May 4, 2009 (Down at The Globe)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY MAY 4, 2009
Today and tomorrow the FEC holds a hearing on the Evolving IP Marketplace at UC Berkeley (Go Bears!). For all events this week, see http://www.benton.org/calendar/2009-05-03--P1W
JOURNALISM
Boston Globe could file shutdown notice Monday
Newspapers' Essential Strengths
A Battle With a New Jersey Newspaper Backfires
A Failure To Raise the Specter of Disloyalty
Looking to Big-Screen E-Readers to Help Save the Daily Press
AP's Curley Has Fightin' Words For Google
BROADBAND/INTERNET
Obama's push to levy taxes on overseas profits alarms tech giants
EU urges Internet governance revamp
Recap of "Cybersecurity: Network Threats and Policy Challenges"
Broadband Funding Hopefuls Pair Up in Search of Stimulus Dollars
WildBlue Should NOT Get Stimulus Dollars for R&D
The Coming Broadband Smackdown
DPI: It's Going to Be About More Than Ads
Rural broadband growth better than urban
DOCSIS 3.0 To Blanket U.S. By 2013
Broadband without Internet ain't worth squat
TELEVISION
Commentary on FCC v. Fox Television Stations
3.1% Of U.S. Still Unready For DTV Transition
Congress Ready To OK Importing Signals
TV networks are uneasy about declining advertising
Three ways TV can reset during the recession
Pay TV needs a differentiator
FCC Appoints Group to Study Digital Closed Captioning and Video Description Issues
TELECOM
Vonage: Not a Telecommunications Service
Sprint Is in Talks to Outsource Its Network
GAO: FCC school/library computer fund a pit of mystery
POLICYMAKERS
President Obama Nominates John Sullivan for FEC
Parents Television Council Looking for Republican FCC Commissioner
Rep Harman Rails Against Wiretapping That Ensnared Her
Locke Says 2010 Census 'Will Not Be Politicized'
First Senior Resident Fellow at CDT
QUICKLY -- US Media See a Path to India in China's Snub; Interrogation Memos, Miss California Drive the Online Narrative; WhiteHouse 2.0; Global Competition Selects 19 Innovative Digital Media & Learning Projects to Share $2 Million; Mini-Links to Web Sites Are Multiplying;Getting Their (Wireless) Lines Crossed;For some late-night hosts, the laughs come cheap
JOURNALISM
BOSTON GLOBE COULD FILE SHUTDOWN NOTICE MONDAY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Robert MacMillan]
Talks between The Boston Globe and its unions to prevent the newspaper from shutting down stopped early Monday morning after a midnight deadline passed, and it was unclear when they would resume. An hour after the midnight deadline passed, negotiations had broken down, but likely will resume sometime during the night. Just before the deadline, the Globe's parent company, The New York Times Co, ratcheted up the pressure on unions at the Globe, threatening to close the paper within weeks if they do not deliver big cost cuts. The Times, the Globe's parent company, said it would file a notice with the U.S. government on Monday that says it will shut down the paper if it cannot get millions of dollars in concessions from its unions.
http://benton.org/node/25043
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NEWSPAPERS' ESSENTIAL STRENGTHS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
Last week, Mary Schapiro, the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, suggested that because federal regulators cannot be everywhere at once, experienced reporters constitute additional critical boots on the ground. "Financial journalists have in many cases been the sources of some really important enforcement cases and really important discovery of practices and products that regulators should be profoundly concerned about," said Ms. Schapiro. "But for journalists having been dogged and determined and really pursuing some of these things, they might not be known to the regulators or they might not be known for a long time." A current accounting of the news business — grim and grimmer by the day — suggests that there may be a subsequent bear market in accountability as well. The day before she spoke, the Audit Bureau of Circulations revealed that for the six months ended March 31, newspapers, which employ the vast share of paid watchdogs, were down an average of 7 percent in circulation from the previous year, a steepening decline that foretells additional layoffs in a business that has already had its share. Newspapers and other print publications need to think about how they finance their work differently as well. But as the gap in balance sheets grows, there will be a growing gap in the things that the public doesn't know, but probably should.
