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October 2014

Can Authorities Cut Off Utilities And Pose As Repairmen To Search A Home?

Some legal cases do more than raise eyebrows — they push the legal envelope to change the law. Such is a federal case in Las Vegas now working its way through the courts. The question is whether federal agents can disrupt service to a house and then, masquerading as helpful technicians, gain entry to covertly search the premises in hopes of finding evidence that might later justify a search warrant.

Verizon’s Response to Senator Patrick Leahy

In a letter to Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam says the company has not and is not using “paid prioritization,” does not hinder or slow consumers’ Internet traffic to the advantage of others’, and is on record numerous times as saying that it has no plans to undertake the hypothetical “paid prioritization” business model. In fact, no major broadband provider has ever implemented paid prioritization, most have disavowed any interest in doing so, and no one has even offered a clear business case for paid prioritization. The debate over this hypothetical business model really is just a political bait and switch by interest groups intended to divert attention from the fact that they are calling on the FCC to change the rules under which the Internet has operated successfully for twenty years.

Cyber Attacks Likely to Increase, Pew Finds

The Internet has become so integral to economic and national life that government, business, and individual users are targets for ever-more frequent and threatening attack. To explore the future of cyber attacks Pew canvassed thousands of experts and Internet builders to share their predictions. Some 61% of these respondents said “yes” that a major attack causing widespread harm would occur by 2025 and 39% said “no.”

US CTO Megan Smith: Tech has a diversity problem, and it’s up to us to fix it

Megan Smith, the former Googler who's now the Obama Administration's chief technology officer, has only been on the job for a month. But she's already wading into some of the thorniest tech policy issues facing the country -- including the debate over diversity in Silicon Valley.

She says the diversity problem is ripe for disruption. "None of us created these problems -- general discrimination and unconscious bias -- we didn't create them, but as they come to our consciousness, we have to fix them," Smith said. "The industry is at that moment where we're starting to wake up." "We culturally decided, as the personal computer came in, that it was for the boys," Smith added.

Almost as many people use Facebook as live in the entire country of China

If Facebook were a country, its population would rival the single most populous country on Earth. That’s one eye-popping takeaway from Facebook’s Q3 earnings report, in which the site announced that its monthly active users cleared 1.35 billion -- roughly equal the population of China, and 9 percent larger than that of India. By these numbers, nearly 20 percent of the world’s population logs into Facebook once a month. And if we just look at the world’s Internet users, roughly half of them -- every other person with Internet on the planet -- use the site actively.

Could Time Warner Cable’s Phone 2 Go App Stem Landline Cord Cutting?

Time Warner Cable launched what could be a service provider’s best shot at stemming ongoing landline phone service erosion. But it’s only an option for services providers who, like TWC, have converted their voice lines to VoIP.

TWC calls the new offering Phone 2 Go, and it’s a free smartphone or tablet app designed to enable TWC home phone customers to place calls from their smartphone over a Wi-Fi or mobile data connection using their home phone service. That means domestic calls placed with the customer’s smartphone or tablet are included in the customer’s unlimited monthly landline service. And although mobile data usage would count against the customer’s monthly allotment, voice calls don’t use a lot of bandwidth.

October 29, 2014 (FTC Sues AT&T for Throttling)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2014

Today’s agenda includes the Michigan Broadband Conference http://benton.org/calendar/2014-10-29/


WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   FTC Says AT&T Has Misled Millions of Consumers with ‘Unlimited’ Data Promises - press release

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   ISP Interconnection and its Impact on Consumer Internet Performance - press release
   Digital divide exacerbates US inequality
   Looking for the Best Approach to Preserve the Open Internet - press release
   FCC Commissioner Clyburn at the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit - speech
   Digital Literacy is a Game Changer: A Neighborhood-Level Analysis of Chicago’s Smart Communities - research
   How Nebraska Built a Network with the Lowest Internet Costs [links to web]
   Internet speed: What you don’t know about the web - Richard Bennett analysis [links to web]
   HTML 5: World Wide Web gets an upgrade [links to web]

