June 2011

AT&T/Verizon pact alarms backhaul providers

Wireless isn't the only market the nation’s two largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon, stand to dominate if the AT&T/T-Mobile deal is approved, smaller competitors say.

Competition in the market for mobile backhaul services may also be threatened. Citing a new business arrangement between AT&T and Verizon, Lynn Refer, president and CEO of Telecom Transport Management, a small wireless backhaul provider, said that the future of the independent backhaul business may be at risk. Under the pact, Refer and others in the industry said, the two largest wireless companies have a reciprocal arrangement to provide infrastructure to connect each other’s wireless data traffic. Both AT&T and Verizon contended that they purchase backhaul from a number of providers.

Should Verizon Data Caps Scare Mobile Startups & Advertisers?

The age of limitless data on your smartphone may be coming to an end. At the same time, developers and publishers seem eager to include (data-heavy) video and other media in their mobile apps, content, and ads. As data caps proliferate, will these companies have to rethink their plans?

Inside the Anonymous Army of 'Hacktivist' Attackers

What once was just righteous rabble-rousing by Anonymous in the name of Internet freedom has mutated into more menacing attacks, including by a splinter group of Anonymous called LulzSec, which is alleged to have moved beyond paralyzing websites to breaking in to steal data.

The tumult over online agitators like Anonymous comes at a time when the world's computers are under unprecedented attack. Governments suspect each other of mounting cyber espionage and attacks on power grids and other infrastructure. Criminal gangs using sophisticated viruses cull credit-card and other sensitive data to steal from bank accounts. Now "hacktivists" who populate groups like Anonymous and LulzSec, mostly young males from their teens to early 30s, have also ignited increasing concern among computer experts over the security of corporate and government systems. Authorities in the U.K., Netherlands, Spain and Turkey have made more than 40 arrests of alleged Anonymous participants. In the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation has conducted sweeping searches as part of a continuing probe into various attacks. On June 22, U.K. police charged a 19-year-old believed to have ties with both Anonymous and LulzSec, a group whose name is a blend of "lulz," or laughs, and "security." Anonymous and LulzSec pose a problem for law enforcement partly because their membership and operations are difficult to pin down. They are amorphous entities with scant leadership structure or formal process for making decisions.

Time Warner Cable, Viacom Pause Fight

Viacom and Time Warner Cable have put their legal fight over beaming live TV channels to Apple iPads on pause, amid a broader battle between media companies and cable operators over the rights to distribute TV shows and movies on the Internet and on mobile devices.

The détente in litigation comes as the two sides attempt to negotiate a resolution in their dispute over whether Time Warner Cable has the right to put Viacom channels, including MTV and Comedy Central, on new devices. Both the media companies that own TV networks and cable operators that distribute them are rushing to adapt to the rise of Internet video as the popularity of Internet-video providers like Netflix Inc. grows. But many media companies have balked at giving their content to distributors without additional payments, slowing most efforts to make cable programming available online -- and opening the business to competitors. Time Warner Cable and Viacom filed dueling federal lawsuits against each other in April, just weeks after Time Warner Cable introduced an application that let its subscribers watch live TV from dozens of channels -- including Viacom channels like MTV and Comedy Central -- on iPads, as long as they remained within the subscriber's home.

Hulu puts itself up for sale

Hulu is putting itself up for sale.

The popular online television site, which has been the cause of much consternation in Hollywood, has retained investment banks Guggenheim Partners and Morgan Stanley to facilitate a potential sale. Prospective bidders have received notice that the sales process would begin in about two weeks. The news comes a day after it was revealed that Hulu had received an unsolicited acquisition offer and that Web portal Yahoo has expressed interest in potentially acquiring it. Yahoo has not yet made a formal bid, said a person with knowledge of the situation. By signing up the investment banks, however, Hulu is making clear that it is not just on the receiving end of interest. Rather, its owners -- News Corp., Walt Disney Co., NBCUniversal parent Comcast Corp. and Providence Equity -- are seeking to exit the company three years after it launched.

Targeted Ads Come of Age in Cannes as Handset Tracking Pinpoints Customers

Technology and advertising executives have been talking up the potential of ads on mobile handsets since before Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007. Now, they may finally be ready to use them.

At this week’s Cannes Lions media conference, Nike is featuring an application that uses the global positioning system to track a user’s run on iPhones and Facebook’s website. Friends send audible “cheers” by commenting on the runner’s page. Heineken is showing its ‘StarPlayer’ app that lets soccer fans interact in real time while watching the European Champions League matches. Functions to track consumers’ locations, social coupons such as those provided by Groupon, and the spread of large- screened smartphones may finally make mobile advertising a ubiquitous reality as early as this year. Wireless ad revenue worldwide will more than double in 2011 and increase by more than fivefold to $20.6 billion by 2015, according to a report by Gartner.

The State (and Future) of American Journalism

[Commentary] Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission released an exhaustive report on the current media landscape authored by former Washington Monthly editor Steven Waldman. There’s general agreement in the press that the report does a great job of explaining the problems journalism faces, and agreement that it doesn't offer much in the way of substantive solutions to those problems. Liberals see the latter as a fault. Conservatives see it as a virtue, and indeed the report has actually been praised on the right. Unrealistic expectations, however, have led both sides to miss what’s important in the recommendations. So, over the next few days we'll be posting sections of the report and providing a little additional analysis of this important issue. First up, a chapter on the media food chain and what recent disruptions to it might mean for the broader society.

Salon CEO to Take On News Job at Google

Richard Gingras, the chief executive of Salon Media Group, said he is leaving the online publisher to become global head of news products for Google.

His resignation is effective July 8, and he will start at Google July 11. In the meantime, Gingras said, he would work with its management to find a successor. "This was just an opportunity I couldn't turn down," said Gingras, who before joining Salon spent two years as a strategic adviser to Google's executive team. Gingras, 59 years old, has held the top post at Salon for the past two years. He had been spearheading talks to merge with or be acquired by a larger media company. The company abandoned those talks this spring in the wake of AOL Inc.'s $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post, as the board began to question whether Salon could fetch more than it was being offered.

CEA Seeks Online Signatories for Broadcast Spectrum Push

The Consumer Electronics Association wants to collect online signatures on a Declaration of Innovation that borrows language from the Declaration of Independence to push for reclaiming spectrum from broadcasters. According to text of a speech CEA President Gary Shapiro plans to deliver at CE Week in New York June 23, CEA is trying to get signatures of support, tying it to the upcoming July 4 holiday. It also puts in a plug for innovation, immigration, trade and other themes of Shapiro's recently published book.

Telstra to Get $11.6 Billion Compensation for Australian National Fiber Network Plan

Telstra, Australia’s biggest phone company, agreed to hand over its fixed-line assets in exchange for A$11 billion ($11.6 billion) to clear the way for the rollout of a government-owned high speed Internet network.

NBN Co., the government-owned national broadband network builder, will lease access to carriers on the fiber system to be completed in 2018 with Telstra to receive its compensation over three decades, the Melbourne-based carrier said. Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (ST), owner of second-ranked Optus, will get about A$800 million under a similar agreement. Telstra, which also rents its network to other carriers, will give up its slower copper-wire assets to focus on selling voice and Internet services over the NBN system. The agreement, signed 21 months after the government first demanded Telstra be broken up, enables Prime Minister Julia Gillard to build the A$36 billion network that helped her win the support of independent lawmakers in last year’s election.

Benton

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