November 2011

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION

EAS TEST
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: Matt Compton]
We've all heard tests of the Emergency Alert System. They occur all the time at the local level, but on Wednesday, at 2:00 ET, the federal government will conduct the first-ever nationwide evaluation of the system. The test will last about 30 seconds and be broadcast on television and radio stations across the country. It will allow emergency personnel to assess and improve our alerting capabilities in the event of a crisis.
benton.org/node/104985 | White House, The | FEMA video
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INTENRET/BROADBAND

WH PROMISES NETWORK NEUTRALITY VETO
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Maggie Fox]
The White House threatened to veto legislation that would overturn the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules aimed at creating a more “open” Internet. “The administration strongly opposes Senate passage of S.J. Res. 6, which would undermine a fundamental part of the nation’s open Internet and innovation strategy – an enforceable, effective, but flexible policy for keeping the Internet free and open,” the White House said in a statement. “Today more than ever, the open Internet is essential to job creation, economic growth, and global competitiveness.” “It would be ill-advised to threaten the very foundations of innovation in the Internet economy and the democratic spirit that has made the Internet a force for social progress around the world,” the White House said. “If the president is presented with S.J. Res. 6, which would not safeguard the free and open Internet, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the resolution.”
benton.org/node/105002 | National Journal | Politico | Washington Post | The Hill
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THE POLITICS OF REGULATING THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Scott Cleland]
[Commentary] The bizarre politics of network neutrality revolve around proponents’ desperate attempts to represent the Federal Communications Commission’s regulations as something that they are not. First, proponents falsely claim that the FCC is not regulating the Internet by defining “the Internet” differently than it is actually defined in law, by the Supreme Court or by the FCC previously. Second, proponents falsely claim that the FCC Open Internet Order only maintains the status quo – the order represents a radical shift from the status quo, current law and previous FCC precedent. Third, proponents claim that the order would create “certainty and predictability.” Does anyone really believe that imposing new controversial Internet regulations for the first time somehow creates “certainty and predictability?” Fourth, proponents claim the FCC is only preserving the “Open Internet.” When the internationally accepted definition of an “open” market has always meant free trade without government regulation, what kind of tortured logic can assert that a previously-unregulated Internet market that is now regulated by the FCC for the first time, somehow preserves openness? [Cleland is President of Precursor LLC a consultancy serving Fortune 500 clients]
benton.org/node/105014 | Forbes
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CLYBURN ON USF REFORM
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn]
Speaking at the Massachusetts Broadband Conference in Boston, Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn focused on the economic benefits of broadband, and how we can narrow the digital divide so more Americans can participate in attaining those benefits. She recapped the FCC’s recent decision to reform and modernize the Universal Service Fund. Commissioner Clyburn stressed that the FCC relies on state regulators identifying the areas that currently are unserved by broadband. In addition, the FCC needs the states’ help in ensuring that those providers who receive funding, meet their public interest obligations to build and serve.
benton.org/node/104994 | Federal Communications Commission
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INEXPENSIVE BROADBAND
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
To sign up some of the estimated 100 million Americans who are not online, the Federal Communications Commission and private providers are trying to make broadband Internet access both less expensive and more valuable. On Nov 8. The FCC will announce commitments from most of the big cable companies in the United States to supply access for $9.99 a month to a subset of low-income households. The low introductory price is meant to appeal to new customers who have not had broadband in the past. The FCC is billing the initiative as the biggest effort ever to help close the digital divide. Because no federal funds are being invested, the initiative relies in large part on the cooperation of private companies. One such company, Comcast, started offering $9.99 monthly broadband service to some low-income households this year after promising the FCC that it would do so when it acquired control of NBCUniversal. By enlisting the cable companies as well as a wide range of nonprofit groups that will educate eligible families about the low-cost access, “we can make a real dent in the broadband adoption gap,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
he government estimates that about one-third of American households, or 100 million people, do not have high-speed Internet access at home. Some of those homes simply do not have access to service, but most do and choose not to receive it, for reasons involving cost and perceived relevance to their lives. To address the first point, along with the low monthly price, a technology company will supply refurbished computers for low-income households for $150; Microsoft will provide software; and Morgan Stanley will help develop a microcredit program so that families can pay for those computers. To address the second point, job Web sites and education companies will offer content that will, in theory, make online access more valuable.
