May 11, 2009 (New Antitrust Rules This Week)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY MAY 11, 2009
OWNERSHIP
Administration Plans to Strengthen Antitrust Rules
US state AGs looking at Google books deal
Hulu's tug of war with TV
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Our Broadband 'Plan' Is Already Toast
The $7.2 Billion Question
Rural America not ready for broadband? Hogwash, say ISPs
Broadband Data Collection Must Be Thorough and Transparent
FTC Chair OK with Paying For Higher-Speed Broadband
Families Invest In Broadband Rather than Food and Utility Bills
CYBERSECURITY
Obama's Challenge in Cyberspace
JOURNALISM
Separation of Press and State
Ad Losses Put Squeeze on TV News
Few TV Reports on Audience Flight
UK Paper Says 'Sorry' to Readers
Kindling the news
Micro-payments considered for WSJ website
The American Press on Suicide Watch
TV networks tiring of primetime Obama news conferences
North Korea Blocks US on Journalists
Free newspaper group Metro sells US business
TELECOM/WIRELESS
Lawmakers Mull Changes To Wireless Phone, Internet Regs
AT&T Buys Some Assets From Verizon Wireless
AT&T Plans for a Proliferation of Wireless Gadgets
Demands on Network Are an iPhone Hang-Up
Text messaging pioneer was a good judge of characters
Bad economy may be slowing RLEC line loss
Big Cellphone Firms Move Into Low End
THE BUDGET
Ed-Tech Budget Cuts; NIST Tech Programs Gain
Health IT Funding Remains Flat Under Obama's Proposed Budget
TELEVISION/RADIO
It's Do-Over Time At The NAB
Researchers urge crackdown on junk food TV ads
Civil Rights Groups Urge Radio Bill Delay
FCC Provides Rules For DTV Fill-Ins
Sirius XM sticks it to subscribers
Gigi Sohn Says Give Remote DVR A Chance
FCC REFORM
Republican Bill To Reform FCC Not A Bad Place To Start Discussions
OWNERSHIP
Administration Plans to Strengthen Antitrust Rules
ADMINISTRATION PLANS TO STRENGTHEN ANTITRUST RULES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stephen Labaton]
President Obama's top antitrust official this week plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share. The new enforcement policy would reverse the Bush administration's approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims. It would restore a policy that led to the landmark antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft and Intel in the 1990s. The head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, Christine A. Varney, is to announce the policy reversal in a speech she will give on Monday before the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy research organization. She will deliver the same speech on Tuesday to the United States Chamber of Commerce. In the speeches, Ms. Varney is expected to explicitly warn judges and litigants in antitrust lawsuits not involving the government to ignore the Bush administration's policies, which were formally outlined in a report by the Justice Department last year. The report applied legal standards that made it difficult to bring new cases involving monopoly and predatory practices.
http://benton.org/node/25210
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US STATE AGs LOOKING AT GOOGLE BOOKS DEAL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Diane Bartz]
State attorneys general are looking into a proposed settlement Google Inc reached with author and publisher groups allowing the Internet company to digitize millions of books. A group of state attorneys general discussed the deal in a one-hour conference call on Tuesday, said Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive. The Justice Department is also making inquiries about the deal Google struck to settle copyright disputes arising from its project to put millions of books on the Internet. But the deal has come under fire because it is silent on what Google would eventually charge libraries, who fear the service will become a very pricey must-have.
http://benton.org/node/25200
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HULU'S TUG OF WAR WITH TV
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Dawn Chmielewski, Meg James]
Hulu, once dismissed as "Clown Co." by Silicon Valley critics who scoffed at the notion that old media giants could ever harness the Internet, the website with a name that sounds like a Hawaiian dance has quickly upset the status quo. Hulu's traction with users has entrenched entertainment companies worried that the video site's runaway success could undercut the financial underpinnings of the industry. Those companies are fighting back, and the result could mean no more free passes for many signature cable programs that appear on Hulu. If the television industry does not find a way to preserve its two pillars of revenue -- advertising and subscription fees -- the consequences could be dire. Analysts point to the rapid deterioration of newspapers, which traded paying print subscribers for the expectation of big bucks from online advertising that have not materialized.
