November 2009

Defining open mobile

There's no doubt mobile operators, led by Verizon Wireless, are opening up their networks. But is that enough to guarantee success in a world where Apple, Google and an array of app upstarts are competing for their share of the stage? Battles are intensifying between developers wanting to take advantage of the new capabilities of increasingly powerful 3G networks and carriers needing to maintain control over their expensive 3G investments. Mobile operators have always dictated what services and what applications would run over their networks — they picked and sold the devices, billed the customer and maintained the "walled garden," those restricted portals that became the sole outlet for apps and services for the vast majority of subscribers. Developers and over-the-top-service providers — led increasingly in recent days by Google — wanted to see a mobile data universe that more closely resembled the wired Internet, where customers were free to choose the provider of their individual services and developers could get their apps on any network.

NIST Drafts Cybersecurity Guidance

Draft guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued last week, pushes government agencies to adopt a comprehensive, continuous approach to cybersecurity, tackling criticism that federal cybersecurity regulations have placed too much weight on periodic compliance audits. The guidance, encapsulated in a draft revision to NIST Special Publication 800-37, will likely be finalized early next year. While federal agencies aren't required to follow all of its recommendations, NIST is officially charged with creating standards for compliance with the Federal Information Systems Management Act, (FISMA), which sets cybersecurity requirements in government, so this guidance should at the very least be influential. Special Publication 800-37 fleshes out six steps federal agencies should take to tackle cybersecurity: categorization, selection of controls, implementation, assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring. It improves on earlier guidance by emphasizing making rigorous cybersecurity part and parcel of the deployment and operation of IT systems.

$80 Million Available to Support Health IT Workforce

Dr. David Blumenthal, HHS' National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, announced plans to make available $80 million in grants to help develop and strengthen the health information technology workforce. The grants that will be made available include $70 million for community college training programs and $10 million to develop educational materials to support these programs. Both programs will support the immediate need for skilled health information technology (health IT) professionals who will enable the broad adoption and use of health IT throughout the United States. Authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the grants are the first in a series of programs to help strengthen and support the health IT workforce. Additional details regarding the grant programs for these and other key resource and training areas will be announced over the next several weeks. The Community College program will establish intensive, non-degree training that can be completed in six months or less by individuals with some background in either health care or IT fields. Participating colleges will coordinate their efforts through five regional consortia that span the nation. Graduates of this training will fill a variety of roles that both assist health care practices during the critical process of deploying IT systems and support these practices on an ongoing basis.

The smartphone wars, one year later

It's been a year since Google released Android OS, the open-source smartphone operating system widely perceived as the most likely to overtake Apple's iPhone in the long run. As it happens, Google this month also purchased AdMob, the world's largest purveyor of mobile phone advertising. So this seemed as good a time as any to take a snapshot of the changing smartphone marketplace, as measured by ad requests to AdMob's network. Over the past year, Nokia's Symbian has lost the largest raw market share, down to 25% last month from 59% the same month a year earlier. In percentage terms, Windows Mobile is the biggest loser, down 70% in 12 months, with Symbian, Palm's Web OS and BlackBerry OS close behind. These numbers are based on worldwide ad requests. Apple's lead is even greater when AdMob zeroes in on the U.S. and U.K. markets.

Why AT&T can't win its 'map for that' spat with Verizon

[Commentary] It seems the more AT&T pursues its grievances with Verizon Wireless the more it gets egg on its face. The two have been engaged in an ad battle over the last several weeks over the truths and fictions about AT&T's 3G network — a battle that has spilled over into the courts and the media, as AT&T tries to force VZW's commercials off the air. Ultimately, it's a battle AT&T can't win. It's arguing over nuances. And the more nuanced the discussion about AT&T's network becomes, the more perceptions of AT&T's network will suffer. AT&T's big complaint is that Verizon's ads only depict its 3G network coverage, creating a false impression that AT&T doesn't offer service of any kind in the vast majority of the country. The argument doesn't hold much water because VZW is clearly taking aim at the 3G network, but the whole issue of coverage is a red herring. VZW is looking for an easy way to demonstrate what is at the essence of the ads: AT&T's 3G network leaves a lot to be desired. A map with huge swathes of white spaces in between the metro markets highlighted in blue does the trick. But the problem with AT&T's network isn't so much where it doesn't offer 3G coverage, but where it does.

