July 29, 2013 (The FCC and the Drive for E-rate 2.0)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, JULY 29, 2013 (Way to go, Orange Cats!)
This week’s agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2013-07-28--P1W/
EDUCATION
The FCC and the Drive for E-rate 2.0 - analysis
Giving Our Kids a Chance to Compete in the Global Economy Means High-Speed Broadband Capacity - op-ed
The perils of online college learning - analysis
Google Play offers digital textbooks for up to 80% off print versions [links to web]
LA Unified School District Wants iPads for All 640,000 Students [links to web]
BROADBAND/TELECOM
US slips to 9th in Internet speed
Communities forge ahead with their own broadband initiatives
Telecom leaders, analysts debate IP transition regulations in Senate hearing
Put sound policy before technology - op-ed
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
NAB: FCC Needs to Collect Comprehensive Wireless Spectrum Use/Efficiency Data [links to web]
T-Mobile drops monthly payments, boosts fees [links to web]
PRIVACY
Some privacy advocates question mobile apps agreement
JOURNALISM
The presidential media pool lacks racial depth
TELEVISION
VCR’s Past Is Guiding Television’s Future - analysis
FCC’s Media Bureau Seeks Comment on TiVo Petition [links to web]
Survey -- Majority of TV Viewers Say a Commercial Is Likely to Motivate Them to Buy a Product [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Greenwald: Low-level NSA analysts allowed to spy on phone calls
Momentum Builds Against NSA Surveillance
Opponents of NSA surveillance emboldened by close House vote
Rep. Rogers: Amash effort to curb NSA powers 'dangerous' [links to web]
How to reform the NSA’s metadata program - editorial
Thousands in Germany protest NSA surveillance
How Nancy Pelosi Saved the NSA Surveillance Program [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Thousands in Germany protest NSA surveillance
European data protection under a cloud
Two Ad Giants Chasing Google in Merger Deal
Apple supplier accused of labor violations
Europe Awaits Wave of Telecom Consolidation
Rogers CEO: Keep U.S. carriers out of Canadian market [links to web]
Chinese firm Huawei controls net filter praised by PM [links to web]
Huawei defends UK internet filtering role [links to web]
EDUCATION
THE FCC AND THE DRIVE FOR E-RATE 2.0
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] On July 19, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission launched a major effort to review and modernize the E-rate program which helps schools and libraries to obtain affordable telecommunications services, broadband Internet access and internal network connections. Created by provisions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the E-rate is the federal government’s largest education technology program. In 1996, only 14 percent of classrooms had Internet and most schools with Internet access (74 percent) used dial-up Internet access. By 2005, nearly all schools had access to the Internet, and 94 percent of all instructional classrooms had Internet access. Similarly, by 2006, nearly all public libraries were connected to the Internet, and 98 percent of them offered public Internet access. Increasingly, however, schools and libraries require high-capacity broadband connections to take advantage of digital learning technologies that hold the promise of substantially improving educational experiences and expanding opportunity for students, teachers, parents and whole communities. As more and more educators turn to online resources and capabilities, the strain on district networks increases.
http://benton.org/node/156650
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HIGH-SPEED BROADBAND FOR SCHOOLS
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Mark Edwards]
[Commentary] In Mooresville, North Carolina, school may be out for summer, but the halls are not quiet. President Obama's visit to Mooresville highlighted Mooresville Graded School District's innovative digital learning program. With high-speed broadband capacity, Mooresville schools have dived head first into digital age learning. As a result, Mooresville schools have seen improved academic performance, student engagement and graduation rates--all while decreasing funds needed per pupil. It's no wonder that so many educators and education leaders want to know how they can bring the same success to their own communities. So we have come together, as the superintendent of Mooresville Graded School District and a member of the Federal Communications Commission, because we believe that what has been done in Mooresville can be done anywhere. It starts with the Federal Communications Commission's little-known E-Rate program.
benton.org/node/156691 | Huffington Post, The
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ONLINE LEARNING
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Michael Hiltzik]
[Commentary] Let it not be said that San Jose State University hasn't taught the world a valuable lesson in the promises and pitfalls of the fancy new craze for online university learning. The Cal State University campus set itself up as a pioneer in the field in January, when it announced plans to enroll up to 300 students in three introductory online courses; the fee would be $150, a deep discount from the usual cost of more than $2,000. The chances that careful evaluation of the San Jose experiment will reduce the hype surrounding online learning are slim. Online learning is seen today as the answer to virtually every problem facing higher education, especially public higher ed. The underlying problem with the online learning craze is that its proponents vastly overvalue the tools provided by the online platform and treat the content — that is, the material being learned — as a commodity.
benton.org/node/156681 | Los Angeles Times
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BROADBAND/TELECOM
WE’RE NUMBER 9!
[SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, AUTHOR: George Mathis]
A new study suggests the U.S. is losing the race for Internet speed. Akamai, a U.S. company that serves about 20 percent of the world’s Internet traffic, in its 2013 “State of the Internet” report, says America’s Internet speed has slipped to 9th from 8th. Latvia, the home country of Doctor Doom, is ranked 6th and probably plotting a way to destroy the Fantastic Four even now. The Top 10 countries? South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Netherlands, Latvia, Czech Republic, Sweden, U.S., Denmark. South Korea’s average connection speed in early 2013 was 14.1 megabits per second. The U.S. average is 8.6 Mbps. The global average is 3.1 Mbps.
benton.org/node/156689 | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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LOCAL BROADBAND INITIATIVES
[SOURCE: Fierce, AUTHOR: Jim Barthold]
Continued impatience about when--or if--traditional service providers will start offering ubiquitous broadband connectivity has led state and local governments to take their own steps forward. Oklahoma, for example, will institute a program that expands rural access, and Leverett, Mass., plans to hire a contractor to build a fiber optic network. In each instance, public money is being used to build necessary facilities. Oklahoma is using a $74 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to build out the Oklahoma Community Anchor Network (OCAN) to cover schools, hospitals and tribes throughout the state. The project is running under the joint auspices of the state's Office of Management and Enterprise Services, Department of Transportation and State Regents for Higher Education's OneNet Division, a telecommunications network for government and education. The 1,005-route mile network, which is expected to go online Aug. 1, covers 35 counties and includes 33 "community anchors" with plans to partner with local telecom companies operating in rural communities.
benton.org/node/156687 | Fierce
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STATE OF WIRELINE COMMUNICATIONS
[SOURCE: Fierce, AUTHOR: Samantha Bookman]
Industry executives and association leaders including Windstream's Jeff Gardner, COMPTEL's Jerry James, and National Cable and Telecommunications Association's Shirley Bloomfield joined analyst Larry Downes and Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn to testify in front of the Senate Commerce Committee in a hearing -- the fourth in a series -- on the impending transition off the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) to IP technologies. It was in every way a discussion about what's next for telecommunications. But the biggest issue lay in how much regulation, if any, should be created or revised as providers shift away from the PSTN. While several topics were on the table--technology transition, FCC governance, rural access to voice and Internet services, the cord-cutting trend, and call completion problems -- the question of maintaining competitiveness while continuing to both innovate and provide reliable services stayed at the forefront.
benton.org/node/156685 | Fierce
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POLICY BEFORE TECHNOLOGY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jerry James, Shirley Bloomfield, Steve Berry, Matthew Polka]
[Commentary] There is a battle going on in Washington, D.C., that could have a dramatic impact on the future of the market for all forms of communications services. At issue is ensuring that the fundamental principles intended to benefit consumers are sustained as networks once again undergo a technology transition – this time to the use of Internet protocol (IP) transmission technology. Regardless of the technology, any transition should embrace these core policy objectives for consumers, including access to innovative services, greater choice among providers, and lower prices. However, if these policy objectives are not sustained in an IP-enabled world, the nation’s consumers and businesses are likely to pay more for services and get less in return. To realize the full benefits of technological innovations, the IP transition must not be frustrated or undermined as a result of misinformation, regulatory uncertainty, or a lack of reasonably tailored, but effective, oversight. By ensuring common sense consumer protection, universal service, and competitive market responsibilities apply throughout this transition, we have the opportunity to get this transition right and continue delivering innovative broadband services across the nation.
[James is CEO of COMPTEL; Bloomfield is CEO of NTCA - the Rural Broadband Association; Berry is president and CEO of the Competitive Carriers Association; and Polka is president and CEO of the American Cable Association.]
