April 20, 2012 (Clear Channel’s Company Culture Of Hate Profiteering)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012
TODAY: Broadcasting Board of Governors; Political Ads and the Future of Public Interest Obligations; and Open Source Hardware Comes to the Nation's Capital http://benton.org/calendar/2012-04-20/
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
Sen. Warner calls for inventory of nation’s radio spectrum
Verizon CFO Denies Wireless Carrier Has 'Hoarded' Spectrum
Satellite Export Controls Should Be Eased, US Says
NY attorney general sues Sprint for $300M [links to web]
FCC Launches “Bill Shock” Website [links to web]
LightSquared Makes Inmarsat Payment to Win Time for Talks [links to web]
CONTENT
Who dropped the dime on the Apple e-book five? [links to web]
Instagram, Facebook Lead Online - research [links to web]
Survey: social media evidence soaring in court cases [links to web]
CW Network's Rush to Web Rankles Some TV Stations [links to web]
More companies quit blogging, go with Facebook instead [links to web]
TELEVISION/RADIO
Clear Channel’s Company Culture Of Hate Profiteering
TV Dramas Account for Most Primetime Viewing, Timeshifting and Ad Spend
Two black men accuse ABC of racial bias over 'The Bachelor' [links to web]
CW Network's Rush to Web Rankles Some TV Stations [links to web]
ACA: It's Clear Analog-Only Systems Can't Retransmit TV Stations In HD [links to web]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
FCC Will Allow Text-to-Speech Emergency Alerts
OWNERSHIP
Google engineer Lindholm: 'I had little involvement in Android'
CYBERSECURITY
House Homeland Security Panel Fights to Stay in Cybersecurity Debate
Not Another SOPA - analysis
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Who’s Fastest? Google Measures Web Speeds Around the World
HEALTH
Top hospitals use more advanced IT: report [links to web]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
When Ads Blur the Truth, Will Coverage Fight Back?
Broadcast Groups Pitch Chairman On Political File Compromise
Political ads and Big Bird too - editorial
Congressional campaign committees stake out TV time in busy election year
Want help campaigning? There’s an app for that
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
FCC Will Turn Over More LightSquared Documents
EPIC demands full FCC report on Google Street View
Lawmakers Want Government Using Data Like Google, Facebook [links to web]
A Military and Intelligence Clash Over Spy Satellites [links to web]
LOBBYING
Rep Lofgren grills copyright chief over meeting with movie lawyers on SOPA
Business Software Alliance reorganizes to focus on lobbying, anti-piracy efforts [links to web]
‘We the People’ petition site the newest tool in K Street lobbying repertoire
POLICYMAKERS
Sen. Grassley facing pressure from GOP to lift holds on Obama nominees
LABOR
Apple, Google, others to face antitrust suit over staff poaching
COMPANY NEWS
Verizon Sees Sales, Profits Climb From Year-Ago Levels on Wireless Growth
AT&T Aims to Avoid Opening Can of Worms as It Opens Up Its Network
Tomorrow’s Privacy Struggles, On Display Today [links to web]
Dish Network aims for smarter phones, simpler bills
Google’s Creative Destruction [links to web]
Facebook: We Have No Plans for an Ad Network [links to web]
Clearwire Tumbles After Verizon Announces Spectrum Sale [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Measuring the Impact of Innovations in Public IT Infrastructure on the Standard of Living in OECD Economies
UK parliament aims to publish hacking report on May 1
Pitcairn Island to double bandwidth to 512kbps among 48 people [links to web]
Apple on Australian 4G: You’re Branding it Wrong
Brussels approves $2.2 billion Sony-EMI deal [links to web]
World's next technology leader will be US, not China – if America can shape up - op-ed [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
WARNER WANTS SPECTRUM INVENTORY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]
The United States needs an inventory of the nation's radio spectrum in order to help speed development of next-generation wireless networks, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said. Sen Warner said many government agencies use only a portion of the spectrum they've been allocated over the years, leaving many bands "semi-fallow" and therefore inefficiently used. This problem is compounded because often military and intelligence sectors are especially reluctant to show "non-use," he explained. Public safety users helping to build a new nationwide communications network should also give back the portions of radio spectrum that they used prior to joining the new network, he said. This would be a fair trade, he suggested. Sen Warner said the spectrum auctions TV stations can use to sell some of their unused capacity, which were authorized in last year's tax cut extension, are a good start when it comes to figuring out ways to clear unused or underutilized portions.
