July 2010

Boeing Stands in way of Medical-Monitoring

Technology companies led by General Electric want to revolutionize the nascent medical-monitoring industry by taking to the airwaves. Standing in the way is Boeing.

GE's health-care unit has asked the Federal Communications Commission to allow devices that transmit patients' vital signs to share the 2360MHz to 2400MHz range of the electromagnetic spectrum, now used by Chicago-based Boeing to test the safety of planes. It's the only section of the spectrum where remote monitoring would be cost-effective, according to GE Healthcare. Boeing, the largest U.S. aircraft maker, is urging the FCC not to allow new uses of the space. Transmitting medical signals on the spectrum would interfere with flight-test data, causing delays that would cost $50,000 an hour, said Audrey Allison, the company's frequency-management services director. The disputed bandwidth may bring the U.S. as much as $6 billion should the FCC decide to auction it, said Coleman Bazelon, an industry consultant at Brattle Group.

Broadcast TV Incentive Auction Bill Introduced in House

Reps Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL), the leaders of the House Commerce Communications Subcommittee, introduced a bill, the Voluntary Incentive Auctions Act of 2010, to empower the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct voluntary incentive auctions to free up spectrum for commercial wireless providers.

The bill would allow the FCC to conduct the auction and determine what cut broadcasters would get of the proceeds, but would prohibit it "from reclaiming the licenses of broadcast television licensees or any other licensees directly or indirectly on an involuntary basis for the purpose of conducting an incentive auction."

Originally one of the most contentious recommendations in the FCC's National Broadband Plan released in March, the possibility of offering incentives to spectrum licensees to relinquish their spectrum has become less controversial in recent weeks. That's after President Barack Obama endorsed the policy in June and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) said such auctions would be acceptable as long as they are truly voluntary. The broadcasters had sought assurances that they would not be forced off the airwaves.

DISH Avoids STELA Noncommercial Mandate

DISH has managed to avoid the expedited noncommercial HD carriage mandate in the newly reauthorized satellite distant signal blanket license law by striking an independent HD carriage deal with at least 30 noncommercial stations. But it still plans to challenge the law that forced it to strike that deal.

After a court rejected its request for a preliminary injunction against the mandate, the satellite operator was facing a July 27 deadline in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act for either striking its own, independent carriage deal with at least 30 noncoms, or be subject to a mandate that it carry all noncommercial stations in HD by the end of next year rather than by 2013, which is the FCC deadline--part of a phase-in plan--for satellite HD carriage for commercial and noncommercial stations alike. DISH had tried to negotiate a blanket deal with the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), but had failed to do so. The deal was not with APTS, which represents noncoms nationwide, but does include a geographically diverse group of stations.

How information and misinformation can careen through the current media ecosystem

At one point during the furor over Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department staffer forced to resign after a video was posted on a conservative website, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the incident was a "teachable moment." The episode may or may not serve to foster a broader national discussion on race. But it did open a window on how information and misinformation can careen through the current media ecosystem.

Increasingly, supersonic speed predominates and reaction time shrinks. Online posts come in the middle of the night. Commentary and punditry add velocity to stories even before news reports have sorted them out. Partisan players are increasingly becoming news distributors with ties to cable channels and bloggers who follow them closely.

The Sherrod saga began on the morning of July 19 when the conservative website Big Government posted an excerpt of a speech that appeared to show the African-American woman admitting to an NAACP audience she did not do her best to help a white farmer in trouble. The broader backdrop was that the NAACP had recently issued a statement asking the tea party to repudiate the racists in its midst. The proprietor of Big Government, Andrew Breitbart, publicized a video that he said showed that the NAACP itself was racist. Within hours, the video was picked up in the blogosphere, the administration forced Sherrod to resign and it became a cable talk topic (particularly on Fox).

The narrative abruptly changed the morning of July 20 when Sherrod told her side of the story. Then the full video showed her using the farmer story as an example of how she moved beyond racial issues to help save his farm. Events moved quickly after that. The NAACP, which initially condemned Sherrod's remarks, declared that it had been fooled by a hoax.

On July 21, both Gibbs and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack apologized to Sherrod, who was asked to continue working in the department.

And on July 22, Obama spoke to her by phone. Toward the end of the week, the story began morphing into a broader analysis of race in America, the behavior of the media and the apportioning of blame among parties ranging from the Obama administration to the Fox News Channel.

Broadband could be Maine's communication backbone

The actual construction work won't attract a lot of attention, but the project called the "3 Ring Binder" could be one of the most important Mainers have seen in years.

Work is expected to begin by fall on construction of 1,100 miles of new, high-capacity, fiber optic communications line through much of Maine. The project is being paid for by a $25 million Federal grant, and seven and a half million in private investment. The goal of the 3 Ring Binder is to provide affordable, high speed Internet service, also known as broadband, to areas and customers not presently served, and those who are under-served. The project was conceived by GWO Internet of Biddeford and the University of Maine, among others. The government funding comes from federal stimulus money targeting broadband access, and several other states, including New Hampshire, have also received large grants. The new fiber optic cable will be what's called "middle mile" service. The cable will not connect directly to customers. Instead, it will connect towns and cities to the large Internet hubs or "nodes" in Portland, where the fastest service comes into the state. Local Internet Service Providers in each community will then be able to connect to the new fiber network so they can sell service to customers. The cable will run through Maine in three large loops, or rings, hence the name, 3 Ring Binder. Some of Maine's telephone companies were opposed to the project at the beginning.

