"Nobody has a 'right' to the broadband, but it would be nice if everybody did have it."
-- Rep Mike Conaway (R-TX) http://benton.org/node/33482
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 2010 (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PETER)
The FCC's Consumer Advisory Committee meets today http://bit.ly/bCkhWt and next week's agenda includes two National Broadband Plan oversight hearings http://bit.ly/cuaoIA
NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN
Broadband for everyone by 2020, but who foots the bill?
Three GOPers signal early opposition to some of FCC's new broadband plan
The Wireless Web: Free at Last?
Groups Hopeful Broadband Plan Will Narrow Divide
National Broadband Plan - Too much, Too Little? Just Right?
MORE ON INTERNET/BROADBAND
States Pressure E-Tailers to Collect Sales Tax
Internet Access Ignites the Blogosphere
Craig Newmark on the Web's Next Big Problem -- Trust [Video]
Google's fast pipe to Asia almost ready
WIRELESS
New 4G tech may heat up mobile Network Neutrality debate
Soon, There'll Be More Mobile Web Users In China Than People In The United States
IDC: It's Not Broadband Or Broadcast
OMVC: Mobile DTV Beats Broadband
HTC to Apple: We Built a Touchscreen Phone Before You Did
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
FCC Seeks Comment on Comcast-NBC Universal Deal
See also: NBC/Comcast execs make few guarantees to Franken
Choosing Sides? John Doerr Leaves Amazon's Board Of Directors
Google Says Viacom 'Covertly' Put Its Own Clips On YouTube
HEALTH
It's time to unleash the NHIN
CMS meaningful use revisions must synch with other regulations
Feds received 2,700 comment letters on meaningful use and standards rules
Letter tells CMS to set more specific EHR goals
CYBERSECURITY
Iran's Opposition Seeks More Help in Cyberwar With Government
Dismantling of Saudi-CIA Web site illustrates need for clearer cyberwar policies
FBI Faces New Setback in Computer Overhaul
MORE ONLINE
Tech lobbying soars in 2009 | Pandora: These Numbers May Surprise You | How Twitter Can Become A New Breed Of Technology Company | Educators Struggle to Design Mobile-Learning Content | Pan-Pacific Education and Communications | Universal Music Group Slashes CD Prices to Between $6 and $10
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The Quote of the Day 3/18
It's time to unleash the NHIN
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NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN
WHO PAYS FOR BROADBAND PLAN?
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Matthew Lasar]
"Everyone in the United States today should have access to broadband services supporting a basic set of applications that include sending and receiving e-mail, downloading Web pages, photos and video, and using simple video conferencing," opens the chapter of the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan titled "Availability." What would that mean in terms of performance? "An initial universalization target of 4Mbps of actual download speed and 1Mbps of actual upload speed, with an acceptable quality of service for interactive applications, would ensure universal access," the NBP says. The document calls this the "National Broadband Availability Target." But how do we get there, given the agency's estimate that 100 million Americans do not have broadband at home? The NBP's most prominent answer is to recommend an additional infusion of $24 billion in public support to supplement private investment in broadband infrastructure over the next decade. The much more complex half of the plan is to do battle with that vast mess which is the government's Universal Service Fund (USF) and Intercarrier Compensation (ICC) programs. These huge deployments ($8.7 billion in funding for USF this year) subsidize rural and poor telephone subscribers across the country, but wastefully so, and they don't require or even encourage providers to offer broadband. So the strategy of the NBP is to gradually sweep the illogic of USF and ICC out and bring in new, broadband-oriented support systems. The Plan says it can get this done in ten years. Here's how.
benton.org/node/33481 | Ars Technica
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OPPOSITION TO BROADBAND PLAN
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
Reps Mac Thornberry (R-TX), Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), and Mike Conaway (R-TX) railed on the Federal Communications Commission's newly released National Broadband Plan. Each told the San Angelo Standard-Times they had serious reservations about the report. Their dissent perhaps foretells some of the difficulties FCC proponents and broadband enthusiasts in Congress may face in the coming months. Rep. Thornberry told reporters he doubted the need for the federal government to lead broadband expansion and invest heavily in private infrastructure. Rep Conaway questioned whether broadband expansion was needed in the first place. "Nobody has a 'right' to the broadband, but it would be nice if everybody did have it," said Conaway.
benton.org/node/33480 | Hill, The
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THE WIRELESS WEB: FREE AT LAST?
