August 28, 2013 (US Tightens Grip on Telecom)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2013
For updates all day, follow us @benton_fdn
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Latest Pew Study Shows 70 Percent of US Has Broadband. But Access Is Still Unequal - op-ed
Cable monopolies hurt consumers and the nation - analysis
The Future of Broadband: Why Fix It if It's Not Broken - op-ed
Time Warner Cable’s new Xbox app won’t count against data caps
Sec Napolitano warns large-scale cyberattack on US is inevitable [links to web]
Behind AT&T’s U-verse Speed Increase
Southern Illinois Gets Broadband Boost [links to web]
Syrian Electronic Army hacks NY Times [links to web]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC delays AT&T's Alltel buyout over fears it could leave prepaid customers behind
Who’s your new mobile carrier? How ’bout Wi-Fi?
FCC Freezes Certain Applications in the 800 MHz NPSPAC Public Safety Band - public notice [links to web]
CONTENT
A Key Element of SOPA Is Back
US judge wants external monitor for Apple in e-books case
Apple Says DOJ’s E-Book Remedies Are Biased in Amazon’s Favor
Viacom-Sony Revelation Reeks of Hidden Agendas - analysis
Google calls book scanning “transformative” in latest push for fair use ruling
An Artist Finds Government Censorship In Google Earth [links to web]
TELEVISION
How the Time Warner Cable, CBS Standoff Could Set the TV Standard - analysis
Viacom-Sony Revelation Reeks of Hidden Agendas - analysis
Chromecast Juices OTT Video Device Sales [links to web]
PRIVACY
Here’s how phone metadata can reveal your secrets
Facebook to pay 614,000 users $15 each over privacy concerns [links to web]
TELECOM
ATIS, NECA Partner on Rural Call Completion Testing
FCC Seeks To Refresh The Record Regarding "Cramming" - public notice [links to web]
JOURNALISM
Gannett cuts jobs at some local papers [links to web]
AllThingsD nears split with Dow Jones [links to web]
Syrian Electronic Army hacks NY Times [links to web]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Keeping 'tabs' on campaign e-mails [links to web]
LOBBYING
Democratic Whip Hoyer met with Facebook's Sandberg [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
US Tightens Grip on Telecom
President Obama Meets Panel Reviewing US Surveillance Programs
Facebook report: 74 countries sought data on 38,000 users
An Artist Finds Government Censorship In Google Earth [links to web]
Syrian Electronic Army hacks NY Times [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
Amazon will pay developers referral fees for selling products through their apps [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
LATEST PEW STUDY SHOWS 70 PERCENT OF US HAS BROADBAND. BUT ACCESS IS STILL UNEQUAL
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] Pew released survey results showing that the percentage of Americans with home “high speed broadband” connections has ticked up from 66 to 70 percent since April 2012. Pew calls this a “small but statistically significant rise.” The news of an overall rise in “high-speed broadband” adoption will likely be trumpeted by America’s giant communications companies and policymakers as the bright spot: “We’re not doing so badly!” But before we start celebrating, it’s a good idea to look closely at the results. For starters, Pew’s results demonstrate that the Digital Divide is persistent, with close correlations between socioeconomic status and home Internet access. The report is also a reminder that policymakers use the words “high-speed broadband” to include everything other than dialup access, which is far too broad a definition. It’s telling that at least 83 percent of people with smartphones also have a high-speed Internet access connection at home — because of data caps and high-volume data like HD video, these technologies complement, and don’t replace, one another. If these services were affordable, everyone would have both. But the marketplace for high-capacity (200 GB per month), high-download speed (100 Mbps per month) wired connections is increasingly dominated by a series of local cable monopolies that can charge whatever they want. Bottom line: As a result of consolidation and deregulation, many Americans pay too much for Internet access services that are second-class — because they aren’t fiber to the home — and not enough Americans can afford service. According to the report, almost 90 percent of college graduates have high-speed Internet access at home, as do households earning more than $75,000. Compare that to only 37 percent of those who have not completed high school — as well as 54 percent of households with income less than $30,000 — that have such access. Pew points out that many blacks and Latinos have smartphones — bringing their “high-speed broadband” adoption numbers almost equal to whites – if smartphone access is included in “broadband.”