benton.org/node/120569 | Hill, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
VERIZON DENIES SPECTRUM HOARDING
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
Verizon Wireless has been "very, very good stewards of spectrum," Verizon Communications chief financial officer Fran Shammo said, responding to accusations by public interest groups that the carrier has been hoarding valuable wireless spectrum since 2008. "We are responsible and efficient owners of the spectrum, and as a company policy we would not hoard the spectrum," he said. The spectrum Verizon seeks to buy from cable companies is very efficient from an "overbuild perspective" on the capacity of the Verizon Wireless LTE platform, particularly in the East, Shammo said. That means the lower 700 MHz A and B licenses do not "fit as nicely into our spectrum holdings as it may for others... so we think it is the prudent thing to do to sell these licenses off to the rest of the industry for the benefit of their customers and to enhance their ability to build out 4G LTE," he said. Shammo added, "We did not just wake up yesterday and decide we were going to sell spectrum because we ran into a roadblock at the FCC." Verizon is "still very confident" that the AWS deals will receive approval from the FCC and Department of Justice, he said. The auction of the 700 MHz A and B blocks is contingent on the approval of the AWS spectrum sale "because obviously, we would need this spectrum if that is not approved," Shammo said.
benton.org/node/120597 | Multichannel News | AdWeek
Recommend this Headline
back to top
SATELLITE EXPORT CONTROL
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Tony Capaccio]
Satellite export controls should be relaxed by Congress so that US companies can better compete globally for sales of communications and remote-sensing equipment, a report by the Pentagon and State Department found. “Limited national security benefits” are provided by a 1998 law that applies more stringent controls on satellites than on other equipment that may have both civilian and military uses, the departments said in the report requested by Congress and released today to lawmakers. The report is “a key step toward relieving U.S. commercial satellite system, component, and part manufacturers of unnecessary controls,” said John Ordway, an export-licensing attorney with Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe LLP in Washington.
benton.org/node/120563 | Bloomberg
Recommend this Headline
back to top
TELEVISION/RADIO
CULTURE OF HATE
[SOURCE: National Hispanic Media Coalition, AUTHOR: ]
The United States is more diverse than ever before – but that diversity is not reflected on our radio dials. Instead, corporate giant Clear Channel, which owns 850 radio stations in 150 cities across the country, has a full lineup of hate pundits. These pundits regularly spread vitriol against people of color, women, gays and lesbians, the poor, and others. Clear Channel is the largest radio conglomerate in the U.S. It has grown too big to fail. Even in the face of massive outcry and successful advertiser boycotts, hate pundits like Rush Limbaugh, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou remain on air. Why? Rather than selling advertising time by station, Clear Channel regularly sells placements for multiple stations at the same time. This gives Clear Channel greater bargaining power and reduces its competition. When responsible companies call Clear Channel to explicitly request that their ads not air on hate programs, they are just shifted to a different time period or station. This negates the ability of the free market to dictate content. In other words, because Clear Channel owns so many stations, it can ignore community outcry over its programming, while still continuing to profit. And its CEO, John Hogan, is standing behind this hate speech profit model.
benton.org/node/120587 | National Hispanic Media Coalition
Recommend this Headline
back to top
NIELSEN TV REPORT
[SOURCE: Nielsen, AUTHOR: ]
Television viewers in the U.S. have more choices than ever, both in terms of how and where they tune in and in what they watch. In the first of a three-part insight series, Nielsen looked at viewership and advertising across five traditional primetime genres and found that dramas account for the largest share of viewership, timeshifting and ad spend, while reality programs claimed the largest share of product placements. The Advertising & Audiences Report also found that, when watching at home, 43 percent of timeshifted primetime broadcast programming is played back the same day it was recorded and 88 percent is played back within three days. Other primetime TV findings include:
During primetime, the share of viewership devoted to sitcoms has risen steadily over the past three years.