Eligibility will be limited to those households that have a child enrolled in the national school lunch program and that are not current or recent broadband subscribers. About 17.5 million children are enrolled in the school lunch program. That limitation is likely to disappoint advocates who would like more affordable access extended to all households.
benton.org/node/105038 | New York Times | LATimes | USAToday
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ONLINE SALES TAX BILL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Patrick Temple-West]
State governments would be able to collect online sales taxes under a bill due to be introduced in the Senate on Nov 9. Supporters of the online sales tax collection requirement include Wal-Mart Stores, Target and other "big box" retailers who argue they are at a disadvantage against online-only competitors. A bipartisan group of up to seven senators will introduce the bill, which is broader than similar legislation introduced in the Senate in July. The new bill will differ from a bill in the House of Representatives by affecting more small businesses under a lower exemption threshold, the sources said. State and local governments support the upcoming bill even more than earlier measures. Retailers have been exempted from collecting taxes on sales in states where they do not have a physical presence since a 1992 Supreme Court case -- before the advent of e-commerce. Backers of the new bill say state and local governments will lose $24 billion in uncollected sales taxes in 2012 without the power to tax Web transactions. States have worked for more than a decade to streamline rules and get congressional approval to collect the taxes.
benton.org/node/105031 | Reuters
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BROADBAND MAP STUDY
[SOURCE: The ILEC Advisor, AUTHOR: Cassandra Heyne]
Mentioning the National Broadband Map (NBM) is likely to bring up negative reactions in certain telecom circles, but few have gone beyond complaining to actually identifying the map’s specific data limitations and making recommendations for improving the map in future updates. Tony H. Grubesic from Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology gave a fascinating presentation at the September 23-25, 2011 Telecom Policy Research Conference about the inaccuracies of the map; and his paper, “The U.S. National Broadband Map: Data Limitations and Implications,” was released recently. Grubesic’s paper does not argue that the NBM is a complete failure; rather he believes that it is a good start and a definite improvement over previous methods of disseminating broadband data (like the Form 477 database). However, “there are a number of issues associated with data integrity, spatial uncertainty and accuracy within the NBM that need to be addressed. Grubesic’s paper covers several interesting—and alarming—aspects of the NBM. His analysis primarily looks at wireline broadband service for Columbus, Ohio and nearby suburb Dublin. First, he discusses the strengths and weaknesses of using Census blocks. He evaluates the differences in the map’s data between large (greater than 2 square miles) and small (less than 2 square miles) Census blocks. Data was collected differently for large and small blocks, although the map makes no specific differentiation between them. As a result, “One outstanding problem…is whether or not the reported presence of a broadband provider in a block is truly indicative of service availability.”
benton.org/node/105024 | ILEC Advisor, The | read the paper
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GOOGLE AND THE BANDWIDTH SQUEEZE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Robin Kwong]
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt noted that Taiwan already fared better than the US in terms of broadband penetration, the speed of its internet, and the percentage of its people with smartphones. Yet there was still one looming problem, he noted, and that was the rising cost of building more advanced telecommunications networks. This is an issue globally because the spread of smartphones and the rise of mobile computing has meant a surge in demand for data delivered over telecom networks, to the extent that it is threatening to exceed operators’ capacity to do so at high speeds. “The good news,” Schmidt told Douglas Hsu, chairman of Far Eastone, one of Taiwan’s biggest telecom operators, in front of an audience of hundreds, “is that your customers love you . . . the problem is that they love you too much.” Schmidt said that the capacity issue could be resolved in the short term by increased investment into existing telecom infrastructure, but “that would [only] buy us some time”. If data usage continues to increase at the current rate, beyond the five- to eight-year time frame “I don’t know exactly how we’ll solve that problem,” he said. Still, Schmidt argued that one solution was for governments around the world to do more to help network operators to roll out faster and better networks. “I think it is important that governments realize that we need to make it easier for telcos to get financing” for infrastructure investments.
Schmidt defended his company as a great innovator, contradicting an unflattering portrait drawn by Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Jobs before he died last month. Schmidt told reporters that he is still "very sad and recovering from the sense of loss" from Jobs' death Oct. 5.
benton.org/node/105035 | Financial Times | Associated Press
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

