July 2012

TELEVISION/RADIO

COURTH DENIES NAB STAY ATTEMPT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
A federal court denied the National Association of Broadcasters' emergency motion to delay the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) rule requiring television stations to post information about political advertisements online. The ruling means broadcasters will have to meet the new disclosure requirements by August 2. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia concluded that the broadcasters failed to meet the stringent requirements necessary to suspend the regulation before it goes into effect. The broadcasters' lawsuit looking to permanently overturn the rule will be allowed to continue.
benton.org/node/130893 | Hill, The | B&C | Reuters
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MOBILE DTV
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Mary Collins]
Stations seem to be falling into two camps when it comes to launching mobile digital television: those who have and those who will. Thanks to two initiatives there are also choices when it comes to mobile DTV offerings, including Dyle, a service from the Mobile Content Venture (MCV) and the Mobile 500 Alliance’s “MYDTV” service. These broadcast-based methods for enjoying local television on smartphones and tablets are not to be confused with services like the controversial subscription service Aereo, which rely on Internet access and data plans. That’s part of the reason the math for mobile DTV adds up for consumers and advertisers as well as for TV stations. It may take a while longer, but the math for supporting mobile TV will look good to wireless carriers as well. So what are the key factors in a winning mathematical formula for mobile DTV? Erik Moreno, co-general manager of Mobile Content Venture (MCV), a joint venture of 12 major TV station groups, identifies four of them:
Expanding the reach of a local station to the huge base of consumers that want to watch live television on the go;
Extending the value of the station’s brand to the market’s fastest growing and largest media platform;
Delivering a highly effective marketing medium to local advertisers; and
Providing the most logical solution to the country’s cellular bandwidth challenges.
benton.org/node/130892 | TVNewsCheck
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COLLEGE RADIO
[SOURCE: CommLawBlog, AUTHOR: Peter Tannenwald]
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission has been slapping forfeitures left and right on college-owned, student-run radio stations. Three recent examples: $6,500 to a station operated by students at Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia, $10,000 to a Rollins College station, and another $10K to a Toccoa Falls College station. The misconduct underlying those fines was not especially earth-shattering: a late-filed renewal, some missing issues/programs lists, occasional failures to notify the FCC when the station is off the air for more than 10 days, that sort of thing. Nothing really to write home about. We at Commlawblog.com can understand the FCC’s position. Rules are rules, and when rules get broken, there are (or should be) consequences. But there’s a bigger picture here that the FCC may be missing. By imposing such fines on student-run stations that are probably already money-losers for their parent educational institutions, the Commission may be hastening the demise of such stations. And that would be a serious loss to the broadcast industry and the listening public.
benton.org/node/130867 | CommLawBlog
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

NEGATIVE ADS AND THE OLYMPICS
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Elizabeth Wilner]
NBC Sports executives urged presidential hopefuls to stay upbeat during the Summer Olympics, arguing that Americans don't want to see grainy footage and grim statistics bracketing medal ceremonies (and NBC's trademark glossy athlete profiles). But the idea that an air war that has been totally negative for weeks would suddenly break out in harp music is fantasy. We may see some of the most memorable ads of 2012 during the games, but they won't all be positive. Why not? About 200 million reasons, according to NBC's projections. The Olympics offer the largest audience and the broadest demographic reach presidential advertisers will see for any programming before Election Day. This is their Super Bowl, and with so many fresh eyes tuning in, the opportunity is just too tempting for them not to take advantage with some "contrast" spots. Reason No. 200,000,001 is news, which doesn't break for the Games.
benton.org/node/130889 | AdAge
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

