June 2014

Mediacom Communications campaigned in Iowa for a proposal to obtain government funding for a pilot program that could help bring high-speed broadband to more Iowa farms.

Dan Templin, senior vice president of the cable company’s Mediacom Business unit, appeared at the 2014 Connect Iowa Broadband Summit in Arkeny, Iowa, and plugged a proposal that’s been made by Mediacom and Deere & Co, better known as farm-equipment supplier John Deere.

In March, they pitched the Federal Communications Commission on a plan to help farmers better exploit the advanced technology of their farming equipment by spreading high-speed broadband to underserved areas of the state.

The companies’ March proposal seeks $800,000 in total for pilot programs in Audubon and Carroll counties. The money as proposed would come from the Connect America Fund, which takes former Universal Service Fund money and reallocates it from phone-service support into capital for rural broadband projects. Money from Mediacom or other sources would provide at least 20% of the funding needed for the project, the company said.

In the FCC filing, Mediacom said after it extended fiber lines into the counties, it would “provide retail Wi-Fi service to farms, small businesses and residences over the distributed antenna system at speeds up to approximately 50 Mbps down by 5 Mbps up for approximately $30-80 per month. The Mediacom-provided retail Wi-Fi would support Internet and broadband data services and voice services.

Politico and Condé Nast are entering the J-school business. Politico recently announced the creation of a 10-day Journalism Institute for college students, while Condé Nast is in talks to set up academic programs involving its magazines, including Wired and Gourmet.

As journalism schools increasingly try to connect classrooms with newsrooms to ensure students will have the right skills in a fast-changing job market, news organizations are doing the same from the opposite end.

With journalism foundations calling for “the reform of journalism and mass communication education,” and academics questioning if journalism schools are teaching students the right skills, it’s hardly surprising that news outlets are more interested in training rookies. After all, many working reporters are also adjunct journalism school professors -- setting up an academic program is just one step further.

But 10 days’ training will probably give students only the most basic introduction to political reporting, and it’s difficult to say how effective Condé Nast’s program will be without knowing which universities and schools will be involved.

Trade groups and associations have been rolling out policy prescriptions in recent days as part of the House Commerce Committee’s review of the nation’s telecommunications law.

The deadline for filing comments about telecommunications competition policy was June 13 and multiple organizations managed to slip in under the wire to get their voices heard.

New technologies “directly challenge each other in the marketplace in a manner not fully contemplated” when current law was written back in 1996, argued the Telecommunications Industry Association in its filing. Innovations that seem to cross previous boundaries are complicating the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) picture, it added, and new policies should be sure not to meddle with the different advancements.

“A legislative focus on specific, well-defined public interest objectives will ultimately prove more durable in achieving those objectives as technology evolves, rather than an approach which micro-manages how content providers, network operators, and customers should relate to each other,” it said.

Town officials of Oyster Bay (NY) likely aren’t scoring points with transparency advocates after clamping down on how the town’s information is released through social networks.

But legal experts believe the more cautious approach is a good one for many local governments.

The Long Island town revised its information technology policy to prohibit employees from communicating official documents through social media applications without prior authorization, according to Newsday.

Although the move may slow interaction between residents and the town, Chuck Thompson, general counsel and executive director of the International Municipal Lawyers Association, felt the decision might help address one of the biggest issues local governments are currently struggling with -- disclosure requirements. For example, if a local government has a bond issue outstanding and sends information out in a way that might get to one investor before another, Thompson believes the US Securities and Exchange Commission may view that as a violation.

That's just one concern in a litany of other privacy laws and limitations a municipality may be subject to on both the state and federal levels. “There is good reason for a local government to control release of its information,” Thompson said. “Not so much to restrict the dissemination of the information, but to insure that it is disseminated properly.”