$72 billion was spent on TV advertising in the U.S. in 2011, with $14 billion allocated during these five traditional primetime genres.
More than half of all broadcast TV product placements during primetime took place on reality programs (4,664).
benton.org/node/120591 | Nielsen | read the report | B&C
Recommend this Headline
back to top
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
FCC ALLOWS TEXT-T-SPEECH ALERTS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Federal Communications Commission has decided to defer, rather than prohibit, converting emergency alerts from text to speech, a prohibition in its initial Emergency Alert System (EAS) order. The FCC amended its Jan. 10 order on specifying how EAS participants, which include broadcasters and cable operators, must receive Common Alert Protocol (CAP) messages. The original order had not allowed text-to-speech conversions of those CAP messages because, for one reason, the accuracy and reliability had not been established, said the FCC. It also wasn't convinced the obligation should be on the receiver, rather than the transmitter of the message to do that conversion. But FEMA, for one, objected, saying that by prohibiting TTS it would limit its development.
benton.org/node/120599 | Broadcasting&Cable | FCC
Recommend this Headline
back to top
OWNERSHIP
LINDHOLM TESTIMONY
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Matt Macari]
As anticipated, the April 19 schedule in the copyright phase of the Oracle v. Google infringement case included testimony from Tim Lindholm. Lindholm joined Google as a software engineer in 2005 and has gained some notoriety as the author of the 2010 email allegedly attempting to convince Android chief Andy Rubin that officially licensing Java was the best solution for Android:
"What we've actually been asked to do (by Larry and Sergei) is to investigate what technical alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome. We've been over a bunch of these, and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need."
Oracle started out with the standard questions on Lindholm's background — namely, his history at Sun Microsystems working with the Java language. A little research of our own shows that Lindholm worked for Sun Microsystems for seven years, prior to joining Google, where he apparently contributed to the creation of the Java programming language, including the Java Micro Edition adapted to run on mobile devices.
benton.org/node/120590 | Verge, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
CYBERSECURITY
CYBERSECURITY DEBATE
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Josh Smith]
With the House poised to consider a range of cybersecurity bills, a markup in the House Homeland Security Committee clearly showed that the panel's leaders fear they are just along for the ride. Sponsors of the Homeland Security’s contribution to the cybersecurity debate, the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act of 2011, or the PrECISE Act, spent nearly five hours at the April 18 markup walking back proposals included in earlier versions of the bill. The bill was the product of more than a year of work and it cleared the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies Subcommittee by a voice vote in February. On April 17, however, lead sponsor Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) introduced a substitute that significantly reduced the scope of the bill. The panel approved the amended bill 16-13. As approved by the subcommittee, the PrECISE Act would have encouraged information sharing among businesses and government; give Homeland Security officials more oversight over some critical infrastructure networks; and provide for stricter privacy protections. But in response to pressure from House Republican leadership and members of the House Intelligence Committee, which has its own information-sharing bill, Rep Lungren dropped many of the critical infrastructure and DHS provisions. If those provisions hadn’t been trimmed, a visibly resigned Rep Lungren told disgruntled committee members, the bill would never make it to the floor and the Homeland Security Committee would have been sidelined. “That’s a fact of life,” he said.
