January 2010

UK Government Launches Free Laptop for Low-Income Families

Free laptops with broadband Internet access are to be provided to more than a quarter of a million low-income households to boost school performance and job prospects, Gordon Brown said on Monday. The launch of the Home Access scheme was announced at the Learning and Technology World Forum 2010. The Prime Minister said in a press release: "This forum is an invaluable opportunity for countries to learn from one another and our collective commitment to worldwide improvement in education will drive up standards and increase opportunities for learners across the world." The £300 million project aims to get every family in the country linked to their children's schools, he said. Progress reports on attainment, behavior, and other needs could be accessed by parents.

HHS rules on electronic health records have broad impact

The Health and Human Services Department's proposed regulations for distributing $17 billion in electronic health records incentives may broaden the gap between early and late adopters, ignore lab data, increase fragmentation in health care and impose administrative burdens, according to panelists who have analyzed the regulations.

There is a "risk of an unintended consequence of a widened digital divide between early adopters and those without significant resources," Dr. Karen Bell, senior vice president for health IT services at the Masspro state quality improvement organization, said during the eHealth Initiative online seminar Jan. 9. The eHealth Initiative is a nonprofit group that promotes health IT adoption.

HHS officials on Dec. 30 published two sets of regulations related to the economic stimulus law incentive payments for eligible users of the health record systems. One of the regulations defines certification of the systems, and the other defines how doctors and hospitals can qualify for the payments by becoming meaningful users of the technology. The regulations take effect in March. Speakers praised the HHS provisions that require meaningful users to collect and share certain types of clinical data in their practices or hospitals — such as what percentage of their patients are smokers. The regulations include 25 measures, of which 17 may be attested to and eight require data submission and exchange. Payments are offered in stages.

Info-Communism
A Progressive Path Forward or a Political and Intellectual Dead End?

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
1101 K Street, NW, Suite 610A
Washington, DC 20005
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
9:00 AM - 10:30 PM
http://www.itif.org/rsvp/event.php?id=1

In the last decade, an intellectual and political movement has emerged both here in the United States and in Europe to challenge exclusive property rights over informational goods and promote the concept of openness in communication-information policy. The movement goes by various labels: the "commons" movement, "free culture," the "openness movement." Among the goals of the movement include: free software, creative commons and other forms of resistance to copyright, opposition to software patents, and (in some cases) publicly-owned broadband networks and extreme net neutrality proposals.

Syracuse University Professor Milton Mueller will argue that while open-access commons and a widening public domain have many benefits, a pure info-communism is an intellectual and policy dead end, which ignores the many creative complementarities between property and commons regimes. Mueller will analyze the interaction of property and commons in information and communication and argue that we need to get to a more pragmatic discourse that treats certain critical resources as open access commons in some cases, while at the same time recognizing the benefits of markets organized around exclusive property rights in others.

Moderator and Respondent:
Robert Atkinson
President, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Speaker:
Milton Mueller
Professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University

Read Professor Mueller's article "Info-Communism? Ownership and freedom in the digital economy"

Respondent:
Patrick Ross (bio)
Executive Director, Copyright Alliance

Additional respondent to be announced

Read more about Info-Communism: A Progressive Path Forward or a Political and Intellectual Dead End?

Sen Snowe Digs Up 100 MHz of Unused Spectrum

Finish the outstanding spectrum issues before reallocating broadcast airwaves, Sen Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) suggested in a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.

"While I don't disagree that all options should be on the table as the Commission evaluates spectrum policy, it is imperative that the FCC first clear the table of outstanding spectrum-related items that have lingered at the Commission before extensively exploring other avenues. Concluding these unresolved items could dictate what additional steps the FCC should investigate," she wrote in the letter dated Jan. 5. Sen Snowe enumerated several open proceedings she said appeared "ready for prompt decisions that could enable the quick roll-out of significant additional spectrum."

Among them, WCS, short-hand for a proceeding about rules for licensing satellite digital audio radio service, or SDARS, in the 2 GHz band. The proceeding is more than 10 years old, and nearly resolved last year, but no action was ultimately taken by the FCC. Another, AWS-3, is 2 GHz spectrum dedicated to advanced wireless services five years ago. The FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on developing services in the band was issued in 2007 and raised a request to pair it with a swath of spectrum used by federal agencies. Snowe said to either pair it license it already. Spectrum also remains unlicensed from the 700 MHz auctions of 2008. The D block, as it's known, was set aside to create a public-private partnership, but no private enterprise stepped up.

