October 2014

AT&T makes case for user-driven ‘fast lanes’

If people want to prioritize one website over another on their own Internet service, they should be able to, according to AT&T. Company officials recently met with Federal Communications Commission lawyers to argue that the agency should not ban Internet “fast lanes” that individual users want placed on their service.

For instance, a business might want to give workers faster access to certain websites over others when traffic gets clogged, to incentivize employees to stay on task rather than surf the web, AT&T argued. “To preemptively and categorically block consumers from making these types of choices over their own Internet access connection before anyone even knows what the service might look like would needlessly stifle innovation and deny consumers the ability to tailor their own Internet service to their own needs,” AT&T said in an FCC filing summarizing its meeting.

Fed up, US cities take steps to build better broadband

City and town governments aren't typically known for leading the way on technology. But all that’s changing fast -- and the demand for broadband is what's driving this shift.

No longer content to let residents suffer from poor Internet access, cities and towns saw a need to boost their tech savvy. Now many are partnering with technologists in order to take matters into their own hands. While some municipalities have taken on the extraordinarily complex task of building their own networks, others have succeeded with lower-tech methods. Streamlining permitting processes and readying public infrastructure has helped some draw in new ISPs such as Google Fiber. Other cities and towns are taking advantage of legal processes to pressure incumbents into offering better and cheaper service. And still other cities are laying fiber conduits every time construction workers dig up the ground for unrelated projects, allowing quicker upgrades from cable and copper. In all these ways, cities and towns are showing that smart management can be just as important as high-tech systems when it comes to making broadband accessible and affordable to everyone.

What to make of the FCC’s latest airwave auction delay

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission has once again delayed an unprecedented auction of wireless airwaves that was supposed to be happening in 2015. Now that sale is being pushed to 2016, at the earliest. What gives?

"I think it was inevitable that the commission was going to push back the auction from its mid-2015 target," said Paul Gallant, a telecom analyst at Guggenheim Securities. "There are just incredibly difficult things that need to be done to make this work. It's hard to overstate how different this auction is from prior auctions." This is a complicated, technical process, one that involves setting up all-new computer algorithms that can award money to TV broadcasters interested in trading their spectrum for cash while also selling that same spectrum to wireless carriers. All kinds of decisions need to be made about how the auction will be run before that software can even be written.

Apple details how its $100 million pledge to Obama's ConnectED will help schools

Earlier in 2014, Apple pledged $100 million to President Obama's ConnectED program, an initiative that aims to bring reliable, high-speed broadband to 99 percent of schools across the United States. And now the company published a new website that gives the full details on where that money is headed.

Apple's grants will be distributed to 114 schools located in 29 states. Every student at participating schools will receive an iPad, with teachers and administrators also given Macs and Apple TV set-top boxes for classroom use. Apple is focusing on schools that are struggling to provide students and communities with the technology that others might take for granted. At the locations Apple has picked, at least 96 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. The company also notes that 92 percent of students at partner schools are of Hispanic, Black, Native American, Alaskan Native, or Asian heritage.

Should Schools Mandate Computer-Coding Classes?

There are a lot of good reasons for treating computer science as a core subject in high schools. Computers are everywhere. Not understanding the basics of how they work is like not knowing how to change a tire. Knowledge of computers also makes a person attractive in the job market. Techies believe that it's pure common sense to incorporate the language of computers into schools, if only to allow students to keep up with their industry. They say it's the tech economy, after all, that is changing how the entire world behaves. That's a compelling argument, but it misses a few key questions.

First, are students learning basic computer coding the way that young ladies at secretarial schools used to learn how to type? If so, teachers are missing a huge opportunity.
Second, what do the students think they are getting from these courses? Do they expect to go to Silicon Valley and find a job?
Third, will students be able to get the full benefit of a computer-science course if they aren't already up to speed on other core subjects like math and physics?
Fourth, are students adept enough at math and physics to teach theoretical programming?

FTC/DOJ OK With Liberty Broadband Spin-Off

The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have signaled they have no antitrust issues with the planned spin-off of Liberty Media's interests in Charter Communications into a new tracking stock, Liberty Broadband.

Frontier wraps its acquisition of AT&T's Connecticut network assets

Frontier Communications is set to begin a new chapter in its home state as it has completed its $2 billion acquisition of AT&T's wireline operations in Connecticut and its related statewide fiber network and U-verse operations.

Frontier got the State of Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority's final approval of the acquisition. As part of the acquisition, Frontier will also assume ownership of AT&T's Dish satellite TV customers in Connecticut. By completing this deal, Frontier will now offer services in 28 states. Using AT&T's established network as a foundation, Frontier said it will invest $63 million over the next three years to expand the reach of the U-verse video and broadband network to offer speeds of 10 Mbps and higher for over 100,000 households. The service provider will also build a fiber-based middle mile network that will connect all of its central offices across the state and dedicate about $3 million to expand broadband to areas it says are currently "unserved or underserved."

Patient-To-Physician Messaging: Volume Nearly Tripled As More Patients Joined System, But Per Capita Rate Plateaued

Patients want to be able to communicate with their physicians by e-mail. However, physicians are often concerned about the impact that such communications will have on their time, productivity, and reimbursement.

Typically, physicians are not reimbursed for time spent communicating with patients electronically. But under federal meaningful-use criteria for information technology, physicians can receive a modest incentive for such communications. Little is known about trends in secure e-mail messaging between physicians and patients. To understand these trends, we analyzed the volume of messages in a large academic health system’s patient portal in the period 2001–10. At the end of 2010, 49,778 patients (22.7 percent of all patients seen within the system) had enrolled in the portal, and 36.9 percent of enrolled patients (8.4 percent of all patients) had sent at least one message to a physician. Physicians in the aggregate saw a near tripling of e-mail messages during the study period. However, the number of messages per hundred patients per month stabilized between 2005 and 2010, at an average of 18.9 messages. As physician reimbursement moves toward global payments, physicians’ and patients’ participation in secure messaging will likely increase, and electronic communication should be considered part of physicians’ job descriptions.

FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly at NTCA’s Telecom Executive Policy Summit

Three basic points: 1) the future is broadband and this means change; 2) action by the Federal Communications Commission is necessary and appropriate; and 3) consumers will benefit from modern infrastructure and regulatory treatment.

FTC Chairwoman Ramirez: Connected devices will only succeed with trust

People around the globe won’t embrace new cars, refrigerators, thermostats or other “smart” devices that connect to the Internet if they don’t trust them, Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez warned.

The rise of connected devices known as the “Internet of Things” could revolutionize practically every sector in America, Chairwoman Ramirez said -- but not if people fear that detailed, sensitive data about their lives is being used to sell them ads or is not properly protected. Chairwoman Ramirez laid out a prescription for companies to respond to the possible lack of trust. First and foremost, companies should “put security front and center,” she said, noting that many developers are “underinvesting” in protecting people’s data. Additionally, companies should limit what kinds of information they collect about people, delete data once it is no longer useful and be sure that people know how their information is being used, with easy ways to adjust their settings.

Benton

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