benton.org/node/120528 | National Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top
NOT ANOTHER SOPA
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Will Oremus]
[Commentary] Three months ago, the Stop Online Piracy Act was killed by righteous, indignant Internet activists who found the legislation so menacing that they blacked out their sites in protest. Now, the story goes, SOPA is back, like a movie villain rising from the grave for a bloody sequel. CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, has been dubbed “SOPA 2.0” by tech blogs, who want you to believe it’s the same devil in a new disguise. They’re wrong. CISPA is a different devil altogether. And while it’s unlikely to provoke anywhere near the same level of outcry as SOPA, it has the potential to be insidious in its own right. The difference is that, if CISPA is abused, it won’t be the tech firms that get hurt. It will be you. SOPA was primarily about intellectual property. The bill would have given digital rights-holders -- record companies and film studios, for instance -- sweeping power to go after websites that appeared to “enable or facilitate” copyright infringement. Those that didn’t comply could be blacklisted. It’s easy to see why companies like Google and Facebook adamantly opposed it. It was a broadside against the culture of free sharing that underpins their business models. CISPA, in contrast, is about cybersecurity, not your bootleg copy of Avatar. Its main goal is not to protect copyright-holders’ profits, but to protect websites and the government from hackers. Early incarnations of the bill set SOPA opponents on edge with a line about protecting intellectual property. But its bipartisan sponsors, Reps. Mike Rogers of Michigan and Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, wisely edited CISPA last week to remove that mention. It should now be clear to all but the most paranoid that CISPA isn’t SOPA 2.0. At this point, to label it as such is to both miss the bill’s legitimate aim and to overlook the bill’s real potential harms.
benton.org/node/120518 | Slate
Recommend this Headline
back to top
INTERNET/BROADBAND
GOOGLE MEASURE NET SPEED
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Olga Kharif]
Earlier this month, Google measured Web page load speeds on desktop computers and mobile devices in 50 countries with the fastest Internet connections. When it came to the fastest average time for loading Web pages on a desktop computer, the Slovak Republic was tops at a speedy 3.3 seconds, Google said. Meanwhile, South Korea was the zippiest in mobile with an average loading time of 4.8 seconds. So, who were the laggards? The slowest was Indonesia, which had an average Web page loading speed on desktops of 20.3 seconds. In mobile, the United Arab Emirates had an average Web page loading speed of 26.7 seconds, putting it in last place. The US, meanwhile, was somewhere in the middle. On the desktop, it took an average of 5.7 seconds. On a mobile device it took 9.2 seconds to load, which for many folks here, feels like an eternity.
benton.org/node/120562 | Bloomberg
Recommend this Headline
back to top
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
ADS VS TRUTH
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Andria Krewson]
With the 2012 campaign coverage beginning in earnest, journalistic fact-checking efforts are getting underway in swing state North Carolina. This week, The News & Observer of Raleigh announced the launch of a new fact-check blog with an early focus on state races. And the other big McClatchy paper, The Charlotte Observer, paired its report on Mitt Romney’s recent visit to Charlotte with a fact-check box assessing the presidential candidates’ competing claims on job figures. These are welcome efforts, and a good start on the tough work that lies ahead. Another recent episode, unfortunately, offers an example of news coverage that fails to sufficiently sort out a war of words between rival campaigns -- and as a result, leaves voters in the dark.
benton.org/node/120515 | Columbia Journalism Review
Recommend this Headline
back to top
POLITICAL AD FILE COMPROMISE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
An attorney and some top broadcast group execs met with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Media Bureau staffers earlier this week to make a last-ditch pitch for their proposal to put aggregated political ad totals from candidates online, rather than individual ad buys. The proposal was pitched earlier this year by Barrington Broadcasting Co., Belo Corp, Cox Media Group, Dispatch Broadcast Group, The E.W. Scripps Company, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television, Meredith Broadcasting Group, Post-Newsweek, Stations, Raycom Media and Schurz Communications, as a win-win alternative to the FCC's proposal of putting individual spot prices online, which broadcasters strongly oppose. Attorney Jonathan Blake, representing the broadcasters, told the commission other broadcast groups had signaled they would be willing to support the compromise proposal.
benton.org/node/120531 | Broadcasting&Cable
Recommend this Headline
back to top
POLITICAL ADS ON PUBLIC TV
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Once upon a time there was something called "educational television," which harnessed the technological marvel of a new medium to provide children and adults with edifying programming uncorrupted by advertising. Today, public radio and television continue to devote more attention to educational programs than commercial broadcasters do, but they also seek to entertain viewers of all ages with features — such as British sitcoms, quiz shows, animal adventures and rock 'n' roll retrospectives — that duplicate those on commercial stations. And the programming is punctuated by corporate "sponsorship statements" that are advertisements by another name. Given these changes, a federal appeals court decision last week allowing public stations to air political and campaign advertisements is not that dramatic a development. Last week the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 2-1 vote, struck down on 1st Amendment grounds a congressional ban on such advertising, while upholding a prohibition on ads by profit-making companies. One can accuse the court of not giving proper deference to Congress' desire to keep public broadcasting ad free. But even if this case had been resolved differently, the notion of public television as a safe harbor from advertising would be a quaint one.