[Susan Crawford is currently a professor at the Cardozo School of Law and an adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University]
benton.org/node/157977 | Wired
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CABLE MONOPOLIES HURT CONSUMERS AND THE NATION
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Michael Hiltzik]
[Commentary] Choice and competitiveness are the casualties when big firms such as Time Warner and Comcast have no motive to upgrade speed or capacity. The filthy little secret of home and business Internet data services in the United States is that the vast majority of Americans receive them from their local monopoly cable provider, the two largest of which are the increasingly rapacious and indolent Comcast and Time Warner Cable. "Cable has won; it's a monopoly now," Susan Crawford, telecommunications expert at New York's Cardozo School of Law said. "People are just waking up to that fact." More than 80% of new subscribers to high-speed Internet service are going with their local cable providers. It's not because they think those providers are just grand; it's because in most of the country there's no choice. Because local cable service is a monopoly almost everywhere, fiber companies such as Verizon and AT&T, which have the technology to bring you higher speeds, won't spend the money to compete.
benton.org/node/157976 | Los Angeles Times
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THE FUTURE OF BROADBAND: WHY FIX IT IF IT'S NOT BROKEN
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Eva Clayton]
[Commentary] The Internet policy prescription outlined by the Clinton Administration has been working. Unlike so many points of debate today, Democrats and Republicans have continued this concept that continues to provide the right prescriptions today. The Progressive Policy Institute and economist Ev Erlich, former Undersecretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration, outline an agenda that would return broadband policy to its progressive roots by: "(F)inishing the job of creating a truly national high-speed network, using the remarkable capabilities of broadband to improve education, health care, government, and other social sectors, creating the terms on which more connectivity can be created (for example, liberating spectrum), and protecting the individual right to privacy using both legal means and market forces." What do all of these policies have in common? They will deliver real benefits to Americans in both urban to rural America. Expanding broadband availability and improving adoption rates should be at the heart of any progressive broadband policy agenda. Ehrlich also advises progressives to keep their eye on the ball and not let debates over divisive issues like "net neutrality" distract from more important goals, as this issue "does nothing to address the leading obstacles to a ubiquitous broadband Internet: Indifference and the absence of computers."
[Eva Clayton is a former member of Congress who represented eastern North Carolina (1992-2003), and former Assistant Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization]
benton.org/node/157971 | Huffington Post, The
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TIME WARNER CABLE AND DATA CAPS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Janko Roettgers]
Time Warner Cable launched a new app on the Xbox 360 that gives subscribers of the pay TV provider access to live feeds from up to 300 TV channels, including programming from networks like ABC, FOX and Comedy Central. The announcement comes after Verizon and Comcast launched similar apps on Xbox – and just like Comcast’s app, it may cause some controversy. That’s because Time Warner Cable decided that any video viewed through the app won’t count against a subscriber’s data cap arguing, “This isn’t an Internet offering.” That’s the same argument Comcast used when it came under fire from network neutrality advocates and competitors like Netflix for not counting the bandwidth consumed by its Xbox 360 app against its subscribers’ data cap. Comcast said at the time that any videos viewed via the app would be delivered via the company’s private IP networks, and not through the public internet.
benton.org/node/157982 | GigaOm
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BEHIND AT&T’S U-VERSE SPEED INCREASE
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
AT&T increased the speed available to U-verse customers in 40 markets to 45 Mbps downstream and 6 Mbps upstream. Previously the highest speed for most customers was 24 Mbps. Included in the upgrade were some of the company’s largest markets, including Chicago, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans, Cleveland and Milwaukee. According to the company, the move was part of Project Velocity IP, a three-year investment plan announced last year to expand the company’s broadband infrastructure. The company also said it plans to upgrade top tier U-verse speeds to up to 100 Mbps in the future. But despite the lip service to Project Velocity IP, it’s likely that the move was driven in large part by a desire to better compete with cable companies, which have been offering speeds as high as 300 Mbps or more in some markets. It’s also worth noting that broadband often is sold as part of a multi-play bundle that also includes video and sometimes voice service – and recently the telecommunications companies have been outperforming the cable companies on the video front.
