Oct 9, 2009 (Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize)
Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2009
Headlines will return on TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13 -- enjoy the holiday weekend. For upcoming policy events, see http://bit.ly/Z2mqh
NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN
FCC Seeks Input on the Impact of Middle and Second Mile Access on Broadband Availability and Deployment
FCC Acts to Protect Broadband Data
National Broadband Plan becomes Arena for Pole Attachment Fight
National Broadband Plan: Serving the Last, the Least and the Lost
FCC Seeks Comment on Cost Estimates for Connecting Anchor Institutions to Fiber
Connected Nation Buys Off Florida Challenger
A National Broadband Plan Needs A National Fiber Plan
Public Knowledge President Calls for More Spectrum Sharing
WIRELESS, WIRELESS, WIRELESS
AT&T's CTO defends wireless network
Wireless future road-blocked by backhaul
Clearwire Can't Stray From WiMax 'Til 2011
Feld Interviews Feld on Wireless Issues
AT&T: Don't Burden Us With New Regulations
Sprint-Virgin Mobile background of the merger
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Lawmakers seek FCC probe into Google Voice
No Retreat On Net Neutrality
World's Fastest Broadband
Trying To Decipher CableOne's New Caps
BT to double homes on ultra-fast broadband
CONTENT
A Library to Last Forever
Literary agents attack Google's book plans
Google's Schmidt and Brin on Books, Culture and Evil-ness
TV Everywhere and the end of free TV
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Calling 'Em Out: The White House Takes on the Press
Murdoch Urges China to Open Up to Media
Elite Guard in Iran Tightens Grip With Telecom Move
JOURNALISM
How the Media Have Depicted the Economic Crisis During Obama's Presidency
Polanski Outrage in the Blogosphere
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
Comcast's Rivals For NBC
Media Cos Could Benefit More From Break-Up Than Mergers
HOUSE COMMERCE MARKUP
House Commerce Approves Local Community Radio Act
House Committee Extends PSIC Grant Program
TELEVISION
Rep Baldwin Advocates for Community Access TV
By 2019, Telecoms Get More Viewers, Cable Less
ADVERTISING
Legal Expert Questions FTC's New Blogger Rules
HEALTH
Consumers feel good about mobile healthcare
Health 2.0 Attendees Predict Slow Adoption of EHRs
Health IT effort to create thousands of new jobs, says Blumenthal
MORE ONLINE ...
CTOs urge ITU to lead global standards shake-up
US Must Focus on Protecting Critical Computer Networks from Cyber-Attack
FCC Will Provide More Notice Of Future Broadband Hearings
Wellings, Cano Joining Google DC
NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN
FCC SEEKS INPUT ON IMPACT OF MIDDLE AND SECOND MILE ACCESS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
In the National Broadband Plan proceeding, the Federal Communications Commission specifically requested that parties provide information as to whether "backhaul costs . . . stand as impediments to further broadband deployments . . ." As the FCC develops a National Broadband Plan, several entities have claimed that adequate, reasonably priced, and efficiently provided access to middle and second mile transport services and facilities play an important-if not gating-role in the economics of broadband deployment, particularly in rural, unserved, and underserved areas. In this Public Notice, the FCC seeks further information in order to understand more fully the cost and availability of these important facilities and how they relate to making broadband available to all Americans. The FCC has specific questions about: 1) Network Components of Broadband Connectivity, 2) Availability and Pricing of Middle and Second Mile Connectivity, 3) Pricing and Availability of Internet Connectivity, 4) Economics of Deployment, and 5) Nature of Competition and Availability of Alternatives. Comments in the proceeding are due November 4. Also see the FCC's order to protect confidential information.
benton.org/node/28635 | Federal Communications Commission | FCC blog
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FCC ACTS TO PROTECT BROADBAND DATA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
The Federal Communications Commission issued a protective order on October 8 to protect "documents or other materials that contain proprietary or confidential information." The order is intended to facilitate and expedite the review of confidential information submitted by interested persons. Submitted information can be designated as Highly Confidential and the FCC will limit access to such materials to Outside Counsel of Record, their employees, and Outside Consultants and experts whom they retain to assist them in the National Broadband Plan proceeding. To qualify as "Highly Confidential," the information is not otherwise available from public sources and that consists of detailed or granular information regarding the location, type, or cost of last-mile infrastructure used by a Submitting Party to offer broadband service. Submissions may also be classified as Confidential Information. In all cases where access to Confidential Information or Highly Confidential Information is permitted, before reviewing or having access to any Confidential Information or Highly Confidential Information, the person seeking such access shall sign an appropriate Acknowledgment and file it with the FCC. Each Submitting Party shall have an opportunity to object to the disclosure of Confidential Information or Highly Confidential Information to any persons seeking access. Any objection must be filed at the Commission within three business days after receiving a copy of that person's Acknowledgment.
