BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2011
Headlines is taking a long weekend. We'll be back MONDAY, February 28.
For upcoming telecom policy events see http://benton.org/calendar
INTERNET/BROADBAND
New Rules for New Technology
We Will Soon Live in a 100 Gbps World
Sens Kerry, Wyden, Cantwell, Franken Fight to Protect Network Neutrality
Schumer: Spending legislation will not resolve network neutrality fight
Is Wireless Really the Answer for Rural Broadband?
$300 Million And All I Got Was This Lousy Broadband Map
Broadband rising on Native agenda
Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants from RUS
TELECOM
The Universal Service Fund: What Do High-Cost Subsides Subsidize?
Security to Ward Off Crime on Phones
OWNERSHIP/DIVERSITY
Media Ownership Rules Teed Up In Court, Again
FCC Releases Broadcast Ownership Data
PRIVACY
Facebook Vs. FTC Round 2: Facebook Responds
Verizon Attacks FTC's Proposal For Deep-Packet Inspection
State Agency Reviews Policy On Facebook Prying
CONTENT
MPAA: Record High box Office in 2010
The need to protect the Internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent
E-book lending startup pledges piracy vigilance
Traditional media owners start to dominate online
Old Media Is Being Unbundled, Just Like Telecom Was
Apple risks sowing the seeds of its own downfall
Google Penalizes Overstock for Search Tactics
Apple's new subscription policy could cost Amazon $80-$160 million per year
Michael Robertson Bucks the Music Industry Again
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Implementing a Nationwide, Broadband, Interoperable Public Safety Network in the 700 MHz Band
Motorola, Verizon establish public-safety LTE alliance
Rep King doesn't close door on Broadcasters' concerns
POLICYMAKERS
President Obama names Facebook, Intel and Comcast execs to new jobs council
President Obama Taps Shapiro for Council of Economic Advisors
TELEVISION
Official Says Most Broadcasters Unlikely To Give Up Spectrum
Auction Talk Draws TV Spectrum Speculators
NAB Hosting Hill Meetings On Broadband/Broadcast Coexistence
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Feds appealing warrantless wiretapping court defeat
If government shuts down, bye-bye BlackBerry
DISA foresees no hiccups in switch to new Internet protocol
Budget sets $126M for next-generation supercomputing
Study: One-fourth of federal websites surveyed rank high in transparency
LABOR
President Obama names Facebook, Intel and Comcast execs to new jobs council
Estimated Impact of ARRA on Employment and Economic Output From October 2010 Through December 2010
HEALTH
'We believe in health IT': HHS Sec Sebelius
FCC Seeks Comment on Rural Health Care Waiver Requests
Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants from RUS
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Calls for a ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in China Persist
Google Belgian Copyright Appeal May Decide Search Engines' Fate in Europe
Al-Jazeera Tries For Wider US Audience
MORE ONLINE
Twitter Co-Founder Pushes New Effort to Use Technology for Social Good
FTC Asks Court to Shut Down Text Messaging Spammer
IPI News Innovation Contest: International Press Institute and Google announce 2.7 Million Dollar Grant
Contacting media should be easy as 1, 2, 3 -- It isn't
Entrepreneurs Find Gold in Used Phones
INTERNET/BROADBAND
NEW RULES FOR NEW TECHNOLOGY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The proposal from the Federal Communications Commission to stop subsidizing rural phone lines and start subsidizing rural broadband connections is long overdue. Right now an estimated 14 million to 28 million Americans have no way of getting access to the Internet. The Universal Service Fund was established in the 1990s to provide subsidies to telecommunications companies to install lines and hook up phones in areas where there weren't enough subscribers to guarantee them a profit. Last year, the fund spent about $8 billion to support rural phones and subsidize phones in poor neighborhoods, schools and libraries. The fund has fulfilled its original mission, and it needs to meet new technological demands. Virtually all of the country’s rural areas now have access to land lines or cellphone coverage. The real deficit is access to high-speed broadband, which can also deliver phone service. The United States urgently needs a better communications network for the 21st century. The Federal Communications Commission plan is a good one. The commissioners should approve it.
