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October 21, 2012

Source

Pew Internet & American Life Project

Author

Coverage Type

The use of social media is becoming a feature of political and civic engagement for many Americans. Some 60% of American adults use either social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter and a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project finds that 66% of those social media users—or 39% of all American adults—have done at least one of eight civic or political activities with social media.

Overall, there are mixed partisan and ideological patterns among social media users when it comes to using social media like social networking sites and Twitter. The social media users who talk about politics on a regular basis are the most likely to use social media for civic or political purposes. And the social media users who have firmer party and ideological ties—liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans—are, at times, more likely than moderates in both parties to use social media for these purposes. Some of these activities are more likely to be pursued by younger social media users compared with the social media users who are ages 50 or older. Younger users are more likely to post their own thoughts about issues, post links to political material, encourage others to take political action, belong to a political group on a social networking site, follow elected officials on social media, and like or promote political material others have posted.

Social Media and Political Engagement

October 21, 2012

Source

Columbia Journalism Review

Author

Tharon Giddens

Coverage Type

Lauren Frayer

What will stations do with campaign largesse? How will they invest in their community, and how will they bolster news coverage? And considering where that money came from, how much time, effort, and money are they investing now in covering the elections and in checking out the ads themselves?

Those concerns are especially apropos in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market, located in southwest Virginia. Though it’s only the 68th-largest broadcast area in the nation, the market has at times ranked at the top of the list in terms of the volume of political advertising on its airwaves. And the center of the TV ad war in Roanoke is the market leader, WDBJ (Channel 7). Jeff Marks, the general manager of WDBJ, said the “cushion” provided by campaign ads helped support equipment upgrades, plus the reopening of a local bureau and other staff additions. He pointed to added staff for the digital newsroom; an increase to six-figure levels in the station’s charitable donations to arts and human services groups; a boost in employee benefits; and investments in equipment, such as $65,000 for a touch screen device that will allow anchors to manipulate images.

Awash in ads in Roanoke

October 21, 2012

Source

Crain’s Chicago Business

Author

Lynne Marek

Coverage Type

Lauren Frayer

San Diego Union-Tribune LLC newspaper owner and real estate developer Doug Manchester told a local TV news station that he would consider buying the Tribune Company. "We certainly are going to look at it," Manchester told KPBS in an interview. "We are looking at it, yes. I would like to, yes." Manchester, who gained prominence in Southern California for his hotel and resort developments, bought the Union-Tribune last November reportedly for about $100 million. He has since also launched a television channel and bought another local newspaper, the North County Times. In the past, he also ran and sold a chain of radio stations.

San Diego developer eyes purchase of Tribune

October 21, 2012

Source

Ars Technica

Author

Joe Mullin

Coverage Type

Lauren Frayer

The French seem to have an appetite for regulating the Internet, and for going after Google in particular. A new proposed law would force Google to make payments when French media show up in news searches; but Google has responded, in a letter to French ministers, that it "cannot accept" such a solution and would simply remove French media sites from its searches. The result? "Less information would be available online," writes Google.

French media to Google: pay us for news searches

October 21, 2012

Source

paidContent.org

Author

Robert Andrews

Coverage Type

Lauren Frayer

This will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Google News’ relations with news publishers over the years. The next country in which tension has erupted is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. All 154 members of the Association of Newspapers in Brazil (ANJ), comprising 90 percent of the country’s newspaper circulation, recently opted out of Google News, claiming the search firm should pay them to re-run their headlines and excerpts. Brazil is a new ball game, with an increasingly affluent, increasingly digital middle class ready to grow the country from an “emerging market” in to a real market. If Google cannot get publishers on board, it may be missing out on some of the Latin America boom opportunity.

Google News faces mass newspaper boycott in Brazil

October 21, 2012

Source

Wall Street Journal

Author

Amol Sharma

Coverage Type

Lauren Frayer

India is becoming a critical testing ground for Facebook as it strives to cash in on growth in emerging markets and better target mobile-phone users—two increasingly pressing goals for the social-networking firm.

