January 2016

INTERNET/BROADBAND

FCC BROADBAND REPORT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: David McCabe]
The Federal Communications Commission will vote on an annual report about the state of high-speed Internet deployment around the country, something that has become a magnet for debate. A proposed draft of the congressionally mandated report finds that advanced telecommunications capability isn’t being deployed in a “reasonable and timely fashion” to all Americans. According to a fact sheet released by the agency, 34 million Americans do not have access to wired internet service that meets the FCC’s broadband speeds benchmark — download speeds of 25 Mbps and upload speeds of 3 Mbps. But critics say the report isn’t just a compendium of statistics, but a way for the FCC to expand its authority and place arbitrary standards on Internet service providers. The commission is authorized to take steps to expand access when the annual report finds it lacking, which critics contend turns the report into a tool for amassing more authority. The FCC sparked controversy when it raised the benchmark speeds for wired broadband to their current levels in 2015 and forced Internet providers to rethink their offerings. That decision seems certain to loom over the commission’s discussion about the latest iteration of the report.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-accused-power-grab-broadband | Hill, The
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60 MILLION AMERICANS WITHOUT INTERNET ACCESS
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Marissa Lang]
An estimated 60 million Americans lack Internet access at home. More Americans than ever rely solely on their phones for online access, according to the Pew Research Center. But being smartphone reliant poses many challenges. People who connect to the Internet using only their phones are more likely than others to hit data caps that, in turn, limit how much they can do online, or the added charges could make the phones prohibitively expensive, according to Pew. Of those who do not have broadband Internet service at home, nearly half cited cost as a reason, and most are people of color or from low-income households. Nearly half the students surveyed recently by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation were unable to complete a homework assignment because they lacked Internet access. “In research and policy, you often hear the phrase ‘willingness to pay,’ like what would people be willing to pay for Internet access,” said Colin Rhinesmith, an assistant professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma who has done significant research on the digital divide. “But it’s not about a willingness to pay, it’s an ability to pay. For a lot of people in this country, the choice really is between Internet and food for the week.” Amid mounting pressure from politicians and activists, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote soon to update a program designed to provide low-cost access to phones for people who qualify. A $1.6 billion government program known as Lifeline, established in 1985, provides a monthly subsidy to 13 million eligible families to underwrite phone lines. In 2005, the program expanded to include mobile phones.
benton.org/headlines/seeking-solutions-60-million-americans-who-lack-home-internet | San Francisco Chronicle
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LIBRARIES AND BROADBAND
[SOURCE: KMSP, AUTHOR: Tim Blotz]
The broadband divide is real. Get outside of the Twin Cities metro and high-speed internet access is the exception, not the rule. All the proof you need is by the people crowding local libraries. In Princeton (MN), it’s not necessarily the books that are drawing people to the local library – it’s the high-speed internet connection. In rural Minnesota, these connections are too few, or too slow. “You’ll be on and you’ll be typing away and all of a sudden everything freezes and you just keep on going and eventually it will catch up,” Mille Lacs County resident Annette Crawford said. In too many places, libraries are the only reliable high speed access point. “It’s not uncommon to see cars pulled up when the library is closed -- people using their devices from their car,” East Central Regional Library Director Barbara Misselt said.
benton.org/headlines/rural-minnesotans-crowd-libraries-high-speed-internet-access | KMSP
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SEN CRUZ VS TITLE II
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Alex Byers, Kate Tummarello]
Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to regulate broadband networks in a new campaign trail video released by Protect Internet Freedom, a conservative group fighting the agency’s network neutrality rules. Sen Cruz unloads on Title II in the five-minute video, filmed during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, saying it makes the Internet a “regulated public utility.” As Sen Cruz has done before during the net neutrality fight, he takes a few liberties with some facts. He alleges that if the FCC rules hold up in court, “anyone who wants to innovate has to go to government regulators to get permission to launch some new website, to do something novel on the Internet.” Nothing in the Open Internet Order would give government control over who launches a website.
benton.org/headlines/sen-cruz-talks-title-ii-campaign-trail | Politico | see the video
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MODERNIZE POLICY TO ENCOURAGE BUSINESS BROADBAND COMPETITION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Walter McCormick]
[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is an advocate for competition – urging deployment of faster and more ubiquitous broadband networks, and increased consumer choice, through investment and innovation. In a proceeding this spring dealing with business services, the commission will need to decide whether to update its policies in a manner consistent with these goals. This review comes at a time when competition in the market for business communications is booming. So we need the FCC to innovate with us. As the market has changed, so should regulation, otherwise the commission risks discouraging the very investment, innovation, and facilities-based competition it desires. Some resellers are demanding that the FCC force telephone companies – and telephone companies alone – to continue operating antiquated copper networks, and to offer wholesale services at regulated, below-market rates. To do so, however, would delay broadband deployment on the part of telephone companies, slow innovation, and discourage investment – both by telephone companies and other broadband competitors – by artificially making it more economic to lease facilities than to build them. There is no need for the FCC to distort the market in order to assure competition. USTelecom members urge the FCC to recognize that the marketplace has changed, and that the robust competition for business communications today is exactly the kind of competition the commission desires. We ask the FCC, therefore, to innovate with us by modernizing its policy and regulation.
[Walter McCormick is president of USTelecom]
benton.org/headlines/modernize-policy-encourage-business-broadband-competition | Hill, The
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'POOR INTERNET FOR POOR PEOPLE': INDIA'S ACTIVISTS FIGHT FACEBOOK CONNECTION PLAN
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Cory Doctorow]
[Commentary] India is having its Internet uprising, and many western activists can’t figure out what to do about it. Since the spring of 2015, Indian activists have built ferocious momentum against Facebook’s bid to take charge of the nation’s Internet through a program called Free Basics. Formerly called “Internet Zero,” Free Basics’s pitch has been: we’ll get “the next billion internet users” (that is, poor people in developing nations) connected by cutting deals with local phone companies. Under these deals, there will be no charge for accessing the services we hand-pick. We will define the Internet experience for these technologically unsophisticated people, with our products at the centre and no competition. It’s philanthropy! India’s network neutrality activists have a crisp name for this: “Poor Internet for Poor People”. They rallied thousands, then tens of thousands, and eventually millions under that banner. Here we have India’s SOPA moment: an unexpected, unprecedented uprising that’s caught the popular imagination, terrified one of the largest companies in the world, made politicians and regulators take notice. India’s activists didn’t need our help. They never blinked. India’s got millions of activists with an open Internet bandwagon we should all be jumping on, and the next billion will go to the company that figures out how to work with them.
[Cory Doctorow is an activist, science fiction author and co-editor of the blog Boing Boing]
[Jan 15]
benton.org/headlines/poor-internet-poor-people-indias-activists-fight-facebook-connection-plan | Guardian, The
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PRIVACY

