August 2016

INTERNET/BROADBAND

FCC ADMITS DEFEAT IN MUNICIPAL BROADBAND, WON'T APPEAL COURT LOSS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
The Federal Communications Commission has decided not to appeal a court decision that allows states to impose laws restricting the growth of municipal broadband. The FCC in February 2015 voted to block laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories, but the states convinced a federal appeals court to keep the laws in place. The FCC could have asked for another appeals court review or gone to the Supreme Court but will instead let the matter drop. "The FCC will not seek further review of the [US Court of Appeals for the] Sixth Circuit's decision on municipal broadband after determining that doing so would not be the best use of Commission resources," an FCC spokesperson said. The cities that were seeking to expand municipal broadband networks—Chattanooga (TN) and Wilson (NC)—were also involved in the case. The cities have not yet said whether they will appeal. The FCC relied on a novel legal argument in the case. Congress authorizes the FCC to promote competition in local telecommunications markets and to remove barriers that prevent infrastructure investment, and the FCC said that this authority allows it to preempt the state laws. But Congress never specifically authorized the FCC to preempt state laws, a fact that judges cited in overturning the FCC decision.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-admits-defeat-municipal-broadband-wont-appeal-court-loss | Ars Technica
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S MISGUIDED PLAN TO CONNECT SCHOOLS TO THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Thomas Hazlett]
[Commentary] E-Rate is almost the perfect Washington DC program. It hits the hot buttons of education, technology, and good jobs at good wages in one shot and spreads federal monies to vendors and consultants in every corner of the country. And no politician has ever been defeated for public office by touting improved Internet connections at local schools. But in a large study of students in North Carolina, two colleagues and I recently found that the actual benefits for students—the kids the program is supposed to help—are about zero. In fact, our research found that the E-Rate program marginally hurt student performance rather than helped it. To investigate the impact of E-Rate and to focus on the current example proffered by the President, my colleagues (Ben Schwall of Clemson and Scott Wallsten of the Technology Policy Institute) and I studied how broadband subsidies in North Carolina related to learning. Gathering data on all public high schools in the state from 2000-2013, including how much E-Rate funding was sent to schools, we investigated how SAT scores in math and verbal reasoning changed with increased Internet subsidies. Holding other school and socio-demographic factors constant, the changes were small but the finding was statistically significant. Except the relationship was negative. In other words, the more E-Rate funding a school received, the worse its students performed.
[Thomas Hazlett is H.H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics at Clemson University, where he also directs the Information Economy Project. He formerly served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission.]
benton.org/headlines/president-obamas-misguided-plan-connect-schools-internet | Politico
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

A MISGUIDED CRITICISM OF E-RATE MISSES REAL NEED
[SOURCE: Software and Information Industry Association, AUTHOR: Brendan Desetti]
[Commentary] A recent article in Politico claims that the federal E-Rate program produced no gains in student SAT results in North Carolina public high schools. With this assertion, the author concludes that federal programs supporting school connectivity nationwide should be eliminated, or at least halted until investments can demonstrate a stronger relationship with student outcomes. But the article’s underlying study doesn’t support such a sweeping conclusion, and the author fails to recognize the key role played by professional development for teachers in improving classroom learning through technology. The article attempts to correlate SAT performance with federal E-Rate program spending. However, only about half of high school students take the SAT and the majority of test takers are not low-income students. The E-Rate program on the other hand provides subsidies for broadband connectivity to schools and libraries based on the number of low-income individuals served – meaning the author’s chosen measurement of E-Rate “success” is primarily based on the academic performance of students for which the E-Rate program provides little to no support. Higher income students, those more likely to participate in the SAT, are also shown to be more likely to have access to high-speed Internet and other technology outside of the classroom. The article’s underlying report is a contribution to an ongoing research program. Many of these existing studies find the E-Rate program increases Internet access in schools, which thereby enables the use of new Internet-based learning technology, an effect that the North Carolina study does not even assess. One negative finding in a stream of research is not a scientific consensus, and should not be a basis for such a broad Draconian conclusion as the end of a twenty-year Federal program.
[Brendan Desetti is SIIA's Director of Education Policy. Follow Brendan on Twitter at @SIIAbrendan and find relevant national, federal, and state policy and program information in SIIA’s Ed Policy Forum.]
benton.org/headlines/misguided-criticism-e-rate-misses-real-need-educator-pd | Software and Information Industry Association
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

