December 2012

WCIT

A DIGITAL COLD WAR?
[SOURCE: The Economist , AUTHOR: ]
[Commentary] The Internet seems to be an even more divisive than cold-war ideology. The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, where the ITU met to renegotiate the ITR, ended in failure in the early hours of December 14th. The main issue was to what extent the internet should feature in the treaty. America and its allies wanted to keep it from being so much as mentioned—mainly out of fear that any reference to it whatsoever would embolden governments to censor the internet and meddle with its infrastructure. America’s willingness to stand up for the internet should be welcomed. But it has to be said that in doing so it also defended its interests: no other country benefits as much from the status quo in the online world. Since much of the internet’s infrastructure is based in America and most of its traffic zips through it, America is in a unique position to eavesdrop, should it be so inclined. America’s internet firms also capture most of the profit pool of the online industry. The immediate impact of the WCIT’s failure will be minor. In the medium term, however, the outcome of the conference in Dubai will weaken the ITU—which may not be such a good thing. Among all the controversy it was forgotten that the organization actually does very useful work, for instance in managing the international radio-frequency spectrum and developing technical standards. And some of the good ideas about which the delegations could agree may now fail to come to fruition. The most important result of the conference has been to demonstrate that the world now splits into two camps when it comes to the internet: one is comprised of more authoritarian countries, which would like to turn back the clock and regain sovereignty over their own national bits of the internet; the other wants to keep the internet and its governance as it is. This sounds much like a digital version of the cold war. The funny thing is that the leading countries in the two camps are the same two that were at loggerheads until the iron curtain parted. One must hope that the failure of the WCIT is not a first step towards raising a digital one.
benton.org/node/141777 | Economist, The
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WHO WON? NOBODY KNOWS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Cyrus Farivar]
[Commentary] After two weeks of negotiations, the delegates at the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai produced a 30-page document that 89 countries have signed—except the United States and many allies. So the good guys won, right? It depends who you ask. “The good guys did not win—the terms are defined in such a way as to allow a significant amount of mischief in the Internet space,” said Vint Cerf, the co-author of the TCP/IP protocol, and a founding father of the Internet itself. Of course, not everyone sees it that way. “The ‘good guys’ (the US, and its allies including Canada and the UK) succeeded in keeping the [International Telecommunication Regulations] away from the Internet, and yet inexplicably chose to dump the whole thing at the end,” Milton Mueller, a professor at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies, told Ars. “This was a mistake, in my humble opinion, and will make us look isolated.” For some odd reason, the only official list of countries that did or didn't sign the agreement at the conference is this French-language chart. Assuming it's correct, the "Final Acts" at WCIT-12 has 89 signatories, including Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, Senegal, Venezuela, Jamaica, Jordan, Singapore, and many others. Who didn't sign? The US, the UK, Canada, the European Union, Peru, the Philippines, Malawi, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, and others.
benton.org/node/141776 | Ars Technica | The Atlantic
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ON THE RESULTS AT WCIT
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Sherwin Siy]
[Commentary] So a considerable number of countries, including the United States, have refused to sign the new International Telecommunication Regulations ("ITRs"), which together form a new version of the international treaty on telecommunications. More have indicated they will need further instructions from their national capitals before deciding whether or not to sign.
In the end, the new ITRs and the documents circulated with them contain a number of provisions that seem to have raised enough concerns for the United States, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Costa Rica, and Denmark, at least, to refuse to sign them. These provisions include:
A paragraph in the Preamble stating the Member States have the right to access international telecommunications services;
An article (5A) on the "Security and robustness of networks";
An Article (5B) on "Unsolicited bulk electronic communications";
A Resolution (3) entitled "To foster an enabling environment for the greater growth of the Internet" that recommends the ITU "play an active role in the development of broadband and the multistakeholder model of the Internet. (Note that the resolutions aren't formally parts of the ITRs, but they accompany them)
These map to a large extent, though not exactly, to specific issues that the United States mentioned in its press conference as being "critical" to its position:
Internet governance can only be handled by multi-stakeholder organizations;
Spam, a form of unsolicited bulk communication, is nonetheless also a form of content, and regulating it at the international level could lead to regulation of other forms of content and speech;
The ITRs aren't the right place to address network security issues, since they can easily have bad effects on communications without actually improving security;
The Internet Resolution was a direct extension of the ITU's scope to the Internet, despite early assurances that this was not on the table.
benton.org/node/141774 | Public Knowledge
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MESSAGE FROM US TO THE WORLD
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Pfanner]