benton.org/node/28634 | Federal Communications Commission
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NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN BECOMES ARENA FOR POLE ATTACHMENT FIGHT
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
The cable industry is trying to make a connection between pole attachments and the National Broadband Plan. On October 7, executives from Charter Communications visited the Federal Communications Commission saying that recent requests by electric utilities for a penalty pole attachment rental rate for broadband connections constitutes a "broadband tax" amounting to $4.95- $8.66 per Internet subscriber per month and $13.27 23.23 per voice subscriber per month. The day before, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association explained that reducing pole attachment rates improves the
business case for broadband investment, particularly in rural areas, while increasing those rates has the opposite effect. In contract, the Coalition of Concerned Utilities is telling the FCC that cable companies are enjoying an unfair competitive advantage over competitive phone companies because the cable operators pay approximately one-half of the pole attachment rates required by the phone companies.
benton.org/node/28657 | Benton Foundation | NCTA | Coalition of Concerned Utilities
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NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN: SERVING THE LAST, THE LEAST AND THE LOST
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Mercy Gakii]
The National Broadband Plan needs to focus on "the least, the last and the lost," according to panelists participating in the Federal Communications Commission's field hearing on mobile applications and radio-frequencies in San Diego. The "least" would include those in the lower income bracket, while the "last" are those at the outer reach of infrastructure or beyond its reach. Education and literacy is probably the main key to reaching the "lost," who are mainly the people who have not understood the value of broadband in their lives. And rather that "killer apps," much of the focus was on "saver apps," which could provide life-saving or life-enhancing services like housing or medical monitoring. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski asked panelists to think about the value of a clearinghouse where best practices could be shared. He suggested that might be a way to spur the spin-off of public-sector apps from private sector initiatives and to prevent reinventing the wheel rather than tapping into what is already being done. There is not a lot of shared info out there, he said.
benton.org/node/28656 | BroadbandCensus.com | Broadcasting&Cable | www.multichannel.com
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FCC SEEKS COMMENT ON COST ESTIMATES FOR CONNECTING ANCHOR INSTITUTIONS TO FIBER
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
In developing a National Broadband Plan, the Federal Communications Commission is relying on a variety of data to fully evaluate the costs of deploying broadband infrastructure throughout America.1 On October 5, 2009, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation filed a cost model and cost estimates of providing fiber optic connectivity to anchor institutions, such as public schools and libraries, community colleges, and hospitals. On Thursday, the FCC sought comment on questions raised by the estimates including: 1) Are there other categories of buildings that should be considered anchor institutions? 2) How well do the four categories of population density (dense urban, urban, suburban and rural) segment anchor institutions? Is there need to further divide, for example, the rural grouping to treat more remote areas differently? 3) How accurate is the assumption that 80% of anchor institutions lack fiber? Does it vary across the different population-density groups? Does it vary by type of anchor institution? 4) To what extent are the cost estimates for bringing fiber to individual buildings accurate? 5. What incremental inside-wiring, or campus-wiring, costs should be added to these estimates? For what type of institutions in what geographies? 6) To what extent will right-of-way issues lead to incremental costs not reflected in these estimates? How will right-of-way issues impact the timeline of build-out to these institutions? 7) Should operating expenses be a consideration when calculating cost for connecting anchor institutions to fiber? What operating expenses would be associated with running these networks, and how would those vary by type of institution and geography? 8) To what extent will providing fiber to these institutions improve the build-out economics in currently un- or under-served areas? 9) To what extent will providing fiber to these institutions directly assist last-mile build-outs in currently un- or under-served areas? For example, will bringing fiber to local schools generally provide shorter loop lengths to surrounding homes, or is the location of the communications plant relative to the school and community the primary driver? How will that vary by population density? Comments are due October 28, 2009.