benton.org/node/51365 | New York Times
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100 GPS WORLD
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Thanks to iPhones, tablets and Netflix, the demand for bandwidth is back, and that’s drumming up interest in expanding and building out fiber networks. Today we think 1 Gbps fiber networks are enough, but soon we'll need 100 Gbps, and a host of infrastructure companies are gearing up to provide it. Unnoticed by Silicon Valley, telecom is on the move again. Equipment and network companies such as Ciena and Adtran are reaping the rewards in their stock prices: Ciena’s stock has risen more than $14.74, or 117 percent in the last six months, while Adtran’s has risen by $14.46 — or 47 percent. Other industry players such as Infinera and Tellabs, however, have seen their stock prices fall. But Infinera is about to announce new products aimed at ushering in “The Terabit Age,” which may offer a boost. Corning, which provides the actual glass that goes into the ground for fiber networks, has seen its share prices rise by $6.70, or almost 42 percent, in the last six months. Meanwhile, cloud computing and connecting data centers to faster and fatter networks has led to a new round of investment in fiber providers. From Allied Fiber which launched last year — building a new type of network that combines the pipe with the processing capacity at data centers along the fiber pathways, to GE Capital providing $230 million in available credit to Lightower Fiber Networks, a dark fiber provider that has purchased three different fiber companies in the last six months.
benton.org/node/51283 | GigaOm
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4 SENATORS STAND FOR NETWORK NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: US Senate Commerce Committee, AUTHOR: Press release]
Senator John Kerry (D-MA) -- chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet -- along with Sens Ron Wyden (D-OR), Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Al Franken (D-MN) sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) opposing any efforts to use the appropriations process or the Congressional Review Act to keep the Federal Communications Commission from doing its job and implementing these network neutrality rules. “The final network neutrality rules, to the credit of Chairman Genachowski, are built on things everyone should support transparency of broadband service operations, no blocking of legal content and websites, and nondiscrimination against or for specific firms or people trying to communicate and compete over the Internet. Unfortunately, the House has decided that it knows better what is good for the Internet than the people who use, fund, and work on it. They claim to stand for freedom. But the only freedom they are providing for is the freedom of telephone and cable companies to determine the future of the Internet, where you can go on it, what you can attach to it, and which services will win or lose on it,” the Senators wrote.
benton.org/node/51291 | US Senate Commerce Committee
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SCHUMER: SPENDING BILLS NOT PLACE FOR NET NEUTRALITY FIGHT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Sara Jerome]
Sen Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that spending legislation will not address network neutrality rules. "We're not going to resolve the issues of abortion, or net neutrality, or clean air on this CR [continuing resolution]," Sen Schumer told reporters. The parties are wrangling over how much and what to cut in spending legislation that would keep the government funded. The House passed a bill on Feb 19 that takes aim at various Democratic priorities, including network neutrality. Senate Democrats are working on their own continuing resolution. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said it will be a "clean" bill without controversial riders. "Since this bill is intended to fund vital services like Social Security, our military and border security, it should have no legislation or riders tied to it," he said.
benton.org/node/51334 | Hill, The
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IS WIRELESS THE ANSWER?
[SOURCE: IT Business Edge, AUTHOR: Carl Weinschenk]
A Q&A with Craig Settles. Asked about the Obama Administration's attention to rural broadband, Settles says, "They are taking it pretty seriously. You have what’s rumored to be about $8 billion as part of the Universal Service Fund and they are trying to shift a large part to broadband on an annual basis. We are talking about per year. That’s a huge amount of money when you look at it in that context. You have to ask what, 'What are we going to get for this?' That segueways into the President establishing a national discussion on broadband and saying here is what is going on. You may as well tie them together. The Universal Service Fund is looked on as how we bridge that gap between the haves and have-nots. It is a good focal point. There are two things that are being tied together because they are related. Trying to reform the one fund to get more people connected. The president is articulating economic development driven by a broadband vision. So you have to figure how to get there."
benton.org/node/51279 | IT Business Edge
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TELECOM
WHAT DOES USF PAY FOR?
