September 2013

France Probes Apple's Contracts With Mobile Operators

French authorities are probing Apple's contracts with mobile operators in France, according to a person familiar with the matter, the latest move by European governments to ramp up pressure on largely US-based tech firms.

An administrative authority that falls under the French finance ministry is investigating the terms of contracts between cellphone suppliers and French phone operators for the sale of devices such as the iPhone, the person said, just days after two new models of the device went on sale, leading to long lines and heavy demand among French consumers. In Brussels, the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, has been looking into Apple's relationships with telecommunications operators, which are an important outlet for selling its iPhones. Meantime in France, the Autorité de la Concurrence, the independent antitrust watchdog, has two continuing inquiries involving Apple.

Sudan loses Internet access — and it looks like the government is behind it

Internet intelligence corporation Renesys confirmed reports that Sudan has been cut off from the Internet. Al Arabiya reported earlier that Internet access was cut and schools were closed through Sept 30, as capital city Khartoum erupted in riots over the lifting of government fuel subsidies. "If confirmed to be government-directed, this outage would be the largest government-directed Internet blackout since Egypt in January 2011," says Doug Madory at Renesys.

T-Mobile CFO makes case for US consolidation, Sprint deal

T-Mobile US Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter said that he expected more consolidation in the US wireless market and made a case for a deal between his company and bigger rival Sprint.

Carter declined to say whether T-Mobile US, the No. 4 US mobile provider, and Sprint, the No. 3 US operator, had talked. "It's the logical ultimate combination," Carter said. He conceded that the current US regulatory environment was "tough" for consolidation as the government already blocked T-Mobile's proposed sale to AT&T in 2011, saying that the market needed four national operators. He said a deal involving the smaller national operators would be good for the industry. He described the US market as a "duopoly" because AT&T and larger rival Verizon Wireless are far bigger than T-Mobile and Sprint. So if a consolidation resulted in a much bigger No. 3 rival to AT&T and Verizon, "you create a more competitive environment," Carter said.

A War Where No One’s Winning

[Commentary] Sifting through the rhetoric on both sides of the retransmission consent issue isn’t an easy task, but recently, it has seemed as if the tide and the tone are beginning to shift.

Retransmission negotiations are rarely cordial, but in the past there seemed to be a few lines that both sides informally agreed not to cross. Those lines are becoming increasingly blurred. In almost every case, it seems like each succeeding retransmission fight lowers the bar another inch. In the end, what comes of the continuous volley of insults and accusations from both sides? Pretty much nothing. Time Warner Cable, according to analysts, will probably end up paying $1.90 per month per subscriber for CBS, pretty close to the $2 fee the broadcaster was reportedly demanding. TWC did get a solid month to state its case for retransmission regulatory reform in the top media markets, but anyone who believes Congress — which has yet to deal with more pressing issues on the economy and international relations — will drop everything to address this problem is deluding themselves. Maybe what this industry needs to do is sit down in a dark room with broadcasters, away from the press and the bright lights and all the hoopla, and really discuss what needs to happen. Maybe it’s a la carte, as some distributors have suggested, or unbundling networks, or simply agreeing to accept a low double-digit rate increase, or something else no one has thought of yet.

C Spire announces competition to deliver gigabit service to a Mississippi community

Regional mobile operator C Spire has announced a Google-like plan to deliver fiber-to-the-home to a community in its Mississippi service area.

The company, which serves predominantly rural customers in the Southeast, will branch into the wireline business with its gigabit network plans — and it will do so in a way similar to Google, when it launched a competition in 2010 to bring fiber to a city in the US. Given that the larger telecommunication companies have largely given up on serving rural customers, and that the digital divide created by their apparent disinterest could put the economic hurt on those towns, this might be a savvy business move if C Spire can ensure a rapid take rate by potential subscribers and a build-out that keeps costs down. So far, Google has built out its network in most areas of Kansas City, but it’s a trend to watch as this competition-based deployment of gigabit networks continues. As for C Spire, it says it hopes to offer the service at a “competitive price” to both consumers and businesses.

Google tries to fuel innovation outside of Silicon Valley with new Tech Hub network

Google is looking to cultivate innovation in some of the more obscure tech markets in the North America. It announced a program that would expand Google’s community ties and outreach in seven large tech hub co-working facilities in the US and Canada.

Chicago, Denver and Waterloo, Canada, aren’t exactly tech backwaters, but they aren’t Silicon Valley, San Francisco or New York City either. From a post on Google’s official blog: “So today we’re announcing a Tech Hub Network with seven partners, initially located in North America. 1871 (Chicago), American Underground (Durham), Coco (Minneapolis), Communitech (Waterloo), Galvanize (Denver), Grand Circus (Detroit) and Nashville Entrepreneur Center (Nashville) are all top notch spaces fueling entrepreneurship… and it’s our mission to help support them.” Each Tech Hub will become an official Google partner, receiving financial support from the company and an on-site Google employee, who will act as liaison between the search giant and the local tech community.