benton.org/node/28655 | Federal Communications Commission | TelephonyOnline | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
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CONNECTED NATION BUYS FLORIDA CHALLENGER
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
[Commentary] Connected Nation, the big-telecom and cable front group, has won a lucrative broadband mapping contract in Florida by buying off the company that protested Connected Nation getting the contract. On October 2, with the blessing of the state of Florida, Sanborn dropped its challenge, and now we know why Connected Nation used some of its high-bid money to clear the way by cutting Sanborn in on the action. According to the settlement agreement signed Oct. 1 and filed the next day, Connected Nation, Sanborn and the state of Florida officially gave Sanborn status as a subcontractor for the broadband mapping project. Under the deal, Connected Nation will contract with Sanborn "for no less than 40% and no more than 50% of $1,896,565 over a two-year period which represents the anticipated grant award for technical mapping." The final percentage will be based on how much work Sanborn does in comparison to the total project. That means that a company which wasn't even in the top six got back in the game to the tune of as much as $950,000, while the other five firms which lost to Connected Nation get zip. The Florida contract also as the possibility of a three-year extension, in which Sanborn would not participate. Under the terms of the agreement, Connected Nation, which, according to the state has a "longstanding relationship with providers across the nation," will manage the "initial engagement" of collecting the information while Sanborn will do the follow-up field-based collection from providers which don't have information readily available, counting and evaluation wireless towers and finding publicly available data sets. Sanborn will also validate some randomly selected data collected by Connected Nation and do the Geographic Information System (GIS) processing.
benton.org/node/28654 | Public Knowledge
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A NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN NEEDS A NATIONAL FIBER PLAN
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
[Commentary] Too often broadband policy debates get caught up in attempts to be technology neutral, losing sight of the significance of individual technologies, the most significant of which is fiber. When you think of the Internet, you should think of fiber as the vast majority of the interconnected networks that make up the Internet are fiber. When we talk about middle mile and backhaul networks, those are most often fiber. When remote broadband networks complain about not having affordable access to the Internet, what that really means is having affordable access to the long-haul fiber running through or near their communities. When anyone's discussing the next generation of wireless access, that means finding a way to get fiber to every wireless tower. The same holds true for most next generation wireline networks, which generally all rely on laying fiber ever closer to homes to deliver higher speeds. And when you talk about the next generation of healthcare and education, those conversations presume the presence of reliable, high capacity, symmetrical access capable of handling lots of simultaneous usage, which only fiber can truly deliver. A national fiber plan encompasses all of this. It recognizes that you can't have an effective national broadband plan without a comprehensive national fiber plan because fiber is so critical to delivering truly next generation broadband.
benton.org/node/28633 | App-Rising.com
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PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE CALLS FOR SPECTRUM SHARING
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Gigi Sohn]
In San Diego for the Federal Communications Commission's field hearing on the National Broadband Plan, Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge said it will be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" to free up more spectrum to be used solely by wireless services. The problem, she said, is that most of the spectrum that would have value to industry is controlled by the Defense Department and Federal Aviation Administration. It will "prove politically difficult" to reallocate that spectrum, she added, noting that today spectrum that was supposed to have been cleared by government users from a 2003 auction still is "bogged down and underutilized." Sohn said, "We believe that it will be impossible to convince government to abandon the spectrum it controls, and that the better course is for the FCC, working with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, to promote shared use of federally controlled spectrum." She proposed a four-point policy program, saying the FCC should: 1) complete its white spaces proceeding, 2) ask for public input on the possibility of variable power for white spaces devices in rural areas for fixed and backhaul services, 3) confer with NTIA to determine how best to promote the shared use of spectrum controlled by the federal government; and 4) urge Congress to pass the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act.
