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October 2012

Health IT at Small-Care Providers Under Review

To see how health information technology systems affect workflows, government-funded researchers are planning to descend on six small medical practices in Tennessee. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) says it wants to conduct the study because previous reviews of health IT and workflow have focused on large academic medical centers and health maintenance organizations, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.

Earlier studies failed to properly consider how factors such as training, technical support and organizational culture affect findings, the agency contends. AHRQ proposes looking at six small practices affiliated with Vanderbilt University that are in different stages of implementing health IT systems. The intent is to study how health IT systems affect staff members who care for patients with diabetes.

How to get your readers to love paywalls

A new study suggests that newspapers enacting paywalls should emphasize financial need, not profit motives, when announcing them to readers.

The study, “Paying for What Was Free: Lessons from the New York Times Paywall,” is by Columbia University associate research scientist Jonathan Cook and Indiana University assistant professor Shahzeen Attari. They surveyed 954 New York Times readers shortly after the paper announced, in March 2011, that it would enact a metered paywall, and then again 11 weeks after the paywall was implemented. In the post-paywall survey, participants read one of two “justification” paragraphs, one emphasizing a profit motive and one emphasizing financial need (that paragraph concluded, “if the NY Times does not implement digital subscriptions, the likelihood that it will go bankrupt seems high”). Participants then “rated how the information changed their support for the paywall and their willingness to pay.” The results showed that “When participants were provided with a compelling justification for the paywall — that the NYT was likely to go bankrupt without it — their support and willingness to pay increased. In contrast, when participants were provided with a justification that emphasized financial stability, their support and willingness to pay decreased.” The authors conclude, “Our results imply that many NYT readers resisted the newly implemented paywall and that perceptions of fairness are key to helping consumers adapt to abrupt changes in pricing. As other content providers follow the lead of the NYT, they may benefit from providing compelling justifications that convince consumers of financial necessity.”

MetroPCS's Profit More Than Doubles

MetroPCS’s third-quarter earnings more than doubled as the prepaid wireless-service provider posted higher revenue and saw a $53 million gain from a securities settlement.

MetroPCS, which offers flat-rate wireless services without annual contracts, has seen stronger revenue in recent quarters as launching a 4G network and offering smartphones helped to attract new customers. But its bottom-line performance has been mixed over the past year due in part to higher promotional handset costs. The company's costs per gross addition rose 4.1% in the most-recent quarter from a year earlier. Costs per user fell 6%. MetroPCS reported a profit of $192.7 million, or 52 cents a share, up from $69.3 million, or 19 cents, a year earlier. Excluding a gain on a settlement related to securities, current per-share earnings were 38 cents. Revenue rose 4.5% to $1.26 billion. The customer turnover rate, known as churn, was 3.7%, compared with 4.5% a year ago and 3.4% in the prior quarter. The decrease in churn was driven by the company's investments in its network and lower year-to-date subscriber growth.

A Clash Across Europe Over the Value of a Click

Google got rich by selling a simple proposition: The links it provides to other Web sites are worth a lot of money, so much that millions of advertisers are willing to pay the company billions of dollars for them. Now some European newspaper and magazine publishers, frustrated by their inability to make more of their own money from the Web, want to reverse the equation.

Google, they say, should pay them for links, because they provide the material on which the Web giant is generating all that revenue. In several of the biggest European countries, they are close to getting their way. A bill working its way through the German Parliament would enable publishers to collect a fee from Google and other search engines and news “aggregators” when they display excerpts from news articles alongside links to newspaper and magazine Web sites.

UK lawmakers to grill Starbucks, Amazon and Google on tax

A UK parliamentary committee has invited executives from Starbucks Corp, Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc to answer questions about their tax practices, which allow them to make significant sales in the UK, but pay little tax here. The Public Accounts Committee asked senior officials from the companies to address a hearing on November 5, but a spokesman said scheduling problems could mean the hearing might be held later in November. He said none of the companies had declined to attend in principle.

