July 2010

Liberty and Broadband for All: A Policy Primer

For the first time, the United States has a National Broadband Plan, and a bit of money to spend building infrastructure. In recent weeks, there has been plenty of debate about whether the plan is ambitious enough, as well as deeper soul searching about what the proper role of government in building the nation's Internet infrastructure should be. Just Sunday, Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg called for a more expansive broadband vision. There are legitimate questions about the plan, but little time or space is committed to understanding the details of how we're going to build this 21st century infrastructure. So in this occasional series, America the Connected, we'll be talking with different sorts of experts -- historians, political scientists, technologists, policy wonks, engineers, entrepreneurs -- about the National Broadband Plan. Each one will take the form of a statement, edited and condensed from a longer interview. As more come in, we'll offer you a landing page where you can compare and contrast their views.

Up first is Robert Atkinson, head of The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a think tank devoted to technological issues of national importance. He says:

1) I would define the goal of a national plan not simply as the construction of a series of networks, but ultimately as the robust use of broadband. You could build an unbelievably great network and if nobody signed up for it, it doesn't really get you very much. The plan is quite good in recognizing that, and in addressing issues beyond the physical network.

2) I think the plan was very, very good. The best thing in the plan is its proposal to take much of the largely wasted TV spectrum and put it into wireless broadband. We can get by with much less TV spectrum (and still have very good TV broadcasting) and doing so will enable the next wave of the mobile broadband revolution. But this will be a tough fight as the broadcasters want to keep the spectrum they never paid for. If I have to have any criticism of the plan, it's two-fold. First, it was three or four years late. We were quite late to developing a national plan. Many other countries had put their strategies in place in the early part of the last decade. But better late than never. Second, the biggest limitation of the plan is that it doesn't have much money behind it. The plan can talk all it wants about wanting to get high speeds to a large number of people -- 10 megabyte download speeds for 100 million people, say -- and that's all well and good, but what's the real mechanism by which you do that?

Science and Technology Priorities for the FY 2012 Budget

This memorandum follows up on OMB Memorandum M-10-19 by outlining the Administration's science and technology (S&T) priorities for formulating FY 2012 Budget submissions to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

These priorities for research and development (R&D) investments and other S&T investments build on priorities already reflected in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the FY 2010 and 2011 Budgets, and key Administration policy guidance such as the President's Strategy for American Innovation. This memorandum also provides program guidance for S&T activities in Executive Departments and Agencies. Agencies should explain in their budget submissions how they will redirect available resources, as appropriate, and consistent with their mission, from lower-priority areas to S&T activities that address six challenges and strengthen six cross-cutting areas that underlie success in addressing all of these challenges. Agencies should describe expected outcomes from these S&T investments, providing quantitative metrics where possible. The President has a long-term goal that the R&D investment (both private and Federal) in the United States should reach three percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In order to understand the status of the Federal share of this goal, agencies are expected to work in close collaboration with OMB and OSTP to accurately classify and report R&D investment activities.

Bad Connection: Inside the iPhone Network Meltdown

AT&T's network proved unable to cope with the deluge of data traffic generated by the iPhone, particularly in cities like San Francisco and New York. Even as the #attfail meme burned up Twitter, AT&T accelerated its network upgrades -- it has spent nearly $37 billion on new equipment and capacity since the iPhone launch and expects to invest around $13.5 billion in 2010. The effort may have already boosted performance, with at least some independent studies showing that the carrier's network has improved. And yet AT&T's image remains deeply damaged, and the body slams keep coming -- including insults from mischievous blogger Fake Steve Jobs, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Meanwhile, the groundbreaking alliance has deteriorated into a loveless celebrity marriage. Each company has publicly described the other as the ideal partner (and neither would comment for this story beyond reiterating that talking point), but behind the scenes both have jockeyed for position while consumers have lashed out, looking for someone to blame.

Those problems are exposing a fundamental schism that's occurring between all smartphone makers and carriers, not just Apple and AT&T. That partnership has lain bare a fundamental disconnect between phone makers -- who want to make indispensable devices that customers use constantly to their fullest capabilities -- and carriers, who want to limit the data demands on their networks. This dysfunctional relationship is not unique to Apple and AT&T; the tensions that have undercut the iPhone will likely bedevil every manufacturer and carrier. And what that means is, at some point, everyone with a smartphone will probably experience the same frustration as AT&T customers.

Wireless Companies Could Use Your Friends

Each time you make a cell-phone call, your network provider knows whom you're calling, for how long, and what device you're using. Now researchers at one of the world's largest wireless carriers are exploring whether such information can help companies target their marketing pitches.