benton.org/node/157958 | telecompetitor
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
MERGER CLOCK STOPPED
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Adi Robertson]
The Federal Communications Commission has delayed approving AT&T's January purchase of Atlantic Tele-Network's (ATNI) Alltel retail operations while the companies hammer out plans to move over the subscriber base. In a statement, the FCC says it's stopping the clock on an informal 180-day review period, 175 days into the investigation. The problem, it says, is that it hasn't received details about how AT&T will help Alltel's prepaid customers move onto a new network, "despite several Commission staff follow-up conversations about the importance of transitioning prepaid customers." AT&T released a statement saying:
"AT&T is extremely disappointed at the FCC delay today on this small transaction. AT&T is ready, willing, and able to make significant network investments in these rural territories to bring HSPA+ and LTE services to Allied's customers, an investment that will not occur but for this transaction. AT&T has actively worked to address FCC concerns and will continue to work with the Commission until all issues are resolved."
benton.org/node/157978 | Verge, The
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WHO’S YOUR NEW MOBILE CARRIER? HOW ’BOUT WI-FI?
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Almost two years ago, Republic Wireless launched with a crazy plan to offer phones that would use Wi-Fi as their default network, sending any requests outside of Wi-Fi over the Sprint 3G network. The program started with a $19 monthly plan and an older model Motorola smartphone using a custom version of Android. Today almost 90 percent of Republic’s data traffic goes over Wi-Fi, leaving 11.5 percent traveling over Sprint’s 3G network. While Republic is a niche carrier for the budget conscious that don’t mind a limited selection of phones, it’s also at the forefront of a shift in telecommunications that will not only happen, but needs to happen. Eventually, instead of thinking about which carrier you want to use, you’ll just think about Wi-Fi.
benton.org/node/157972 | GigaOm
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CONTENT
A KEY ELEMENT OF SOPA IS BACK
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Joseph Marks]
A key element of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that was shot down by popular dissent in 2012 is back. It is reemerging in a report from the Commerce Department’s Internet Policy Task Force -- and protesters are back on We the People. The Commerce proposal would make it a felony to stream copyrighted works without permission. That might include the parody and homage music videos that clog the pores of YouTube A petition to “Stop SOPA 2013” has received more than 88,000 signatures since it was posted August 22 and is well on its way to acquiring the 100,000 signatures necessary for an official White House response.
benton.org/node/157970 | nextgov
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US JUDGE WANTS EXTERNAL MONITOR FOR APPLE IN E-BOOKS CASE
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Nate Raymond]
US District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said that she plans to require Apple to hire an external monitor, something the company considers unnecessary. Judge Cote suggested a final injunction would be narrower than what the US Department of Justice has been seeking, and would not restrict Apple's agreements with suppliers of other types of content such as movies, music and TV shows. "I want this injunction to rest as lightly as possible on how Apple runs its business," Judge Cote said at a court hearing. Poised to issue an injunction soon, she said a monitor would be necessary, after Apple had failed to show it learned its lesson from its "blatant" violations of antitrust law. The monitor, she said, would likely be installed to review Apple's internal antitrust compliance program and procedures and recommend changes, and also required annual antitrust training for employees in Apple's e-books and content businesses. Apple had vigorously contested hiring a monitor, saying in court papers it would be "extremely costly and burdensome."
benton.org/node/157973 | Reuters
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APPLE SAYS DOJ’S E-BOOK REMEDIES ARE BIASED IN AMAZON’S FAVOR
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
Apple has long maintained that the proposed remedies in the U.S. Department of Justice’s e-book price-fixing case against it are heavy-handed, lambasting them as “wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm.” And the DOJ’s recent revision of those remedies hasn’t much changed that position. In a court filing, Apple berated the Department of Justice once again, calling its revised proposed remedies a “broadside masquerading as a brief” and a “transparent attempt to attack the credibility of Apple and its counsel, and obtain an injunction wildly out of proportion to the issues and evidence in the case.” And it asked the presiding court to order the DOJ to withdraw it and submit a new one that hews to issues it claims were actually adjudicated in court. According to Apple, the DOJ’s brief is predicated on arguments it ultimately abandoned at trial, and materials that never made it into evidence. And it is the company’s view that it is biased in favor of Amazon.
