September 27, 2011 (Why USF Reform Matters)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

Advisory Committee day at the FCC http://benton.org/calendar/2011-09-27/

TELECOMMUNICATIONS
   Why USF Reform Matters - analysis
   FCC Seeks Comment on USF Low Income Disbursement Process - public notice
   FCC launches Rural Call Completion Task Force - press release
   AT&T, T-Mobile Antitrust Suit Spurs FCC to Restart Special Access Inquiry

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   The True Cost of Net Neutrality - op-ed
   Small Dictators, Big Bots - analysis
   Political and industry wrangling likely will delay cybersecurity reforms [links to web]
   Why Faster Broadband? Well... consider the case of Cedar Falls - op-ed [links to web]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Republicans urge regulators to use light touch with AT&T/ T-Mobile deal
   There Is No Spectrum Shortage: CitiGroup
   The future of mobile: a segment analysis - research
   LightSquared to Defend Project in Open Letter in Newspapers
   Nielsen: Android share of U.S. smartphone market hits 43%
   Colleges struggle with students' data demand [links to web]
   LightSquared doubles size of its lobbying team in 2011
   iPads can be borrowed from a Wisconsin library [links to web]
   Doctors turn to tablet computers [links to web]
   Staffers get work iPads [links to web]

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Political Ads Target TV, But Not Everyone Is Tuning In
   Roger’s Reality Show
   Facebook to form its own PAC to back political candidates [links to web]

TELEVISION
   TV's Investigative Reporting Outlook Not Bright [links to web]
   FTC Has No Problem With Sinclair Purchase of Four Points [links to web]
   Nielsen: Census Shows Boost in Minority Viewing Households [links to web]
   The Need For Gender Equality In Television - analysis [links to web]

CONTENT
   Hollywood downloads a post-DVD future
   How The Social Web Has Rewired The Digital World From The Ground Up - analysis
   Companies grapple with social media policies [links to web]
   YouTube Prepares to Launch Scheduled Channels [links to web]
   The Facebook Chart That Freaks Google Out [links to web]

PRIVACY
   Facebook changes draw privacy concerns

EDUCATION
   New Initiatives Signal Shift in U.S. Ed Tech Leadership
   Colleges struggle with students' data demand [links to web]

JOBS
   President Obama brings jobs plan to Silicon Valley
   Economic Coverage Leads the Week - research [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
These headlines presented in partnership with:

   ‘Smart’ Regulation to promote worldwide broadband roll out - press release
   EU opens antitrust probe into e-payment market
   China urges police use microblogs to dispel rumors
   European data concerns cloud outlook for U.S. vendors
   Phone app makers face scrutiny over abuses

MORE ONLINE
   Vivek Kundra Gets ‘B’ Grade as Federal CIO [links to web]
   Innovation and the brotherhood of the Valley [links to web]
   Health 2.0 Exchange Connects Consumer Ehealth Innovators with Beacon Communities - press release [links to web]
   Delivering on the Promise of Innovation to Help Prevent CyberBullying [links to web]
   New satellite could revolutionize battlefield communications [links to web]

