October 2013

Making Our Democracy Functional

[Commentary] Former President Jimmy Carter told Der Spiegel in July that “America has no functioning democracy.” He was speaking in the context of national security surveillance, but I think his statement should get us all thinking about the state of the union in light of the soap-opera Congressional antics that have shut down huge parts of our government. A country beset by serious challenges to our economy, our competitiveness, our growing gap of income inequality, our embarrassing slippage in the global rankings on everything from infant mortality to life expectancy, educational attainment, and healthcare, and our deteriorating physical infrastructure, responds by doing . . . what? By shutting down the government! But it is more than personalities or the daily ups-and-downs of politics that brings us to the brink. Our problems run deeper: the outrageous role of money that has poisoned the political bloodstream, gerrymandering, the senate filibuster, and the decline of media and the civic dialogue. Huge media conglomerates have gobbled up hundreds of independent newspaper and broadcast outlets, more often than not cutting the newsroom staffs in order to finance the heavy costs of the merger or purchase transaction. Wall Street’s bottom line has displaced the community’s public interest as local media disappears. Diversity opinions, indeed whole diversity populations, go uncovered. Public affairs are pushed aside by an “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality. To make a bad situation worse, years of wrong-headed decisions by government—especially by the Federal Communications Commission -- blessed this merger-mania and went on from there to eliminate most of the public interest obligations that broadcasters were expected to carry out in return for their free use of the public airwaves.

How the Broken Media Helped Break the Government

[Commentary] There's a direct connection between the shutdown and hyperbolic, partisan journalistic outlets driven more by profits than the search for truth. Creating cable television and social media bubbles where one’s political views are affirmed has proven popular and profitable. Angrily declaring one’s opponents imbeciles enriches pundits, corporate executives and stockholders. The result for many Americans, though, is confusion, cynicism and division. There are some reasons for hope. The emergence of non-profit news outlets and the web’s breadth of information and instant accountability are promising. But simplistic, reassuring narratives are more profitable than dispassionate descriptions of complex public policy problems. For a collapsing, digital-age news industry desperate for income, partisanship is an economic lifeline.

[David Rohde is a columnist for Reuters and a former reporter for The New York Times]

The Budget and Communications

[Commentary] It’s Friday, October 4, so we’re not the first to inform you of the federal government shutdown. But we take a moment today to examine the impact the shutdown is having on telecommunications. Last week, the FCC released its plan in case of a shutdown. Suspended activities mean: consumer complaint and inquiry phone lines cannot be answered; consumer protection and local competition enforcement are halted; licensing services, including broadcast, wireless, and wireline, cease; management of radio spectrum and the creation of new opportunities for competitive technologies and services for the American public are stopped; and equipment authorizations, including those bringing new electronic devices to American consumers, cannot be provided. Industry analyst Jeffrey Silva said a brief shutdown probably won't cause many problems. But he added that a prolonged shutdown "could very well lead to a backlog and delays in the equipment approval process, a far more troublesome scenario for manufacturers and other stakeholders.”

Why Rural Broadband Means You Can Now Buy a Bull Online

There is a new generation who is using high-speed broadband to improve farming practices, from auctions to smart irrigation systems to political organizing. However, rural broadband is a revolution unfolding slowly and unevenly. Many farmers complain that their Internet is still too slow, and they have a point.

As a rule, rural areas have slower Internet service than cities, according to a report from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The government is trying to accelerate Internet speeds throughout the country. The 2009 economic stimulus put $7 billion toward broadband grants, and the Obama Administration is now pushing for more. Broadband comes in especially handy during harvest time, when poor weather can ravage ripened crops. When storm clouds loom, farmers like Mike Haley in West Salem, Ohio, depend upon über-local, up-to-the-minute forecasts. For farmers without a smart phone or a 4G network, or working in a distant field beyond the network’s reach, a broadband connection at the farmhouse can help preserve the harvest the same way. Social media classes have sprouted all over the country for farmers, who, like every other sentient being these days, need to build their brands. For the farmers of today, a fast Internet connection is just as important as the railroad was a century ago, connecting to farmers in the far reaches of the heartland to the rest of the world. “Higher speed Internet makes it easier for farmers to shoot and upload a picture from the pasture or field to share with the 98.5% of the population that’s not on a farm,” Michele Payn-Knoper, an Indiana farmer and ag-communications guru, explains.

What We Mean When We Say "Things Should Still Work" After the PSTN Transition

[Commentary] We're in the middle of a debate in this country about the "transitioning" of the PSTN, or "public switched telecommunications network." You know, that thing with the phone numbers. Just as electronics replaced electromechanical switches, which replaced human operators, new kinds of networking technology (packet-switched) are replacing older kinds of networking technology (circuit-switched). The Federal Communications Commission almost certainly has the authority it needs to manage the transition successfully. But even if it doesn't, we'll need to amend the statutes.

One of the things that needs to still work -- or maybe even work better -- after the transition is caller ID. We don't think we should keep the PSTN concept around just because we love good old-fashioned telecom regulation for its own sake. Our point is that a lack of coordinated attention to important, but technical issues like caller ID spoofing shouldn't be allowed to erode people's trust in the concept of making a "phone call." A lack of forethought on the issue of interconnection should not lead to "network neuropathy" where the current problems with rural call completion are magnified a thousand-fold. The PSTN transition is happening, and it's important that things don't get screwed up.

Analysts: Government shutdown could imperil FCC's agenda

As the shutdown of the federal government grinds into its fourth day, analysts say that a prolonged shuttering of government operations could impact the Federal Communications Commission and other agencies' agendas on technology policy, especially for wireless spectrum and auctions.

