April 2011

ISPs Team Up On Cybersecurity Proposal

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has joined with the chief telecom and wireless associations to propose a cybersecurity legislative framework, including collecting "better data" on problems, partnering with industry and consumer and business education.

In a letter to White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, with copies to key lawmakers, the trio presented a "consolidated" ISP position that included considering consolidating responsibility over federal networks in a single entity, providing incentives to the private sector in the form of tax breaks, liability protection and other benefits for government-industry partnerships. And they argue that the government needs to include industry experts from the beginning and not "wait until the last minute to bring industry into the planning cycle."

Ed tech stakeholders protest budget cuts

Educational technology stakeholders are speaking out against federal efforts to eliminate the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program by releasing state profiles and information showing how important the program is for ed-tech implementation.

On April 13, the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training (NCTET) released “Profiles in Innovation: How the Enhancing Education Through Technology Program is Improving Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools.” The profiles of 10 schools illustrate how instrumental EETT funds have been in helping to create successful educational technology programs.

“For kids in America today, technology isn't something separate from their day-to-day lives—it is their day-to-day lives,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who delivered remarks at the release of the NCTET report. “They wake up, they reach for their smart phone, and they start tweeting. They text their friends while they walk to school. They update their Facebook status on the bus.”

Sen Murray said educational technology is essential to improving students’ learning experiences in several ways:

Technology lets educators and students customize and personalize learning.
Ed tech gives teachers, principals, and policy makers important data and information they need to know what’s working and what must be improved.
Ed tech has a powerful way of engaging students in the classroom.

Everything You Need to Know About the Fight for TV Spectrum

A $33 billion fight is brewing — or maybe it’s only a $27.8 billion fight, depending on whose numbers we use.

The fight is nothing short of an entertainment battle royale, with TV on one side and the iPhone on the other. Actually, mobile phones, tablets and any other device we want to connect to the cellular network are on the iPhone side, but in a battle royale, it helps to have one protagonist and one antagonist. The issue is who will have access to the 133 MHz of spectrum currently used by broadcasters to deliver TV programming, and how that transfer of airwaves will take place if the broadcast industry can't stop Congress and the Federal Communications Commission from its spectrum land grab. It’s a contentious issue over a wonky subject, and so like all debates that require some technical knowledge, both sides are flat-out misleading people. So here are five questions (and answers) about this issue, for those who want to separate the truth from the spin.

What’s the Issue Again? The wireless industry has become a victim of its own success, and now people can't make calls. The industry argues it needs more spectrum to handle increased mobile traffic.
Are We Really Running out of Spectrum? Short answer: No.
Who Owns This Spectrum Anyway? Technically -- you do... well, the US government does. It granted broadcasters access to use this spectrum because it viewed broadcasting as a public good and theoretically could take it away at any point in time, but that’s not going to happen since broadcasters have built out a huge industry that many Americans still rely on for their entertainment and news.
What Is an Incentive Auction? The Federal Communications Commission's attempt to offer broadcasters a peace offering: basically an auction whereby the broadcasters who give up spectrum will get to share in the proceeds of the auction.
Won't This Take PBS Stations for Rural Viewers so People in Cities Can Play Angry Birds? Spectrum is geographically constrained. So having a lot of spectrum in New York means New York broadcasters will have to give up their airwaves, not the folks in Rochester. [Not that anyone's calling Rochester rural... Oh, Rochester... ]

ISPs Monitoring For Illegal Downloads Breaches Privacy, EU Official Says

A European Court of Justice official is finding against a verdict which said a Belgian ISP should filter out copyright-infringing content from its network.

In a case dating back to 2007, the ISP, Scarlet had been ordered to strip from its transmissions unauthorized transfers of music whose rights are held by the Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (SABAM). But Pedro Cruz Villalón, who, as an advocate-general to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), advises the continent’s highest court, has declared: “The installation of the filtering and blocking system is a restriction on the right to respect for the privacy of communications and the right to protection of personal data, both of which are rights protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights.” The UK government must take heed of Villalón’s advice since, out of the embers of its Digital Economy Act, it is working with British ISPs and content rightsholders to table proposals under which ISPs must block access to websites deemed to be hosting content without authorization. Villalón says: “A restriction on the rights and freedoms of Internet users ... would be permissible only if it were adopted on a national legal basis which was accessible, clear and predictable.”

Bamboom takes over-the-air TV over the top

Bamboom Labs wants to help people cut their cable cords by putting local TV broadcasts online with all the digital trimmings -- that is, the ability to watch live or recorded shows in high definition on any device with a browser, anywhere a broadband connection is available.

It's technologically ingenious, but I can't decide whether it's a service the market has been waiting for or a lawsuit waiting to happen. Or maybe it's a solution to a problem not many people are eager to solve. The New York-based startup is the brainchild of Chaitanya "Chet" Kanojia, former chief executive of Navic Networks, whose technology in set-top boxes enabled cable and broadcast networks to measure audience demographics and match advertisements to them in real time. His time at Navic taught him that at any given moment, about half of pay TV viewers were tuned in to local broadcast channels. That observation led him to believe that if he could get live broadcast signals to people reliably, with the ability to time-shift shows and watch them on any device, and with the social features of the Internet, they'd be more willing to abandon cable and satellite TV.

