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STRATEGIES FOR TELECOM, 'NET NEUTRALITY EMERGE
[SOURCE: Technology Daily, AUTHOR: David Hatch]
The Senate Commerce Committee confirmed that Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) will pursue a series of small, targeted telecommunications bills and not sweeping legislation. Some Capitol Hill sources suggested that Chairman Inouye is taking the approach to avoid the controversy that stalled efforts by Sen Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), last year's chairman, to pass a major telecom bill. But another observer said Chairman Inouye prefers the agility of the targeted approach as a way to move quickly on urgent matters. Meanwhile, there are rumblings that Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) is quietly planning a series of "educational" and "exploratory" hearings on network neutrality. The move could set the stage for a renewed effort by Democrats to regulate high-speed Internet services offered by telecom and cable giants.
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-GKFH1169665973452.html
* Who's Who on Senate Commerce Committee
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-WZMY1169666247456.html
Strategies For Telecom, 'Network Neutrality' Emerge
HILL TURF FIGHT MAY HAMPER MARKEY ON TELECOM
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Kim McAvoy]
If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) go through with plans to create a new committee on climate change and energy independence, then House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) could retaliate by underminining Rep Markey's telecom initiatives. Any initiative that Markey’s subcommittee takes ultimately has to go through Dingell’s parent Energy and Commerce Committee. Says one Hill insider, “Dingell’s got a long memory. One day, there will be something that Markey desperately needs and it will be very difficult for him.†Indeed, there is one unconfirmed report that Chairman Dingell has already given his blessing to Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA), a senior Telecom Subcommittee member, to work around Chairman Markey on telecom issues. Broadcast lobbyists like the idea of a less effective Chairman Markey. An old-fashioned liberal, he is attuned to broadcasting’s critics and likely to favor heavy doses of regulation and public interest obligations. Indeed, Rep Dingell has sometimes helped broadcasters by curtailing some of Rep Markey’s more regulatory-minded proposals. “Now with this blood feud over jurisdiction, the next time Markey does something the industry doesn't like, I think the Dingell people might be even more receptive to bopping him back,†says one industry source.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/01/24/daily.2/
Hill Turf Fight May Hamper Markey on Telecom
SENATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE ANNOUNCES SUBCOMMITTEES
[SOURCE: US Senate Commerce Committee]
Senators Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today announced the Committee’s subcommittees and their chairs and ranking members for the 110th Congress. Sen Inouye has not reconstituted the Communications Subcommittee. The Science, Technology, and Innovation Subcommittee will be Chaired by Sen John Kerry (D-Mass.); Sen John Ensign (R-Nev.) will be the Ranking Member.
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Det...
* Who's Who on Senate Commerce Committee
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-WZMY1169666247456.html
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&Pres…
DIGITAL TV BILL COMES UP SHORT
[SOURCE: TVPredictions.com, AUTHOR: Phillip Swann]
[Commentary] Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), and Fred Upton (R-Michigan) have introduced legislation designed to help educate consumers on the nation's transition to Digital TV (see http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/4586). The new legislation aims at the right target -- the government's need to educate consumers on the transition from analog to digital. However, it fails to provide the proper weapons: funding and specifics. The federal government needs a detailed DTV education plan, which includes a major advertising campaign reaching TV viewers, radio listeners and print and online readers. And it needs the money to carry out that plan. The $5 million that's been approved thus far is laughable. And so are the warning labels on analog TVs. Do you really think people look at warning labels? After all these years of warning labels on cigarettes? They are ignored. The feds also shouldn't count on the TV industry to do all the heavy lifting. Congress passed the Digital TV transition law -- it has the greatest responsibility to ensure that it's properly implemented.
http://www.tvpredictions.com/dtveducation012307.htm
Digital TV Bill Comes Up Short
ACM TO CHALLENGE FCC VIDEO FRANCHISING DECISION
[SOURCE: Alliance for Community Media press release]
The Alliance for Community Media (ACM) and the Alliance for Communications Democracy (ACD) working with local government partners, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), National League of Cities (NLC), and National Association of Counties (NACo) announced that they have retained legal counsel to challenge the FCC’s recent Order preempting local government control and authority over cable franchises, compensation for public property, community services and the availability of consumer protection in local communities. According to ACM Executive Director Anthony Riddle, "We do not want to go to court, but we cannot stand silent while giant corporations take away the only voices our communities have -- Public, Education and Government Access channels. We chose to stand with the cities and towns and with our neighbors against these aggressive giants."