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS

WHY USF REFORM MATTERS
[SOURCE: Light Reading, AUTHOR: Carol Wilson]
The battle over Universal Service Fund reform isn't grabbing the kind of headlines that other regulatory squabbles are, but it is a significant issue for the U.S. telecom market for multiple reasons. Here's what you need to know about regulatory reform:
Why you should care: First, the Federal Communications Commission's decision as to how USF will be changed essentially determines who has the best shot at providing broadband in unserved and underserved areas of the U.S. going forward. And by default, that means what the FCC decides will also likely determine whether those areas get broadband service and what the service looks like -– how fast it will be, how symmetrical, and whether it is wireless or wireline.
Second, the impact of the FCC's choices could reverberate into other aspects of telecom, specifically wireless backhaul. Efforts to build ubiquitous 4G coverage could be impacted if the new rules send rural telecom providers into a tailspin, because someone has to build and maintain connections to wireless towers in rural areas.
USF reform is being paired with intercarrier compensation (ICC), the regulatory formula that determines how telecom service providers compensate each other for completing voice calls. The pairing makes sense because ICC has been another means of funding networks in high-cost areas that have become archaic with the introduction of VoIP, among other things. ICC changes will impact any service provider offering voice services, potentially including VoIP companies and cable players.
Some not-so-small companies, such as CenturyLink and even AT&T, would be financially impacted by changes in the USF rules that hurt incumbents. There's a reason the six largest U.S. incumbents have banded together and gotten some support from rural telecom associations for a plan that affords some protection to existing service providers in rural areas.
And finally, the entire industry will be affected if a prolonged debate or court battle delays any decision on USF, because regulatory uncertainty slows purchasing on all fronts. The FCC had promised USF reform earlier this year but now has slipped on its plan to finish the process this summer and could be months away. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) this week urged the agency to finish by October, saying the process has already gone on too long.
benton.org/node/91318 | Light Reading
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INQUIRY INTO DISBURSEMENT PROCESS FOR THE UNIVERSAL SERVICE FUND LOW INCOME PROGRAM
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) seeks comment on a proposal for disbursing Universal Service Fund low income support to eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) based upon claims for reimbursement of actual support payments made, instead of projected claims for support. Payment based on actual support payments could replace the current administrative process, under which the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) reimburses ETCs for low income support each month based on USAC’s projection of payments and on a “true-up” calculated using an ETC's actual support payments. USAC proposes to establish a monthly due date by which ETCs must submit their FCC Form 497 in order to receive a payment at the end of the following month. Carriers that do not file FCC Form 497 by the monthly deadline in a given month would not receive a payment in the following month. USAC would process an FCC Form 497 received after the monthly deadline during the following month, and would make a disbursement based on that support claim in the subsequent month. The FCC seeks comment on monthly filing deadline and on the process for disbursing payment to ETCs that miss a monthly deadline.
benton.org/node/91268 | Federal Communications Commission
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RURAL CALL COMPLETION TASK FORCE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission has created the Rural Call Completion Task Force to investigate and address the growing problem of calls to rural customers that are being delayed or that fail to connect. Rural telephone companies have reported a 2000% increase in complaints between April 2010 and March 2011 regarding incoming calls that are delayed, never completed, of poor quality, or lack accurate caller ID information. Failed or degraded calls not only undermine the integrity of the nation’s telephone networks and frustrate consumers, but they also pose a serious risk to public safety and harm the rural economy. The problem appears to be occurring in rural areas where long-distance carriers pay charges to complete calls to the local telephone company, calls which may be delivered using specialized call routing providers. The FCC is working to comprehensively reform the system that sets these rates – the intercarrier compensation system – to reduce opportunities and incentives for arbitrage and other manipulation schemes. Reform proposals would also tighten rules that require carriers to provide accurate information about call origin for billing and other purposes.
The Task Force will hold a workshop – tentatively scheduled for October 18 – to identify specific causes of the problem and discuss potential solutions with key stakeholders. Details about the workshop are forthcoming.
Issues for the Task Force and Workshop include:
The extent of the call termination problem in rural areas
The causes of the problem, including whether carriers are violating the law by blocking or restricting calls to other carriers
Actions that can be taken by the Commission to address the problem
The Rural Call Completion Task Force includes staff from the agency’s Wireline Competition, Public
Safety and Homeland Security, and Enforcement Bureaus
benton.org/node/91333 | Federal Communications Commission
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SPECIAL ACCESS INQUIRY
[SOURCE: eWeek, AUTHOR: Wayne Rash]
The Federal Communications Commission announced that the agency was asking for new data on the pricing and the competitive environment around the Special Access market. Special Access has come to the surface because of its inclusion as a major point in the antitrust complaints by Sprint and Cellular South in the AT&T/T-Mobile antitrust lawsuit. However, Special Access goes far beyond the needs of wireless companies. While Special Access is getting a lot of attention right now because wireless companies use the DS1, DS3 and Ethernet lines that make up the Special Access infrastructure for their backhaul from cell towers. But in reality, virtually every company that uses any kind of external network access is using Special Access in one way or another. This means the pricing and competitive information that the FCC gathers, and uses for any subsequent ruling, can directly affect the bottom line of your business. The timing of the announcement coincides with the antitrust action by the Department of Justice, but that wasn't intentional. In fact, left to its own devices, the FCC probably would never have moved. It required a Writ of Mandamus filed by the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee and several other public interest groups to force the FCC to move forward. The Ad Hoc group has already asked the FCC to take action to force the transparency and competition it thinks is necessary.
benton.org/node/91323 | eWeek
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