AMENDMENTS TO CYBERSECURITY BILL
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
The fate of the Senate's cybersecurity reform measure now hinges on amendments — and bill sponsors, the White House and top Republicans have all drawn their lines in the sand. The challenge for the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 after a key procedural vote is whether a growing number of amendments can resolve enough differences to attract GOP support in the Senate — and, ultimately, the House, too — while not completely removing the teeth that Democrats and the Obama Administration think is essential to protect the nation from cyber threats. Some Republicans are angling for a broad set of revisions to the critical infrastructure and information sharing bill, and a bloc of GOP members plans to pitch its own cybersecurity measure — the SECURE IT Act — as an amendment during the forthcoming floor debate. That rival bill leaves out any mention of cybersecurity protections for critical infrastructure, a change to the legislation that the White House indicated Thursday it would not support. Other amendments lawmakers are promising could add new provisions to the bill meant to improve energy-grid security or require tech companies to disclose when they have been breached by hackers. There are also members angling to amplify the privacy safeguards in the measure, or revise its section on liability protection.
benton.org/node/130875 | Politico
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NET ADOPTION AND EFFORTS TO BOOST IT
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] Although we may take for granted these days that “everyone uses the Internet,” recent headlines demonstrate that Internet and broadband adoption are not yet universal and much work still needs to be done if the U.S. is going to realize the full benefit of these powerful tools. Without broadband, people and businesses are cut off from the $8 trillion global Internet economy, limiting opportunities for jobs and economic prosperity. Although the data pertains to respondents' access as of October 2010, the findings would still appear to support the relatively urgent efforts of several federal agencies — particularly the Federal Communications Commission — to narrow the gap in Internet adoption through initiatives stemming from the National Broadband Plan.
http://benton.org/node/130843
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DO WE NEED A NEW NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN?
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Matthew Lasar]
"For the first time since the beginning of the commercial Internet,” National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin recently pointed out, “the United States does not have a national wireline provider with plans to build a better network than the currently best available network." That means that for most Americans, "five years from now, the best network they have is the network they have today." It's true that there's still a lot of innovation in wireless, but "looking down the road, only wireline can provide the excessive bandwidth that provides the platform for creating the next generation of big bandwidth services," Levin added. "I hope next year, the president of the United States tells the chair of the FCC that his or her mission is to deliver a strategic bandwidth advantage for the country and a psychology of bandwidth abundance for consumers," Levin's talk concluded. Lots of wild cards here, such as who will be president next year, and consequently, who will chair the FCC. But Levin's commentary reflects a growing consensus that US broadband policy has stalled, and a restart will require more than the completion of one of the National Broadband Plan's last action items.
benton.org/node/130887 | Ars Technica
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BIG BANDWIDTH
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Blair Levin]
[Commentary] Whoever is President in 2013, the message for policymakers remains the same: It is time to chart America’s big bandwidth map. While we are enjoying a wireless upgrade, only a wired connection can provide the bandwidth necessary for “Big Bandwidth” services. When it comes to wireline access to the Internet, instead of discussing upgrades, we are discussing bandwidth caps, tiers and rising prices. Instead of witnessing investment for growth, we are witnessing harvesting for dividends. When it comes to broadband-fueled growth, it is as certain as tomorrow’s sunrise that a country talking about upgrades, not caps, will be better off in a few years; a country talking about caps, not upgrades, will not. This outcome is not inevitable. We can regain leadership by improving the math for wireline investment through policy choices that have the effect of lowering capital or operating expenses or by raising the potential revenues or competitive threat to incumbents or new entrants. We have done this before. In fact, every new communications network deployment or upgrade has been preceded by a policy change that had one or more of these impacts.
benton.org/node/130934 | Wall Street Journal
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WEHELPEDBUILDTHAT.COM
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L Gordon Crovitz]
[Commentary] In his "You didn't build that" speech, President Barack Obama said: "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet." There are three problems with this claim:
Government alone didn't create the Internet.
Government didn't help build the Internet in order to create commercial opportunities.
Companies that succeed on the Internet do not succeed because of government.
By crediting just one institution, the President ignored the contributions of private researchers, businesses and academics.
Supporters of big government don't want to hear about the private-sector contributions to the Internet, but today the Internet is defined by individuals using it for their own purposes—communicating, accessing social media—and critiquing opinion columns. Many innovations are via free, open-source software. Perhaps we can all at least agree that the Internet boom began in the mid-1990s when the government shut down its remaining role, leaving the Internet to the power of the people.
benton.org/node/130932 | Wall Street Journal
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THE BIRTH OF THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Vinton Cerf, Stephen Wolff]
[Commentary] L. Gordon Crovitz dismisses as "modest" the government role in creating the Internet and claims that the private sector deserves "full credit" for its invention ("Who Really Invented the Internet?," Information Age, July 23). He asserts that it is important to understand the true history of the Internet because that story is "too often wrongly cited to justify big government." Crovitz is not alone in failing to understand the complex ecosystem involving government, academia and the private sector that has made our nation the world leader in information technology. Thanks in large part to U.S. government efforts to involve the private sector from the early days, companies—many newly created to pursue Internet technology—were able to build on the knowledge from these pilot projects to begin deploying what would become today's Internet. The story of the Internet reveals a remarkable success story of how government, academia and the private sector worked together over several decades to create one of the most revolutionary technologies ever invented and deployed on a large scale.
[Cerf is the co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. Wolff directed the evolution of the NSFnet as it built on the Arpanet's success to become the primary internetwork for the U.S. higher-education community.]
benton.org/node/130930 | Wall Street Journal
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GOOGLE FIBER LAUNCH
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
[Commentary] After the high of launching yesterday, there are three elements of the Google Fiber announcement that aren’t so awesome. Outside of the compelling pricing, the free service at low-end speeds and the blazing fast speeds, there are a few things that are letdowns of a sort.
Google doesn’t want to share: The network will not be open for other Internet Service Providers.
It’s closed in another sense: Google has changed the economics of deploying a network by building its own gear, employing social engineering to deploy its fiber to the homes most efficiently and even rethinking the build and deployment of consumer devices such as set-top boxes. But it’s not being open about how it did this and what that really will mean for lowering network costs.
It gives Google a lot of control and information: Having Google as your ISP could open users up to privacy worries all over again, although for now Google is focused on providing a connection to its other paid or ad-supported products. So for now, Google’s gigabit service just wants to get you to its advertisements faster but it doesn’t want to know where you go.
benton.org/node/130884 | GigaOm
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WHO REALLY, REALLY INVENTED THE INTERNET?
[SOURCE: Government Technology, AUTHOR: Colin Wood]
In a recent interview published by CNET, Vint Cerf, one of the creators of the TCP/IP protocol, responded to L. Gordon Crovitz recent editorial for The Wall Street Journal, rejecting most his ideas, which he characterized as a “revisionist interpretation.” The Internet did start with the ARPANET project and the federal government directly funded the creation of the Internet we know today, Cerf wrote. And Xerox deserves credit for great work, Cerf wrote, including creation of the Ethernet protocol, the ALTO personal computer, the Xerox Network System and PARC Universal Packet. “XEROX did link homogenous Ethernets together but the internetworking method did not scale particularly well,” Cerf wrote. Ultimately, it was the work of researchers around the world from dozens of organizations that created the Internet. “After our initial paper was published, detailed design was conducted at Stanford during 1974 and implementation started in 1975 at Stanford, BBN and University College London. After that, a number of other institutions, notably MIT, SRI, ISI, UCLA, NDRE, engaged heavily in the work,” Cerf wrote. As for Crovitz’s declaration that the TCP/IP protocol languished for decades in the hands of government, only to be set free by private enterprise, Cerf responded, “I would happily fertilize my tomatoes with Crovitz's assertion.”
benton.org/node/130881 | Government Technology
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