October 31, 2012 (Happy Halloween?)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2012 (Happy Halloween)

Sorry for the delay today; our website was down temporarily. For updates throughout the day, follow our RSS feed at http://www.benton.org/headlines/feed


EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
   FCC says Hurricane Sandy knocked out 25 percent of cell towers in its path
   Hurricane Sandy disrupts Northeast telecom networks
   Sandy Delivers a Digital Wallop to Eastern US
   Superstorm Sandy wreaks havoc on Internet infrastructure
   If your cell tower loses power, be sure to thank CTIA and the DC Circuit - analysis
   Hurricane Sandy: Where’s the climate-change angle, media?
   Local News Goes into Sandy Overdrive
   Sandy Blasts Record Digital Traffic
   Newsrooms’ digital Sandy coverage
   Google Introduces New Emergency Resources in Response to Sandy [links to web]
   During Hurricane Sandy, misinformation and fact-checking clash on Twitter
   Tweeting fake news in a crisis – illegal or just immoral?
   Sandy takes down Nielsen [links to web]
   Sandy Puts a Crimp in NYC-Based Shows [links to web]
   All the Internet Projects That Help Us Through Sandy [links to web]
   How A Facebook Page Prepared A Region For Hurricane Sandy, And What That Teaches About Social Media - op-ed [links to web]

OWNERSHIP
   Disney Buying Lucasfilm for $4 Billion

PRIVACY
   Attorney General Kamala Harris puts mobile apps on notice about privacy

MEDIA AND ELECTIONS
   With a Week to Go Before the Election, Techies Prefer President Obama [links to web]
   What This Election Means To Silicon Valley - op-ed [links to web]
   It's Political Season - Where's The Remote? - op-ed [links to web]
   Political ads make a run for the border [links to web]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Liberal advocacy groups push for free wireless Internet

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Commerce, Justice Reviewing .com Contract [links to web]

CONTENT
   Newspapers' Digital Circulation Climbs [links to web]
   Google News wars are here again: Schmidt vs France on ‘news tax’ [links to web]

HEALTH
   Health Care Group Puts Focus on Current Cybersecurity Efforts [links to web]

POLICYMAKERS
   David Cohen may be Comcast’s secret weapon, but in D.C. he’s a wonk rock star [links to web]

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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

