April 2011

Facebook wants to redevelop the former Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park and two adjacent parcels to eventually accommodate 9,400 employees, according to city documents.

The fast-growing social networking company, which currently employs about 1,400 people in Palo Alto, expects to reach full capacity at the Sun campus and nearby buildings on Constitution Drive by 2017. "We're just preparing for the future," Larry Yu, Facebook's director of corporate communications, said. In addition to acquiring the 57-acre Sun campus east of Bayfront Expressway, Facebook purchased 22 acres at 312 and 314 Constitution Drive, which it is calling the "Facebook West Campus." The company plans to demolish the buildings on Constitution and construct five separate ones for about 2,800 employees -- in addition to the 6,600 employees expected at the Sun site that will be known as the "East Campus," according to Menlo Park's public notice of the project's impending environmental study. Facebook is already trying to head off one problem at the pass. When Sun received permission to develop the campus, it was prohibited from locating more than 3,600 employees there because of traffic concerns. Justin Murphy, development services manager for Menlo Park, said the company plans to use buses and shuttles to transport a significant number of workers.

[Commentary] Some will argue for AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile because it has the potential to unify compatible spectrum in an open, fair way that encourages manufacturer participation and shifts control from operators to consumers. But the success of this plan hinges on a flawed foundation, which is that Americans are willing to pay $500 for their phones as a matter of course. They’re not. American carriers have trained us far too well into believing that a cheap phone should be free, and an awesome phone should generally be $150 to $250. So who blinks first? Carriers aren't about to remove subsidies from the devices they sell directly, of course — contracts and cheap hardware are key to keeping churn low from quarter to quarter. Manufacturers sporadically try to rage against the machine by offering their own pure, clean devices outside the carrier ecosystem, and they do so with very little success.

AT&T Senior Vice President Bob Quinn believes the recent Federal Communications Commission decision on mobile data roaming will "discourage investment and build out of broadband facilities." With U-Verse construction winding down, the only AT&T investment in broadband left to cut is the LTE network.

CEO Randall Stephenson has promised 80% LTE coverage in 2013 and 95% afterwards as encouragement for the T-Mobile deal. Even indirectly suggesting they might pull back on the buildout is risky given the likely struggle to get the T-Mobile approved. Stephenson's approach to their remaining broadband buildout is "about as fast as we can go." 80% coverage will require upgrading 10,000 or more cell sites, a big job even for a company the size of AT&T. It's easy to understand why he's pushing hard. AT&T is bleeding customers to Verizon since they lost iPhone exclusivity. They are a year behind on the LTE build. When the LTE iPhone comes out later this year, Verizon will have LTE in more than half the country and AT&T will be barely beginning. Verizon is going to 92% in 2013 and "all our territory" (95-99% of the U.S.) by a few years later. AT&T says its goal is 95% in 2016 or so. AT&T has already cut nearly all other "elective" capital spending on broadband.

The heads of PBS, NPR, Minnesota-based American Public Media and others gathered in Washington to discuss the most serious threats in Congress to their federal funding in 44 years.

Public Broadcasting Service anchor Jim Lehrer told public broadcasters that they must continue to defend their federal funding and raise more money to meet an increasing need for serious journalism as commercial newspapers and broadcasters see declines. Lehrer said public media needs to produce more local news and serious journalism because other channels are being used to "tease and to entertain and only to inform across the surface." "I have a good source on why this is a problem. The source is Thomas Jefferson," Lehrer said. "Thomas Jefferson told the folks back when this country was founded that the only way this democratic society we just created is going to work is if there is an informed electorate." Interim NPR chief executive Joyce Slocum said the Washington-based public radio network has rebounded from the controversy over its management. "Our journalism has not missed a beat," she said. Executive Editor Dick Meyer said NPR is working on a project to place two reporters in every state capital across the country through its Impact of Government initiative. "It's an area where commercial media is retreating with Custer-like force," Meyer said. Some PBS stations also are starting new local news programs, including WNET-TV in New York, which plans to launch its MetroFocus program online this summer and eventually on television.