http://benton.org/node/25198
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
OUR BROADBAND 'PLAN' IS ALREADY TOAST
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
Earlier this week, the European Parliament came within a few votes of passing another major broadband/telecommunications policy. Only the continuing greed of Hollywood kept the matter from passing. The European plan includes: 1) Functional separation as a means to overcome competition problems: National telecoms regulators will gain the additional tool of being able to oblige telecoms operators to separate communication networks from their service branches, as a last-resort remedy; 2) Encouraging competition and investment in next generation access networks; and 3) rules to ensure that European consumers have an ever greater choice of competing broadband service providers available to them. (There's much more to the European plan.) Is there anyone who thinks that Congress could produce something like this, with its emphasis on competition? Is there anyone who thinks Congress could produce anything in the way of a meaningful broadband plan that will make a real difference and raise our broadband ranking in the world? So go ahead, FCC, do a broadband plan, and hope that what's produced isn't so sufficiently bland that it will be worthless. Congress will water it down some more, and it's not a far stretch to believe that at the end of the day we won't be that much better off.
http://benton.org/node/25192
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THE $7.2 BILLION QUESTION
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Mike Farrell]
The much-ballyhooed broadband stimulus program, known officially as the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program, is, at $7.2 billion, one of the largest federal funding initiatives ever to hit the cable industry. And though the program is still in its early stages — funding isn't expected to be available until next year — a fundamental question has emerged over one of the primary tenets of the initiative: No one is sure who the money is supposed to help. So far, the broadband stimulus has been characterized as a job-creation vehicle, an educational tool, an engine for economic growth, a rural program and an urban initiative. And cable operators, who stand to get a large chunk of this funding if they so choose, are worried that the government may use the program to prop up competitors and even let them encroach on their existing, more heavily populated territories. "The question is, what is the problem they are trying to solve" with the stimulus, asked Leichtman Research principal analyst Bruce Leichtman. "Is the problem that 7% of the country does not have broadband? Or is the problem that the U.S. is 14th in the world in broadband penetration? The first step should be just figuring out what the problem is." While the government hopes that the ball can start rolling on funding in a few months, there is a question as to whether the people that would be served by this initiative want broadband at all.
http://benton.org/node/25191
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RURAL AMERICA NOT READY FOR BROADBAND? HOGWASH, SAY ISPs
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Matthew Lasar]
A question from the Benton Foundation's broadband stimulus discussion last week: "One of the studies that we see most frequently is one from Pew which contends that there isn't very much demand [for broadband] in rural areas, [which] is why it hasn't been built out." What did the panelists think of that? "It clearly is a myth," declared Gary Evans of Hiawatha Broadband Communications, a rural ISP based in Minnesota. "We are not a low priced provider in any community that we serve, but we are a broadband provider." In one rural region, Evans noted, 60 percent of the population signed up with the company "before we put a shovel in the ground." "Now, I would suggest to you that if there's no demand out there, that simply would not be the case," he insisted. Lots of rural ISP boosters are getting pretty touchy about the "broadband to nowhere" line—that people in the countryside are too spread out, illiterate, old, or just too plain out of it to demand high-speed access. Baloney, these panelists declared. "Rural America is both hungry for broadband and anxious to use it," Evans insisted. "It's nonsense," added Tim Nulty of ECFiber, a Vermont ISP. "I don't know where they get it." "When we started our project," Nulty continued, "the towns in question each had to have a referendum to join the project. Twenty-two towns [in total]. The worst vote we got was 78% percent in favor. Eight towns were unanimous."
http://benton.org/node/25209
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BROADBAND DATA COLLECTION MUST BE THOROUGH AND TRANSPARENT
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
Broadband data collection needs to be more thorough and more transparent than currently existing models, a range of academic experts, builders of telecommunications infrastructure, and a key senator said last week. Speaking at conference hosted last Thursday by the Benton Foundation, and at a technology and communications gathering on Wednesday, these officials highlighted the importance of fine granularity, of including robust measures of broadband speeds and technologies, and greater comprehensiveness than has been typical within this field. At the Computer and Communications Industry Association's annual gathering with legislators, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said: "We have to make sure that broadband [calculation] is done in a comprehensive and systematic manner that hasn't been done in the past." At the Benton Foundation event, "Urban and Rural Examples of the 'Best in Breed': Setting a High Standard for Broadband Stimulus Funding," a range of city technology officials and private sector officials also addressed the key ingredient of broadband data. "A major part of this discussion is, what is unserved and what is underserved," said Bill Schrier, chief technology officer of the city of Seattle. Understanding what is and isn't service can only be done with solid analytical capabilities, and Schrier demonstrated a map in which Seattle demographic capabilities were mapped against particular broadband applications.