FCC ON SANDY DAMAGE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Hurricane Sandy knocked out 25 percent of the cell towers in affected regions, the Federal Communications Commission said. The hurricane has also disrupted cable TV, broadband Internet and landline phone service for 25 percent of customers in the affected areas, according to the FCC. About 7 to 8 million people are currently without power. "The storm is not over. Our assumption is that communications outages could get worse before they get better — particularly for mobile," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. He said flooding, power outages, high winds and snow disabled the cell towers, leaving millions of customers without service. He emphasized that in the hardest areas, far more than 25 percent of towers were disabled, but in other areas, the figure is lower. Many towers that are still in service are running on backup generators, according to David Turetsky, chief of the FCC's public safety bureau. Turetsky said carriers have already begun recovery efforts, but he warned that flooding could cause more power outages and disable more cell towers. Chairman Genachowski said a "very small number" of 911 call centers also went down as a result of the storm. He said some 911 centers had to redirect calls to other centers, but those redirected calls lacked information about the caller's location. He urged people to only call 911 if there is a "life-threatening emergency" and said people should limit non-essential phone calls. The FCC chairman said texting and social media are good alternatives to long phone calls that clog the airwaves.
benton.org/node/138172 | Hill, The | National Journal | Bloomberg
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STORM INTERRUPTS TELECOM
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Sinead Carew]
Power outages and flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy disrupted telecommunications services resulting in spotty coverage for cellphones, home telephones and Internet services. Verizon Communications, which serves many of the states in the hurricane's path, appeared to have suffered some of the worst damage from the storm. The company said that storm surge resulted in flooding at several Verizon central offices that hold telecom equipment in Lower Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island "causing power failures and rendering back-up power systems at these sites inoperable."
Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 U.S. mobile provider said it was seeing outages at some cell sites because of the power outages across all the states in Sandy's path including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Maryland, North Virginia and New England.
AT&T said it was experiencing some issues in areas heavily affected by the storm.
People complained of outages to their cable telephone, Internet and television services from providers ranging from Comcast, Cablevision Systems and Verizon in New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York.
benton.org/node/138156 | Reuters | TechCrunch | Associated Press | Multichannel News | The Hill
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DANDY DELIVERS DIGITAL WALLOP
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Arik Hesseldahl]
So how is the communications infrastructure holding up now that Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy has blown through the Tri-State area? Not so good. Wireless phone calls take longer to connect, if they connect at all. For landline calls, Verizon said that several of its central offices in Manhattan, Queens and Long Island had been hit with flooding and had also lost power. Normally there’s backup power, but generators don’t exactly respond well to water. So they’ve been running on battery power. The problem is when the batteries die, the equipment inside the hubs gets damaged and so Verizon has had to power it all down, thus hurting its capacity for service. This applies to things like FiOS, its DSL Internet services and old-school telephone service. On Long Island, where most of the people rely on Cablevision for their Internet, about 90 percent of residents have lost power. That’s affecting access to the Internet and phones on Cablevision’s Optimum Online service. Time-Warner Cable is suffering outages in parts of New York City and New Jersey, where people have also lost power. The company says that as power comes back, they’ll identify people whose service has been disrupted.
benton.org/node/138171 | Wall Street Journal
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SANDY WREAKS HAVOC ON INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Barb Darrow]
Hurricane Sandy continued to take a toll on internet infrastructure in New York City and beyond:
There were sporadic issues with undersea cable Atlantic Crossing-2 (or AC-2), sources said. These cables are the main data lifeline between continents.
Telx reported that most of its New York and New Jersey data centers were on generator power as of 9:30 a.m. EDT.
As feared, 75 Broad Street, which houses several data centers in the low-lying Zone A of Manhattan, was severely impacted, affecting Internap, Peer 1 and other providers.
INIT7, a Swiss provider of IPv6 infrastructure, was affected by a storm-related power outage at Equinix’ 8th Avenue facility in Manhattan. The company also reported connectivity issues to Miami and Los Angeles that have since been resolved.
Equinix reported widespread issues with its data centers in the areas around NYC, but said they all have 48 hours of fuel
A Navisite data center in Manhattan’s Zone A is also running on generators. It has refueled and has enough to last 72 hours and will refuel as needed.
benton.org/node/138170 | GigaOm
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CELL TOWER POWER LOSS
[SOURCE: Tales of the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] As we hunker down to wait out Hurricane Sandy, some folks have noticed that if we lose power our cell phones might not provide the backup we expect. Cell towers require power, and if the backup battery is drained and local power is not yet restored then the network goes dead. We had this problem in the Katrina aftermath. The report of the Federal Communication’s Katrina Panel recommended a requirement that carriers have power back up for towers. The FCC subsequently issued an order implementing several of the Katrina Panel recommendations, including the backup power recommendation. Under the announced rule, carriers would need to ensure that towers had 24 hours’ worth of backup power. The FCC relied on its Title I ancillary authority to justify the rule — arguing that ensuring sufficient back up power to maintain communications was “reasonably ancillary” to its authority to ensure emergency communications. Needless to say, the carriers were not thrilled with this expensive new requirement. They challenged in the D.C. Circuit. Ever happy to spank the FCC on behalf of industry, the court first issued a preliminary injunction against the rule taking effect. At oral argument, Chief Judge Sentelle and Judge Randolph, two of the more notorious FCC-bashers, ripped counsel a new one for relying on all the dopey old precedent about Title I ancillary authority. Judge Randolph noted that the FCC’s actions were justified under the court’s precedents, but Judges Sentelle and Randolph were having none of it. Bad FCC! Extending regulatory power over carriers just because lives might depend on it and past precedent before we got here said you had authority to issue the regulations!