[SOURCE: Technology Policy Institute, AUTHOR: Scott Wallsten]
Over half of subsidies, or $.59 of every dollar, paid through the High-Cost Universal Service Fund go to general expenses of firms, not to directly providing support to high-cost lines. This research underscores the inefficiency in the current universal service subsidies program and, in particular, the high-cost fund. Policymakers should use the push to include broadband as part of USF to implement radical reforms. The findings are based on an analysis of data submitted by 1400 recipients of high-cost subsidies from 1998 to 2008. While Wallsten suggests that the most useful reform would be to focus more on low-income assistance instead of high-cost areas, he offers suggestions on how to make high-cost subsidies more efficient:
The program should explicitly consider the use and cost-effectiveness of satellite broadband, especially considering that the soon-to-be-available next generation of satellites will offer download speeds of between 5 and 25 Mbps.
The universal service program should be reformed so it does not rely on cost-based, rate-of-return regulation, which eliminates the incentive for firms to operate efficiently and creates incentives to inflate reported costs.
To the extent that the Fund will subsidize multiple providers in an area, it should set the subsidy amount to be equal to that necessary for the lowest-cost provider, not to whatever the incumbent already receives.
The Federal Communications Commission should consider using auctions to define the level and distribution of subsidies. While auctions would have to be designed to address such issues as what to do in cases where the “provider of last resort”does not win the auction, the worst outcome of a well-designed process would be the status quo.
benton.org/node/51281 | Technology Policy Institute | read the report | ars technica
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OWNERSHIP/DIVERSITY
MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES BACK IN COURT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
On Feb 24, the Media Access Project's Andrew Schwartzman, on behalf of Prometheus Radio Project, will again be arguing the Federal Communications Commission's media ownership rules before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The court is hearing challenges from A) Prometheus, Consumers Union and others which argue the FCC went too far in 2007 by loosening the ban on newspaper-broadcast cross ownership and B) by broadcasters and newspapers who argue the FCC should have removed the ban altogether and loosened other rules. The FCC is independently reviewing those rules again to see if it needs to make any changes, and had asked the court to hold off on a decision until it could weigh in again, suggesting it could come to a different conclusion from the members of the 2007 FCC, only two of which remained. But the court lifted a years-long stay on enforcement of the 2007 rules last March and got the briefing schedule/oral argument ball rolling. An FCC spokesman said that associate general counsel Jacob Lewis will argue the case. On behalf of the deregulatory side-newspapers and broadcasters-- there will be a series of lawyers arguing various parts of the case, with Virginia Seitz of Sidley & Austin said to be handling much of the heavy lifting. Each side will get a half-hour, with the FCC getting a full hour to defend itself.
benton.org/node/51273 | Broadcasting&Cable
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BROADCAST OWNERSHIP DATA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau released a separate data set comprised of all ownership reports filed in response to the 2009 biennial ownership filing requirement. These data are the first available that reflect the significant revisions to the ownership reporting form, FCC Form 323, intended to substantially improve the completeness, accuracy, reliability and usability of ownership data. This data set also represents the first "snapshot" of broadcast ownership data in a series of planned, biennial "snapshots" that should collectively provide a reliable basis for analyzing ownership trends in the industry, including ownership by minorities and women. The revised form and data collection respond to the Commission's May 2009 323 Order, which sought to improve the availability of ownership information related to diversity. The revised FCC Form 323 enlarged the class of stations obligated to file biennially by requiring all full power commercial broadcast stations and all lower power television stations, including Class A stations, to file. The new form also eliminated the exemption from the biennial reporting requirement that applied to sole proprietorships and partnerships of natural persons that are licensees of commercial broadcast stations. It also established a single, uniform filing date, and required all attributable interest holders to obtain unique FCC Registration Numbers to facilitate cross-referencing of ownership interests. This first data set reflects ownership interests as of November 1, 2009.
benton.org/node/51294 | Federal Communications Commission
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PRIVACY
FACEBOOK VS FTC
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Gregory Fernstein]
Facebook just released a 26-page retort to the Federal Trade Commission’s preliminary report on privacy regulation--a report that social media firms see as an ominous approaching storm of chaotic bureaucracy. In summary, Facebook fears that government meddling could stifle both its ability to profit and smother the industry’s progress on yet-unknown technological advancements. Facebook responded in mirror-image to the FTC; first, (respectively) reminding the FTC how much social media has done for the government itself, the advancement of democracy, and the growing cottage industry of social software. Finally, Facebook urged the FTC to be sensitive to the business implications of its decisions, “For Facebook -- like most other online service providers--getting this balance right is a matter of survival,” the report notes. It continued, "Ultimately, the FTC's enforcement activities in the area of privacy must be guided by the realization that aggressive enforcement and imprecise standards can lead to more legalistic disclosures-and, as described above, chill economic growth-as companies seek to manage regulatory risk by over-disclosing, reserving broad rights, and under-innovating. To avoid these unintended consequences, the FTC should err on the side of clarifying its policies rather than taking aggressive enforcement action against practices that previously were not clearly prohibited."