INTERNET PRIVACY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Mario Trujillo]
Advocates are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to quickly propose strong Internet privacy rules, one of the unfinished parts of last year’s net neutrality order. The agency is expected to release a proposal any month now. It'll come after nearly a year of meetings with stakeholders about the scope of the commission’s new authority. The FCC’s controversial decision to reclassify broadband Internet as a telecommunications service also gave it new authority to police the privacy practices of companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. Decisions will have to be made about what information should be private, how companies get consent from customers to share that information, and how to handle data breaches. A formal rule making process has been put off since net neutrality rules were approved, and an initial fall 2015 deadline for proposed rules has already passed. As the clock ticks and pressure mounts, here are five important factors shaping the debate.
Scope of FCC authority
New tracking technologies
Pressure from tech and consumer groups
Data access
Consumer protections
benton.org/headlines/5-things-watch-internet-privacy-fight | Hill, The
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ELECTIONS & MEDIA

THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR SECRET ELECTIONS
[SOURCE: Center for Public Integrity, AUTHOR: John Dunbar]
[Commentary] It was six years ago this week that the US Supreme Court dramatically altered the American political landscape with its landmark ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC, essentially deciding that corporations and labor unions can spend millions of dollars getting candidates elected to federal office. As long as the funds didn’t go directly to the candidate, or were spent in coordination with the candidate, there would be no law broken. Corporate and union donations to the campaigns were still illegal. As a result of the ruling, super PACs were born, giant pools of money that act as shadow campaign committees, often run by people with close ties to the campaigns themselves. The organizers of these PACs must report all their donors and expenditures. They’re also — in theory, anyway — prohibited from “coordinating” with the candidate. But in politics, it seems, there’s always a way to dodge the rules and obfuscate what’s really happening. This election, secrecy has been pushed to another level. Since the Citizens United decision came down, nonprofit groups have formed to back candidates. And unlike the super PACs, the nonprofits are not required to report who their donors are. That’s because these groups are theoretically focused on “social welfare,” not politics. It’s a highly cynical and dubious claim in many cases, but it’s working. The Internal Revenue Service is supposed to police whether these groups are actually concentrating on “social welfare,” but that’s not happening — not now, maybe not ever — because the IRS is paralyzed by budget cuts, missteps in its previous efforts to oversee these groups and related political controversies.
benton.org/headlines/consequences-our-secret-elections | Center for Public Integrity
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CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

