April 2013

[Commentary] Apparently, the Koch brothers are considering buying the Tribune network of newspapers in a bid to establish a pro-business conservative media chain. I say, good luck with that.

There are several reasons regional newspapers are an awkward fit for anyone looking to counter-program what they see as liberal bias in the news media. The main reason is that all major U.S. newspapers are based in cities. Cities in America are in the main run by Democrats, because they are populated, by and large, with Democrats, and very often also surrounded by Democratic suburbs. And because cities are run by Democrats, and populated by not only by Democrats but, very often, by liberal, minority, and immigrant Democrats, they tend to have laws on the books that at least formally signal a desire to serve the interests of these voting groups -- their residents, let's call them. The Koch brothers could try to make the Los Angeles Times or the Baltimore Sun more appealing to a different intellectual community. But if they were to buy the papers and push their newsrooms in a more conservative direction, I suspect they would see an increase in the pace at which the geographic communities that once sustained the publications abandon them.

In the four months since the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, the tone of the conversation about gun control on Twitter has shifted sharply several times in apparent response to ongoing events, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of nearly 21 million tweets from December 18 through April 21.

In that period, the Twitter sentiment overall was almost balanced between those supporting stronger gun control measures (42% of the conversation) and those opposed (38%), according to the report. That is in contrast to the first three days after the December 14 attack when an earlier Pew Research report found that pro-gun control voices dominated their opponents 64% to 21%. But what stands out even more is the fluid nature of the debate on Twitter. In 10 of the 18 weeks studied, assertions favoring tougher regulations outnumbered those opposing; in seven of those weeks, the sentiment against a new law was more prominent. In one of those weeks, the mix was exactly even. The findings also suggest that while pro-gun control forces dominated in the emotional and painful hours immediately following the attack, over time the conversation shifted to reflect the nation's more divided view of gun control that has become evident in recent years. At the same time, one of the biggest shifts in Twitter opinion occurred the week of the April 17 Senate vote, when sentiment favoring tougher gun laws outstripped expressions of opposition by 3-1.

Now that Google Fiber is to be built in three U.S. cities, and given AT&T’s announced intention to counter with a 1-Gbps network of its own in Austin, Texas, new attention will be paid to precisely what has to be tweaked in an ISP’s business plan to make such networks possible on a wider scale.

Other ISPs are taking a look at the economics as well. Wicked Broadband in Lawrence, Kansas, for example, is among the latest to announce it will build a 1-Gbps network. Work will have to be done on both the revenue and cost fronts, since the retail pricing set by Google Fiber ($70 a month for 1 Gbps, free 5 Mbps service) disrupts current pricing levels. Where available, 1-Gbps connections have sold for about $300 a month (Utopia in Utah) (EPB Fiber in Tennessee) (Sonic.net in northern California). With a $70 retail price for 1 Gbps, all lower speed services likewise will have to be reevaluated. That is going to compress profit margins for any ISP that actually does boost speeds, even if speeds are not increased all the way to 1 Gbps immediately, since the “1 Gbps for $70” pricing umbrella almost inevitably will require a revision of all lower-speed prices as well, as that price point is lower than what ISPs now set for 50 Mbps services.

[Commentary] Last summer I posited that Google's fiber play in Kansas City would create a ripple through other regions of the country.

The first surprise was the continued ostrich maneuver that some big cable and DSL providers are pulling, namely the "customers don't want gigabit Internet" front. This could be likened to a lead paint salesman pooh-poohing latex paint because "customers don't want their health." It's just blather -- a smokescreen to obscure the fact that the entrenched monopolies/oligopolies do not want to upgrade their networks. It's easy to justify delivering subpar performance for premium prices if you delude yourself into thinking that your customers don't want anything more.

The second was the speed with which Google Fiber has been requested and deployed. There are already plans to expand the initial Kansas City footprint, and Google recently announced plans to deploy a new network in Austin, Texas, as well as purchase a failed community fiber network in Provo, Utah, and turn it into a Google Fiber plant. Suddenly, we're looking at gigabit fiber Internet in three locations in the United States, not just a "test" in Kansas City.

Third was the reaction from other segments of the incumbent ISP cabal. AT&T announced it will be deploying a gigabit fiber network in Austin as well. Forgive me if I don't hold my breath on this one. I figure this is a press release designed to bluff Google and other involved parties in the Austin area and to gain some mindshare that AT&T is stepping up to the challenge.