benton.org/node/28632 | Public Knowledge | Full text of statement
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WIRELESS, WIRELESS, WIRELESS
AT&T'S CTO DEFENDS WIRELESS NETWORK
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon]
AT&T's chief technology officer, John Donovan, is defending his company's wireless network, despite complaints about dropped calls and slow Internet access from frustrated iPhone users. Donovan, who gave a keynote speech here at the CTIA Fall 2009 trade show Thursday, said that despite what people might be saying about problems on AT&T's network, his company is focused on providing customers with an excellent wireless experience. "I'm not ignoring the criticism of our network," he told the audience. "I'm well aware of what's being said in the press, in blogs, and on Twitter. But I don't base my network plans on what I read on blogs. No one knows more about the wireless data customer experience than AT&T." Donovan said that AT&T has more customers using "integrated devices" than any other carrier in the U.S. In fact, in the second quarter of 2009 nearly 60 percent of AT&T's wireless subscribers bought an integrated Web device, he said. He said that wireless packet data has increased more than 18 times in the last two and a half years. And voice traffic on the AT&T wireless network has nearly doubled in that time. These customers and the increase in data traffic are putting strains on the network. Because data traffic tends to come in bursts and because it's often difficult to predict when and where subscribers will flood a given cell site with mobile Web usage, AT&T has had to rethink how it plans its network.
benton.org/node/28651 | C-Net|News.com | TelephonyOnline
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WIRELESS FUTURE ROAD-BLOCKED BY BACKHAUL
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Sarah Reedy]
Qualcomm co-founder Dr. Irwin Jacobs and current CEO and Chairman Paul Jacobs took the CTIA IT & Entertainment Keynote stage to reflect on where wireless has been and what it will take to achieve the future of wireless ubiquity that they are imagining. In the wireless future that the Jacobses are envisioning, new uses for wireless present the most exciting opportunities. Dr. Jacobs said e-readers and using technology in the classroom, two initiatives Qualcomm is currently working on, are most compelling to him. To his son, wireless power and the ability to charge multiple electronic devices by placing them on a platter will be an important opportunity. Qualcomm is also working on cyber-signs that send deals to the mobile phone when a consumer passes through, essentially turning the phone into a digital sixth sense, he said. The phone will be a remote control for things in the physical world, but also will be the most direct, personal way to access information about consumers. There will be formidable challenges on the path to achieving this vision, both agreed. Most pressing is wireless operators need for more headroom on backhaul. Dr. Jacobs said that Qualcomm has done all it can do with spectral efficiency and is now exploring other architectures and tricks to further stretch existing spectrum. He noted that the industry has gotten where it is from reusing spectrum and will have to continue to expand available spectrum through backhaul, devices like femtocells that offload services and reusing what spectrum is already available. "We are getting to the point where in the labs we've done what we know how to do to optimize the spectrum," the younger Jacobs said. "We have to do new tricks now." He anticipates an eight to 10 times improvement in user experience if operators build their own networks, but this will take backhaul and the move to LTE to make it work.
benton.org/node/28650 | TelephonyOnline | Financial Times
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CLEARWIRE CAN'T STRAY FOR WIMAX 'TIL 2011
[SOURCE: Unstrung, AUTHOR: Michelle Donegan]
Because of an agreement it has in place with Intel, Clearwire cannot switch from mobile WiMax to Long Term Evolution (LTE) until 2011. In a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing the company writes, "We have committed to deploy a wireless broadband network using mobile WiMax technology and would incur significant costs to deploy alternative technologies, even if there are alternative technologies available in the future that would be technologically superior or more cost effective." One of the reasons Clearwire would even consider changing technologies is that vendor support for WiMax devices and infrastructure in the future is uncertain. "We cannot assure you that... vendors will continue to develop and produce mobile WiMax equipment and subscriber devices in the long term, which may require us to deploy alternative technologies," Clearwire notes. Clearwire might also consider switching to a competing technology like LTE for competitive reasons, if, for instance, another technology comes along that allows other operators to compete more effectively and deploy more cost effectively than mobile WiMax. This is a scenario, which the filing states, "may require us to deploy such technologies when we are permitted to do so."