[Commentary] At the global treaty conference on telecommunications, the United States got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the document and left in a huff. What was that all about? And what does it say about the future of the Internet — which was virtually invented by the United States but now has many more users in the rest of the world? It may mean little about how the Internet will operate in the coming years. But it might mean everything about the United States’ refusal to acknowledge even symbolic global oversight of the network. The events in Dubai raise the curious prospect of a treaty largely negotiated to suit the United States’ position and applying mostly to developing countries, many of which seemed perfectly happy with the outcome.
benton.org/node/141800 | New York Times
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DIVISISONS ON GOVERANCE OF INTERNET
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
A United Nations treaty conference in Dubai highlighted divisions among countries on how the Internet and content that flows over it should be governed. The United States fought against treaty proposals that sought to give the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and national governments a greater role in overseeing the Internet. That stance pitted U.S. delegates against Russia, China and a group of countries from Africa and the Middle East, which submitted a proposal to the conference record this week that called for governments to have equal rights over managing the Internet. Although the conference ended, some observers say the battle over how the Internet should be run is just starting to heat up.
benton.org/node/141799 | Hill, The
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SOPA IT WASN’T
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Mark Milian]
When it comes to Internet outrage, this was no SOPA.
For the past couple of weeks, Google and other Internet companies have protested a United Nations conference over concerns that a new treaty will lead to censorship of the Web. Despite their campaigns, they weren’t able to drum up the kind of widespread indignation that elevated the Stop Online Piracy Act to national prominence earlier this year, according to studies of online discussions commissioned by Bloomberg. For the SOPA blackout on Jan. 18, as any proud netizen will recall, Google self-censored its logo, and Wikipedia obscured its encyclopedic entries. Other companies published blog posts opposing the proposed anti-piracy legislation. The gestures resulted in a firestorm that included 5.1 million Twitter messages during the week of the blackout, according to Topsy, a social-media research firm. Compare that to the 65,300 tweets — containing terms related to the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai — posted during the first week or so of the UN event. Even SOPA, nearly a year after the protests, is getting more attention, with 87,073 tweets during the same time period, according to Topsy.
benton.org/node/141798 | Bloomberg
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WCIT PROPAGANDA?
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Rachel Sanderson, Daniel Thomas]
Franco Bernabè, chairman of Telecom Italia and president of GSMA, the mobile operators association, has attacked what he described as “propaganda warfare” by the US that led to the collapse last week of talks over a new telecoms treaty. Bernabè, who as president of GSMA represents almost 800 mobile operators in 220 countries, said the suggestion by the US and its allies that those in favor of the treaty were from “authoritarian regimes” was “ridiculous.” “This is propaganda warfare,” he said. “What is offensive is [the idea] that a legitimate portion of the industry has been associated with Iran and oppressive regimes. That is complete nonsense and unacceptable.” Bernabè, calling for regulators to reconsider their stance, joined other supporters of the treaty in suggesting that the US was using the principle of freedom as a cover to protect corporations such as Google and Facebook from global attempts to co-ordinate regulation. “Regulation has put European companies under dramatic competitive disadvantage . . . There could not be a European Google or a European Facebook because it would be so complex to comply with rules and the obligations of European privacy laws,” said Bernabè. Proponents of a free web, including Google, fear broad clauses set out at the ITU concerning national sovereignty and security could be used for legitimizing censorship, clandestine monitoring and the blocking of websites.
benton.org/node/141823 | Financial Times
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THE FIGHT TO KEEP A STATE-FREE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Gordon Goldstein]
[Commentary] The first gathering of world governments to debate the future of the internet has ended in dramatic discord, with 55 member states of a UN body refusing to sign a global treaty on international telecommunications. The collapse of the talks marks just the first battle in what will be an enduring global contest to define the governance and control of the internet in the 21st century. States dissenting from the new treaty cited a deep commitment to the internet’s dynamic governance model, which has emerged organically over the past two decades. Based on co-operation among civil society, global technical bodies and the private sector, the internet has flourished beyond the control of governments, fostering staggering innovation and growth through its flat, open and globally unregulated structure. The final version of the treaty impinges on that paradigm in four critical ways.
First, at the insistence of Russia, China and several Arab states, the treaty includes a provision mandating co-ordination on cybersecurity, defined euphemistically as “network” security.
Second, encouraged by African nations and supported by countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, the treaty creates a requirement that member states seek to defend against internet spam, which is imprecisely defined as “unsolicited bulk electronic communications.”
Third, the treaty has a resolution calling on the ITU and its members to play an enlarged role in “international internet governance and for ensuring the stability, security and continuity of the existing internet and its future development.”
