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April 2013

Pandora is Now 200 Million Music Fans Strong

Pandora has reached a milestone of 200 million registered users in the U.S. The popular personalized radio service had its first user register in the summer of 2005 and announced 100 million registered users in July of 2011, six years after the launch of the service. Pandora reached the 200 million registered user mark less than 2 years later.

  • Pandora streams 200 million songs before 10 a.m. every day.
  • Listeners have personalized their stations with more than 25 billion thumbs.
  • Last month, Pandora played more than 100,000 unique artists and more than 1 million unique songs. The vast majority of that music got no other terrestrial radio airplay.
  • More than 140 million listeners have tuned in to Pandora on a mobile device.

Majority of Senate Standing Committees Still Aren’t Tweeting

The official launch of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Twitter account brought the percentage of tweeting Senate standing committees to just less than 50 percent.

Homeland Security Chairman Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) officially unveiled the Twitter account and a new committee Facebook profile, though staffers have been tweeting from the account since early March. Sen Carper inherited the chairmanship early this year after former Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) retired. With the addition of Homeland Security, seven of the Senate’s 16 standing committees now have accounts verified by Twitter. A few committees without official accounts -- including the Banking and Armed Services panels-- have verified accounts managed by their Republican minorities.

Senate standing committees with verified Twitter accounts run by the majority are:

  • Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
  • Appropriations
  • Budget
  • Energy and Natural Resources
  • Finance
  • Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
  • Veterans' Affairs

Those that lack them are:

  • Armed Services (minority account)
  • Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (minority account)
  • Commerce, Science, and Transportation
  • Environment and Public Works
  • Foreign Relations
  • Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (minority account)
  • Judiciary
  • Rules and Administration
  • Small Business and Entrepreneurship

How Maps Can Change The World

Everyone appreciates a good mapping application--just look at what happened to Apple when they failed to provide one. Maps save us from getting lost, ensure that we get to locations on time, and guide us through complicated public transportation systems. And in some places, they can save lives. Just ask World Vision, a humanitarian organization focused on poverty and justice.

World Vision works in 100 countries around the world providing healthcare, teaching families to improve nutrition, offering disaster relief--essentially, trying to do everything they can to make life better for communities. Maps help with these efforts--a lot. About a year and a half ago, World Vision signed a licensing agreement with mapping company Esri to use its software and online cloud portal. "It’s about how we better manage data that we collect. We’re trying to improve our ability to manage data more broadly and build more transparency with public donors," says Josh Folkema, the Program Manager and Environment and Climate Change Technical Specialist at World Vision Canada.

April 9, 2013 (Google Fiber; News Corp Threat)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

The State of Rural Communications discussed today in the US Senate http://benton.org/calendar/2013-04-09/


INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Nationwide Google Fiber would cost $11 Billion per year, probably will never happen
   As Austin readies for Google Fiber, here’s why you need a gig: even if you don’t think you do
   Google Prepares for Fiber Warfare
   Global Leadership in the Broadband Economy and 10th Amendment Values - speech
   Price Discrimination and Data Caps Are Not the Same Thing - op-ed
   Intel panel chiefs outline amendments to cyber bill
   AT&T Joins Boeing Backing CISPA [links to web]

TELEVISION
   News Corp. Threatens to Pull Fox Off the Airwaves If Aereo Wins
   Wall Street to the TV Guys: Please Bail on Broadcast for Cable! - analysis
   Coalition of Spectrum Willing Highlights Concern Over Scoring Stations
   New Threat to Aereo TV [links to web]
   Tech initiatives to shake up traditional TV model face brutal fights [links to web]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Chairman Walden vows to protect broadcasters in FCC auction [links to web]
   Will There Be Volunteers to Sell Spectrum? [links to web]
   Noncommercial Stations Agree FCC Should Scrap Changes to Coverage Model [links to web]
   Coalition of Spectrum Willing Highlights Concern Over Scoring Stations
   Report: Google captured 51% of app downloads; Apple took 74% of the revenue [links to web]

TELECOM
   The Best 10 Ironies About The “Obama Phone” - analysis

PRIVACY
   The 5 biggest online privacy threats of 2013 [links to web]
   Teacher Knows if You’ve Done the E-Reading [links to web]

LABOR
   Cablevision’s Actions Illegal, Board Says [links to web]

ENERGY
   How Smartphones Could Revolutionize the Way We Heat and Cool Our Homes [links to web]

ACCESSIBILITY
   Do We Need Specialized Hardware for the Deaf? [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   How to Improve Government-to-Citizen Communication [links to web]
   The New House Republican Web Strategy: Just Add BuzzFeed [links to web]
   Hill tweeters lock out LegiStorm [links to web]