http://benton.org/node/25208
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FTC CHAIR OK WITH PAYING FOR HIGHER-SPEED BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz said Friday he has no problem with charging more for higher Internet speeds or heavy Internet usage, so long as the bill does not come as a surprise. He also confirmed that Google is being investigated for violating the prohibition on interlocking board members, but says that he does not think its dominance of search automatically equates to anticompetitive practice and doesn't think it is abusing its power. Chairman Leibowitz indicated that the FTC may weigh in on the Federal Communications Commission's inquiry on crafting a national broadband plan. He said broadband was a deregulated industry, which was a good thing, but that you needed law enforcement to make sure that people were doing the right thing. He also said he was hoping that both sides of the network neutrality debate were ratcheting down the rhetoric.
http://benton.org/node/25185
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CYBERSECURITY
OBAMA'S CHALLENGE IN CYBERSPACE
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Richard Clarke]
[Commentary] In the next few days President Obama will decide whether he will live up to his campaign promises about dealing seriously with the challenge of cyber security by creating a White House office to direct government activity and coordinate with the private sector. None of the options being served up to him will create the stand alone White House office that is needed to provide the leadership on this issue. The reasons that this decision is important have been spread across the media this last month. Among the facts revealed are that foreign intelligence services have penetrated the control systems of the US electric power grid and have left behind "logic bombs" and "trap doors;" data about America's latest fighter aircraft, the F-35 Lightning II, has been copied off the networks of defense contractors and sent overseas; the Pentagon plans to appoint a new four star general to run a new Cyber Command based on the National Security Agency (NSA); and a National Academy of Sciences blue ribbon panel has urged caution about the US engaging in offensive cyber war. President Obama has been presented with more complex and important issues than any American leader in my lifetime. One of the difficulties any executive has in such a circumstance is spotting the crucial decisions that he must make now on what are comparatively quiet issues, decisions that will have significant future consequences. If Obama reneges on his campaign pledge to create a White House Office on Cyber Security to lead US government efforts, one day he or some future President may wish he had done otherwise, as the noise from the White House's back up electric generator fills the Oval Office and the President looks out on a city darkened by cyber attack.
http://benton.org/node/25190
See also:
Cadets Trade the Trenches for Firewalls
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JOURNALISM
SEPARATION OF PRESS AND STATE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
Carr is all for journalists swarming the Hill, especially now that about half of the reporters who used to work there are gone, potentially leaving much of government to its own devices. But to leave our industry tin-cupping its way around a government it covers seems desperate and ill-advised: a cure that might be worse than the disease. Given that monopolies that drove the business are falling apart, some antitrust relief that would allow the industry to collectively hit the reset button seems reasonable. But how exactly is the rest of it an agenda item for an elected government? Besides all the esteem we seem to hold ourselves in, it is difficult to make a rational economic argument for granting special favors to a relatively minor part of the American economy. Alan D. Mutter, who blogs at Reflections of a Newsosaur, said that newspapers "collectively employ a mere 0.2 percent of the nation's labor force and generate only 0.36 percent of the gross national product." In other words, we are not, like the bankers and the auto industry we have covered so ferociously, too big to fail.