benton.org/node/51347 | Fast Company
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CONTENT
ASTROTURFING THE NET
[SOURCE: guardian.co.uk, AUTHOR: George Monbiot]
[Commentary] Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren't what they seem. The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns that create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there's a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them. After I wrote about online astroturfing in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest Internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them. Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments.
benton.org/node/51298 | guardian.co.uk
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
FCC PUBLIC SAFETY NETWORK PROCEEDING
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
The Federal Communications Commission seeks comments on the development of a technical interoperability framework for the nationwide public safety broadband network. This document considers and proposes additional requirements to further promote and enable nationwide interoperability among public safety broadband networks operating in the 700 MHz band. This document addresses public safety broadband network interoperability from a technological perspective and considers interoperability at various communication layers. Submit comments on or before April 11, 2011. Submit reply comments on or before May 10, 2011. [PS Docket No. 06–229; WT Docket 06–150; WP Docket 07–100; FCC 11–6]
benton.org/node/51349 | Federal Communications Commission
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POLICYMAKERS
COUNCIL ON JOBS AND COMPETITIVENESS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
President Barack Obama named members to his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, a few highlighting the Administration's emphasis on high-tech and media firms to help shape economic policy.
Steve Case, founder, AOL
Kenneth I. Chenault, CEO, American Express
John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers
Paul S. Otellini, CEO, Intel
Richard D. Parsons, current CEO, Citigroup; former CEO, Time Warner
Brian L. Roberts, CEO, Comcast
Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
benton.org/node/51336 | Washington Post | full list of appointees | The White House - bios | The Hill
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SHAPIRO FOR COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS
[SOURCE: The White House]
President Barack Obama will nominate Carl Shapiro as a member of the Council of Economic Advisors. He will replace Cecilia Rouse, who will be leaving the Council of Economic Advisers to return to Princeton University. Shapiro is the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics at the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, where he supervises more than fifty Ph.D. economists in the Antitrust Division’s Economic Analysis Group. He served previously in this capacity from 1995-1996. Professor Shapiro is on leave from the University of California at Berkeley, where he is the Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy at the Haas School of Business and Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics. He has been a Professor at UC Berkeley since 1990. Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Professor Shapiro consulted extensively for a wide range of clients, mostly in the area of antitrust economics. Professor Shapiro is the co-author, with Hal R. Varian, of the 1999 book, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.
benton.org/node/51326 | White House, The
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TELEVISION
MOST BROADCASTERS UNLIKELY TO GIVE UP SPECTRUM
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Phil Weiser, the National Economic Council's senior adviser for technology and innovation, said that not many broadcasters have to participate in a proposal that would give them a share of the proceeds from the auction of spectrum they voluntarily give up for the initiative to be a success. During a forum sponsored by the Wireless Innovation Alliance on ways to expand the availability of spectrum, Weiser said broadcasters' top concern with the incentive auction proposal is not how much money they would get from the proposal but the process that will be used for relocating broadcasters who choose to give up some spectrum. "Most are not going to participate," Weiser said. "Most don't need to participate for it to be a win." Broadcasters have said they are open to incentive auctions as long as they are truly voluntary. When asked what share of the proceeds broadcasters will want in order to give up spectrum, Weiser said he did not believe it would be much given that they will still have "the same business model but it is done ... more efficiently." He said lawmakers, when crafting legislation authorizing the Federal Communications Commission to conduct incentive auctions, will have to decide what share of the auction proceeds broadcasters should receive in exchange for giving up some spectrum.
