BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 2016
If you’re in NYC this afternoon -- Technology, Privacy, and the Future of Education https://www.benton.org/calendar/2016-03-04
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Senate Commerce Approves Mobile Now Act
FCC Announces Agenda for Spectrum Frontiers Workshop and Tech Demo [links to Federal Communications Commission]
LIFELINE
Lifeline Reform: Add a Hard Budget - Commissioner O'Rielly blog
Pending FCC Decision on Lifeline Program Could Impact 'Homework Gap'
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Broadband and Capital Have Historic Implications for America’s Blacks - Politic365 op-ed
CoSN Calls Broadband Access Outside School a 'Civil Right' for Students
The Internet Is For All of Us - EdSurge op-ed
You Didn’t Notice It, But Google Fiber Just Began the Golden Age of High Speed Internet Access - Susan Crawford op-ed
‘Game of Gigs’ Organization Aims to Expand Bloomington Broadband
SECURITY/PRIVACY
UN Free Speech Expert Pledges Support For Apple's Encryption Stance [links to Fast Company]
FBI’s iPhone Backdoor May Violate International Law, Says UN Human Rights Rep [links to Vice]
Analysis: Should Congress or the courts solve the encryption issue? Maybe neither [links to International Association of Privacy Professionals]
Cameron Kerry: Having an open and honest debate about security [links to Brookings]
Rep Jolly (R-FL): Ban government from buying Apple products [links to Hill, The]
These Are Apple’s Allies Against the FBI [links to Revere Digital]
Cory Doctorow: Forget Apple's fight with the FBI – our privacy catastrophe has only just begun [links to Guardian, The]
Apple-FBI Case Is `Pandora's Box' Against Human Rights, UN Says [links to Bloomberg]
Is it now too late to be forgotten? Data retention overrides data erasure [links to International Association of Privacy Professionals]
Why are UK intelligence agencies revealing their spying techniques? [links to Guardian, The]
CONTENT
Algorithmic Neutrality and the Fallacy of a “Free and Open Internet” - Medium op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Ways Social Media Impacts Law [links to Huffington Post]
Google Fiber Has Only 54,000 TV Subscribers, and Sign-Ups Are Slowing [links to Revere Digital]
Netflix Binges Account for Half of Lost TV Viewing [links to Wrap, The]
TELEVISION
Black TV executives split on FCC's proposed set-top box disruption [links to Los Angeles Times]
How "House of Cards" helped remake TV [links to American Public Media]
TELECOM
Video Relay Service Partial Compensation Rate Freeze Order - public notice [links to Benton summary]
OWNERSHIP
Comcast accused of violating NBC merger commitment and network neutrality rule
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
Fox News pressed to ask debate questions about Internet access
Katz Media/Nielsen Scarborough Research Panel study: Sanders supporters are least likely to watch cable news [links to Politico]
Donald Trump is laughing at the media [links to Benton summary]
Matthew Yglesias: The media covers Trump a lot because Trump's campaign is fascinating and people are interested in it [links to Vox]
Looking at the rise of Trump from the viewpoint of the theory of disruption [links to Digitopoly/Joshua Gans]
Trump owns social media during debate [links to Hill, The]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Justice Department grants immunity to staffer who set up Clinton email server [links to Washington Post]
Top 3 Roadblocks to Data Transparency in California [links to Government Technology]
DIVERSITY
Broadband and Capital Have Historic Implications for America’s Blacks - Politic365 op-ed
New York lawmaker wants to pay TV shows to get more diverse [links to Benton summary]
Silicon Valley engineer: 'We're in a really precarious moment with race relations' [links to CNNMoney]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
UN Free Speech Expert Pledges Support For Apple's Encryption Stance [links to Fast Company]
Why are UK intelligence agencies revealing their spying techniques? [links to Guardian, The]
China Cracks Down on Online Television [links to New York Times]
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
MOBILE NOW ACT
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Mobile Now Act, which would take numerous steps to boost wireless broadband, passed unanimously out of the Senate Commerce Committee loaded with amendments on everything from shot-clocks for approving facilities, to dig-once policies for combining road projects and telecom plant, to a contest offering up to $5 million for the first person to come up with a way to boost spectrum efficiency. The bipartisan bill, which specifically targets the buildout of 5G mobile broadband, was the result of months of negotiations, and Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-SD) said he thought the bill had a good chance for passage by the full Senate. Included in the bill was an amendment, backed by, among others, wireless broadband spectrum fan Sen Marco Rubio (D-FL) that would insure that at least 100 MHz of the spectrum being freed up would go for unlicensed use and another 100 MHz for commercial mobile service, with a handwritten addition to the amendment saying that commercial use was "subject to the [FCC's] regulatory purview to implement exclusive licensing in a flexible manner, including consideration of continued use of such spectrum by incumbent federal or non-federal entities in designated geographic areas indefinitely."
