August 2012

GOP platform slams FCC as stuck in the 19th century

The Republican Party's 2012 platform includes a section devoted to ripping the Federal Communications Commission as out of date.

"The most vibrant sector of the American economy, indeed, one-sixth of it, is regulated by the federal government on precedents from the nineteenth century," the party writes. The FCC was created in 1934, but it took over some of the responsibilities that had belonged to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was created in 1887 to regulate railroads. "This is not a good fit," the GOP writes. "Indeed, the development of telecommunications advances so rapidly that even the Telecom Act of 1996 is woefully out of date. An industry that invested $66 billion in 2011 alone needs, and deserves, a more modern relationship with the federal government for the benefit of consumers here and worldwide." The party accuses the Obama Administration of being "frozen in the past."

Why Republicans Aren’t Serious About Getting Rural Areas Online

Spectrum policy isn’t the most incendiary or outlandish of the planks in the now-public Republican platform. But for pure disingenuousness, it ranks pretty near the top.

To put this as simply as possible: The U.S. is running out of the airwaves that transmit TV, radio, and phone signals. Or at least, it’s running out of the big chunks of airwaves—called spectrum—that aren’t reserved for the government or already licensed to telecom companies and other private corporations that have their own exclusive channels. Running out entirely would choke off new wireless communication, putting a serious damper on economic growth. The GOP platform derides the Obama administration’s broadband policy, saying the feds spent lots of money and still left millions of people—especially in the rural heartland—without Internet access. To fix this, Republicans propose freeing up pieces of spectrum currently occupied by federal agencies and allocating them to the private sector through auctions, which have generated $60 billion for the treasury since the government started holding them in 1994. Here’s the problem: Auctions haven’t done much to expand access in the rural areas Republicans claim to love.

MPAA Supports GOP Platform's Opposition to Piracy

The Motion Picture Association of America is supporting the Republican Party's platform to protect intellectual property from online piracy, MPAA CEO Chris Dodd said.

"Copyright is the cornerstone of innovation; it allows creators to benefit from what they create," Dodd, a former Democratic senator from Connecticut, said. "Victimized private firms will be encouraged to raise claims in both U.S. courts and at the World Trade Organization," the platform reads. "Punitive measures will be imposed on foreign firms that misappropriate American technology and intellectual property." The language of the platform "strikes a very smart balance" between protecting content and internet freedom," Dodd said.

Mobile Users Prefer Mainstream News Sites

Despite the proliferation of social media sharing, mobile users still prefer to get their news from mainstream news sites rather than their friends, according to a new study from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute.

RJI’s Media News Consumption Survey also found that mobile users favored news stories produced by professional journalists. “Our analysis suggests that digital content produced by professional journalists has a perceived value to the mobile consumer,” Roger Fidler, RJI’s program director for digital publishing, said in a statement. “But we found that trust may be the single most important factor to this value as well as the most conflicted.” Researchers also found that respondents news channel choice also effected how likely they were to trust the mainstream news media, with those who favored Fox News Channel and MSNBC were less likely to trust the news media. Users who favored network news, such as ABC, CBS and NBC, tended to have higher trust of the news media.

CBS, Derided For Its Older Viewers, Calls 54 The New 49

CBS Corp, derided by rivals for attracting TV viewers too old for advertisers to care about, says 54 is the new 49.

The last of the U.S. Baby Boomers turn 48 this year, moving into the sweet spot for luxury cars, financial services and pharmaceuticals, three of CBS’s largest ad categories. The shift is forcing marketers to reconsider how they target the $12.7 billion that researcher Kantar Media says they spent on prime-time network TV ads last year. As Boomers -- people born between 1946 and 1964 -- leave the 18-to-49-year-old group that has long dominated television advertising, companies are focusing more on older consumers. Though the groups mostly overlap and represent a large chunk of the population, the younger skew of those 18 to 49 has made them a desirable audience since the 1970s. That’s when advertisers began to focus on the 75-million plus U.S. Baby Boomers, who were reaching maturity and forming households, seeing younger consumers as more open to new products and less likely to have established loyalties. Time and economics are changing that. Most Americans don’t set up households until after college, according to Pat McDonough, senior vice president of insights, analysis and policy at Nielsen, which reports the audience ratings used to set advertising rates. And more people in their 50s are willing to try new products, she said.

As Apple, Google Chase TV Market, Big Audiences Are Not Tuning In

Apple, Google and Roku see an untapped market in set-top boxes that deliver online entertainment to the television, but after many years, some are wondering if they’ve tuned into the right channel.