http://benton.org/node/25206
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AD LOSSES PUT SQUEEZE ON TV NEWS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
It is getting so bad for local television stations that some are turning to newspapers for help. The bankrupt Tribune Company has merged its TV stations and daily newspapers in Miami and Hartford, and it already produces a lighthearted morning show in south Florida with the help of the newspaper's columnists. Bob Gremillion, the executive vice president for publishing, calls it a "circling the wagons" approach. No one would dispute that "the two industries are very challenged," he said. "We're combining and fighting together." The mergers are an example of local TV's agonizing search for new business models as some balance sheets turn red. Starting Monday in Chicago, four stations' news departments are combining their camera crews. In other markets, stations are adding newscasts on the cheap even as they lay off people. On the opposite extreme, a handful of stations are closing their news divisions completely. The news for stations has been grim lately: without election advertisements to defray the losses in automotive ads, a cross section of station owners reported 20 percent to 30 percent quarterly drops in revenue last week, suggesting that the local TV business is almost as weak as its print counterpart.
http://benton.org/node/25205
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FEW TV REPORTS ON AUDIENCE FLIGHT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Perez-Pena]
Newspapers sell fewer copies than they used to, and network television news draws fewer viewers. But as that trend unfolded, newspapers and television gave starkly different accounts, a University of Pennsylvania study released last week shows. Papers found a lot to report about declining news audiences, while national television news shows had little to say. And though the problems of print and broadcast have been similar in scope, both media dwelled primarily on what was happening to newspapers. "The television networks have basically not been very interested in talking about television's problems," said Michael X. Delli Carpini, dean of the university's Annenberg School of Communication and one of the study's authors. The authors combed through reports from 2000 through early 2009 from 26 major newspapers, the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS, and the prime-time lineups of CNN, CNBC, Fox News and MSNBC. In the newspapers, they found 900 articles about the drop in newspaper circulation and 95 about the shrinking audience for the broadcast networks' newscasts. The TV news shows had 38 reports on falling newspaper readership and only 6 about the falling audience for national news broadcasts.
http://benton.org/node/25204
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UK PAPER SAYS 'SORRY' TO READERS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Aaron Patrick]
As newspapers around the world frantically search for ways to keep readers, one British newspaper is trying an unusual tactic: apologizing for its past coverage. The Evening Standard, the only paid-for daily paper circulated solely in London, last week launched a billboard ad campaign around the city, including one that says, "Sorry for being negative." Other ads apologize for "losing touch," "being predictable," and "being complacent."
http://benton.org/node/25203
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KINDLING THE NEWS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] On the Internet, media companies have developed an unfortunate habit of destroying - or allowing others to destroy - value in their products. So when a device comes along that promises to create value for media businesses, it is worth celebrating. It leads to a different, and altogether happier, set of problems: how best to capture the value created, and how to share out the goodies among the various players in the digital media value chain. The Kindle is such a device. Like Apple's iPod and iPhone before it, Amazon's electronic reader, currently for sale only in the US, has proved that consumers of digital media are sometimes happy to pay up. Kindle readers buy more books, and show little sign of cutting back on their hard-copy purchases. Competition among device makers should eventually help, by widening the market and weakening the digital middlemen. A handful of media companies with distinctive content like the Wall Street Journal might also make more money out of subscriptions and micro-payments. But competition will bring its own problems. Fragmentation can hamper new technologies as customers are caught between rival standards. The Kindle store's use of a proprietary format for its books points to the inevitable consumer confusion ahead. But for now, one of the media industry's best hopes lies in that clutter of gadgets that is starting to litter your coffee table and weigh down your handbag.
http://benton.org/node/25202
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MICRO-PAYMENTS CONSIDERED FOR WSJ WEBSITE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Kenneth Li]
News Corp is planning to introduce micro-payments for individual articles and premium subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal's website this year, in a milestone in the news industry's race to find better online business models. The move will position the Journal as the first big newspaper title to adopt a model many are cautiously studying as they seek to reduce their dependence on plunging advertising revenues. Several newspapers, hoping to replicate the success of business newspapers in charging for web content, are working with Journalism Online, a venture developing micro-payments and subscriptions.
http://benton.org/node/25196
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THE AMERICAN PRESS ON SUICIDE WATCH
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Frank Rich]
[Commentary] Three years ago, Stephen Colbert appeared at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, delivering a monologue accusing his hosts of being stenographers who had, in essence, let the Bush White House get away with murder. The bad news about the news business has accelerated ever since. The causes of journalism's downfall — some self-inflicted, some beyond anyone's control (a worldwide economic meltdown) — are well known. By all means let's mock the old mainstream media as they preen and party on in a Washington ballroom. Let's deplore the tabloid journalism that, like the cockroach, will always be with us. But if a comprehensive array of real news is to be part of the picture as well, the time will soon arrive for us to put up or shut up. Whatever shape journalism ultimately takes in America, make no mistake that in the end we will get what we pay for.
