August 21, 2012 (FirstNet Board Named)

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

FIRSTNET BOARD NAMED
[SOURCE: Department of Commerce, AUTHOR: Press release]
Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank appointed twelve of the nation’s leading experts on public safety and wireless broadband communications to serve on the Board of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet). They are:
Tim Bryan, CEO, National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative
Charles “Chuck” Dowd, Deputy Chief, New York City Police Department
F. Craig Farrill, Wireless telecommunications executive
Paul Fitzgerald, Sheriff, Story County, Iowa
Samuel “Sam” Ginn, Telecommunications executive
Jeffrey Johnson, Fire Chief (retired); former Chair, State Interoperability Council, State of Oregon; CEO, Western Fire Chiefs Association
William Keever, Telecommunications executive (retired)
Kevin McGinnis, Chief/CEO, North East Mobile Health Services
Ed Reynolds, Telecommunications executive (retired)
Susan Swenson, Telecommunications/technology executive
Teri Takai, Government information technology expert; former CIO, states of Michigan and California
Wellington Webb, Founder, Webb Group International; former Mayor, Denver, Colorado
Ginn will serve as the Chairman of the FirstNet Board.
FirstNet is congressionally mandated to establish a nationwide wireless broadband network that enables police, firefighters, emergency services personnel, and others in public safety to better communicate with one another during emergencies and use new technology to improve response time, keep communities safe, and save lives. The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, signed into law in February 2012, created FirstNet, an independent authority within Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Congress directed that FirstNet be run by a 15-person Board of Directors, with the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget named as permanent members of the Board. Congress charged the Secretary of Commerce with selecting the remaining 12 members.
benton.org/node/132566 | Department of Commerce
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS

FACETIME, AT&T AND NETWORK NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Chen]
When Apple releases its next version of its mobile operating system iOS this fall, iPhone customers will have the option to place FaceTime video calls over the cellular network, whereas before they could do so only on Wi-Fi. On the AT&T network, however, that privilege will be available to customers only on a certain type of data plan, which has raised debate on whether or not the carrier is violating government rules. AT&T said that using FaceTime over its network would be a feature for customers of its shared data plans, not customers who have the older unlimited or tiered data plans. Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group that focuses on Internet law, says that by prohibiting its other customers from using the video-calling feature on the network, AT&T is violating network neutrality rules by blocking a service that potentially competes with its own. John Bergmayer, senior staff lawyer at Public Knowledge, said AT&T was violating the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Rules, which say that mobile providers shall not “block applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services.” “There is no technical reason why one data plan should be able to access FaceTime and another not,” Bergmayer said. AT&T says it has done nothing wrong, because FaceTime is still available over Wi-Fi.
benton.org/node/132564 | New York Times | WSJ | LATimes | The Hill
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VERIZON-SPECTRUMCO AND ATTRIBUTION RULES
[SOURCE: Tales of the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] Few people would imagine that the Verizon/SpectrumCo deal, now heading rapidly for conclusion, could potentially have huge impact on traditional broadcast ownership rules. Unfortunately, unless the Federal Communications Commission takes action, the deal is likely to create a new and powerful loophole in traditional media ownership rules involving something called the “attribution rules.” While I do not think the participants themselves are aware of this problem, or intend this outcome, allowing the major cable companies and Verizon to participate in a Joint Operating Entity (JOE) without certain precautions creates a means by which these parties, if they wished, could coordinate their video offerings in a way that Congress and the FCC have traditionally found antithetical to our media policy of viewpoint diversity. As the attribution rules apply to broadcast media, the mechanism for circumventing the attribution rules set in this case would extend to radio and television broadcast ownership as well. In other words, it’s not just about Comcast and Verizon, or even Comcast and Time Warner Cable, sharing programming info such as what they are paying for ESPN or what tier they plan to place Tennis Channel or EPIX. Approval of the deal in its current form also creates a mechanism whereby broadcasters such as News Corp and CBS could get together to coordinate news coverage on things of mutual interest.
benton.org/node/132584 | Tales of the Sausage Factory
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GROWING SPECTRUM GAP
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: John Bergmayer]
[Commentary] A growing "spectrum gap" between Verizon and AT&T and the rest of the wireless industry is hobbling competition and harming consumers. The problem isn't any one transaction. The problem is that the majority of spectrum that becomes available ends up in the hands of AT&T or Verizon. AT&T and Verizon are able to out-bid any other potential buyer, not merely because they have so much money. Apple has much more money than either of those companies and does not buy spectrum. So does Exxon. Rather, AT&T and Verizon are willing to pay more for spectrum, and do more to get it, because spectrum is more valuable to them. First, they already have large networks, so due to economies of scale they can put new spectrum to work more cheaply than their competitors. This makes them more willing to pay for spectrum than any competitor that would have to spend a lot more to get a network off the ground. And, of course, it's worth good money for them to corner the market for a basic input their competitors need to operate--imagine if McDonald's was able to buy up all of the hamburger buns in the country, or it Microsoft was able to corner the market on ones and zeros. As a given carrier has more and more spectrum the "foreclosure value" of buying up spectrum goes up. But this is a problem. If policymakers in the US want to protect consumers they need to promote wireless competition. And to do that, they need to adopt spectrum policies that put spectrum in the hands of the providers that need it most, not just the providers that can pay the most.
benton.org/node/132563 | Public Knowledge
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NEWS FROM COURT