AT&T/T-MOBILE AND JOBS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
AT&T has claimed its acquisition of T-Mobile would create up to 96,000 jobs, and it has pledged not to eliminate thousands more — an argument it hopes will put political pressure on regulators still deciding the fate of the deal. Foes of the deal, including Sprint and public interest groups, say the deal will actually kill jobs — and they’re demanding that TV stations stop airing commercials in which AT&T says otherwise. The furor over the jobs numbers bubbled up this week with a flurry of blog posts, reports, press conferences and letters to the Federal communications Commission, which is weighing whether the deal is in the public interest. AT&T bases its job figures on a report by the Economic Policy Institute, which estimates that the deal — and the additional $8 billion AT&T says it will invest in its network to reach 97 percent of the U.S. population — will create between 55,000 and 96,000 jobs over seven years. AT&T has also promised to move 5,000 call center jobs back to the United States from overseas if the deal is approved, and said no one employed by AT&T and T-Mobile at the time of the deal would lose their jobs. AT&T also pledged to eliminate jobs at out-sourcing locations before reducing U.S.-based jobs. Sprint and public interest groups including Public Knowledge and Media Access Project say the 96,000 jobs claim is bogus. Sprint commissioned its own economic study showing the merger will actually result in “many thousands of lost jobs.” While AT&T says it will invest an additional $8 billion, the study points out that the company has told Wall Street that the merger will result in a $10 billion net reduction in reduced capital spending. And the study says AT&T has eliminated thousands of jobs during previous mergers, so there’s no reason to expect the company to behave differently this time. Labor economist John Neumark, who wrote the report, estimated that the merger would end up destroying between 34,000 and 60,000 jobs as a result of finding new “efficiencies” within the companies.
benton.org/node/105026 | Politico
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NEW JOBS CLAIM FROM CWA
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Roger Cheng]
AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile USA would create more than 100,000 jobs in the United States, the Communications Workers of America said, again putting its weight behind the deal. CWA said a new analysis has found that the deal, which would combine the second- and fourth-largest U.S. wireless carriers, would create an additional 96,000 jobs, alongside the 5,000 outsourced jobs AT&T has pledged to bring back. The CWA also lashed out at opponents of the deal, noting that their concerns over lost jobs stemmed from "sloppy research and the inability to distinguish between the change in the number of wireline and wireless jobs." The union was specifically targeting a study that was commissioned by Sprint Nextel, and it said the company's arguments are "misguided and misleading."
benton.org/node/105019 | C-Net|News.com | DSLReports
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GETTING PAST 4G LIMITS
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Mikael Ricknäs]
Using more spectrum and advanced antennas, cellular network vendors and operators plan to increase 4G mobile speeds as that technology rolls out over the next several years. But cellular technology has hit a fundamental wall in the physics of what the radio signals themselves can carry, so researchers are looking at other ways to increase speed and capacity of 4G networks, nearly all of which will use a standard called LTE. The keys to increasing speeds as researchers look at future networks are to shorten the distance between users and base stations and allowing them to automatically be reconfigured. Historically, a new mobile generation has included two basic components: a mobile standard and spectrum allocation, says Håkan Djuphamma , vice president of architecture and portfolio at radio equipment maker Ericsson. Because LTE is at the limit of what is physically possible, it now makes less sense to develop another standard from the ground up, Djuphammar says, as a new standard couldn't change laws of physics. Another issue that a new technology standard can't really address is that the allocation of spectrum has become increasingly fragmented because the airwaves are so crowded.
benton.org/node/104979 | IDG News Service
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WHY DID US CELLULAR PASS ON IPHONE
[SOURCE: Fierce, AUTHOR: Phil Goldstein]
U.S. Cellular's announcement last week that it said no to Apple's offer to sell the iPhone came as something of a shock. What carrier, at this point in time, says no to the iPhone, a phone that sold 4 million units in its first weekend of availability? U.S. Cellular's decision highlights something that may be hard for a lot of people in the industry--and for consumers at carriers that don't have the iPhone--to swallow: The iPhone is not right for every carrier. It might not be right for the brand, for the network and--perhaps most of all--it might not be the right fit financially. U.S. Cellular said no to the iPhone because the revenue and profit U.S. Cellular would generate from selling the iPhone likely wouldn't be enough to justify the subsidy the carrier would have to pay Apple (it's reported to be around $450 per device). The bottom line appears to be that U.S. Cellular weighed the costs and benefits of the iPhone and decided it wasn't worth it. The iPhone has certainly helped AT&T attract customers and has given Verizon a boost. Sprint clearly hopes it will do wonders for the company's postpaid subscriber numbers. But it's not for everyone.
benton.org/node/104975 | Fierce
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GPS COALITION APPEALS TO FCC
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Coalition to Save Our GPS has asked the Federal Communications Commission to rule that LightSquared can "never" use its upper 10 MHz of spectrum for a wholesale 4G wireless broadband network it plans to deliver using its satellite spectrum and a waiver from the FCC for terrestrial service. In a filing with the FCC, the coalition said the FCC should make the company "surrender" its use of that portion of the spectrum because "all of the evidence points to the fact that LightSquared will never be able to use the upper 10 MHz band for terrestrial operations" without interfering with critical GPS applications. "The FCC owes it to all concerned to immediately act to ensure that this cloud is removed and that LightSquared is put on clear notice that it will not be allowed to pursue future terrestrial use of the upper MSS band spectrum." Coalition members said that it has been working with LightSquared to try to find a solution in the lower band, but that the upper band should be off the table. They said it was not a case of letting the upper 10 MHz next to GPS lie fallow, but that it should be used for the satellite operations already using it, rather than the super high-powered terrestrial service. The coalition's members include dozens of GPS, shipping and travel companies and associations including TomTom, Garmin, UPS, FedX, the Air Transport Association, and the Association of American Railroads.
benton.org/node/104998 | Broadcasting&Cable
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REPUBLIC WIRELESS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Republic Wireless, the division of Bandwidth.com that offers customers an Android phone with unlimited voice, data and text for $19 a month, launches Nov 8. It’s a revolutionary price point in the industry but it’s also an attempt to make Wi-Fi calling easier and more user-friendly. If it works it could change the wireless game in ways that other mobile broadband upstarts have tried and failed to do. By default all calls, data and texts are sent via Wi-Fi networks when possible, and switch only to cellular if no Wi-Fi access is available. That’s one reason for the low price on the service, as most people can access an existing Wi-Fi network in their home or office for free. Brian Dally, the general manager of Republic says he expects at least 60 percent of the traffic to go over Wi-Fi networks.
benton.org/node/104987 | GigaOm
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PRIVACY