http://benton.org/node/25042
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A BATTLE WITH A NEW JERSEY NEWSPAPER BACKFIRES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stephanie Clifford]
When fighting with a media mogul, institutions would be well-advised to avoid using that mogul's newspaper as a battleground, a hospital in New Jersey learned last week. On April 25, The Record, a newspaper owned by the North Jersey Media Group, was preparing to run a controversial article the next day detailing the powerful connections of some members of the board at the Hackensack University Medical Center. That afternoon, the hospital struck back. An administrator called an advertising sales representative, saying the hospital was removing its ads from the media group's Web sites, canceling its one-year online advertising contract with The Record and removing ads from several local papers. The article ran that Sunday anyway. Later in the week, hospital executives told The Record's distribution staff that the paper could no longer be sold at the hospital's gift shops or newspaper boxes. "It's pretty obvious they thought they were going to hurt us very, very badly," said Malcolm A. Borg, chairman of the North Jersey Media Group. On Friday, when an article about the hospital's reaction was published, Mr. Borg said he received apologetic phone calls from some members of the medical center's board.
http://benton.org/node/25041
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A FAILURE TO RAISE THE SPECTOR OF DISLOYALTY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
News seems more ephemeral than ever in this age of TiVo and tossed-off tweets. But it's worth hitting the pause button to examine how media organizations chronicled the Specter saga. The political elements, naturally, were front and center -- Specter's fear of losing a GOP primary next year, and his moving the Democrats within one Al Franken victory dance of a filibuster-proof majority. But in the straight-news reports, little attention was devoted to this question: Was this a betrayal of the voters who elected Specter? Most journalists assumed the role of handicappers, accepting as a given that this is the way the game is played. So what if Specter had promised to serve six years as a Republican? So what if Specter had told Newsweek less than three weeks earlier that "I'm a Republican and I'm going to run in the Republican primary and on the Republican ticket"? He was acting to save his skin; no further explanation necessary. This value-neutral reporting was reflected in the headlines: "Specter Switches Parties; More Heft for Democrats" (New York Times). "Specter Gives Dems a Boost in Stifling Dissent" (USA Today). "Specter Leaves GOP, Shifting Senate Balance" (Washington Post). Not a hint that he had done anything untoward.
http://benton.org/node/25040
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LOOKING TO BIG-SCREEN E-READERS TO HELP SAVE THE DAILY PRESS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brad Stone]
The iPod stemmed losses in the music industry. The Kindle gave beleaguered book publishers a reason for optimism. Now the recession-ravaged newspaper and magazine industries are hoping for their own knight in shining digital armor, in the form of portable reading devices with big screens. Unlike tiny mobile phones and devices like the Kindle that are made to display text from books, these new gadgets, with screens roughly the size of a standard sheet of paper, could present much of the editorial and advertising content of traditional periodicals in generally the same format as they appear in print. And they might be a way to get readers to pay for those periodicals — something they have been reluctant to do on the Web. Such e-reading devices are due in the next year from a range of companies, including the News Corporation, the magazine publisher Hearst and Plastic Logic, a well-financed start-up company that expects to start making digital newspaper readers by the end of the year at a plant in Dresden, Germany. But it is Amazon, maker of the Kindle, that appears to be first in line to try throwing an electronic life preserver to old-media companies. As early as this week, according to people briefed on the online retailer's plans, Amazon will introduce a larger version of its Kindle wireless device tailored for displaying newspapers, magazines and perhaps textbooks.
http://benton.org/node/25039
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AP'S CURLEY HAS FIGHTIN' WORDS FOR GOOGLE
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Dirk Smillie]
If Associated Press Chief Executive Tom Curley's remarks this week about Google reflect the tenor of the talks between the two, discussions can't be going well. The AP and Google have been debating content and compensation issues for months. In an interview with Forbes on Wednesday, Curley warned that if Google doesn't strike the right deal with the AP soon, "They will not get our copy going forward." The threat follows Rupert Murdoch's accusation earlier this month that Google is committing copyright thievery when it borrows material from news stories to assemble search rankings. A few days later, the AP weighed in with a similar charge -- though it did not mention Google -- announcing a content protection initiative and threatening legal and legislative action against news aggregators.