JUDGE REJECTS SPONSORED STORY SETTLEMENT
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jessica Guynn]
A federal judge has rejected Facebook’s proposed legal settlement of allegations that the social networking giant had been unfair and deceptive in using members’ names and photos in its “Sponsored Stories” advertising without their consent. U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco said that he had concerns about the proposed settlement. He asked for more information about why the agreement does not award any money to Facebook users. “In this instance there are sufficient questions regarding the proposed settlement that it would not be appropriate simply to grant the motion and postpone resolution of those issues to final approval,” Judge Seeborg wrote. He said Facebook and attorneys for the plaintiffs could revise the settlement to address his concerns.
benton.org/node/132550 | Los Angeles Times | Reuters | The Hill
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PRIVACY

WHAT’S A SEARCH?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Even many who cherish the "original meaning" of the Constitution recognize that provisions drafted in the 18th century must be interpreted in light of changing technology. That is especially true of the 4th Amendment's guarantee of the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." When the amendment was adopted, unreasonable searches involved physical trespass. But in 1967 the court ruled that the 4th Amendment was violated when federal agents affixed a wiretap to the outside of a telephone booth being used by a gambler. What mattered, wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan, was whether the suspect had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The framers of the Constitution could not have envisioned the cellphone, much less its ability to establish the whereabouts of its owner, but the language of the 4th Amendment to protect persons and "effects" will, as it so often has, adapt to modern life.
benton.org/node/132554 | Los Angeles Times
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TELEVISION

TV’S PIXELIZATION OF NUDITY
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: TL Stanley]
Howie Mandel wore black high-top shoes — and nothing else — during a remote shoot for NBC's "America's Got Talent." Krysten Ritter strolled around in the altogether, casually snacking and chatting on ABC's "Don't Trust the B— in Apartment 23." And Ashton Kutcher greeted visitors on CBS' "Two and a Half Men" in shaggy shoulder-length hair and his birthday suit. These aren't clips from "Networks Gone Wild," but scenes from the recent broadcast season where instances of "full nudity" have skyrocketed. The trick, of course, is that the actors just appear to be naked — the censor-offending, federally banned body parts blurred beyond recognition by the wonders of modern editing. Known as pixelization, the post-production technique, which displays a certain area of a photo or footage at a much lower resolution, came into wider use years ago largely in TV news, documentaries and reality programs. There, the practice obscured product placements, and distorted everything from a license plate number to a human face to protect privacy rights. But now television writers are using the tactic as a sight gag and a way to attract attention, in much the same way that scripted programming commonly bleeps out censored language. The stars themselves are almost always not in their birthday suits anyway. Instead, they are outfitted with body suits or swimsuits that are later erased or covered up with special effects, according to producers and industry insiders. In the 2010-11 television season, there was one instance of pixelized "full frontal nudity" on the major networks. This season, there were 64, according to new research by the Parents Television Council, a nonprofit Los Angeles-based media watchdog group. Though the nudity is usually phony, this use of pixelization pokes at the standards of what is considered decent and underscores a larger debate about what should be allowed on television.
benton.org/node/132552 | Los Angeles Times | PTC – press release | PTC – findings | B&C
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TIVO WAIVER REQUEST
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
The Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau wants input on TiVo's request for a 12-month waiver of FCC rules that will require cable operators to ensure high definition set-top boxes "comply with an open industry standard" for home networking by Dec. 1, 2012. TiVo isn't sure what the FCC means by "an open industry standard" in the rule. The DVR maker noted in its July 25 waiver request that the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standards-development consortium has "made important strides, in its published standards and specification references, toward some common understanding of what will constitute 'an open industry standard'" that fulfills the regulatory requirement. However, the DLNA activity is "not sufficient for TiVo to develop a robust retail product (hence, interoperable with all systems to which any retail customer may subscribe) that may also be supplied to cable operators," the company said. TiVo requested a waiver of the open industry standard requirement to last until 12 months after cable operators have deployed at least 100,000 set-tops from Cisco Systems and 100,000 from Motorola that comply with the rule. "Once TiVo understands exactly what open industry standard the industry is adopting so TiVo can create its own specifications, TiVo projects that implementation will take approximately one year," the company said.
benton.org/node/132531 | Multichannel News
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