THE TRUE COST OF NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Larry Downes]
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commissions new network neutrality rules stand little chance of surviving in court. In the middle of the FCC’s rancorous deliberations last year, a federal appellate court rejected efforts to sanction Comcast for an alleged violation of the agency’s earlier Open Internet policy statements. The court held the FCC had no authority from Congress to enforce net neutrality or otherwise regulate broadband providers. Congress may well put an end to the rules. In the on-going budget fight, net neutrality may prove a tempting bargaining chip for Democrats with higher priority sacred cows than a likely-illegal agency rulemaking. Wharton economist Gerald R. Faulhaber and Internet pioneer David Farber estimate network neutrality regulation decreased the value of C Block spectrum by 60%. "The evidence speaks loudly and eloquently: Imposing network neutrality regulation reduces the value of the affected telecommunication asset and thus reduces the incentive to invest in such assets,” they wrote.
benton.org/node/91320 | Forbes
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SMALL DICTATORS, BIG BOTS
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Zeynep Tufekci]
[Commentary] We are ruled, in effect, by small dictators and big bots. And this unelected, inefficient, and sometimes-petty tyranny is throttling the growth of a vibrant, healthy Internet and fuels many problems ranging from inane "real name" policies on sites like Google+ -- where people can be asked for official proof of identity if their account is flagged as a nickname -- to major disruptions in connectivity. This is terrible because the Internet is not just any widget -- it's increasingly the heart of our networked commons. Dominance of a bad business model on the Internet doesn't just result in bad products; it results in unhealthy social dynamics.
benton.org/node/91260 | Slate
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

NEW GOP LETTER ON AT&T/T-MOBILE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Six GOP members of the House Commerce Committee said that if the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is approved, any conditions imposed on the deal should be narrow, in letter sent last week to the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. "In challenging economy times, we need to be especially thoughtful in our approach to private sector investments and potential job growth as we can ill afford to lose valuable opportunities when they arise," wrote Reps. John Shimkus (R-IL), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Steve Scalise (R-LA), Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Phil Gingrey (R-GA). "In addition, to the extent that either of your agencies believes that the transaction should be approved subject to certain conditions, such conditions should only impact the parties to the transaction and be narrowly tailored to address any specific harm attributable to the transaction."
benton.org/node/91352 | Hill, The
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SPECTRUM SHORTAGE
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
According to a CitiGroup market analysis, there is no shortage of spectrum and control -- not availability -- of that spectrum is the constraint on mobile broadband. Citi says that U.S. carriers have 538 MHz of spectrum, but are only using 192 MHz, with another 300MHz "waiting in the wings" -- the amount the Federal Communications Commission is planning to free up. "Too much spectrum is controlled by companies that are not planning on rolling out services or face business and financial challenges," said Citi. "And, larger carriers cannot readily convert a substantial portion of their spectrum to 4G services, because most existing spectrum provides 2G-3.5G services to current users." "We do not believe the US faces a spectrum shortage," Citi says. "However, unless incumbent carriers accelerate their 4G migration plans, or acquire more underutilized spectrum, upstart networks -- like Clearwire, LightSquared and Dish -- could have a material speed advantage over incumbent carriers provided that they can clear meaningful hurdles for funding and distribution." CTIA: The Wireless Association fired back, pointing out that the 300 MHz Citi presumes is in the wings includes 120 MHz of broadcast spectrum.
benton.org/node/91330 | Multichannel News
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FUTURE OF MOBILE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: ]
The smartphone craze and the rise of Apple’s App Store and the Android Market have given birth to a surge in the usage of applications and the wireless web. This desire for mobile data will only continue to increase as more and more devices — from tablets and cars to home appliances and health care monitors — become connected. This report explores what the future holds for various segments of the mobile industry, from hardware devices to mobile cloud services and wireless networking. We discuss the roles of the major companies (namely Apple, Google and Microsoft) that have a recurring presence across sectors, as well as the smaller players that stand poised to disrupt. Challenges exist for each segment, too, and we examine the questions and hurdles that companies must face as they continue to rethink the concept of mobility in our everyday lives.
benton.org/node/91266 | GigaOm
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LIGHTSQUARED ON THE DEFENSIVE
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: John Ribeiro]
LightSquared said that it plans to run in major newspapers in the U.S. an open letter explaining its position over the controversy surrounding its LTE (long-term evolution) network, particularly concerns about its interference with GPS (global positioning system). Demand for broadband wireless will outstrip the current total spectrum available in the U.S. within the next 24 months, "jeopardizing everything from the smartphones and tablets we love to the emergency responder services we rely upon to keep us safe", LightSquared's CEO Sanjiv Ahuja said in the open letter. "The current nationwide wireless providers have failed to innovate and in the process have failed to keep pace with consumer and technological demands." Tests have shown LightSquared's proposed LTE network, which would operate in a spectrum band now devoted to satellite services, would run into interference with most GPS products in the upper part of its band and with some high-precision units in the lower part of its band. LightSquared is also alleged to have received preferential treatment from the administration of President Barack Obama, because Philip Falcone, whose Harbinger Capital Partners owns the carrier, has contributed to Democrats. The company has denied the allegations.
benton.org/node/91261 | IDG News Service
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NIELSEN SMARTPHONE NUMBERS
[SOURCE: CNNMoney, AUTHOR: Philip Elmer-DeWitt]
The results of a Nielsen survey conducted in August and released Monday reinforced several ongoing trends:
The smartphone pie is getting bigger. While 43% of all mobile subscribers in the U.S. had a smartphone as of August, according to Nielsen, 58% of those who bought a new mobile phone in the last 3 months chose a smartphone over a feature phone.
Android's slice continues to grow. The share of smartphones running Google's Android OS hit 43% in August, but of those who bought smartphones in the past 3 months, 56% bought Androids.
The iPhone's share is holding steady. Apple's iOS remains in second place, with a 28% share of all subscribers and of recent purchasers.
The also-rans are running out of time. Research in Motion's BlackBerry and "other" continue to lose share.
benton.org/node/91253 | CNNMoney
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LIGHTSQUARED LOBBYING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Rachel Leven, Kevin Bogardus]
LightSquared, the wireless telecom firm facing Republican complaints that it has benefited from political ties to the White House, has significantly boosted its lobbying this year. The company has more than doubled the number of lobbying firms on its payroll, from four to nine K Street shops, in the first half of 2011. LightSquared has already spent $830,000 on lobbying in the first six months of year, and is on pace to more than double its K Street expenditures of $695,000 in 2010, according to lobbying disclosure records. If LightSquared’s lobbying spending continues at this clip, the company will spend more on K Street this year than any year since the company first hired lobbyists in 2001.
benton.org/node/91346 | Hill, The
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