The company sees the giant nation, whose Internet user base is expanding rapidly, as a market central to its future prospects. Since putting its first employee in India in 2010, Facebook has grown from eight million Indian users to 65 million as of this month, making it one of the company's top global markets. But sustaining that growth and cashing in on it won't be a cinch. The firm must cater to millions of Indians coming online for the first time on low-tech mobile phones with spotty cell service. Everything—from Facebook's own services to the many apps Indian companies develop—will have to work in that environment. The firm must also lure marketers who still see social-media advertising as a fringe, experimental activity. The lessons the company could learn in India will apply in other emerging markets like Indonesia, Brazil and parts of Africa, executives said.

India, A New Facebook Testing Ground

Submitted on October 19, 2012

It is not every week that we focus on consolidation of ownership in the wireless industry. OK, you are right, frequent reader, it is almost every week. On October 15, Sprint Nextel announced that it had agreed to sell 70 percent of itself to SoftBank of Japan for $20.1 billion. SoftBank, a big Japanese telecommunications company, said it would pay $8 billion to buy newly issued Sprint stock worth about $5.25 a share. It will then pay $12.1 billion to buy existing stock from other investors at $7.30 a share, a premium to current levels. [See more on how the deal is structured.] The parties hope to close the deal – after gaining approval from regulators and Sprint shareholders – in the middle of 2013.

For Sprint, the deal provides some much-needed cash as it tries to compete with Verizon Wireless, which controls 32 percent of the market, and AT&T Mobility, which has a 30 percent market share. Sprint is the third-largest carrier with a 16 percent share. Sprint has been spending billions of dollars to build a next-generation data network to support the latest smartphones like the Apple iPhone 5, but remains well behind Verizon and AT&T in offering Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, data service. Sprint has nearly $21 billion in debt, some of which is set to mature next year. With the announcement came immediate speculation that Sprint could now seek additional merger and acquisition opportunities. Stifel Nicolaus analyst Christopher King pointed out that “the deal itself does not create much, if any, financial synergies . . . outside of lowering Sprint’s financing costs.”

Until now, SoftBank has been focused on gaining share in its home market, largely through acquisitions and building out an LTE high-speed data network. Softbank, which first became a mobile operator just six years ago, has doubled its subscriber base in Japan using aggressive pricing and creative contracts. Back in 2006, SoftBank purchased the struggling Japanese unit of Vodafone. Softbank immediately unleashed a barrage of advertising that included international superstars such as Brad Pitt and offbeat commercials featuring talking cats and aggressive contract plans that set off a price war. It was also the first of Japan's big three operators to embrace smartphones and made another successful gamble in agreeing to Apple's strict purchasing and profit-sharing requirements to become Japan's exclusive iPhone provider until last year. Since entering the mobile business in April of 2006, Softbank has more than doubled its subscriber base to 30 million, a period in which the Japan's overall number of subscribers has increased only 40 percent. Recently, SoftBank had been focused on reducing its enormous debt load, which stood at nearly $13 billion as of June 30. But Japan’s market is not growing as the US market is. Handset shipments tumbled 27 percent during the past five years in Japan.

If completed, the deal will create the world’s third-largest mobile phone operator by revenues. Softbank group will have 96 million users after the transaction. It will also give SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son influence over the future of the industry at a time when every big US operator is scrambling for spectrum. The strategy in the Sprint deal counts on smartphone users migrating to faster wireless networks to surf the Web and download videos and music. Softbank is looking to ride the fastest growth in mobile communications since 3G started rolling out a decade ago. LTE subscriptions quadrupled this year to 73 million and are expected to reach 1.2 billion by 2016, according to projections from IHS iSuppli. Some of the world’s largest handset makers -- Apple, Samsung Electronics Co. and HTC Corp. - - support the technology. By acquiring Sprint, Softbank is likely to make some economies of scale, as the iPhone is the core handset at both companies and both use Ericsson infrastructure.

The deal comes on the heels of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA plans to buy MetroPCS, a move that would unite the fourth and fifth largest wireless companies in the US. And consolidation in the global telecoms industry is expected to accelerate, with the shift to advanced mobile data services increasing pressure on carriers to build scale in order to meet rising capital spending requirements.