benton.org/node/51354 | National Journal
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TV SPECTRUM SPECULATORS
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Price Colman]
Cheap beachfront real estate. That’s how NRJ TV, a fledgling media group, views cellar-dwelling TV stations in major markets. Betting on an eventual auction of broadcast spectrum by the federal government, NRJ is buying such TV stations on the cheap in the hope of one day sharing in the proceeds of that auction. NRJ last month bought two former Multicultural Television stations — KCNS San Francisco and WFMP Boston — for $15 million and $5 million, respectively. And the company has its eye on as many as a dozen additional stations. WSAH Bridgeport (CT) in the New York market may be next on the list. Like KCNS and WFMP, WSAH is one of five Multicultural stations that were placed in a trust after owner Arthur Liu defaulted on loans. NRJ also was among the bidders for KWHY, the Los Angeles station NBCU sold in January to the Hispanic-owned Meruelo Group for $40 million. Ted Bartley, managing partner of NRJ, doesn't dismiss the idea of spectrum investing, but he does downplay it. “We are buying TV stations — we think at historical lows in some cases,” he said. “We don't know what the outcome will be. We’re trying to buy at a price to operate them efficiently and make money as broadcasters. I think all broadcasters hope for good things [on spectrum], but there’s no certainty,” he says. “We are certainly not speculating on that as the only way to make money.”
benton.org/node/51271 | TVNewsCheck
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NAB ON THE HILL
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The National Association of Broadcasters is hosting congressional staffers for a tutorial on broadband/broadcast co-existence and the continued value of the over-the-air medium. NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said the tutorial will feature Covington & Blake lawyer Jonathan Blake; Open Mobile Video Coalition Executive director Anne Schelle, and NAB Senior VP, Science and Technology, Lynn Claudy. The coalition is an alliance of TV stations, promoting the deployment of mobile DTV. Broadcasters are under pressure to give up as much as 120 Mhz of spectrum so it can be auctioned for wireless broadband in service of an exploding number of apps. That spectrum reclamation was part of the FCC's National Broadband Plan to boost broadband deployment and adoption.
benton.org/node/51296 | Broadcasting&Cable
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
FEDS APPEALING WIRETAPPING RULING
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: David Kravets]
The Obama Administration is appealing the first and likely only lawsuit resulting in a ruling against the secret National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program adopted in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks. US District Judge Vaughn Walker in December awarded $20,400 each to two American lawyers illegally wiretapped by the George W. Bush administration, and granted their counsel $2.5 million for the costs litigating the case for more than four years. Although Judge Walker had called it “unlawful surveillance,” he went soft on the government because the authorities, he said, believed they were protecting the country in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on US soil. Judge Walker did not declare the administration’s so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program unconstitutional, and he declined to issue punitive damages to punish the government for wiretapping in the country without warrants. Instead, the judge granted the two spied-upon lawyers for the now-defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation charity $100 a day for each of the 204 days their telephone calls were wiretapped beginning February 2004, an amount they sought. In addition, they requested about $200,000 each in punitive damages, and the same amount to be awarded to the charity—all of which was denied. The government lodged what is known as a notice of appeal with the judge’s court Feb 18. The government has about three months to file its opening brief with the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
benton.org/node/51265 | Wired
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HEALTH
HHS BELIEVES IN HEALTH IT
[SOURCE: ModernHealthcare.com, AUTHOR: Joseph Conn]
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called on members of the health information technology community to stay the course with healthcare reform and the government's meaningful-use health information technology incentive program while outgoing ONC head Dr. David Blumenthal delivered his swan song as the two delivered back-to-back keynote speeches Wednesday at the HIMSS convention in Orlando (FL). Sec Sebelius said that despite “lots of disagreement” in Congress on budget deficits and other matters, health information technology “is one of those issues where Democrats and Republicans stand together.” The Obama Administration also remains firmly supportive, she said. “We believe in health IT because it's an investment in a stronger economy” and understand its “huge job-creating potential,” Sec Sebelius said. “There is no doubt we're in a very tough budget environment,” she said, noting the Obama administration has proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in budget cuts. But the administration also realizes “it's equally important to keep the investments that will keep our economy growing” and to improve the health of the nation. The Obama budget includes a 25% increase to run the ONC, she said.
benton.org/node/51259 | ModernHealthcare.com | Health Data Management
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