July 2014

América Móvil to Shed Assets, Loosening Grip

América Móvil, the Latin American telecom giant, will sell off parts of its Mexican unit, an unexpected capitulation by its controlling shareholder, Carlos Slim Helú, to strong new antimonopoly rules.

The announcement, which could set off a shake-up in Mexico’s stagnant telecommunications industry, was a victory for regulators after years of failed efforts to rein in the dominance of Slim’s company. The announcement came just as Mexican legislators approved new laws governing Mexico’s telecommunications and broadcasting industries. The laws are intended to open Mexico’s telephone and media markets, which have long been quasi monopolies, and attract billions of dollars in new investments from competitors.

Why do US ISPs want to charge for peering? Peering makes the Internet cheaper. Here’s how

As more broadband networks connect directly to each other via peering agreements, the amount of money paid for Internet transit could fall, according to a report from TeleGeography. That’s good for users of the Internet, but will cut into transit revenue at companies that range from Level 3 and Cogent to ISPs.

Of course, TeleGeography isn’t sure if this will take place.

By cutting out the Internet’s middlemen, peering agreements lower the cost of bandwidth and the cost of IP services. The TeleGeography report lays out the case for peering gaining ground over transit, and shows how it expects peering to grow. This is good for the Internet as a whole, but this anticipated shift to peering over paying for transit has led to some behavior shifts that are causing harms for consumers.

It also means trouble for existing transit providers, especially those without other lines of business. Peering, the practice of two networks exchanging traffic directly either for free or for money, has been going on for decades. Historically, networks of a certain size would sign peering agreements because it would save them money.

Instead of building out an Internet pipeline to every endpoint, two networks meet in the middle and exchange traffic. In 2012, an OECD report found that peering has helped lower the overall cost of providing bandwidth and that most peering agreements are unpaid.

In the digital world, privacy is the price of admission

[Commentary] Each time news flares of Facebook or other Web-based entities caught mining or manipulating user data -- as it did recently with the revelation that Facebook in 2012 tweaked user news feeds to gauge emotional reactions -- Internet privacy activists and consumers alike react in outrage. And each time, outrage soon gives way to business as usual.

Is it time to accept the fact that the price of living in our socially connected, high-tech age is forking over our right to do so anonymously? The glaring reality is yes.

"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product," says Adi Kamdar, activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has monitored privacy issues from the Web's earliest days. The price of admission isn't cash but personal data.

"What we learned from the Facebook incident was simply that your online experience is highly curated from a profit-motivated point of view," says Kamdar of the social network's experiment, in which 670,000 users were fed both negative and positive posts (shocking result: the former made them sad and vice versa). "I hope it teaches people not to put all their eggs in one online basket."

Most Definitely: Terminate Dormant Proceedings

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB) has released a Public Notice seeking comment on whether to terminate almost 650 dormant proceedings (i.e., dockets that have no planned action and no further comments expected).

I applaud FCC Chairman Wheeler for initiating this item as well as the CBG staff and the individual Bureaus and Offices that worked on this document. The FCC has over 2,800 open proceedings pending. I believe that closing outdated FCC proceedings makes a lot of sense. Doing so could help the agency become more organized and focused on decisions that need to be made.

It could also make it easier for both Congress and the public to track what the agency is working on or still considering. And it could help prevent the FCC from using antiquated information as a basis for regulating.

Senate Intelligence Committee approves cybersecurity bill

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 12-3 to advance a cybersecurity bill that privacy advocates fear will give more information to the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies.

The bill's authors -- Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) -- hailed the vote as a step towards protecting the country from growing online threats.

Cybersecurity "is a serious problem and we need to begin" addressing it, Chairman Feinstein said after the vote. "No bill is going to be perfect that's going to be able to encompass a bipartisan approach.”

Sen Franken: Net neutrality is ‘First Amendment issue of our time’

Making sure all surfers on the Web enjoy the same speed no matter which website they visit is a fundamental free speech issue, Sen Al Franken (D-MN) said. “It is absolutely the First Amendment issue of our time,” Sen Franken said.