benton.org/node/138169 | Tales of the Sausage Factory
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CLIMATE CHANGE COVERAGE?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Erik Wemple]
For days, weather forecasters gave their viewers a lot of trees when it came to coverage of Hurricane Sandy. We learned about the speed of the storm, its famous left turn, its millibars and its (quite accurately portrayed) destructive potential. Now people are asking for more forest. Climate-change forest, that is. Is Sandy the creature of a warming planet? Weather Channel spokeswoman Shirley Powell said, “Climate change informed our forecasting of this storm from the beginning. We have been completely focused on saving lives and property as the storm approached and was hitting, but as the storm passes, you will see more discussion of this topic in our coverage on TV and online. We have two prominent bloggers that have passionately discussed this topic in the past — Jeff Masters and Stu Ostro.”
benton.org/node/138154 | Washington Post
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LOCAL NEWS COVERS SANDY
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Diana Marszalek]
As we move into Day 2 of Hurricane Sandy (now reclassified as Superstorm Sandy), TV news crews from Washington to Boston are working at full force providing wall-to-wall coverage, armed with precautions including ropes to tether satellite masts, cash in case of getting stranded and out-of-market reinforcements. Having planned for storm coverage since last week — and after ramping it up over the weekend — stations went wall to wall starting at 4 a.m. ET Oct 29, and as Gannett’s WUSA Washington News Director Fred D’Ambrosi puts it: “I’m assuming we are going to be on the air for the next several days and we are prepared to do it." Throughout the day Oct 29, local TV news operations in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston ran non-stop storm tracking radar images and news tickers with emergency information and weather updates. Reporters, many pulling 12-hour shifts, stood by coastlines and waterways from Ocean City, Md., to New England poised for potentially destructive surges. Bracing for widespread power outages cutting off viewers’ access to television, stations put particular emphasis on feeding websites, social media and mobile apps — among the most likely sources of information accessible when the power goes out.
benton.org/node/138153 | TVNewsCheck
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SANDY AND DIGITAL TRAFFIC
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: George Winslow]
Users who still had power and internet connectivity were producing record online and mobile traffic at some sites on Oct 29, with The Weather Channel (TWC) reporting 450 million pages views on its various mobile and online offerings and 298 million page views on weather.com. Both those numbers were records. The overall numbers nearly doubled the previous record of 249 million from Feb. 1, 2011 and were much higher than the 183 million seen on Aug. 27, 2011 from Hurricane Irene. At 1 p.m. ET, the company also told B&C that traffic levels are pacing towards another record for Oct. 30.
benton.org/node/138151 | Broadcasting&Cable
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SANDY DIGITAL COVERAGE
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Hazel Sheffield]
Several big news services have put public service ahead of profit by doing away with their paywalls for the duration of Hurricane Sandy. The New York Times allowed unlimited sitewide access from Sunday afternoon, and spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told Poynter that the paywall would not be reinstated until the weather emergency is over. The Wall Street Journal and Newsday have also removed their paywalls. Visitors to The New York Times now have unlimited access to several interactive maps, can contribute their own photos, watch live video and updates, and read a steady stream of ongoing reporting. Many other organizations are also using Sandy as an opportunity to put their technological capabilities into practice, with some impressive results.
benton.org/node/138143 | Columbia Journalism Review
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MISINFORMATION DURING SANDY
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Adi Robertson]
When Hurricane Sandy drew near the East Coast, Twitter and Instagram came alive with pictures of the storm. One showed ominous clouds gathering over Midtown Manhattan. In another, soldiers guarded Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under a haze of rain. A third showed a massive wave crashing around the Statue of Liberty. They were stunning images, capturing the scale of the disaster as well as its human impact. There was just one problem: none of them were actually pictures of Sandy. Every event begets misinformation, but as people increasingly look to social media in times of disaster, fact-checking viral images can be as useful as issuing a news update. During the hurricane, as people were trying to separate fact from rumor during heavy storms and power outages, it was easy for misinformation to spread.
benton.org/node/138167 | Verge, The
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TWEETING FAKE NEWS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Jeff John Roberts]
Shashank Tripathia, a hedge fund analyst, began issuing false and alarming news reports on Twitter at the height of Sandy. As hospitals lost power and a major power station exploded, Tripathia contributed to the chaos by falsely claiming that all of Manhattan had gone black and that the New York Stock Exchange trading floor was under three feet of water. The tweet was finally refuted by the stock exchange, but not before it had been repeated hundreds of times, including on CNN and the Weather Channel. In short, Tripathia used a media platform at the height of an emergency to promote panic and anxiety. Everyone agrees that his behavior was reprehensible. But there is also the question of whether tweets like Tripathia’s are (or should be) illegal.
benton.org/node/138166 | GigaOm
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OWNERSHIP

