March 26, 2009 (Spectrum and the national Broadband Plan)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY MARCH 26, 2009

There's a House Oversight hearing of the DTV transition today. See more below and at http://www.benton.org/node/23493

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Going online with Obama
Shield Law Bill Passes House Judiciary Committee

THE STIMULUS
   Congressmen to FCC: Include Spectrum Management in National Broadband Plan
   QUALCOMM Pitches Mobile Solution To Rural Broadband
   Atkinson: Put more IT spending in stimulus plans
   Broadband and Economic Development: How Deep is the Alliance?
   American Broadband Bill of Rights
   NTIA/RUS Not Requiring A Minimum Speed Is Absurd
   Few US hospitals have electronic medical records (Updated)

INTERNET/BROADBAND
Streaming games could be bane or boon for ISPs

TELEVISION
Boucher: DTV Transition On "Very Good Path"
Hearst Offers to Buy Remainder of Hearst-Argyle Television

ADVERTISING
NAACP Writes Advertisers in Diversity Push
Beyond advertising: Choosing a strategic path to the digital consumer

WIRELESS
The Mobile Difference
What Do Your Cellphone Minutes Cost?

QUICKLY -- Senate Antitrust Panel Unveils Agenda; Sen Collins asks DHS for cybersecurity documents; Bergmann Leaving FCC, Joining Wireless Lobby; Financial Safety Net of Nonprofit Organizations Is Fraying, Survey Finds; UK Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake-up

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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

GOING ONLINE WITH OBAMA
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Thirty-two years ago this month, President Carter set a new standard for openness and accessibility in the Oval Office by inviting the public to call and ask him questions. The callers weren't screened, and the two-hour session with Walter Cronkite was broadcast live on radio stations across the country. Nine million people phoned the White House for a chance to jawbone with the leader of the free world, and 42 got through. Their wide-ranging questions offered a snapshot of the national mind-set, revealing concerns about such topics as how Carter might stimulate the economy, whether he wanted to hike the gas tax and why his married son was living in the White House. In other words, they didn't throw him softballs, nor did they stick to the policy issues that occupied the Washington press corps. Now, President Obama is updating Carter's experiment for the Internet era. It is a welcome complement to the sessions with reporters on the White House beat, who can be so focused on inside-the-Beltway wrangling that they overlook the real-world issues that matter most to the general public. Today's questions may be as enlightening as the answers.
http://benton.org/node/23768
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SHIELD LAW BILL PASSES HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The House Judiciary Committee has once again passed the Free Flow of Information Act (HR 985), a federal shield law, which will now go to the full House for a vote. The bill would extend a qualified privilege from testifying in federal court to journalists and their sources. A similar bill moved through the House during the last congress but was stalled in the Senate. At the time, the Justice Department strongly opposed it, saying it gave too much protection to leakers and not enough to national security.
http://benton.org/node/23740
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THE STIMULUS