CALIFORNIA INTERNET PHONE BILL
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Beware of bills that claim to solve no problems. One of those is in the Legislature right now, waiting patiently for the Assembly to pass it along to Gov. Jerry Brown. The text of the bill, SB1161, says that its intent is to "reaffirm California's current policy" on Internet phone services like Skype and Google Voice by preventing the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) from regulating them. Certainly Internet phone services deserve a light touch when it comes to governmental regulation. A rapidly growing number of Californians have come to depend on them, particularly for international communications. Given these numbers, we grew suspicious when we learned that some of SB1161's biggest supporters were traditional telephone companies like AT&T and Comcast Communications. Why would these companies go out of their way to support the competition? And given the way the CPUC has treated Internet phone companies thus far - there's been very little regulation of these services, and commission members have indicated that they aren't keen on regulating them - where's the burning need for this bill? If there's no reason for a bill like this, and so much confusion about how it's going to affect the commission's basic regulatory jurisdiction, then there's no need for this bill. A bill about Internet phone service should be about Internet phone service - not about the commission's basic right to protect the public. The Legislature needs to vote down SB1161, and it needs to do so quickly. The bill passed the Senate after legislators added a long list of amendments that still aren't enough. The Assembly is scheduled to vote on it next week. The Assembly needs to shoot this bill down in order to send a strong message to the telecommunications industry that they can't use a backdoor "status quo" bill to deregulate the basic services of the future.
benton.org/node/132549 | San Francisco Chronicle
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OWNERSHIP

WHAT MEDIA IS LEFT TO BUY?
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wayne Friedman]
[Commentary] What's left for big media to buy? Comcast could be looking for more. BTIG Research's Richard Greenfield thinks the recent floating of Liberty Media's pay TV network group, Starz, as a separate publicly traded company, would be an obvious choice. Comcast could funnel some of its Universal Pictures into the pay TV window arena. CBS? Perhaps it could use a few more few more cable channels -- especially widely distributed basic ones. Maybe even Starz. Fox has broad assets, including TV stations and cable channels. Maybe it wants a pay TV group like Starz? Maybe Disney-ABC wants Starz as well? Sony Pictures Entertainment? For years it has been the odd-man out -- no TV stations, no broadcast network, no big U.S cable presence (though it does have some international networks). It would seem to some that Sony could or should get bigger. Then again, new smart TVs -- made by Sony -- could be an in toward a new TV business model. Trouble is that few independently owned traditional media properties are available. Big media will get bigger -- but not always in the ways we expect.
benton.org/node/132583 | MediaPost
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CONTENT

GOOGLE AND PAYING BLOGGERS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Alexei Oreskovic]
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said Google failed to comply with a court order to disclose the bloggers and other commentators on a patent and copyright case who might have been influenced by payments from the company. Judge Alsup gave Google until noon on Friday, August 24, to provide an amended list of public commentators on the high-profile case between Google and Oracle who have received payments as consultants, contractors, vendors or employees.
benton.org/node/132544 | Reuters | WSJ | ars technica
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JOURNALISM