http://benton.org/node/25008
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BROADBAND/INTERNET
OBAMA'S PUSH TO LEVY TAXES ON OVERSEAS PROFITS ALARMS TECH GIANTS
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Brandon Bailey]
In the tech industry's first major disagreement with the Obama administration, Silicon Valley companies are voicing alarm about a proposal that could require corporations to pay billions of dollars in US taxes on foreign earnings. The administration wants to change a long-standing law that allows American companies to defer paying these taxes as long as the funds are kept overseas. That could have a big impact on a number of US corporations, especially tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems and Oracle, which report that overseas markets account for half or more of their sales. "It's probably our biggest concern right now. Certainly, it's the biggest issue where we disagree with the Obama administration," said Ralph Hellmann, senior vice president of the Information Technology Industry Council, an industry lobbying group. "On a Richter scale of 1 to 10, this is about a 20," added Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, who is leading a delegation of valley executives to Washington this week. They plan to discuss the deferral proposal and several other issues with federal officials and congressional leaders.
http://benton.org/node/25029
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EU URGES INTERNET GOVERNANCE REVAMP
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Huw Jones]
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body in charge of assigning Internet addresses such as .com and .net, should be shorn of its US government links and made fully independent, the European Union's information society chief said on Monday. ICANN is a not-for-profit organization set up in 1998 but operates under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Commerce, a set-up that raises concerns for some as the Internet is seen as belonging to a wider constituency. Pressure in the past on ICANN from right-wing politicians to stop .xxx from becoming a domain name for pornography, worried some policymakers. ICANN's operating agreement with the U.S. government expires at the end of September.
http://benton.org/node/25028
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CYBER CHIEF NEEDS TO BE IN WHITE HOUSE: EXPERTS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Diane Bartz]
On Friday, the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing on cybersecurity. Witnesses testified that the cybersecurity chief named to battle Internet viruses and larger challenges facing the information technology networks used by US companies and national defense should be based in the White House. Cybersecurity is important enough to warrant a White House staffer with real authority and a real budget, said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance and one of those who made recommendations to the Obama team. But Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, said his group had urged that the task of ensuring cybersecurity be given to the Department of Homeland Security, not the National Security Agency, or NSA, which is responsible for breaking codes and electronic spying. The NSA, he argued, was ill-suited for the job of ensuring that the lightly regulated Internet was kept up and running. "I think it's a very difficult thing for them to handle," he said. Rep Anthony Weiner (D-NY) noted that no witnesses from the Obama administration attended the hearing. "The obvious reason is I don't think they know yet what their policies are," he said.
Cybersecurity: Network Threats and Policy Challenges
http://benton.org/node/25027
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BROADBAND FUNDING HOPEFULS PAIR UP IN SEARCH OF STIMULUS DOLLARS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz]
It may be another month — at least — before officials at the Commerce and Agriculture Departments provide grant proposal details for companies and communities hoping to win some of the $7.2 billion set aside for broadband-stimulus funding, but some hopefuls are already beginning to pair up in hopes of increasing their chances of success. Stimulus-funding hopefuls are also in talks about how they can pair up on grant proposals, including Connected Nation, a nonprofit funded by big phone and cable companies which offers broadband mapping services. Earlier this week, Connected Nation said it had teamed up with the Communications Workers of America and the Atlanta-based nonprofit Alliance for Digital Equality in hopes of winning some of the $250 million set aside in the stimulus legislation for encouraging broadband usage. Administration officials haven't offered many details about how they'll judge which applications to fund, but they have said they're looking for projects that bring private industry and public organizations together to increase broadband availability and usage. For broadband backbone companies like Level 3 Communications, that means working with state and local officials on proposals to construct so-called "middle-mile" fiber lines would allow the company to offer wholesale access to multiple local Internet providers in an area.