PUSH FOR PRIVACY REPORTS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AR) pressed the Department of Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission to release their final reports on consumer privacy protections. Both agencies released draft reports last December that identified gaps in current privacy protections, but neither has issued its final report. “Consumers are confused and concerned about how their information is collected and distributed, and firms collecting information on people are not bound to any common set of practices and are making them up as they go along," the senators wrote. "Congress and the public could use the guidance of the expert agencies in the form of final reports to help make sense of current practices and how to best protect innovation without sacrificing people’s privacy." In their letter the senators note the draft reports both concluded that industry self-regulation had failed to provide adequate privacy protections for consumers, suggesting the need for legislation. "And both reports presented what the expert staff at your agencies considered would constitute a better framework for addressing privacy issues in commerce. We leaned heavily on those frameworks to construct S.799, the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights," the letter states.
benton.org/node/105021 | Hill, The
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FTC SETTLES PRIVACY COMPLAINTS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
The Federal Trade Commission announced settlements of two privacy complaints, adding to a string of enforcement measures over the last year that focus on Internet privacy. The FTC said Skid-e-kids’, an operator of a social networking site for children, settled a complaint that it collected personal information about 5,600 young users without permission from parents, a violation of children’s online privacy laws. The consumer protection agency also announced a settlement with online advertiser ScanScout, which was charged with deceptively claiming that consumers could opt out of receiving targeted ads by changing their computer’s web browser settings to block cookies. But ScanScout used Flash cookies that users couldn’t block on their Web browsers. The site www.skidekids.com violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by allowing users under 13 to register for the site and provide personal information such as their date of birth, e-mail address, first and last name, and city of residence. According to federal law, companies must get parent’s permission before collecting information about minors. The FTC said the site’s operator, Jones O. Godwin, made deceptive claims in Skid-e-kids’ privacy policy about its data collection practices.
benton.org/node/105001 | Washington Post | FTC’s sidekicks release | FTC’s ScanScout release
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OWNERSHIP

