February 2014

European Union lawmakers want to scrap mobile phone roaming charges by 2015 and to prevent telecoms network operators from charging companies such as Google and Amazon to provide faster web services, EU documents show.

The proposals from the European Parliament's industry committee go far beyond European Telecoms Commissioner Neelie Kroes's plans to overhaul the EU telecoms industry, which include ending roaming fees by 2016. The plans come as Europe's telecoms providers struggle to lift their revenues, down for the fifth consecutive year. "With effect from 15 December 2015, roaming providers shall not levy any surcharge in comparison to the charges for mobile communications services at domestic level on roaming customers in any member states for any regulated roaming call made or received," the committee said. It said roaming charges for sending text messages and for using any regulated data roaming services should also be phased out by the same deadline.

[Commentary] Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new Internet.org innovation lab where developers will be able to test the kinds of challenging connectivity conditions they might expect to find in the developing world -- without even leaving California.

For many people in the developing world, Facebook is the Internet. And while that may be somewhat true in America too, we Yanks can at least pull up the world’s leading social network on desktops and iPhones and Galaxy S4s with robust Internet connections, gorgeous screens and easy access to a reliable power grid. Meanwhile, in Africa and Asia and South America where Facebook is trying attract another 5 billion users, that technological sophistication is far from given. Facebook faces massive hurdles there that are just unknown here.

Just over half (55%) of the US newspaper audience still reads their local newspaper in print only -- with no overlapping digital consumption. That's according to a new survey of 150 US media markets conducted by Scarborough on behalf of the Newspaper Association of America.

It found another 15% read their local newspapers both in print and online, while an additional 10% read newspaper content on a mobile device, as well as print and online. Just 4% read their newspaper in print and mobile, eschewing other online consumption. Given all these numbers, it’s easy to deduce that the digital-only newspaper audience (including people who avoid print and only read newspapers online, via mobile devices, or both) actually remains fairly small. Indeed, just 7% of those surveyed said they read their local newspaper only online, while just 3% read it with a mobile device, and a mere 5% read it both online and with a mobile device. That works out to 15% of the local newspaper audience using only digital channels.

Liberals involved in President Obama's reelection campaign tend to downplay what's been reported as a revolution in political technology. The 2012 campaign's use of data and analytics to target voters wasn't novel, they insist -- just a logical extension of lessons learned over years of experimentation. More important, they believe, is a Democratic talent pool that keeps getting bigger and more sophisticated with every cycle. Fancy tools are meaningless, after all, without the right people to wield them. Conservatives agree -- which is why some, in a bid to catch up with the left, are now moving to ramp up the technology training being given to the rank and file. Part of that effort will involve a series of workshops at the yearly right-wing conference known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The sessions are being organized by Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini and the one-year-old organization Empower Action Group, which is billed as the right's answer to liberal organizations that teach progressives how to send effective e-mail blasts, canvass voters with customized scripts and other techniques of the trade.