benton.org/headlines/senate-commerce-approves-mobile-now-act | Multichannel News | The Hill | B&C | Public Knowledge statement | B&C – Pallone reaction | B&C
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LIFELINE
LIFELINE REFORM: ADD A HARD BUDGET
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly]
Why is it so easy for some people in Washington (DC) to spend other people’s money? It is one thing to be careless with your own finances, but it is another for stewards of Americans’ tax dollars or other monies to seem oblivious to the impact of their actions on hard working consumers. The desire to spend seems to exceed any interest in doing so in a rational and responsible way. This is exactly the situation facing the Federal Communications Commission’s reform effort for the universal service fund (USF) Lifeline Program. Failing a major change in direction, the FCC is preparing to massively expand the size and scope of the Lifeline Program without the necessary inclusion of a hard budget or financial constraints. Such irresponsible action will balloon a program plagued by waste, fraud, and abuse and result in higher phone bills for every American – including those already struggling in the current economy. In sum, it’s a recipe for disaster, and I can’t and won’t be part of it.
benton.org/headlines/lifeline-reform-add-hard-budget | Federal Communications Commission
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LIFELINE AND THE HOMEWORK GAP
[SOURCE: Education Week, AUTHOR: Leo Doran]
Led by Chairman Tom Wheeler, Federal Communications Commission commissioners voted in June 2015 to open a public comment period on a proposal to overhaul the agency's Lifeline Program, which provides subsidies for phone service to America's low-income households. The proposal, which the commissioners are considering, would expand the program to offer subsidies for high-speed Internet access, in addition to revamping the rules that govern the existing landline and mobile phone program. Attention to the "digital divide" and the "homework gap" have heated up in recent months with the revelation that 70 percent of teachers assign homework that requires Internet access while nearly five million low-income households with school aged children lack high-speed Internet. As a result, millions of already disadvantaged students, many of them minorities, must overcome the additional barrier of finding a high-speed connection in a library or local business that their wealthier classmates often have at home. One of the most vocal advocates of expanding the Lifeline program, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, has called the homework gap "the cruelest part of the digital divide." Commissioner Rosenworcel has scores of school leaders, and advocacy groups behind her.
benton.org/headlines/pending-fcc-decision-lifeline-program-could-impact-homework-gap | Education Week
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
BROADBAND AND CAPITAL
[SOURCE: Politic365, AUTHOR: Marc Morial]
[Commentary] Exclusion from capital has led to huge discrepancies in wealth between whites and blacks in America. One alternative route may lie in greater participation in the telecommunications, media, and technology sector of the economy. While not a panacea, technology — especially broadband technology– can be used in three ways to strengthen the relationship between capital and the black community. First, use of broadband technology can lead to new entrepreneurial opportunities. With the adoption of high-speed broadband, more individuals are marketing goods and services online. Second, broadband simplifies the process of raising capital. No longer are start-ups or serial entrepreneurs relegated to the traditional network of family or close friends. And while redlining is still an issue for blacks trying to obtain credit, accessing non-traditional funding networks helps to hurdle that barrier. Third, broadband access addresses inclusion not only by providing black Americans with alternative digital routes to goods, services, and capital, but also by providing black Americans with a medium that amplifies their messages and their voices. Effective participation in the American political economy calls for continuous engagement. Broadband access allows black Americans to create digital media and provide America with alternative and insightful information that runs counter to or keeps the main stream media in check.
