BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2015 (HAPPY VETERANS DAY)
A celebration to honor America's veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good. (http://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp)
INTERNET/BROADBAND
The US International Trade Commission does not have authority over the Internet, according to Federal Circuit
Where does broadband competition come from? - op-ed
T-Mobile Will Let Customers Stream HBO, Netflix and ESPN Without Racking Up Data Charges
T-Mobile is writing the manual on how to *#@& up the internet - The Verge editorial
FCC Releases Data on Broadband Deployment as of December 31, 2014 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
NTIA Head Strickling’s Remarks at the Internet Governance Forum - speech [links to Benton summary]
Cox Adds Wi-Fi to Low-Income Broadband, Doubles Speed [links to Cox press release]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
Space-based Spectrum Sharing - NASA/NTIA press release
Verizon's Shammo throws cold water on licensing Dish's spectrum [links to Fierce]
Dish's Subscriber Exodus Puts Pressure on Spectrum Strategy [links to Bloomberg]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Tonight’s GOP debate moderators know they must tread carefully - editorial [links to Benton summary]
Democrats push Speaker Ryan on campaign finance reform [links to Hill, The]
The predictive power of Facebook in politics doesn’t really exist [links to Washington Post]
TELEVISION/RADIO
NAB to FCC: Some Regulatory Fees Should Shift to Wireless [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
PRIVACY
Apps Permissions in the Google Play Store - Pew research
Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint: It’s Time for Industry to Answer DNT Calls [links to International Association of Privacy Professionals]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
NSA's new surveillance system is nearly operational
Today’s federal agencies are ‘highly message-controlled.’ Here’s what that means for health reporting [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
Op-ed: From Army of One to Band of Tweeters -- hyper-connectivity and troop cohesion [links to New York Times]
CYBERSECURITY
Jen Weedon: For gender diversity in cybersecurity, fix the image problem [links to Christian Science Monitor]
Financial regulators weigh cybersecurity requirements [links to Associated Press]
COMMUNITY MEDIA
The Library’s Global Future - analysis
EDUCATION
How To Get Students To Stop Using Their Cellphones In Class [links to National Public Radio]
DIVERSITY
Reese Witherspoon Rips Hollywood Sexism: Films Starring Women ‘Are Not a Public Service Project’ [links to Wrap, The]
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
3 Lessons from the Top Techies Rebooting the Government [links to Fast Company]
The Five Key Traits of a Successful Digital Government Strategy [links to nextgov]
LOBBYING
NAB Taps FCC’s Alison Neplokh as VP, Spectrum Policy [links to National Association of Broadcasters]
COMPANY NEWS
Google makes Maps, driving directions available offline [links to Los Angeles Times]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
COURT RULES ITC DOES NOT HAVE AUTHORITY OVER THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Russell Brandom]
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the United States International Trade Commission does not have the authority to regulate information on the Internet, blocking what many advocates saw as a major threat to the open web. "The Commission’s decision to expand the scope of its jurisdiction to include electronic transmissions of digital data runs counter to the 'unambiguously expressed intent of Congress,' Judge Prost wrote, referencing an earlier ruling on Chevron v. NRDC. "We recognize, of course, that electronic transmissions have some physical properties — for example an electron’s invariant mass is a known quantity — but common sense dictates that there is a fundamental difference between electronic transmissions and 'material things,'" the ruling continues. "Our analysis is therefore complete." In short, you can't use laws over physical exports to manage digital goods: case closed. The ruling has already been applauded open-internet advocacy groups, many of whom filed briefs in the case. "This decision is a big win for the open Internet," said Public Knowledge in a statement. "By rejecting the ITC's attempt to expand its jurisdiction, the Federal Circuit helps to ensure that Internet users have unfettered access to the free flow of information that has proved so useful for innovation and free expression."
benton.org/headlines/us-international-trade-commission-does-not-have-authority-over-internet-according-federal | Verge, The | Public Knowledge | The Hill
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WHERE DOES BROADBAND COMPETITION COME FROM?
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Blair Levin]
[Commentary] In my experience, there are two related answers to this question. The first goes to the nature of the competitive enterprise and the second involves an economic equation. With Gig.U, we worked with some true new entrants but those efforts failed, and as we discuss in the handbook, efforts involving true new entrants have a higher likelihood of failure. Reflecting those experiences, I would argue that regulators should be cautious about betting on a true new entrant but rather look to strategies that enable asymmetric, adjacent market entry. Unbundling can work to reduce prices but it discourages broad network upgrades. I think unbundling can be appropriate when the government finances the facility, as it did in the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, or when there are economic reasons that there is no appropriate way to make the economics work for providing an essential facility. Some argued that we had reached that point in 2009 and bitterly criticized the National Broadband Plan for not recommending unbundling. As of today, I think Google Fiber and other fiber efforts prove them wrong but we are still in the early innings. If those fiber efforts end before we reach bandwidth abundance in a critical mass of the country, then perhaps, the critics were right. In short, if we want intensified competition to deliver abundant bandwidth, we should be looking at how government affects that equation today, with particular attention to how it can incent adjacent market entry.
https://www.benton.org/blog/where-does-broadband-competition-come
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T-MOBILE DATA CHARGES
[SOURCE: Revere Digital, AUTHOR: Dawn Chmielewski]
T-Mobile will allow some subscribers to stream video from 24 popular services without burning through their data caps. The nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, looking to gain competitive advantage over rivals Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, is giving customers the ability to stream videos on their smartphones and tablets without generating data charges. Subscribers can choose among popular streaming services including Netflix, HBO Now, HBO Go, Watch ESPN, Fox Sports and Hulu. Notable omissions from the list include YouTube, the world’s biggest video site, and Facebook and Snapchat, which have both made big pushes into video. “Video streams free,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said. “Binge on. Start watching your shows, stop watching your data.” Legere’s offer applies to customers who pay for at least 3 GB of data a month. The promotion is certain to generate complaints from critics who think it violates network neutrality principles, and implicitly favors video services that have agreements with T-Mobile. But Legere brushed aside net neutrality concerns, arguing that his carrier will treat all video services equally when it comes to delivering their data.