More Consolidation Coming?
As the deal was announced, reports indicated that Sprint was trying to take control of Clearwire. Sprint had held a 48 percent share of Clearwire and an equal percentage of voting power. But on October 16, Bloomberg reported Sprint had no immediate plans to take over Clearwire.

GigaOm’s Kevin Fitchard looked at these reports, but dug a little deeper. He noted that, in some ways, SoftBank and Clearwire are kindred souls. Both companies are building time-division or TD-LTE networks, using the exact same 2.5 GHz band. The two are already partners in a global TD-LTE consortium – along with China Mobile and India’s Bharti – tasked with creating a handset and device ecosystem for their pet technology. A three-way marriage between Clearwire, Sprint and Softbank would only further those goals. Heck, Sprint could buy out Clearwire outright and build the fattest LTE pipe in the country with Clearwire’s treasure trove of spectrum.

By October 18, we saw confirmation that Sprint had acquired Eagle River Holdings LLC’s stake in Clearwire, a move that gives Sprint control over Clearwire’s board. Eagle River held a 4.5 percent stake in Clearwire. Sprint had also approached Comcast and Intel recently to discuss acquiring those companies’ stakes in Clearwire, according to the people who have knowledge of the Eagle River deal. It made little headway, they said. Eagle River is owned by Clearwire founder Craig McCaw who aimed to build the first nationwide wireless network that would allow people to browse the Web on mobile phones at broadband speeds. The company got a big boost in 2008, when an unlikely alliance including Sprint, Comcast, Intel and Google announced an investment of billions of dollars in Clearwire. But it later fell behind in the race to build next-generation networks amid mounting debts and squabbles with Sprint.

With control of Clearwire’s spectrum Sprint now controls more spectrum in the 100 largest US wireless markets than Verizon Wireless and AT&T together. But Clearwire’s spectrum is in a high frequency range that means its signal does not penetrate buildings as well as, or travel as far as, signals using lower-frequency spectrum owned by Verizon and AT&T. That means mobile telecom network operators using the higher frequency band have to build many more cell towers in the dense urban areas where most people live. Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research said Clearwire’s spectrum “remains problematic (because) it would be extraordinarily expensive to complete a network” using such high-frequency spectrum. Jonathan Chaplin, analyst at Credit Suisse, said Sprint “needs to make a clear choice – if Clearwire’s 2.5GHz spectrum is strategic/valuable, Sprint should buy all of it; if it isn’t, Sprint should stop throwing good money after bad.”

In Japan, news reports this week say Softbank will use its position in Sprint to pursue a purchase of MetroPCS Wireless. Softbank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said he wouldn't rule out further deals in the U.S. even as he focuses on closing the acquisition of Sprint. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile was possible in the long term, but that Sprint for now was focused on overhauling its network and closing the deal with Softbank. He argued that a merger between the No. 3 and No. 4 carriers could be good for consumers by creating a more formidable competitor to market leaders Verizon and AT&T.

A piece that really caught our eye was business/consumer columnist Los Angeles Times David Lazarus’s Will SoftBank buy other U.S. telecom firms after Sprint? He writes that Softbank would be “crazy” to invest so much in Sprint just to remain in the shadow of industry leaders Verizon and AT&T. “But the Sprint deal looks a whole lot more intriguing if you also have plans to add other carriers to the fold.” It would be naive to think that SoftBank sees a multibillion-dollar investment to control Sprint as a final destination. Rather, it's a transit point to even grander ambitions. Lazarus speculates on a combination that includes both SoftBank-Sprint and T-Mobile/MetroPCS.

Good for Consumers?
Both the Softbank-Sprint deal and the T-Mobile-MetroPCS deal will be good for U.S. consumers since they will put more pressure on Verizon and AT&T, according to Kester Mann, lead analyst for operators at CCS Insight. SoftBank has a reputation as an aggressive Internet conglomerate at home, with a history of barging into new fields and undercutting its rivals with cheap prices, new services, and oddball advertising.