B&N URGES MICROSOFT PROBE
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Susan Decker]
Barnes & Noble asked U.S. regulators to investigate whether Microsoft seeks to monopolize the mobile-device market by demanding patent royalties on electronics running on Google’s Android operating system. “Microsoft is embarking on a campaign of asserting trivial and outmoded patents against manufacturers of Android devices,” Barnes & Noble said in an Oct. 17 letter to Gene Kimmelman, the Justice Department’s chief counsel for competition policy. “Microsoft is attempting to raise its rivals’ costs in order to drive out competition and to deter innovation in mobile devices.” The world’s largest software maker accused Barnes & Noble of infringing five patents and filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, seeking to block imports of the Nook readers. Barnes & Noble made its letters to the Justice Department public in a filing with the commission.
benton.org/node/105020 | Bloomberg
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CONTENT

TEENS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
[SOURCE: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Amanda Lenhart]
As social media use has become pervasive in the lives of American teens, a new study finds that 69% of the teenagers who use social networking sites say their peers are mostly kind to one another on such sites. Still, 88% of these teens say they have witnessed people being mean and cruel to another person on the sites, and 15% report that they have been the target of mean or cruel behavior on social network sites. Adult social network users are less likely to say they witness or experience this type of behavior, but they still report that it is prevalent: 69% of the adults who use social networking sites say they have seen people be mean and cruel to others on those sites. Social media use is widespread among teens. Fully 95% of all teens ages 12-17 are now online and 80% of online teens are users of social media sites.
Teens of all ages and backgrounds are witnessing these mean behaviors online and are reacting in a variety of ways:
90% of teen social media users say they have ignored the mean behavior they have witnessed on a social network site.
80% say they have personally defended a victim of meanness and cruelty.
79% say they have told someone to stop their mean behavior on a social network site.
However, 21% of social media-using teens say they have personally joined in on the harassment of others on a social network site.
In addition to probing the behaviors that teens witness or experience on social network sites, this study also examines instances of bullying that happen online and offline. Among teens, 19% report having experienced bullying anywhere – in person, by text message, by phone call or online – in the last 12 months.
12% of all teens report being bullied in person in the last 12 months
9% of all teens say they were bullied by text message in the last 12 months
8% say they have experienced some type of online bullying – such as through email, a social network site or instant messaging
7% of teens say they’ve been bullied by voice calls over the phone.
benton.org/node/105023 | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project | Pew tech profile chart | ars technica | LA Times | San Francisco Chronicle
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GOOGLE+
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Farhad Manjoo]
[Commentary] Shortly after Google launched its new social network in June, many companies—including several online magazines, Slate among them—attempted to create “brand profiles” on the service. The rush was a testament to Google’s power to drive a flood of users to any new site it launches. Though Google+ was pretty rough around the edges, many observers called it a credible alternative to Facebook, so it made sense for companies to get in on the ground floor. Yet Google seemed completely surprised by this turn of events. A product manager posted a message discouraging businesses from creating Google+ profiles, and the company began shutting down the profiles posted by renegade firms. This prompted many creative workarounds—TechCrunch jokingly created a page for a fellow named Techathew Cruncherin—but Google was unmoved. (Cruncherin’s profile was shut down.) The episode illustrated a persistent and likely fatal problem for Google’s effort to take on Facebook: There’s nothing to do on Google+, and every time someone figures out a possible use for it, Google turns out the lights.
benton.org/node/105022 | Slate
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ADVERTISING/MARKETING

CLOSER LOOK AT 4A POLICY
[SOURCE: CommLawBlog, AUTHOR: Anne Goodwin Crump]
In late October, amid much congratulatory buzz, the American Association of Advertising Agencies (which sometimes refers to itself as the 4A’s) adopted a new “best practices” policy recommending that ad agencies adopt “non-discrimination vendor policies and procedures”. In the eyes of some – Commissioners Copps and McDowell, for two prominent examples – this move was just what the Commission had in mind back in 2007-2008, when it first announced that broadcasters would have to certify (in their renewal applications) that they (that would be the broadcasters) don’t discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity in their advertising contracts. The Commission’s action was designed to put a stop to, or at least curb, so-called “No Urban/No Spanish” dictates in ad time buys. As it turns out, the policy includes some significant qualifying language which could cause it to fall short, in practice, of what the FCC had in mind. The 4A’s policy appears to be a genuine, good faith effort to acknowledge and address the fact that the purchase of advertising, by its very nature, is a fundamentally discriminatory activity. Not “bad” discriminatory, but discriminatory in the sense that the advertiser has to decide where to spend his/her/its limited advertising dollars, and that decision-making process requires the drawing of lines. And when an advertiser draws lines, discrimination is occurring – discrimination based not on bias against race or ethnicity, but on the advertiser’s ability to achieve his/her/its particular commercial goals. With that in mind, perhaps it’s time to take another look at this whole issue, starting with the unarguable premise that all players in the advertising game are in it to make money. From the advertiser’s point of view, the goal is to sell as much of the advertiser’s product as possible. No non-discrimination policy will deter advertisers from attempting to meet that goal as efficiently as possible. Perhaps the 4A’s new policy, with its less-than-absolute language and its apparent acknowledgment of the priority of advertisers’ strategic interests, may be the best policy after all. Now if only the FCC would recognize the practical reality that not all “discrimination” – including some discrimination which might arguably be based on race, ethnicity, gender or other factors – is necessarily unlawful, inappropriate or even undesirable.
benton.org/node/104973 | CommLawBlog
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NO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLICKS AND SALES
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Gavin O'Malley]
In case there was any confusion, Nielsen reiterated this week that it has found virtually no relationship between clicks and brand metrics, or offline sales. Hammering home the point, it just released a case study on a campaign for an unnamed household product, which attempted to demonstrate the disconnect between marketers’ short- and long-term campaign goals. Targeting women 25-54, the secret consumer packaged goods advertiser was only able to reach its intended audience 27% of the time. Worse still, Nielsen found high frequency rates for older demographics, including both males and females. “The advertiser was understandably concerned about the percentage of audience reached, and the disproportionate number of impressions delivered to older demographics and males,” according to Nielsen. What went wrong? Perhaps its overreliance on -- or bad taste in -- ad networks, Nielsen suggested.
benton.org/node/105018 | MediaPost
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BBB BEHAVORIAL AD SELF-REGULATION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Better Business Bureau has announced the first six compliance agreements with online marketers under its Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program behavioral advertising self-regulatory regime, most dealing with the duration of their opt-out options. According to the BBB, each company has voluntarily modified its policies to comply with the principles. BBB started testing the opt-out mechanisms of advertisers across five different browsers, resulting inquiries and agreements from marketers FMX, Martini Media, PredictAd, QuinStreet, Reedge, and Veruta. FMX's opt-out option had a six-month expiration date, which the company agreed to change to five years, as the principles state. Same for Martini Media. PredictAd's one-month expiration from the date of the opt out request was also upgraded to the industry standard. QuinStreet's opt out policy was confusing, while Veruta's was insufficiently accessible due to a missing link.
benton.org/node/105028 | Broadcasting&Cable
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TELECOM