Agency Chief FOIA Officers Respond to Call for Transparency

Responding to the President's and Attorney General's call for increased transparency, federal agencies across the government have released more documents, made more information available on websites and decreased backlogs in the past year, the Department of Justice announced.

This year, for the first time ever, 94 agencies were required to submit reports from their Chief FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) Officers detailing their progress in improving transparency as part of the President's FOIA Memorandum and the Attorney General's FOIA Guidelines.

All agencies reported progress in implementing the presumption of openness, with over half having that progress rated as "remarkable."
Almost half of the 94 agencies reported divulging documents in discretionary releases -- i.e., the documents were requested under the FOIA and the agency could legally have withheld information, but chose not to. Over half looked for opportunities to do so.
More information is being released to FOIA requesters. In Fiscal Year 2009, the number of responses with released records, either records released in full or in part, increased overall. The number of partial releases increased by approximately 50,000 documents.
Eighty-nine percent of agencies reported proactively disclosing material on their websites -- i.e., producing material that has not (yet) been requested by the public.
Ninety-five percent of agencies, including all cabinet agencies, can receive FOIA requests electronically, rather than merely via mail or other non-technological methods. Ninety one percent track the requests electronically as well.
Sixty percent of agencies either had no backlog in processing FOIA requests or reduced that backlog in Fiscal Year 2009. Eighty-five percent reduced the age of the oldest request or had no backlogged request to close.

BP, Weingarten Lead news on Blogosphere

Last week, the two most popular stories among bloggers highlighted the roles of -- and differences between -- traditional journalism and digital media in a rapidly changing news universe.

An altered photograph of BP's crisis center during its Gulf cleanup that was first identified by blogger John Aravosis of Americablog provided an example of how social media play an important role as fact-checkers. And a satirical piece by a Washington Post staffer focused on the dramatic changes in newspaper journalism -- with much of online commentary coming from print journalists themselves. For the week of July 19-23, 22% of the news links on blogs were about a Washington Post report on the photo that made the BP crisis center look busier than it was, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. (We do not believe Icerocket's news source list includes Americablog which many bloggers linked to as well.) The revelation led many bloggers to attack the already sinking reputation of BP, while some celebrated the blogosphere's role in catching corporate deception. The second-largest subject, with 16% of the links, was a satirical yet pointed column in the Washington Post magazine by Gene Weingarten who lamented the changes to newspapers in the age of online news. He specifically mourned the loss of creative headlines and also took a jab at online comment sections which, he suggested, are often filled with simplistic and angry messages.

MMTC says minority businesses need ability to pay for better broadband service

The Minority Media & Telecom Council says minority businesses need to be able to pay for faster and more reliable broadband service.

MMTC has written the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of 13 minority business and professional groups asking the Commission not to disallow companies from paying for "quality of service" upgrades that insure performance of services like VoIP and video conferencing over the Internet. Free Press has met with FCC Chief of Staff Ed Lazarus and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps to push the FCC to include a prohibition on so-called paid prioritization. Free Press defines it as when third party content owners "can pay an ISP to "cut to the front of the line" at congested nodes," but also when an ISP favors its own content, which it calls "vertical prioritization." In response, MMTC argues that it is instead a voluntary, private agreement that allows minority businesses to compete with companies like Amazon, MSN, Google and Yahoo who can afford to invest in virtual private networks that can guarantee customers faster and more reliable access to content and apps by bypassing the Internet backbone.

FCC, Broadband Providers Hold More Broadband Reclassification Talks

On July 27, AT&T Executive Vice President James Cicconi and National Cable and Telecommunications Association CEO Kyle McSlarrow met with Federal Communications Commission Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus and Zachary Katz, deputy chief of the FCC's Office of Strategic Planning & Policy Analysis to discuss a regulatory framework for the Internet; prohibitions against blocking lawful Internet content; standards for preventing harm to consumers or competition; and avenues for addressing complaints regarding Internet openness.

The cable and telecommunications industries want to head off an FCC Title II reclassification declaratory ruling -- the FCC would not need to issue a rulemaking -- but have long argued that legislative network neutrality mandates, particularly a too-heavy handed nondiscrimination rule, could prevent them from reasonably managing their networks, discourage investment and actually work against the broadband deployment that is currently the FCC's prime directive.

Study questions digital divide efforts

Two researchers at Duke University have published a draft study that raises questions about the academic value of giving students home computers and broadband Internet access.

Their study has led to a flurry of media coverage, with some reports trumpeting the study's findings as evidence that efforts to close the digital divide are counterproductive. But is that what their research really says? Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd of Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy examined the reading and math test scores of more than 500,000 North Carolina public school students in grades five through eight from 2000-05. It sought to determine if differential access to computer technology at home compounds the educational disparities among students from various socio-economic backgrounds, and whether government provision of computers to middle school students would reduce those disparities. The researchers found that students who had home computers for all five years of the period examined had better test scores overall than students who did not have home computers during this time. But the scores of students who reported getting a computer during this period showed a moderate decline in their first three years of home computer access. This effect was most pronounced for students who received free or reduced-price lunches and/or who were black.

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