Cecilia Kang and Chico Harlan, writing in the Washington Post, noted that the Softbank-Sprint deal and the T-Mobile-MetroPCS deal revives a national rivalry with two underdogs newly motivated to lure away consumers from the bigger companies. In the near term, analysts say, that could mean consumers will continue to have access to data plans that charge one price for unlimited use — a practice the biggest companies have abandoned. T-Mobile will focus on frugal urban customers through cheaper, no-contract plans.

“Having competitors to Verizon and AT&T has been critical because they provide more options and put pressure on the big carriers,” said Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press.

“What this deal means for competitors is you have a potential powerhouse on your hands that has a ton of spectrum and now, finally, the finances they need to build out a system,” said Roger Entner, an analyst and founder of the Recon Analytics consulting firm. “What this means for consumers is the potential to sustain unlimited plans much longer and new and innovative pricing plans,” he said.

David Lazarus, who often writes from a consumer perspective, says the consolidation of the wireless market could have profound ramifications for consumers. With T-Mobile's deal for MetroPCS, one up-and-coming rival would be eliminated. SoftBank, on the other hand, wants a piece of the action. The only question is how big a piece. Short-term, a stronger Sprint would bolster wireless competition. Longer term, however, further consolidation among wireless companies is almost inevitable, experts say. And with less competition comes the likelihood of higher prices and less incentive to innovate.

Just speculation? First, consider again Sprint gaining control of Clearwire which currently leases space on its network to other wireless providers. Will the company continue doing that under SoftBank ownership, or will it dedicate all its resources to expanding Sprint's footprint? Or will SoftBank seek to acquire companies that now rely on Clearwire? One possible target: Leap Wireless International, which this year signed a five-year deal with Clearwire for high-speed mobile broadband service. Leap operates the Cricket brand, which, like MetroPCS, focuses on being a low-cost alternative to the big four.

Regulatory Review
Sprint anticipates that the Federal Communications Commissions will find the proposed transfer of Sprint's spectrum licenses to SoftBank "in the public interest." Moreover, Sprint expects the Department of Justice to complete a review of the deal within an initial 30-day period and won’t warrant an extended investigation.

“This is pro-competition and pro-consumer because it creates a stronger number three to compete with AT&T Wireless and Verizon,” said Sprint’s Hesse. “Over the longer term I think we will see consolidation in the US industry and what this does is give Sprint the balance sheet and financial flexibility to play a larger role in consolidation in the future.”

The deal is the largest acquisition of a US company by a Japanese buyer. Because the deal involves a majority foreign owner, the transaction will also be evaluated by the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for any national security concerns. Some analysts expect that AT&T will raise strong objections to the deal. Sprint strongly opposed the AT&T's failed bid to buy T-Mobile USA last year, leaving some bad feelings between the firms. AT&T issued a statement that noted Sprint’s control over Clearwire would convey to SoftBank “control of significantly more U.S. wireless spectrum than any other company.” AT&T said it expected “that fact and others” to figure into the federal review of the SoftBank deal. [See more on AT&T’s opposition here and here and here.]

Regulators and members of Congress may also express concerns about foreign ownership of a critical piece of the U.S. communications infrastructure. Analysts also said that regulators may be concerned that the proposed SoftBank-Sprint deal would make AT&T the only solely-U.S. owned of the four largest wireless carriers. Fourth-ranked T-Mobile is owned by Deutsche Telekom of Germany, while UK-based Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon Wireless.

"Under well-established FCC policy, foreign ownership above the 25% benchmark is presumed to be in the public interest for companies organized in WTO-member countries," noted Sprint spokesperson Scott Sloat.

Sprint has indicated it will not use network equipment made by Huawei because of the US Congress’s security concerns about the Chinese company.

“Almost any other deal outside of Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility will likely have little issues getting regulatory approval,” Christopher King, an analyst with the investment firm Stifel Nicolaus, wrote in a research note.