LOBBYING
   Cybersecurity lobbying doubled in 2012 [links to web]
   US-China business group blasts ban on Chinese tech products [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   In Europe, New Protest Over Google
   Deutsche Telekom Wins Watchdog Approval for Faster Web
   US says hacking undermines China's interests [links to web]
   Bertelsmann’s Random House Wins EU Backing for Penguin Bid [links to web]

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INTERNET/BROADBAND

NATIONWIDE GOOGLE FIBER WOULD COST $11 BILLION
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Cyrus Farivar]
Just one day before Google is expected to announced that it will bring Google Fiber to Austin, Texas, two Wall Street analysts have calculated that it would cost $11 billion annually to bring gigabit to the rest of the nation on the scale of other large nationwide providers like Comcast or Time Warner Cable. Based on that model, Google’s fiber network would pass “roughly 15 percent of US homes.” By comparison, Google is worth (based on its market capitalization) around $253 billion—so the search giant would have to spend about four percent of its net worth to bring a fair portion of us some of that sweet, cheap, crazy-fast broadband. Google appears to be looking for cities that have a certain size (geographic area) and a certain population density—Austin's is roughly the same size as Kansas City, KS and Kansas City, MO combined. So why is Google undertaking this entire process? Here's what the Berstein folks say: "we believe Google Fiber has two related objectives: first, Google is seeking to figure out whether or not, or under what conditions, it can make money as a facilities-based provider of broadband and pay TV services; second, it is an opportunity for Google to test new applications, new ad formats and delivery models (e.g., targeted TV ads) and to get further insight into consumer behavior. We do not believe this effort will have any significant impact on regulation or legislation."
benton.org/node/149114 | Ars Technica
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AUSTIN FIBER?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Google Fiber will come to Austin, Texas, making it the second city to get the search giant’s gigabit network. And people in Austin may be saying, “We won’t have to deal with Time Warner Cable anymore.” You may be wondering why you, in particular, need a gig. The answer is that today you don’t. I spend all day thinking and writing about broadband and even I have no idea what I would do with a symmetrical gigabit network inside my home. But we’ve gone far beyond the idea that the internet is just a fad. It’s the underpinning of the information economy. Right now our content is digital, and while next generation video standards like 4K will require 25 Mbps connections, the real reason you need a gig isn’t about video. The internet today transfers digital bits, but it’s rapidly moving to the place where it will transfer physical atoms. Thus, it won’t be about information, but about physical goods. Things like Uber or same-day delivery are examples of this. You tell the internet what you want and it delivers it for you in real-time or at least that day. If you consider 3D printers and the evolution of on-demand manufacturing then the internet could bring you physical goods directly. You want a bracelet you see online? If you have a 3D printer, the company will send the file to your Makerbot and it will print it.
benton.org/node/149094 | GigaOm
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FIBER WARFARE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Miriam Gottfried]
Google's experiment in building its own pipes to offer consumers faster broadband Internet access and pay-TV services may be slowly beginning its expansion. And cable companies should be looking over their shoulder. Google has kept details of its fiber vision close to its vest. And a nationwide rollout of the technology—at a cost of upward of $100 billion, according to Pivotal Research, not to mention its impact on Google's margins—seems unlikely. But by continuing to develop the business, the search giant may cause tremors in the cable and media industries, even as many consumers reconsider how they get their media due to rising cable bills and the proliferation of online options such as Netflix. Google's decision to expand a capital-intensive business with slow growth and high subscriber-switching costs—should reports of its move in Austin be borne out—likely stems from concern a duopoly of cable and telecom providers control access to broadband in most markets. This could theoretically lead to underinvestment in infrastructure or future pricing shifts—including charging based on the amount of data used—that could limit growth in Internet usage, which is essential to Google's core search business. By offering Google Fiber, which costs $120 a month for high-speed Internet and TV and $70 a month for just Internet, the company may show cable operators it can work around them, if needed.
benton.org/node/149141 | Wall Street Journal
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LEVIN SPEECH
[SOURCE: Gig.U, AUTHOR: Blair Levin]
At the Wisconsin Broadband Summit, Gig.U Executive Director Blair Levin discussed why he believes United States leadership in the global broadband economy is more likely to depend on municipal efforts than federal policy. In the speech, he took on claims that the 2011 Universal Service Reform effort was “a model of entitlement reform.”
benton.org/node/149089 | Gig.U
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BROADBAND CAPS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Michael Weinberg]
[Commentary] Professor Daniel Lyons identified Internet pricing as “the next policy frontier.” He is largely correct on that front. As Internet service providers (ISPs) roll out their attempts to shift consumers toward data-based pricing, they will raise a number of policy questions. But the piece didn’t accurately identify the actual policy questions involved. Professor Lyons’s fundamental mistake was to conflate opposition to data caps with opposition to price discrimination more generally. Price discrimination in broadband pricing is a positive phenomenon. It allows ISPs to create different pricing packages that appeal to different types of customers — from those heavy gamers to the grandmother who only checks her email. But price discrimination does not require using data caps. And the alternative to data caps is not one price for everyone. How can I be so sure? Because ISPs impose price discrimination today using speed tiers. And it turns out that speed tiers have a number of positive attributes that data caps lack. [Weinberg is the vice president at Public Knowledge]
benton.org/node/149142 | Wall Street Journal
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CISPA AMENDMENTS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said they will back a set of amendments to their cybersecurity bill that are intended to allay the concerns of privacy advocates and the White House. House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) told reporters on a conference call that the amendments to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) are intended to correct misperceptions about the bill and the effect it will have on people's private information. Chief among the proposed changes is an amendment that would narrow how law enforcement can use cyber threat data it receives from companies. The amendment would strike a provision that would allow the government to broadly use the information for "national security purposes." Privacy advocates argued law enforcement could interpret the provision broadly so it would allow them to take action against people for non-cybersecurity matters, such as illegal immigration or tax issues. Given the "wide misunderstanding about what this provision actually did," Chairman Rogers said the bill sponsors "decided we'd take that up and deal with it another day." Yet one proposed amendment will fall short of privacy groups' suggested changes to the bill. The amendment would require government agencies to strip personally identifiable information — such as people's email addresses or phone numbers — from the threat information they receive from companies. Privacy groups had pushed for the bill sponsors to include a measure that would require companies to take reasonable steps to remove this personal information from the threat data they pass on to the government. Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), said the bill sponsors still have not addressed "the elephant in the room": amending the bill so it would not allow companies to share cyber threat information directly with the National Security Agency (NSA). Instead, groups like the CDT and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argue that a civilian agency like the Homeland Security Department should handle the threat data before it gets sent to the NSA.
benton.org/node/149134 | Hill, The | The Hill – Privacy groups
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TELEVISION

