June 2014

FCC Gets Outside Help To Sell Auction

The Federal Communications Commission has hired an investment banking firm to help develop educational material to use to persuade broadcasters to participate in the agency’s incentive auction in 2015, clearing the way for the agency to beef up its station outreach efforts later this summer, according to an agency official.

The banking firm tapped, according to the FCC official, is New York-based Greenhill & Co. Greenhill’s key assignment will be to put together a “book” that explains why participating in the auction might be in a broadcaster’s interest, the FCC official says.

The book will be a “central part” of the outreach, which will have both “one-to-one and one-to-many” components, the official adds.

The FCC decided to seek outside help for the outreach because the financial analysis that broadcasters will need to use to decide whether to cash out of the TV business during the auction is complicated, the official says. “There’s a lot of money involved,” the FCC official adds. “We are hopeful broadcasters are taking a closer look at the opportunities.”

Compromise struck on cellphone unlocking bill

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have reached a bipartisan deal on legislation that would allow people to “unlock” their cellphones when changing providers.

The bill, which is scheduled for consideration, would allow users to take their mobile device from one wireless network to another, and is backed by Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Sen Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

“Consumers should be able to use their existing cell phones when they move their service to a new wireless provider,” Sen Leahy said. “Our laws should not prohibit consumers from carrying their cell phones to a new network, and we should promote and protect competition in the wireless marketplace,” he added.

Sen Grassley called the bipartisan compromise “an important step forward in ensuring that there is competition in the industry and in safeguarding options for consumers as they look at new cell phone contracts.” “Empowering people with the freedom to use the carrier of their choice after complying with their original terms of service is the right thing to do,” he said.

ACA: AT&T/DirecTV Needs Fair Pricing Conditions

The American Cable Association is telling Congress it thinks the government needs to put conditions on the AT&T/DirecTV deal to decrease the incentive of DirecTV-affiliated programmers from charging higher prices to their rivals, which include hundreds of ACA members.

That is according to the written testimony of Ross Lieberman, senior VP of government affairs for hearings on the proposed deal in both the House and Senate June 24.

Lieberman cited ACA's concern over consolidation in general, including the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal and Comcast/Charter system swaps.

"Congress and the Federal Communications Commission ('FCC') need to ensure that consumers who reside in markets served by smaller multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) will not lose any competitive options or see their prices increase as the consolidation wave continues," he said.

A Verizon/ Dish Spectrum Deal Would Be Good for Verizon, But What About Dish?

The New York Post, citing unnamed sources, has reported that Verizon is talking with Dish Network about the possibility of buying Dish’s AWS spectrum.

But while such a deal would make sense for Verizon, the potential benefits for Dish are not so clear. AWS spectrum includes several different blocks in a relatively high frequency band in the 1700-2200 MHz range. High-frequency spectrum has less range but greater capacity than lower-frequency spectrum making it well suited to serving high-traffic urban areas.

What Dish would gain by selling its spectrum to Verizon is less clear. Of course the company would gain cash. But it would shut itself out of the possibility of building its own wireless network -- and with TV Everywhere expected to skyrocket, video providers without their own wireless networks could be at a disadvantage.

Sprint Offers Unlimited Voice or Texting for $20/Month at Wal-Mart

Sprint unveiled plans to offer unlimited voice or texting prepaid wireless plans at Wal-Mart Stores for $20 a month through its payLo by Virgin Mobile brand.

The monthly plans soon to be available to customers who purchase a Kyocera Kona or Samsung Montage device, cost $20 for either unlimited voice minutes with 50 text messages, or unlimited texting with 50 minutes of voice, Sprint said.

"The no-contract market continues to grow, most visibly with smartphones, but many customers find value with unlimited plans without the extra bells and whistles," said Angela Rittgers, vice president of marketing for Sprint's prepaid group.

Russia calls for Twitter censorship

Russia wants Twitter to block or censor some “extremist” accounts, a top regulator said. The head of the country’s communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, claimed to ask for 12 “extremist” accounts to be deleted or restricted in a meeting with the head of Twitter’s public policy division during the executive’s first official trip to Russia.

“I hope the content of some extremist blogs will be deleted,” Alexander Zharov said, according to the state-owned ITAR-TASS news service. “It concerns not only Russian users. Even if the account has been registered on the territory of Ukraine, this information would be considered extremist as well," he added. "The management of Twitter has heard us, and I hope that these accounts will be deleted in the nearest time.”