Federal regulators have signaled that they're comfortable with a wireless market composed primarily of four big players. So it's unlikely that a SoftBank-controlled Sprint would raise too many alarm bells with subsequent acquisitions. The real question would be if Sprint made a grab for T-Mobile. Such a merger would give the company about as many wireless customers as either Verizon or AT&T. It would also mean that just three carriers would control almost the entire market.

We’ll be sure to watch the federal review of the deal in Headlines [watch here] We’ll leave you, though, with a pointer to a very good analysis of the US wireless market written by our good friend, Harold Feld of Public Knowledge. He looks at foreign investors spending the equivalent of $25 billion to invest in competing carriers T-Mobile and to acquire control of Sprint and ClearWire; AT&T investing in network upgrades such as repurposing its 2G spectrum, clearing up the interference in the WCS band, and a seemingly endless stream of license acquisitions; and U.S. Cellular spending money to coble together a broader footprint using the less—than—stellar—but—better—than–nothing 700 MHz A block. And what does he create for all this investment? The Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission have made clear over the last two years that (a) we will have 4 national carriers, and (b) the FCC cares about ensuring enough spectrum access to keep Sprint and T-Mobile (and hopefully other competitors) viable. Contrary to all conventional wisdom, two years of FCC regulation like data roaming and special access reform, combined with antitrust enforcement around AT&T/T-Mo and Verizon/SpectrumCo, stimulates investment in the wireless industry and forces companies like AT&T and Verizon to get serious about developing the spectrum they need and ditching the spectrum they don’t need on the secondary market.

October 19, 2012 (Stanford Ovshinsky)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2012

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   How Antitrust Enforcement And Pro-Competitive Regulation Encourage Investment, Innovation, and Spectrum Efficiency - analysis
   FCC Official Downplays Spectrum Estimates From Auctions
   Wait, now Sprint wants to control Clearwire?
   AT&T sounds alarm over Sprint's Clearwire deal
   Softbank CEO Won't Rule Out MetroPCS Bid
   AT&T shoots for 2015 launch of new LTE network [links to web]

INTERNET/BROADBAND
FCC plan to bring high-speed Internet to rural areas could slow it down

CYBERSECURITY
   Holes in US cyber security - editorial
   Banks Pushed to Clear Fog of Cyberwar [links to web]
   Meet the Feds Who are Defending You Online [links to web]
   Small Biz Cyber Planner 2.0 - press release [links to web]
   New "Surveillance-Proof" App To Secure Communications Has Governments Nervous [links to web]

MEDIA AND ELECTIONS
   TV Stations Getting Rich From Misleading Super PAC Ads, Watchdog Group Says
   Voters: TV Key To Political Choices [links to web]
   States Reap Big Bucks In Tight Political Races [links to web]
   GOP Super PAC Puts Facebook Users in Custom Ads [links to web]
   Nate Silver, Media Critic [links to web]

OWNERSHIP
Apple loses appeal, has to buy ads in Britain to apologize to Samsung [links to web]
In post-trial battles with Samsung, Apple fights to keep documents sealed [links to web]

CONTENT
   Twitter Censors Users for the First Time
   Twitter, Reddit and the battle over free speech
   Catching Up, Not Cord Cutting, Drives Increase in Content Streaming: Study [links to web]
   Chicago Tribune to set pay wall at $14.99 per month [links to web]
   Newsweek to Become Online-Only After 80 Years in Print [links to web]
   In New York, Broadcasters Fight for Piece of Digital Pie [links to web]
   US Programmers Make Bids for Barclays Premier League Rights [links to web]
   For CBS Chief, It's About Survivors [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Study: Government Websites Fall Short [links to web]
   State Department Seeks System to Track Diplomats Through Cell Phone Signals [links to web]
   Sprint rules out using Huawei equipment [links to web]

POLICYMAKERS
House Commerce Committee Counts Incentive Auctions Among 3rd Quarter Accomplishments [links to web]
Stanford Ovshinsky, a Self-Taught Maverick in Electronics [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
Mobile groups face India spectrum fee [links to web]
Clarke open to new law to regulate press in UK [links to web]