NEWS CORP TO GO OFF THE AIR?
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Kafka]
News Corp. COO Chase Carey says his conglomerate is considering moving programming from its Fox broadcast network, which viewers can receive over the air, for free, to its pay cable networks. Carey floated the idea during a speech at TV industry conference, in response to a recent court ruling that gave startup Aereo the go-ahead, at least temporarily, to show programming from Fox and other broadcasters on its Web TV service, without paying for the shows. “If we can’t have our rights properly protected through legal and governmental solutions, we will pursue business solution. One solution would be to take the network and make it a subscription service. We’re not going to sit idly by and let people steal our content.”
http://allthingsd.com/20130408/news-corp-threatens-to-pull-fox-off-the-a...
Chase Carey Threatens to Yank Fox From Broadcast TV Over Aereo (Variety)
benton.org/node/149102 | Wall Street Journal | Variety
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WALL STREET ON BROADCASTING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Kafka]
Is News Corp. really going to yank Fox off the airwaves in response to Aereo?
Snap consensus judgment from the various corners of the TV Industrial Complex: No way. At least, not anytime soon. It’s possible that over time, if broadcasters do think that Aereo or Aereo-like technology really threatens the fees they get from pay TV operators for their over-the-air programming, they’ll move more of it to cable networks. And, in fact, programmers have already started moving lots of high-profile sporting events from free TV to pay TV. Near-term, however, people seem to think that both practical and legal restrictions — for instance, deals that Fox and CBS have with the NFL for football broadcast rights — would prevent this from happening. More practically, there isn’t any reason to do so, since only a handful of people are actually using Aereo to get broadcast TV for free. All that said, Wall Street seems to like the idea. Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger gamed out a scenario where all four broadcasters moved from over-the-air to pay networks, and concluded that it wouldn’t be a terrible idea, at least financially. By Juenger’s thinking, the lost “retransmission fees” and advertising dollars the broadcasters would lose from over-the-air programming would be replaced by even higher “affiliate fees” and advertising dollars they could get on cable.
benton.org/node/149109 | Wall Street Journal
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INCENTIVE AUCTIONS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition met with Federal Communications Commission officials and left still concerned that the FCC would discourage broadcaster participation in the auction by holding to a plan to pay larger broadcasters more than smaller ones. Such differential pricing according to size or audience, the coalition has said, is not relevant to the price of a station's spectrum. It says only two factors should be considered: 1) the effect of the station's spectrum on the subsequent repacking of other stations after the reverse auction portion of the incentive auction, and 2) the market price as determined by the competitive bids by broadcasters to give up spectrum. According to coalition executive director Preston Padden in a letter to the FCC, he is concerned by comments from Wireless Bureau chief Ruth Milkman and others at the meeting that they "expressed a desire to retain the flexibility to pay more to 'big' stations and less to 'small' stations.” Padden said that if by 'big' that the FCC might have to pay more for a station that had a big effect on repacking of other stations, that was understandable, but if that still mean according to size or audience, population covered, or enterprise value, then that would be "picking winners and losers" and suggested the FCC might wind up the ultimate loser by reducing the amount of spectrum it was able to reclaim and was already "driving away from the auction the very stations most likely to otherwise consider surrendering their spectrum."
benton.org/node/149097 | Broadcasting&Cable
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TELECOM