benton.org/node/120740 | Los Angeles Times
Recommend this Headline
back to top
CAMPAIGNS AND TV ADS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Josh Lederman]
House and Senate campaign committees are worried that if they don’t stake out their television time now, they could be eclipsed in the fall by super-PACs and the pricey presidential race. With more than six months until the election, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has already reserved $25 million in airtime after Labor Day to target six races, while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has announced plans to book $32 million in airtime in districts across the country.
benton.org/node/120730 | Hill, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
CAMPAIGN TECH
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Eliza Krigman]
The coming presidential election may be decided by which candidate best exploits mobile devices. The sentiment of political geeks gathered at Campaign Tech, a two-day conference in Washington, is that mobile technologies can help campaigns gain an edge — much like the use of social media, the Internet and television has in years past. The biggest change since the 2008 campaign is that smartphones and other portable devices have become indispensable tools for Americans. Like never before, political operatives will be working to exploit the mobile revolution through messaging, apps and data collection.
benton.org/node/120736 | Politico
Recommend this Headline
back to top
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
FCC RELEASING MORE LIGHTSQUARED DOCS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Federal Communications Commission will turn over more documents related to its grant of a waiver to LightSquared for a national wholesale wireless broadband network. The FCC is in the process of rescinding that waiver over GPS interference issues. "[T]he FCC has indicated we can expect additional documents in the coming weeks," said a House Commerce Committee staffer. The FCC has already turned over some 13,000 pages. Sen Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has a hold on two nominees for open commission seats and has refused to lift it until he gets access to FCC documents. The FCC would not give the documents to Sen Grassley because he is not the chair of a committee with jurisdiction. The House Commerce Committee has shared the first round of documents with Sen Grassley. A Grassley said that those 13,000 pages were all previously released to others under FOIA requests and the hold stands until he gets more. A second FCC document drop at least provides some hope that the hold might ultimately be lifted. Until then, said the aide speaking on background, "There's nothing new here. Sen. Grassley still wants to receive internal documents before lifting his hold on the nominees."
benton.org/node/120595 | Broadcasting&Cable
Recommend this Headline
back to top
EPIC WANTS FULL GOOGLE STREET VIEW REPORT
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR:]
The Electronic Privacy Information Center is demanding that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission release the complete report on its Google Street View investigation. The Washington advocacy group has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see the full 25-page report. The version that the FCC released April 13 was heavily redacted.
benton.org/node/120733 | Los Angeles Times | FCC
Recommend this Headline
back to top
LOBBYING
LOFGREN VS PALLANTE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) grilled Maria Pallante, the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, over a meeting with movie studio lawyers on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) during a hearing of the House Administration Committee. Rep Lofgren said she was concerned because a day after the meeting with movie studios in Los Angeles, Pallante called for a serious response to online piracy in testimony in support of SOPA. "SOPA was an extreme measure that blindly pursued copyright enforcement at the expense of many other considerations," said Lofgren, a chief opponent of the legislation. In her earlier testimony to the House Judiciary Committee one day after the meeting in Los Angeles, Pallante warned that without a serious response to online piracy, "the U.S. copyright system will ultimately fail." She called SOPA "serious and comprehensive" but also "measured." Under pressure from Rep Lofgren, Pallante acknowledged the anti-piracy bill was "one of many things" discussed with the lawyers from Warner Brothers, Paramount and other major studios. Rep Lofgren also asked Pallante about a meeting in December with the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers. The copyright chief acknowledged that she discussed the anti-piracy legislation and the problem of rogue pirate websites at the meeting.
