March 2010

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2010

NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN
   A Plan for Broadband
   Ending the Internet's Trench Warfare
   Better Broadband Is No 'Joke'
   An insider's top 10 questions on the FCC's national broadband plan
   Quick Summary of the National Broadband Plan
   Cable TV Is Doomed

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Freedom of Information Act: Requirements and Implementation Continue to Evolve
   Chinese Official's Threat Sets Off a Media Furor

JOURNALISM
   Journalism's slide into health-debate weariness

MORE ON INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Patrolling Bad Behavior
   Digitally, Location Is Where It's At
   Web Breathes New Life Into Failed Retailers
   NCAA March Madness On Demand sets streaming video record
   Google likely to win EU court battle over ads

QUICKLY
   Silicon Valley loses foreign talent
   Nonprofit Groups Foresee Tough Year

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NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN

A PLAN FOR BROADBAND
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission's broadband strategy comes not a moment too soon. High-speed Internet is on its way to replacing the telephone as the nation's primary means of communication. But the United States is woefully behind in building the physical systems to support this transformation. That will require federal money, incentives to private businesses, and updates in the regulatory system. The FCC's blueprint offers a feasible path to address these lacunae, unleash investment in the broadband network and foster competition among service providers. The core goal is to bring broadband to 100 million homes at download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second by 2020, and to vastly expand broadband over the airwaves. The ambitious plan is likely to attract hostility from corporations -- like TV broadcasters and telecommunications companies. They have legitimate concerns, but, in general, Congress should provide all the assistance the FCC needs to achieve its goals. The FCC needs Congress's approval to spend money on a new wireless broadband network for use by emergency services, and to repurpose about $8 billion a year from the Universal Service Fund, established decades ago to ensure phones got to hard-to-reach places, to do that with broadband Internet access. These goals are long overdue, but that makes them no less essential to taking full advantage of the Internet's promise to improve American competitiveness.
benton.org/node/33571 | New York Times
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ENDING THE INTERNET'S TRENCH WARFARE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Yochai Benkler]
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan, announced last week, is aimed at providing nearly universal, affordable broadband service by 2020. And while it takes many admirable steps — including very important efforts toward opening space in the broadcast spectrum — it does not address the source of the access problem: without a major policy shift to increase competition, broadband service in the United States will continue to lag far behind the rest of the developed world. Last year my colleagues and I did a study for the Federal Communications Commission showing that a significant reason that other countries had managed to both expand access and lower rates over the last decade was a commitment to open-access policies, requiring companies that build networks to sell access to rivals that then invest in, and compete on, the network.
These countries realize that innovation happens in electronics and services — not in laying cable. If every company has to dig its own holes, the price of entry is too high and competition falters; over time, innovation lags, and the goal of broader and better access suffers.
Existing local companies argue that they deserve control over a market because they've sunk enormous amounts of money into digging trenches and laying cables for their telecommunications network. And to be fair, it is expensive. But other countries are exploring creative ways for competitors to share the costs and risks of fiber investments, sometimes coupled with public investment, so that incumbent companies can accommodate competitors without unnecessarily hamstringing themselves.
Unfortunately, though, senior commission staff members have essentially conceded in interviews that lobbying pressure from the monopolies is too strong even to begin exploring open access right now.
They may be right. But their decision comes with real risks. If we stay the present course, the commission's new policy will build a better wireless network around a more entrenched monopoly system, lodging an insurmountable obstacle in the path toward bringing America's broadband network up to speed with the rest of the world.
[Yochai Benkler is a professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.]
benton.org/node/33570 | New York Times
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BETTER BROADBAND IS NO 'JOKE'
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L. Gordon Crovitz]
[Commentary] The real significance of the National Broadband Plan is the idea that the Federal Communications Commission should have the authority to let markets decide the best use of spectrum. The plan calls for transferring needed spectrum from government agencies and analog broadcasters to digital wireless providers for better broadband access across the US. The FCC wants to be able to "determine rules for auctions of broadcast spectrum" so that broadcasters would be compensated for the loss of spectrum they don't need, which wireless providers could use to make Internet access faster. "There is no market incentive to move spectrum to better and higher uses," said the FCC's Blair Levin. The "biggest wasters of spectrum are government agencies that have one third of the most valuable spectrum." Moving this spectrum to better use is a worthy political challenge. Much of the rest of available spectrum is owned by broadcasters that don't need it. Some 90% of Americans access local channels via pay television such as cable, so broadcast spectrum can easily be reduced. Levin says that "we need the authority to share proceeds in auctions with broadcasters, not just to force stations into one area of spectrum or another." There would be plenty of proceeds to share: In some recent auctions, spectrum has been sold for 10 times the value of its previous analog use.
benton.org/node/33569 | Wall Street Journal
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TOP 10 QUESTIONS FOR THE BROADBAND PLAN
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
After you've had a entire weekend to read the National Broadband Plan -- what's next? Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will appear before two Congressional hearings this week to defend and explain the agency's plan. Other commissioners will also appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday morning. Here's a Top 10 list of questions Members of Congress should ask Chairman Genachowski:
1) What specific proposals -- past Lifeline/LinkUp pilot programs -- are in the plan for making broadband more affordable?
2) The plan recommends a goal of 4 mbps of actual download speed (and 1 mbp of actual upload speed) as a goal for broadband networks for all Americans by 2020. It also sets a goal of 100 mbps download speed and 50 mbps of upload speed for 100 million households by 2020. Is it really acceptable for the nation to have an infrastructure that is 25 times better for some Americans than for others?
3) What is your benchmark for success in making the broadband industry more competitive?
4) What about line sharing, special access reform and unbundling?
5) When will the FCC issue a timeline for the many rulemaking proceedings the plan will spawn?
6) If a federal appeals court rules that the FCC jurisdiction over broadband Internet is limited, will the agency move to launching its inquiry into Title II common carrier services?
7) What will Congress' role in implementing the plan be?
8) Why did the FCC propose a system that will require police, fire, and emergency service agencies to rely on commercial carriers for their mission-critical broadband communications needs?
9) What is your view on the cable and satellite industry initiative called TV Everywhere? Would reforms to the set-top box address open-access concerns that arise from that business strategy?
10) What's next for Blair Levin?
benton.org/node/33568 | Washington Post
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CABLE TV IS DOOMED
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Max Fisher]
The death of cable television would probably still be inevitable without the Federal Communications Commission's national broadband plan, which aims to expand broadband Internet access to 90% of Americans and dramatically increase access speeds. But the measure, if it passes, will accelerate the demise of cable television as the standard method of consuming television. Now that Google is leading the way in developing Internet TV, the rise of this technology will come even faster. Cable TV was always a bad model for the consumer because, in a sense, you're paying twice. When you watch The Daily Show, for example, you pay the cable company to bring Comedy Central's programming into your home. But you also contribute to Comedy Central's bottom line by watching its ads. However, the Internet allows you to connect directly to Comedy Central without the cable company go-between. You only pay once -- either with your eyeballs on ComedyCentral.com, or with your wallet on iTunes. (Sure, you have to pay for Internet access, but if you consider it a necessary utility rather than an optional luxury, as the FCC's national broadband plan clearly does, then that cost is incidental. That is, access to streaming TV shows isn't the primary reason you buy Internet access. It's a bonus.)
benton.org/node/33566 | Atlantic, The
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