http://benton.org/node/25026
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WILDBLUE SHOULD NOT GET STIMULUS DOLLARS FOR R&D
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
[Commentary] Satellite-based Internet access provider WildBlue wants stimulus dollars to "develop" a new satellite broadband service. Not "deploy" but "develop" -- a process that could take three years or more. Is WildBlue kidding? The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program is supposed to be about spurring deployment now, not in a few years. There are even specific provisions saying that the money's supposed to be spent within two years of receiving it. So let me see if I'm understanding this correctly: WildBlue wants tens if not hundreds of millions in government handouts to do R&D for a service that may or may not be ready to start serving customers in three years offering service that may or may not deliver download speeds up to 18Mbps that they haven't disclosed how much upload capacity it will have nor how much the service will cost. To be brutally honest, that sounds like an even more foolish way to spend limited broadband stimulus dollars than investing in BPL (broadband over power lines).
http://benton.org/node/25025
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THE COMING BROADBAND SMACKDOWN
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Evan Hessel]
The cable industry's ongoing experiment with metered broadband pricing is the single biggest change to hit the media business in recent years. If cable commits to imposing bandwidth limits, the industry could kill the emerging Web video business, said Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley, echoing the sentiments of Web consumer advocacy groups like Free Press. The good news for consumers, Gurley says, is that the cable operators are considering an alternative to choking off bandwidth: building a smarter channel guide with built in access to web video. The cable industry has resisted the integration of Web video into cable boxes in the past and has struggled to build smart, consumer-friendly technology into their systems. Still, Gurley cautioned that cable might drop their flirtation with new tech in favor of restricting consumers.
http://benton.org/node/25024
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DPI: IT'S GOING TO BE ABOUT MORE THAN ADS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
[Comentary] The practice of deep packet inspection has raised privacy concerns among several organizations, including The Free Press and Center for Democracy and Technology. Congress recently heard testimony about ISPs using the technology to target advertising at web surfers. But DPI vendors reveal that advertising is a blunt instrument when it comes to generating revenue. It's likely most carriers will use DPI, which can determine the details of packets traveling over the web, to boost sales in far more subtle ways. Instead of a flat-out metering program, such consumption-based broadband might offer subscribers an emphasis on voice or gaming services and prioritize packets accordingly. Operators could let consumers subscribe to a broad video package that would include prioritization for a service such as online video.
http://benton.org/node/25023
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RURAL BROADBAND GROWTH BETTER THAN URBAN
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Carol Wilson]
Growth in broadband deployments slowed for all telecom service providers in 2008, but rural telecom service providers had slightly better sequential growth than their urban counterparts. In addition, rural telcos are losing access lines more slowly, according to new research from Pivot Media. In a report released today, "Rural Vs. Urban: Examining Residential Broadband and Access Line Trends, 2008," Pivot also found that across the industry, broadband deployments are weathering the economic downturn. "We may have seen the worst of the recession's impact on broadband," said Bernie Arnason, founder and managing partner of Pivot Media. "It's early to say that firmly, but that is one conclusion you might draw." Pivot looked at broadband access line growth and access line loss by tier-one carriers including AT&T, Verizon and Qwest Communications and compared them to similar 2008 figures from 13 rural carriers including Embarq, Century Tel, Frontier, Alaska Tel, Iowa Telecom, Fairpoint, TDS and others. The research showed broadband access line growth slowed for both urban and rural service providers, but it slowed at a slightly slower pace for rural service providers.
http://benton.org/node/25020
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DOCSIS 3.0 TO BLANKET US BY 2013
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
Research firm Pike & Fischer estimates that US cable operators will have deployed DOCSIS 3.0 to 99% of homes passed by 2013. Of 120 million homes passed nationwide by cable networks at the end of 2008, around 15 million -- roughly 13% -- were passed by DOCSIS 3.0, Pike & Fischer estimated. The firm expects that number to increase to nearly 53 million households in 2009 and to 119 million by 2013. Annual spending on DOCSIS 3.0 equipment will peak in 2010 at $400 million, Pike & Fisher estimated, and will total less than $1.2 billion over the next five years. The main driver behind cable's DOCSIS 3.0 build-outs are operational cost savings and the ability to expand high-speed Internet services to small and midsize businesses, rather than home-based users, according to Tim McElgunn, an analyst with Pike & Fischer's Broadband Advisory Services research group. "In our view, it is not the prospect of vastly increased residential high-speed data revenue that will encourage rapid deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 technology," McElgunn wrote in the summary to the "DOCSIS 3.0 Deployment Forecast" report.