benton.org/node/120568 | Hill, The | Roll Call
Recommend this Headline
back to top
WE THE PEOPLE AND LOBBYING
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kevin Bogardus]
A White House petition site designed for the public has become a handy lobbying tool for interest groups in Washington. The “We the People” site was set up by the Obama administration more than six months ago to take petitions calling for changes in federal policy. The White House responds to any petition that receives more than 25,000 signatures within 30 days. Seeking to capitalize on grassroots energy, trade groups and watchdog organizations are using the site to try and force President Obama to take a position on their key issues.
benton.org/node/120727 | Hill, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
POLICYMAKERS
GRASSLEY UNDER PRESSURE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]
Republican senators are pressuring Sen. Chuck Grassely (R-Iowa) to release holds on two of President Obama’s nominees for the Federal Communications Commission. The nominations of Republican Ajit Pai and Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel have been held up since last December, when both were approved by the Senate Commerce Committee. GOP aides said Republicans are growing impatient for Grassley to release his holds. They say Republicans were willing to back Grassley’s effort to win more information about a waiver the FCC provided to LightSquared, which sought to build a new mobile network. But they argue now it is time to lift the holds.
benton.org/node/120728 | Hill, The
Recommend this Headline
back to top
LABOR
ANTITRUST SUIT
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jessica Guynn]
Apple, Google, Intel, Pixar and other high-tech companies will face an antitrust lawsuit that alleges they illegally conspired not to poach each other’s staffers. San Jose U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh rejected a motion to dismiss the claims. In a 29-page opinion, she ruled that the “Do Not Cold Call” agreements among the defendants probably resulted “from collusion, and not from coincidence.” Other defendants include Adobe, Intuit, and Lucasfilm. Five software engineers have accused the companies of conspiring to limit pay and job movement. They are bringing the proposed class-action lawsuit. The claims are similar to those raised by the U.S. Department of Justice. It settled an antitrust probe in 2010 that alleged the companies colluded to keep a lid on wages by agreeing not to poach employees from one another. The companies agreed not to restrain competition in the labor market for high-tech talent. The litigation uncovered an email from 2007 from Apple’s Steve Jobs to Google’s Eric Schmidt over Google’s effort to recruit an Apple engineer. "I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this," Jobs wrote Schmidt, then-CEO of Google who also sat on the Apple board.
benton.org/node/120735 | Los Angeles Times | WSJ
Recommend this Headline
back to top
COMPANY NEWS
VERIZON SALES, PROFITS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ina Fried]
Verizon Communications reported earnings that were largely in the range of what analysts were expecting as it continued to gain wireless customers. The wireline and wireless operator said it earned $3.91 billion in net income for the first quarter, compared to $3.26 billion in last year’s first quarter. Verizon’s operating revenue was $28.2 billion, up 4.6 percent from a year earlier. Verizon Wireless said it added 734,000 retail customers in the first quarter, including 501,000 traditional postpaid customers, to end the quarter with 93 million retail customers, a 5.2 percent increase from a year earlier. As of the end of the quarter, nearly 47 percent of traditional contract customers were using smartphones, up from 43.5 percent a quarter earlier. As far as new sales, almost three out of four new customers were opting for smartphones, up from a rate of three in five a year ago. Verizon said it added 193,000 net new FiOS Internet connections and 180,000 net new FiOS Video connections in the quarter, to give it a total of five million FiOS Internet and 4.4 million FiOS video customers by the end of March. The company said that “Internet devices” — as distinct from phones — make up 8 percent of its base of traditional postpaid customers, and that 62 percent of tablet customers are postpaid. Typical contract customers are spending $23.80 per month on the data portion of their bill — up 16 percent from a year ago. Of its device sales in the quarter, 2.9 million of the devices sold were capable of running on Verizon’s high-speed 4G LTE network. That means that 9.1 percent of Verizon’s base is running on LTE, up from 6 percent a quarter earlier, and less than 1 percent of customers who had LTE phones a year ago.