FOIA IMPLEMENTATION CONTINUES TO EVOLVE
[SOURCE: Government Accountability Office, AUTHOR: Valerie Melvin]
In testimony before the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Melvin testified about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which establishes that federal agencies must provide the public with access to government information, enabling them to learn about government operations and decisions. To help ensure proper implementation, FOIA requires that agencies annually report specific information about their FOIA operations, such as numbers of requests received and processed and other statistics. In work reported from 2001 to 2008, GAO examined the annual reports for major agencies, describing the status of reported implementation and any observable trends. GAO also reported on agency improvement plans developed in response to a 2005 Executive Order aimed at improving FOIA implementation, including reducing backlogs of overdue requests. GAO was asked to testify on its previous work on FOIA implementation, as well as on selected changes in the FOIA landscape resulting from legislation, policy, and guidance. GAO previously noted general increases in requests received and processed, as well as growing numbers of backlogged requests reported. GAO also found that the improvement plans of the agencies reviewed mostly included goals and timetables as required by the Executive Order. In subsequent reporting on backlog reduction efforts, GAO found that selected agencies had shown progress in decreasing their backlogs of overdue requests as of September 2007; however, GAO could not present a complete picture, because of variations such as differences in agencies' metrics and ability to track backlogs of overdue requests. GAO recommended that the Department of Justice issue guidance to address this issue. Justice agreed with the recommendation and issued further guidance in 2008. In addition, GAO made recommendations to selected agencies regarding the reliability of their FOIA data, with which the agencies generally agreed. GAO-10-537T
[Valerie C. Melvin, director, GAO information management and human capital issues]
benton.org/node/33565 | Government Accountability Office | Highlights
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CHINESE OFFICIAL'S THREAT SETS OFF FUROR
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sharon LaFraniere, Jonathan Ansfield]
In another era, the brusque response of Li Hongzhong, the governor of Hubei Province, to a reporter's question about a scandal on his home turf might have been the end of it. Infuriated that the reporter would even ask about the case — in which a waitress at a karaoke bar killed a government official in self-defense — he threatened to go to her boss, seized her audio recorder and marched off, according to reports of the encounter. But instead of fizzling out, the March 7 episode has blossomed into a cause célèbre for free-press advocates in China. In a rare display of unity, journalists, lawyers, academics and activists posted a letter of protest on the Internet demanding the governor's resignation. Two Communist Party elders publicly condemned his behavior. And a storm of discussion erupted online before the authorities could contain it. Chinese media analysts say the reaction was a sign of a slow boil in the media over tighter government restraints. While the authorities have effectively reined in the media in the last year, Chang Ping, a prominent media commentator, said the Internet had vastly complicated their task.
benton.org/node/33564 | New York Times
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JOURNALISM