University unites industry, gov to tighten energy sector cybersecurity

Two professors at Rice University in Houston recently launched a program to bring together cybersecurity professionals, advocates from the local energy community, government and academia to discuss how to protect the nation's power plants from cyberattack. Chris Bronk and Dan Wallach kicked off the multiyear program about six months ago because they recognized stakeholders from the public and private sector were not cooperating to protect the computer networks supporting the nation's critical infrastructure, creating a dangerous situation. Because numerous power companies operate in Texas, the two professors decided to focus first on the energy sector. "We need to get people together and talking about the problem," said Wallach, who teaches in the university's computer science department and specializes in security issues. "All of these companies just want their infrastructures to work, and they want to compete on the assumption that security is not a problem. They all benefit from working together to help address this challenge, because government can't just prescribe a solution."

Why nonprofits Need newspapers

[Commentary] The potential demise of daily newspapers and investigative journalism is arguably the biggest threat to the future of our nonprofit sector. For the past twenty years, the media, notably print journalism, has assumed responsibility for keeping our nonprofit organizations publicly accountable and somewhat in balance, tempering their problems and excesses through the power and threat of information and exposure. No other institution has had a similar impact. To resuscitate the nation's daily newspapers and to kindle an intellectual bonfire in the nonprofit community would take a great deal of energy and effort. It also would take a lot of money. But there is plenty of money available, if only our very wealthy donors and foundations are willing to put it to good and vital purposes. For those who owe their wealth to the opportunities afforded them by our open society and democracy, could there be a more important priority than preserving the vibrant press that is an essential element of a democratic society? And for foundations committed to serve the public interest, what better purpose could there be than strengthening our most cherished civic institutions? Unless major donors wake up to the desperate needs of these endangered institutions, we may well see the end of quality journalism and the decline of the nonprofit sector due to lack of accountability. This would be a grim future indeed; a collective failure that no one would want as a legacy for our nation.

Mobile Carriers Protest Proposed Network Neutrality Rules

Several broadband providers and right-leaning think tanks have vigorously protested the need for any network neutrality rules, saying there's little evidence of a problem that needs to be solved with government regulation. But perhaps the biggest change from the Federal Communications Commission's informal enforcement of net neutrality principles since 2005 is the agency's proposal to extend the rules to mobile broadband services. Mobile broadband providers, even as some of their parent companies oppose net neutrality for wired carriers, say the rules will be more difficult to apply on wireless networks, where providers need the flexibility to manage their networks and guard against congestion. "A single strand of fiber represents more capacity than you can ever hope to get out of the entire 5 gigahertz of usable spectrum in any given air-space," said George Ou, policy director for Digital Society, a free market, tech-focused think tank. "The fact that we've constrained commercial wireless networks for phone and data to a few hundred megahertz makes the problem even worse."

YouTube Blocks Non-Partner Device

YouTube is set to become a regular feature of televisions, but only through its partners' hardware. So far one company been blocked from accessing YouTube videos on its set-top box pursuant to a July 2008 change in YouTube's terms of service, with others soon to follow, according to sources close to the situation. Syabas, which has had about 16 months to sign a contract with Google's YouTube service since the new terms of service went into effect, will no longer be able to show YouTube videos on televisions through its set-top boxes. The reason there's no deal, according to Syabas COO Alex Limberis, is that YouTube demanded a multimillion-dollar advertising commitment in return for permission to display its videos on televisions through the Popcorn Hour A-110 and C-200 set-top boxes.

US, Internet's Inventor, Lags In Web Access

An interview with Thomas Bleha, a former foreign service officer and author of the book Overtaken on the Information Superhighway: How the U.S. Lost Internet Leadership and What to Do About It. He says while access to broadband is certainly an issue, the speed of the connection is even more important. Bleha argues that fiber is the essential broadband infrastructure of the 21st century.

Benton

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