WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Broadcasters Feel Left out of Net Summit
IPS Coverage of WSIS
TELECOM
Large Firms Form Cable Phone Team
SPAM
Congress OKs National Anti-spam bill, Overriding Tougher State Laws
BROADBAND
Report: Keep Broadband in Companies' Hands
-------------------------------------------------------------------
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
BROADCASTERS FEEL LEFT OUT OF NET SUMMIT
International broadcasters are holding a parallel meeting to the World
Summit on Information Society (WSIS), claiming they have been left out.
Organizers of the broadcasters' meeting say the four-day gathering has
turned out to be essential because their concerns, and those of TV viewers
and radio listeners, have been sidelined at the technology-heavy summit.
Broadcasters feel the so-called World Summit on the Information Society will
be like a "conference on agriculture without farmers," says Guillaume
Cheneviere, executive director of the media forum and a former head of
Switzerland's state-owned TSR TV station. Like WSIS, the World Electronic
Media Forum is also sponsored by the United Nations and is being held at the
same Geneva conference center. Although US broadcasting networks are not
taking part, broadcasters from the Canadian-based North American
Broadcasters' Association, WBAI Pacifica Radio, the British Broadcasting
Corp. and state-owned broadcasters from France, Russia and Japan are among
the 360 organizations from 112 countries expected to attend.
SOURCE: USA Today; AUTHOR: Jonathan Fowler, AP
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2003-12-08-un-summit-broadcast-carping_x.
htm
IPS COVERAGE OF WSIS
The Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) is offering coverage of the WSIS
from a multi-cultural,
multi-lingual team of reporters in Geneva, with a news focus on the South
and on civil society perspectives. IPS will be producing a daily conference
newspaper entitled TerraViva in Geneva and a virtual edition on the web from
December 9 - 12. Subscription to a daily e-newsletter for the week is
available at the website. TerraViva at the WSIS is produced in partnership
with InfoSud, contributing news in French, and the African Woman and Child
Feature Service, contributing African and gender perspectives.
SOURCE: IPS
http://www.ipsnews.net/focus/tv_society/index_ipsnews.asp
TELECOM
LARGE FIRMS FORM CABLE PHONE TEAM
Time Warner Cable has announced that it will join forces with Sprint and
WorldCom to launch a new telephone service that will be offered to millions
of cable television subscribers across the country in the coming year. The
deal creates a powerful industry alliance, enabling cable and long-distance
companies to bypass vast local networks controlled by companies such as
Verizon Communications and BellSouth. In theory a call could travel over
Time Warner's wires and connect directly to a long distance company,
completely eliminating the local telephone network from the process. In
Portland, Maine, the first market where Time Warner introduced its Internet
telephone service, customers can get local and long-distance telephone
service, high-speed Internet access and hundreds of cable channels for about
$140 a month. Verizon and other local telephone companies argue that the
rise of Internet telephone providers should lead to the deregulation of
traditional networks, which are currently subjected to a host of arcane
rules and government fees. The FCC is drafting a proposal to regulate
Internet telephone calls, but Chairman Michael Powell says he is reluctant
to place heavy regulatory burdens on the new technology.
SOURCE: Washington Post; AUTHOR: Christopher Stern
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47326-2003Dec8.html
SPAM
CONGRESS OK'S NATIONAL ANTI-SPAM BILL, OVERRIDING TOUGHER STATE LAWS
Yesterday, Congress gave the final approval on the "Can-Spam" bill, which
will take affect on January 1, 2004. This federal legislation will override
all state anti-spam laws, including tougher measures in states like
California. The "Can-Spam" legislation requires unsolicited email to include
an opt-out mechanism allowing recipients to indicate they do not want future
mailings. Computer users are being asked to ignore years of anti-spam
training, which urged them never to respond to unsolicited email. "It will
require a change in behavior," acknowledged Rep. Heather Wilson, (R-NM), one
of the bill's sponsors. The legislation will also prohibit senders of
unsolicited emails from disguising their identities by using fictional email
addresses or misleading subject lines. Senders of unsolicited emails will
also be prohibited from harvesting email addresses off websites. Critics
such as the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mails say the bill
doesn't go far enough. "This bill fails the most basic tests for anti-spam
legislation; it doesn't tell anybody not to spam," said the group's
spokesman, John Mozena. This anti-spam bill will mount pressure on the
Federal Trade Commission to create a do-not-spam list of email addresses,
which includes penalties for spammers.
SOURCE: eSchool News; AUTHOR: Gregg W. Downey
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/ssunreg.cfm?ArticleID=4786&ul=%2Fnews%2F...
Story%2Ecfm%3FArticleID%3D4786
BROADBAND
REPORT: KEEP BROADBAND IN COMPANIES' HANDS
A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released last week
concluded that the private sector is doing enough to boost the availability
of broadband and that government subsidies for pushing the industry along
would do more harm than good. While acknowledging that some regions in the
United States still suffer from service glitches or lack of broadband
access, the report said that private-sector providers would eventually find
ways to serve these underrepresented communities. "Many of the problems that
remain, such as uneven distribution and availability of broadband, are a
function of the market's immaturity and not necessarily permanent features,"
the report stated. The CBO concluded that the dominance of broadband service
by cable companies and the Baby Bells does not diminish the overall consumer
benefits. The report also found that broadband providers' investments over
the last five years have helped expand the industry and drive customer
demand, and that bundled offerings and recent digital subscriber line
discounts point to signs of an impending price battle with cable.
SOURCE: CNET News; AUTHOR: Jim Hu
http://news.com.com/2100-1034-5113616.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------