CONGRESSMEN TO FCC: INCLUDE SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT IN NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN
[SOURCE: House of Representatives Commerce Committee]
House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Subcommittee Chairman Boucher Rick (D-VA) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps to urge that the FCC consider the role of spectrum management in the congressionally mandated national broadband plan. In an age in which broadband services are increasingly reliant on wireless networks, a coordinated and comprehensive spectrum strategy is vital, they argue. They note that the Government Accountability Office has issued a series of reports recommending that the Commission and the Secretary of Commerce take steps to improve existing spectrum management practices and, to date, these recommendations have not been fully implemented
http://benton.org/node/23747
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QUALCOMM PITCHES MOBILE SOLUTION TO RURAL BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, QUALCOMM says a comprehensive rural broadband plan should include insuring that 100% of Americans have access to at least one mobile broadband network. QUALCOMM said that funding from the stimulus package should be used to achieve that 100% mobile broadband access goal. "[M]obile broadband services lie at the crux of extending these opportunities to all residents of Rural America," the company argues. "The laws of economics cannot be repealed-it is far more cost effective to provide mobile broadband in rural areas, as compared to any fixed or wireline solution." QUALCOMM argues that mobile's benefits are that it is available, there is equipment in the market and that the spectrum for it has been auctioned and licensed.
http://benton.org/node/23746
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ATKINSON: PUT MORE IT SPENDING IN STIMULUS PLANS
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Sumner Lemon]
According to Robert Atkinson, the founder and president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, governments should include more information and communication technology investments in their economic stimulus plans. But governments must also move quickly to realize the desired short-run stimulus effects of these investments. Atkinson said technology investments were largely responsible for U.S. productivity gains over the last decade, and further investments in this area will bring more. The same benefits can be realized by other countries, including developing countries, that invest in technology infrastructure, he said. "If you invest in ICT infrastructure in an economic downturn, you not only get better short-term job creation effects but you get better long-term productivity impacts," Atkinson said. "Why not do that instead of giving people a tax credit or something like that to go spend on t-shirts."
http://benton.org/node/23767
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BROADBAND AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: HOW DEEP IS THE ALLIANCE?
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Ken Austin]
At the final discussion held jointly by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and Agriculture's Department's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), panelists were asked to "provide the NTIA and RUS with good ideas about how we promote community economic development through the broadband stimulus program." Given the enormity of the topic and broad constituent base of the panelists, the public and participants struggled to make sense of the implications of ubiquitous broadband for community economic development. No one advocated the phrase "build it and they will come," but everyone agreed that a health care, emergency services and education were essential to attracting businesses to a community. Everyone agreed that broadband was essential. In other words, building-out broadband does not create certainty, it is merely necessary to be a viable economic contender. The panelists were the U.S. Pan-Asian-American Chamber of Commerce, the National Rural Health Association, the National Emergency Number Association, Ronson Network Services Corp., the National Association of Development Organizations, the Rural Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the Communications Workers Of America and Argent Associates.
http://benton.org/node/23766
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AMERICAN BROADBAND BILL OF RIGHTS
[SOURCE: Rural Mobile Broadband Alliance, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Rural Mobile Broadband Alliance has proposed a Broadband Bill of Rights, containing five key guiding principles in the debate over broadband connectivity in rural and underserved areas. RuMBA believes all Americans should have access to a network that is: 1) Ubiquitous - Services and devices should work seamlessly everywhere: in rural, suburban and urban areas. America needs an additional two million square miles of coverage. 2) Safe - Americans need E911 with location service and an emergency Cell Broadcast System with weather and disaster alerting. Katrina-like outages are unacceptable. 3) Mobile - Whether in the car, on the tractor, at home, in school, at work and all areas in between, our nation relies on mobility; our networks must reflect our lifestyle needs. 4) Affordable - Rural Americans demand competitive pricing for services and devices. We need the same or better services and devices as the rest of the country, at a fair price. 5) Sustainable - America must invest in next generation systems that can be operated at a profit and maintained by our local small town carriers. We must leap ahead, buy tomorrow's technologies, not yesterday's.
http://benton.org/node/23745
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NTIA/RUS NOT REQUIRING A MINIMUM SPEED IS ABSURD
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
[Commentary] More than anything else, what's gotten Daily most upset watching the NTIA/RUS public meetings has been the oft-repeated stance that somehow it'd be a bad thing for a minimum speed to be set in order to qualify for a government grant. The argument goes something like this: "Well if you set the bar too high you'll dissuade investment and cut a number of providers out of the running to upgrade their networks." First off, for anyone to claim that the government's going to have any trouble finding people to give money away to is absolutely ridiculous. Secondly, if by setting a higher bar for minimum speeds we shut out lesser "broadband" projects, how is that a bad thing? We can't let private interests supersede the public good. We must be vigilant in insuring whatever projects get these government funds worry more about supporting what's best for the public than on protecting private interests. And the best way to do this is by setting a minimum speed threshold to establish eligibility for these broadband grants.
http://benton.org/node/23744
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FEW US HOSPITALS HAVE ELECTRONIC MEDIA RECORDS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Julie Steenhuysen]
Less than 2 percent of U.S. hospitals have adopted fully functional electronic medical records, with most citing cost as the biggest barrier, US researchers said on Wednesday. "The data collectively show we are at a very early stage in adoption, a very low stage compared to other countries," said Harvard's Dr. David Blumenthal, who last week was tapped to lead President Barack Obama's $19 billion push to increase the use of information technology in healthcare. President Obama has made electronic medical records a central piece of his plan to cut costs out of a U.S. healthcare system that consistently ranks lower in quality measures than other rich countries. Blumenthal said the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, clearly shows the United States has room to improve. He said financial incentives in the economic stimulus bill should help, given that most hospitals reporting that cost as their biggest stumbling block. In a second article in the journal, two experts in health information technology at Children's Hospital Boston assert that spending billions of dollars of federal funds to stimulate the adoption of existing forms of health record software would be a costly policy mistake. The authors argue that the government should be a rule-setting referee to encourage the development of an open software platform on which innovators could write electronic health record applications.
http://benton.org/node/23743
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