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Rev Jesse Jackson Jr]
[Commentary] With a stroke of a pen, the Federal Communications Commission could connect millions of minorities and poor Americans to broadband. For several years, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition has supported a proposal that the FCC should auction the AWS-3 spectrum band and require that the winner provide a free tier of broadband service nationwide. The auction winner would also have to construct the network on an expedited schedule, and stiff penalties would apply if it fails to meet the designated milestones. The spectrum band, known as AWS-3, has been lying fallow for nearly 10 years. At present, not one consumer obtains broadband on those frequencies. The plan to establish a free nationwide network (first proposed in 2006) would put the spectrum band to immediate and productive use, ensuring that millions of Americans are not on the wrong side of the digital divide. What's more, it wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime. Establishing a free broadband network promotes the public interest; more inexplicable delay does just the opposite.
benton.org/node/33485 | Wall Street Journal
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GROUPS SUPPORT NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Some minority groups weighed in Thursday on the National Broadband Plan released earlier this week, saying they are hopeful the proposal will help narrow the broadband digital divide. The Japanese American Citizens League said in a news release that the plan "is a critical first step towards the eradication of the digital divide and [the group] looks forward to seeing more Americans harness the power of broadband for their civic, economic, and educational success." Both Rainbow Push and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators said they were pleased the Federal Communications Commission did not adopt some proposals they said could have unintended consequences. "While we are reassured that the commission did not adopt some of the more extreme calls for unnecessary regulations that could have devastating unintended consequences, the NHCSL Broadband En Accion Taskforce will be looking forward to working with the commission to continue its focus on full access and adoption, especially in our underserved communities," the Hispanic caucus said in a statement.
benton.org/node/33484 | Bloomberg
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NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN -- TOO MUCH, TOO LITTLE, JUST RIGHT?
[SOURCE: Fighting the Next Good Fight, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
[Commentary] The National Broadband Plan may be too ambitious for many inside Washington to fully embrace in terms of executing legislation and making funds available. The average lawmaker, particularly with elections coming up this year, could care less about broadband. These are the ones most susceptible to lobbyists' attempts to neuter the plan, which make no mistake, they are in full Destruct mode. The telecom and cable industry will mine the lofty rhetoric while trying to kill anything they feel threatens profits. On the other hand, the plan is not ambitious enough for some when you consider one glaring vulnerability. In some people's mind, they feel it does not grab by the throat the main source of our many problems with broadband - the lack of competition and the ease with which the incumbents can kill competition.
benton.org/node/33483 | Fighting the Next Good Fight
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MORE ON INTERNET/BROADBAND
ONLINE SALES TAX
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Geoffrey Fowler]
The economic slump is helping rekindle a debate on whether online retailers should have to collect state sales taxes, a question that has pitted the new economy against the old. A half dozen cash-strapped states are contemplating new laws that would require e-commerce sites to charge shoppers local sales tax on purchases. Proponents of sales tax for online merchants, such as the American Booksellers Association, say it is a matter of fairness to tax online purchases the same as bricks-and-mortar ones. "It isn't the role of government to pick favorites between one group of retailers as opposed to another," said the organization's chief executive, Oren Teicher. Mary Osako, a spokeswoman for Amazon.com Inc., the largest online retailer by revenue, said state-by-state laws are creating a "very complex sales tax regime," and that the company would only support a "simplified system, fairly applied to all business models." Amazon is in favor a national streamlined sale-tax effort that would mandate sales tax collection by out-of-state retailers in 23 states that have voluntarily signed on to the program. "We aren't opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally permissible system applied even-handedly," Osako said.
benton.org/node/33467 | Wall Street Journal
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INTERNET ACCESS IGNITES BLOGOSPHERE
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
Last week, in very large numbers, bloggers focused on a subject near and dear to their hearts -- access to the Internet. From March 8-12, the top story in the blogosphere was a BBC survey of more than 27,000 adults worldwide in which four out of five people consider Internet access a "fundamental right." Fully 43% of links in blogs were about this story and a related information graphic that mapped the spread of Internet access around the world. The survey elicited more attention among bloggers than any other story in 2010, other than the devastating earthquake in Haiti, which also received 43% of the links the week of January 11-15, 2010. And since PEJ began the New Media Index in January 2009, there have been just 10 stories in all that have captured more than 40% of links. Bloggers largely championed the idea of online access as a basic right and some called for legislation and programs to expand it. But many also dissected the survey findings closely, and some expressed concern that the question -"To what extent do you agree or disagree that access to the Internet should be a fundamental right of all people?"- was too vague.
benton.org/node/33468 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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TRUST IS THE NET'S NEXT BIG PROBLEM
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Mathew Ingram]
What does Craigslist founder Craig Newmark think is the next big problem the web has to solve? Who to trust online. To solve it, he believes that what the web needs is a "distributed trust network" that allows us to manage our online relationships and reputations. He talked about "reputation and trust ruling the web, just the way it does in real life," and how he was looking to big players such as Google, Facebook and Amazon as the kinds of entities that would have the scale to handle such a distributed trust or reputation management network. And he said that despite some occasional missteps by both Google and Facebook when it came to privacy (Google Buzz and Facebook Beacon, respectively), he believed that both were acting in good faith and had a policy of "not being evil." Newmark called some form of distributed trust system.