http://benton.org/node/25189
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TV NETWORKS TIRING OF PRIMETIME OBAMA NEWS CONFERENCES
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: John Consoli]
Executives at the big four US broadcast television networks are seething behind the scenes that President Barack Obama has cost them about $30 million in cumulative ad revenue this year with his three prime-time news conferences. Now top network executives quietly are hoping that Fox's decision not to air Obama's April 29 news conference will serve as precedent for denying future White House requests for prime airtime. "We will continue to make our decisions on White House requests on a case-by-case basis, but the Fox decision gives us cover to reject a request if we feel that there is no urgent breaking news that is going to be discussed," said one network executive, who, like all, would not go on the record fearing repercussions from the Obama administration. Another network executive confided, "Nobody wants to take on the White House, so we'll have to tiptoe through this." Although Obama's post-election visits to "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and "60 Minutes" were major ratings boosts, the love affair between the networks and Obama might be cooling: There are too many demands, and too much money is at stake. Even more irksome, the White House is bailing out bankers, insurers and carmakers, but nary a nickel has gone to the media industry which has cut costs and lay off staff.
http://benton.org/node/25188
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NORTH KOREA BLOCKS US JOURNALISTS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Evan Ramstad]
North Korea's detention and imprisonment of three foreigners is adding to a pattern of increasingly belligerent behavior since dictator Kim Jong Il's recovery from a stroke-like illness last October, observers say. Since then, North Korea has launched a missile, pulled out of six-nation aid-for-disarmament talks, kicked out international weapons inspectors and said it may again test a nuclear weapon, something it first did in 2006. North Korea's treatment of the three detainees violates international human-rights practices, but news coverage of their situation has been overshadowed by the diplomatic fallout from Pyongyang's April 5 missile launch.
http://benton.org/node/25195
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FREE NEWSPAPER GROUP METRO SELLS US BUSINESS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: ]
Free newspaper group Metro International said on Monday it had agreed to sell its operations in the United States to Seabay Media Holdings for an undisclosed sum. The deal, due to be completed by June 1, covers publication of free dailies in New York and Philadelphia as well as a joint publication with the Boston Globe. Metro said in a statement the three newspapers had a combined circulation of 590,000 copies per day and reached about 1.2 million readers. It said it would book a loss of about $2 million on the deal.
http://benton.org/node/25201
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TELECOM/WIRELESS
LAWMAKERS MULL CHANGES TO WIRELESS PHONE, INTERNET REGS
[SOURCE: Dow Jones, AUTHOR: Fawn Johnson]
The cell phone and mobile Internet industry could face a new regulatory framework over the next several years as lawmakers consider how to spur competition and streamline the patchwork of state laws in the wireless sector. Several senior members of a House telecommunications panel said Thursday state regulations governing consumers' contracts with wireless companies should be preempted in favor of national standards. At a hearing, House Energy and Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) said states should continue their role in resolving disputes that arise between cell phone carriers and their subscribers. Chairman Boucher wants to continue negotiating a draft state preemption bill that was crafted last year by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), who previously chaired the telecom subcommittee. State preemption is a priority for the wireless industry. Lobbyists argue that cell phones and mobile Internet services by their nature cross state lines and should be governed by a single federal standard. Lawmakers also are asking questions about exclusive arrangements between cellular providers and handset manufacturers. AT&T's deal with Apple to be the sole wireless provider for the popular iPhone has raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill. Some lawmakers think such arrangements put smaller wireless companies at a disadvantage because they don't have access to the newest gadgets.