DISNEY BUYS LUCASFILM
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Cieply]
The Walt Disney Company, in a move that gives it a commanding position in the realm of fantasy movies, has agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. from its founder, George Lucas, for $4.05 billion in stock and cash. The sale provides a corporate home for a private company that grew from Lucas’s hugely successful “Star Wars” series, and became an enduring force in creating effects-driven science fiction entertainment for large and small screens. Lucas, who is 68 years old, had already announced he would step down from day-to-day operation of the company. Disney plans to release a seventh “Star Wars” feature film in 2015, with new films in the series coming every two or three years after that. Lucas will be a consultant on the film projects. Disney purchased Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion in 2009 and Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion in 2006.
benton.org/node/138165 | New York Times | Disney | Reuters | LATimes
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PRIVACY

MOBILE APP PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jessica Guynn]
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris (D) began putting top mobile app makers on notice that they will be held accountable for how they handle Californians' personal information. The state’s top cop has sent out notices to 100 mobile apps that don’t have a written privacy policy that explains what information the app collects and shares. AG Harris initially targeted the most popular mobile apps, among them Open Table and apps for Delta and United Airlines. The companies could not be immediately reached for comment. The companies were given 30 days to post a “conspicuous” privacy policy or face penalties of as much as $2,500 every time a Californian downloads an app that does not comply with California law. “Protecting the privacy of online consumers is a serious law enforcement matter,” AG Harris said. “We have worked hard to ensure that app developers are aware of their legal obligations to respect the privacy of Californians, but it is critical that we take all necessary steps to enforce California’s privacy laws.” AG Harris is looking to close a privacy loophole with the explosion in the use of mobile devices to access the Web. She is extending privacy protections required by state law for personal computers to smartphones and tablets.
benton.org/node/138164 | Los Angeles Times | WashPost
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

OPEN WI-FI NETWORKS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Ten advocacy groups launched a coalition to promote the use of free, open Wi-Fi networks. The groups argue that widespread wireless Internet access would benefit users and lead to new technological innovations. The coalition, called the Open Wireless Movement, is made up of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Internet Archive, NYCwireless, the Open Garden Foundation, OpenITP, the Open Spectrum Alliance, the Open Technology Institute and the Personal Telco Project. The coalition provides information and tips to households, small businesses, developers and Internet service providers for how to implement open Wi-Fi networks.
benton.org/node/138161 | Hill, The
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FCC says Hurricane Sandy knocked out 25 percent of cell towers in its path

Hurricane Sandy knocked out 25 percent of the cell towers in affected regions, the Federal Communications Commission said. The hurricane has also disrupted cable TV, broadband Internet and landline phone service for 25 percent of customers in the affected areas, according to the FCC. About 7 to 8 million people are currently without power.