NEWS AGGREGATORS
[SOURCE: Technology Academics Policy, AUTHOR: Susan Athey, Markus Mobius]
In public debate about the impact of the internet on the news industry, one particularly contentious issue is the role of news aggregators. These are websites that do not produce much original content, but instead ‘curate’ content created by others using a combination of human editorial judgment and computer algorithms. The results are presented with a few sentences and perhaps photos from the original article: to read the full article, users can click through to the website of the original content creator. ‘Pure’ aggregators, such as Google News, generally do not make any payments to the original authors of the news content. Rather, they create their page by ‘crawling’ the web and then using statistical algorithms and editorial judgments to organize and rank the content. Only in a few cases does Google News have a direct commercial relationship with the outlets. In contrast, websites like Yahoo! News and MSN mainly show content from contractual partners. A third kind of aggregator, exemplified by the Huffington Post, uses a hybrid strategy of curating blogs and aggregating news from other sources. Why are these aggregators so controversial? Less than half of users’ views of the Google News home page result in visits to any online newspapers. Thus, users may read their news from Google News without ever generating page views or revenues for any of the content creators. Clearly, this undermines the incentives for newspapers to invest in journalism.
benton.org/node/132526 | Technology Academics Policy
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PLAGIARISM AND FABRICATION
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
[Commentary] Before writing this column on recent incidents of plagiarism and fabrication, I spent time on the Web reading all known thought on the subject, making notes as I went. When I wrote it up, I used those notes to help create something I am now claiming as my own. Yes, I made phone calls to relevant experts and did historical research, but in the main — columnists are in part human aggregators — everything written here reflects something that came before it. So does that make me a thief, or a journalist? It all comes down to execution. If I attribute the reporting of others and manage to steer clear of proprietary intellectual property while making a cogent argument, then I can live to write another day. If, on the other hand, I manufacture or manipulate quotes or fail to process the work of others through my own thinking and writing, then the Web — a crowd-sourced scrutiny machine — will find me out. My column will become a spectacle and I will end up in my boss’s office explaining myself.
benton.org/node/132525 | New York Times
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LOBBYING

VERIZON LEARNED FROM AT&T’S MISTAKES
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
In winning approval for a $3.6 billion deal with leading cable companies, Verizon showed that it learned from the mistakes of its chief rival, AT&T. Whereas AT&T rolled out a splashy public relations campaign last year to try and push through a $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile, Verizon kept its cable proposal under the radar while offering concessions to regulators. Verizon's strategy proved more effective. Although there were many differences between the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and Verizon's cable deal, both were primarily about the companies' need for spectrum. Gigi Sohn, president of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, which opposed both deals, said that although she believes Verizon's deal was "in a lot of ways equally bad, if not worse" than AT&T’s, it was "more subtle." She noted that Verizon's deal would allow it upgrade its network with spectrum that the cable companies weren't using. The AT&T merger, Sohn claimed, was "just a dog" from a public interest perspective. Verizon's strategy for navigating its deal through the regulatory process was also vastly different. Verizon’s public relations campaign was barely noticeable, and few lawmakers weighed in on the matter. When it became clear that regulators were taking a hard look at the deal, Verizon proactively offered to put some of its own valuable spectrum up for sale. The company even won the support of T-Mobile, who had been a vocal critic, by striking a side deal that gave T-Mobile a chunk of the cable companies' spectrum.
benton.org/node/132561 | Hill, The
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
These headlines presented in partnership with:
New America Foundation logo

MYANMAR TO CURB CENSORSHIP
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Thomas Fuller]
The government of Myanmar said that it would no longer censor private publications, a move that journalists described as a major step toward media freedom in a country where military governments have tried for decades to control the flow of information. The announcement was made to editors and posted on a government Web site. “All publications in Myanmar are exempt from the scrutiny of Press Scrutiny and Registration Department,” the government said in a terse statement. Private publications in Myanmar have been thriving since President Thein Sein began taking steps last year to open up the country’s economy and move the country toward democracy.
benton.org/node/132579 | New York Times
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