OWNERSHIP
   Free Broadband for Public Housing in New York Sought as Condition in Comcast Deal
   Verizon-bankrolled “news” site bans stories on US spying and net neutrality [links to web]

PRIVACY/SECURITY
   FCC Joins Global Privacy Enforcement Network - press release [links to web]
   When it comes to privacy, mobile carriers must choose whether they serve customers or advertisers - analysis [links to web]
   Researchers find mobile ISP thwarting customers’ attempts to send encrypted e-mails [links to web]
   Hackers breach some White House computers [links to web]
   Data breaches affected nearly half of Californians last year [links to web]
   NSA chief: No sharing of private data in cyber bill [links to web]

TELEVISION
   Tech Transitions, Video, and the Future - FCC Chairman Wheeler press release
   14% of Broadband Homes Don’t Take Pay-TV: Study [links to web]

DIVERSITY
   FOCUS100’s Push for Greater Diversity in the Tech Industry - FCC Commissioner Clyburn speech [links to web]

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Campaign Outreach and Involvement in 2014 Midterms - research [links to web]
   Surge in midterm election campaign spending a boon for TV broadcasters [links to web]
   Senate Dems' last stand: GOTV tech [links to web]

EDUCATION
   Closing the App Gap: Improving Children’s Phonological Skills - research [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   FBI created fake Seattle Times Web page to nab bomb-threat suspect [links to web]

GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
   This is why it is so much harder to book a trip to Yosemite than to Europe

POLICYMAKERS
   FCC Chairman Wheeler Renews FCC-Native Nations Broadband Task Force - public notice [links to web]
   Olga Madruga-Forti Returns To International Bureau As Division Chief - press release [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   UK spies can get intercepted communications from NSA without warrant, government lawyers admit
   Protesters in Hong Kong on Edge as Police Track Their Online Footprints
   Hungary’s crazy-expensive Internet is driving people to throw their computers into the street
   EU digital economy chief wants Google to pay up under new copyright law [links to web]

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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

FTC SUES AT&T
[SOURCE: Federal Trade Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Trade Commission filed a federal court complaint against AT&T Mobility, charging that the company has misled millions of its smartphone customers by charging them for “unlimited” data plans while reducing their data speeds, in some cases by nearly 90 percent. The FTC’s complaint alleges that the company failed to adequately disclose to its customers on unlimited data plans that, if they reach a certain amount of data use in a given billing cycle, AT&T reduces -- or “throttles” -- their data speeds to the point that many common mobile phone applications -- like web browsing, GPS navigation and watching streaming video -- become difficult or nearly impossible to use. According to the FTC’s complaint, AT&T’s marketing materials emphasized the “unlimited” amount of data that would be available to consumers who signed up for its unlimited plans. The complaint alleges that, even as unlimited plan consumers renewed their contracts, the company still failed to inform them of the throttling program. When customers canceled their contracts after being throttled, AT&T charged those customers early termination fees, which typically amount to hundreds of dollars. The FTC alleges that AT&T, despite its unequivocal promises of unlimited data, began throttling data speeds in 2011 for its unlimited data plan customers after they used as little as 2 gigabytes of data in a billing period. According to the complaint, the throttling program has been severe, often resulting in speed reductions of 80 to 90 percent for affected users. Thus far, according to the FTC, AT&T has throttled at least 3.5 million unique customers a total of more than 25 million times. According to the FTC’s complaint, consumers in AT&T focus groups strongly objected to the idea of a throttling program and felt “unlimited should mean unlimited.” AT&T documents also showed that the company received thousands of complaints about the slow data speeds under the throttling program. Some consumers quoted the definition of the word “unlimited,” while others called AT&T’s throttling program a “bait and switch.” Many consumers also complained about the effect the throttling program had on their ability to use GPS navigation, watch streaming videos, listen to streaming music and browse the web. The complaint charges that AT&T violated the FTC Act by changing the terms of customers’ unlimited data plans while those customers were still under contract, and by failing to adequately disclose the nature of the throttling program to consumers who renewed their unlimited data plans. FTC staff worked closely on this matter with the staff of the Federal Communications Commission.
benton.org/headlines/ftc-says-att-has-misled-millions-consumers-unlimited-data-promises | Federal Trade Commission | FTC blog
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