Finally, a new formulation of the treaty changes the definition of its scope and authority in ambiguous ways, creating a class of entities falling under its jurisdiction, potentially including internet service providers, private networks and even government networks.
benton.org/node/141821 | Financial Times
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WHO RULES THE INTERNET?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The International Telecommunication Union, the little-known but influential United Nations agency that oversees phone, radio and satellite communications, last week stopped short of fragmenting the Internet into national fiefdoms, as some had feared it would do through a new global treaty. Instead, the draft that delegates approved barely mentions the Internet. The result wasn't exactly a victory for those who are committed to a free and open Internet, however. Although delegates rejected many of the worst proposals, they laid the groundwork for having governments, not Internet stakeholders, regulate the technical aspects of the Web. The agency's effort to update a 24-year-old global telecommunications treaty exposed a sharp rift between the developed countries that were the earliest adopters of the Internet and the developing world, particularly Russia, China and other authoritarian regimes. The former, backed by Internet advocates worldwide, rightly argue that the Web's technical challenges are capably met by industry groups that set voluntary standards. Many countries in the latter category, however, believe that the Internet is already controlled to some degree by one government — the United States — and thus its benefits aren't properly distributed. Some want greater control over online content and users, which they see as threats to their regimes; others have legitimate problems with access, spam and other issues that they don't think are getting enough attention from Internet authorities. Slated to take effect in 2015, the treaty itself isn't the real problem. The bigger issue is the claim the International Telecommunication Union seems to be staking to Internet governance. The agency is scheduled to meet again in 2014, when it may consider amending its constitution to assert jurisdiction formally over the technical side of the Web. Proponents of the free and open Internet have until then to convince the countries that backed the draft treaty that the current system of self-governance can and will work better for them than one under the thumb of governments around the globe.
benton.org/node/141820 | Los Angeles Times
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AMERICA’S FIRST BIG DIGITAL DEFEAT
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L Gordon Crovitz]
[Commentary] The open Internet, available to people around the world without the permission of any government, was a great liberation. It was also too good to last. Authoritarian governments this month won the first battle to close off parts of the Internet. At the just-concluded conference of the International Telecommunications Union in Dubai, the U.S. and its allies got outmaneuvered. The ITU conference was highly technical, which may be why the media outside of tech blogs paid little attention, but the result is noteworthy: A majority of the 193 United Nations member countries approved a treaty giving governments new powers to close off access to the Internet in their countries. The treaty document extends control over Internet companies, not just telecoms. It declares: "All governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance." This is a complete reversal of the privately managed Internet. Authoritarian governments will invoke U.N. authority to take control over access to the Internet, making it harder for their citizens to get around national firewalls. They now have the U.N.'s blessing to censor, monitor traffic, and prosecute troublemakers.
benton.org/node/141818 | Wall Street Journal
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STRICKLING ON CONFERENCE FAILURE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Larry Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and a member of the US’s World Conference on International Telecommunications delegation, said in a speech to the PLI/FCBA Telecommunications Policy & Regulation Institute in Washington that International Telecommunication Union failed to deliver on two promises -- "that it would operate by consensus and that Internet issues would not be appropriate for inclusion in the [International Telecommunications Regulations] ITRs. As it turned out, the ITU could not deliver on either of these promises." The good news, he suggested, is that it is not unusual for the ITRs not to apply to all ITU members. For example, the U.S. didn't sign them until 1973 and they were first drafted in 1850 (yes, 1850). In addition, the 1988 ITRs remain in effect until January 2015. That said, it remains to be seen, he pointed out, what effect they would have on businesses doing business in the signatory countries.
benton.org/node/141772 | Broadcasting&Cable | NTIA
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A NEW RESOLUTION FOR A GLOBALLY HARMONIZED NATIONAL NUMBER FOR ACCESS TO EMERGENCY SERVICES
[SOURCE: International Telecommunication Union, AUTHOR: Bilel Jamoussi]
A new Resolution tabled at the World Conference on International Telecommunications underlines the importance for travelers to be aware of a single well-known number to access local emergency services if the need ever arises. The formulation of the Resolution at WCIT-12 instructs the Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau to take the necessary action in order that ITU-T Study Group 2 can continue exploring the option of introducing a single globally harmonized emergency number for access to emergency services in the future. During the WCIT-12 negotiations, a preliminary draft of the proposed Resolution was tabled to Member States. The Resolution – which is a standard mechanism by which a conference instructs its subordinate organs and the executive to take some form of action – invites Member States to introduce, in addition to their existing national emergency numbers, a globally harmonized national number for access to emergency services, taking into consideration the relevant ITU-T Recommendations.
benton.org/node/141770 | International Telecommunication Union
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OWNERSHIP