TV AUDIENCE SHRINKING
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Ina Jaffe]
Although the election is more than a year away, it's not keeping political commercials off of our TV screens. Yet, according to a new survey, the audience for those ads is shrinking. Republican pollster Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies and Democratic pollster Thomas Eldon of SEA Polling surveyed likely voters about their TV viewing habits. "The No. 1 finding in the survey, which really shocked me, is that 31 percent of voters we talked to said they had not watched live TV in the past week," Newhouse says. Live in this case doesn't mean a live event, like a baseball game — it means watching a TV program when a channel or network airs it. So if about a third of TV viewers only watched recorded programming in the previous week, there's no reason to assume they sat through the commercials. That's what the fast-forward button is for. "You do a little deeper dive in the data, and there's not a gender difference, there's not a partisan difference — Republicans vs. Democrats — not really an educational difference," Newhouse says. "Where there's a real difference is a generation difference. The generation gap is stark and wide." Younger people, says Newhouse, are much less likely to watch TV in real time — or even to watch television on a television. They may find computers or smartphones more convenient.
benton.org/node/91310 | National Public Radio
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ROGER'S REALITY SHOW
[SOURCE: The Daily Beast, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
The left has long branded the Fox News Channel a propaganda arm for Roger Ailes’s pugnacious conservatism, and while his journalists maintain they play it straight, the network has certainly provided ample fodder for liberal detractors. But as President Obama’s popularity has plummeted and the country has grown increasingly sick of partisan sniping, something unexpected happened. Roger Ailes pulled back a bit on the throttle. He calls it a “course correction,” quietly adopted at Fox over the last year. Glenn Beck’s inflammatory rhetoric -- his ranting about Obama being a racist -- “became a bit of a branding issue for us” before the hot-button host left in July, Ailes says. So too did Sarah Palin’s being widely promoted as the GOP’s potential savior -- in large measure through her lucrative platform at Fox. Privately, Fox executives say the entire network took a hard right turn after Obama’s election, but, as the Tea Party’s popularity fades, is edging back toward the mainstream. While Fox reporters ply their trade under Ailes’s much-mocked “fair and balanced” banner, the opinion arm of the operation has been told to lower the temperature. After the Gabrielle Giffords shooting triggered a debate about feverish rhetoric, Ailes ordered his troops to tone things down. It was, in his view, a chance to boost profits by grabbing a more moderate audience. As he embarks on his last hurrah -- Ailes’s contract is up in 2013—he is acting not like a political operative but as a corporate chieftain who knows that fostering friction and picking fights make for good television -- and good business. Next fall’s election could well pivot on whether Ailes is more interested in scoring political points or ramping up ratings and revenue.
benton.org/node/91255 | Daily Beast, The
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CONTENT