INTERCONNECTION AND ITS IMPACT ON INTERNET PERFORMANCE
[SOURCE: Measurement Lab, AUTHOR: Chris Ritzo]
New research examines years of network measurement data from across the United States to determine the effects of network interconnection on the Internet performance of customers subscribing to specific access ISPs.
In researching our report, we found clear evidence that interconnection between major US access ISPs (AT&T, Comcast, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon) and transit ISPs Cogent, Level 3, and potentially XO was correlated directly with degraded consumer performance throughout 2013 and into 2014 (in some cases, ongoing as of publication). Degraded performance was most pronounced during peak use hours, which points to insufficient capacity and congestion as a causal factor. Further, by noting patterns of performance degradation for access/transit ISP pairs that were synchronized across locations, we were able to conclude that in many cases degradation was not the result of major infrastructure failures at any specific point in a network, but rather connected with the business relationships between ISPs.
benton.org/headlines/isp-interconnection-and-its-impact-consumer-internet-performance | Measurement Lab | read the research | GigaOm | ars technica | The Hill
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US DIGITAL DIVIDE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: David Crow]
The majority of families in some of the US’s poorest cities do not have a broadband connection, according to a Financial Times analysis of official data that shows how the “digital divide” is exacerbating inequality in the world’s biggest economy. There are still 31 million households in the US without a home or mobile broadband subscription. New Census Bureau statistics show a huge disparity among US cities and towns, with a gap of 65 percentage points between those with the highest and lowest subscription rates. US cities that have become synonymous with urban decay, such as Detroit and Flint in Michigan and Macon in Georgia, have household broadband subscription rates of less than 50 per cent, according to the US Census Bureau data. The median household income in all three is less than $25,000 a year. The problem is most acute in urban areas where the typical cost for the most basic broadband packages is too expensive for some.
benton.org/headlines/digital-divide-exacerbates-us-inequality | Financial Times
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OPEN INTERNET APPROACH
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Jon Sallet, Roger Sherman, Julie Veach]
The Federal Communications Commission held the last in its series of six Open Internet Roundtables. At each one of these roundtables -- totaling over 20 hours -- panelists with diverse viewpoints dove into many of the thorniest issues in this proceeding, responding to questions from the public, FCC moderators, and the Chairman. The Chairman, Commissioners, and stakeholders have also engaged in vigorous discussions of these issues at events around the country. All for the purpose identified by the Commission in its Open Internet NPRM: to find the best approach to protect and promote Internet openness. We listened and we learned. With specific regard to the Roundtables, here are some key takeaways.
benton.org/headlines/looking-best-approach-preserve-open-internet | Federal Communications Commission
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COMMISSIONER CLYBURN AT FUTURE OF MUSIC COALITION
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn]
Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn spoke at the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit at Georgetown University on October 27, 2014, and said there are three broad policy goals that will have far-reaching implications for the music business: retaining a free and open Internet, expanding broadband networks’ reach and speed, and promoting competition. She said as the FCC moves forward on open Internet, her focus will be primarily on the impact to consumers, and the critical objective is first determining the right policy and then the appropriate legal framework.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-commissioner-clyburn-future-music-coalition-policy-summit | Federal Communications Commission
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SMART COMMUNITIES
[SOURCE: Brookings, AUTHOR: Karen Mossberger, Caroline Tolbert, Christopher Anderson]
The Internet has generated huge economic gains for people all over the world. But some urban communities have not seen an equal share of the benefits. Chicago’s Smart Cities program aimed to help close the digital divide. An evaluation of the program offers unique evidence of neighborhood level change, following investment from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) that was part of the federal stimulus. The research shows that neighborhoods participating in this digital literacy and outreach program experienced increased rates of Internet use, broadband adoption, and online activities, including job search. Chicago is the only US city to have neighborhood-level data over time and offers a nationally significant view of the effects of a BTOP initiative, especially in an urban area.
benton.org/headlines/digital-literacy-game-changer-neighborhood-level-analysis-chicagos-smart-communities | Brookings
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OWNERSHIP