VERIZON AND AT&T
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] This summer, the very big wireless carriers in America, Verizon (106 million subscribers) and AT&T (99 million), are poised to get even bigger. As they move towards squashing cheap data substitutes for expensive voice minutes, consider charging application providers to reach subscribers, layer on fees for additional devices, and collect overage charges for data usage, they will bulk up on customers and revenue. This is good for them, but not good for the rest of us. You can bet that AT&T will be making it very difficult for other connectivity services (modern-day versions of voice and text) to reach subscribers without paying tribute to AT&T. Indeed, AT&T’s inadvertently-announced “1-800″ toll-free applications idea is exactly this: Applications that pay AT&T will not be subject to users’ data caps and will “feel” free. But applications that try to run over the top will trigger usage caps and may be digitally roughed up in other ways. We should be talking about fiber networks that enable rich clouds of nomadic connectivity and commodity devices that can access those networks and any content or application they want. Wireless policy is fiber policy, and abundant network capacity should be our common goal. Instead, we’re navigating through a thicket of press releases this summer that all signal the carriers’ power to charge whatever they like for uses of their platform by everyone involved. The bottom line could not be clearer: AT&T and Verizon plan to get even bigger in 2012, and users will pay in the long run.
benton.org/node/130869 | Wired
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PRIVACY