HOLLYWOOD POST-DVD
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Ben Fritz]
Across Hollywood, a quiet revolution is brewing that's about to transform living rooms around the world. After desperate attempts to prop up the industry's once-thriving DVD business, studio executives now believe the only hope of turning around a 40% decline in home entertainment revenue lies in rapidly accelerating the delivery of movies over the Internet. In the next few years, the growing number of consumers with Internet-connected televisions, tablets and smartphones will face a dizzying array of options designed to make digital movie consumption a lot more convenient and to entice users to spend more money. With films that can be accessed on any digital device, downloaded as iPhone apps or shared on Facebook as easily as a photo, it may be the biggest shift in Hollywood's business model since the explosion of the DVD in the late 1990s.
benton.org/node/91277 | Los Angeles Times
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SOCIAL WEB REWIRING DIGITAL WORLD
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Ben Elowitz]
[Commentary] Social networking has moved from something that’s a destination activity, to something that is ever-present throughout every digital experience. And, no doubt, Facebook will continue this rapid progression. Unlike the analog world, where content and distribution companies have largely fixed channels (licensed spectrum; contracted cable distribution; stable subscription bases; theater outlets; and other distribution power), digital content isn't channelized. It’s itemized. That means digital content has to earn an audience – item by item. The first generation of digital media publishers turned to search engine optimization to solve that, with an endless and constantly escalating set of editorial and technical tricks to bait search algorithms to rank them highly. This became de rigeur for every digital publisher; even as it spawned an arms race to find an audience. But now that social is ubiquitous, the nature of distribution changes for media companies. And now, instead of having to reinvent the distribution wheel every day for every page, publishers can rely on a system far more powerful than the search engine to sort, select, and rank content. That system is part human, and part technology – but it is 100 percent social.
benton.org/node/91265 | paidContent.org
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PRIVACY

FACEBOOK CHANGES AND PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
Users and privacy advocates have reservations about Facebook’s planned redesign, the way the change will affect third-party apps and the network’s general approach to privacy. Third-party apps will be fully integrated into a user’s profile page, with updates about activity on each app. That means that users won't actively click to share updates from apps — the apps will add that information to a user’s page automatically. With this change, users will have to think more carefully about what apps they use, since their private media consumption, exercise routines and other habits could be automatically published on their profiles. Self-proclaimed hacker Nik Cubrilovic accused Facebook of using cookies to track users while they are logged off, something Facebook engineer Gregg Stefancik denied in a comment on Cubrilovic’s post. Stefancik confirmed that Facebook alters rather than deletes cookies when users log out as a safety measure, but said the company does not use those cookies to track users or sell personal information to third parties. He also said that the company does not use cookies to suggest friends to other users. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that the organization is opposed to changes made to the Timeline, Facebook’s newly designed profile page.
benton.org/node/91280 | Washington Post | Los Angeles Times
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EDUCATION

SHIFT IN ED TECH LEADERSHIP
[SOURCE: Education Week, AUTHOR: Ian Quillen]
In what appear to be the latest moves in a shift of emphasis from financing to facilitating education technology, the Department of Education and the Federal Communications Commission this month both have helped launch initiatives that were billed as major breakthroughs but involved the two organizations as agents of collaboration, not primary funders.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski attended as Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. officially announced its Internet Essentials program, which will give families of students who receive free school lunches access to broadband Internet service for $9.95 a month, before taxes. The move came in response to the FCC’s call for Internet providers to offer cheaper access to disadvantaged and underserved students.
At a Sept. 16 White House briefing, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan launched the Digital Promise center, a congressionally authorized clearinghouse dedicated to identifying, supporting, and publicizing the most effective education technology innovations.
benton.org/node/91263 | Education Week
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JOBS