benton.org/node/28649 | Unstrung
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FELD INTERVIEWS FELD ON WIRELESS ISSUES
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] What if Harold Feld was invited to speak at the International CTIA Wireless Conference? He might get to answer some questions. 1) Q: What are the biggest benefits wireless consumers stand to receive in the next two years? A: Elimination of handset exclusivity and early termination fees and the freedom to use whatever apps they want and access any content they want. 2) Q: Are the OECD's rankings an accurate measure of US wireless broadband? A: The problem is that in the US we use the term "broadband" to mean a lot of different things. I don't know how many 11 year olds are doing their homework on mobile phones, for example, the way my son does with our FIOS subscription. Certainly people are using mobile devices for a lot of very cool, sophisticated things such as avoiding SWAT teams at the G-20 summit with Twitter. So the OECD ranking is very relevant for telling us about a particular and particularly important — service that has many uses that overlap with mobile, but that mobile simply does not replace (at least for now). 3) Q: How will the existing regulatory structure impact the ability of wireless providers in an all-IP world? A: As data replaces voice, we need to bring the rules that made wireless voice possible to data. Wireless voice could not become a viable service until Congress passed Section 332 which made mobile voice a telecommunications service with interconnection rights and required in exchange that carriers not mess with traffic. When everything is data, and voice is only an application, we need the same rules for data that we needed for voice. By the same token, we also need to mandate data roaming in the same way we mandated voice roaming or else eliminate mandatory voice roaming. But we can't pretend that these are different worlds subject to different rules when the network treats them as the same thing and where users expect to use all these services equally.
benton.org/node/28648 | Public Knowledge
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AT&T: DON'T BURDEN US WITH NEW REGULATIONS
[SOURCE: Unstrung, AUTHOR: Dan Jones]
In his keynote Wednesday morning at the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2009 show, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega followed the Federal Communications Commission chairman with a stand against more regulation in the wireless industry. The wireless boss started his speech with a 10-point presentation about how and why the US wireless industry is the most competitive in the world. He saved the red meat for his closing statement, however: "Before we begin fixing what isn't broken, we need to be thoughtful about the consequences. We believe the marketplace today is vibrant, and there is no need to burden the mobile Internet with onerous new regulations," de la Vega told the crowd. He also bemoaned the disproportionate wireless bandwidth usage of iPhone users -- just 3 percent of AT&T's smartphone customers (read iPhone users) use 40 percent of all smartphone data, that they consume 13 times the data of "the average smartphone customer," yet represent less than 1 percent of AT&T's total postpaid customer base. Big problem -- but AT&T management should have seen this coming a year ago. Or maybe they did, but getting Wall Street to buy into the idea of aggressive and costly network upgrades is like pulling teeth without anesthetic -- lots of screaming. So in the absence of new spectrum and new, faster 4G networks, what does AT&T intend to do about the growing demand in the near term? Without the proper management of these networks, De la Vega said, regular data users will be "crowded out" by the small number of users (read iPhone users) who use massive amounts of data. But what exactly does De la Vega mean by "proper management"? Does AT&T intend to quietly begin rationing the data usage of bandwidth hogs like the iPhone? Will AT&T begin to quietly "manage" the duration and speed of my 3G connection based on how much data I've used in a given day, or on the type of content or services I'm using the bandwidth to access?
benton.org/node/28631 | Unstrung | PC World
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SPRINT-VIRGIN MOBILE BACKGROUND OF THE MERGER
[SOURCE: TheDeal.com, AUTHOR: Baz Hiralal]
Nine months in the making, Sprint Nextel announced the acquisition of Virgin Mobile USA for $731 million deal on July 28. According to an SEC filing, there was a competing bid from "Company X" that never worked out. After haggling with Sprint on valuation, many back-and-forth phone calls and voice-mails, in-person meetings at Sprint headquarters and in King & Spalding LLP's office, virtual data room gatherings and a dinner at Sprint CEO Dan Hesse's home, the deal came together.
http://www.thedeal.com/corporatedealmaker/2009/10/sprint-virgin_mobile_b...
benton.org/node/28621 | TheDeal.com | Sprint-Virgin
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
LAWMAKERS SEEK FCC PROBE INTO GOOGLE VOICE
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: John Poirier]
Twenty Members of Congress have signed a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski asking the FCC to investigate Google's ability to block calls to rural telephone exchanges. In 2007, the FCC told carriers they could not restrict calls to avoid fees associated with adult chat lines or free conference calls by companies routing calls through rural carriers in order to generate fees. The spat prompted an attorney for some rural carriers, Ross Buntrock, to file a letter on October 1 with the FCC to complain that AT&T is refusing to pay its bills to rural carriers. "The only difference between Google's alleged call blocking and AT&T's refusal to pay terminating access charges for conference and chat-line calls is that the (local carriers) are forced to incur the costs of terminating AT&T's customers' traffic," Buntrock wrote. A Google spokesperson said on Thursday that for AT&T to invoke rural America while AT&T is behind in its payments to rural carriers is "the height of cynicism."