http://benton.org/node/25184
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AT&T BUYS SOME ASSETS FROM VERIZON WIRELESS
[SOURCE: Bloomberg News, AUTHOR: ]
AT&T, the country's second-biggest wireless phone company, agreed Friday to pay $2.35 billion in cash to buy assets put up for auction by Verizon Wireless. The network assets and mobile licenses are for 79 service regions in 18 states, mostly rural areas. AT&T will be 1.5 million customers closer to closing the service gap with Verizon. Verizon surpassed AT&T to become the largest wireless carrier after it acquired the Alltel Corporation in January. Verizon's dominance in more than 20 markets led the Federal Communications Commission to demand the asset sale. AT&T will buy mostly Alltel assets but will include some assets from Verizon Wireless and the former Rural Cellular Corp.
http://benton.org/node/25183
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AT&T PLANS FOR A PROLIFERATION OF WIRELESS GADGETS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Richtel]
On Thursday, AT&T announced a partnership with Jasper Wireless which plans to provide technical infrastructure to AT&T to support a new generation of wireless devices, like e-readers, netbooks and navigation systems. But as it races to create a new generation of wireless devices, the industry isn't exactly sure where it is headed. The kinds of devices people want, as well as the business models that will support them, are still in their infancy.
http://benton.org/node/25182
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DEMANDS ON NETWORK ARE AN IPHONE HANG-UP
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Martin Peers]
The iPhone has made AT&T the cool kid on the cellphone block, bringing in lots of new customers all eager to play with the shiny new device. Trouble is, the iPhone is expensive for AT&T, and not just because of the heavy subsidies on the initial purchase price. Users of iPhone download games, video and other Web data at two to four times the rate of other smartphone users, according to comScore. Yet AT&T charges iPhone subscribers the same fee of $30 a month for data that it levies on other smartphone customers. And aside from restricting certain activities, like file sharing, AT&T doesn't limit how much data can be downloaded. But Web applications popular with iPhone customers are bandwidth hogs. A recent analysis by Alcatel-Lucent of North American wireless network use during the midday hour on one day found Web browsing was consuming 32% of data-related airtime but 69% of bandwidth, while email used 30% of data airtime but only 4% of bandwidth. Email taxes network resources but in a different way. As the proportion of customers with iPhones grows -- 5.9 million 3G iPhones were activated in the last three quarters, 7.5% of AT&T's total subscribers -- the resulting growth in downloading and Web browsing will strain AT&T's network. AT&T will need to add cell towers and spend more on the back-haul lines that connect the towers to the rest of the network.
http://benton.org/node/25199
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TEXT MESSAGING PIONEER WAS A GOOD JUDGE OF CHARACTERS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Mark Milian]
To understand how the wizards of Twitter settled on 140 as the magic number of characters in a single tweet, you have to go back two decades to Bonn, Germany. One day in 1985, Friedhelm Hillebrand sat at the typewriter in his home there, tapping out random sentences and questions on a sheet of paper. As he went along, the communications researcher counted the number of letters, numbers, punctuation marks and spaces on the page. The blurbs nearly always clocked in under 160 characters. "This is perfectly sufficient," he recalled thinking. "Perfectly sufficient."
http://benton.org/node/25197
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BAD ECONOMY MAY BE SLOWING RLEC LINE LOSS
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Ed Gubbins]
Many rural carriers reported positive trends in access line loss in the first quarter, suggesting some stabilization in what has been a persistent problem for telecom carriers. And it's possible the bad economy may be helping to drive the improvement. Embarq, Frontier Communications and Iowa Telecom all reported seeing access line loss trends in the first quarter that were in some respects better than in any quarter last year, and they weren't the only ones citing good news in line counts lately. "A long line of RLECs...report[ed] improving access line trends over the course of the last couple quarters," Stifel Nicolaus analyst Bill King said. Some have suggested that the bad economy may actually be aiding access line trends because fewer people are changing addresses, which is a typical occasion for customer churn.
http://benton.org/node/25175
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BIG CELLPHONE FIRMS MOVE INTO LOW END
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sara Silver]
The US cellphone market is poised for another round of consolidation as large manufacturers turn their attention to the growing prepaid market, pressuring smaller rivals. Big cellphone makers with less popular smart phones have been focusing on the lower end of the market, churning out devices for customers who don't sign long-term contracts. According to Strategy Analytics, several smaller vendors will exit the market in the next 12 to 18 months, unable to compete with bigger vendors on features, pricing and branding power.