JOBS TOWN HALL
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Patrick May]
President Barack Obama carried his job-creation crusade into the heart of Silicon Valley, a corner of the country that has done pretty well at job creation on its own. At a town-hall meeting with social-media powerhouse LinkedIn dubbed "Putting America Back to Work," the President was relaxed and often jovial, using the event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View as a bully pulpit for his $447 billion plan to create 1.9 million jobs renovating the nation's roads, airports and railways. President Obama fielded a half-dozen questions, some from the live audience and others submitted online. At times, he spent as much as 10 minutes on a single answer, particularly those on the need to make America's education system more globally competitive. His message was clear: put people back to work now, but in coming years do what's necessary to ensure that America stays competitive. After stressing the need to get more teachers back into the classroom, Obama made another push for improving the nation's infrastructure, "putting people to work rebuilding our roads, and also making sure we're providing small businesses the kinds of tax incentives that will allow them to succeed."
benton.org/node/91354 | San Jose Mercury News | President Obama | USAToday | SF Chronicle | NYTimes | New York Times | The Hill
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
These headlines presented in partnership with:


ITU CONFERENCE
[SOURCE: International Telecommunications Union, AUTHOR: Press release]
The ITU Global Symposium for Regulators closed with the adoption of Best Practice Guidelines aimed at advancing the deployment of broadband connectivity worldwide.
In an era in which broadband is increasingly considered the right of every citizen, “smart” regulation was advocated to encourage greater openness and use of incentive dynamics to mitigate the challenges and threats posed by a rapidly changing ICT landscape. Examining the complexities of the broadband ecosystem, GSR participants focused their attention on:
M-banking services and the role of regulators
Wireless broadband spectrum pricing
Satellite regulation
Open access regulation
Setting national broadband policies, strategies and plans
Financing universal access/service
E-waste and recycling and the role of regulators
Protecting rights, such as intellectual property, of all stakeholders in a digital ecosystem
Regional initiatives to foster broadband connectivity
benton.org/node/91258 | International Telecommunications Union
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EU OPENS ANTITRUST PROBE INTO E-PAYMENT MARKET
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Foo Yun Chee]
European Union antitrust regulators are investigating whether a group of banks --including Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Spain's BBVA -- is blocking new players from entering the European online payments market. The European Commission opened an investigation into the standardization process for e-payments by the European Payments Council (EPC), saying the move was prompted by a complaint. It did not identify the complainant. "Standards promote interoperability and competition, but we need to ensure that the standardization process does not unnecessarily restrict opportunities for non-participants," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said. The Commission said the exclusion of new players and payment providers not controlled by a bank could result in higher prices for web merchants and consumers.
benton.org/node/91308 | Reuters
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CHINA URGES POLICE USE MICROBLOGS TO DISPEL RUMORS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Ben Blanchard]
More Chinese police should use microblogs to give the public "correct" facts and release authorized information to dispel misunderstandings, the Ministry of Public Security said, in a new effort to counter critics of the government. Chinese officials have voiced worries about the feverish growth of microblogs, also known as "tweets", which can be used to spread information and comments unwelcome to the ruling Communist Party's censors. Vice Minister of Public Security Huang Ming said that police forces should actively use microblogs to ensure the correct information is put across to people. "All levels of public security organs should fully understand the importance of microblogs for public security," Huang said. Police forces should set up "new platforms to guide public opinion, further pay attention to hot topics people are talking about on the Internet, and use correct, authoritative, transparent news to answer people's concerns in a timely way, clarify facts and clear up misunderstandings".
benton.org/node/91307 | Reuters
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EUROPEAN DATA CONCERNS CLOUD OUTLOOK FOR U.S. VENDORS
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Loek Essers]
American cloud providers may find themselves unable to sell to the Dutch government due to concerns that the vendors could be compelled to share data with U.S. authorities under the provisions of the Patriot Act. Similar concerns are being raised in the European Parliament. Ivo Opstelten, the Dutch minister of security and justice, informed the Tweede Kamer (the Dutch lower house) last week that the government is contemplating excluding American cloud providers from government bids. Dutch government agencies need to protect government information and citizen data from being accessed by the U.S., and so bids must be able to meet demands that cloud providers do not hand over any information to the U.S. "That basically means that companies form the United States are excluded from such [government] bids and contracts," Opstelten said in the letter.
benton.org/node/91305 | IDG News Service
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PHONE APP SCRUTINY
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Tim Bradshaw]
The developers of smartphone applications are set to come under closer scrutiny after the UK’s premium-rate telephone regulator said it would seek to clamp down on hidden charges and other abuses. PhonepayPlus, which regulates any goods and services purchased through phone billing systems, launched a consultation after a spate of complaints in recent months. PhonepayPlus’ consultation to telecoms and technology companies identifies several risks, including “freemium” apps that are unclear about the price of buying add-ons within an initially free service, credits which expire without due warning, and the hijacking of devices to send high-cost text messages.
benton.org/node/91343 | Financial Times
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