OBAMA PHONE
[SOURCE: Tales of the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] There is so much about the “Obama Phone” nonsense that tickles my funny bone in odd places. It’s not just that everything conservatives say about it is factually wrong. It also proves that the cherished progressive belief that every policy ever adopted under Reagan and under W were universally unmitigated disasters for the poor and people of color is also wrong. As if this were not ironic enough, the “Obama phone” was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in part to address the massive sudden need for subsidized mobile phones for Katrina victims. In 2005-06, Tracfone distributed 30,000 phones to Katrina victims under the expanded Lifeline program, and raised awareness of the new program through the devastated Gulf Coast region, i.e, the same red state regions now bellyaching about the program. For Progressives, consider that the “Obama phone” was invented in part as a response to Katrina by the President who “didn’t care about black people.”
benton.org/node/149129 | Tales of the Sausage Factory
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

NEW PROTEST OVER GOOGLE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: James Kanter]
European antitrust regulators have received a formal complaint about Google’s Android operating system for mobile devices, even as they move to the final stages of their inquiry into the company’s search practices. The complaint was filed by Fairsearch Europe, a group of Google’s competitors, including the mobile phone maker Nokia and the software titan Microsoft, and by other companies, like Oracle. It accuses Google of using the Android software “as a deceptive way to build advantages for key Google apps in 70 percent of the smartphones shipped today,” said Thomas Vinje, the lead lawyer for Fairsearch Europe, referring to Android’s share of the smartphone market. For example, phone makers that agree to use Android — and that also want Google applications like YouTube — face contractual requirements to place those applications and other Google-branded applications in prominent positions on the mobile device’s desktop, Vinje said.
benton.org/node/149120 | New York Times | Associated Press | WSJ
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DEUTSCHE TELEKOM GETS OK
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Cornelius Rahn]
Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany’s largest phone company, won permission to offer speedier Web access in most urban areas on existing copper lines, giving it a cheaper way to take on cable providers. The Bonn-based carrier may deny rivals access to its street-side cabinets -- a precondition for installing the so- called DSL vectoring technology -- under certain conditions, Germany’s Federal Network Agency said in an e-mailed draft ruling. Such a move is allowed, for instance, in areas where customers can choose an alternative fixed-line network, the watchdog said. “The driving idea behind the decision is to allow vectoring for all market participants and thus drive forward the broadband rollout,” Jochen Homann, the agency’s president, said in the statement. “The open access approach ensures that no monopolies may arise in certain areas: neither for Deutsche Telekom nor its competitors.”
benton.org/node/149119 | Bloomberg
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Price Discrimination and Data Caps Are Not the Same Thing

[Commentary] Professor Daniel Lyons identified Internet pricing as “the next policy frontier.” He is largely correct on that front. As Internet service providers (ISPs) roll out their attempts to shift consumers toward data-based pricing, they will raise a number of policy questions. But the piece didn’t accurately identify the actual policy questions involved. Professor Lyons’s fundamental mistake was to conflate opposition to data caps with opposition to price discrimination more generally. Price discrimination in broadband pricing is a positive phenomenon. It allows ISPs to create different pricing packages that appeal to different types of customers — from those heavy gamers to the grandmother who only checks her email. But price discrimination does not require using data caps. And the alternative to data caps is not one price for everyone. How can I be so sure? Because ISPs impose price discrimination today using speed tiers. And it turns out that speed tiers have a number of positive attributes that data caps lack.