MORE ONLINE
Men at MSNBC make more money [links to web]

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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT
[SOURCE: Tales of the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] In the past month, to the complete surprise of just about every analyst and industry watcher, foreign investors spent the equivalent of $25 billion to invest in competing carriers T-Mobile and to acquire control of Sprint and ClearWire. AT&T has announced a whole bunch of network upgrades such as repurposing its 2G spectrum, clearing up the interference in the WCS band, and a seemingly endless stream of license acquisitions. While the last is perhaps not so unusual, U.S. Cellular has likewise been spending money to cobble together a broader footprint using the less—than—stellar—but—better—than–nothing 700 MHz A block. Quite a turnaround from the start of 2011, when the industry appeared on a glide-path for a duopoly. So what happened? The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have made clear over the last two years that (a) we will have 4 national carriers, and (b) the FCC cares about ensuring enough spectrum access to keep Sprint and T-Mobile (and hopefully other competitors) viable. Contrary to all conventional wisdom, two years of FCC regulation like data roaming and special access reform, combined with antitrust enforcement around AT&T/T-Mo and Verizon/SpectrumCo, stimulates investment in the wireless industry and forces companies like AT&T and Verizon to get serious about developing the spectrum they need and ditching the spectrum they don’t need on the secondary market.
benton.org/node/137487 | Tales of the Sausage Factory
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SPECTRUM AUCTION ESTIMATES
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
A key Federal Communications Commission official in charge of helping to implement incentive auction legislation downplayed initial estimates about how much spectrum could come out of the process. During a speech at the Media Institute, Gary Epstein, a senior adviser and co-leader of the FCC's incentive auction task force, discussed the FCC's proposal to implement the incentive auction authority provided by Congress as part of payroll tax legislation passed in February. The incentive auctions are aimed at enticing broadcasters to give up some of their spectrum or agree to share spectrum with another TV station. That spectrum would then be auctioned to wireless providers, who say they need more spectrum to meet the nation's growing demand for wireless technologies. When asked whether FCC officials were backing away from the agency’s 120 megahertz goal, Epstein said that he was "not in the business of estimating" how much spectrum the process would yield. "It's a market-based decision," he said. "Our real job is to make the reverse auction understandable and make it easier for folks to participate."
benton.org/node/137490 | National Journal | B&C
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NOW SPRINTS WANTS CLEARWIRE?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
After four years of keeping Clearwire at arm’s length, Sprint apparently feels it’s time to step in and take the struggling 4G carrier under its wing. The idea was that Clearwire as an independent company would attract outside investors and build a big honking 4G network. Sprint would get all of the benefit of that network without having to foot the bill. Well, that didn’t happen. Clearwire’s nationwide rollout stopped after it got a third of the country covered, and it’s been in a holding pattern ever since. Instead of re-upping its investment in Clearwire, Sprint spent just enough to keep it afloat and then launched its own LTE network. Talk about a dysfunctional relationship. Why would Sprint be suddenly interested in taking control over the partner it’s been jilting for years? Sprint is required to do so make good on its deal with Softbank. Softbank and Clearwire have a lot in common due to their 4G technology choices, but not necessarily enough in common to justify buying Clearwire outright. Maybe this option – if it proves to be true – splits the difference.
benton.org/node/137467 | GigaOm
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AT&T SOUNDS ALARM ON SOFTBANK-SPRINT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
AT&T is urging regulators to take a close look at Sprint's recent deals with Softbank and Clearwire. AT&T began sounding alarm that a foreign company could soon control large chunks of the nation's airwaves. "Softbank's acquisition of Sprint and the control it gains over Clearwire will give one of Japan's largest wireless companies control of significantly more U.S. wireless spectrum than any other company," said Brad Burns, an AT&T vice president. "We expect that fact and others will be fully explored in the regulatory review process. This is one more example of a very dynamic and competitive U.S. wireless marketplace, which is an important fact for U.S. regulators to recognize."
AT&T is currently looking to gain government approval of its own smaller spectrum deals with companies including NextWave, Comcast and Horizon. AT&T's statement could be seen as putting pressure on the Federal Communications Commission to approve its deals if the commission also allows Softbank to take over Sprint and Clearwire.
benton.org/node/137481 | Hill, The | The Verge | National Journal
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SOFTBANK-METROPCS?
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Daisuke Wakabayashi, Anton Troianovski, Anupreeta Das]
The chiefs of Softbank and Sprint Nextel are focused on closing their $20 billion deal, but said they may pursue mergers with other wireless carriers if opportunities present themselves. Softbank chief Masayoshi Son wouldn't rule out making a competing bid for MetroPCS Communications, which has agreed to combine with T-Mobile USA. "We shouldn't rule out any opportunity or alternative," said Son. Sprint Chief Executive Dan Hesse said a merger between Sprint and No. 4 carrier T-Mobile USA was possible in the long term, but that Sprint for now was focused on overhauling its network and closing the deal with Softbank. He argued that a merger between the No. 3 and No. 4 carriers could be good for consumers by creating a more formidable competitor to market leaders Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
benton.org/node/137508 | Wall Street Journal | additional link
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