FEDERAL COURT DISMISSES AT&T THROTTLING CASE
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Mike Snider]
A federal appeals court has dismissed a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission against AT&T for throttling, or slowing data speeds, on millions of customers with unlimited smartphone data plans. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in a decision filed Aug 29, reversed a lower court's denial of AT&T's motion to dismiss the throttling lawsuit. The appeals court ruled that because AT&T was a common carrier, the service provider cannot be held liable for the violations that the FTC brought in its case. The FTC filed the complaint in October 2014 charging that the nation's second-largest wireless carrier failed to adequately unlimited-data customers that their data speeds are reduced, or throttled, if they use too much data in a given billing cycle. Throttling would often make many common smartphone functions such as using the Web, getting directions and streaming video difficult or nearly impossible to use. The FTC had alleged that AT&T began throttling data speeds in 2011 and, overall, throttled at least 3.5 million unlimited data customers a total of more than 25 million times. AT&T did not offer new unlimited plan contracts after June 2010, but customers who had them could keep them. AT&T and other carriers that offered unlimited plans at the time argued that at some point they must throttle customers who used excessive amounts of data as part of network management. "We're pleased with the decision," AT&T said.
benton.org/headlines/federal-court-dismisses-att-throttling-case | USAToday | Reuters
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

SECURITY/PRIVACY

THE GUARDIAN VIEW ON INTERNET SECURITY: A HUGE AND GROWING PROBLEM
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The phone in your pocket gives you powers that were hard to imagine even five years ago. It can talk to you, listen, and give sensible answers to questions. It knows your fingerprint and recognises your face and those of all your friends. It can buy almost anything, sell almost anything, bring you all the news you want, as well as almost all the books, films and music you might want to look at. What’s more, it will even allow you to talk to your friends and to communicate with almost anyone. The problem is that these powers are not yours – at least they don’t belong to you alone. They belong to whoever controls the phone and can be used to serve their purposes as well as yours. Repressive governments and criminal gangs are all contending to break into phones today, and this kind of hacking will increasingly become the preferred route into all of the computer networks that we use – the ones we don’t call “phones”. Beyond rogue nation states there is an unpleasant and insufficiently regulated market of legal firms that specialise in finding security vulnerabilities and selling them to the highest legal bidder, which normally means oppressive regimes; then there is a second tier of entirely illegal operators who sell tools to criminal gangs. Little of this is used for spying (though there is a market among jealous and abusive men for software that will enable to them to track their partners, one reason why some women’s shelters are reluctant to allow smartphones inside). Much more damage is done by “ransomware”, which encrypts and in effect steals all of a user’s data, to be released only on payment. Such assaults are becoming increasingly common. This is a global problem now. Since almost every country will want these powers for its own security services, if for no one else, what is developing is something like an international arms trade. International efforts to police it are urgently needed and the companies that sell us these powerful phones must also be pressed to live up to their responsibilities to keep them safe so that their power is not easily turned against their owners.
benton.org/headlines/guardian-view-internet-security-huge-and-growing-problem | Guardian, The
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

PRIVACY GROUPS FILE COMPLAINT OVER WHATSAPP DATA SHARING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: David McCabe]
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy filed a federal complaint over WhatsApp’s decision to share consumer data with parent company Facebook. WhatsApp announced recently that it was planning to provide information about its users for Facebook's targeted advertising unless users choose to opt out. EPIC and the Center for Digital Democracy say that the change betrays previous promises Facebook has made on privacy. “When Facebook acquired WhatsApp, WhatsApp made a commitment to its users, to the Federal Trade Commission, and to privacy authorities around the world not to disclose user data to Facebook,” said EPIC President Marc Rotenberg. “Now they have broken that commitment.” Specifically, the complaint invokes the FTC’s jurisdiction to police unfair and deceptive practices, as well as a 2012 agreement between Facebook and the agency that the company would take certain steps to protect user privacy. Central to their case is a long history of WhatsApp making privacy a core part of its brand. The company now makes end-to-end encryption the default setting for its users, for example, and over the years has said that it is not interested in leveraging its customers’ info.
benton.org/headlines/privacy-groups-file-complaint-over-whatsapp-data-sharing | Hill, The
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