http://benton.org/node/25194
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THE BUDGET
ED-TECH BUDGET CUTS; NIST TECH PROGRAMS GAIN
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
A handful of education and business groups Thursday criticized the Obama administration's proposed drastic downsizing of the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program as part of the FY10 budget proposal. Under the plan, the Education Department program would shrink from $269 million to $100 million, according to the Consortium for School Networking, International Society for Technology Education, Software & Information Industry Association and State Educational Technology Directors Association. The organizations urged Congress to invest in EETT at levels higher than last year's appropriation because the program importantly spurs innovation and provides teacher training in the use of technology to improve student achievement. The cut came as a major shock since the economic stimulus package signaled that the White House was prepared to invest significantly in educational technology, they said. Although Obama has requested a $170 million cut to EETT funding next year, the program did receive an additional $650 million for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years in the economic stimulus package. According to a program description on the Department of Education (ED) web site, the proposed EETT cut "reflects the significant amount of funds available [for educational technology] under the Recovery Act." Overall, the president's budget request, unveiled May 7, allocates $46.7 billion for ED—an increase of $1.3 billion from 2009. A pair of technology programs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology that were routinely zeroed out by the Bush administration but rescued annually by appropriators would get a new lease on life under President Obama's budget request. It included $124.7 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a public-private initiative that provides technical assistance to small manufacturers, and $69.9 million for the Technology Innovation Program, which provides financing to small high-tech entrepreneurs to support cutting-edge technologies. Former President George W. Bush cut both programs in his FY09 budget, but Congress provided MEP with $110 million and TIP $65 million in its FY09 omnibus.
http://benton.org/node/25187
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HEALTH IT FUNDING REMAINS FLAT UNDER OBAMA'S PROPOSED BUDGET
[SOURCE: iHealthBeat, AUTHOR: ]
Under President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2010 budget, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and the health IT initiatives at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality would continue to receive funding at current levels. For the third consecutive year, the federal budget proposes allocating $61 million for ONC and $45 million for AHRQ's health IT initiatives. However, the budget proposal does not include "jump start" funds for ONC included in the economic stimulus law. The office is set to receive an estimated $432 million this year and $809 million in 2010 in jump start funding. The Federal Health Architecture program, which aims to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government health IT programs, is slated to receive $8 million under Obama's budget, the same level as in FY 2009.
http://benton.org/node/25186
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TELEVISION/RADIO
IT'S DO-0VER TIME AT THE NAB
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
[Commentary] With broadcasting suffering through the worse economic times in its history and Washington threatening even more trouble, its principal lobby is suddenly without a leader. On Wednesday, David Rehr resigned as NAB president after being told that he no longer enjoyed the confidence of the board. The announcement brought to an abrupt end to Rehr's tumultuous three-plus years in the $800,000-a-year job. While the board scrambles to find a replacement, Janet McGregor, NAB's chief operating officer and CFO, who joined the NAB just last year, will run the place. McGregor might be an excellent administrator, but she is no lobbyist. She cannot do what the NAB president should be able to do — make things happen on Capitol Hill and at the FCC. That's unfortunate because things are getting a little dicey in Washington right now. Congress is weighing one measure that could seriously undermine the ability of TV stations to negotiate for retrans fees from cable operators and another that could force radio stations to pay hefty music royalties to record labels for the first time. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. Meanwhile, there are rumors that Michael Copps wants to make his mark as interim FCC chairman by rushing through new local programming requirements on TV stations before the Senate confirms Julius Genachowski as the new permanent chairman.
http://benton.org/node/25180
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RESEARCHERS URGE CRACKDOWN ON JUNK FOOD TV ADS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Elke Bun]
Junk food ads account for two-thirds of televised advertisements for food that are shown when children are likely to be watching, researchers into obesity said on Friday, based on a study of 11 countries. Germany and the United States led the way at 90 percent, with Britain and Australia the lowest at about 50 percent, the researchers said, urging governments to limit such marketing in order to combat obesity. "Internationally, children are exposed to high volumes of unhealthy food and beverage advertising on television," Bridget Kelly, a nutrition researcher at the Cancer Council NSW in Australia, and colleagues told the European Congress on Obesity in Amsterdam. "Limiting this food marketing is an important preventative strategy for childhood obesity."