"The storm is not over. Our assumption is that communications outages could get worse before they get better — particularly for mobile," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. He said flooding, power outages, high winds and snow disabled the cell towers, leaving millions of customers without service. He emphasized that in the hardest areas, far more than 25 percent of towers were disabled, but in other areas, the figure is lower. Many towers that are still in service are running on backup generators, according to David Turetsky, chief of the FCC's public safety bureau. Turetsky said carriers have already begun recovery efforts, but he warned that flooding could cause more power outages and disable more cell towers. Chairman Genachowski said a "very small number" of 911 call centers also went down as a result of the storm. He said some 911 centers had to redirect calls to other centers, but those redirected calls lacked information about the caller's location. He urged people to only call 911 if there is a "life-threatening emergency" and said people should limit non-essential phone calls.

The FCC chairman said texting and social media are good alternatives to long phone calls that clog the airwaves.

Sandy Delivers a Digital Wallop to Eastern US

So how is the communications infrastructure holding up now that Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy has blown through the Tri-State area? Not so good.

Wireless phone calls take longer to connect, if they connect at all. For landline calls, Verizon said that several of its central offices in Manhattan, Queens and Long Island had been hit with flooding and had also lost power. Normally there’s backup power, but generators don’t exactly respond well to water. So they’ve been running on battery power. The problem is when the batteries die, the equipment inside the hubs gets damaged and so Verizon has had to power it all down, thus hurting its capacity for service. This applies to things like FiOS, its DSL Internet services and old-school telephone service. On Long Island, where most of the people rely on Cablevision for their Internet, about 90 percent of residents have lost power. That’s affecting access to the Internet and phones on Cablevision’s Optimum Online service. Time-Warner Cable is suffering outages in parts of New York City and New Jersey, where people have also lost power. The company says that as power comes back, they’ll identify people whose service has been disrupted.

Superstorm Sandy wreaks havoc on Internet infrastructure

Hurricane Sandy continued to take a toll on internet infrastructure in New York City and beyond:

  • There were sporadic issues with undersea cable Atlantic Crossing-2 (or AC-2), sources said. These cables are the main data lifeline between continents.
  • Telx reported that most of its New York and New Jersey data centers were on generator power as of 9:30 a.m. EDT.
  • As feared, 75 Broad Street, which houses several data centers in the low-lying Zone A of Manhattan, was severely impacted, affecting Internap, Peer 1 and other providers.
  • INIT7, a Swiss provider of IPv6 infrastructure, was affected by a storm-related power outage at Equinix’ 8th Avenue facility in Manhattan. The company also reported connectivity issues to Miami and Los Angeles that have since been resolved.
  • Equinix reported widespread issues with its data centers in the areas around NYC, but said they all have 48 hours of fuel
  • A Navisite data center in Manhattan’s Zone A is also running on generators. It has refueled and has enough to last 72 hours and will refuel as needed.

If your cell tower loses power, be sure to thank CTIA and the DC Circuit

[Commentary] As we hunker down to wait out Hurricane Sandy, some folks have noticed that if we lose power our cell phones might not provide the backup we expect. Cell towers require power, and if the backup battery is drained and local power is not yet restored then the network goes dead. We had this problem in the Katrina aftermath. The report of the Federal Communication’s Katrina Panel recommended a requirement that carriers have power back up for towers. The FCC subsequently issued an order implementing several of the Katrina Panel recommendations, including the backup power recommendation. Under the announced rule, carriers would need to ensure that towers had 24 hours’ worth of backup power.

The FCC relied on its Title I ancillary authority to justify the rule — arguing that ensuring sufficient back up power to maintain communications was “reasonably ancillary” to its authority to ensure emergency communications. Needless to say, the carriers were not thrilled with this expensive new requirement. They challenged in the D.C. Circuit. Ever happy to spank the FCC on behalf of industry, the court first issued a preliminary injunction against the rule taking effect. At oral argument, Chief Judge Sentelle and Judge Randolph, two of the more notorious FCC-bashers, ripped counsel a new one for relying on all the dopey old precedent about Title I ancillary authority. Judge Randolph noted that the FCC’s actions were justified under the court’s precedents, but Judges Sentelle and Randolph were having none of it. Bad FCC! Extending regulatory power over carriers just because lives might depend on it and past precedent before we got here said you had authority to issue the regulations!

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