November 2009

One Economy Proposes National Digital Literacy Initiative be part of National Broadband Plan

One Economy has proposed the Federal Communications Commission include a National Digital Literacy Initiative as part of the National Broadband Plan. The NDLI is a four-part plan to deliver digital literacy efforts in communities, in schools, through online and mobile curriculum, and through a national awareness campaign. It targets unserved or underserved people in urban and rural communities, including: low-income and minority individuals, persons who speak English as a Second Language, the elderly, Americans with Disabilities, and tribal communities.

Rural Broadband: Let's Talk About Cost

[Commentary] The story of how the federal government helped bring electricity to rural America teaches an important lesson to those who are now deciding how to spend $7 billion on extending broadband to the countryside. It's this: Cost is just as important as build-out. In fact, affordability of broadband is probably more important than its availability. The comparison of electric service and broadband isn't exact, of course. But it is worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the lessons we can learn from the last government-sponsored effort to bring massive infrastructure improvements to rural areas — that of the rural electrification movement of the 1920s and '30s. With so much of the present discourse focused on questions of build-out, it is important to realize that one of the gravest issues facing rural electrification was not simply the extension of electric lines to every nook and cranny of rural America but the affordability of electrical services for the end user. Given the present financial situation of many rural residents, this issue must be addressed in any appropriations bill for rural broadband development.

Broadband Stimulus money unlikely for Philadelphia

Philadelphia Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank helped prepare the city's broadband stimulus applications that call for: 1) A city-sponsored plan to link its existing fiber-based Internet loop downtown to neighborhood police, health and recreation centers, for $22 million; 2) A Free Library-based Internet training program, for $15 million; and 3) A jobs and services system at the Philadelphia Housing Authority, for $2.3 million. Pennsylvania officials reviewed a majority of the state's 130 applications, said Gary Tuma, spokesman for Gov Rendell. They rated 13 of the plans "Highly Recommended," including the Philadelphia Housing Authority proposal. They said they'd "support" another 12 plans, including the Free Library proposal. But the state left the city's main proposal off its preferred lists. Some city Internet advocates blamed corporate Internet providers, believing they feared competition. They noted that David Cohen, the Comcast executive vice president, told Bloomberg News last week the company opposed "applications to provide service in areas where there is already broadband service" because they would compete with Comcast. "The telephone companies and Comcast didn't want this to happen," said Todd Wolfson, a Rutgers professor who helped write the city's application. "The market model, which they champion, hasn't gotten the Internet into the hands of people who are working class," Wolfson said. He thinks it "is wrong" that they won't tolerate government doing it either.

Broadcasters Meet With FCC On Spectrum

Television broadcasters have begun making their opposition to the Federal Communications Commission's cash-for-spectrum plan known in visits with FCC officials. The plan calls for broadcasters to swap most of their spectrum for a share of the proceeds that would come from the auctioning of the spectrum to wireless broadband providers. TV stations would keep just enough bandwidth to continue broadcasting a single standard definition (SD) channel. The broadcasters said they questioned an assertion by an FCC official that most over-the-air service in a market could be provided in an SD format by a single digital channel. And they suggested that they needed to hang on to their spectrum so they could continue broadcasting HDTV and mobile digital television.

Stations Need To Hang On To Spectrum

A Q&A with Media Strategy Group president Steve Ridge. He advises TV broadcasters to hang on to their spectrum, seize mobile and online opportunities, reorganize as 24-hour news operations, share retransmission revenue with networks and continue to build viewer loyalty with a strong anchor desk. That Ridge has advice to share is no surprise. For the past 26 years, he has worked at one media's preeminent research and consulting firms, Frank N. Magid Associates. Ridge says, "Local TV operators have the potential to amass a very powerful grassroots lobbying effort. TV operators have direct access to consumers in their markets and the ability to energize and motivate a huge base of opposition to a spectrum take-back. Sure, they can't outspend Google or other lobbies on Capitol Hill, but they can win the war in their own backyards where they have huge influence."