http://benton.org/node/25019
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BROADBAND WITHOUT INTERNET AIN'T WORTH SQUAT
[SOURCE: isen.blog, AUTHOR: David Isenberg]
[Commentary] We communications professionals risk forgetting why the networks we build and run are valuable. We forget what we're connecting to what. We get so close to the ducts and splices and boxes and protocols that we lose the big picture. Somewhere in the back of our mind, we know that we're building something big and new and fundamental. We know, at some level, there's more than business and economics at stake. In the big picture, We're building interconnectedness. We're connecting every person on this planet with every other person. We're creating new ways to share experience. We're building new ways for buyers to find sellers, for manufacturers to find raw materials, for innovators to rub up against new ideas. We're creating a new means to distribute our small planet's limited resources.
http://benton.org/node/25018
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TELEVISION
COMMENTARY ON FCC V FOX
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: ]
[Commentary] In a NYTimes op-ed, Adam Freedman writes that, ultimately, the Fox Television case raises a dichotomy well known to linguists: descriptivism versus prescriptivism — that is, whether to yield to the reality of how language is actually used (descriptivism) or fight to maintain objective standards (prescriptivism). Descriptivists happily accept "impact" as a verb and "my bad" as a form of apology; prescriptivists resist such innovations. As much as one sympathizes with language prescriptivism in general (please, let us all resist "c u l8r"), censorship is necessarily a descriptivist endeavor. Indecency laws are tied to evolving community standards. Times change, notwithstanding the fervent wishes of prescriptivists to keep dirty words dirty. The FCC may have won this round, but the bluenoses can't declare victory just yet. The next test of the FCC's regime will come soon enough, as the Supreme Court has agreed to review the commission's $550,000 fine against CBS for a nine-sixteenths-of-a-second exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Perhaps the FCC's disproportionate response to that incident will be recognized for what it was: a regulatory malfunction. Over at tvnewsday, Harry Jessell writes that the FCC's odious and discriminatory broadcast indecency policy lives, but it may have just been badly, perhaps mortally, wounded. When the case circles back to the Supreme Court, five, possibly six, justices may be inclined to strike down the policy on First Amendment grounds. And five or six is just what you need on a nine-person panel.
http://benton.org/node/25016
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3.1% OF US HOUSEHOLDS COMPLETELY UNREADY FOR DTV
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Mike Reynolds]
With the digital TV transition hard date now just over 40 days away, the number of U.S. that would lose their analog signals continues to shrink. According to Nielsen estimates through April 26, 3.5 million households, or 3.1% of the nation's TV homes, remain completely unready for the June 12 switch. That represented a more than 100,000 household improvement from the prior two-week period. Among Hispanic households, the number of households that were not prepared for the DTV transition declined to 5% from 5.4%.
http://benton.org/node/25015
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CONGRESS READY TO OK IMPORTING SIGNALS
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Congress is getting closer to allowing satellite-TV providers to import TV station signals into adjacent markets in cases where those markets cross state lines. Many cable operators don't want that to happen unless the change applies to them, too. Unless cable gets the same opportunity to reconcile its split-market problem, MSOs have argued, it would be unfair and consumer unfriendly to put the thumb on the scale in favor of satellites. The American Cable Association made that point last week in letters it hoped to get legislators to get behind. The ACA, whose members were in Washington last week to press the flesh, took that opportunity to circulate the letter, addressed to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Commerce Committees, asking that if the Congress decides to give satellite operators a break, it should do the same for cable operators.
