Reception

The House's bipartisan passage of the STELAR Act satellite bill on July 22 got plenty of stakeholder praise after it passed on voice vote in a fast track move that signaled it was a non-controversial item.

Cable operators, who were able to secure retransmission consent and set-top reforms, applauded House leaders for the bipartisan offering.

Rep Latta: Nixing Integration Ban Is Win-Win

In advance of what is expected to be a bipartisan vote on a House Commerce Committee version of a bill reauthorizing the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (now christened the STELA Reauthorization, or STELAR, act), Rep Bob Latta (R-OH) talked about the importance of scrapping the ban on integrated set-tops, which he says will save cable operator costs and consumer's on their energy bills.

Rep Latta, vice chairman of the Communications Subcommittee, was instrumental in getting his CableCARD bill added to the legislation in the House Commerce Committee, a move strongly backed by cable operators. Also in the bill is a prohibition on coordinated retransmission consent negotiations among non-commonly owned TV stations in a market, another provision strongly backed by cable operators.

The bill, including both provisions, is expect to pass with bipartisan support on July 22 in the House. It is being voted on the suspension calendar, which is a short-cut for noncontroversial bills.

Benton

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