The overall market for these devices, which compete with hardware from cable and satellite TV operators, is growing. Research firm IHS ISuppli said sales of these so-called over-the-top boxes rose 39 percent last year to 8.6 million units globally. But is that a lot? Consider that Apple alone sold 32 million iPads in fiscal 2011, its second year on the market. The company sold around 2.8 million Apple TVs during the same span, and so far has sold 4 million of the devices this fiscal year, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said. Technology executives and analysts say that if these boxes could just offer more cable programming, then they could succeed.

Why Time Warner Cable’s NYC fiber rollout is nothing like Google’s

[Commentary] Time Warner Cable will spend $25 million to bringing the potential for gigabit broadband to hundreds of New York City office buildings through a fiber to the building rollout. This is awesome. But, it’s absolutely nothing like Google’s fiber-to-the-home buildout in Kansas City despite what multiple press reports may say.

Yes, both companies are deploying fiber and both will offer gigabit speeds, but that’s about the end of the similarity. Let’s start with the scope of the projects. Time Warner Cable is spending $25 million to connect “hundreds of buildings” in NYC, which means the cable company will extend its existing fiber to the building. At that point those tenants in the building will have to connect to the fiber in the building and bring it to their floor/offices. Analysts estimate Google is spending between $500 million and $800 million to connect parts of Kansas City. It’s not just the spending that’s different, and understanding what else is can help explain why the U.S. broadband infrastructure is not keeping up. Comparing TWC’s investments in its network to Google’s network investments, just because TWC tosses the words gigabit and fiber around, is like comparing McDonald’s oatmeal to the porridge nutritionists recommend because both contain oats. Don’t buy into that hype.

Why Google’s homepage antics are more serious than they appear

Google’s use of its homepage to advertise its own products and display pop-up birthday reminders for its Google+ network on its homepage may seem like just an annoyance, but each step the company takes toward promoting its own offerings raises more red flags for antitrust regulators.

Google’s original mandate was to “organize the world’s information,” but many of its recent moves seem designed to own the world’s information instead, or at least to control access to it. That may be in Google’s corporate interests, but is it in the interest of the average web searcher or consumer? As we’ve pointed out in the past, one of the main tests in an antitrust case is whether a company’s behavior distorts the market in a way that penalizes users (and the Federal Trade Commission has even broader latitude when it comes to unfair practices). The more Google expands its ownership of content and services, the harder it will be to defend against those kinds of accusations.

New York Spends $27 Million Spreading Broadband

New York will spend $27 million bringing broadband Internet to underserved rural and urban areas of the state as part of what governor's office called “the single largest direct investment of state funding into expanding broadband access in the United States.”

The city is now accepting applications for the $25 million “Connect NY” program, which is supplemented by a $2 million Regional Council initiative, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D-NY) announced Aug. 27. "This investment in high-speed Internet access will ensure that the information superhighway will be open to all New York businesses," Cuomo said in a statement. "By expanding the availability of high-quality broadband services, Connect NY makes our state a national leader in the digital economy and gives our businesses the tools they need to compete and prosper in the global economy." More than 700,000 New Yorkers are unable to access high-speed internet, according to the governor's office, and another 6 million citizens face “significant obstacles” in connecting. The grant funds will be made available to applicants based on criteria determined by the Regional Economic Development Councils and Empire State Development, entities through which the funds were initially made available.

3 Ways Tech Is Transforming Political Conventions

The Republican National Convention is noteworthy for much more than the official business of bestowing the title of 2012 Republican presidential nominee on Mitt Romney. Technology has truly transformed the political landscape in 2012. The RNC, as well as the Democratic National Convention (DNC) scheduled for next, bears little resemblance to the last nationwide gathering held just four years ago.

CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer hadn’t yet joined Twitter when the 2008 political conventions took place. Contrast that with 2012, when Blitzer has 540,000 Twitter followers — evidence that social media will make 2012 the year of the truly interactive convention.
Tampa Bay and Charlotte have experienced a surge in cellular network growth in the months leading up to this year’s conventions. Conventioneers, media and speakers will surely flood the area’s bandwidth in their efforts to share first-hand observations via their smartphones and tablets.
A new weapon in the arsenal of Tampa police is getting a fair amount of attention as law enforcement aims to keep convention activities secure. Dubbed by one news outlet as a “profiling” tool, behavior recognition software will help local police proactively identify potential threats to security.

Benton

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