http://benton.org/node/25014
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TV NETWORKS ARE UNEASY ABOUT DECLINING ADVERTISING
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Meg James]
Network executives are preparing in the coming weeks to negotiate sales of their commercial time to advertisers for the coming year. Executives are worried because during last year's "upfront" market, the economy wasn't in such a bad state. But the last year has been filled with bad economic news, turmoil in the auto industry (a major television sponsor) and other companies cutting advertising spending. One analyst forecasts a 15% decline in prime-time ad revenue, leading CBS to unleash a marketing blitz to boast that it is the most-watched network and NBC to unveil its fall lineup two weeks early.
http://benton.org/node/25037
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THREE WAYS TV CAN RESET DURING THE RECESSION
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Robert Bianco]
If falling ratings don't make broadcast television networks rethink their strategies, the recession-fueled collapse of ad revenue most certainly will. Bianco's three ideas: 1) Cut costs wisely: As they extend their game shows and limit their commitments to big casts and big-name stars, the networks are sending a message to actors and writers: If you want to work, you'll have to work for less. Pay only those people who actually work, and you'd be shocked at the savings. 2) Be less arrogant: For America's most dominant form of popular entertainment, network television seems to have adopted an awfully superior attitude toward popularity. As in all forms of art, there is a difference between being popular and being good, and any critic would rather see TV err on the "good" side. But no one wins when people produce awful, unpopular shows that please no one but themselves. 3) Enter the real world. That's not a call for more reality shows. It's a plea for a return to shows, particularly sitcoms, that make an effort to connect to life as we live it.
http://benton.org/node/25036
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PAY TV NEEDS A DIFFERENTIATOR
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Sarah Reedy]
[Commentary] The TV landscape is changing, and the pay-TV provider — cableco or telco — that adapts will be the one that pulls ahead. Personalization may be the best bet as a differentiator. It can come in many forms, and operators still are in the very early days of experimenting with what works. Personalization can mean widget-based interfaces for improving the TV experience and adding Internet content to the bigger screen. It can be something as simple as improving search and discovery or making a concerted effort to increase interactivity and bring social networking to the TV experience.
http://benton.org/node/25022
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FCC APPOINTS WORKING GROUP ON CLOSED CAPTIONING
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
On May 1, the Federal Communications Commission established a working group to be focused on matters pertaining to accessibility of television programming for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, or are blind or have a vision disability. The purpose of the working group will be to conduct an assessment of closed captioning and video description technical issues associated with the switch to digital television (DTV transition), and to recommend to the Commission's Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC) solutions to any technical problems arising with these services in conjunction with the DTV transition. The CAC first recommended the establishment of a technical working group on digital closed captioning and video description in comments submitted in MB Docket No. 07-148 (the FCC's DTV Consumer Education Initiative), on October 1, 2007, and again at subsequent CAC meetings in June 2008 and January 2009. Establishment of the working group is also consistent with Acting Chairman Copps' statement before the CAC at the January 30, 2009 meeting, during which he emphasized the need for the Commission to take a leadership role in addressing these matters. The working group will be supported by staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB), jointly with staff from the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET), who will provide technical support and guidance on the DTV transition and the provision of digital closed captioning and video description services. Staff will also provide interpretations of the Commission's closed captioning rules, but will not serve as voting members of the working group. The group will meet May 18, 2009, at 9:00 a.m. at the Commission's headquarters in Washington (DC).
http://benton.org/node/25012
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TELECOM
VONAGE: NOT A TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE
[SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Olga Kharif]
On Friday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Web-calling provider Vonage in a landmark case. In Vonage Holdings Corp vs. the Nebraska Public Service Commission, the court determined that Vonage and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) providers whose services can be used nomadically won't have to contribute to the state's universal service fund (USF), because these companies provide an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications" service. Traditional carriers are required to contribute to the fund, used to provide schools with access to telecom services. The decision could have long-ranging implications for national policy that governs USF charges. "This decision is a major victory for the entire VoIP industry who have long fought the states and the FCC on this issue," notes Jessica Zufolo, senior policy director at Medley Advisors. "As a result of this opinion, several states with state USF funds will no longer have legal justification for assessing intrastate USF contributions on VoIP providers." She adds, "This case throws a monkey wrench into the FCC's ongoing process on what kind of access charge regime should apply to VoIP traffic."