CONNECT AMERICA FUND
[SOURCE: KTIV, AUTHOR: Jacqueline Quynh]
Heath Mallory works at Western Iowa Telephone, a small independent phone company. He says recent plans by the Federal Communications Commission to make high-speed Internet access available in rural areas could also slow it down. That's because, if these FCC changes cause Western Iowa Telephone to lose money, they may not be able expand and maintain their rural broadband service. "What we're primarily concerned with is, carriers that have used our networks in the past are no longer going to be forced to pay us to use our network and what that means is our end user customers, our telephone customers, our cable TV customers, our Internet customers are going to have to pay higher rates" Mallory said. So, how does this affect pricing changes? The FCC tells us the old system of compensating phone companies for processing calls from other phone companies was becoming ineffective, especially as people started making calls using broadband connections. In some areas fees varied greatly. The FCC issued a release, explaining these changes. "The Connect America Fund is designed to expand broadband access to the 19 million rural Americans who lack it -- including over 200,000 rural Iowans -- while at the same time increasing fiscal responsibility in order to be fair to the consumers and small businesses nationwide who pay into the fund." That means, for some rural locations where subsidies artificially lowered phone service, bills could go up. Western Iowa Telephone is currently evaluating a possible rate increase as a result of the FCC's changes. Mallory says one option you have before his company raises rates is to write to your local representative.
benton.org/node/137453 | KTIV
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CYBERSECURITY

US CYBERSECURITY
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The US Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to cybersecurity legislation in the Senate didn't square with the actual provisions of the bill, which addressed most of its stated concerns. The best practices it promoted would have set security goals, but businesses would have decided what techniques to use to meet them. Any business that complied with these practices would have been immune to punitive damages if customers sued them in the event of a successful cyberattack, which is a sensible incentive to participate. Business groups are backing a bipartisan House bill that deals only with information-sharing among companies and the federal government, not the vulnerability of critical infrastructure, which is at least as large a problem. Sec of Defense Leon Panetta's speech makes it clear that the private sector isn't doing enough to gird itself against the threats it faces, and that the potential consequences could be devastating. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has pledged to take up the cyber-security bill again in November, after the election, and lawmakers should enact a bill along the lines of the Senate bill blocked by Republicans in August. Failing that, President Barack Obama should issue an executive order to promote voluntary cyber-security standards and information-sharing within the limits of current law. That's not the ideal approach, but it's a start.
benton.org/node/137511 | Los Angeles Times
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MEDIA AND ELECTIONS