STREAMING GAMES COULD BE BANE OR BOON FOR ISPs
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Peter Svensson]
Parents might get a new reason to yell at their kids for playing video games too much: In the future, it could rack up their Internet bills. A service unveiled this week aims to stream video games over the Internet, setting gamers on a collision course with cable and phone companies that are seeking to curb growing demands on their networks by charging for heavy usage. OnLive Inc., a startup from Palo Alto, Calif., revealed its service Tuesday night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users would get a small, simple device to connect to their TVs, or they could run the application on a PC. Their screens would receive the game video from OnLive's servers, which would do the data-crunching needed to render a richly detailed environment. No game console or high-end gaming PC would be needed. It's uncertain how well OnLive would work in homes — there has been no widespread customer trial. It is clear, though, that it would consume large amounts of bandwidth, far higher than that required for current online games, where most of the content is stored on the computer or console. Derek Turner, policy director at media and Internet advocacy group Free Press, said the bandwidth caps are "misguided" because they can stifle new applications like OnLive that add value to an Internet connection. Also, he said, the profit margins on Internet connections are very high, and it's not clear that ISPs need to increase their fees to finance upgrades, especially since the cost of network hardware keeps falling.
http://benton.org/node/23742
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TELEVISION

BOUCHER: DTV TRANSITION ON "VERY GOOD PATH"
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology & the Internet Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) will hold a digital television transition oversight hearing on Thursday, but is already indicating that the transition is on "a very good path." He has praise for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps, the TV industry and the national telecommunications and Information Administration's converter box coupon program.
http://benton.org/node/23741
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HEARST OFFERS TO BUY REMAINDER OF HEARST-ARGYLE TELEVISION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Nat Worden]
Hearst Corp. said it will offer to buy the one-third stake in Hearst-Argyle Television Inc. that it doesn't already own in a deal that values the station owner at $375 million--less than a fifth of the price it offered almost two years ago. The bid could end a tug-of-war that Hearst has had with its broadcast-TV subsidiary and its shareholders that began when it offered to buy them out at $23.50 a share in 2007. Back then, Hearst-Argyle urged shareholders to reject the bid, saying it was "inadequate and not in the best interests of Hearst-Argyle Television stockholders." The latest bid comes amid a prolonged advertising slump that has hit newspapers, television and Internet companies, a downturn that has intensified with the deepening recession.
http://benton.org/node/23763
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ADVERTISING

NAACP WRITES ADVERTISERS IN DIVERSITY PUSH
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Andrew McMains]
The effort to substantially increase African-American representation in the advertising industry has shifted to a client outreach phase, with the NAACP writing letters to the leaders of top-spending advertisers, including Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley. In a letter dated Monday, NAACP interim general counsel Angela Ciccolo asked Lafley to "instruct your advertising agencies to use diverse teams in creative and account management positions" and to address the relative paucity of African-Americans in advertising "as forcefully and effectively as its importance to your firm and the nation requires." The letter further suggests that P&G identify a senior executive to meet with the NAACP, which is partnering with civil rights law firm Mehri & Skalet on the diversity initiative, known as the Madison Avenue Project.
http://benton.org/node/23739
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BEYOND ADVERTISING: CHOOSING A STRATEGIC PATH TO THE DIGITAL CONSUMER
[SOURCE: IBM, AUTHOR: Saul Berman, Bill Battino, Karen Feldman]
Today, the distinctions between advertising and marketing have blurred, as new forms of communication combine the ROI-characteristics of direct marketing with the brand characteristics of traditional advertising. With digital consumers increasingly in control of their media experience and advertisers shifting their spend to more interactive, measurable formats, companies must move beyond traditional advertising to combine granularity of targeting and measurement with cross-platform integration. To adapt and succeed especially in the current economic environment content owners, media distributors and agencies need to build a new set of capabilities now: cross-platform innovation, greater insights, open collaboration and digital processes.
http://benton.org/node/23736
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WIRELESS