http://www.alliancecm.org/
http://www.alliancecm.org/uploaded_docs/Attorney_press_release.pdf
ACM to Challenge FCC Video Franchising Decision
NET NEUTRALITY DEBATERS AGREE ON AT&T "EXTORTION"
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, backs a recently introduced bill that would mandate Network Neutrality and says the problem is not the isolated instances of discrimination, which by themselves would probably not justify regulation. Instead, she said, it is the fact that 98% of the broadband market is controlled by cable and telcos, with 40% of households having no choice in broadband provider. Network neutrality, she said, is pro-competition regulation. She also said broadcasters should be concerned about the issue. If broadcasters transition to IPTV or broadband delivery, they will fall under the network neutrality regime. Sohn said that regime would make it easier for them to distribute their content now without worries of being discriminated against.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6409858.html?display=Breaking...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6409858.html?display=Breaking%20News
'LAT' EDITOR: WEB WILL BE 'PRIMARY VEHICLE' FOR NEWS DELIVERY
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher]
Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea outlined a bold plan to increase traffic to and revenue from LATimes.com in the face of an increasingly difficult economic climate for newspaper publishers, and urged journalists to think of the Web site as the newspaper's primary vehicle for news. "We can't hide from the fact that smart competitors such as Google and Craigslist are stealing readers and advertisers from us through innovative strategies that are undermining the business model we've relied on for decades," said O'Shea, whose remarks were published in their entirety on the paper's Web site. He said today that the Times will fully integrate its print and online newsrooms, and named business editor Russ Stanton to the new position of Special Editor for Innovation. "Currently we have a newspaper staff and an LATimes.com staff," he said. "No more. From now on, there are no two staffs, there is just one. And we will function as one. One of Russ's first jobs will be to help set up that newsroom." O'Shea also said that there would be changes in the way the content in the print edition would be viewed. Where Web stories and blogs allow journalists an endless amount of space to give readers in-depth accounts, he said he wanted the physical paper to become "an even stronger vehicle for tightly-written context, analysis, interpretation and expertise."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...
* 'LA Times' Staffers Greet Merged Newsroom With Cautious Enthusiasm
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...
* The Times shifts its focus to Web
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-times25jan25,1,341396...
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=…
CHINA TO SURPASS US ON INTERNET USERS
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
China is on pace to surpass the United States within two years as the nation with the most Internet users. China's online population grew by 23.4 percent last year to 137 million people, about 10 percent of its 1.3 billion population, the China Internet Network Information Center reported on its Web site. "We believe it will take two years at most for China to overtake the United States," the official China Daily newspaper quoted an official of the agency, Wang Enhai, as saying. About 210 million of the United States' 300 million people are online, according to the U.S. government. China would reach 210 million users in two years if it keeps up a 24 percent annual growth rate.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16785918/
China to surpass U.S. on Internet users
VERIZON FIOS TRIGGERING CABLE DEREG
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
The Federal Communications Commission Wednesday released a batch of orders that removed local price controls on basic-cable service, including two cases that involved Cablevision Systems in communities where Verizon Communications is deploying its FiOS TV all-fiber 180-channel video system. In the vast majority of cases, the FCC has granted cable operators' “petitions for effective competition†based on satellite competition. If EchoStar Communications’ Dish Network and DirecTV combined serve 15% of the households in a franchise area, the local cable incumbent is price deregulated. But Cablevision sought relief in two New York communities -- Nyack and Hempstead -- based on a different competition test that applies when the terrestrial video provider is a local phone company, also called a local-exchange carrier or LEC. Under the so-called LEC test, all the cable incumbent has to do is demonstrate that the phone company has the capability and intent to compete for video subscribers. However, the LEC test doesn't have any subscriber-penetration requirement. When the FCC grants a petition for effective competition, regardless of the test used, the local government loses authority to cap the price of the basic tier, which all cable subscribers must buy. In addition, cable operators do not have to offer a uniform rate structure and may require subscribers to purchase any number of programming tiers before they may access premium and pay-per-view offerings.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6409873.html?display=Breaking+News
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6409873.html?display=Breaking%20News
CBS: LET MARKET DECIDE PAY TV CARRIAGE
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
CBS lobbyists have been making the rounds at the Federal Communications Commission urging regulators to let the market solve carriage disputes involving local TV stations and cable operators, satellite providers and other pay TV distributors. CBS is pitching a free-market approach on the heels of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s decision Jan. 6 to pull 22 stations from Mediacom Communications cable systems serving 700,000 subscribers in 13 states in one of the toughest cable retransmission-consent fights in many years. The unresolved clash between Sinclair and Mediacom has involved the FCC, the federal courts and some members of Congress.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6409864.html?display=Breaking+News
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6409864.html?display=Breaking%20News