The lawmakers said they find Google's position "ill conceived and unfair to our rural constituents." They also said that they are concerned that the market and support for universal service will be undermined if Google is allowed to operate its telephone services outside of the rules that govern carriers.
benton.org/node/28652 | Reuters
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NO RETREAT ON NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Two Q&As with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. How will the FCC deal with questions of network management that are unique to the wireless industry? As Americans increasingly shift from wired to wireless broadband, it will be essential to ensure that the Internet remains free and open. A consumer accessing the Internet through a laptop with a wireless data card will have the same expectations regarding their Internet use as a consumer accessing the Internet utilizing the same laptop through a DSL or cable modem connection. However, managing a wireless network isn't the same as managing a fiber network, and what constitutes reasonable network management will appropriately reflect any operational differences. Above all, transparency will be important for any practices that providers implement.
benton.org/node/28653 | Washington Post | Los Angeles Times
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WORLD'S FASTEST BROADBAND
[SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Rachael King]
Discussions about the public's access to broadband often focus on which areas or countries have the most high-speed Internet connections. The Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, for instance, publishes an annual list of countries that have the most per capita connections. But for many users of the Internet nowadays, it's not enough simply to have a broadband connection. Increasingly what really matters is the speed of the connection: how much information can a user download or upload, and how quickly. Broadband speeds can vary widely—from 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps) to more than 25 Mbps. And that can make all the difference to a person who's trying to use the Web to learn a new skill, access medical records of an ill patient, or simply watch a movie downloaded from Netflix. In the first quarter of 2009, about one-fifth of the Internet connections around the world were at speeds greater than 5 Mbps, according to the State of the Internet report published quarterly by Akamai, a maker of software designed to speed the flow of information over the Internet. The report includes broadband adoption data gathered from across Akamai's network of more than 50,000 servers in 70 countries, and categorizes Internet connections by download speeds. Which countries can boast the fastest broadband connections?
benton.org/node/28630 | BusinessWeek
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TRYING TO DECIPHER CABLEONE'S NEW CAPS
[SOURCE: DSLReports.com, AUTHOR: Karl Bode]
CableOne, owned by the Washington Post, is tinkering with some of their speeds, adding a 12 Mbps downstream, 1.5 Mbps upstream plan to their lineup. In a sign they're falling a bit behind the times, CableOne's previously fastest tier was 10 Mbps downstream 1 Mbps upstream. The company also offers 1.5, 3 5, 8 and 10 Mbps tiers. Perhaps more interesting is the fact that CableOne is tinkering with their already odd caps. The carrier has always employed a unique capping system that restricts how much bandwidth users can use at certain times of the day. CableOne's new speed and cap list is anything but clear, listing both "extended speeds" and "standard speeds" (usually half of extended speeds), before noting that users are capped during different times of the day.
benton.org/node/28629 | dslreports.com | GigaOm
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BT TO DOUBLE HOMES ON ULTRA-FAST BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Parker]
British Telecom is to more than double the number of homes able to use the company's ultra-fast broadband network, in a major revision of its next-generation infrastructure plans. BT's network offering download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second will run past at least 2.5m homes by 2012, or 10 per cent of the UK's households. When it unveiled the original plans in 2008, BT said the 100mbps network would only run past 1m homes. The average broadband download speed in the UK in April 2009 was 4.1mbps.
benton.org/node/28660 | Financial Times
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CONTENT
A LIBRARY TO LAST FOREVER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sergey Brin]
[Commentary] The vast majority of books ever written are not accessible to anyone except the most tenacious researchers at premier academic libraries. Books published before 1923 are in the public domain, but books written after 1923 quickly disappear into a literary black hole. With rare exceptions, one can buy them only for the small number of years they are in print. After that, they are found only in a vanishing number of libraries and used book stores. As the years pass, contracts get lost and forgotten, authors and publishers disappear, the rights holders become impossible to track down. Because books are such an important part of the world's collective knowledge and cultural heritage, Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, first proposed that we digitize all books a decade ago, when we were a fledgling startup. At the time, it was viewed as so ambitious and challenging a project that we were unable to attract anyone to work on it. But five years later, in 2004, Google Books (then called Google Print) was born, allowing users to search hundreds of thousands of books. Today, they number over 10 million and counting.