benton.org/node/157963 | Wall Street Journal
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GOOGLE CALLS BOOK SCANNING “TRANSFORMATIVE” IN LATEST PUSH FOR FAIR USE RULING
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Jeff John Roberts]
Google and the Authors Guild’s eight-year legal fight over digital books is coming to a head once again, as both sides prepare to make their final case about whether Google’s scanning of more than 20 million library books is fair use under copyright law. In documents filed in New York federal court, Google argues at length that the scanning is “transformative,” a legal term for fair use under copyright law. Both parties are invoking the publishing practices of Amazon to support their position on fair use: Google notes that Amazon’s Book Search pages can lead to a sale for the author on Amazon, and points out that Amazon’s own “Search Inside the Book” feature displays entire pages of a book. The Authors Guild, meanwhile, claims that Google Book Search pulls away customers who would otherwise buy books on Amazon.
benton.org/node/157961 | GigaOm
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TELEVISION
HOW THE TIME WARNER CABLE, CBS STANDOFF COULD SET THE TV STANDARD
[SOURCE: Hollywood Reporter, AUTHOR: Alex Ben Block]
[Commentary] Unlike other recent retransmission negotiations that focused on small fee increases, CBS is determined to make up for what it perceives to be a historic injustice in terms of what cable and satellite operators pay for CBS content. The network wants a leap from around 66 cents per subscriber per month to about $2, based on figures from SNL Kagan. Content companies typically win these carriage fights, and it's likely this time won’t be different. As the fall season approaches, CBS’ leverage grows. When cable and satellite distributors start losing customers, they have a history of caving in. If that happens this time -- probably on the eve of the NFL season -- you can bet that NBC, ABC and Fox will all be looking for the same kind of historic increase. And Time Warner Cable will be joined by Comcast, Cox, DirecTV and even Dish Network in facing this new reality.
benton.org/node/157955 | Hollywood Reporter
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VIACOM-SONY DEAL
[SOURCE: Variety, AUTHOR: Andrew Wallenstein]
[Commentary] If the pay-TV universe can be thought of in terms of world wars, we may have just witnessed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. The planet didn’t know it at the time, but that 1914 shooting essentially precipitated World War I. Standing in for the archduke almost a century later is a reported pact that will see Sony license the collective cable channels of Viacom for a new broadband-delivered TV service expected to launch by the end of the year. If this deal is real, the entrenched triumvirate of cable, satellite and telco distributors have essentially received a declaration of war from what may be just the first of a new breed of challengers that could include Intel, Google and Apple. But it’s a big “if.” Not only are neither Sony nor Viacom officially acknowledging the pact, but Sony has yet to utter a word of confirmation that its virtual-MSO service even exists. Google and Apple’s own TV plans are far from concrete; only Intel has been public about its intent, which hasn’t scotched doubts that the chipmaker will actually make it to market.
benton.org/node/157979 | Variety
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PRIVACY
HERE’S HOW PHONE METADATA CAN REVEAL YOUR SECRETS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
The National Security Agency’s surveillance program, now being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, only collects metadata about Americans’ phone calls—who they call, when, and how long the calls last. In defending the program, the government has cited a controversial 1979 Supreme Court decision that held that phone records are not protected by the Fourth Amendment because consumers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their calling records. But Ed Felten, a professor of computer science at Princeton University (and, Lee’s former graduate school advisor) argues that this understanding of the ruling is wrong. In a legal brief supporting the ACLU’s request, Felten argues that the distinction between call “contents” and “metadata” isn’t always clear. Sometimes, the mere fact that someone called a particular number reveals extremely sensitive personal information, such as when someone calls a suicide or a tax fraud hotline.