Why the TV industry won’t go the way of newspapers and the music business

Digital forces blew billions of dollars away from the music and print advertising industries, and many predict the TV business is in for the same fate. Terry Kawaja, a well-known media and advertising consultant, isn’t among them.

Kawaja described terms like cord-cutting and “a la carte” channels as “interesting flash words” that don’t reflect how the TV industry actually works. He argued that the players in the TV industry, including the new digital entrants, are intertwined and interdependent — which means the business will be sheltered from the disintermediation and economic battering that befell newspapers and the music industry. Kawaja pointed out that over-the-top tools like Roku or Apple TV are indeed taking over the living room; however, traditional TV companies are also making their presence felt in the new world of mobile devices through services like TV Everywhere. Kawaja also downplayed so-called “cord-cutters” and “cord-nevers,” who include a generation of college kids for whom buying a cable subscription makes about as much sense as purchasing a Betamax. He acknowledged that the overall number of pay-TV subscribers is declining for the first time ever, but predicts that the drop will only amount to 1 or 2 million a year — not enough to change the game.

Mediacom turns to Qwilt to solve its Netflix problems

Mediacom, the eight largest cable company in the US, has signed a deal to establish what are basically edge caching systems in its network. Qwilt is supplying those systems, and this not only represents a significant deal for the three-year-old company, but also a possible way to achieve détente in the online video wars that are starting to degrade the consumer online video experience.

Qwilt is currently caching about half of Mediacom’s video and is on track to save the cable company a little over $10 million in 2013. Qwilt CEO Alon Maor says that two other top-five cable companies are deploying the product in their networks, as are other ISPs around the world. The goal is to get operators to buy a Qwilt license for a server serving a few thousand homes and then getting it out as close to the edge as possible. However, operators can still cut costs by putting it further back in the network. Throughout the distribution stream from server to the consumer’s set-top box or tablet, conflicts of interest and conflicting business needs are causing the over-the-top video experience to falter for the end consumer. And no one is exactly winning. Maor stressed that the Qwilt software is transparently caching whatever is popular and not discriminating. It also offered up charts showing that Qwilt cached content is performing better on Mediacom’s network during peak hours. Maor says Qwilt can allow operators to offer a revenue sharing arrangement with some transit providers where they receive 50 percent of the costs the operator saves. Essentially, this helps compensate the transit provider for the loss of the traffic on what might be an already-paid for connection.

Put On A Helmet, And You're In The Story: Why Virtual Reality Journalism Is The Future

[Commentary] Google, the Associated Press, and the Tribeca Film Institute are funding one of the most ambitious virtual reality projects yet: A 3-D, fully immersive re-creation of the death of a migrant at the US-Mexico border.

The new project, called Use of Force Protocol, is a five-minute-long re-creation of the death of Anastacio Hernández-Rojas, a Mexican migrant to the United States. When Hernández-Rojas resisted deportation at the US-Mexico border, he was severely beaten and tasered by Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection officers. Multiple cameras caught Hernández-Rojas' death from his injuries. Use of Force is a well-funded, fully immersive virtual re-creation of the deportation and death that stations viewers among a crowd of bystanders who were trying to prevent the assault in real life. It's easy to see why Google, the AP, and Tribeca are interested in this technology--it holds obvious potential for journalism, as well as for fictional storytelling. It also raises dicey issues of objectivity and subjectivity: Creating a virtual world for participants to immerse themselves in can raise all sorts of potential for bias and story shading that standard print or video journalism can't. Nonetheless, it's a sneak peek into a future of journalism that's around the corner.

Who’s Not Online and Why

A new report from the Pew Research Center finds that as of May 2013, 15% of American adults ages 18 and older do not use the Internet or e-mail.

Asked why they do not use the Internet:

34% of non-Internet users think the Internet is just not relevant to them, saying they are not interested, do not want to use it, or have no need for it.
32% of non-Internet users cite reasons tied to their sense that the Internet is not very easy to use. These non-users say it is difficult or frustrating to go online, they are physically unable, or they are worried about other issues such as spam, spyware, and hackers.
19% of non-Internet users cite the expense of owning a computer or paying for an Internet connection.
7% of non-users cited a physical lack of availability or access to the Internet.

Even among the 85% of adults who do go online, experiences connecting to the Internet may vary widely. For instance, even though 76% of adults use the Internet at home, 9% of adults use the Internet but lack home access. These Internet users cite many reasons for not having Internet connections at home, most often relating to issues of affordability—some 44% mention financial issues such as not having a computer, or having a cheaper option outside the home. As in previous surveys, Internet use remains strongly correlated with age, educational attainment, and household income.

One of the strongest patterns in the data on Internet use is by age group: 44% of Americans ages 65 and older do not use the Internet, and these older Americans make up almost half (49%) of non-Internet users overall. Yet while they themselves do not go online, these self-described non-Internet users often report that the Internet often touches their lives in different ways:

44% of offline adults have asked a friend or family member to look something up or complete a task on the Internet for them.
23% of offline adults live in a household where someone else uses the Internet at home, a proportion that has remained relatively steady for over a decade.
14% of offline adults say that they once used to use the Internet, but have since stopped for some reason.

Benton

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