GOOGLE’S RELEVATION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Liz Gannes]
Google admitted it had found that it still has within its possession user data from around the world that had been captured by its Street View cars. The company previously said it deleted, in late 2010, all the data its cars had slurped up through open Wi-Fi networks. News of the remaining data got out because the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office published a statement about it that included the full text of Google’s e-mail. Google said it was “in touch with other data protection authorities in the European Union” on the same topic. Other countries affected include Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Australia. Google had collected the data between 2008 and 2010. Google apologized for this latest error, which it said was discovered in a recent inspection of its Street View disks.
benton.org/node/130898 | Wall Street Journal
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PATENTS

APPLE-SMASUNG TRIAL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
Patent trials are part bombast, part boredom. Lurid accusations of corporate skulduggery and deceit quickly give way to a mind-numbing slog through the technical details and vague language of patent claims. A jury will be asked to sort through all that to settle a dispute between Apple and Samsung Electronics in a federal court in San Jose (CA). The jury trial is the latest phase in a global campaign of smartphone patent litigation that began more than two years ago. The legal clashes mainly pit Apple against rival smartphone makers whose handsets are powered by Google’s Android software, notably Samsung, HTC and Motorola Mobility, which Google bought last year. Dozens of lawsuits and countersuits have been filed in courtrooms around the world. Yet the escalating patent battle is more than just legal maneuvering. Patents can be powerful tools for determining the rules of engagement for major companies in a fast-growing industry like smartphones.
benton.org/node/130936 | New York Times | WSJ | Wall Street Journal – Google | CSM | Washington Post | Bloomberg
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APPLE-SAMSUNG TRIAL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ina Fried]
While the primary battle in a San Jose courtroom will be between Samsung and Apple, a secondary skirmish is also taking place. Both Apple and Samsung — along with a variety of other tech companies including Intel, Qualcomm and Microsoft — are pleading with the court to keep a variety of details from court filings away from public view. Among the sensitive details the firms want kept private are product diagrams, contract terms and internal market research. In addition to the oppositions filed by various tech companies, Apple has also sought to keep under seal pricey market research reports it has purchased, arguing that the disclosure of those reports would destroy the value of the reports and hurt Apple’s relationships with the firms that produced the studies. News agency Reuters, meanwhile, is fighting that request, arguing that most everything should be made public, despite the objections from the tech companies.
benton.org/node/130897 | Wall Street Journal
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CONTENT

GOOGLE BOOK SCANNING
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Jeff John Roberts]
The long-running lawsuit over Google’s decision to scan millions of books could be nearing the end game. Google’s latest filing, in a case poised to redefine copyright law, claims that its creation of full-text book searching is “the most significant advance in library search technology in the last five decades” and that the Authors Guild has shown “no evidence that Google Books has displaced the sale of even a single book.” Google cites a number of pop culture examples to argue that a searchable digital library is a benefit to the public. Google also cites evidence suggesting that online book discovery helps authors sell more copies. It quotes a memo from literary agency William Morris that says “inclusion in Google Books is a fair use and not detrimental to the copyright owner in any way” and points to the Authors Guild’s own suggestion that writers make a chapter of their book freely available on the internet.
benton.org/node/130883 | paidContent.org
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EDUCATION

FUTURE OF HIGHER ED
[SOURCE: Pew Internet and American Life Project, AUTHOR: Janna Anderson, Jan Lauren Boyles, Lee Rainie]
A majority of technology stakeholders polled in a Web-based survey anticipate that higher education in 2020 will be quite different from the way it is today. They said university-level education will adopt new methods of teaching and certification driven by opportunity, economic concerns and student and parent demands. In the Pew Internet/Elon University survey, 1,021 Internet experts, researchers, observers and users, 60% agreed with a statement that by 2020 “there will be mass adoption of teleconferencing and distance learning to leverage expert resources…a transition to ‘hybrid’ classes that combine online learning components with less-frequent on-campus, in-person class meetings.” Some 39% agreed with an opposing statement that said, “in 2020 higher education will not be much different from the way it is today.” Among the majority expecting much more dependence upon online components in higher education in the future, many bemoaned it. “They are worried over the adoption of technology-mediated approaches that they fear will lack the personal, face-to-face touch they feel is necessary for effective education,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project. “Most noted that economic forces will compel the changes. Yet, a share of this group was excited about the possibility for universities to leverage new online capabilities and peer-to-peer collaborations that they believe would enhance knowledge creation and sharing.”
benton.org/node/130871 | Pew Internet and American Life Project | GigaOm
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JOURNALISM