[Weinberg is the vice president at Public Knowledge]

Google Prepares for Fiber Warfare

Google's experiment in building its own pipes to offer consumers faster broadband Internet access and pay-TV services may be slowly beginning its expansion. And cable companies should be looking over their shoulder.

Google has kept details of its fiber vision close to its vest. And a nationwide rollout of the technology—at a cost of upward of $100 billion, according to Pivotal Research, not to mention its impact on Google's margins—seems unlikely. But by continuing to develop the business, the search giant may cause tremors in the cable and media industries, even as many consumers reconsider how they get their media due to rising cable bills and the proliferation of online options such as Netflix. Google's decision to expand a capital-intensive business with slow growth and high subscriber-switching costs—should reports of its move in Austin be borne out—likely stems from concern a duopoly of cable and telecom providers control access to broadband in most markets. This could theoretically lead to underinvestment in infrastructure or future pricing shifts—including charging based on the amount of data used—that could limit growth in Internet usage, which is essential to Google's core search business. By offering Google Fiber, which costs $120 a month for high-speed Internet and TV and $70 a month for just Internet, the company may show cable operators it can work around them, if needed.

Chairman Walden vows to protect broadcasters in FCC auction

House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) promised to look out for the interests of broadcasters during the Federal Communications Commission's auction of airwave licenses, emphasizing that the auction will be voluntary for broadcasters.

"As the FCC moves through the incentive auction process, I intend to ensure that the Commission properly implements the provisions of the Act to preserve a vibrant post-auction broadcast environment," Chairman Walden said during a speech at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas. "To ensure that broadcasters who wish to remain broadcasters can do so. To ensure that the FCC makes all reasonable efforts to maintain coverage areas. To ensure the FCC coordinates with Mexico and Canada to mitigate interference for border state broadcasters. To ensure that the FCC raises enough money to compensate stations that return spectrum, to reimburse those that relocate, and to help pay for the public safety network. And to ensure that — after putting broadcasters through all this — the FCC does not just turn around and give away spectrum.” Chairman Walden also said he plans to renew his push for FCC process reform legislation. The House passed his bill last year, but the Senate declined to take it up. The legislation would require the FCC to demonstrate the necessity of new regulations, restrict the types of conditions the agency could impose on corporate mergers and require the agency to set binding timelines for its proceedings.

Will There Be Volunteers to Sell Spectrum?

For all the ballyhoo surrounding the Federal Communications Commission’s plans to give broadcasters the opportunity to sell some of their spectrum, there’s no indication yet that potential sellers will even bite at that chance. “To figure out if they want to participate … broadcasters need to know what are the rules of the game,” Rick Kaplan, National Association of Broadcasters EVP of strategic planning, said.

Noncommercial Stations Agree FCC Should Scrap Changes to Coverage Model

Noncommercial television broadcasters are on the same page with the National Association of Broadcasters when it comes to the Federal Communications Commission's proposed changes (the so-called Bulletin 69) to how the FCC calculates coverage areas and interference protections for the post incentive auction repacking, arguing that the changes would create "widespread uncertainty for stations and would make it difficult for public television stations to serve their mission of providing all Americans with important free, noncommercial television services." Like commercial broadcasters, they argue that the commission is bound by statute to use the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) methodology.

Intel panel chiefs outline amendments to cyber bill

The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said they will back a set of amendments to their cybersecurity bill that are intended to allay the concerns of privacy advocates and the White House.

House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) told reporters on a conference call that the amendments to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) are intended to correct misperceptions about the bill and the effect it will have on people's private information. Chief among the proposed changes is an amendment that would narrow how law enforcement can use cyber threat data it receives from companies. The amendment would strike a provision that would allow the government to broadly use the information for "national security purposes."

Privacy advocates argued law enforcement could interpret the provision broadly so it would allow them to take action against people for non-cybersecurity matters, such as illegal immigration or tax issues. Given the "wide misunderstanding about what this provision actually did," Chairman Rogers said the bill sponsors "decided we'd take that up and deal with it another day." Yet one proposed amendment will fall short of privacy groups' suggested changes to the bill. The amendment would require government agencies to strip personally identifiable information — such as people's email addresses or phone numbers — from the threat information they receive from companies. Privacy groups had pushed for the bill sponsors to include a measure that would require companies to take reasonable steps to remove this personal information from the threat data they pass on to the government.

Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), said the bill sponsors still have not addressed "the elephant in the room": amending the bill so it would not allow companies to share cyber threat information directly with the National Security Agency (NSA). Instead, groups like the CDT and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argue that a civilian agency like the Homeland Security Department should handle the threat data before it gets sent to the NSA.

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