A long-term casualty could be the FCC's agenda for the PCS H Block spectrum auction, currently scheduled for January, and the incentive auctions of broadcast TV spectrum. The longer the shutdown goes on, analysts said, the more of a backlog the FCC staff will have to deal with when the government does reopen, though at this point there is no telling exactly when that might be. In terms of the H Block, Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeffrey Silva noted that the Jan 14 auction date was likely set based on historical precedents for how long auctions take to get set up. Even when the government reopens, staffers might be distracted with dealing with the backlog of meetings and filings that have been pending. That could put a strain on resources inside the agency, he said. Also, the longer the shutdown persists, the longer will be until the Senate can vote on Tom Wheeler as the next chairman of the FCC and Michael O'Rielly as its second Republican commissioner. As things stand, the Senate Commerce Committee canceled a session in which it was supposed to vote on O'Rielly's nomination.

New Report: Internet Freedom Deteriorates Worldwide, but Activists Push Back

Broad surveillance, new laws controlling web content, and growing arrests of social-media users drove a worldwide decline in Internet freedom in the past year, according to a new study released by Freedom House.

Nonetheless, Freedom on the Net 2013 also found that activists are becoming more effective at raising awareness of emerging threats and, in several cases, have helped forestall new repressive measures. Freedom on the Net 2013, which identifies key trends in Internet freedom in 60 countries, evaluates each country based on obstacles to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights. Overall, 34 out of 60 countries assessed in the report experienced a decline in Internet freedom. Notably, Vietnam and Ethiopia continued on a worsening cycle of repression; Venezuela stepped up censorship during presidential elections; and three democracies—India, the United States, and Brazil—saw troubling declines. Iceland and Estonia topped the list of countries with the greatest degree of Internet freedom. While the overall score for the United States declined by 5 points on a 100-point scale, in large part due to the recently revealed surveillance activities, it still earned a spot among the top five countries examined. China, Cuba, and Iran were found to be the most repressive countries in terms of Internet freedom for the second consecutive year.

Ten most commonly used types of Internet control, according to the Freedom of the Net 2013 study, were assessed in 60 countries:

Blocking and filtering
Cyberattacks against regime critics
New laws and arrests
Paid pro-government commentators
Physical attacks and murder
Surveillance
Takedown and deletion requests
Blocking social media and communications apps
Intermediary liability: In 22 countries, intermediaries—such as Internet service providers, hosting services, webmasters, or forum moderators—are held legally liable for content posted by others, giving them a powerful incentive to censor their customers. Companies in China hire whole divisions to monitor and delete tens of millions of messages a year.
Throttling or shutting down service

Apple officially appeals in e-book pricing case

Apple has filed its appeal against federal judge Denise Cote’s verdict in the e-book pricing case.

Apple seeks to overturn Judge Cote’s July verdict that it was guilty of conspiring with publishers to fix e-book prices, as well as the September 6 injunction that prohibits Apple from including most-favored-nation clauses in its e-book contracts for five years and requires it to be monitored by a court-appointed external monitor. The notice of the appeal was filed with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, but Apple doesn’t have to submit the full text of the appeal until early 2014 when it lays out its arguments in appeals court. It’s fair to assume, however, that Apple will bring up many of the same issues it raised in an August letter to Judge Cote, in which it outlined the arguments it planned to raise on appeal.

Early Results from Virginia Gigabit Wireless Network Show Promise

It didn’t get much publicity outside its local area, but the recent launch of a gigabit wireless network in Blacksburg, Virginia, is an important one.

The network, launched by local technology incubator TechPad, will provide 802.11ac connectivity supporting individual connection rates as high as 1 Gbps. Blacksburg (population 42,600) is the home of Virginia Tech. “There are now three key nodes to the wireless network which are active and have coverage over about 40% of the downtown,” explained TechPad President Bob Summers. “The ultimate goal is for the majority of the citizens of this community to have access to gigabit networking high capacity and low latency.” Currently only a few end user devices support the new 802.11ac standard, including the Macbook Air and Samsung Galaxy S4, Summers said. Nevertheless he said the network already has “several users” of gigabit Wi-Fi. Others can connect to the network using traditional WiFi.

Although the network has not been operational for very long, Summers shared some early results. “The Wi-Fi space is very noisy so managing a quality outdoor public Wi-Fi system is no easy task,” he noted. “We have started to ask people to turn off their access points and use the free system which is higher performance. The more we can get to turn off the better the service for all.”

Pew Research surveys of audience habits suggest perilous future for news

Today’s younger and middle-aged audience seems unlikely to ever match the avid news interest of the generations they will replace, even as they enthusiastically transition to the Internet as their principal source of news.

Pew Research longitudinal surveys find that Gen Xers (33-47 years old) and Millennials (18-31 years old), who spent less time than older people following the news at the outset of their adulthood, have so far shown little indication that that they will become heavier news consumers as they age. While much has been made about the potential appeal, especially to younger audiences, of reading newspapers on digital devices such as iPhones, iPads and Kindles, such readership is modest (8 percent and 6 percent respectively) among both Millennials and Xers, and has done little to offset declines in newspaper readership among these groups in recent years. Television news viewership is markedly lower among younger age groups compared to older people, with no sign of it increasing as Xers and Millennials age. Xers and Millennials have increasingly turned to the Internet for news. Finally, social media looms as a potential booster of news consumption among the younger generation, albeit a modest one so far. Pew Research’s 2012 survey found a third of Millennials and 20 percent of Xers saying they regularly see news or news headlines on social-networking sites. However, only about 35 percent of those who get news from social network sites say they follow up and seek out full news stories.

Benton

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