May 2013

Will Sprint-SoftBank Get Tangled in the Flag?

In making a case against the SoftBank-Sprint deal, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen has lots of financial arguments for why his offer is better. But Ergen also makes the case that Sprint would be better in the hands of an American than controlled by a foreign entity. That argument appears to be getting some legs.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) expressed concerns that a SoftBank deal could leave Sprint — and the U.S. — more vulnerable to Chinese hacking. A person close to SoftBank notes that Dish’s top government relations executive — Jessica Straus — is also Schumer’s former chief fundraiser. A U.S.-based spokesman for SoftBank said, “The blatant attempt to politicize the (government approval) process by Dish is inappropriate and threatens to discourage important foreign investment in the United States.” SoftBank has also been working on plans to ease government concerns over Chinese influence. One approach would let the U.S. have approval over one of SoftBank’s Sprint board members who would have responsibility for national security issues.

These 12 technologies will drive our economic future

The things that will determine standards of living a generation from now have almost nothing to do with this month’s jobs report or the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting. Those determinants, instead, depend on companies’ innovations — in particular, whether those innovations turn out to have major economic consequences. Researchers at the McKinsey Global Institute, the in-house think tank of the giant consulting firm, have a new study in which they have taken their best shot at predicting exactly that. They have scoured the range of potential disruptive technologies and done their best to estimate how transformative each might be for the U.S. economy. Their results are hardly definitive — we can’t know what the future holds — but represent a serious effort by some smart people to quantify what appear to be some major forces shaping our technological future. And the results have some important implications for how we think about innovation. Here’s the list the McKinsey researchers came up with, along with their (very rough) estimates of how much economic potential they hold.

Mobile Internet
Automation of knowledge work [Editor’s note: Hey! That’s me you’re talkin’ about!]
Internet of Things
Cloud

[more at the URL below]

Sen Paul offers bill to protect privacy of electronic communications

Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a bill that would extend Fourth Amendment rights to electronic communications.

The Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act, S. 1037, would require specific warrants granted by judges in order to obtain electronic communications. Sen Paul said that lawmakers have passed laws that “decimate” the Fourth Amendment by allowing communications controlled by a third party, such as email and bank records, to be used in investigations without notifying the person using the service.

Chairman Rockefeller Still Targeting June for Wheeler Hearing

According to a Senate Commerce Committee source, Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is targeting June for a nomination hearing for Tom Wheeler as the next Federal Communications Commission chair.

President Barack Obama has yet to nominate a Republican, and Wheeler almost certainly would not get a full-Senate vote until he is paired with a Republican to replace former-FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. But the Senate Commerce Committee does not necessarily pair nominees for a committee vote unless they were nominated at about the same time. "We're not going to wait months for the Republicans," the source said.

Comment Cycle Established For Technology Transitions Policy Task Force Public Notice Regarding Potential Trials

On May 10, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission’s Technology Transitions Policy Task Force (Task Force) released a public notice proposing to move forward with real-world trials to obtain data that will be helpful to the FCC in determining what policies are appropriate to promote investment and innovation while protecting consumers, promoting competition, and ensuring that emerging all-Internet Protocol (IP) networks remain resilient. Comments will be due by July 8, 2013, and reply comments will be due by August 7, 2013.

Verizon goes on offensive in Voice Link deployment

As criticism mounts over Verizon's move to replace its copper-based voice lines with its new Voice Link service in areas of New York and New Jersey impacted by Hurricane Sandy, the carrier went to work explaining the logic behind its actions.

"In [areas impacted by] Hurricane Sandy the copper infrastructure was wiped out," said Tom Maguire, senior vice president of national operations support, who leads the Voice Link program at Verizon. "There are 500 year-round residents on [the western portion] of Fire Island. In New Jersey, there are 800 customers who also don't have access to copper." With approximately 1,200 people completely affected on Fire Island (NY) and Montoloking (NJ), Verizon decided not to replace the destroyed copper infrastructure. "Reliability, scalability--you can't do a lot of things on copper, it isn't the best investment to make," said Maguire. Fiber was also nixed from the list of options due to its cost versus the number of customers served. The population of Fire Island fluctuates from 500 year-round residents to more than 10,000 in the summer season.