MORE CONGRESSIONAL OPPOSITION TO FCC PROPOSAL ON MEDIA OWNERSHIP
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Five Democrats on the House Commerce Committee have joined the growing chorus of lawmakers calling on the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider its plan to relax media ownership rules. In a letter sent to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Mike Doyle (D-PA), Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Bobby Rush (D-IL), and Del. Donna Christensen (Virgin Islands) wrote that they are "deeply concerned" with the FCC's proposal. "Simply put, resting any justification to relax the Commission's media ownership rule on the growth of Internet news ignores the millions of Americans not yet online," they wrote. The letter carries particular weight because the Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over the FCC.
benton.org/node/141769 | Hill, The | Broadcasting&Cable
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES
[SOURCE: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, AUTHOR: Ralph Everett, John Horrigan]
On December 13, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski urging the FCC to develop a robust record on minority and female broadcast media ownership before it considers relaxing rules intended to promote media ownership diversity. The Joint center notes the recent release of the FCC’s broadcast ownership report, but said the report does not contain reliable data dispositive of either how relaxing the FCC’s media ownership rules will favor minority and female broadcast ownership or whether relaxing the rules would not buttress existing market entry barriers.
benton.org/node/141767 | Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

FISA AMENDMENTS ACT
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
The Senate is racing toward a last-minute showdown over a controversial counterterrorism surveillance law. While the chamber is preoccupied with the fast-approaching fiscal cliff, the clock is also running out on the so-called FISA Amendments Act — provisions of which are scheduled to sunset at the end of the year. The law has its skeptics, many of whom fear that Americans are getting swept up in what is supposed to be a surveillance statute aimed at foreign targets. Its leading critic, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), has tried to block Senate consideration of the measure as he seeks more information on how many U.S. citizens have been affected. But the chamber now faces a daunting task in addressing Wyden’s objections while processing a slew of proposed amendments to the extension, which the House approved without change earlier this year.
benton.org/node/141817 | Politico
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WIRETAP CASE IN COURT
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Dan Levine]
A lawsuit over alleged illegal wiretapping should not proceed because it would force disclosure of state secrets in the U.S. anti-terrorism effort, an attorney for the Justice Department argued in court. At a hearing in a San Francisco federal court, civil liberties advocates attempted to persuade U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White to allow a lawsuit against the government to proceed. As the proceeding began, Judge White said he was "completely open" about what he might do. A group of AT&T Inc customers filed a proposed class action against the National Security Agency and Bush administration officials in 2008, accusing them of improperly operating a warrantless mass surveillance of U.S. citizens. A separate lawsuit against AT&T failed after the U.S. Congress granted the company immunity from the suit.
benton.org/node/141765 | Reuters | ars technica
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

RURAL BROADBAND AND REGULATION
[SOURCE: , AUTHOR: Ashley McMillan]
[Commentary] Most of the people I know who choose to live in rural America happily do without the conveniences of the cities and suburbs in order to enjoy the benefits of rural life. In today’s world, though, high-speed broadband networks are far more than a convenience for rural America. To forego the benefits that state-of-the-art broadband networks bring would limit the potential of small towns and rural counties that deserve to be equal beneficiaries of the technology revolution that’s being made possible by the transition away from legacy analog copper wire-based networks and to high-speed next generation Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks. Wireless broadband is a natural solution for rural areas because it doesn’t involve running miles of expensive fiber-optic cable across thinly populated swaths of land. To encourage more of this kind of private investment in rural districts, federal and state policy makers need to trim cumbersome regulations written back in the days when telecommunications was limited to voice phone calls over antiquated networks with only one provider. With today’s many choices in communications delivery, the sweeping advances in IP communications technology make that era look like the Stone Age, and Stone Age regulations are a hindrance in the Information Age. Removing barriers to investment and modernization of our networks and accelerating the spread of advanced broadband networks is a crucial issue for the whole country. But nobody has a bigger stake in seeing it happen than the 50 million of us who live in rural America.
[Ashley McMillan is executive director of Partnership for Technology Innovation]
benton.org/node/141736 | Morning Sun
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