UPDATED: MAP Requests One More Round of Broadband Plan Comments

The Media Access Project has requested the Federal Communications Commission allow the public an opportunity to submit comments addressing issues which have arisen during the course of the FCC's consideration of the National Broadband Plan docket. The submission of such reply comments, MAP says, is both feasible and desirable in light of the FCC Chairman's January 7, 2010 request to Congress that it be afforded a one-month extension of time, until March 17, 2010, within which to submit a National Broadband Plan. MAP believes the FCC would benefit from accepting additional submissions relating to newly raised issues. Moreover, as a practical matter, some parties will exercise their right to submit unsolicited ex parte communications on such questions. Establishing a formal procedure, and a deadline, for such filings will create a more orderly, and more fair, means of administering the National Broadband Plan docket.

Update: On Jan 13, the Federal Communications Commission has granted MAP's request. Reply comments should be filed no later than January 27, 2010.

Study: broadband boosts jobs, but not salaries

According to a new study from the Public Policy Institute of California, broadband creates jobs within local economies and particularly in sparsely populated areas or within industries that rely more on information technology. But the expansion of high-speed Internet doesn't impact the rate of employment -- the percentage of people employed -- nor average pay of local residents. "A possible explanation: As broadband expands job opportunities in a region, workers follow by moving in from elsewhere or commuting to fill the jobs," PPIC said. Researcher Jed Kolko also found that expanded broadband availability has not increased the likelihood that workers telecommute, bring work home or have home-based businesses.

Usage-based pricing gets FCC support

Usage-based pricing models for wireless services may be a way to ease some congestion on cellphone networks, Federal Communications Commission members said.

Commissioner Robert McDowell said companies should be able to experiment with different pricing models, especially if private carriers are expected to finance the building of faster, bigger networks to expand wireless broadband services. If people pay for the bandwidth they use, it could reduce congestion on the networks as well. "Pricing freedom has to be essential," he said. A small number of users take up the majority of bandwidth. So charging some of the heavy users for that bandwidth makes sense, Commissioner McDowell said. "I think it's time to let that happen," he said. "Net neutrality proponents say it should be an all-you-can-eat price. But that will lead to gridlock."

Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker indicated companies could do other things to lighten the load on strained wireless networks. "Maybe we move back to a world where people pay for roaming," she said.

New TV apps will drive broadband adoption, FCC says

The Federal Communications Commission used the Consumer Electronics Show to push forward its hope of making the television the gateway to the Internet.

Televisions that allow consumers to connect to Facebook or download movies could make it easier and less intimidating for people to go online, easing the job of the FCC and Obama administration to make broadband access ubiquitous. About one-third of Americans do not subscribe to broadband even though it is available to them, largely because they don't consider the content and services useful or relevant to their lives, surveys show.

FCC Chairman Genachowski was pleased at the rapid evolution of the TV market. While 75 percent of U.S. households have a computer, 98 percent have at least one TV, he said. Chairman Genachowski hopes that will make it easier for even the least tech-savvy consumers get onto the Internet. And he hopes to see more applications that appeal to all kinds of people to help drive broadband adoption. "Can TVs be part of the solution to broadband?" he said Friday. "There's been much less innovation and activity in that area than there have been in other areas."

NAB: Government shouldn't pick winners, losers

National Association of Broadcasters CEO Gordon Smith says the government should not choose winners and losers in the technology sector when allocating broadcast spectrum.

The Federal Communications Commission is weighing a number of options that could hurt broadcasters, including taking airwaves from them to free up more resources for wireless broadband. It's all part of the Obama administration's goal of rolling out ubiquitous high-speed Internet service. In Vegas, Smith and other broadcasters were trying to show how their industry is embracing new technologies through their use of spectrum. He thinks the industry has two winners in mobile DTV and Sezmi, a start-up offing a new pay-TV service. He said Sezmi, which depends on broadcast spectrum to deliver cable channels, is a superior service to cable and satellite and would be less expensive.

His message comes as the Obama administration and Democrats come under pressure from unprecedented interventions in the private sector. The government has spent hundreds of billions in bailing out banks, other financial institutions and auto companies General Motors and Chrysler. While much of the money from banks has been repaid, it is less clear whether loans to the automakers will be repaid.

Lenders Make Pitch to FCC to Loosen Media Ownership Rules

At a January 12 Federal Communications Commission media ownership workshop, lenders urged the FCC to loosen media ownership rules, saying that it was just about the only way to make broadcasters more attractive to the capital they will need to be competitive in the marketplace. Lenders on the panel point to the "perfect storm" of a down economy that hammered overleveraged broadcasters and Internet competition that continues to drain advertising dollars away from the sector. James Cotter, head of M&A at Sun Trust Bank, said that while the financial sector used to lend on double-digit multiples to an industry with strong cash flow and the insurance policy of a recoverable "stick" value in the broadcast license, the multiple is down to between zero and four. He said the FCC needed to consider letting broadcasters combine in new ways to figure out a business model that will draw investment back to the sector. He said the explosion of digital media means the public policy threat of concentration of ownership or monopolization of voices is greatly diminished. The bigger threat to a healthy media, he suggested, is just the opposite, the availability of free material that threatens the business model.

Benton

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