Can your school get decent Wi-Fi speed?

Technology is pouring into schools faster than their Wi-Fi can keep up with it. Virtually all school officials in a recent survey of 447 school districts said they will need to upgrade their Internet speeds within three years.

The survey was done by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a professional association for district technology leaders. Education Super-Highway, which promotes high-speed Internet in schools, recommends a download speed of 100 mbps (megabytes-per-second), for a school with 1,000 students and staff. But, the organization says "the typical public school has the same Internet access as the typical home -- but with 100x more users."

The solution? Mostly more money. Nearly three-quarters of districts in the CoSN survey said the cost of the monthly Internet charges are a barrier to getting the speed they need.

That wasn’t the only problem. Just over 10 percent said their Internet provider was not able to give them the higher speed they required.

The map shows Department of Education data on the maximum possible download speeds available at more than 70,000 schools in the country. It does not show whether the school has the top speed. You can see schools in your town, or nearby, by entering your zip code into the box above the map. By clicking on the markers you can see more specific information on download speed.

A Bill to Ban Internet 'Fast Lanes' Won't Pass. But Here's Why It Still Matters.

[Commentary] A Democratic bill to ban "fast lanes" on the Internet isn't going to become law. Republicans have long opposed network neutrality regulations, and as long as they control the House, they'll block legislation that would restrict the business choices of Internet service providers.

But the Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act, introduced by Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep Doris Matsui (D-CA), isn't really about changing the law. It's about sending a message to the Federal Communications Commission.

"We put forth the bill to put increased pressure on the FCC to ban paid-prioritization agreements," an aide to a bill supporter explained. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler expected to take criticism from Republicans, who are skeptical of the government telling broadband providers how to manage their networks. But the growing opposition to his proposal from Democrats could leave the FCC chief in a tenuous political position. Even the White House has offered little support, noting that the FCC is an "independent agency."

Chairman Wheeler needs the votes of both Democrats on the five-member commission to enact his proposed regulations. But those commissioners, Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, might not be eager to help the chairman if he's all alone on the issue.

The Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act, which also has the support of Sen Al Franken and Reps Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA), would instruct the FCC to enact rules banning paid prioritization within 90 days of the bill becoming law. The bill would also call for rules banning Internet providers from favoring content they own or are affiliated with.

Michael Copps: “We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves” For State of Broadband In The US

A group of Internet industry executives and politicians came together to look back on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and to do a little crystal-ball gazing about the future of broadband regulation in the United States.

Former Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Michael Copps was among the presenters, and he had sharp words for the audience about the “insanity” of the current wave of merger mania in the telecom field and the looming threats of losing net neutrality regulation. Unlike many of the other presenters at the conference, Copps, was anything but retrospective when he stood to speak.

“I’m not here to celebrate,” he began, “I’m here to advocate.” And the landscape he laid out is indeed not one to cheer for. He led off by agreeing with the several executive speakers that true competition is the way of the future, and the best way to serve consumers.

“But we haven’t given competition the chance it needs,” he continued, before referring to how poorly US broadband compares on the global stage. “We have fallen so far short that we should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be leading, and we’re not. We need to get serious about broadband, we need to get serious about competition, we need to get serious about our country.”

Broadband competition is indeed scarce in the United States, and the looming wave of “merger mania” is unlikely at best to improve the situation for anyone.

What Everyone Gets Wrong in the Debate Over Net Neutrality

[Commentary] Privileged companies -- including Google, Facebook, and Netflix -- already benefit from what are essentially Internet fast lanes, and this has been the case for years.

Such web giants -- and others -- now have direct connections to big Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon, and they run dedicated computer servers deep inside these ISPs. In technical lingo, these are known as “peering connections” and “content delivery servers,” and they’re a vital part of the way the internet works.

The concepts driving today’s net neutrality debate caught on because the Internet used to operate differently -- and because they were easy for consumers to understand. In many respects, these concepts were vitally important to the evolution of the Internet over the past decades. But in today’s world, they don’t address the real issue with the country’s ISPs, and if we spend too much time worried about fast lanes, we could hurt the net’s progress rather than help it.

Benton

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