FREE BROADBAND FOR PUBLIC HOUSING?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Emily Steel]
A group of New York politicians is lobbying Comcast to provide free broadband to all city public housing residents and expand other low-cost Internet offerings as a condition for the cable operator’s proposed $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable. Led by New York City’s public advocate, Letitia James, and City Councilman Ben Kallos, the group of state and local politicians is calling on Comcast to help bridge the so-called digital divide between people who have access to broadband connections and those who do not. The group also is asking that Comcast provide free broadband access at senior, youth and community centers as well as in homeless and domestic violence shelters. Also on the list of conditions is free Wi-Fi service in all city public parks and commitments to provide faster speeds. It also is seeking agreements from Comcast to operate under network neutrality, the idea that all Internet content should be treated equally as it flows from content providers to consumers and back. Several of the conditions go beyond what Comcast has offered up for its takeover of Time Warner Cable.
benton.org/headlines/free-broadband-public-housing-new-york-sought-condition-comcast-deal | New York Times
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TELEVISION

TECH TRANSITIONS, VIDEO, AND THE FUTURE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler]
Consumers have long complained about how their cable service forces them to buy channels they never watch. The move of video onto the Internet can do something about that frustration – but first Internet video services need access to the programs. Now the Federal Communications Commission takes the first step to open access to cable programs as well as local television. The result should be to give consumers more alternatives from which to choose so they can buy the programs they want. In 1992 Congress realized that the then-nascent satellite industry would have a hard time competing because much cable programming was owned by cable companies who frequently kept it from competitors. Congress mandated access to cable channels for satellite services, and competition flourished. Today I am proposing to extend the same concept to the providers of linear, Internet-based services; to encourage new video alternatives by opening up access to content previously locked on cable channels. What could these over-the-top video providers (OTTs) supply to consumers? Many different kinds of multichannel video packages designed for different tastes and preferences. A better ability for a consumer to order the channels he or she wants to watch.
benton.org/headlines/tech-transitions-video-and-future | Federal Communications Commission | Bloomberg | B&C | Recode | National Journal
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GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE

BOOKING NATIONAL PARK STAYS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Nancy Scola]
You can book an airplane ticket using everything from the JetBlue Web site to Travelocity to Hipmunk. So does it make sense that in 2014, booking a camping spot at Yosemite National Park requires waiting in line on a single US government Web site -- an awkward, clunky site that groans under the weight of demand from outdoor enthusiasts on the 15th of each month? There is a growing chorus of critics calling for the government to allow the private sector to step in and develop other sites for booking space for your RV at Acadia National Park in Maine, a snowmobiling trip in Yellowstone or just checking on the amenities. Instead, the government may be taking a step backwards, they say, with a proposed 10-year contract to run Recreation.gov that would allow a government contractor to decide whether it wants to sell reservation data for the national parks to third parties -- think Kayak, or Hotels.com. The contract being floated could also ban the contractor from sharing the data for free.
benton.org/headlines/why-it-so-much-harder-book-trip-yosemite-europe | Washington Post
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