UNDERSTANDING ICC REFORM
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
Twelve days after the Federal Communications Commission voted to adopt an order to transition today’s voice-focused universal service plan to focus instead on universal broadband, the order has not yet been released to the public. While stakeholders contemplate what’s up with that, we thought we’d take the opportunity to provide a run-down on the access charge recovery mechanism outlined by the FCC at the time the order was adopted. That’s a task that was too complex to undertake as part of our initial reporting on this topic, but which we promised we would get to. Access charges, also known as inter-carrier compensation (ICC), are the per-minute fees that carriers pay to one another for terminating voice traffic to each other’s customers. In many rural markets, these charges tend to be proportionately higher than in urban/metro areas to help cover the high costs of building and maintaining communications networks in those rural areas. But the access charge system has become increasingly less viable as a means of recovering network costs as more and more customers opt to go wireless-only. In addition, high access charges in rural areas have given rise to a range of avoidance schemes— including the particularly alarming and increasingly used option of not terminating calls to those areas at all. For these reasons, the FCC’s Universal Service reform order calls for phasing out per-minute access charges over the next five to nine years and creating a recovery mechanism so that carriers can still collect at least part of the funding they would otherwise have obtained through the access charge system.
benton.org/node/105017 | telecompetitor
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911 REPORT
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission released its third annual report regarding states that have diverted any portion of the 911 fees they collect for purposes other than 911 programs. The Report to Congress on State Collection and Distribution of 911 and Enhanced 911 Fees and Charges was submitted to Congress on November 1, 2011. The Commission submits this report annually pursuant to the New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008 (NET 911 Act). The information contained in the report is based on information provided to the Commission by states and U.S. territories regarding their collection and expenditure of fees or charges to support 911 or Enhanced 911 (E911) services. This year's report identifies seven states that, in part, used some portion of 911 fees for non-911 purposes in 2010. This represents a decline in the number of states that reported diverting 911 fees for non-911 purposes in previous years: the FCC’s first annual report in 2009 identified 12 states that had diverted 911 funds, while the second annual report in 2010 identified 13 states that had diverted funds.
Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Rhode Island diverted 911 fees to their state’s general fund.
Virginia and West Virginia used the diverted fees for other public safety-related purposes. South Dakota could not provide expenditure information at this time.
In conjunction with release of this year’s report, the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau issued a Public Notice proposing to collect more detailed information from states and U.S. territories regarding their collection and use of 911 fees, including whether such fees are or can be used to support Next Generation 911 (NG911) initiatives. The Public Notice also seeks comment on whether the FCC should recommend potential legislative changes to Congress that would provide greater accountability in the collection and expenditure of 911 funds.
benton.org/node/104990 | Federal Communications Commission | read the report | State of Alabama | Public Notice seeking comment
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TELEVISION

POLITICAL ADS AND LOCAL TV MERGERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
A period of consolidation is under way in local television — and with it, a renewed debate about the implications of merger and acquisition activity on the industry. A torrent of deals began in September when the Sinclair Broadcast Group bought seven local stations from the Four Points Media Group for $200 million, and it continued in October when the E. W. Scripps Company bought nine stations from McGraw-Hill for $212 million. Last week, in the single biggest television station acquisition in four years, Sinclair bought eight stations owned by Freedom Communications for $385 million. Other groups of stations are believed to be on the market now, further signifying that the broadcast business is becoming more attractive to buyers after several painful years. Analysts say private equity firms that bought into the business years ago — like Cerberus Capital Management, which founded the holding company Four Points in 2007 — are ready to sell. “Political hot spots have become a key criteria in the selection of acquisition targeting,” said Steve Ridge, the president of the media strategy group at Frank N. Magid Associates, an adviser to local stations. In some medium-size markets — like Des Moines, where the first caucus will be held in January — “the infusion literally changes the balance sheet,” he said.
benton.org/node/105039 | New York Times
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NO MORE MUST-SEE TV
[SOURCE: The Wrap, AUTHOR: Kimberly Potts]
Warren Littlefield was NBC's entertainment chief during the network's long run as the home of Must See TV comedy on Thursday nights. But he doesn't think there will ever be another Must See TV night for his struggling former network -- or any of its rivals. For one thing, the TV landscape has become increasingly segmented. "I think there's a lot of outstanding television out there today," Littlefield told TheWrap. "It's just (that) the average household has 200 channel choices and it's spread around," he said, noting that "at the height of Must See TV, a third of the country was watching NBC on Thursday night. That's just never going to happen again." He said that he doesn't envy current NBC entertainment president Bob Greenblatt or his rivals, as the "competition for eyeballs" is only going to get tougher for broadcast networks. The former network exec said that it's an easier task for niche cable channels to bring audiences what they want.
benton.org/node/104981 | Wrap, The
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KIDS NOT PAYING FOR TV
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Ryan Lawler]
A weak economy is putting pressure on the pay television industry, as it struggles to get new users to sign up for cable, IPTV and satellite services. But the short-term issue around the affordability of cable is hiding a bigger trend of young people who are choosing not to pay for TV. The latest evidence of this comes from statements made by Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen, who’s trying to figure out how to keep pay TV subscribers that are increasingly watching over-the-top video. Ergen said: “Young people who move to an apartment or get a house for the first time don’t subscribe to any MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor) and they just… get their network programming from Hulu and they get Netflix… As an industry where people pay between $70 and $92 a month, that’s a lot of money to a young person today who is getting their first job when they can go out and watch Hulu for free and Netflix for $7.99. So it’s a threat.”
benton.org/node/104997 | GigaOm
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EDUCATION