As we move forward and write the history that future generations will read, we should leverage all available technology at our disposal in order to accumulate and deploy the capital necessary for creating prosperity in our communities. Broadband can and should play a role in creating that history.
[Morial is President of the National Urban League]
benton.org/headlines/broadband-and-capital-have-historic-implications-americas-blacks | Politic365
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BROADBAND AS A CIVIL RIGHT
[SOURCE: Education Week, AUTHOR: Leo Doran]
Education leaders are beginning to look beyond the struggle of connecting all schools to high quality Internet, and toward the next challenge of connecting all students while outside of school. The Consortium for School Networking, or CoSN, issued a plan of action this week that aims to prod district leaders to at least gather data on personal student broadband access. The report, which calls the matter an issue of "civil rights," indicated that 75 percent of school district leaders have no data on their students' Internet access outside of school, while 70 percent of teachers nationally report assigning homework that requires access. The report goes on to outline steps districts can take to leverage existing assets and programs to increase off-campus connectivity. Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN, said that in the wake of a collective national shift over recent decades to online learning as "the way we do education," now is the critical moment "to get serious about ubiquitous access." "It's like sending some kids home without a textbook," said Laura Hansen, director of information management at Metro Nashville Public Schools, illustrating how Internet equity can exacerbate achievement gaps.
benton.org/headlines/cosn-calls-broadband-access-outside-school-civil-right-students | Education Week
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THE INTERNET IS FOR ALL OF US
[SOURCE: EdSurge, AUTHOR: Jaime Casap]
[Commentary] Education disrupts poverty, and technology can help enable, enhance, and support the great education our students need. If we are ignoring those students and families who need Internet access the most, we are failing in our education and community policies. But even among people who, technically, have Internet access, digital inequities exist. They’re hidden and hard to find—until now. A recent report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center reveals while nine out of ten families living in poverty are connected to the Internet in some way, many of those families are “underconnected.” Access to technology and the Internet are no longer a “nice to have” feature in our lives. These elements are essential. Besides the typical day-to-day activities you can accomplish with access, such as looking for a job, comparing and shopping for the best prices on the things you need, and communicating and staying connected with families and friends, access to information equals having access to education. What we need to do is this:
First, we need to give them real—wireless—access: Many of the “special” programs available to low-income households only provide a wired, Ethernet connection. This limits the effectiveness of access if there are several family members who have to use the Internet.
Second, solutions must not have strings attached: Low-cost solutions often come with some limiting restrictions. For example, some require that the household not have had Internet access for six months. That’s an entire school year, putting many students further behind.
Third, we need more programs and more funding: While we have made some progress, much more can be done. For example, the Federal Communications Commission can continue to bring its Internet access programs up-to-date to reflect that Internet access is a basic necessity in today’s age.
[Jaime Casap Chief Education Evangelist at Google]
benton.org/headlines/internet-all-us | EdSurge | Joan Ganz Cooney Center report
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THE HUNTSVILLE MODEL
[SOURCE: Medium, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] Google launched what amounts to a religious war in American telecom land. In a surprising announcement, the Alphabet company known as Google Fiber said it would expand its high speed Internet access services to Huntsville, Alabama — but in a different way that it currently has started up operations in cities like Austin and Kansas City. In cities it services to date, Google Fiber actually lays down the fiber-optic cables that allow it to deliver super-high numbers of bits to customers and businesses. But in Huntsville, it will lease “dark” fiber that will be built and owned by the electric utility in that city. (Dark fiber is passive, unlit by lasers, so not capable of carrying information until someone comes along and lights it.) The Google lease is nonexclusive — any other ISP can show up and provide services — and will allow Google to provide retail gigabit fiber Internet access services to any home or business that Huntsville decides to serve. I am over the moon about this. It’s a similarly exhilarating feeling to the one I’d have if I were a rabid football fan and my long-suffering team just won the Super Bowl. And don’t mock my wonkiness — because you should be celebrating too. The reason this is totally exciting is that this is the model that has been used with enormous success in several other cities — and could be revolutionary here in smashing the current dogma that keeps Americans overcharged and under-served.
