June 2009

FCC's July 2 Meeting Agenda

There are three items on the FCC's agenda for it's July 2 meeting which is likely to be chaired by the FCC's new chairman, Julius Genachowski. The FCC will consider: 1) a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to allocate spectrum and establish service and technical rules for the operation of Medical Body Area Networks to monitor patients' physiological data; 2) a Report and Order concerning changes in the FM translator rules to allow AM broadcast stations to rebroadcast their signals on eligible FM translator stations; and 3) a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing whether to provide licensees with authority to operate on channels with bandwidths up to 30 megahertz in the Upper 6 GHz band and whether to extend conditional authority to two additional channel pairs in the 23 GHz band, as well as an Order addressing a related waiver request.

FCC Extends Broadband Plan Comment Period

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau is allowing the public an extra two weeks to review and comment on filings on a National Broadband Plan. Lawyers across DC are both happy and saddened to have until July 21 to craft their clients' new filings.

Senators To Introduce Legislation To Help Media Report Iran Story

The Senate wants to help new and old media get the Iran story to the world in spite of that regime's crackdown on news of the ongoing violence there. It wasn't clear how they were going to do it, but three Senators Friday pledged to introduce legislation after the July 4 break to "expand television and radio broadcasting into Iran and prevent the Iranian regime from slamming shut the virtual door to the rest of the world provided by the Internet." The bill, announced by Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) would increase funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Farsi radio stations and VOA's Persian News Network. But according to an announcement of the bill from the three senators it will also "provide the Iranian people with access to other information technologies to ensure Iranians access to the Internet, including social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and cellular phone networks."

Program-Access Complaint Hits Home Stretch

Cable-operator defendants and a programmer complainant have made their last-ditch pitch to a Federal Communications Commission administrative law judge.
WealthTV and top cable operators on Wednesday filed their respective post-hearing reply comments and findings of fact in WealthTV's program carriage complaint against the operators. Those are essentially summaries from both sides pointing out the defects in their opponent's case and the superiority of their own arguments. That should conclude the cycle of pre-hearing, hearing and post-hearing arguments, with the decision, in the hands of FCC chief ALJ Richard Sippel, though that will not be the final call. Sippel tried their complaint last month at the direction of the FCC, which sent the WealthTV case and two other complaints to the judge for a de novo trial after an initial bureau finding of program-carriage violations did not pass muster with a majority of the commissioners.

Journalism Online expects 10 pct of Web readers to pay

Journalism Online, a startup planning to sell news online, is hoping to get money from about 10 percent of Internet readers accustomed to mostly free access to newspaper and magazine Web sites since the 1990s. Journalism Online's online fee expectations are more optimistic than some other industry studies that have assumed newspapers and magazines probably shouldn't count on more than 2 percent of their online audiences to pay for coverage that has been given away for years. If it hits its targets, Journalism Online believes it will generate tens of millions of new income for newspaper and magazine publishers trying to overcome a steep decline in their main source of revenue — advertising sold for their print editions. Journalism Online thinks it can help by serving up a smorgasbord of online newspaper and magazine content that enables readers to pay a single vendor for coverage pulled from multiple Web sites. The subscription packages, for instance, might cater to Web surfers willing to pay for the best stories about entertainment, business or even something even more specialized like California politics. Besides opening up a new revenue spigot, charging for Internet content also would help newspapers and magazines preserve the value of their print franchises, according to Journalism Online's co-chief executive, Steve Brill. He reasons people will have less reason to stop buying the print editions if they can't get as much online news coverage for free — a rationale that echoes a growing number of publishers.

US winning WTO ruling on China's film barriers

The United States appears to have won a victory against Chinese barriers to imported films, books and recorded music in a preliminary World Trade Organization ruling. A public ruling is expected in coming months. A US victory would mark a significant milestone in Washington's longtime battle against piracy in China, which the United States says costs its film, music and book industries billions of dollars in lost sales every year. However, WTO rulings are often complicated documents, giving both sides grounds to declare victory.

Google slammed as China, US quarrel over Internet

China on Thursday stepped up accusations that Google is spreading obscene content over the Internet, a day after U.S. officials urged Beijing to abandon plans for controversial filtering software on new computers. The growing friction over control of online content threatens to become another irritant in ties at a time the world is looking for the United States and China to cooperate in helping to pull the global economy out of its slump. China's Foreign Ministry on Thursday accused Google's English language search engine of spreading obscene images that violated the nation's laws, less than 24 hours after disruptions to the company's search engines and other services within China. Spokesman Qin Gang did not directly say whether official action was behind the disruptions, but he made plain the government's anger and said "punishment measures" taken against Google were lawful.

CEOs snub blogs, Facebook

UberCEO.com looked at Fortune's 2009 list of the top 100 CEOs and found that just 2 have twitter accounts and less than 20 have personal Facebook pages. The study found only two CEOs had Twitter accounts and 81 percent of CEOs did not have a personal Facebook page. Only 13 CEOs had profiles on the professional networking site LinkedIn. Three CEOs stood out with more than 80 connections but they were all from technology companies -- Michael Dell from computer maker Dell, Gregory Spierkel from technology products distributor Ingram Micro, and John Chambers from Cisco. Three quarters of the CEOs did have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those had limited or outdated information such as incorrect titles, or lacked sources. Not one Fortune 100 CEO had a blog.

Britain says facing growing cyber security threat

Britain warned on Thursday of a growing risk to military and business secrets from computer spies and pledged to toughen cyber security to protect the 50 billion pounds ($82 billion) spent a year online in its economy. Launching Britain's first national cyber security strategy, security minister Alan West said hostile states and criminals were increasingly attacking British interests online and al Qaeda and like-minded groups were seeking the ability to do so. Several countries, including the United States, have voiced concern over Russia's and China's abilities to spy electronically on them and disrupt computer networks.

Thoughts On Public/Private Partnerships For Broadband

[Commentary] So in one camp you have folks who think broadband deployment should be purely market-driven, all broadband networks should be owned/operated by private companies, and these networks should be vertically integrated with services. In another camp you have those who believe all broadband networks should be publicly owned and operated, and that these networks should operate as dumb pipes. The public guys don't think we can get world-class connectivity to everyone without government intervention, and that the old model of providing telecommunications services is holding back the new paradigm of abundant bandwidth and open competition. And the private guys don't think a public network can be run efficiently, will be adequately invested in over time to continue driving innovation, and should be allowed to duplicate and compete with private investment. Yet at the same time these debates are going on, a common theme coming out of both sides is the need to focus on public/private partnerships as a way to solve our broadband dilemma. But what does a "public/private partnership" mean or look like?