October 2009

Google and the Problem With 'Net Neutrality'

[Commentary] Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined a more expansive and legally binding regime for Network Neutrality. He would not only codify existing nonblocking principles but would also add a highly controversial "nondiscrimination" rule. This regulation could expand bureaucratic oversight to every bit, switch and business plan on the Internet. US Internet traffic will continue to rise 50% annually through 2015. Cisco estimates wireless data traffic will rise 131% per year through 2013. Hundreds of billions of dollars in fiber optics, data centers, and fourth-generation mobile networks will be needed. But if network service providers can't design their own networks, offer creative services, or make fair business transactions with vendors, will they invest these massive sums to meet (and drive) demand? Some question the network companies' expensive and risky plans, asking if the customers will come. But one thing's for sure: If you don't build it, they can't come. If net neutrality applies neutrally to all players in the Web ecosystem, then it would regulate every component and entrepreneur in a vast and unknowable future. If neutrality applies selectively (oxymoron alert) to only one sliver of the network, then it is merely a political tool of one set of companies to cripple its competitors. At a time of continued national economic peril, the last thing we need is a new heavy hand weighing down our most promising high-growth sector. Better to maintain the existing open-Web principles and let the Internet evolve.

ITU encourages national school-based community broadband plans

The International Telecommunications Union is encouraging its Member States to adopt school-based community broadband plans to bring information and communications technology (ICT) access to disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. The ITU effort was endorsed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the ITU TELECOM WORLD Youth Forum, in the presence of ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré and the Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), Sami Al Basheer. The initiative aims to facilitate public-private partnerships that will help Member States establish school-based ICT centres. While ICTs provide unprecedented opportunities to accelerate social and economic development, communities that currently lack access and know-how are being further marginalized. Many of these communities also face additional barriers to development beyond mere connectivity, which prevent them from participating fully in the Information Society. Capacity building through training in the use of information and communication technologies and application development is critical. At the same time, persons with disabilities require assistive technologies and accessible websites in order to gain access to the many benefits ICTs offer. But providing connectivity, special training, services and equipment for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups on an individual basis is often too expensive for many developing countries.

On the Internet, Everyone's a Critic But They're Not Very Critical

One of the Web's little secrets is that when consumers write online reviews, they tend to leave positive ratings: The average grade for things online is about 4.3 stars out of five. If the rest of the Internet is filled with nasty celebrity blogs and email flame wars, what makes product reviews sites so lovey-dovey?

Boehner and Cantor to Obama: Network Neutrality regulations are harmful

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to direct the Federal Communications Commission against adopting Network Neutrality rules. They wrote that the FCC should instead focus its resources on developing the national broadband plan as mandated by Congress. Any regulations that would prohibit Internet service providers from managing their networks, they said, would discourage those companies from investing the billions of dollars needed to expand broadband access. "We believe that network neutrality regulations would actually thwart further broadband investment and availability, and that a well-reasoned broadband plan would confirm our view," the pair wrote in the letter. "So to hastily begin the process of adopting network neutrality rules months before issuing such a plan implies that politics are driving the FCC's decision-making process." Public Knowledge responded saying, "It is truly unfortunate that the House Republican leadership has put itself in the position of trying to slow down the greatest economic engine for job creativity and innovation ever created. Under the neutral, non-discriminatory Internet, thousands and thousands of new businesses were created and millions of dollars were invested."

FCC Seeks Input on Broadband Clearinghouse

Several parties have suggested that a broadband clearinghouse should be created for easy access to broadband best practices. A broadband clearinghouse could reduce information barriers for municipalities, agencies, businesses, and non-profits that want insights into more effectively utilizing broadband infrastructure, or into broadband deployment or adoption projects. Such a clearinghouse could also provide information and a forum for scholars and policymakers to gather and contribute data. So the Federal Communications Commission, as part of the National Broadband Plan, is asking for targeted comment on the notion of a broadband clearinghouse. 1) Should the federal government, through either the Federal Communications Commission, or through another governmental entity, initiate or create a national broadband clearinghouse of best practices? If the federal government should not create such a clearinghouse, should a non-governmental entity create one? 2) What audiences would benefit most from a clearinghouse? 3) How could a clearinghouse be of most use to its users generally? 4) Who should maintain this clearinghouse? Comments are due November 16.

Evolving a National Broadband Plan

The Federal Communications Commission's job of writing a National broadband Plan is made more challenging by various impediments:

1) Rapidly-changing markets and technologies;

2) Economics of communications infrastructure.