JOURNALISM’S MISDEEDS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
Imagine this chain of events: a division of a large multinational company is accused of a pattern of corporate misconduct that includes surveillance, hacking into phones and bribery of law enforcement officials. Dozens of employees are arrested over the course of a year, and seven are charged in one day with grievous criminal conduct. Add in that the company seeks to cover up its actions at every turn, in some cases reportedly bribing law enforcement officials, while some of its political opponents are singled out for surveillance and black ops. Let’s further stipulate that the company may just be the most visible perpetrator in an industry that has lost its way. It sounds improbable, like a John Grisham legal thriller about a corrupt law firm or a fast-and-loose brokerage house, but it actually happened at a newspaper company, of all things. If this happened in any other industry — the banking sector during the financial crisis, the oil companies after the BP spill, or Blackwater during the Iraq war — you would expect to see a full-court press by journalists seeking to shine a light on a corrupt culture allowed to run amok.
benton.org/node/130915 | New York Times
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THE TRIBUNE AND JOURNATIC
[SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times, AUTHOR: Kim Janssen]
The editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune has written to its editor, Gerould Kern, demanding answers about the company’s continued relationship with under-fire content provider Journatic. 90 Tribune journalists — including Pulitzer prize-winning columnists Mary Schmich and Blair Kamin and several Metro desk editors — have written to Kern, citing “deep frustration and concern in the newsroom over the Tribune’s continued relationship with Journatic, one that threatens to jeopardize our credibility.” The letter refers to other incidents of plagiarism and false bylines at other Journatic clients, including the Houston Chronicle, and says “repeated incidents of false bylines and false datelines, along with plagiarism, have been exposed at several Journatic clients.” The journalists write that they know Kern shares their concerns about the credibility of the Tribune. But they say they want answers from Tribune management about what the Tribune’s relationship with Journatic will be in the future. Specifically, they are demanding to know how much the Tribune invested in Journatic; what percentage of Journatic it owns; how the company was vetted; who decided not to immediately sever ties with Journatic; how content provided by Journatic will be labeled for readers if it is brought back; and how the Tribune’s credibility as a watchdog can be maintained if the Tribune doesn’t demand the same high standards from its business partners.
benton.org/node/130872 | Chicago Sun-Times | Chicago Tribune
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

FIRSTNET ROADBLOCK
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz]
Mississippi spent millions of dollars on equipment to help police and fire departments send video and other data to each other. But now the state can't turn its wireless network on. Federal officials recently pulled the plug because of concerns the Mississippi system and others like it won't be compatible with a national public safety network called FirstNet, which was authorized by Congress in February but is not scheduled to roll out for several years. Mississippi's case is an early example of the skirmishes likely during the years-long implementation of FirstNet, an idea that has been discussed since the 9/11 terror attacks but only now is getting off the ground. At a cost of at least $7 billion, the network is to supply common airwaves for use by local officials in an emergency and give them the ability to share videos and other large data files. Many regions already made plans for such networks and previously were backed by the same federal entities that are now putting on the brakes over concerns those networks won't be compatible with FirstNet.
benton.org/node/130933 | Wall Street Journal
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DRONE IDEA DOESN’T FLY
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Brooks Boliek]
Some of the major wireless carriers and public safety organizations are shooting down an idea by the Federal Communications Commission that would allow the launch of communications-carrying drones or other aircraft to act as temporary links when telecommunications go down in a disaster. AT&T, Sprint and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International told the commission that the threat of interference from aircraft operating as “rapidly deployable aerial communications architecture” may cause more harm than good.
benton.org/node/130921 | Politico
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LOBBYING

POLICY SHADOWS
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Chris O’Brien]
[Commentary] In recent years, a vast shadow army of law firms, public relations specialists, trade organizations, pundits, think tanks and academics has emerged to dominate the debate over Google -- and many of them are paid for their opinions. The people framing issues of vital interest to us consumers, often seen as dispassionate analysts, are actually paid advocates, distorting our understanding of what's at stake and possibly influencing how regulators around the world are making decisions that affect the future of our daily lives in a Web-connected world. "With official lobbying, they're going in through the front door and trying to sell you an opinion and they're not trying to pretend to be anything but a hired gun," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. But the bigger universe of commentators who are paid on the side, she continued, "is so amorphous and so differentiated, it's difficult to try to put your hands around it. This is where policy may be unduly skewed by paid interests." Alas, engaging third parties is a time-honored tradition in the Capitol, used by a wide range of industries such as pharmaceuticals, utilities, automakers and cigarette manufacturers. Decades ago, the high-tech industry deplored how these old-line companies played politics. Today, it's working to perfect the method.
benton.org/node/130924 | San Jose Mercury News
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AGENDA