http://benton.org/node/25181
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CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS URGE RADIO BILL DELAY
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law this week urged the House Judiciary Committee to delay any action on legislation that would end a longstanding royalty exemption for AM and FM radio until the panel holds a hearing to weigh the bill's impact on minority-owned broadcast radio stations. Noting "two significant voting rights cases" before the Supreme Court, the groups explained that "the chief remaining resource to ensure that African Americans can participate fully in the democratic process will be the continued engagement of minority radio broadcasters to drive turnout."
http://benton.org/node/25179
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FCC PROVIDES RULES FOR DTV FILL-INS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Federal Communications Commission has established a new class of translators that will help television stations fill in digital television coverage gaps in their current service gaps. The FCC's decision comes only a little over a month before the June 12 switch to digital, but the commission has been allowing translator applications to be submitted under temporary authority. The FCC will not make broadcasters pay in the secondary spectrum market for the fill-in spectrum, as the wireless industry had suggested.
http://benton.org/node/25178
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SIRIUS XM STICKS IT TO SUBSCRIBERS
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Steve Guttenberg]
How's the Sirius XM satellite radio monopoly working out for subscribers? Not so well. Now that Sirius XM is the only game in town, it's nudging up fees for subscribers. Nice! The one and only satellite radio company's boasts of its ever-increasing subscriber base are gone now, and the decline is significant. The number floating around the Internet is a loss of 400,000 subscribers. That still leaves 18.6 million, but there's no way of knowing how many of that number are full-price-paying subscribers. Could the subscriber losses be attributed to recent price hikes? The family plan package went from $6.99 to $8.99 a month and there's a monthly $2.99 fee to receive Sirius XM stations over the Internet. That service was previously free.
http://benton.org/node/25177
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GIGI SOHN SAYS GIVE REMOTE DVR A CHANCE
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A Q&A with Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. Public Knowledge has supported Cablevision's position in legal wrangling over the cable operator's plans to roll out a headend-based digital video recorder service. The US Supreme Court is awaiting advice from the solicitor general on whether or not to hear content creators' (studios and programmers) appeal of an earlier ruling that found Cablevision's plan to provide DVR functionality in centralized servers does not violate copying and performance restrictions in copyright law. The studios say that fundamentally distorts copyright law. Cablevision, meanwhile, has yet to roll out the service. PK wants the last decision to stand, enabling Cablevision to roll out the "cool, consumer-friendly technology" and reinforcing fair-use rights established in the Sony Betamax case over video cassette recording.
http://benton.org/node/25176
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FCC REFORM
REPUBLICAN BILL TO REFORM FCC NOT A BAD PLACE TO START DISCUSSIONS
[SOURCE: Tales from the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] Reps Joe Barton (R-TX) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL) have introduced the FCC Reform Act which would 1) Require the FCC to publish the proposed language of actual rules, provide 30 days for comment and 30 days for reply comments, and then another 30 days for consideration on the record, before adopting, eliminating or modifying any new rule. 2) Require that "members of the Commission have adequate time, prior to being required to decide an issue . . . to review the proposed Commission decision document, including any specific language that is proposed to be adopted, as, modified in, or deleted from a regulation." I presume this is before we get to the needed 90 days for public participation. 3) Set deadlines for things by category. e.g., how long will it take to do complaints. 4) Publish any item actually adopted within 30 days. 5) Whenever official items adopted aren't published in 30 days, send a letter to the Chair and ranking members of the House Commerce Committee and Telecom Subcommittee. 6) Any year the FCC screws up on these deadlines, it will publish a big "here's all the times we didn't get stuff out on time" report. 7) Publish a list of what's on circulation. If an item is on circulation more than 60 days, publish who has refused to vote. 8) For regular reports on industry statistics (like the various annual "state of competition reports"), publish the schedule for when these are supposed to come out and notify the Chair and Ranking members of Committee and Subcommittee when they are late. The problems the Barton-Stearns bill tries to address are real and long-standing. Wherever we ultimately end up, this looks like a good place to start the discussion.
http://benton.org/node/25173
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