http://benton.org/node/25021
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SPRINT IS IN TALKS TO OUTSOURCE ITS NETWORK
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amol Sharma, Sara Silver]
Sprint Nextel is in final negotiations to outsource management of its cellular network to Ericsson and transfer 5,000 to 7,000 U.S. employees to the equipment vendor in a cost-cutting move to help offset Sprint's dwindling subscriber numbers. The two companies haven't finalized a contract and discussions could continue for a few more weeks, but Sprint could end up paying Ericsson -- the world's largest supplier of wireless-network equipment by sales -- as much as $2 billion over several years to maintain the thousands of cell sites that carry Sprint's wireless voice and data traffic. The deal is expected to slash the wireless carrier's network costs by about 20%.
http://benton.org/node/25035
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GAO: FCC SCHOOL/LIBRARY COMPUTER FUND A PIT OF MYSTERY
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Matthew Lasar]
A new study issued by the Government and Accountability Office this week concludes that a Federal Communications Commission program that subsidizes school and library Internet, telephone, and computer costs has no real system for assessing its progress. The FCC "does not have specific, outcome-oriented performance goals or longterm goals" for its Universal Service Fund's "E-rate," plan the GAO says. That means the agency can't determine how far it has come in providing Internet and wireless connectivity for the nation's schools. Ah, you're probably already thinking, another big USF mess story. But between the lines of the report, there could be some good news here. A noticeable decline in demand for some of the program's services may indicate that E-rate has helped a critical mass of schools wire themselves up. "Given the increase in schools' and libraries' level of Internet connectivity," GAO notes, "it is no longer clear that the program serves an existing need." On the other hand, many schools don't apply for the money because they find the process too complex, the report notes. And others don't spend all the money they get. In the end, E-rate just doesn't know how its doing, the GAO says, because it sets no benchmarks for success.
http://benton.org/node/25017
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POLICYMAKERS
PRESIDENT OBAMA NOMINATES JOHN SULLIVAN FOR FEC
[SOURCE: The White House]
President Barack Obama nominated John J. Sullivan to serve as Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission. Sullivan is a leader in the labor community and has been a staunch advocate for election reform and voter protection. Since 1997, Sullivan has served as the Associate General Counsel at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), where he advises one of the largest independent political programs in the country. [more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/25011
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PARENTS TELEVISION COUNCIL LOOKING FOR REPUBLICAN FCC COMMISSIONER
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Parents Television Council is pushing for a Republican nominee to fill a vacant chair at the Federal Communications Commission, as well as swift action on pending indecency complaints, saying it was, "Critically important that families -- true owners of the broadcast airwaves-- have a voice on the commission." PTC put in a plug for Lee Carosi Dunn, a communications advisor to Senator John McCain.
http://benton.org/node/25009
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REP HARMAN RAILS AGAINST WIRETAPPING THAT ENSNARED HER
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Mary Beth Sheridan]
Rep Jane Harman (D-CA) vowed yesterday to clear her name after the revelation of a wiretapped conversation in which she reportedly agreed to intervene in the federal investigation of two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for help in getting a coveted congressional post. Rep Harman has described the wiretap as an abuse of government power. But sources have told The Washington Post that she was not being surveilled; the tapped phone belonged to the suspected Israeli agent, who happened to talk to her. Federal prosecutors last week dropped the case against the former lobbyists, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, saying recent court rulings had changed the legal dynamics and made it unlikely they would win.
http://benton.org/node/25033
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LOCKE SAYS 2010 CENSUS 'WILL NOT BE POLITICIZED'
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Lois Romano]
A Q&A with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. Asked about the upcoming census, he says: "Well, for the first time, we will be sending our forms in different languages and specifically in Spanish. So populations, communities with a large Hispanic population, will actually receive a census questionnaire. We're going to be very specific. From past information, we know, for instance, in which parts of Houston there's a large Vietnamese population. We know where in Los Angeles . . . in the Southwest, we have large populations, blocks of Hispanic families, and so we're going to be very strategic and very targeted."