benton.org/node/156683 | Hill, The
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PRIVACY
QUESTIONS ON MOBILE APP AGREEMENT
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
A proposed code of conduct for mobile app developers intended to make them explain how user data is collected and used does not have a clear enforcement mechanism, one privacy advocate said. The code was negotiated this week by several trade groups and the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). While many participants in the NTIA's mobile privacy negotiations voiced support Thursday for the transparency code of conduct, Consumer Watchdog criticized the document and the NTIA process. Just two participants voted to fully endorse the code, while 20 supported it, 17 voted for further consideration and one objected. Participants voicing support had no obligation to adopt the code, the NTIA said. "This is absurd Orwellian doublespeak," John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project director, said in an email. "A company can put out a press release saying it supports the transparency code, boosting its public image and then do absolutely nothing." Several consumer and privacy groups voted to support the code, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumers Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The Consumer Federation of America said both the code and the process that produced it are seriously flawed. "While the idea of short-form notices is appealing, the information that they would provide under this code falls far short of what is needed to tell mobile application users what is really happening with their data," said Susan Grant, director of consumer protection at CFA. "It does not explain how their data will be used beyond what is necessary for the function of the app. Moreover, the information about what kind of data is collected and with whom it is shared is very limited. Most disturbingly, while the code calls for mobile app developers to disclose whether users' data will be shared with certain types of third parties, such as social networks and ad networks, no disclosure is required when the data is shared with the very same types of entities if they are part of the same corporate structure as the app developer." Grant expressed frustration at the process -- NTIA voted on the draft at its last meeting -- and the work product, but abstained rather than dissented in deference to the work of other nonprofits on the code.
The Center for Digital Democracy, which has long expressed concerns about the multistakeholder process that produced NTIA's draft of a code of mobile app conduct, also abstained from that draft.
benton.org/node/156667 | IDG News Service | Broadcasting&Cable | B&C – CDD
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JOURNALISM
PRESIDENTIAL MEDIA POOL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Paul Farhi]
When the first black president of the United States walked into the White House press room to talk about Trayvon Martin and the complexities of race in America, the people poised to convey his remarks to the world were overwhelmingly of one race — white. At a time when one of the most contentious subjects in Washington is immigration reform — an issue of great import to many Hispanics — the people questioning the President on a regular basis are unlikely to be Hispanic themselves. But does that matter? Of the 53 correspondents who regularly report from the White House, seven are African American or Asian American, according to head counts by a dozen White House correspondents, journalism organizations and other sources (figures on other minorities aren’t available). The mainstream news media have always been disproportionately populated by white journalists. The numbers haven’t budged over decades, and may in fact have declined over time.
benton.org/node/156675 | Washington Post
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TELEVISION
VCR’S PAST IS GUIDING TELEVISION’S FUTURE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
[Commentary] Broadcast television as we know it now stands on two legs: advertising and retransmission fees from cable providers. With Hopper skipping ads and Aereo allowing for distribution over the Internet without payment, profits might go dark. But the legal cases also seem to defy a kind of common-sense logic: how can insurgents use programming created by someone else to their own ends without sharing revenue? The answer could get very complicated, very fast, but let’s try to make it simple.
benton.org/node/156697 | New York Times
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
ACCESS TO COMMUNICATIONS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Meghashyam Mali]
Reporter Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story about the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, on Sunday defended prior claims from leaker Edward Snowden that low-level analysts and contractors had access to private communications. “The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they’ve collected over the last several years,” Greenwald said in an interview on ABC’s This Week. “These programs are, are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use, where all an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address, and it does two things,” Greenwald explained. “It searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you’ve entered, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future.” “It’s all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst,” he added.
benton.org/node/156717 | Hill, The
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MOMENTUM BUILDS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jonathan Weisman]
The movement to crack down on government surveillance has built a momentum that even critics say may be unstoppable, drawing support from Republican and Democratic leaders, attracting moderates in both parties and pulling in some of the most respected voices on national security in the House. The rapidly shifting politics were reflected clearly in the House, when a plan to defund the National Security Agency’s telephone data collection program fell just seven votes short of passage. Now, after initially signaling that they were comfortable with the scope of the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone and Internet activities, but not their content, revealed by Edward J. Snowden, lawmakers are showing an increasing willingness to use legislation to curb those actions. The sudden reconsideration of post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism policy has taken much of Washington by surprise.
benton.org/node/156715 | New York Times
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EMBOLDENED BY CLOSE HOUSE VOTE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso, Jennifer Martinez]
A close vote in the House on National Security Agency surveillance has given privacy advocates new momentum in their quest to curtail the agency's power. Critics of the agency are reviewing their options and plotting their next move in an attempt to build on their surprisingly strong showing. "The House took a shot across NSA's bow, and the NSA noticed," said Gregory Nojeim, a senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology. It's a heady time for privacy advocates, who for years have been on the defensive against claims that tougher privacy standards would endanger national security and help terrorists.