JOURNALISM AND HEALTH CARE REFORM
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
[Commentary] It was the story that refused to die. Sunday's last-gasp passage of President Obama's health care bill will finally liberate the journalists who have been chained to this complicated, arcane, often tedious story for 14 long months. It's not that media types were rooting for the House to drag the measure across the finish line. It's that many were frustrated by a tangled tale that never seemed to end, and knew that plenty of readers and viewers were sick of the subject as well. The conventional wisdom is that the press failed to educate the public about the bill's sweeping changes, leaving much of America confused about just what it contained. That is largely a bum rap, for the media churned out endless reams of data and analysis that were available to anyone who bothered to look. As time went on, though, journalists became consumed by political process and Beltway politics, to the point that the substance of health care reform was overwhelmed. Here the plea is guilty-with-an-explanation: The battle came down to whether the Senate could adopt changes by majority vote (reconciliation) and, until late Saturday, whether the House could approve the Senate measure without a recorded vote (deem and pass). With the bill's fate hanging by these procedural threads, there was no way to avoid making that the overriding story. (And yes, the Senate reconciliation vote is still to come.)
benton.org/node/33561 | Washington Post
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MORE ON INTERNET/BROADBAND

PATROLLING BAD BEHAVIOR
[SOURCE: MediaWeek, AUTHOR: Mike Shields]
The government may soon wield a great deal more power over the online advertising business, and that's quickly spreading fear across the entire ecosystem, including publishers, ad networks, agencies and even their clients. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) is set to introduce a consumer privacy bill over the next few weeks that will likely impact the entire $25 billion online ad market. And while that's got many worried, another seemingly unrelated piece of legislation -- the proposed financial reform bill aimed at cleaning up Wall Street -- has industry insiders sweating. Baked into that bill is language that would grant expanded powers to the Federal Trade Commission, which could theoretically go after shady advertisers or data abusers faster, hit them harder and punish any other companies that enabled their illegitimate activities.
benton.org/node/33557 | MediaWeek
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LOCATION IS WHERE IT IS AT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
Some companies are just now bolting location awareness onto their existing applications. Twitter, with 50 million messages a day, introduced a location-awareness function during the conference, while Facebook, with more than 400 million users worldwide, will soon flip the switch for the 100 million or so users who update on smartphones. Yelp, a popular listing of user-generated reviews, has added a check-in feature, and Google just added a widget to its Latitude application that lets you see the location of nearby pals who have enabled the service. Similarly, Apple has applied for patents for iGroup, which will give its iPhone users real-time information on who is nearby. To someone not in their 20s whose location generally isn't that interesting to others the idea of handing over your privacy with both hands to strap on a digital ankle bracelet sounds profoundly unattractive. (I was probably the mayor of taking a disco nap before heading out for another long evening at South by Southwest so I wouldn't keel over.) But to a younger cohort that lives on the grid, the location of people you know and care about is vital information, the coin of the realm. "For many, the benefits of augmented reality outweigh issues of privacy," said Beka Economopoulos of Fission Strategy, a Web development and social media consulting firm for nonprofits. And it often leads to a digitally enabled "lemming effect," she added. Location awareness would only seem to be of use in dense urban areas — in many small towns and suburbs, everyone already knows where everyone else is. But what if location became not just a physical place, but a digital one? The possibilities for old and new media could be significant.
benton.org/node/33563 | New York Times
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E-COMMERCE REVIVES FAILED RETAILERS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Miguel Bustillo]
The retail graveyard is filled with venerable names that were felled by the recession. Now, some risk-taking companies are trying to profit by bringing brands back from the dead. Systemax Inc., best known as the parent of Internet computer-parts retailer TigerDirect.com, gambled by buying the rights to the names of two deceased store chains, CompUSA for $30 million in 2008 and Circuit City for $14 million in 2009. Now as the economy crawls toward recovery, Systemax is opening CompUSA stores in Houston, Chicago and other major markets after successfully testing the concept in Florida. It already revived Circuit City as an Internet retailer last June, and is contemplating a brick-and-mortar rebirth for that brand as well. Wall Street analysts are starting to pay attention to Systemax, a rare instance of an Internet seller that is using its online know-how to open brick-and-mortar stores, at a time when most retail chains are gravitating to the Web.
