January 2012

Global broadband subscribers inches up to 600 million

Point Topic released new broadband subscription numbers; here are some highlights:

A total of 17.4 million broadband lines were added during Q3 2011.
China had 152.52 million subscribers at the end of Q3 2011 while the U.S. had 90.5 million.
At the end of Q3 there were a total of 54.4 million IPTV subscribers, up 6.06 percent over the previous quarter. France, China and USA are the top three IPTV regions. Russia is the fastest growing IPTV nation.
FTTx (including FTTH) technologies saw a sharp uptick during the quarter. FTTx alone added 19 million lines during the quarter. Broadband Forum says that now fiber technologies account for 16 percent of total broadband market share and will soon catch up to cable, which stands at 19.5 percent.

How the Internet of things could make the world safer and greener

We’re currently in the early stages of the Internet of Things, the much-buzzed-about phenomenon when all objects in the world will be equipped with sensors or connected in some way, enabling items to be catalogued and represented virtually on the web. Of course, the potential implications of this shift toward connectivity are numerous, particularly for the tech industry. But researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently discovered that the rise of the Internet of Things will have impacts that go far beyond Silicon Valley: It could pave the way to a safer, and more environmentally sustainable world.

FCC Updates California on Broadband Reform

Speaking at a roundtable discussion with the California Broadband Council, Federal Communications Commission Chief of Staff Zachary Katz said the FCC will focus on the build-out of high-speed networks in underserved areas and work to expand mobile broadband access throughout the US.

He said the FCC’s Connect America Fund (CAF) — a $4.5 billion annual program that launched in November 2011 to revamp the commission’s outdated universal service and intercarrier compensations systems — will devote $300 million to areas where networks aren’t being developed. The FCC is currently developing a finance model to begin the effort, but Katz said that the FCC envisions, in the long term, a competitive bidding system for a five-year commitment to building out an area. “A big part of this is the idea of targeting support in areas where you truly need it, where there isn’t another subsidized competitor: whether a cable company or another provider that can offer services,” he said.

White House hopes new website will help create jobs

The Obama Administration is building a new online presence to empower job creators with the information -- and financing -- they need to reverse the nation's unemployment figures. Business.USA.gov will be aimed at simplifying the ocean of economic-related information floating throughout the dot-gov domain, administration officials said.

With unemployment at 8.5 percent this election year, officials announced a government reorganization that would consolidate federal agencies that support business and trade. "This consolidated agency will have one website, one telephone number and one mission," Jeff Zients, Office of Management and Budget deputy director for management, said during a call with reporters. Business.USA.gov is mostly empty right now and officials are in the process of standing up a call center at 800-FED-INFO. The new site will lasso resources from imports and exports agencies, the Commerce Department's business divisions, and the Small Business Administration. Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel told Nextgov that a major advantage Business.USA.gov will have over the current mishmash of sites is it can be personalized to pull up the most productive data for every visitor. Retired military officers, for example, could set preferences that would push them information relevant to veteran-owned businesses. Site users will be asked for some basic information about their businesses, which the site will use to adapt the information they are presented with online, VanRoekel said.

Insourcing American Jobs: The Importance of “Smart” Manufacturing, Broadband, and IT

On January 11, President Barack Obama hosted a forum at the White House focused on the increasing number of companies choosing to “insource” jobs and make new investments in the United States. An important factor in this trend is the rising importance of information technology. Thanks to companies like Rockwell Automation, Smart Manufacturing is rapidly transforming the global competitive landscape by marrying industrial automation with information technology (IT) to optimize the efficiency, productivity, and output of plants and supply networks.

Federal body concludes LightSquared can't work with GPS

A key federal agency involved in testing the proposed LightSquared LTE 4G network has concluded that there is no practical way to solve interference between that network and GPS, possibly dealing a crippling blow to the startup carrier's hopes for a terrestrial mobile network.

In a memo released Jan 13, the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Executive Committee (PNT ExComm) said the nine federal agencies that make up the body had concluded unanimously that none of LightSquared's proposals would overcome significant interference with GPS (Global Positioning System). Both the original and modified proposals by LightSquared would cause harmful interference to many GPS receivers, the PNT ExComm chairmen said in the memo. The agency also said a Federal Aviation Administration analysis had concluded the network would be incompatible with aircraft safety systems. "Based upon this testing and analysis, there appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or years without significantly interfering with GPS. As a result, no additional testing is warranted at this time," the memo said.