TV STATIONS PROFIT FROM MISLEADING ADS
[SOURCE: The Wrap, AUTHOR: Doug Halonen]
Television stations are getting rich by airing political ads from Super PACs and other outside groups that station officials know are misleading, Free Press charged. The group asked the public to protest the broadcast industry's refusal to check facts in ads sponsored by independent political groups during the current election cycle. Under the law, broadcasters are legally obliged to run ads from political candidates themselves, even when those spots include blatant falsehoods. But the law says that broadcasters can reject deceptive ads from Super PACs and other groups not directly affiliated with candidates. “The problem is not a lot of stations are doing that,” said Timothy Karr, Free Press senior director of strategy. To combat the misinformation, Free Press is asking the public to weigh in, and Free Press has volunteered to deliver the messages to the Big 4 TV network affiliated stations in the top 50 markets, where most of the political ad dollars are being spent. “Our campaign hopes to convince stations to do the right thing by connecting them with many of the outraged viewers in their markets,” Karr said.
benton.org/node/137505 | Wrap, The
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CONTENT

TWITTER CENSORS USERS FOR THE FIRST TIME
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Adam Clark Estes]
For the first time ever, Twitter censored a controversial account at the request of local government earlier this week. It was run by neo-Nazis. The ban, which is the first of its kind under a relatively new Twitter policy that gives the company "the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country -- while keeping it available in the rest of the world." As such, the ban is only effective in Germany. The rest of the world is free to follow the bigots.
benton.org/node/137469 | Atlantic, The | LATimes
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TWITTER, REDDIT AND FREE SPEECH
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Mathew Ingram]
Where should freedom of speech begin and end when you are a web-based entity with a global audience? That’s the question raised by a couple of recent events, including the furor over a Reddit moderator’s creepy behavior, and now the news that Twitter has blocked an account for the first time at the request of a state government — in this case Germany, which asked the service to take action against a Twitter user posting neo-Nazi sentiments, something that is forbidden by the laws of that country. As the web and social tools become more mainstream, these kinds of battles over the limits that should apply to free speech are only going to become more frequent, but the solution to them remains elusive at best.
benton.org/node/137468 | GigaOm
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October 19, 2012

Source

New York Times

Author

Barnaby Feder

Coverage Type

Lauren Frayer

Stanford R. Ovshinsky, an iconoclastic, largely self-taught and commercially successful scientist who invented the nickel-metal hybrid battery and contributed to the development of a host of devices, including solar energy panels, flat-panel displays and rewritable compact discs, died on Oct 17 at his home in Bloomfield Hills (MI). He was 89.

Placing Ovshinsky in “the league of genius inventors,” The Economist magazine once titled an article about him “The Edison of Our Age?” If not quite that, he was certainly among the 20th century’s most inventive breed of scientists who, like Edison, parlayed their ideas into practical commercial applications. He gained particular attention for upsetting common wisdom about the nature of semiconductors. Semiconductors, which block or carry electrical current depending on the voltage to which they are exposed, typically consist of crystals in which molecules line up in ordered ranks. But in the late 1950s Mr. Ovshinsky became convinced that less regimented materials could also act as semiconductors. He argued that products using these so-called amorphous, or disordered, materials could be much cheaper to make than those built from the workhorse compounds of the electronics industry, like silicon crystals.

Stanford Ovshinsky, a Self-Taught Maverick in Electronics

October 19, 2012

Source

Los Angeles Times

Author

Editorial staff

Coverage Type

Lauren Frayer

[Commentary] The US Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to cybersecurity legislation in the Senate didn't square with the actual provisions of the bill, which addressed most of its stated concerns. The best practices it promoted would have set security goals, but businesses would have decided what techniques to use to meet them. Any business that complied with these practices would have been immune to punitive damages if customers sued them in the event of a successful cyberattack, which is a sensible incentive to participate. Business groups are backing a bipartisan House bill that deals only with information-sharing among companies and the federal government, not the vulnerability of critical infrastructure, which is at least as large a problem. Sec of Defense Leon Panetta's speech makes it clear that the private sector isn't doing enough to gird itself against the threats it faces, and that the potential consequences could be devastating. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has pledged to take up the cyber-security bill again in November, after the election, and lawmakers should enact a bill along the lines of the Senate bill blocked by Republicans in August. Failing that, President Barack Obama should issue an executive order to promote voluntary cyber-security standards and information-sharing within the limits of current law. That's not the ideal approach, but it's a start.

Holes in US cyber security

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October 19, 2012 (Stanford Ovshinsky)

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