benton.org/node/156713 | Hill, The
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WP EDITORIAL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The director of national intelligence announced on July 19 that a court had renewed one of the government’s most controversial surveillance programs — the collection of a vast database of so-called metadata from Americans’ phone calls. The phone metadata effort does not appear to be an obviously unconstitutional abuse of civil liberties. Yet at least two things should bother Americans about it. First is that the government is gathering so much phone call information to track what should be a relatively small number of targets. Collecting and keeping the country’s phone records results in a very powerful surveillance tool that, if abused, could give government agents insight into how all sorts of Americans are conducting their lives. Second, and related, are the justifications for amassing all of that information. Government lawyers argue that detecting patterns of communications — those whom suspects call and even associates of those associates — has yielded information that has contributed to foiling potential terror plots. In order to produce those benefits, they say, they must have, somewhere, the whole universe of this sort of metadata, which communications firms don’t keep themselves. By that logic, nearly every record anywhere could be considered relevant.
benton.org/node/156709 | Washington Post
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PROTEST IN GERMANY
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
Thousands of people are taking to the streets in Germany to protest against the alleged widespread surveillance of Internet users by U.S. intelligence services. Protesters, responding to calls by a loose network calling itself #stopwatchingus, braved searing summer temperatures July 27 to demonstrate in Hamburg, Munich, Berlin and up to 35 other German cities and towns. Some wore tinfoil hats to shield themselves from the sun -- and make a political statement about warding off unwanted eavesdroppers. Others held placards showing support for National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
benton.org/node/156707 | Associated Press
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
EUROPEAN DATA PROTECTION
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Chris Bryant]
Cloud computing has been hailed as a revolution that would reduce the need for capital investment and provide near unlimited computer power and storage on demand. But in recent weeks fears have grown that European data stored on the cloud could be vulnerable to foreign surveillance. Revelations by Edward Snowden, the US contractor turned whistleblower, have underscored the shortcomings of Europe’s data protection laws in the age of the cloud, where data are stored at external data warehouses rather than on a local hard drive. As data flows across national borders at lightning speed, often existing simultaneously on servers in multiple countries, protecting and regulating transfers of data has become much more complex. Such is the concern about the security of data on the cloud in the wake of the Snowden revelations that last week Germany’s data protection authorities called for the suspension of the Safe Harbour agreement, which allows cloud providers that have self-certified their compliance with the requirements to make data transfers from the EU.
benton.org/node/156705 | Financial Times
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OMNICON-PUBLICIS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Tanzina Vega]
For years, the advertising business has been driven by the Madison Avenue mythology of small independent shops coming up with the snappy catchphrase or memorable TV commercial that becomes part of everyday culture. But the announcement on July 28 of the merger of two industry giants, Omnicom and Publicis, to create the largest ad company in the world, signals that advertising is now firmly in the business of Big Data: collecting and selling the personal information of millions of consumers. That business is a competitive one, with technology companies like Google and Facebook using their huge repositories of user data to place ads. Between them, Omnicom and Publicis accounted for $22.7 billion in revenue last year, more than the next highest ad firm, WPP. But no ad company comes close to the $50 billion in revenue that Google made last year, largely on the strength of its advertising business.
benton.org/node/156701 | New York Times | NYTimes | FT | LA Times
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LABOR VIOLATIONS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Sarah Mishkin]
A China labor watchdog has accused Pegatron, a big supplier to Apple, of employing underage workers and pressuring employees to work illegal overtime in its factories. In a new report, New York-based China Labor Watch said Pegatron’s factories were “violating a great number of international and Chinese laws and standards as well as the standards of Apple’s own social responsibility code of conduct.” In response to the claims, Jason Cheng, Pegatron chief executive, said his company would “investigate fully and take immediate action to correct any violations to Chinese labor laws and our own code of conduct.”
benton.org/node/156699 | Financial Times | Bloomberg
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TELECOM CONSOLIDATION WAVE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sam Schechner, Eyk Henning]
A rising tide of deal making in Europe's troubled telecom sector is spurring more companies to dip their toes in the water, raising hopes for a long-awaited wave of consolidation. Across the EU, well over a hundred mobile and fixed operators in 28 countries are owned by over 40 major groups. That compares with just four big mobile operators, and an increasingly consolidated cable business in the US. Action could come in Italy, the U.K, Belgium or in Nordic countries, executives and bankers said. Bigger companies could consolidate their positions in their existing footprints, or put together other combinations of fixed-line players and mobile operators.
benton.org/node/156695 | Wall Street Journal
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