“Do we want deep-pocketed corporations controlling what information you get at what speed?” he added.

Sen Franken, who has been a critical supporter of the concept of net neutrality, said that other members of Congress simply don’t understand the way the Internet works.

“This has been the architecture of the Internet from the beginning, and everyone should understand that,” he said. “Some of my colleagues in the Congress don’t understand that. ... You just want to go ‘Oh, come on,’ ” Sen Franken said. “ 'Really, don’t get up and talk unless you know something.' ”

Etsy Weighs In on Net Neutrality as FCC Comment Deadline Looms

With just a filing deadline approaching, companies are starting to weigh in on the Federal Communications Commission’s controversial fast-lane net neutrality proposal.

E-commerce marketplace Etsy said that it can’t support the current proposal, which would allow Internet providers to charge content companies to use faster, priority lanes into subscribers’ homes.

“Etsy’s continued growth depends on equal access to consumers,” the company said.

In an official filing with the agency, Etsy said Chairman Tom Wheeler’s assurances that his plan won’t create a fast-lane/slow-lane Internet because the agency would veto any unreasonable commercial proposal weren’t enough.

“The proposed ‘commercially reasonable’ standard and ‘minimum access levels’ give us no comfort,” the company said. “If the proposed rules were in place when Etsy was founded, we would never have achieved the success we have today. Etsy and other startups will suffer if the FCC allows some companies to negotiate priority or exclusive access to consumers.”

Santa Fe hopes to boost Internet speed, compete with new line

Santa Fe (NM) residents pay the same average monthly rate for Internet service as Albuquerque residents, but can only browse the Web at half the speed.

A $1 million city project aims to close that gap. The money will fund an independent pipeline to the Internet in an effort city officials hope will increase competition and drive up Internet speeds.

But some Internet providers aren’t happy with the project or the way the city sidestepped open bidding in awarding the contract. One of the state’s largest Internet providers questions whether the project is needed or will promote the diversity of providers sought by city officials. Another company threatened litigation before backing down.

City officials are undeterred. And ordinary consumers and businesses who rely on the Internet say anything that improves the city’s plodding Web speeds is welcome.

Mid-Year Report on House Commerce Committee Accomplishments for 2014

House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) released a report on the accomplishments of the committee in the first six months of 2014.

The mid-year review continues the tradition of status reports issued throughout the tenure of Chairman Upton on the committee’s legislative and oversight work under the current Republican majority. The updates are part of the committee’s effort to increase transparency and ensure the public has easy and ready access to the panel’s work.

The Communications and Technology Subcommittee, led by Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and Vice Chairman Bob Latta (R-OH), is a hub of activity related to job creation and economic growth.

The communications sector remains an economic bright spot, attracting both investment and innovation as new technologies translate to new jobs and entirely new industries. As part of its effort to explore and foster these opportunities, the subcommittee explored a range of issues from media ownership to oversight designed to protect the freedom of the global Internet, which is itself a major driver of economic growth in the US and around the world.

Statement of Commissioner Ajit Pai On The Breakdown Of E-Rate Negotiations

Any good math teacher would give the Federal Communications Commission’s E-Rate proposal an “F” because the numbers just don’t add up.

It promises over $5 billion for Wi-Fi but doesn’t identify where the money will come from to fund this new program. As it stands, the proposal will blow a $2.7 billion hole in E-Rate’s budget -- one that the FCC has promised outside parties it’ll fill with a post-election increase in Americans’ phone bills. The proposal also doesn’t pass the test in other respects.

Rather than giving small, rural schools and libraries a fair shake, it continues to direct the bulk of E-Rate funds to large, urban school districts.

Instead of fundamentally reforming the E-Rate bureaucracy, the plan doubles down on complexity. Schools and libraries will still have to file reams of paperwork, operate on Washington’s timeline, and hire consultants -- that is, if they participate in the program at all.

Rather than giving local school boards, principals, teachers, and librarians the flexibility to decide what services and technologies best meet their communities’ particular needs, the plan takes a Washington-knows-best mindset.

Benton

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