benton.org/node/28662 | New York Times
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LITERARY AGENTS ATTACK GOOGLE'S BOOK PLANS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Michael Peel]
A contentious deal that would give Google huge sway in the growing market for digitized books has come under fire from leading literary agents in Britain, one of the world's biggest publishing centers. The 21 agents representing classic and contemporary authors from DH Lawrence to Hilary Mantel, winner this week of the UK's Booker Prize claim the agreement is unfair to their clients and should be redrawn by a deadline of next month.
benton.org/node/28661 | Financial Times
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CONTENT OWNERS WILL NOT SET THE PRICE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Julia Angwin]
In a wide-ranging, 90-minute news conference Wednesday, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin discussed the economy, the company's recent announcement with Verizon Wireless, the books settlement, Gmail outages and its merger and acquisitions outlook. 1) On paid content models online: Schmidt said, "There is clearly a market for free content, and that market is the size of the Internet. There is clearly a market for subscription content- — meaning per-view or per-month payments — and it's clear there are also going to be very expensive negotiated transactions for high-value content." He said it is similar to broadcast television, cable television and pay-per-view. "The size of those markets are correspondingly different. So when we argue over this, we're not arguing about the principle. We're arguing over the size of the market." "We are working on payment systems and subscription models to enable those other tiers," Schmidt added. Content owners will not set the price. "Everyone is familiar with this problem in selling your house. We're not going to use the price you suggest," he said. 2) On Google's plans to buy one company a month: Schmidt said, "That was our historic average...I think it's going to be small companies of five to 10 people. Half of the most interesting things at Google came from small companies. When Larry and Sergey bought Android I didn't even notice. Sergey was surfing on the Web one day and came across what became Google Earth. He came in my office and said 'I bought them.' I said, 'For what price?' It was a small number so I said OK." 3) On the problem of "orphan works" in the Google books settlement: On Tuesday, Google said it would submit an amended books settlement in November. One of the criticisms of the settlement has been that it gives Google license to orphan works, whose rights-holders are unknown. "Some of the criticisms are legitimate and can be addressed by changes in the settlement. Some other criticisms are by people who don't want a change," Schmidt said. "The scenario in front of us is not perfect. But the perfect is the enemy of the good...my challenge to the critics is, make an alternative proposal that solves the problem that consumers do not have access to books that they cannot read today." "The companies that are making these objections have done nothing for orphan works," Brin added. "Nobody was interested in these works at all, and there is no existing market for them. So I think these objections that Google will be the only one are pretty ludicrous given that no one else has done this." He said that he has written an opinion piece on the topic that he hopes will be published soon.
benton.org/node/28628 | Wall Street Journal
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TV EVERYWHERE AND THE END OF FREE TV
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: ]
The end of free TV is looking imminent. The pay TV providers are already laying the groundwork for their response to disintermediation from free online TV sites, but the best way to turn online eyeballs into profit is still a topic up for discussion. As TV Everywhere ramps up, the question becomes, is there even money to be made from online video? According to The Diffusion Group analyst Colin Dixon, the answer depends on the execution. TV Everywhere as a concept is very popular with consumers. TDG surveyed consumers on the notion of getting TV content on the PC and found that about 46% of broadband heads of households were very interested in the service, and 30% saw enough value to pay upwards of $10 for it. The problem is, Dixon said, that pay TV providers are not going to be able to deliver on this concept of program-rich TV Everywhere. "They really can't start charging for this until they can deliver on that promise," Dixon said. "Consumers will be very disappointed when they get the service and they can't get ESPN, ABC, Disney or other programs." The success of any business model will rest on the operators' ability to authenticate their users.
benton.org/node/28627 | TelephonyOnline
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
CALLING 'EM OUT
[SOURCE: Time, AUTHOR: Michael Scherer]
There was never a single moment when White House staff decided the major media outlets were falling down on the job. There were instead several such moments. All the criticism, both fair and misleading, took a toll, regularly knocking the White House off message. So a new White House strategy has emerged: rather than just giving reporters ammunition to "fact-check" Obama's many critics, the White House decided it would become a player, issuing biting attacks on those pundits, politicians and outlets that make what the White House believes to be misleading or simply false claims. The take-no-prisoners turn has come as a surprise to some in the press, considering the largely favorable coverage that candidate Obama received last fall and given the President's vows to lower the rhetorical temperature in Washington and not pay attention to cable hyperbole. Instead, the White House blog now issues regular denunciations of the Administration's critics.
