January 2014

Rep Eshoo accuses AT&T of 'threatening the open Internet'

Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), who represents Silicon Valley, slammed a business move by AT&T that she says threatens the openness of the Internet.

She took aim at AT&T’s new “Sponsored Data” program, which will allow websites and applications to pay for preferred access. “The announcement of a sponsored data program by AT&T puts it in the business of picking winners and losers on the Internet, threatening the open Internet, competition and consumer choice,” said Rep Eshoo, ranking member of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications. Rep Eshoo said the move shows the need for an expansion of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Open Internet Rules, which keep Internet providers from treating Internet traffic differently but do not yet apply to wireless services. “It’s exactly why net neutrality rules came to exist in the first place and why these rules should apply equally to all forms of broadband Internet service,” she said. Rep Eshoo questioned the benefit to consumers that will come from AT&T’s new program.

With “Sponsored Data” AT&T is double dipping. And that’s just dirty

[Commentary] AT&T, under the guise of “sponsored data,” launched a sneaky attack on innovation -- though it has been talking about it for a while, as reported by my colleagues in the past.

AT&T, disingenuous as always, is touting examples of movie companies buying data to show trailers and health insurance companies to show instructional videos. It’s a good example of how big phone companies and cable companies whitewash their true intentions. This is the first step of what AT&T has always wanted -- a return to the old fashion, usage-based circuit switch model. The news seems innocuous at best, but in the end it is an assault on the innovation. Given a toothless Federal Communications Commission with compromised values, these “examples” are a good way for AT&T to hide from consumers and regulators what I believe is double dipping. And while it might seem like a good way for AT&T to make more money; in the end this will be like cutting off the nose to spite the face. The final price will be paid by none other than the startup ecosystem that has blossomed in the post-iPhone era and has actually lead to the data usage boom that has allowed Ma Bell to keep posting handsome earnings growth over past few years.

Could AT&T’s 'sponsored data' plans kill public radio?

AT&T’s newly-announced “sponsored data” plan will allow companies to pay the bandwidth charges for content they stream to customers using AT&T mobile services. But some advocates have raised fears that the arrangement could hurt competition and consumers.

John Bergmayer is a staff attorney for a group called Public Knowledge. For most of our conversation, he had a hard time convincing me of the arrangement’s downside. If Netflix wants to let me watch "House of Cards" on the train without blowing my data cap, that’s bad… how? Because it hurts Hulu? But then the conversation got a little closer to home: What about news outlets that produce audio and video content? “What if Marketplace can’t afford to do deals with AT&T and other providers around the world,” he asked, “to make sure their content is exempt from the cap?” Right. That’s a worry.

Why the fuss over “sponsored data”?

[Commentary] AT&T said it would begin letting content firms -- Google, ESPN, Netflix, Amazon, a new app, etc. -- pay for a portion of the mobile data used by consumers of this content. If a mobile user has a 2 GB plan but likes to watch lots of Yahoo! news video clips, which consume a lot of data, Yahoo! can now subsidize that user by paying for that data usage, which won’t count against the user’s data limit. Lots of people were surprised -- or “surprised” -- at the announcement and reacted violently. They charged AT&T with “double dipping,” imposing “taxes,” and of course the all-purpose net neutrality violation. But this new sponsored data program is typical of multisided markets where a platform provider offers value to two or more parties -- think magazines who charge both subscribers and advertisers.

What if magazines were barred from carrying advertisements? They’d have to make all their money from subscribers and thus (attempt to) charge much higher prices or change their business model. Consumers would lose, either through higher prices or less diversity of product offerings. And advertisers, deprived of an outlet to reach an audience, would lose. That’s what we call a lose-lose-lose proposition. Maybe sponsored data will take off. Maybe not. It’s clear, however, in the highly dynamic mobile Internet business, we should allow such voluntary experiments.

AT&T’s shocking plan to make … gasp … PROFITS!

[Commentary] The tech blogs are abuzz with news of a nefarious plot by the nation’s second largest mobile network operator to increase its profits by lowering the prices consumers pay to access data-intensive content and services through the economic miracle of fee shifting.