Emergency Alerting: Capabilities Have Improved, but Additional Guidance and Testing Are Needed

An effective system to alert the public during emergencies can help reduce property damage and save lives. The Government Accountability Office was asked to review recent efforts to implement the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) and improve the Emergency Alert System (EAS).

GAO examined: (1) how IPAWS capabilities have changed since 2009 and what barriers, if any, affect its implementation and (2) results of the nationwide EAS test and federal efforts to address identified weaknesses. GAO reviewed Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and other documentation, and interviewed industry stakeholders and alerting authorities from six locations that were selected because they have public-alerting systems in addition to EAS and experienced problems during the nationwide EAS test. GAO recommends that FEMA work in conjunction with FCC to establish guidance for states to fully implement and test IPAWS components and implement a strategy for regular nationwide EAS testing. In response, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) concurred with GAO’s recommendations and provided examples of actions aimed at addressing the recommendations.

[GAO-13-375, April 24]

Inside Amazon's tax fight

For many years, Amazon enjoyed a crucial leg up compared to traditional retailers like Barnes & Noble, Sears, and Wal-Mart: The e-tailer didn't charge sales taxes to its customers. The result: Amazon benefited from as much as a 10% pricing advantage over its rivals, one key reason behind the company's meteoric rise.

"It's no exaggeration to say you can't fully appreciate the rise of Amazon without understanding this fight," write Fortune's Peter Elkind and Doris Burke in the cover story for the magazine's new issue. Amazon's (not so secret) War on Taxes reveals how, for more than 15 years, Jeff Bezos's company successfully battled to preserve this edge -- demanding, wheedling, suing, threatening, and negotiating -- and how new alliances and strategies among Amazon's (AMZN) enemies have finally begun turning the tide. (Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would close the Internet tax loophole for good.) "There's a lot at stake," Fortune declares in this in-depth narrative. "For state and local governments: an estimated $11.4 billion a year in desperately needed cash for streets, schools, police, and parks. For Amazon and arch competitors like Wal-Mart: the struggle for retail primacy. For American consumers: what they pay and how they shop."

Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Home Computers on Academic Achievement among Schoolchildren

Computers are an important part of modern education, yet many schoolchildren lack access to a computer at home. We test whether this impedes educational achievement by conducting the largest-ever field experiment that randomly provides free home computers to students. Although computer ownership and use increased substantially, we find no effects on any educational outcomes, including grades, test scores, credits earned, attendance and disciplinary actions. Our estimates are precise enough to rule out even modestly-sized positive or negative impacts. The estimated null effect is consistent with survey evidence showing no change in homework time or other "intermediate" inputs in education.

The Truth About kids and Social Media

[Commentary] Most people cringe at the thought of these two terms used in the same sentence, and it falls into the same scary category of kids and drugs. Why? We don’t like what we don’t know or understand.

Parents don’t like the thought of their kids embracing social media because they don’t fully understand the benefits and dangers. In many cases, they also don’t understand the social platforms to their full extent. Education is key for the parents as well as the kids. Not to mention teachers! Everyone involved needs to understand the pros and the cons. As most of us already know, there are clear downsides with kids using social media and this topic has been covered for years. Cyberbullying, privacy , and identity theft are only a few negatives that should be considered. Just as we teach our children how to ride a bike, we need to teach them how to navigate social media and make the right moves that will help them. The physical world is similar to the virtual world in many cases. It’s about being aware. We can prevent many debacles if we’re educated.

[Amy Jo Martin is the founder and CEO of Digital Royalty, a social media and education company based in Las Vegas, Nevada]

Benton

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