[Crawford is a professor at Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center.]
benton.org/headlines/you-didnt-notice-it-google-fiber-just-began-golden-age-high-speed-internet-access | Medium
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EXPANDING BROADBAND IN BLOOMINGTON
[SOURCE: Bloomington Herald Times, AUTHOR: Megan Banta]
For Bloomington (IN), citywide broadband should be less a question of if and more a question of how, local and national experts said. “Today is a beginning, not an ending,” Mayor John Hamilton said at the end of a four-hour symposium focusing on the benefits of high-speed network connectivity for economic development and quality of life in Bloomington. “My head is buzzing ... in a good way.” Mayor Hamilton repeatedly has pushed for the creation of a citywide, community-controlled broadband network since his campaign. This week, experts told him and other community leaders and residents that the city’s making the right move. “It does not take a genius ... to realize that the networks of today are not going to be sufficient for tomorrow,” Blair Levin said. Levin, executive director of Gig.U, an organization dedicated to accelerating the deployment of world-leading, next generation digital networks across the country, said a boom in network upgrades since 2010 has led to something his organization calls the “Game of Gigs.” A play on “Game of Thrones,” this game is one in which “You upgrade or you die.” That’s something that isn’t yet true, Levin said, but advocates hope it soon will be true that providers have to upgrade their speeds to survive. “It will eventually be true,” he said. “You will need better networks to survive.” That same argument is true for cities, he said — “(People) don’t want to have second-class networks in their cities.” Local experts and an analyst with a firm the city has hired as a consultant agreed that connectivity quickly is becoming a must for cities.
benton.org/headlines/game-gigs-organization-aims-expand-bloomington-broadband | Bloomington Herald Times
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OWNERSHIP
COMCAST AND NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Public Knowledge has asked the Federal Communications Commission to stop Comcast from exempting its own streaming video service from Internet data caps, saying that selective enforcement of caps violates a merger condition from when Comcast purchased NBCUniversal and may violate a network neutrality rule. PK’s petition relates to "Stream TV," a service for Comcast's Internet-only customers that streams live TV channels to computers, tablets, and phones. Stream TV doesn't require a set-top box, but Comcast says it "is an in-home cable service delivered over Comcast's cable system, not over the Internet." Stream TV offers some video outside the home, but live TV channels can only be watched on Comcast customers' home Internet connections. Public Knowledge points out that when Comcast won government approval to buy NBCUniversal in 2011, the FCC and Department of Justice "prohibited Comcast from excluding its own services from data caps or metering and required it to count traffic from competing online video services the same as its own." Public Knowledge also says the data cap exemption for Stream TV should be stopped by the FCC's net neutrality order; though the net neutrality rules don't specifically ban zero-rating, the FCC imposed a "general conduct" rule to be applied on a case-by-case basis. That rule is meant to stop practices that limit consumers' access to content or the ability of online service providers to reach consumers. Comcast argues that Stream TV's data cap exemption doesn't violate the merger condition or net neutrality because it is a cable service and not an Internet one. Public Knowledge is trying to convince the FCC that Comcast is wrong.
benton.org/headlines/comcast-accused-violating-nbc-merger-commitment-and-network-neutrality-rule | Ars Technica | Public Knowledge | B&C | Vice
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ELECTIONS & MEDIA
FOXED URGED TO ASK ABOUT INTERNET ACCESS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Mario Trujillo]
Nearly 40 groups [including the Benton Foundation] sent a letter to Fox News urging presidential debate moderators to ask the candidates how they would expand Internet access — especially in poor, rural and minority communities. The letter coincides with the 11th GOP debate and is addressed to Megan Kelly, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace. Letters also went out to the remaining primary debate moderators as well, including CNN, The Washington Post and Univision. “Access to broadband Internet is an important issue that Americans agree on, but it has been largely absent in both the campaigns and debates in the presidential race thus far,” the letter reads. Cybersecurity, surveillance and encryption have been topics in a number of debates. But few other technology issues have received much attention. The groups called home Internet access an indispensable “necessity.”
benton.org/headlines/fox-news-pressed-ask-debate-questions-about-internet-access | Hill, The
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