FTC Virtual Worlds Report Due Dec. 10

On December 10, the Federal Trade Commission will unveil the results of its congressionally mandated examination of online virtual worlds like the popular platform Second Life, an agency official told a Commerce Department Internet safety working group Tuesday. Commission attorney Phyllis Hurwitz Marcus said the report will include recommendations for best practices for industry, parents and youth. The examination was required under the 2009 omnibus appropriations bill but Congress didn't give the FTC much guidance other than asking them to zero in on "explicit content," Marcus said. The report, which will be released as part of an OECD conference the FTC is hosting on e-commerce, breaks down categorically to describe the content and volume of what investigators found, Marcus said. While she was hesitant to offer a preview of the Commission's findings and recommendations, she said the study revealed a glut of user-generated text-based explicit content. She also indicated that sites not typically thought of as virtual worlds, including interactive gaming sites, were reviewed.

PTC Pushes Stations To Preempt 'Gossip Girl'

The Parents Television Council has sent letters to CW affiliates -- about 120 in all -- asking them to preempt the infamous November 9 episode of Gossip Girl which reportedly includes a sexual tryst among three main characters. "Our members will not hesitate to contact local and national advertisers; and if this program violates broadcast decency law, rest assured that our members will contact the Federal Communications Commission," writes PTC President Tim Winter.

AT&T to Verizon: We Have a Lawsuit for That

In the time-honored tradition of dealing with competition by suing the pants off someone for an inaccurate ad, AT&T today filed suit against Verizon for its "There's a Map for That" advertising campaign. The AT&T complaint alleges that the Verizon ads use misleading maps that show wide areas of the country where AT&T doesn't have 3G coverage, and implies that in those areas AT&T has no coverage at all. The two companies had been back and forth since Oct. 7 on the ads, with Verizon apparently tweaking them a bit, and adding some fine print, but AT&T isn't satisfied. So it wants them taken off the air and Verizon to pay for any losses incurred by AT&T as a result of the ad being successful.

Top Digital Cities Announced for 2009

Each year the Center for Digital Government takes a survey of U.S. cities to evaluate how municipalities are integrating information technology into operations to better serve their citizens. This year marks the ninth annual Digital Cities Survey and also a year full of challenges for city governments. Top cities include Corpus Christi (TX), Santa Monica (CA), and Flower Mound (TX). From pit bulls to tighter budgets, local governments have had many obstacles to overcome this year. Cities have had to become more innovative and creative with the way funds are used and how technology is incorporated to improve government services. The survey was open to all U.S. cities with a population of 30,000 or more. Local governments are doing more to increase their Web presence and are reaching out to a wider range of citizens. They are also becoming aware of the need to reduce their carbon footprints. These statistics represent growth in self-service, transparency and sustainability over the past year: 82 percent of respondents have webcasts -- streamed audio and video, live and archived; 74 percent have RSS feeds (up 21 percent over last year); 87 percent have city government body meeting minutes available online, archived and searchable; 73 percent conduct online surveys or polls; 57 percent have podcasts (a 26 percent increase over last year); 67 percent have blogs (a 37 percent increase over last year); 62 percent have microblogs (such as Twitter); 64 percent use social networks (such as Facebook and MySpace); 85 percent have done data center consolidation and virtualization; 45 percent have established metrics and installed instruments to measure energy efficiencies; 66 percent use e-waste recycling efforts and earth-friendly disposal.

The Switch from Analog to Digital TV

Nielsen reviews its data on consumer preparedness for June 2009's transition to all-digital television broadcasting. By the time the June 12 deadline arrived, most U.S. homes were ready for the conversion to digital. There was a sharp decline in the number of completely unready homes (just 2.5% of U.S. households) for the digital transition in the week leading up to the digital transition. And as of October 4, that number was reduced to 0.5%. Those homes that were completely unready were more likely to be African American, Hispanic, Asian, younger, lower income, and were less likely to have Internet access. In general, unready homes represented just 1-2% of total television tuning before the June 12th transition. Television sets that were not ready for the digital transition were viewed about one-third of the time compared to ready sets. Unready sets were viewed 1.5 hours a day on average, while ready sets were viewed 5.1 hours per day. And in the week leading up to the analog shut off, almost 60% of unready sets had no television tuning at all. Unready sets were typically found in rooms that are not focal points of television viewing, such as secondary bedrooms, kitchens and other locations. The location of these sets corresponds to the fact that they were used less for television viewing. In total, TV stations that transitioned to digital only experienced an 8% share decline immediately following the analog shut-off.Stations that changed channel positions from UHF (ultra high frequency) to VHF (very high frequency) were more impacted, showing a 13% share decline.

Benton

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