ELECTIONS 2016

HOW HILLARY CLINTON ADOPTED THE WONKIEST TECH POLICY EVER
[SOURCE: Medium, AUTHOR: Steven Levy]
A Q&A with Sarah Solow, Hillary Clinton's domestic policy advisor.
Hillary Clinton wasn’t kidding around when she released her technology policy initiative in June. It was a gloriously wonky Gladstone bag of positions on issues batted around at think tanks, on digital democracy panels, and in Susan Crawford’s Backchannel columns—almost a K-Tel Records version of tech policy’s greatest hits. It was all there. Yes to high-speed access, international Internet governance, immigration reform, orphan works, online privacy, gig economy benefits, diversified workforce, STEM education, cybersecurity, network neutrality, and the United States Digital Service. No to Balkanization of the Internet, the digital divide, and venue shopping in patent litigation. Leading the team drawing the document was Sara Solow, the candidate’s domestic policy advisor. She agreed to provide us with some context on Hillary Clinton’s tech policy — and also wound up venting about the opponent’s apparent lack of a policy. Asked how they produced the tech policy, Salow said, "Last June or July (2015), we pulled together a working group with a whole bunch of outside experts and outside advisors, and a range of stakeholders, to start helping us collect policy proposals and thoughts about technology, innovation, and intellectual property. We had regular monthly meetings or phone calls, and I personally developed relationships with 30 outside experts, at least. It was a very collaborative, comprehensive process."
benton.org/headlines/how-hillary-clinton-adopted-wonkiest-tech-policy-ever | Medium
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

CONTENT

SILICON VALLEY AND HOLLYWOOD
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Patrick May]
"Silicon Valley and Hollywood are now joined at the hip," says Bill Baker, co-founder and CEO of the Celebrity Food Network, based in Southern California. Why now? Tech billionaires who've become overnight celebrities; Hollywood's star-making culture seeking to exploit that fame; and the sheer preponderance of tech in our lives, starting with the smartphones most of us are now glued to. And Hollywood, Baker says, is being powered by cutting-edge technology like never before. "The new kinds of cameras, the digital-editing machines, the fiber, the satellites," he says. "These are the guts of what Hollywood does, and a lot of it comes from the tech world. So you have this mutually symbiotic relationship." The ensuing confluence can be dizzying as valley companies create their own shows instead of just offering entertainment produced in by others.
benton.org/headlines/silicon-valley-and-hollywood-whats-behind-their-growing-love-fest | San Jose Mercury News
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

STORIES FROM ABROAD

APPLE AND IRELAND
[SOURCE: European Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The European Commission has concluded that Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13 billion to Apple. This is illegal under EU state aid rules, because it allowed Apple to pay substantially less tax than other businesses. Ireland must now recover the illegal aid. Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: "Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules. The Commission's investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years. In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1 per cent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 per cent in 2014." This selective tax treatment of Apple in Ireland is illegal under EU state aid rules, because it gives Apple a significant advantage over other businesses that are subject to the same national taxation rules. The Commission can order recovery of illegal state aid for a ten-year period preceding the Commission's first request for information in 2013. Ireland must now recover the unpaid taxes in Ireland from Apple for the years 2003 to 2014 of up to €13 billion, plus interest.
benton.org/headlines/state-aid-ireland-gave-illegal-tax-benefits-apple-worth-eu13-billion | European Commission
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

UK BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Nic Fildes]
Ask someone if they want broadband 35 times faster than the average and they will answer in the affirmative — probably with the addition of a few choice words regarding the service they receive at present. Like disgruntled football fans, British broadband users are not short of opinions about their internet speeds. The industry has been embroiled in a very public fight about the state of broadband and what needs to be done. BT, and its engineering arm Openreach, say Britain has some of the best internet speeds in Europe. Its detractors, including Vodafone, TalkTalk and Sky, who compete with BT but rely on access to Openreach’s network, argue the country risks falling behind in the race to build networks that offer the speeds needed to support autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence. With the EU looking to set the bar for minimum broadband speeds much higher than being contemplated in Britain, fears have started to build after the Brexit vote that Britain is trailing the pack and may never catch up. The argument about the state of the market has become concentrated on the length of copper wire that runs from the point that fibre optic cables stop to the customer’s door — roughly 7 per cent of the entire length of a broadband connection. BT’s critics want old copper lines to be abandoned and fibre optic cables run straight to the home — something BT is unwilling to pay for.
benton.org/headlines/openreach-and-critics-locked-debate-over-faster-broadband | Financial Times
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top

Benton

Search

Benton

Daily Digest

Analysis

August 2016

Verizon Accelerates 4G LTE Performance, Claims Peak Wireless Speeds of 200+ Mbps

August 30, 2016 (Gene Wilder, Juan Gabriel)

Juan Gabriel’s Death, Like His Music, Brings Mexicans Together

Silicon Valley and Hollywood: What's behind their growing love fest

ABC Reports Corey Lewandowski “Is Back In The Fold” With Trump Campaign While Remaining Paid CNN Contributor

Paid $75,000 to Love a Brand on Instagram. But Is It an Ad?

State aid: Ireland gave illegal tax benefits to Apple worth up to €13 billion

Openreach and critics locked in debate over faster broadband

Greece Cracks Down on ‘Triangle of Corruption’ in TV

Mikhail Fridman pumps $50m into FreedomPop