benton.org/node/33464 | GigaOm
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GOOGLE CONNECTION TO ASIA
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Tom Krazit]
Google and a group of telecommunications companies are about ready to turn on a fast Internet cable running under the Pacific Ocean from the U.S. to Japan, increasing bandwidth by about 20 percent and giving Google its own connection to Asia. The Unity Consortium, which consists of Google, Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI, Pacnet, and SingTel, has nearly completed the testing of the $300 million project. Internet users in Asia will start seeing faster Internet speeds over the next several months from the new cable, which has the potential to create a 7.68Tbps (terabits per second) connection under the Pacific. In return for its investment -- the amount of which was not disclosed -- Google is entitled to 20 percent of the overall capacity for its needs, according to partners involved with the project. Google is one of the largest users of bandwidth on the planet, if not the largest, and invested in the project in 2008 to help satisfy those needs on one of the critical routes for Internet traffic.
benton.org/node/33465 | C-Net|News.com
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WIRELESS
4G COULD HEAT UP NETWORK NEUTRALITY DEBATE
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Stephen Lawson]
Fine-grained network controls that are coming with next-generation mobile technology could make some demanding mobile applications such as video perform better but may also raise Network Neutrality concerns. LTE (Long-Term Evolution), the fourth-generation (4G) mobile technology expected to be most widely adopted by carriers around the world, is designed to boost wireless data speeds and more efficiently serve subscribers. But along with that standard come others that define the IP network behind the cell towers. One of them, called PCRF (Packet Core Routing Function), will give carriers much more fine-grained control over how well applications and services perform.
benton.org/node/33479 | IDG News Service
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MOBILE WEB USERS IN CHINA
[SOURCE: TechCrunch, AUTHOR: Robin Wauters]
Not an easy thing to conceptualize indeed, but according to eMarketer there will be more mobile Internet users in China than the entire population of the US by the end of this year. In addition, the number of mobile Internet users in China will grow fast to reach a staggering 957 million, and that the country will count approximately 1.3 billion mobile subscribers by 2014.
benton.org/node/33478 | TechCrunch
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IT'S NOT BROADBAND OR BROADCAST
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: ]
The Open Mobile Video Coalition today released a white paper prepared by IDC called "Assessing the Mobile DTV Opportunity and Its Role in the United States' Communication Ecosystem. TVNewsCheck provides excerpts from the paper's executive summary.
[more at the URL below]
benton.org/node/33477 | TVNewsCheck | Executive Summary
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MOBILE DTV BEATS BROADBAND
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
Reacting to the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan and its call for transferring a big hunk of TV broadcasting spectrum to wireless broadband, proponents of broadcasting's nascent mobile DTV service today said that the service is better than broadband for delivery of mobile video and that the government should not choke off the spectrum needed for it. "We believe it is critical that broadcasters retain their share of spectrum to encourage new services like mobile DTV," said Colleen Brown, CEO of Fisher Communications and head of the public policy working group of the Open Mobile Video Coalition, a coalition of TV stations that has been developing the mobile DTV service.
benton.org/node/33476 | TVNewsCheck
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HTC DEFENSE AGAINST APPLE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
The surprise HTC expressed earlier this month at being sued by Apple has finally turned into something a bit more substantial: "strong disagreement." The company issued a statement this morning denying Apple's allegations and vowed to fight the lawsuit. The gist: HTC has been making phones far longer than Apple, including a touchscreen device called the XDA that predates the iPhone by about five years.
benton.org/node/33461 | Wall Street Journal
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP
FCC SEEKS COMMENT ON COMCAST-NBC DEAL
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
On January 28, 2010, Comcast, General Electric, and NBC Universal jointly submitted applications to the Federal Communications Commission seeking consent to assign and transfer control of certain broadcast, broadcast auxiliary, satellite earth station, and private land mobile and private fixed microwave licenses to a new limited liability company that would constitute a joint venture of GE and Comcast. On March 5, 2010, the Applicants filed an economists' report entitled "Application of the Commission Staff Model of Vertical Foreclosure to the Proposed Comcast-NBCU Transaction," which they have requested be considered as part of the Application. The proposed transaction would combine the broadcast, cable programming, motion picture studio, theme park, and online content businesses of NBCU with the cable programming and certain online content businesses of Comcast. The FCC is now seeking comment from all interested persons to assist the Commission in its independent review of this proposed transaction. The details of the proposed transaction and the procedures on how to file petitions to deny and comments are set forth on this Public Notice. Comments are due May 3.