GETTING SPECTRUM FROM A JOBS BILL
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] When President Barack Obama signed into law the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 on February 22, 2012, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gained authority to 1) hold voluntary incentive auctions and 2) allocate necessary spectrum for a nationwide interoperable broadband network for first responders. The new law also provides $7 billion for public safety broadband network build out, and up to $1.75 billion for relocation costs for broadcasters. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the spectrum auction will raise $15 billion over the next eleven years. Lawmakers are relying on spectrum revenue to raise $7 billion for the public safety network, $135 million for State planning, $300 million for research and development, and $115 million for next generation 911 services. On December 12, the House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held an oversight hearing, Keeping the New Broadband Spectrum Law on Track, on the FCC’s implementation of the new law. Each of the five FCC commissioners testified. In a briefing memo shared on December 10, House Republicans shared concerns that the FCC plans to give away large swaths of spectrum reclaimed from television broadcasters. Committee staff said the FCC “runs the risk of short changing First Responders, squandering much of the legislation’s potential, and violating the act.”
http://benton.org/node/141715
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INCENTIVE AUCTIONS, SPECTRUM AND YOUR WIRELESS FUTURE
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Martyn Griffen]
[Commentary] On December 12, 2012, the House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held an oversight hearing on the implementation of spectrum auctions in an effort to meet the growing demand for wireless broadband services and fund a nationwide public safety network. The five FCC Commissioners testified before the panel on the status of the auctions and their interpretations on how the auctions will free up additional spectrum and promote competition. These auctions were part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. Three issues that permeated throughout the hearing were (1) an accurate history and interpretation the intent of the statute’s unlicensed spectrum provisions; (2) a focus on the spectrum cap; and (3) what role federal spectrum should play in this discussion.
benton.org/node/141747 | Public Knowledge
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SPRINT TO ACQUIRE CLEARWIRE
[SOURCE: Sprint, AUTHOR: Press release]
Sprint announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the approximately 50 percent stake in Clearwire it does not currently own for $2.97 per share, equating to a total payment to Clearwire shareholders, other than Sprint, of $2.2 billion. This transaction results in a total Clearwire enterprise value of approximately $10 billion, including net debt and spectrum lease obligations of $5.5 billion. The transaction consideration represents a 128 percent premium to Clearwire's closing share price the day before the Sprint-SoftBank discussions were first confirmed in the marketplace on October 11, with Clearwire speculated to be a part of that transaction; and, a 40 percent premium to the closing price the day before receipt of Sprint’s initial $2.60 per share non-binding indication of interest on November 21. Clearwire’s spectrum, when combined with Sprint’s, will provide Sprint with an enhanced spectrum portfolio. In connection with the transaction, Clearwire and Sprint have entered into agreements that provide up to $800 million of additional financing for Clearwire in the form of exchangeable notes. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and the approval of Clearwire’s stockholders, including the approval of a majority of Clearwire stockholders not affiliated with Sprint or SoftBank. The closing of the transaction is also contingent on the consummation of Sprint’s previously announced transaction with SoftBank. The Clearwire and SoftBank transactions are expected to close mid-2013.
benton.org/node/141816 | Sprint
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WHO’S PLAYING WHOM?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
If Sprint really wants to buy Clearwire, why did it low-ball its offer, and why is Softbank reportedly choking off Sprint’s bargaining power? Spectrum policy analyst Tim Farrar believes Sprint isn’t interested in buying Clearwire – at least not yet. Rather he believes Sprint’s bid is just one maneuver in a very complex chess game that pits carriers against one another over spectrum and in which Softbank, Clearwire, Dish Network and AT&T are all players. What it boils down to is this: Sprint wants to block any deal between Dish and Clearwire to operate a shared network using Dish’s newly minted 4G spectrum. By making an offer that Clearwire’s strategic investors – Intel, Comcast and Bright House – would likely consider, Sprint and Softbank could hold up any Dish-Clearwire pact in the works, at least until Softbank’s acquisition of Sprint closes. If Sprint successfully blocks a Dish-Clearwire deal, what happens then? Well, after the Softbank deal closes, the new company could decide whether to pursue Clearwire in earnest.
benton.org/node/141762 | GigaOm | Tim Farrar
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JOURNALISM