FCC AGENDA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on Friday, August 3, 2012. On the agenda:
A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that seeks to modernize our cable television rules to facilitate the cable industry’s widespread transition from analog to digital transmission systems.
A Second Report and Order, Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Second Notice of Inquiry, Order on Reconsideration, and Memorandum Opinion and Order that seeks to
remove regulatory barriers to make better use of Fixed Service (FS) spectrum and provide additional flexibility to enable FS licensees to reduce operational costs and facilitate the use of wireless backhaul in rural areas.
benton.org/node/130891 | Federal Communications Commission
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

UK PRESS AND ROMNEY
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Edward Luce]
[Commentary] The Washington commentariat is fond of disparaging Fleet Street – usually with good reason. In terms of intrusion, iniquity and, on occasions, pure invention, the UK tabloids are Olympic gold medallists. But the UK media has a reasonable track record at detecting bluff. One example was its skepticism about the reasons for invading Iraq, a stance that often set the British press at odds with their more patriotic US counterparts. Another is Mr Romney’s awfulness as a candidate. It has nothing to do with insight: the UK media are only stating bluntly what is on everyone’s minds. Headlines like “Mitt the Twit” showcase how irreverent British tabloids can be. Yet they present in caricature what many Republicans are happy to volunteer in private. But then the Republican “establishment” long since resigned themselves to the trials a Romney nomination would entail.
benton.org/node/130912 | Financial Times
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MOBILE PHONES AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Whitney Eulich]
From remote farms to rural health centers, one thing is transforming how even the world's poorest people live: the mobile phone. Cell phone use in the developing world has climbed to nearly 5 billion mobile subscriptions, and three-quarters of the world now has access to mobile networks. This technology is reshaping the way individuals and communities manage their finances, monitor weather, engage with government, and earn a living, according to the recent World Bank Maximizing Mobile report. “People are going from zero to 60. It is huge to go from no phone at all to a cellphone,” says Anne Nelson, international media development specialist and adjunct professor at Columbia University. “The rapid penetration of cellphones in developing countries is changing lives dramatically.” Mobile devices in regions like Africa are largely limited to voice and Short Message Service texting, but even the most basic mobile communications can increase school attendance, facilitate banking or cash transfers, create jobs, measure health indicators, accelerate disaster response, and fuel citizen engagement in governance and democracy.
benton.org/node/130911 | Christian Science Monitor, The
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UK UNIVERSAL BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Bounds]
From church spires to school roofs, broadband masts are springing up in the British countryside as residents try to avoid being left in the digital slow lane. Despite a government commitment to spend £530m to make Britain the most networked country in Europe, about 10 percent of the country is unlikely to be reached by “superfast” broadband – and locals are taking matters into their own hands. The Country Land and Business Association said about a fifth of rural England and Wales could not access fast broadband, impeding 100,000 rural businesses from hoteliers to web designers. The government aims to provide universal access to standard broadband with a speed of at least 2 Mbps by 2015, with 90 per cent of premises in the UK receiving “superfast” speeds above that. BT, the telecoms provider, is spending £2.5bn to reach three-quarters commercially. Just two companies, BT and Fujitsu, are bidding for the funds via BDUK, the company set up to deliver the program. According to Ofcom, the regulator, 99.9 per cent of homes have fixed broadband access, but only 60 per cent have superfast.
benton.org/node/130909 | Financial Times
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Daily Digest

Analysis

July 2012

Amazon's recommendation secret

Sales Taxes and Internet Commerce

Time to Adopt New Telecommunications Act

Verizon helps U.S. rule global LTE market with half of all connections

T-Mobile defends Verizon spectrum swap as way to enhance LTE network

Google and Facebook's new tactic in the tech wars

Digital goes first at the FT

Michael Copps to Lead Common Cause Media and Democracy Initiative

July 30, 2012 (Amendments are critical hurdles in cyber debate)