benton.org/node/28625 | Time
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MURDOCH URGES CHINA TO OPEN UP TO MEDIA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sky Canaves]
News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch urged China's government to allow its media companies to take advantage of the opportunities in new media by addressing copyright piracy and a lack of competition in the domestic market that he said could impede their expansion. "The digital renaissance offers China an opportunity to exercise leadership," Mr. Murdoch told the World Media Summit in Beijing, hosted by the state-run Xinhua news agency. Alluding to China's "open door" policy that ushered in economic reforms in the late 1970s, Mr. Murdoch said that the government now has a chance to open China's "digital door."
benton.org/node/28659 | Wall Street Journal
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ELITE GUARD IN IRAN TIGHTENS GRIP WITH TELECOM MOVE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Slackman]
As Iran continues to manage the aftershocks of its contested presidential election, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has moved aggressively to tighten its grip on society, most recently with its takeover of a majority share in the nation's telecommunications monopoly. The nearly $8 billion acquisition by a company affiliated with the elite force has amplified concerns in Iran over what some call the rise of a pseudogovernment, prompting members of Parliament to begin an investigation into the deal. "It's not just a matter of the Guards dominating the economy, but of controlling the state," said Alireza Nader, an expert on Iran and co-author of a comprehensive RAND Corporation report on the Revolutionary Guards.
benton.org/node/28658 | New York Times
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JOURNALISM
HOW THE MEDIA HAVE DEPICTED THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
The gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression has been covered in the media largely from the top down, told primarily from the perspective of the Obama Administration and big business, and reflected the voices and ideas of people in institutions more than those of everyday Americans, according to a new study by Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Citizens may be the primary victims of the downturn, but they have not been not the primary actors in the media depiction of it. A PEJ content analysis of media coverage of the economy during the first half of 2009 also found that the mainstream press focused on a relatively small number of major story lines, mostly generating from two cities, the country's political and financial capitals.
benton.org/node/28637 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP
COMCAST'S RIVALS FOR NBC
[SOURCE: Forbes.com, AUTHOR: Evan Hessel]
Could Time Warner, Disney, Liberty Media, or a private equity firm enter a bidding war for NBC Universal? Hessel thinks Liberty Media is a likely suitor. In May, Liberty's John Malone said that the future of media will involve aggregators of content relying on subscription sales, not advertising, to generate profits. To that end, he could seek to buy NBC and turn it into a cable network, or use Universal's movie library to increase Starz's offerings. Malone's publicly held Liberty Media Entertainment has a market capitalization of $16 billion and just $2 billion in debt, and his Liberty Media Interactive has a market value of $6.8 billion and $7 billion in debt, suggesting that Malone has the financial flexibility to chase big deals. Also, keep an eye on Providence Equity, Thomas H. Lee and Bain Capital.
benton.org/node/28624 | Forbes.com
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MEDIA BREAK-UPS
[SOURCE: Dow Jones, AUTHOR: Nat Worden]
Media companies should pursue break-ups, where they've had more success, than marriages, given the industry's poor track record on big deals. That's the opinion of some long-time industry observers as talk of media consolidation intensifies following Walt Disney's agreement in August to buy Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion, and reports of talks between Comcast and General Electric for NBC Universal. Big media companies may be tempted to get even bigger as they face revenue and audience declines amid the rise of digital media. High cash piles, low valuations and an easier credit market make deals possible, but heartbroken shareholders are less willing to commit. Major media conglomerates have written down $200 billion in assets since 2000 after "relentlessly overpaying for acquisitions" and delivering subpar returns to investors. Underlying that performance is the rapid rise of digital communications and the damage it's doing to the media's traditional business models. Just as the Internet has spelled trouble for the music and publishing businesses, a decline in DVD sales is crimping profits at movie studios and the ability to watch video on-demand and skip commercials is hurting the television industry. Cable networks have been an exception, benefiting from audience fragmentation and steady subscription revenue from TV distributors, making them a favored subject of acquisition speculation. But they depend on pay-TV distributors for subscription revenue, and Comcast's push for content doesn't look like a vote of confidence by the cable giant in the future of distribution amid the rise of online video.
benton.org/node/28623 | Dow Jones
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