benton.org/node/157954 | Washington Post
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TELECOM
ATIS, NECA PARTNER ON RURAL CALL COMPLETION TESTING
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
ATIS, a telecom industry association representing manufacturers and service providers, said it will partner with the National Exchange Carrier Association on a voluntary testing project aimed at identifying call completion issues. The project, to be known as the Joint National Call Testing Project, is “designed to provide an opportunity for an originating service provider . . . to identify any call failures and for carriers on both ends of the call to troubleshoot shortly thereafter.” Calls not going through to rural areas has been an important issue for service providers serving those areas, who believe certain long-distance carriers or least-cost routers who handle calls for the long-distance carriers are deliberately failing to complete calls to rural areas as a means of avoiding the payment of per-minute access charges to the rural carriers serving the called parties. Those access charges tend to be higher in rural areas to help cover the costs of delivering service to those areas. When calls do not go through to rural areas, rural carriers say their customers put their businesses and even their lives at risk.
benton.org/node/157959 | telecompetitor
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
US TIGHTENS GRIP ON TELECOM
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Spencer Ante, Ryan Knutson]
The US government has used the merger-approval process to increase its influence over the telecom industry, bringing more companies under its oversight and gaining a say over activities as fundamental as equipment purchases. The leverage has come from a series of increasingly restrictive security agreements between telecom companies and national-security agencies that are designed to head off threats to strategically significant networks and maintain the government's ability to monitor communications, according to a review of the public documents and lawyers who have negotiated the agreements. The security agreements, which arise in some deals involving foreign companies, stretch back more than a decade and compel them to honor requests to access their systems. What's new is that consolidation in the industry and an influx of overseas investment have left much of the industry under the government's sway. The merger agreements shed light on the complicated relationship between telecom companies and the national-security establishment amid a growing debate over the extensive collection of phone and Internet traffic by US spy agencies.
benton.org/node/157984 | Wall Street Journal
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OBAMA MEETS SURVEILLANCE REVIEW PANEL
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Margaret Talev, Mike Dorning]
President Barack Obama met for the first time with a panel he requested to review US collection of telephone and Internet data.
The panel includes Richard Clarke, a former US security adviser; Michael Morell, a former deputy CIA director; Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor; Cass Sunstein, the former head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA); and Peter Swire, who served earlier on Obama’s National Economic Council. The review group was among a series of steps President Obama announced at an Aug. 9 White House news conference to quell growing public and congressional criticism of programs that scour data on communications by US citizens to look for links to terrorist activity. The panel will provide interim findings to President Obama within 60 days to be followed by a final report. The group’s goal is to examine how the US “can employ its technical collection capabilities in a way that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while respecting our commitment to privacy and civil liberties.”
benton.org/node/157983 | Bloomberg
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FACEBOOK REPORT: 74 COUNTRIES SOUGHT DATA ON 38,000 USERS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
Facebook fielded requests from 74 countries for data on at least 38,000 users in the first half of 2013, the company said in its first report in an intended series of reports to follow, detailing the scale and scope of data requests it receives from governments around the world. The report covers every request the company has received from every government from January through June 30. Facebook said the report includes requests made for security reasons and for criminal cases. In the latter, the company may be asked, for example, to supply information to help authorities in robbery or kidnapping cases. In those requests, the company said, officials often seek data on users’ names or length of service and sometimes users’ IP address or “actual account content.” The United States, by far, has sought the most user information from Facebook — from 11,000 to 12,000 requests for access to more than 20,000 accounts. Facebook said that it supplied data in roughly 79 percent of those cases. The United States allows companies to release only the ranges of the number of requests the government makes. Facebook, among other technology firms that collect user data, has asked to be allowed to list the actual number of requests it has received from the U.S. government and to say what kind of information it’s asked to reveal. The Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based nonprofit group, is pushing the Obama Administration US to allow tech firms to be more specific in releasing the exact numbers and scope of information requests issued by the US government.
benton.org/node/157952 | Associated Press | The Hill | Washington Post
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