benton.org/headlines/t-mobile-will-let-customers-stream-hbo-netflix-and-espn-without-racking-data-charges | Revere Digital | The Verge | Quartz
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T-MOBILE AND NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: TC Sottek]
[Commentary] The only reason Binge On and Music Freedom sound like such a great pro-consumer deal is because the top four mobile Internet service providers — Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile — have manufactured a market based completely on artificial scarcity. For years ISPs have clamored about a mobile data crunch that never materialized to justify data caps and outrageous prices, and wouldn’t you know it, now they have the solution. After years of aggressively trying to cull the herd of people who still remember the meaning of the word "unlimited," they’re rebranding it as something special and new. It’s, like, so un-carrier, man. T-Mobile CEO John Legere claimed that the mobile industry has collected $45 billion from customers who "overbought" data they didn’t need to use. He wants you to think T-Mobile is blowing this model of theft up, but it’s actually just playing the same game as everyone else. That doesn't mean T-Mobile is trying to gouge customers, but BingeOn is bad for different reasons. It's bad for net neutrality. Binge On is bad because it gives T-Mobile too much power. It’s really that simple. And yes, it’s bad for net neutrality. If net neutrality has a core idea, it’s that regular people ought to be in charge of the internet — especially since the internet is mostly just people.
benton.org/headlines/t-mobile-writing-manual-how-internet | Verge, The
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
SPACE-BASED SPECTRUM SHARING
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, AUTHOR: ]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) developed the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed, which has been installed on the International Space Station (ISS) to research new ways to use radio spectrum more efficiently. This system, developed under the Communications, Navigation, and Networking Configurable Testbed (CoNNeCT) project at NASA’s John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, is being used to test the capabilities of software defined radios (SDR). Unlike a traditional radio with a fixed set of communication protocols built into its hardware, an SDR has software incorporated into the device that can be reconfigured in almost any way and at any time simply with an update to its programming. This allows the same radio to adjust it modulation, coding and data rate on the fly to adapt to changing radio channel characteristics within the allocated spectrum required for a particular type of operation, such as transmitting video, data, or voice communications. NASA is partnering with other government agencies, industry, and academia to use the SCaN Testbed as a unique space-based platform to test new radio communication techniques and protocols. Since being installed on the ISS in 2012, more than 2,600 hours of experiments have been conducted testing a total of 149 individual communication protocols. Some of the early results of these real-world tests have already been used to determine the types of communications technologies that can be utilized across NASA’s wide range of missions. In the future, spacecraft employing SDR radios will be able to be reconfigured with the latest and most efficient technologies that will allow them to adapt to disruptions and to more effectively share the same spectrum. The results of this research have and will continue to benefit agencies across the federal government and the private sector as all spectrum users learn to adapt to rising demand for this finite resource.
benton.org/headlines/space-based-spectrum-sharing | National Telecommunications and Information Administration
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PRIVACY
PEW APP REPORT
[SOURCE: Pew Internet, Science and Tech, AUTHOR: Kenneth Olmstead, Michelle Atkinson]
77% of smartphone owners report downloading apps other than the ones that came pre-installed on their phone. 60% of these app downloaders had chosen not to install an app when they discovered how much personal information it required in order to use it, while 43% had uninstalled an app after downloading it for the same reason. 90% of app downloaders said how their personal data will be used is “very” or “somewhat” important to them when they decide whether to download an app; by comparison, 57% said it is equally important to know how many times an app has been downloaded. Analysis of over 1 million apps in Google’s Android operating system in 2014 shows apps can seek 235 different kinds of permissions from smartphone users. The average app asks for five permissions. The most common permissions relate to allowing the app to access the smartphone’s internet connectivity. The largest number of app permissions relate to hardware, rather than user information.
benton.org/headlines/apps-permissions-google-play-store | Pew Internet
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
NSA’S NEW SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
The National Security Agency (NSA) is on track to end its controversial bulk collection of Americans’ phone records in November. In a memo to Congress, the NSA’s legislative affairs director said the agency “has successfully developed a technical architecture to support the new program” as called for by legislation passed earlier in 2015. That new program is set to go into effect on Nov. 29. That system will replace the government’s sweeping collection of phone call records with a process in which NSA officials obtain court orders to access a narrower set of records from private phone companies. The metadata collected by the NSA includes information about the numbers involved in a call, when it took place and how long the call lasted but not details about people’s conversations.
National security hawks who opposed the congressional intelligence reform bill, called the USA Freedom Act, have remained skeptical that the new system will work as well as the old regime. Forcing the spy agency to request information from phone companies could cost valuable time, they worry.
benton.org/headlines/nsas-new-surveillance-system-nearly-operational | Hill, The
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COMMUNITY MEDIA
THE LIBRARY’S GLOBAL FUTURE
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Jacob Brogan]
[Commentary] Discussions of the future of libraries are often surprisingly nostalgic endeavors, producing laments for vanished card catalogs or shrinking book stacks rather than visions of what might be. Even at their most hopeful, such conversations sometimes lose track of the pragmatic functions that libraries serve. Imagined as unchanging archives, libraries become mere monuments to our analog past. But envisioning them as purely digital spaces also misses the mark, capturing neither what they can be nor the way their patrons use them. To speak of their future should be to speak of a collective future, one from which none are excluded.
benton.org/headlines/librarys-global-future | Slate
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