January 2012

We need a political litmus test for tech and SOPA isn’t it

[Commentary] A growing problem as the web and technology becomes more central to how we share, communicate and work is that an average person doesn’t know how abstract laws can affect their lives and the media doesn’t expose how well (or poorly) politicians understand technology. As a result, certain companies with lobbyists are getting away molding our laws and policies in their favor and in the process they are going to hinder how Internet works and thrives.

Horror stories about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) abound, but what about your cell phone? Can a police officer search the contents of your phone during a traffic stop? Can a customs agent rifle through your laptop files as you return from a trip abroad? What about the history of your Google searches or checkins on Foursquare, can those be used against you in a court of law? These are not idle issues and instead of focusing on who is a socialist or paying attention solely to where someone stands on social issues such as abortion or gay marriage, the broader media, politicians and citizenry need to start paying attention to and thinking about tech policy.

So while debates over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will continue to rage as we head into an election year in the U.S. France, The U.K and other places, we should ask elected officials about how they view the Internet and how connectivity can change the world.

  • As the Internet is changing the skill sets demanded by employers, what does the federal/state/local government need to do to ensure our educational system keeps up? Are there subjects we need to add? Procedures we need to change? Skills our administrators and teachers need? Infrastructure that should be as important as a chalkboard is in classrooms?
  • As people store more information online, what do you see as the biggest risks for consumers, corporations and governments? What laws need to change?
  • Can you name an area of government where you see adding connectivity or developing a program that uses connectivity could improve service and/or save taxpayers money?
  • Our digital footprints are forever and we’re now leaving digital records of every casual search, photograph, thought and place we visit. When much of this information was in a physical form, to get at this data required the government to justify the need to invade someone’s privacy. Our current laws don’t always protect digital information in this same way. Should it?
  • Do you consider our current wireline broadband market competitive? How do we keep improving it? Is fiber to the home to as many places as possible a good goal for the government to pursue, recognizing it could cost taxpayers billions?

Senior Staff Changes at FCC

Federal Communications Commission Julius Genachowski announced today the appointment of Zachary Katz as Chief of Staff, as well as other senior staff changes. Katz will succeed Eddie Lazarus when he departs at the end of January.

Over the past three years, Katz has led a number of high-priority initiatives at the Commission, including the creation of the Connect America Fund, which brought sweeping reforms to the Universal Service Fund and Intercarrier Compensation programs. Katz has worked with technology companies at a strategy consulting and investment firm in Silicon Valley; developed an expertise on intellectual property, technology and media issues at a leading Los Angeles law firm; and worked in the White House.

In addition, Chairman Genachowski announced new roles and responsibilities for senior staff and named a new legal advisor:

  • Sherrese Smith, currently Senior Counsel and Legal Advisor, will become Chief Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor. In this role, Ms. Smith will manage the Commission’s overall policy agenda, and will be responsible for policy coordination among the Bureaus and Offices. The new role builds on her broad experience leading major policy initiatives for the Commission, including her role driving the process that resulted in historic new policies under which wireless companies will provide voice, text and data usage alerts for over 97 percent of U.S mobile phone consumers.
  • Josh Gottheimer will expand his responsibilities as Senior Counselor to the Chairman to focus on directing a new team at the Commission on public-private initiatives. This new role builds on Gottheimer’s leadership in the creation of several recent public-private partnerships, including Connect to Compete, a first-of-its-kind broadband adoption initiative with national digital literacy and low-cost broadband offerings; the FCC’s cybersecurity small business initiative, between government experts and private IT and security companies; a partnership with mobile carriers on the Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN), a new public safety emergency alerting system; and Jobs4America, an initiative that will bring more than 100,000 new and repatriated call center jobs to the U.S. over the next two years. Upcoming initiatives will harness the power of broadband to advance key national priorities such as jobs, health care, energy, public safety, and education.
  • Amy Levine, currently Special Counsel and Legal Advisor, will become Senior Counsel and Legal Advisor. Ms. Levine will continue to have particular responsibility for the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, and Office of Engineering and Technology. Her work includes supervising the agency’s spectrum auction policy and providing technical advice to Congress; managing wireless transaction reviews, including the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile and AT&T/Qualcomm transactions; and promoting the creation of a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network and deployment of E911 and NG911 technologies.
  • Michael Steffen will join the Chairman’s office as Legal Advisor to the Chairman with particular responsibility for wireline, international, and Internet issues, including universal service, open Internet, and satellite matters. Mr. Steffen currently serves as Special Counsel in the Office of General Counsel, where he has helped coordinate the Commission’s Universal Service Fund and Intercarrier Compensation reforms and other priority projects.

AT&T Says High-Speed Network Expansion Is Ahead of Target

AT&T said it is ahead of schedule with expanding its higher-speed network, with the system now available in cities including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The network, using LTE, technology, covers 74 million consumers, more than the 70 million the company had targeted, said John Stankey, AT&T’s head of business solutions. It is available in 26 cities and the rollout will be largely completed by the end of 2013, he said. AT&T trails larger rival Verizon Wireless, whose LTE network covers more than 200 million people. The carriers are seeking to increase speeds as consumers increasingly use mobile devices to browse the Web, watch video and stream music.

Blogging iPhone News

Bloggers last week shared news that iPad and iPhone shoppers accounted for 90% of all mobile purchases in December, according to a study by the ecommerce research firm, RichRelevance.

The study also found that these shoppers spent 19% more than shoppers using Android devices. The story ranked No.1 on blogs from December 26-30, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Bloggers also discussed another ecommerce story last week. The No. 2 subject was a piece arguing that online price comparison sites are dying.