THE MOBILE DIFFERENCE
[SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: John Horrigan]
Some 39% of Americans have positive and improving attitudes about their mobile communication devices, which in turn draws them further into engagement with digital resources on both wireless and wireline platforms. Mobile connectivity is now a powerful differentiator among technology users. Those who plug into the information and communications world while on-the-go are notably more active in many facets of digital life than those who use wires to jack into the Internet and the 14% of Americans who are off the grid entirely. "For a sizable minority of Americans, mobile connectivity expands their digital horizons as they do more with their suite of wireline and wireless tools," said John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of the Pew Internet Project and author of the typology report. "Mobile services complement existing broadband assets, and these Americans find it increasingly hard to be without their connectivity traveling with them as they go."
http://www.benton.org/node/23627
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WHAT DO YOUR MINUTES COST? YOU CAN'T TELL BY THE CELLPHONE BILL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Bob Tedeschi]
There's a good reason many people don't bother to closely read their cellphone bills. They're a mess. Even if you have a so-called bucket plan that's meant to simplify things — 450 minutes for $40, say — the bill is probably split into categories of minutes (in plan, out of plan, promotional, roaming), data charges, taxes, E911 fees and other cryptic line items. If you have a family plan, forget it. Now a consumer advocacy group is arguing that, actually, there's not enough information on a wireless bill. And it has a point. The group, the Utility Consumers' Action Network, based in San Diego, released a report this month in which it analyzed the phone bills of 134 consumers and suggested that they paid far more for each call than they realized. That's because wireless carriers, unlike most other companies that sell things to consumers, don't offer a unit-based price on the bill, indicating how much each minute of cellphone use costs.
http://benton.org/node/23764
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SENATE ANTITRUST PANEL UNVEILS AGENDA
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl (D-WI) and the panel's top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), on Wednesday unveiled their agenda for the 111th Congress. 1) The sharp price increases for text messaging. 2) Competition in the consolidating Internet and related online advertising industry. 3) competition in the broadband industry and Network Neutrality. 4) Media ownership consolidation. 5) Rising cable television rates. 6) Increased competition in the cable and satellite TV market as well as playing a role in the renewal of the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act.
http://benton.org/node/23765
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SEN COLLINS ASKS DHS FOR CYBERSECURITY DOCUMENTS
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: ]
Sen Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Ranking Member on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is requesting detailed information, including financial figures, from the Department of Homeland Security to explain why the department has been seemingly unable to fulfill its cybersecurity responsibilities. In a letter sent to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano on Tuesday, Sen Collins said that in light of the recent resignation of National Cybersecurity Center Director Rod Beckström, she would like DHS to send the Homeland Security Committee a number of documents to show how the department spent its $6 million NCSC budget and provided other means of support for the NCSC.
http://benton.org/node/23738
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BERGMANN LEAVING FCC, JOINING WIRELESS LOBBY
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
Federal Communications Commission member Jonathan Adelstein, nominated by President Obama to head the Rural Utilities Service and the USDA, announced that Scott Bergmann, the Commissioner's Senior Legal Advisor, will be leaving the FCC to join CTIA -- the Wireless Association. Bergmann advised Commissioner Adelstein on a broad range of issues including broadband, universal service, wireline competition, and access for persons with disabilities. Before joining Commissioner Adelstein's office, Mr. Bergmann served as Legal Counsel to the Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau.
http://benton.org/node/23737
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FINANCIAL SAFETY NET OF NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS IS FRAYING, SURVEY FINDS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stephanie Strom]
The financial health of the nation's nonprofit groups is rapidly deteriorating, according to a survey of some 900 nonprofit leaders around the country. Only 12 percent of those organizations expect to end the year with an operating surplus, compared with 40 percent who ended their most recent fiscal years with money on hand, according to the survey by the Nonprofit Finance Fund, a charity that provides loans and other financial services to nonprofit groups. Almost a third said they did not have enough cash on hand to cover more than one month's expenses, while roughly another third said they only had enough money to get them through the next three months. More than half the respondents said they would like help communicating their financial difficulties to their boards and donors, highlighting the growing belief in the nonprofit world that government and the public do not understand the role it plays in American society.
http://benton.org/node/23762
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UK PUPILS TO STUDY TWITTER AND BLOGS IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS SHAKE-UP
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Polly Curtis]
Children in the UK will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum. However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes. The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.
http://benton.org/node/23735
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