MEDIA MISSTEPS
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Emma Bazilian]
With a national tragedy on the scale of the mass shooting in Newtown (CT), the public has come to expect a constant flow of information about the who, what and why of the day’s events. Unfortunately, the frantic pace often comes at the expense of fact checking. From the shooter’s identity to the number of deaths, misinformation about the tragedy’s events spread like wildfire from the social Web to leading media outlets.
benton.org/node/141802 | AdWeek | Timothy Karr
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MEDIA STRUGGLE WITH SHOOTING FACTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Frazier Moore]
The scope and senselessness of the Newtown (CT) school shooting challenged journalists' ability to do much more than lend, or impose, their presence on the scene. Pressed with the awful urgency of the story, television, along with other media, fell prey to reporting "facts" that were often in conflict or wrong. How many people were killed? Which Lanza brother was the shooter: Adam or Ryan? Was their mother, who was among the slain, a teacher at the school? Like the rest of the news media, television outlets were faced with intense competitive pressures and an audience ravenous for details in an age when the best-available information was seldom as reliable as the networks' high-tech delivery systems. Here was the normal gestation of an unfolding story. But with wall-to-wall cable coverage and second-by-second Twitter postings, the process of updating and correcting it was visible to every onlooker. And as facts were gathered by authorities, then shared with reporters (often on background), a seemingly higher-than-usual number of points failed to pan out.
benton.org/node/141835 | Associated Press
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MEDIA SPOTLIGHT IS BLESSING, CURSE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Peter Applebome, Brian Stelter]
Wolf Blitzer understands that his presence in Newtown (CT) is not appreciated by some local people, who wish that the TV satellite trucks, and the reporters who have taken over the local Starbucks, would go away and leave them to ache, grieve and mourn in peace. But he also knows that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School ranks with the national tragedies he has covered: Oklahoma City, Sept. 11, Virginia Tech. So for now the most intimate and heartbreaking of catastrophes and the insatiable, unwieldy beast of global news media are locked in an awkward union in a bucolic New England town that never expected to encounter either. Blitzer, the longtime CNN anchor, said the few exhortations to go home he had heard while working here had been far outnumbered by comments from people who thank him for telling Newtown’s story sensitively and who want the world to know what happened here. Still, he said, Newtown is providing a particularly vivid laboratory of how the media report this kind of tragedy.
benton.org/node/141824 | New York Times
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

DEBATING NEXT-GENERATION 911
[SOURCE: Fierce, AUTHOR: Mike Dano]
As the nation's wireless carriers and messaging providers gear up to support text-to-911 service, they are also already staking out positions on a Next-Generation 911 service that could support a range of communication mechanisms including pictures, video and other IP-based communications. The Federal Communications Commission announced proposed rules that will allow wireless users to send text messages to 911. The rules will require wireless carriers and over-the-top messaging providers like Facebook Messenger and Apple's iMessage to support text messages to 911 and to provide bounce-back messages if the service is unavailable. As part of that effort, the nation's four largest carriers agreed to deploy a nationwide text-to-911 service by May 15, 2014. However, the FCC is also seeking comment on a Next-Generation 911 system, dubbed NG911. That system, the details of which are still being hashed out, will support a wide range of functions beyond just text messages.
In comments to the FCC, major carriers including Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility, and T-Mobile USA generally voiced support for a next-generation 911 system, but pointed out several issues in the implementation of such a service. Specifically, Verizon urged the FCC to implement statewide or region-wide guidelines for the deployment of NG911 services to 911 call centers, dubbed Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). Verizon also said Congress should issue nationwide laws for liability--the carrier warned that "liability risks could potentially deter NG911 deployment or increase deployment costs in a particular state." In its filing AT&T noted that a NG911 system will require additional funding, and that the FCC and Congress should revamp the current funding system for 911. "AT&T believes that these public safety expenses should be funded through general revenues and that the burden of making 911 service access available to everyone should be borne equally. The commission should recommend to Congress that it explore ways of addressing this funding issue."
benton.org/node/141738 | Fierce
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Daily Digest

Analysis

December 2012

Spectrum Policy Must Continue to Ensure Equality of Opportunity

Brave New Spectrum World: Proposal Would Accommodate Many More Users in a Sensitive Band

Coming soon: Fiber for five more fiberhoods

EHRs May Turn Small Errors Into Big Ones

Nielsen and Twitter Establish Social TV Rating

China tightens 'Great Firewall' internet control with new technology

Iranian computers targeted by new malicious data wiper program

December 17, 2012 (Connecticut Shooting Coverage; WCIT Analysis)

Media Struggle with Shooting Facts

Media Spotlight Seen as a Blessing, or a Curse, in a Grieving Town