What Congress Should Do Now To Advance Civil Rights In The Digital Age

[Commentary] The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council calls upon Congress to channel the civil rights spirit of the 1964-1968 Congress and “act rapidly and comprehensively to adopt spectrum auctions. By doing so, Congress will deliver the nation a civil rights victory of profound magnitude, at a time when the nation badly needs one.”

The solution is congressional approval of spectrum incentive auctions, which would enable broadcasters to tender their spectrum to the government in exchange for some of the cash generated when it is auctioned to wireless providers. MMTC and organizations as diverse as the National Urban League, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Communications Workers of America, the U.S. Telecom Association and the National Association of Broadcasters have endorsed spectrum incentive auctions. Congress should establish clear, comprehensive and unambiguous ground rules for:

who should be permitted to bid – including how to protect minority entrepreneurship;
how broadcasters should be fairly compensated for their spectrum; and
how to preserve diversity of voices as some broadcasters elect to relinquish spectrum.

A Vital Lifeline

[Commentary] Probably only telecom groupies realize the monumental efforts of the FCC over the past year to reform the $7 billion dollar Universal Service Fund (USF). The effort culminated in a voluminous order focused on the High Cost Fund that was adopted on November 18, 2011. And, while there will certainly be legal challenges to the USF order, it is no less an important step for the agency.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioners and staff should be proud of taking a stand and finally curtailing what has been one of the least efficient and certainly overly costly subsidy programs funded by taxpayers. The USF program has been a poster child for corporate welfare, and it has needed reform for decades. On the other hand, the FCC now has the last piece of overall USF reform to finalize: the portion of the fund that supports qualified Low Income persons. And while I have been a vociferous supporter of reforming universal service for years, I hope that the Commission doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. While many have criticized the Low Income Fund for “waste, fraud and abuse” – indeed, I agree all government programs should constantly improve their efficiencies and implement procedures to prevent fraud – the industry has stepped forward with numerous solutions which already have solved most of these criticisms, and more reforms can be implemented. But the bottom line is that low income Americans are still facing extremely high levels of unemployment and the longest recession since the Depression. The low income fund is just that: a fund only for low income persons; only for the poorest of the poor.

My hope for the New Year is that the FCC recognizes the important – indeed, the critical – role that the Lifeline program plays in helping to ensure communications access for the truly poor. Rather than capping the low income program, we should be ensuring that those in need have access to this vital lifeline.

Ending the FCC’s arbitrary indecency policies

[Commentary] Broadcasters have long been bound by government decency standards in exchange for the use of public airwaves. But for years, the Federal Communications Commission refrained from punishing the airing of the errant swear word, reserving its ire — and regulatory muscle — for instances where broadcasters flagrantly disregarded the standards and aired profanity or nudity between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when children were most likely to be watching. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Jan 11 in a case in which broadcasters and their allies rightly challenged the FCC’s indisputably confusing and arbitrary policies. (The Washington Post Co. owns broadcast stations that could be affected by any decision in this case.)

Viewers these days flip easily between uncensored and often provocative content on premium subscription channels and network programming bound by the government standards. The proliferation of these cable and satellite channels has irrevocably altered the TV landscape and, critics say, erased the legal and moral rationale for holding broadcast channels to a different standard. Some in the broadcast industry argue that the indecency standards amount to unconstitutional and discriminatory government censorship. We believe that this argument goes too far.

There is value in maintaining a safe harbor of relatively “clean” programming on the country’s broadcast stations. Although competition abounds and the number of households that rely on broadcast continues to dwindle, the networks remain enormous draws for the viewing public, no more so than during live sporting and entertainment events; these channels also carry indispensable local news. There is a legitimate policy debate to be had about whether the FCC should continue to monitor broadcasters for indecency violations, but this discussion is better left to the political and policy arenas and not to a court of law.

India Grapples With Web Censorship

India has long faced an uneasy tension between allowing free expression to its citizens and staunching sectarian violence among its people. This week, a judge in New Delhi raised eyebrows when he said, according to a widely cited report by the Press Trust of India, that “like China,” India might be compelled to block certain Web sites that contained obscene or offensive material. The comments of the judge, Suresh Kait, came in response to a lawsuit, filed by a private citizen in the capital, New Delhi. The suit demands that Internet companies screen content before it is posted on sites like Facebook, Google or Yahoo, that might offend the religious sentiments of Indians. A related criminal case accuses the companies — 21 in all — of violating an Indian law that applies to books, pamphlets and other material that is deemed to “deprave or corrupt.”

Benton

Search