NSA AND GCHQ
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: David Meyer]
British intelligence services can get bulk intercepted communications data from the National Security Agency and other foreign agencies without a warrant, information disclosed by government lawyers has shown. This would likely include the communications of people in the UK itself. This information about “arrangements” between U.K. spy agency GCHQ and foreign counterparts such as the NSA was given to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the body that supposedly oversees how spies and public authorities use surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, or RIPA. It was disclosed as part of a legal case brought about by human rights groups, including Privacy International, Amnesty International and Liberty, in the wake of Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks. When authorities spy within the UK, RIPA says they need a warrant to look at the contents of communications, as opposed to metadata, which is relatively easy to obtain. However, the arrangements that have now come to light say that the intelligence services can get “unanalysed intercepted communications” from foreign partners without a warrant from a government minister under certain circumstances, such as when “it is not technically feasible to obtain the communications via RIPA interception.”
benton.org/headlines/uk-spies-can-get-intercepted-communications-nsa-without-warrant-government-lawyers-admit | GigaOm
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TRACKING HONG KONG’S PROTESTERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Forsythe, Alan Wong]
There’s heightened fears that Hong Kong’s authorities have begun to police the Internet using methods more often associated with the security forces in mainland China, where web censorship is routine. Hong Kong has enjoyed a high degree of autonomy since its return to Chinese rule in 1997, retaining a Western-style legal system and protections for freedom of speech. But concern about China’s growing influence and anxiety that the territory is becoming more like the rest of China have helped fuel protests demanding open elections for the city’s next leader.
benton.org/headlines/protesters-hong-kong-edge-police-track-their-online-footprints | New York Times
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HUNGRY’S PROTESTS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Nancy Scola]
We might want to prepare ourselves for something new: protests over the price of a gigabyte, like we're seeing in Hungary, where thousands have marched through downtown Budapest to protest a proposed tax on Internet use and have even taken to throwing old computers at government buildings. The Internet tax is part of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's 2015 budget proposal, and it would add a surcharge of 150 forints -- about 60 cents -- to the cost of every gigabyte uploaded and downloaded in Hungary. Orbán, head of the conservative Fidesz Party, has tried selling the tax as a reasonable one. It will, his government has pointed out, be charged not directly to end users but to Internet service providers. And those companies, the government has pointed out, are highly profitable. The tax follows along the lines of an existing, less-controversial tariff on telephone services. And the Orbán government is playing up the idea that the accumulated funds, which would add up to billions of forints, could go to building out broadband access in rural Hungary. Already, after initial protests this week, the Orbán government began what one European Commission spokesperson called "polishing it a bit," adding a monthly cap on the proposed tax that is rumored to be 1,000 forints ($4 US).
benton.org/headlines/hungarys-crazy-expensive-internet-driving-people-throw-their-computers-street | Washington Post
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ISP Interconnection and its Impact on Consumer Internet Performance

New research examines years of network measurement data from across the United States to determine the effects of network interconnection on the Internet performance of customers subscribing to specific access ISPs.

In researching our report, we found clear evidence that interconnection between major US access ISPs (AT&T, Comcast, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon) and transit ISPs Cogent, Level 3, and potentially XO was correlated directly with degraded consumer performance throughout 2013 and into 2014 (in some cases, ongoing as of publication). Degraded performance was most pronounced during peak use hours, which points to insufficient capacity and congestion as a causal factor. Further, by noting patterns of performance degradation for access/transit ISP pairs that were synchronized across locations, we were able to conclude that in many cases degradation was not the result of major infrastructure failures at any specific point in a network, but rather connected with the business relationships between ISPs.

Digital divide exacerbates US inequality

The majority of families in some of the US’s poorest cities do not have a broadband connection, according to a Financial Times analysis of official data that shows how the “digital divide” is exacerbating inequality in the world’s biggest economy.

There are still 31 million households in the US without a home or mobile broadband subscription. New Census Bureau statistics show a huge disparity among US cities and towns, with a gap of 65 percentage points between those with the highest and lowest subscription rates. US cities that have become synonymous with urban decay, such as Detroit and Flint in Michigan and Macon in Georgia, have household broadband subscription rates of less than 50 per cent, according to the US Census Bureau data. The median household income in all three is less than $25,000 a year. The problem is most acute in urban areas where the typical cost for the most basic broadband packages is too expensive for some.

Free Broadband for Public Housing in New York Sought as Condition in Comcast Deal

A group of New York politicians is lobbying Comcast to provide free broadband to all city public housing residents and expand other low-cost Internet offerings as a condition for the cable operator’s proposed $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable.

Led by New York City’s public advocate, Letitia James, and City Councilman Ben Kallos, the group of state and local politicians is calling on Comcast to help bridge the so-called digital divide between people who have access to broadband connections and those who do not. The group also is asking that Comcast provide free broadband access at senior, youth and community centers as well as in homeless and domestic violence shelters. Also on the list of conditions is free Wi-Fi service in all city public parks and commitments to provide faster speeds. It also is seeking agreements from Comcast to operate under network neutrality, the idea that all Internet content should be treated equally as it flows from content providers to consumers and back. Several of the conditions go beyond what Comcast has offered up for its takeover of Time Warner Cable.

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