August 2014

Netflix says 99 percent of its links with ISPs are unpaid

Netflix hates writing checks to Internet service providers -- and luckily enough, it usually doesn't have to. Although Netflix has complained bitterly about having to pay Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable for direct connections to their networks, Netflix said that worldwide, it delivers traffic to 99 percent of Internet service providers without money changing hands. To Netflix, the fact that so few companies have the market power (i.e. size) to demand such payments is evidence that further consolidation should not be allowed.

This year’s net neutrality debate has completely missed the point

[Commentary] Despite the doomsday scares of a technology apocalypse, the current fight over who and how to regulate the Internet is not about the future of innovation, Internet access, broadband pricing, competition, fairness, or motherhood. It’s something much less exciting, though, depending on the outcome, much more dangerous.

At best, a full or partial government takeover of Internet access would almost certainly slow future network evolution. And in a bit of irony lost on advocates, such a radical move, assuming it passed legal muster, would actually make “fast lanes” easier, not harder, for Internet service providers to market. There’s simply no benefit -- and enormous cost -- to turning the Internet over to the Federal Communications Commission. Indeed, given the dearth of serious technical or legal problems in nearly 20 years of an unregulated Internet, it’s not clear that any new FCC rules are required. But in no sense is the Democrats’ proposal designed to “kill” net neutrality or otherwise destroy the Internet. As far as the Internet is concerned, Congress and the White House got things very very right in 1996. A million piece of hate mail to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and new terminology can’t change the past. Let’s hope it won’t change the future either.

[Downes is Project Director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy]

As Online Video Surges, the .TV Domain Rides the Wave

Amazon said it would pay $1.1 billion for a website that streams people playing video games. The website is called Twitch -- but its address is not Twitch.com, but Twitch.tv. It’s a distinction easily overlooked, but one that highlights an inexorable shift in how people -- especially young people -- consume video. Today, as video is watched on smartphones and laptops rather than on living room couches, the .tv suffix -- owned, improbably, by the tiny South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu -- has become for some companies a chance to signal that they are showing video the way people are increasingly used to seeing it.

Google buys Zync, a cloud-based visual effects rendering firm

Google acquired Zync, a Boston-based firm that specializes in visual effects rendering through the Internet. In the visual effects industry, rendering is the process of taking computer generated 3-D models and turning them into the realistic 2-D visuals that we see in movies. But rendering requires a lot of computing power, and as a result most visual effects companies build out entire "render farms" to create their scenes. Zync's technology, called Zync Render, enables companies to render visuals through the cloud, letting artists create imagery without having to own and maintain a render farm.

NIST Seeks Comments on Experience With the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity

The National Institute of Standards and Technology requests information about the level of awareness throughout critical infrastructure organizations, and initial experiences with the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.

Responses to this Request for Information will inform NIST’s planning and decision-making about possible tools and resources to help organizations to use the Framework more effectively and efficiently. They will also help inform future versions of the Framework. The responses will also inform the Department of Homeland Security’s Critical Infrastructure Cyber Community C3 Voluntary Program. In addition, NIST is interested in receiving comments related to the Roadmap that accompanied publication of the Framework. All information provided will also assist in developing the agenda for a workshop on the Framework being planned for October 2014.

Truth in campaign advertising should be the law

[Commentary] Supreme Court rulings leave little room to regulate the influence of big money on political campaigns except in one very important area: disclosure. Corporations, unions and other organizations have unfettered rights to bankroll campaigns, but at least they can still be required to clearly disclose who's writing the checks. If we had to choose between trying to limit spending and requiring full, clear and immediate disclosure of who's bankrolling campaigns, we'd take disclosure in a heartbeat. People can make educated judgments about barrages of campaign claims when they understand who is behind them.

AT&T Mobility Names a New Chief Executive

AT&T has given promotions to two senior executives, including the chief executive of its wireless business.

Ralph de la Vega, the chief executive of AT&T Mobility, has been promoted into a broader role at the company, working with professional customers. Glenn Lurie, an AT&T executive who oversaw big partnerships for the company, has stepped up to become the carrier’s new chief. de la Vega will become chief executive of AT&T’s new organization focusing on businesses that use mobile products. AT&T noted that business-related customers represented 50 percent of the revenue it makes from its wireless business. Luris was one of the key negotiators who brought Apple’s first iPhone exclusively to AT&T for a while. He was also involved in the partnership to bring AT&T’s wireless data plans to General Motors cars.

China's Microsoft Probe Looks at Media Player, Browser Distribution

Chinese authorities are looking at how Microsoft distributes its media player and browser software in the country.

Zhang Mao, chief of China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said that officials were probing distribution of those products, as well as how Microsoft sells its Office and Windows software. "Microsoft is suspected of incomplete disclosure of information related to Windows and Office software, as well as problems in distribution and sales of its media player and browser." He didn't disclose additional details about the subject of the probe.

American Community Television and SEATOA on Comcast/Time Warner Cable: PEG Must Be Protected

Saying that the Comcast-Time Warner transfers and spin-offs puts Public, Educational and Government (PEG) access television at risk, American Community Television (ACT), filed comments in the Federal Communications Commission proceeding to review the transactions.

“We risk having to deal with a giant monopoly that will run rough-shod over PEG channels and local communities,” said John Rocco, ACT President. “Comcast won’t just be handing over huge parts of the upper Midwest to Charter and then walking away, Comcast will own a substantial portion of the “New Charter” and the spin-off, Midwest Cable.”

The comments included an overview of PEG setbacks that have occurred over the last ten years, to include: loss of funding; slamming PEG channels into the upper 900’s; charging the municipality for the transmission of the channels; PEG access closures in various states; hard ball negotiating tactics on behalf of the cable operators; lack of a programming guide description and the inability to deliver PEG on a Video on Demand platform or to record PEG programming via a DVR.

In the comments, ACT said, “We request that the FCC protect PEG access television by rejecting the proposed transaction as not being in the public interest or conditioning the proposed transactions on curing the various problems we outline in these comments with significant conditions to protect PEG and prevent further consolidation of the traditional cable industry.” “There is no doubt that these transactions, this shuffling of the deck, threatens PEG access television,” said Rocco, “As they grow bigger they will push back on their public interest obligations, especially PEG and frankly, there won’t be a lot that local communities can do to stop it. We want to see some guarantees that PEG will be protected in this environment.”

ACA: Comcast/TWC Poses Horizontal, Vertical Harms

The Comcast/TWC deal poses vertical harms, horizontal harms, and spot cable ad market harms that need more than arbitration to remedy. That was the message from the American Cable Association to the Federal Communications Commission in comments on the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

That means the FCC needs to either impose conditions to protect competition and consumers, particularly when it comes to program distribution or just say no to the deal.

Benton

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