benton.org/node/33475 | Federal Communications Commission | Reuters
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DOERR CHOOSES GOOGLE OVER AMAZON
[SOURCE: TechCrunch, AUTHOR: Michael Arrington]
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr, perhaps the most celebrated venture capitalist and certainly one of the most successful, will leave the Amazon board of directors this year. Venture capitalists often try to stay on public company boards well after their investments have run their course. It's a status thing, but it also puts them in a terrific position to help their younger portfolio companies. There's no reason for Doerr to step down from the Amazon board of directors based on time commitments, which is what Amazon is saying. There's just too much upside to being on the Amazon board of directors. And Doerr remains on other boards, including Google. So what is the reason? Our guess is that Doerr is leaving the Amazon board for the same reason Google CEO Eric Schmidt left the Apple board of directors in 2009. Competition and conflicts of interest. Google is increasingly competitive with Apple. But the company also competes with Amazon in a number of areas, particularly web services and big data. And down the road, Google may compete directly in other ways as well.
benton.org/node/33459 | TechCrunch
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HEALTH
Warning of healthcare IT disaster
WARNING OF HIT DISASTER
[SOURCE: HealthcareITNews, AUTHOR: Jack Beaudoin]
In a sobering keynote address at the 2010 World of Health IT Conference and Exhibition, e-Health researcher Enrico Coiera of University of New South Wales, Australia said industry enthusiasts who back, uncritically, national-scale health information technology systems need to prepare themselves for some very bad news. "We've yet to experience our first health IT plane crash, a health IT failure that claims many lives," Coiera said Wednesday. "But I think that will happen... I think it's unavoidable given what we're doing. We need to do our best to mitigate that." Coiera titled his talk "The Dangerous Decade," because while he predicts unprecedented growth in healthcare information technology in the immediate future, that proliferation will come with some unwanted side effects -- especially when deployed on a national scale. "I think over the next 10 years we will build more health IT than we have ever built before," he said. "These systems will be bigger and more complex. The costs and benefits are so large that they will significantly impact national GDP -- people are going to notice it. "We have no choice but to do this," Coiera continued. "The danger is that health IT is still in its infancy. We are doing things we have never done before."
benton.org/node/33470 | HealthcareITNews
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CYBERSECURITY
CYBERWAR IN IRAN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nazila Fathi]
At a time when the Obama administration is pressing for harsher sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program, democracy advocates in Iran have been celebrating the recent decision by the United States to lift sanctions on various online services, which they say only helped Tehran to suppress the opposition. But it is still a long way from the activists' goal of lifting all restrictions on trade in Internet services, which opposition leaders say is vital to maintaining the open communications that have underpinned the protests that erupted last summer after the disputed presidential election. In recent months the government has carried out cyberwarfare against the opposition, eliminating virtually all sources of independent news and information and shutting down social networking services. The sanctions against online services — provided through free software like Google Chat or Yahoo Messenger — were intended to restrict Iran's ability to develop nuclear technology, but democracy advocates say they ended up helping the government repress its people. The new measure will enable users in Iran to download the latest circumvention software to help defeat the government's efforts to block Web sites, and to stop relying on pirated copies that can be far more easily hacked by the government. But the government's opponents say they need still more help in getting around the government's information roadblocks.
benton.org/node/33489 | New York Times
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NEED FOR CLEARER CYBERWAR POLICIES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
By early 2008, top U.S. military officials had become convinced that extremists planning attacks on American forces in Iraq were making use of a Web site set up by the Saudi government and the CIA to uncover terrorist plots in the kingdom. "We knew we were going to be forced to shut this thing down," recalled one former civilian official, describing tense internal discussions in which military commanders argued that the site was putting Americans at risk. "CIA resented that," the former official said. Elite U.S. military computer specialists, over the objections of the CIA, mounted a cyberattack that dismantled the online forum. Although some Saudi officials had been informed in advance about the Pentagon's plan, several key princes were "absolutely furious" at the loss of an intelligence-gathering tool, according to another former U.S. official. Four former senior U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations, said the creation and shutting down of the site illustrate the need for clearer policies governing cyberwar. The use of computers to gather intelligence or to disrupt the enemy presents complex questions: When is a cyberattack outside the theater of war allowed? Is taking out an extremist Web site a covert operation or a traditional military activity? Should Congress be informed?
benton.org/node/33488 | Washington Post
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FBI COMPUTER WOES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Lichtblau]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has suspended work on parts of its huge computer overhaul, dealing the agency the latest costly setback in a decade-long effort to develop a modernized information system to combat crime and terrorism. The overhaul was supposed to be completed this fall, but now will not be done until next year at the earliest. The delay could mean at least $30 million in cost overruns on a project considered vital to national security, Congressional officials said. FBI officials said that design changes and "minor" technical problems prompted the suspension of parts of the third and fourth phases of the work, which is intended to allow agents to better navigate investigative files, search databases and communicate with one another.
benton.org/node/33487 | New York Times
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