Bamboom is putting up multiple antennas -- thousands of antennas smaller than your thumb, with miniaturized receiving elements packed into high-density arrays. It then lets customers rent an antenna and the equipment needed to record and store shows online, then retransmit them through the Net in formats customized for the device they're using. Those range from full-size high-definition (720P) images for computers and Internet-connected TVs to credit-card-sized videos for smartphones.

This approach, the company's lawyers argue, doesn't violate the copyright owners' exclusive rights to duplicate, distribute or publicly perform their works, because Bamboom isn't doing the recording or retransmitting -- its customers are, using equipment supplied by Bamboom but controlled by the viewers. Nor do viewers share the copies they make, stream a program to more than one device at any time, or stream more than two shows (to separate devices) simultaneously.

Bloggers Follow Japan

Last week, bloggers focused on two subjects that have resonated in social media before. One, the recovery efforts in Japan, has been a major topic three out of the last four weeks. The other, the climate change debate, is a subject that galvanized bloggers a year ago, but has receded since.

From April 4-8, 28% of the news links on blogs were about the fallout-literally and figuratively-from the earthquake in Japan, making it the week's No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Most of the news continued to be discouraging as bloggers spotlighted reports about bodies found at the nuclear power plant and high radiation levels measured nearby. And there was plenty of skepticism about whether Japanese citizens were being told the truth about the catastrophe. But a report that Japan's Red Cross had raised $1 billion, but had yet to distribute any money to victims, drew particular interest and sparked a conversation about ways to find trustworthy charities. The bloggers' continued high level of interest in the earthquake stands as something of a contrast to the mainstream media, which were fixated on Beltway budget fights and devoted only 7% of their coverage to the continuing problems in Japan last week. The second-biggest story, at 25%, was global warming.

Rep Walden questions delay in publishing network neutrality rules

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) raised concern about why it seems to be taking a while for network neutrality regulations to get on the books after they were passed in December.

"I'm curious as to why it’s taken the FCC so long to file their network neutrality rules in the Federal Register. It’s not that I'm eager to have their rules proceed, but it does raise some questions," said Rep Walden, the chairman of the Communications subcommittee. He questioned whether the Federal Communications Commission is following the correct procedures and whether the agency is taking its time in order to derail a GOP effort to repeal the rules using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). "Is the delay because of a failure to meet all of the procedural requirements? Or is the delay a means to slow a repeal vote in the U.S. Senate or challenges in court?” he asked. An FCC spokesman said, "There is no delay. The order quite simply is going through the normal process for clearing Paperwork Reduction Act requirements before being published in the Federal Register.”

Genachowski to Walden: Network neutrality won't ban Koshernet

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski wrote to Rep Greg Walden (R-OR) to try to allay his concerns that the FCC's network neutrality regulations would ban Internet services that cater to religious groups. The example discussed by Chairman Genachowski and Rep Walden, the top Republican on the House Communications Subcommittee, was Koshernet. The company offers filtered Internet service for Jewish customers who do not want to see potentially inappropriate or offensive materials. Chairman Genachowski said the order does not ban such services. "The Order protects providers' ability to offer services such as Koshernet, and the freedom of consumers to subscribe to and use such services," he wrote.

Wanted: A Tax Code for the Digital Age

The US corporate tax code favors global companies over domestic ones, high-tech businesses over old-line manufacturers, and drugmakers over oil companies.

The U.S. federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent is the highest in the developed world. Still, the Treasury Department says the federal government bleeds $1.2 trillion a decade as battalions of lobbyists, accountants, and lawyers create and promote more ways to avoid taxes. The effect of the tax code on business behavior is clear when comparing Target and Amazon. Amazon, based in Seattle and founded in 1995, has made a series of moves to cut its tax bill since it became profitable in 2005. That year it established a European headquarters in Luxembourg, where the corporate income tax rate is 21 percent. The following year the company paid an effective tax rate of 49.6 percent as a result of selling assets to its Luxembourg subsidiary, according to its Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Since 2007, Amazon's effective tax rate has ranged from 27.9 percent to 21.9 percent. Executives at Amazon declined to be interviewed. By moving intangible assets such as patents and intellectual property to low-tax countries, Amazon could then pay its subsidiaries in those countries for the use of the assets, cutting its income in high-tax jurisdictions. The practice, known as transfer pricing, is a common strategy global companies employ to reduce taxes. Those techniques are not readily available to purely domestic firms.

FCC Promotes Robust, Affordable Broadband by Reducing Costs & Delays in Access to Infrastructure

On April 7, 2011, the Federal Communications Commission reformed its pole attachment rules to streamline access and reduce costs for attaching broadband lines and wireless antennas to utility poles across America -- a key component of broadband infrastructure.

Based on successful models in a number of states, the FCC's Pole Attachments Order balances the need for timely access to poles with the need to ensure the safety of workers and the reliability of our electric grid. The FCC also opened an inquiry into how the Commission can work with other government entities and the private sector to improve policies for access to other physical spaces where wired and wireless broadband can be deployed, including roadways and other rights of way, and locations for wireless facilities. This sets the stage for further acceleration of broadband deployment in the future. The cost of deploying broadband networks to consumers and businesses depends significantly on the time and expense service providers must incur to access poles and other essential infrastructure. As part of its strategy to expand access to robust, affordable broadband, the National Broadband Plan recommended that the FCC take steps to reduce the cost and time required for network providers to access utility poles and rights of way.

Benton

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