December 2011

With mobile devices taking over the home, the living room is likely the next battleground for telcos. In a recent 20-country study among 59 C-level executives, Accenture discovered that three quarters of telcos surveyed plan to launch technical support for multiple devices in the home. Customer relationships are cited as a major driver and telcos believe that they are best placed to offer this service. Consumers, however, disagree. They would certainly like one support organization, but almost 60 percent said they would generally ring their device provider for that support. Part of the reason for telcos focusing on this area is a belief among half of the sample that if they did not provide support, other companies - Internet or software companies, cable, satellite and media companies, or even retailers – will.

[Commentary] The United States of America was forged in resistance to collective reprisals—the punishment of many for the acts of few. In 1774, following the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed a series of laws—including the mandated closure of the port of Boston—meant to penalize the people of Massachusetts. These abuses of power, labeled the “Intolerable Acts,” catalyzed the American Revolution by making plain the oppression of the British crown. More than 300 years later, the U.S. Congress is considering bills that would lead to collective reprisals against online communities. The Senate’s PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House are supposed to address copyright infringement and counterfeiting. In reality, they are so technically impractical that they do little to address these problems. They would, however, undermine participatory democracy and human rights, which is why these bills have garnered near-universal condemnation from both human rights groups and technologists.

Microsoft will be able to throw a "kill switch" to disable or even remove an app from users' Windows 8 devices, the company revealed in documentation released earlier this week for its upcoming Windows Store.

Kill switches -- so called because a simple command can deactivate or delete an app -- are common in mobile app stores. Both Apple and Google can flip such a switch for apps distributed by the iOS App Store and Android Market, respectively. In the Windows Store terms of use, Microsoft made it clear that it can pull the kill switch at its discretion. "In cases where your security is at risk, or where we're required to do so for legal reasons, you may not be able to run apps or access content that you previously acquired or purchased a license for," said Microsoft in the Windows Store terms. "In cases where we remove a paid app from your Windows 8 Beta device not at your direction, we may refund to you the amount you paid for the license," Microsoft added. The company also noted that along with the app, it may also scrub data created by the app from a device.

[Commentary] Alas, poor us. The nation that invented the personal computer, television, the cellphone, the smart phone and — oh yes — the Internet, lags in creatively using all these things. In both land-line and mobile broadband, America is, at best, mediocre when measured on a variety of metrics such as penetration rates, Internet speeds and price.

Why? The simple answer is that other countries have policies that promote competition and innovation. In contrast, policies here have allowed a few dominant players that control the least interesting parts of the broadband landscape (the cables and the wireless spectrum) to dominate. In South Korea, consumers can get broadband service from a cable or telecom company. But they may also choose among myriad independent providers that are given access to the physical infrastructure. This competition keeps prices down and the quality of service high. If the U.S. were to take a similar tack, it would be a return to the way things once were. In the years of dial-up, phone and Internet service were two distinct things, with consumers getting multiple choices for the latter. A sweeping 1996 telecommunications law envisioned that state of affairs continuing after the move to broadband. But over time, cable and telecom companies worked the courts and Congress to make sure that this competitive world would never come to be. Today, in much of the country, consumers have little choice but to get their land-line service from a cable TV company, if they can get it at all. Wireless is a bit better. But the market has remained a near duopoly, with none of the smaller players emerging as a strong competitor to AT&T and Verizon. All this poses a problem. Being less connected than other countries in an age of information and technology could put the U.S. economy at a competitive disadvantage.

If nothing else, this much seems certain: Presidents Bush and Obama won't be the last to bemoan the state of American broadband.