benton.org/node/33562 | Wall Street Journal
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MARCH MADNESS ONLINE
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Andrew Heining]
CBS is reporting that on Thursday, the first day of the Men's NCAA basketball tournament, it served 3.4 million hours of live streaming video to 3 million computer-bound fans with its March Madness On Demand player. It's being called the largest single-day of traffic for a live sports event on the Internet. Last year CBS tallied 4.8 million hours for the entire tournament. You know what that means: Lots of watching at the office. And who can blame viewers, especially if CBS is going to stream all 63 games of the tournament online for free? Well, bosses, for one. The "boss button" atop the player CBS March Madness On-Demand player, which mutes game audio and fills the screen with a generic-looking spreadsheet, was invoked 1.7 million times on Thursday, CBS says. It would seem that CBS understands, where NBC and its delay- and registration-plagued Vancouver Olympics coverage did not: On a hot day for online video, a firehose wins you more friends than a pay-per-use drinking fountain.
benton.org/node/33559 | Christian Science Monitor, The
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GOOGLE LIKELY TO WIN EU BATTLE
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Raphael Satter]
Google looks likely to win a European high court battle over how it uses keywords in advertising — but legal experts say the issue is likely to keep rattling the search giant. Rights owners have long complained about Google's practice of allowing advertisers to promote their products to customers searching for a rival's goods. Software, airline, luxury goods companies and even a law firm have taken Google to court in a bid to stop the practice, arguing that it hijacks their brand name and misleads consumers. The case being decided at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg next week pits Google against a number of French luxury goods firms including LVMH, the firm behind Louis Vuitton handbags. The companies complain that Google broke the law by accepting ads using brand names without permission, and they fear that counterfeiters and unofficial online stores can buy a keyword such as "Louis Vuitton" and use it to advertise bogus bags.
benton.org/node/33558 | Associated Press
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QUICKLY
   Silicon Valley loses foreign talent
   Nonprofit Groups Foresee Tough Year

SILICON VALLEY LOSES FOREIGN TALENT
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Jon Swartz]
Silicon Valley may be the cradle for tech start-ups, but some foreign-born executives, engineers and scientists are leaving because of better opportunities back home, strict immigration laws here and the dreary California economy with its high cost of living. And fewer foreign students are coming to the Valley to earn engineering and science degrees, according to the Silicon Valley Index, which takes the economic pulse of the Valley each year. Foreign-born students earned 16.6% of the total degrees awarded in science and engineering programs from local colleges and universities in 2007, compared with 18.4% in 2003, the study says. "We're in the midst of a massive brain drain," says Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School who has done extensive research on the topic. "For the first time, immigrants have better opportunities outside the U.S." Often, a lack of work visas blocks foreign talent from staying. Only 120,000 to 140,000 temporary work visas are available each year in the US.
benton.org/node/33560 | USAToday
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TOUGH YEAR FOR NONPROFITS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stephanie Storm]
A new survey of nonprofit groups suggests that this year will be as challenging for them as 2009, when many organizations suffered from declines in giving, delays in government payments and increased demand for their services. Some 80 percent of the 1,315 nonprofit groups responding to the survey said they expected the demand for service to be even greater this year, and only 49 percent of the respondents expected to be able to meet that demand, according to the survey by the Nonprofit Finance Fund, a charity that provides loans and other financial services to nonprofit groups. Only 18 percent expect to end the year above break-even financially, compared with the 35 percent that ended 2009 with a surplus.
benton.org/node/33556 | New York Times
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