Instead of the consumer paying for a higher data cap in order to access data-intensive programming, the content provider will be able to pay AT&T on the consumer’s behalf. All AT&T is doing is shifting some of the costs of data from consumers to those content and services providers who want to offer what’s effectively a coupon to users on small data plans that makes it easy for them to try out new services. It seems to me that this is an experiment that needs to take place, and that the outrage is premature at best. Some content distributors will clearly not choose to participate; in fact most won’t. But for a start-up company or an established firm seeking to expand the reach of its products, this is a reasonable move that is likely to add a great refinement to the mobile marketplace. If it causes unanticipated problems down the road, there are a raft of enforcement options available to rein it in, but we won’t know the consequences until we try it. So let’s proceed in the interest of science.

AT&T to Buy Spectrum Licenses from Aloha Partners

AT&T agreed to buy 49 advanced-wireless services spectrum licenses from Aloha Partners II as the telecommunications giant said it is working to stay ahead of "soaring demand" for mobile Internet services.

The licenses cover nearly 50 million people in 14 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. AT&T expects to close the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, in the second half of the year. Aloha, the eighth-largest wireless spectrum owner in the US, was formed in 2004. A previous partnership, Aloha Partners LP, agreed to sell wireless licenses to AT&T for $2.5 billion in 2007.

Online harassment of women is a problem. Here’s what to do about it.

If you're male, you might not realize how common it is for women to experience online harassment. The problem is particularly severe for bloggers, journalists and others who build a public profile online.

Danielle Citron, a legal scholar, has argued that the hostile reception women receive online should be viewed through the lens of the civil rights movement. In her view, online harassment discriminates against women online in much the same way sexual harassment creates a hostile environment in the workplace. Thinking about the issue in those terms might motivate people to action, but actually extending civil rights law to cover online harassment could be a legal quagmire. The courts are likely to hold that some online harassment is constitutionally protected speech. And Congress had good reasons to exempt intermediaries such as Twitter from liability for the vile comments of their users. A more fruitful approach would be to focus on deterring the most extreme forms of abuse, those that cross the line into outright threats.

Netflix is shooting “House of Cards” in ultra HD. Can America’s broadband networks keep up?

Netflix’s "House of Cards'" second season is being shot and produced entirely in a new level of resolution called ultra-high-definition, or 4K — a reference to the nearly 4,000 pixels that'll be packed horizontally into the picture. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Netflix will be partnering with Sony and other companies specifically so that new TVs capable of displaying in 4K will have content to show. To stream all those extra pixels, you're going to need a pretty fast Internet connection: about 15 Mbps.

For Hastings, this sounds like no big deal. Technically, you can stream anything so long as you've got a wide enough pipe. And sure, the fact that ultra HD can be compressed into a 15 Mbps stream is impressive in itself. But 15 Mbps is still a pretty hefty load in a country where the average connection speed still lags at 8.7 Mbps. What Netflix thinks is a reasonable hit to bandwidth would be enough to overwhelm the subscriptions of many Americans. Internet providers do offer faster plans for more money; fiber optic connections, for instance, are becoming increasingly popular. But it's not clear Americans are rushing to adopt those services. Chances are the people who plan to watch 4K streams on Netflix will find it easy to pay more for a high-speed broadband connection. But it could take a long time for 4K to become widely adopted by ordinary Americans.

Digital video sales' rise breathes new life into home entertainment

Electronic sales of movies and TV shows have languished for years, as consumers gravitated to low-cost DVD rentals and online streaming services to deliver video to their television sets, computers and portable devices.

Some industry observers speculated about a permanent shift in consumer behavior, away from purchasing. A combination of factors, including access to high-definition-quality digital video and new ways to download or stream content, has yielded double-digit gains, which the industry plans to highlight at International CES, the giant consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. Annual digital sales surpassed $1 billion for the first time in 2013, the Digital Entertainment Group is expected to report. Consumers in the United States spent nearly $1.2 billion last year to buy movies and TV shows from online sellers such as Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc.'s iTunes or Wal-Mart's Vudu, an increase of 47% from 2012. Electronic sales of newly released films and TV shows were up 60%. Electronic sales represented a small fraction of the $18.2 billion that U.S. consumers spent on home entertainment last year. But studio executives say the growth in digital purchases, together with increased revenue from Internet streaming services such as Netflix and rising Blu-ray disc sales, could help offset slumping DVD sales.

More So-So Report Cards for National News

In the second TVNewsCheck survey, a cross-section of news directors at TV stations around the country were asked to grade ABC News, CBS News, CNN, FNC, NBC News, MSNBC, Al Jazeera America and PBS NewsHour on "overall journalistic quality." Once again, none received an A, four earned Bs, there was one C and three Ds. The findings also indicate a correlation between those grades and how the news directors perceive the organizations’ objectivity.

Benton

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