3) Lack of timely, relevant, and objective broadband deployment and adoption data.

4) Shortage of time to develop and adopt a plan.

Google proposes adopting a data-driven, iterative, evolving policy process. Under such a process, the Commission can accurately assess the market conditions, oversee implementation of tailored projects and programs, and evaluate their realworld impact on an on-going basis. This is in contrast to adopting a one-time blueprint that tries to account for all known and unknown variables, and prescribes definitive solutions.

The Internet's next frontier? News for your neighborhood

When regulators, industry leaders, and intellectuals rave about the rapid expansion of digital life via websites and blogs, you can count on them using terms like "empowerment" and "citizen journalism." You can expect to hear about the virtues of huge social networks like Facebook or YouTube, especially from industry lobbyists who say these miracles obviate the need to regulate older media. What you'll hear less often is praise for all the local news and information such sites provide. That's because the Internet hasn't quite figured that part out yet, and the sources that were supposed to provide this sort of fare—newspapers and broadcasters—are treading water, at best. "Emerging media have become amazing forces for enabling people to connect," notes a new report on the problem. "But their full potential is not yet realized in the service of geographic communities, the physical places where people live and work." For all the glories of social media, people still don't have much access to constructive information about critical issues facing their square block. So concludes Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, a study produced by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Democracy.

NPR to launch journalism project with $3 million grant

National Public Radio will launch a new journalism project to develop in-depth, local coverage on topics critical to communities and the nation, in a new effort funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The new funding $2 million from CPB and $1 million from Knight Foundation provides a pilot group of NPR stations with the resources to expand original reporting, and to curate, distribute and share online content about high-interest, specialized subjects. It is the first time that CPB and Knight Foundation have jointly funded a project of this type. The two-year pilot will help a dozen stations establish themselves as definitive sources of news on a topic selected by each one as most relevant to its community, such as city politics, the changing economy, healthcare, immigration or education. These online reports will help fill the growing gap in local news offerings. The CPB and Knight Foundation grants will allow about a dozen NPR stations throughout the U.S. with established news operations to hire new journalist bloggers. Each will focus exclusively on reporting and aggregating news about a topic relevant to that city, based upon its geography and unique characteristics. Stations will feed their work into NPR's content management system, where the entire group of participants will have easy access to each others' work to inform, enrich and add context as they create and present their stories. This common content sharing infrastructure provides a platform to support stations' online publishing needs and to expand the power of the network.

New America Foundation Announces Knight Media Policy Fellowships

The New America Foundation announced a fellowship program aimed at tracking and critiquing national media policy changes under a new grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. As part of its new Media Policy Initiative, the New America Foundation will host Knight Media Policy Fellowships, designed to attract creative thinkers in old and new media who will track, critique and suggest media policy change during the next two years. Knight Media Policy Fellows will focus on policies to reform public media, increase independent reporting on issues of public interest, and better help citizens access and engage with high-quality information. By tracking and critiquing policy initiatives at the federal level, and innovative media efforts in communities across the country, the fellows will report on both the successes and failures, along with their implications for the Knight Commission's recommendations to reform journalism nationwide.

Analysts Say a Comcast/NBCU Deal Would Likely Pass Government Muster

Analysts at investment firm Stifel Nicolaus say they would expect a Comcast/General Electric jointly owned NBC Universal, if it is done, to pass government muster in Washington, though only after close scrutiny by the Department of Justice and perhaps the Federal Trade Commission. In an advisory, company telecom and media analysts David Kaut and Rebecca Arbogast said they thought Justice would be "more open to theories of vertical integration harm" than under the former administration, but that "it will continue to be difficult to establish that vertical deals are sufficiently anticompetitive to support blocking a merger." Kaut and Arbogast said the approval would likely come with conditions addressing increased concentration in video programming and cable distribution. They pointed to the DirecTV/News Corp. deal and its conditions of baseball-style arbitration for disputes over regional sport nets, collective bargaining for small cable operators and program access guarantees as likely precedent for those conditions. They also pointed to the rise of AT&T and Verizon as video competitors, who would likely push hard for conditions, as well as online video interests like Hulu, in which NBCU has a stake, as factors that would complicate the analysis. "However, in the end, we believe the deal is likely to be approved," they said. One veteran communications attorney agreed the deal would likely go through and gave it a "flashing green light."

Benton

Search