Iran clamps down on Internet use

Iran is clamping down heavily on web users before parliamentary elections in March with draconian rules on cybercafes and preparations to launch a national Internet.

Tests for a countrywide network aimed at substituting services run through the world wide web have been carried out by Iran's ministry of information and communication technology, according to a newspaper report. The move has prompted fears among its online community that Iran intends to withdraw from the global Internet. The police this week imposed tighter regulations on Internet cafes. Cafe owners have been given a two-week ultimatum to adopt rules requiring them to check the identity cards of their customers before providing services. "Internet cafes are required to write down the forename, surname, name of the father, national identification number, postcode and telephone number of each customer," said an Iranian police statement, according to the news website Tabnak.

Gov Haley Barbour pushes for online sales tax in farewell speech

In his final speech to the Mississippi legislature, Gov. Haley Barbour (R) called for federal legislation to allow states to tax online purchases.

"It is time for the federal government to allow Mississippi and every other state to choose to enforce our laws and to collect these taxes," Gov Barbour said. "They are owed us today, and there is no longer any public policy reason to keep us from collecting." "Indeed, good public policy says it is past time that our bricks and mortar merchants on Main Street and in our shopping centers get a level playing field with Amazon and the Internet—that they get fair treatment for paying our taxes," said Gov Barbour, who served as chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 1990s. Gov Barbour said according to some estimates, the bill would allow Mississippi to collect an additional $300 million. "We could increase our spending on education or public safety or economic development or we could reduce the sales tax rate or the income tax rate. So this is not about spending," Gov Barbour said. "This is about being allowed to collect the money that is already owed to us and our authority to collect is being usurped by the federal government." Barbour plans to rejoin lobbying firm BGR Group, which he co-founded, after he leaves office.

Dodd says online piracy debate is ‘breakthrough’

Motion Picture Association of America CEO Chris Dodd said the heated debate over online piracy legislation in Congress is proof the tech industry recognizes the gravity of the nation’s online piracy problem.

“No one is arguing about whether we ought to deal with these rogue criminal foreign sites that steal American jobs and products,” Dodd said. “We all understand something needs to be done. We’re now arguing about how best to do this. And that’s a major breakthrough.” The battle over the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and its companion PROTECT IP in the Senate has seen the tech industry square off with the content community, which strongly supports both bills. Tech companies argue the bills would result in censorship and restrict innovation. Dodd told Bloomberg TV’s Emily Chang he believes the future of Internet commerce will be guided by mutual growth by both sectors.

Iowa Campaign Ads Show Power of Negativity in Republican Race

As Iowa Republicans took in the final appeals before caucus voting, one major lesson the candidates will take away: Going negative works.

An estimated $5.8 million was spent on television advertising in Iowa through Dec. 30, with $3.7 million financing negative ads, according to most recent data available from New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, a company that tracks advertising. Most of those negative ads were directed against one candidate: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who led national and Iowa opinion polls from mid-November to mid-December. Since Dec. 1, 45 percent of all ads airing in Iowa criticized Gingrich for shifting policy positions and advocacy for Freddie Mac, a government-backed mortgage-finance company caught up in the housing crisis, and other groups after resigning the House in 1999. The commercials were primarily financed by Rep Ron Paul (R-TX), Gov Rick Perry (R-TX) and an outside committee that backs Mitt Romney, who used his own campaign cash to run only commercials promoting himself.

Multi-gigabit Wi-Fi is here and 5 reasons it matters

Broadcom is expected to show off silicon that offers 1.3 gigabit per second Wi-Fi at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. The technology will help prepare home networks for the era of whole-home video streaming. To promote the chips, which will use the 802.11ac standard, Broadcom has hijacked the G used by cellular networks, calling the new standard 5G Wi-Fi.

Terminology aside, here’s why this latest iteration of Wi-Fi is so cool:

  1. It’s fast
  2. It’s designed for video
  3. It’s designed for multiple devices and concurrent streams
  4. It’s more power-efficient
  5. It goes the distance

Verizon's Deal With Big Cable Spells the Demise of the Telecom Act

[Commentary] Opening up communications markets was the purpose of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The Act was designed to help phone companies get into the pay-TV business, and cable companies get into the phone business. Yet after a series of regulatory blunders, this promise of increased competition and lower prices has become a distant memory. And the situation is only getting worse.

Just last month Verizon announced it had signed a $3.6 billion deal with its erstwhile competitors Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. In many ways, this announcement placed a capstone on the grave of the 1996 Telecom Act's biggest promise to America: genuine competition in communications service offerings. The telco-cable deal comes in two parts. The first lets Verizon buy wireless spectrum -- the public airwaves over which iPads, cellphones and radios receive data -- that these three cable companies teamed up to purchase from the Federal Communications Commission in 2006. The second part of the deal maps out terms by which the companies agree to stay out of each other's way. While the terms of these agreements remain undisclosed, it's been widely reported that the deal is an accord for the companies to sell one another's services to common customers in their (sometimes overlapping) service territories. This means Comcast subscribers hoping to see lower prices as a result of Verizon FiOS competition shouldn't hold their breath. It means smartphone owners who wanted more companies to enter the mobile data marketplace got coal for Christmas. It means the future where consumers are empowered to choose the pay-TV channels they want, and not the 500-plus channel bundles they are coerced into buying, could be strangled in its crib. Ultimately, it means the quality of U.S. communications networks will continue to trail that of other developed nations as less competition leads to less incentive to invest in infrastructure.

What's more, this deal directly contradicts the promise Congress made to the country when it passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act.