LEARNING REGISTRY
[SOURCE: Department of Education, AUTHOR: Press release]
The US Departments of Education and Defense announced the launch of “Learning Registry,” an open source community and technology designed to improve the quality and availability of learning resources in education. The launch is an important milestone in the effort to more effectively share information about learning resources among a broad set of stakeholders in the education community. The project was made possible by a $2.6 million investment, with the Departments of Education and Defense contributing $1.3 million each to the effort. Rather than creating an alternative destination to existing websites, Learning Registry is a communication system that allows existing educational portals and online systems to publish, consume and share important information about learning resources with each other and the public, while respecting the privacy of individual users. Basic data about resources -- grade level, subject area and author -- can be shared through Learning Registry, as well as more complex data such as curricular standards alignment information. This platform for innovative data sharing also allows user activities to be shared anonymously, such as the types of educators who find a specific resource particularly useful (e.g., elementary teachers, or those focused on working with migrant students, etc.). The Learning Registry community and technology are intended to create opportunities for future innovation in areas that are just now starting to be explored. The project is an open, community -- supported activity -- any organization or individual can contribute to or use the technology. Learning Registry technology's open source license permits integration into other open projects, and in commercial applications. The project is a voluntary collaboration among many organizations that want to share more and new types of information about learning resources with one another and the public. Federal agencies participating in the Learning Registry community, in addition to U.S. Departments of Education and Defense, include National Archives and Records Administration, Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution. Private sector organizations collaborating on the project include PBS, National Science Digital Library, Agilix, Institute for Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), BetterLesson, Benetech, Booz Allen Hamilton, JISC UK, European Schoolnet, Achieve, and JES & Co. State and local governments involved in the project include the Florida Department of Education's CPALMS project and the California Department of Education's CTE Online and Brokers of Expertise projects supported by the Butte County Office of Education/CADRE in California.
benton.org/node/104980 | Department of Education
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JOURNALISM