http://benton.org/node/25032
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FIRST SENIOR RESIDENT FELLOW AT CDT
[SOURCE: Center for Democracy and Technology, AUTHOR: ]
CDT announced the appointment of David Johnson as its first Senior Resident Fellow. The one-year fellowship is a new program made possible with the support of the Markle Foundation. The program is designed to permit CDT to expand its capacity to deal with new policy challenges facing the Internet, to work with new constituencies and to find new ways to keep the Internet open, innovative and free. Working with others at CDT, Johnson plans to engage a community of theorists, technologists, activists and the broader public to help: Articulate the core values that have made the Internet so empowering and valuable; identify threats to those values and; develop new ways for people to collaborate online to preserve and protect those values
http://benton.org/node/25006
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QUICKLY
US MEDIA SEE A PUSH TO INDIA IN CHINA'S SNUB
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Tim Arango]
After many years of fervent lobbying and deal-making in China, American media companies have little to show for their efforts there and are increasingly shifting their attention instead to India. Media executives still believe that Chinese audiences are receptive to Western culture — "SpongeBob SquarePants" is a big hit in China — but many companies have been pulling back out of frustration over censorship, piracy, strict restrictions on foreign investment and the glacial pace of its bureaucracy. So the focus turns to India, a country with a fast-growing economy and fewer government impediments for foreign media companies. In March, the Motion Picture Association of America opened an office in India for the first time, in Mumbai. A little over four years ago, Dan Glickman became the head of the association, and he has visited China several times.
http://benton.org/node/25038
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INTERROGATION MEMO, MISS CALIFORNIA DRIVE THE ONLINE NARRATIVE
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: ]
Two topics-interrogation techniques and same-sex marriage led the conversation in blogs and social media last week. And while the catalysts that triggered those debates were fresh developments, it was clear that both subjects are familiar ones in the blogosphere. First, the Obama administration's April 16 release of memos detailing harsh interrogation techniques of terror suspects drove the dominant online conversation last week. More than a third (36%) of the links by blogs and social media sites from April 20-24 focused on the controversy, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. This marked the second time in less than a month that the question of torture was among the largest topics in the index. The No. 2 story (another 16% of the links) centered on a subject that surfaced because of an answer by a Miss USA pageant contestant. In response to a judge's question during the April 19 contest, Miss California stated her opposition to same-sex marriage. That turned out to trigger a heated response in the blogosphere that was not entirely new. Two weeks earlier, the issue of gay marriage was the top subject among social media.
http://benton.org/node/25013
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WHITEHOUSE 2.0
[SOURCE: The White House]
In the President's last Weekly Address, he called on government to "recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking." He added that "we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative," and pledged to "reach beyond the halls of government" to engage the public. On Friday, the White House took steps to expand how the Administration is communicating with the public, including the latest information and guidance about the H1N1 virus. In addition to WhiteHouse.gov, you can now find the White House in a number of other spots on the web: 1) Facebook.com/WhiteHouse, 2) MySpace.com/WhiteHouse, and 3) Twitter.com/WhiteHouse
http://benton.org/node/25010
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GLOBAL COMPETITION SELECTS 19 INNOVATIVE DIGITAL MEDIA & LEARNING PROJECTS
[SOURCE: MacArthur Foundation, AUTHOR: Press release]
Nineteen projects from around the world were awarded funding today to explore digital media's ability to help people learn. In a $2 million competition funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, winners include a radically affordable $12 TV-computer, a video blogging site for young women in Mumbai, India, and a cutting-edge mobile phone application that lets children conduct digital wildlife spotting and share that information with friends. The Competition is funded by a MacArthur grant to the University of California, Irvine, and to Duke University and is administered by the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), a virtual network of learning institutions. The Competition is part of MacArthur's $50 million digital media and learning initiative designed to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.
http://benton.org/node/25007
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