October 2013

ACA, Others Defend Petitions to Deny Sinclair Deal

The American Cable Association told the Federal Communications Commission that allowing coordinated retranmission negotiations are a transition specific harm and the FCC should grant its petition to deny Sinclair's purchase of Allbritton stations in Harrisburg (PA) and Charleston (SC) or condition their sale and subsequent spin-off by disallowing coordinated negotiation.

Also filing responses to Sinclair's opposition to their petitions to deny were Rainbow PUSH Coalition (RPC) and Free Press. As part of its deal to buy all the Allbritton stations, Sinclair is spinning stations off in those markets to a third party but will provide support services to them including acting as the station's agent in retrans, according to ACA. ACA said the result will be a transition-specific harm: "This practice reduces competition between broadcast stations with regard to the sale of retransmission consent, and consumers are harmed when cable operators pass through the higher fees derived from the coordinated negotiations." Free Press said it has provided clear evidence that Sinclair is trying to control two stations in Charleston and Harrisburg "in violation of local ownership rules."

News Corp Could Lose $1.6 Billion From Phone Hacking Scandal: Top Exec

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp could be facing an estimated $1.62 billion in costs as a result of the phone hacking scandal, one of the company's top executives revealed in a meeting that was secretly recorded and leaked to the media.

"There's a shitload of just financial expense -- across the civil cases," said Tom Mockridge, the former head of News Corp's British newspaper division. "The hacking probably, by the time it's all over, is going to cost News Corp minimum of £500 million, if not a billion." Mockridge's estimate differs substantially from the figures previously announced by the company. Earlier estimates put the cost to News Corp at around $448 million.

LinkedIn On Defensive About Security of ‘Intro’

LinkedIn faced criticism from security experts and confusion from members over Intro, a new software product that embeds public LinkedIn profiles into emails received by iPhone users.

In response, the online professional network published a blog post saying that it took extra precautions to ensure the security of its software. The service allows iPhone users with email accounts provided by Google and others to automatically see LinkedIn profile information like a photo and job title inside emails sent from people who have LinkedIn accounts. Some security experts said they had reservations about the service because it requires users to route their email messages through LinkedIn computers. “LinkedIn would be effectively acting as a middle man in all your communications,” said Graham Cluley, an independent security analyst in Oxford, England. “If you are going to hand control of your email to a third party, your company’s IT staff should be involved,” he said. In a blog post, LinkedIn addressed some of the criticism and what it called misconceptions about Intro. The company said all information transferred between servers was “fully encrypted” and that mail accounts are “not affected in any way.” LinkedIn did not promise that its privacy policies would stay the same in perpetuity, but said it would notify members of changes.

Clear Channel's Bob Pittman sees 'a time of feast' for radio

In a Q&A with Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman, the chief executive noted that the radio franchise’s moves into TV and the Web indicated the radio industry has “never been bigger or better.”

Pittman continued: “With the TV business turning into delayed viewing and cord cutting and binge viewing, radio is the last mass-reach, real-time medium. We've never been more important to the consumer or the advertiser. The radio industry may have been coasting a little bit, but what we're trying to do is amp up our performance and show that we're not limited to our towers and transmitters.” Clear Channel, an outdoor advertising giant and the nation's biggest radio company, operates 850 radio stations in the US and the iHeartRadio online music streaming service.

Welcome to the hellabyte era, as in a helluva lot of data

[Commentary] We’re now creating more data than we know what to do with.

We started by measuring data creation in kilobytes and megabytes and gigabytes and we are now at exabytes, zettabytes and yottabytes. We are running out of words to describe how much data we have. By one estimate, the amount of information created every two days on the Internet is equivalent that created between the dawn of civilization and 2003. MIT’s Andrew McAfee and others have actually proposed that we settle on “hellabyte” -- as in, “helluva lot of data,” to describe the next stage of the data deluge.

This inevitably sets us up for disappointment. Amidst all the claims that big data will help us find the magic needle in an ever-larger haystack, there’s the risk that we’ll eventually start to become frustrated when all of this big data, well, doesn’t seem to produce much of anything -- except calls for more spending on higher and higher storage capacity and faster and faster computing ability to make sense of it all. When big data doesn’t pan out the way the marketers and bloggers tell us it will, we’ll then start to talk about the “big data myths.” At which time, someone will start talking about “big data lies,” which will then set off a spirited search for new trendy ideas in Silicon Valley.

Did We Crash Your Phone System Today?