CAN’S BAD STRETCH
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
While his support continued to hold in the polls, businessman and GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain was the focus of a much tougher narrative in the news media last week, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The week, October 31 through November 6, was also the third consecutive one in which negative assertions of Cain in the press outnumbered positive, a turn in his narrative that predated allegations of sexual harassment. Last week, with the news media focused on reports that the trade association Cain once ran compensated women who had alleged he had sexually harassed them, 39% percent of the statements about Cain across a broad spectrum of news media were negative, while 26% were positive (and 36% were neutral). That 13 point differential between negative and positive coverage is the worst week Cain has undergone in press coverage so far, looking across six months of coverage in some 11,500 news outlets, a sample that represents the bulk of what Americans see in the media. But the tone of the narrative had already begun to turn negative for Cain the week of October 17-23, as he began to see more media scrutiny of his 9-9-9 tax plan and other aspects of his positions while he gained in the polls. The new PEJ study, which updates an earlier October 17 report on the tone of campaign news coverage, also compares two samples of news media with each other-that broad spectrum of news media and an "elite" media sample of 47 outlets that are among the largest and most popular.
benton.org/node/105025 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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CONFIDENCE GAME
[SOURCE: Confidence Game, AUTHOR: Dean Starkman]
Industrial-age journalism has failed, we are told, and even if it hasn’t failed, it is over. Newspaper company stocks are trading for less than $1 a share. Great newsrooms have been cut down like so many sheaves of wheat. Where quasi-monopolies once reigned over whole metropolitan areas, we have conversation and communities, but also chaos and confusion. A vanguard of journalism thinkers steps forward to explain things, and we should be grateful that they are here. If they weren’t, we’d have to invent them. Someone has to help us figure this out. Most prominent are Jeff Jarvis, Clay Shirky, and Jay Rosen, whose ideas we’ll focus on here, along with Dan Gillmor, John Paton, and others. Together their ideas form what I will call the future-of-news (FON) consensus. According to this consensus, the future points toward a network-driven system of journalism in which news organizations will play a decreasingly important role. News won’t be collected and delivered in the traditional sense. It will be assembled, shared, and to an increasing degree, even gathered, by a sophisticated readership, one that is so active that the word “readership” will no longer apply. Let’s call it a user-ship or, better, a community. This is an interconnected world in which boundaries between storyteller and audience dissolve into a conversation between equal parties, the implication being that the conversation between reporter and reader was a hierarchical relationship, as opposed to, say, a simple division of labor. At its heart, the FON consensus is anti-institutional. It believes that old institutions must wither to make way for the networked future. “The hallmark of revolution is that the goals of the revolutionaries cannot be contained by the institutional structure of the existing society,” Shirky wrote in Here Comes Everybody, his 2008 popularization of network theory. “As a result, either the revolutionaries are put down, or some of those institutions are altered, replaced or destroyed.” If this vision of the future does not square with your particular news preferences, well, as they might say on Twitter, #youmaybeSOL. And let’s face it, in the debate over journalism’s future, the FON crowd has had the upper hand. The establishment is gloomy and old; the FON consensus is hopeful and young (or purports to represent youth). The establishment has no plan. The FON consensus says no plan is the plan. The establishment drones on about rules and standards; the FON thinkers talk about freedom and informality. FON says “cheap” and “free”; the establishment asks for your credit card number. FON talks about “networks,” “communities,” and “love”; the establishment mutters about “institutions,” like The New York Times or mental hospitals.
benton.org/node/104978 | Confidence Game
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

SUPREME COURT HEARS GPS CASE
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
The Supreme Court expressed deep reservations about police use of GPS technology to track criminal suspects without a warrant. But the justices appeared unsettled about how or whether to regulate GPS tracking, and whether they should look at other high-tech surveillance techniques in resolving this case. The court heard arguments in the Obama administration’s appeal of a court ruling that threw out a drug conspiracy conviction against Antoine Jones. FBI agents and local police did not have a valid search warrant when they installed a GPS device on Jones’ car and collected travel information. The justices were taken aback when the lawyer representing the government said police officers could install GPS devices on the justices’ cars and track their movements without a warrant.
benton.org/node/105000 | Associated Press
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PHONE TRACKING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Julia Angwin, Scott Thurm]
State and federal authorities follow the movements of thousands of Americans each year by secretly monitoring the location of their cellphones, often with little judicial oversight, in a practice facing legal challenges. Electronic tracking, used by police to investigate such crimes as drug dealing and murder, has become as routine as "looking for fingerprint evidence or DNA evidence," said Gregg Rossman, a prosecutor in Broward County (FL). The use of cellphone tracking by authorities is among the most common types of electronic surveillance, exceeding wiretaps and the use of GPS tracking, according to a survey of local, state and federal authorities by The Wall Street Journal. The widening practice also presents one of the biggest privacy questions in a generation: Do police need a search warrant to follow a person's minute-by-minute movements using satellite or cellphone technology?
benton.org/node/105036 | Wall Street Journal | WSJ survey
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HEALTH

SAFETY OF HEALTH RECORDS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
Poorly designed, hard-to-use computerized health records are a threat to patient safety, and an independent agency should be set up to investigate injuries and deaths linked to health information technology, according to a federal study. The report by the Institute of Medicine comes as the government is spending billions of dollars in incentive payments to encourage doctors and hospitals to adopt electronic health records. The Department of Health and Human Services requested the study, in response to concerns from some doctors and public health experts that the drive for digital records might bring a wave of technology-induced medical errors. The goal of moving from paper to computerized patient records is to improve patient care and curb health care costs. The federal report does not assert that the effort to move to electronic health records is misguided, but that safety considerations must be a crucial ingredient. The proposed investigative agency, the report said, should be modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board, which examines airline safety and accidents. The Institute of Medicine committee also called for tracking the safety performance of electronic health records in use. Results from studies done so far, the report said, are mixed. Success stories are offset by reports of patients harmed.
benton.org/node/105037 | New York Times
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Analysis

November 2011

Carriers desperately seeking higher mobile data prices

Silicon Valley fights to keep its diversity data secret

China Telecom, China Unicom Face Monopoly Probe

MTN Group to Spend $1 Billion on Fast 3G Wireless Stations

November 9, 2011 (This is only a test)

Political Ad Spending Spurs Local TV Mergers

FCC Push to Expand Net Access Gains Help

Panel Emphasizes Safety in Digitization of Health Records