benton.org/node/120586 | Wall Street Journal | LATimes
Recommend this Headline
back to top
AT&T OPENS NETWORK
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ina Fried]
AT&T Labs is trying to be more open. Using an area normally home to its network security team, Ma Bell had a science fair of sorts, showing off a number of the technologies that it has been cooking up in its labs. Many of the projects on display take advantage of different pieces of network data that AT&T now makes available to developers. The various projects and booths paint an interesting future where doors can be opened by voice, a chip in the phone or even the electrical signals that travel through our hands, to name just a few of the gee-whiz technologies on display. But whether this future is bright or grim depends a bit on how one feels about being tracked.
benton.org/node/120584 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top
DISH’S MOBILE STRATEGY
[SOURCE: Denver Post, AUTHOR: Andy Vuong]
Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen wants to launch a stand-alone wireless business that would offer mobile broadband, text and voice services to compete against telecom giants AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Ergen, who stepped down as Dish chief executive in June to focus on the mobile strategy, revealed details of that plan during a discussion at the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "We have to start the wireless business outside of Dish Network, then we'll fold it in," he said. He said that, personally, he wants a phone that can be used for talking, texting and surfing the Web at the same time, and with a bill that he can understand. "I signed up for a plan from one of the carriers — it was $59, but my bill is $164.28 and it's like 18 pages long," he said. "I don't think the wireless business has to be that way. I think you can actually have a phone that works, and I think you can have a bill that you understand."
benton.org/node/120524 | Denver Post
Recommend this Headline
back to top
STORIES FROM ABROAD
PUBLIC IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND STANDARD OF LIVING
[SOURCE: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, AUTHOR: Russel Cooper]
Advances in information technology (IT) in the first decade of the 21st century have highlighted the role of IT as an enabling technology throughout an economy. But although the influence of IT in transforming the way in which business and consumer transactions are done is clear to all participants in the production-consumption process, it is difficult to attribute a specific value to and precisely measure the importance of the role of IT in improving consumer welfare. The measurement of the economic value of public infrastructure has traditionally been problematic because of its ‘public good’ nature, which means that many users can benefit from use of public infrastructure at the very same time. This is especially true of ‘New Economy’ infrastructure such as IT, which links so naturally with developments in telecommunications so that the existence of many users, far from creating congestion in use, actually enhances the value of the infrastructure through network effects. In response to the measurement problem, the approach of the current paper is to utilize an economic model that looks at the end result – observations on changes in the pattern of consumer spending behavior – and econometrically estimates the extent of the link between these behavioral changes and their drivers: traditional economic stimuli as well as changes in the economic environment due to advances in technology and improved provision of public sector IT infrastructure. Counterfactual simulations with the estimated model provide money-metric measures of the welfare benefits of innovations in Internet-based public sector IT infrastructure in a variety of OECD economies.
benton.org/node/120517 | Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Recommend this Headline
back to top
HACKING REPORT
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kate Holton, Tim Castle]
British legislators hope to publish on May 1 a long-awaited report into a phone hacking scandal centered on News Corp's now-closed News of the World tabloid. Parliament's culture committee is widely expected to criticize News Corp in the report, raising the possibility that the British broadcast watchdog Ofcom will force Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate to cut or sell its stake in the highly profitable pay-TV firm BSkyB. The committee hopes to reach agreement on the report in a vote at the end of this month, with publication the following morning, committee member Paul Farrelly said.
benton.org/node/120514 | Reuters
Recommend this Headline
back to top
APPLE ON AUSTRALIAN 4G
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Packowski]
Accused of misleading consumers about the 4G capabilities of its latest iPad in Australia, Apple is taking the country’s regulators to the mat. And it’s going armed with a controversial argument. It’s not the iPad that’s been mislabeled. It’s Australia’s 3G networks. In a brief filed with the Federal Court in Melbourne, Australia, this week, Apple — which last month agreed to notify consumers that its new iPad is not compatible with Australia’s 4G LTE network and to offer refunds to early purchasers who feel they were misled by its branding — refused to stop marketing the device as “iPad Wi-Fi + 4G.” Its argument for doing so? Many of Australia’s 3G networks can reasonably be described as 4G under international definitions.
benton.org/node/120724 | Wall Street Journal
Recommend this Headline
back to top