[Commentary] On Wednesday, October 23, the House Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee held a hearing on The Evolution of Wired Communications Networks, in essence a discussion on how the communications networks of the United States are evolving from twisted pairs of copper telephone wires to coaxial cable and fiber -- and whether the laws that were enacted to govern traditional telephone services are appropriate in an Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled world. The evolution of wired communications networks is taking place in two different, but related ways: the transition to Internet Protocol and the replacement of older copper lines with fiber optics. Much of the hearing focused on how and whether regulation of traditional networks should be applied to IP delivery. Broadcasting & Cable’s John Eggerton reported general consensus at the hearing that the switch from traditional circuit-switched networks to IP delivery was well underway, that the goal was consumer-friendly competitive networks, and even that there should be some IP transition trials. But there were also the traditional divides between those arguing that incumbent network operators were trying to get out of interconnection and other mandates in the IP switch, and that regulations continued to be necessary to require interconnection to the last mile controlled by those incumbents.

How the Industrial Internet is bridging the Rust Belt and Silicon Valley

Technology buyers in some sectors drool over the promise of things like cloud computing and big data, but those words don’t mean a whole lot in places like warehouses or manufacturing plants, where how something works is far less important than that it works. Until recently, Jon Sobel and Sight Machine had a perception problem: “Someone once said we were too Michigan for Silicon Valley and too Silicon Valley for Michigan.” He can laugh about it now that companies like GE have made “Industrial Internet” a household term, but it’s still a little true. Sight Machine, which is co-headquartered in San Francisco and Ann Arbor, is trying to sell big manufacturing plants -- from the ones building cars in nearby Detroit to those producing packaged foods -- on the idea that they need to upgrade their computerized vision systems for quality control to Sight Machine’s cloud-based platform. It might end up being a transformative experience, but try telling that to prospective customers.

Largent Announces Retirement Plans

CTIA-The Wireless Association President and CEO Steve will not seek an extension of his current contract, which expires at the end of 2014.

The CTIA Board of Directors will immediately begin conducting a search for his successor. While the CTIA Board of Directors works to hire a successor, Largent will continue to lead the association and eventually work with that individual to ensure a smooth transition. Largent assumed the top job at CTIA in 2003, and the organization’s advocacy efforts to encourage a reasoned regulatory and legislative environment played a key role in the industry’s unprecedented expansion over the past decade.

New map shows EU is no broadband utopia

A recently published map of Europe highlights some of the challenges of broadband in Europe. It reviews the main broadband technologies (DSL, VDSL, FTTP, Cable, LTE) and their coverage for over 3,000 urban, semi-rural and rural areas across 31 European countries. The data shows that that the continent varies widely in broadband availability.

While basic DSL is available to over 90 percent of Europeans, much of Ireland, France, Italy, Greece, former Eastern bloc countries, and even parts of Germany don’t have access to high speed Internet of at least 24 Mbps or an LTE service. It is interesting to compare the EU map to the US. Some 95 percent of Americans have access to high speed broadband from multiple networks, and for the mountainous areas of the Sierras, Rockies, and Appalachia, satellite broadband is available (not shown), as it is to 99 percent of Americans. For a comprehensive list, see the report on providers by speed tiers. Furthermore four American carriers are in progress with nationwide LTE networks. This is the envy of Europe.

Real Cybersecurity Requires Complete Cooperation

In today’s digital society, it is important to recognize the impact of cyberspace on our world. In particular, the relevance of cybersecurity has continued to grow.

Cybersecurity is a complex and multi-faceted issue, with many dimensions including national security, upholding universally-held values of freedom of expression and privacy, and the need for the equitable inclusiveness of stakeholders from all countries, including the developing world, in policy and decision-making processes. There have been various bilateral and regional frameworks, as well as a number of global initiatives – including the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Agenda – that aim to address these issues. However, we have yet to develop a comprehensive and inclusive international framework for cooperation. In fact, such a framework can only be truly-inclusive with full participation of all stakeholders, not just governments; all countries have to participate on an equal footing. I believe it will need to take into accounts four key elements:

Access to the Internet that includes universal access to information and knowledge; quality education for all; and respect for cultural and linguistic diversity;
Protection of fundamental rights, including privacy and freedom of expression;
Involvement of the state to take into account existing provisions related to the respect of human rights, territorial integrity and sovereignty;
International cooperation to ensure the engagement of both state and non-state actors in achieving global cyber resilience for all Internet users; and particularly for children and young people.

Cyberspace cannot be secured by a few countries working bilaterally or even multilaterally in isolation. Instead, it requires active participation and buy-in from all countries, especially developing and least developed countries. Without it, we risk creating digital ‘high seas’ ripe for exploitation by cyber pirates and cyber criminals. Such a scenario would no doubt defeat the entire purpose of a global framework.

Benton

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