By analyzing billions of call records, the researchers at Telenor, a carrier in Scandinavia, mapped how social connections between people--measured partly by how often they called each other--correlated with the spread of Apple's iPhone after its 2007 debut. The research showed that socially connected groups of early adopters helped the iPhone spread rapidly. A person with just one iPhone-owning friend was three times more likely to own one themselves than a person whose friends had no iPhones. People with two friends who had iPhones were more than five times as likely to have sprung for the Apple device. Now Telenor's team wants to translate insights like that into marketing campaigns. For instance, a company might send promotional text messages or ads to people whose friends already use a product--and who would presumably be more likely to buy the product as well.

Air Force moves to fill nearly 700 cybersecurity vacancies

In an effort to quickly fill almost 700 vacant cybersecurity positions, Air Force managers have been authorized to use the streamlined Schedule A hiring authority. The Defense Department can allow Schedule A in specific cases, including when there is a critical hiring need or when there are special jobs that need to be filled. Schedule A authority allows job seekers to be considered for these jobs without competitive procedures. The cybersecurity positions approved for Schedule A hiring will perform special functions such as cyberrisk and strategic analysis, incident handling and malware/vulnerability analysis, cyberincident response, cyberexercise facilitation and management, cybervulnerability detection and assessment, network and systems engineering, enterprise architecture, intelligence analysis, investigation, investigative analysis, and cyber-related infrastructure interdependency analysis. Three authorized organizations include the Strategic Command, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the 24th Air Force. They may hire under the authority until Dec. 31, 2012, or until the Office of Personnel Management establishes applicable qualification standards, whichever is earlier, the Air Force said.

Changes in RUS Telephone Loans

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is amending its regulations for the guarantee program for cooperative and other not-for-profit lenders that make loans for eligible electric and telephone purposes. These proposed amendments implement changes adopted in the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (Pub. L. 110-246). The intended effect is to update agency regulations to reflect current statutory authority.

This rule is effective August 23, 2010.

Mississippi Public Broadcasting Fires Reporter for leaking Fresh Air memo

There's one more voice that's off the air of Mississippi Public Broadcasting following the state network's cancellation of Fresh Air. Carl Gibson, whose first job out of journalism school was covering the state capitol for MPB, was fired on July 16 for leaking an internal memo about the state network's decision to drop the NPR-distributed show.

Gibson was just returning from an assignment covering the Gulf Coast oil spill, he said, when controversy over MPB's cancellation erupted over the blogosphere on July 15. Friends at the Jackson Free Press, the state's only alternative newspaper, approached Gibson as a source, and he wanted to help them get the story straight. Leaking the memo was a violation of MPB policy, Gibson acknowledged, but he mostly regrets sending it from his office email account, which was traceable. "I was not the only one leaking emails; I was the only one that got caught." He believes that, by canceling Fresh Air, MPB Executive Director Judith Lewis violated another important policy: MPB's commitment not to censor or edit programs for broadcast "solely out of fear of complaint."

Times comes to town, sweating in its gown

In a few weeks The New York Times will launch its long-awaited latest experiment in collaborative online journalism, The Local: East Village. The L:EV, as it is referred to by its editors (they pronounce it "Lev"), announced itself back in February, detailing a plan to develop a new site incorporating local bloggers, neighborhood residents and student journalists to focus on the neighborhood. The journalism comes from a collaboration with New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. The local bloggers and neighborhood residents are, basically, supposed to volunteer, though a recruitment drive has been a big part of the ramp-up to launch.

PEG Access TV Embraces Online Journalism as Funding Uncertainty Grows

With the nation's non-profit public-access television services often unable to count on a reliable stream of government-enforced funding from the cable industry, many are beginning to embrace the Internet and even journalism training as ways to further their public-service mission.

The change is spurred by two counterbalancing trends. On the one hand, large cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas have pulled the plug on funding for public-access cable services. On the other hand, the plunging cost and easy use of web-based video technology is making it easier for the services that remain to embrace an entirely new method for delivering citizen-generated multimedia and information to mobile- and web-enabled citizens. In the process, the managers of an industry once know by the acronym "PEG access" - for Public, Educational and Government access cable television - are increasingly thinking of themselves as "Community Media Centers" that embrace multiple delivery methods.

Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries

A local news story skeptically questioning whether libraries are "necessary." it set off a response from Vanity Fair, and a later counterpunch by Chicago's Public Library Commissioner and from as far away as The Guardian. Call it a hunch, but it seems to me that the thing is in the air that happens right before something -- families with a million kids, cupcakes, wedding coordinators -- suddenly becomes the thing everyone wants to do happy-fuzzy pop-culture stories about. Why? 1) Libraries get in fight. 2) Librarians know stuff. 3) Libraries are green and local. 4) Libraries will give you things for free.

Benton

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