TWITTER AND FERGUSON
[SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Max Lewontin]
As a national spotlight increasingly came to shine on Ferguson (MO), catapulting the nascent Black Lives Matter movement into prominence, local voices – some activists and other ordinary residents – stayed prominent online, chronicling the protests and police response as they occurred particularly on Twitter, two researchers from Northeastern University found. “We hypothesized that people who got in early on who were not elites had an influence in shaping the story,” says Sarah Jackson, an assistant professor of communication who co-authored a paper looking at the Twitter networks spreading information during the first days of the Ferguson protests. It was published last month in the journal Information, Communication and Society. “They were talking about it from a perspective that acknowledges the roles police violence plays in African-American communities, and it was really not what we see in mainstream media, which is perspectives coming from the police or from elites." How social media was used also played a key role.
benton.org/headlines/ferguson-how-twitter-helped-empower-ordinary-residents | Christian Science Monitor
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TELECOM

SPECIAL ACCESS
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
The special access market is not competitive — and based on data it has collected, the Federal Communications Commission is likely to assert that, said representatives from a range of organizations that buy special access circuits. Representatives from companies such as Sprint and Level 3, as well as organizations such as the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee and the Community Broadband Networks Institute for Local Self-Reliance discussed the special access market on a conference call with reporters organized by Competify, an interest group that was formed for the express purpose of promoting competition in the special access market. All of the entities that were on the call have one thing in common: they buy special access circuits from the nation’s largest price cap carriers or represent entities that do. “Market conditions will show that we have a significant issue,” predicted Chip Pickering, CEO of INCOMPAS, an organization representing competitive carriers formerly known as Comptel. Large incumbent carriers, Pickering said, have been able to charge “monopoly rents,” and “pro-competitive reforms” should be established. “If you allow one or two [carriers] to dominate the market and share monopoly rent, the entire market suffers and consumers will have less investment and innovation,” he said.
benton.org/headlines/ilec-competitors-special-access-contract-fresh-look-could-be-coming | telecompetitor
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DIVERSITY

ACADEMY TAKES HISTORIC ACTION TO INCREASE DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, AUTHOR: Press release]
In a unanimous vote January 21, the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences approved a sweeping series of substantive changes designed to make the Academy’s membership, its governing bodies, and its voting members significantly more diverse. The Board’s goal is to commit to doubling the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020. Beginning in 2016, each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade. In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award. We will apply these same standards retroactively to current members. In other words, if a current member has not been active in the last 10 years they can still qualify by meeting the other criteria. Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status. Emeritus members do not pay dues but enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting. This will not affect voting for this year’s Oscars. At the same time, the Academy will supplement the traditional process in which current members sponsor new members by launching an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity. In order to immediately increase diversity on the Board of Governors, the Academy will establish three new governor seats that will be nominated by the President for three-year terms and confirmed by the Board. The Academy will also take immediate action to increase diversity by adding new members who are not Governors to its executive and board committees where key decisions about membership and governance are made. This will allow new members an opportunity to become more active in Academy decision-making and help the organization identify and nurture future leaders.
benton.org/headlines/academy-motion-picture-arts-and-sciences-takes-action-increase-diversity | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
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POLICYMAKERS

TECH AND SECURITY IN THE WHITE HOUSE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Shear]
n this always-on, always-connected world, what good is a Fitbit with no GPS or an iPad that can’t connect to the cloud? Hint: Ask President Barack Obama. President Obama is the first true gadget geek to occupy the Oval Office, and yet his eagerness to take part in the personal technology revolution is hampered by the secrecy and security challenges that are daily requirements of his job. What counts as must-have features for many people — high-definition cameras, powerful microphones, cloud-connected wireless radios and precise GPS location transmitters — are potential threats when the leader of the free world wants to carry them around. And so using the latest devices means more than merely ordering one on Amazon for delivery to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It means accepting the compromises imposed by White House technology experts, whose mission is to secure the president’s communications, and by the Secret Service agents who protect him.
benton.org/headlines/gadget-geek-oval-office-high-tech-has-its-limits | New York Times
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January 2016

#BroadwaySoWhite: Hollywood Is Not the Only Arts Industry With a Race Problem

Evercore ISI Group: 16% of Pay TV Base Will Be ‘Skinny’ in 2020

Brands Can Now Find Out in Real Time How Many People Watch Their TV Ads. Here's How

January 25, 2016 (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Takes Action to Increase Diversity)

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Takes Action to Increase Diversity

Director Steve McQueen on Oscars Diversity Outrage: ‘Real Issue Is the Movies Being Made’

Women-owned firms struggle with lack of access to capital

#Ferguson: How Twitter helped empower ordinary residents

For Gadget Geek in the Oval Office, High Tech Has Its Limits