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December 2014

AT&T installs free Wi-Fi along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena

AT&T and the City of Pasadena (CA) have teamed up to install free Wi-Fi along Colorado Boulevard for mobile device users -- regardless of wireless carrier. Smartphone and tablet device owners can use the 14 access points by searching for the Wi-Fi network SSID “attwifi” on any Wi-Fi enabled device and following the prompts to connect. The service is available to all smartphone and tablet device owners without cost and will not count against monthly data allotments.

Apple's Tim Cook visits White House

Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with White House officials, but an aide declined to say whether or not he spent time with President Barrack Obama. "The President and his advisers regularly meet with stakeholders -- including CEOs, business owners, advocates and others -- on a range of issues,” a White House official said, not specifying whom Cook met with. Cook also met with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to talk about the senator’s tech agenda for 2015. Sen.

Operators Placing Big Bets On Carrier-Grade Wi-Fi: Study

Cable operators and mobile network operators will place a big bet on “carrier-grade” Wi-Fi networks in the coming years as “best-effort” Wi-Fi networks become less and less profitable, Real Wireless and rethink Technology Research found in a new study commissioned by Amdocs.

Among operators, carrier-grade Wi-Fi hotspots will grow from 14% today to 72% of overall Wi-Fi hotspots by 2018, the study predicted, noting that the trend will be in response to the need for improved capacity and quality for services such as video streaming (including authenticated TV Everywhere services), health monitoring, online gaming, IP voice applications, as well as a broader desire to carve out new revenue streams from their expanding wireless broadband networks.

Congress must modernize communications regulations to protect competition and consumers

[Commentary] The key problem with the current telecommunications legal framework is that it is not technology neutral.

By creating regulatory silos for the telephone network (Title II), radio (Title III) and cable TV (Title VI), it allows one technology to be favored -- or regulated -- at the expense of others. Classifications have fulfilled their useful life, but they are now obsolete, and should be retired. All technologies should be able to compete equally in the marketplace without special treatment from regulatory silos. There is not a level playing field today, but there could be if the Communications Act is modernized.

Google's "impossible" plan to beam Internet from solar-powered balloons is actually working. Here's how.

By next year, Google believes it will be able to create a continuous, 50-mile-wide ring of Internet service around the globe. And by 2016, Project Loon director Mike Cassidy anticipates the first customers in rural South America, Southern Africa, or Oceania will be able to sign up for cellular LTE service provided by Google balloons. The team has done a remarkable job so far harnessing the 100,000 pounds of pressure inside each balloon. The next test will be how it handles the pressure of turning a moonshot into a business.

Content is King, but Viewing Habits Vary By Demographic

According to Nielsen’s third-quarter Total Audience Report, fragmentation doesn’t apply just to technology; consumers' viewing habits are following suit.

The recent proliferation of new devices allows consumers to connect with content anytime and anywhere. What used to be a schedule to watch programming now seems like little more than a suggestion, as viewers can choose to watch live linear programming, video on-demand, or through subscription services and apps, among other ways to tune in. “Content is still king, but consumers are shaping their own content-discovery experience, and the evolving media landscape has not lessened consumer demand for quality, professionally-produced content. What has changed is the number and reliability of new media available to viewers,” said Dounia Turrill, senior vice president, insights, Nielsen.

Enforcing Digital Privacy Might Be Tough

[Commentary] Though there is an argument to be made that digital privacy rights are enshrined in the supreme law of the land, legal scholar Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law says that idea is actually controversial.

It stems from outdated doctrines and case-law that doesn’t reflect modern realities. In the abortion cases of the 1960s and 1970s, to protect a woman’s reproductive privacy, the Supreme Court relied on what Tushnet calls a “slew of constitutional provisions,” including the First, Fourth, and Fifth amendments. Legal scholars characterize this type of privacy as “decisional autonomy.” This is a different concept than a right to digital privacy, says Tushnet. Eventually, he says, it’s likely the court will be forced to consider the issue directly, but currently there have only been allusions to it, making the media’s argument that the National Security Agency shouldn’t be collecting the bulk metadata of Americans a more difficult one, due to lack of precedent.

[Marlisse Silver Sweeney is a freelance journalist]

French Official Campaigns to Make 'Right to be Forgotten' Global

Europe is pressing for its ‘‘right to be forgotten’’ ruling to go global.

The privacy decision, which allows individuals to ask that links leading to information about themselves be removed from search engine results, has been gaining traction worldwide ever since European officials released guidelines that demanded Google and others apply the ruling across their entire search empires. Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, who heads the French data protection authority and has campaigned heavily for expanding the ruling, defended European efforts to force search engines to apply the ruling to search results outside of Europe. The expansion of the ruling beyond Europe’s borders has raised questions over whether the region’s regulators would be able to enforce the decision in other jurisdictions like the US, which do not have the same privacy rules.

UK to implement 25 percent "Google tax"

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has announced a new "Google tax" to stop multinational companies from dodging tax on their UK profits. Speaking to parliament, Osborne said that multinational businesses needed to pay their fair share. The 25 percent tax is known as the "diverted profit tax."

December 3, 2014 (GAO Report on Usage-Based Internet Pricing)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

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INTERNET/BROADBAND
   FCC Should Track the Application of Fixed Internet Usage-Based Pricing and Help Improve Consumer Education - GAO research
   Framework for an Open Internet -- Section 706, Title II, and Forbearance - research
   FCC Still Pondering Net Neutrality Public Notice
   Network Neutrality Essential to our Democracy - op-ed
   FCC Commissioner Pai’s Letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings
   Cable lobby head frets 'Alice in Wonderland' network neutrality plan
   Mark Cuban on net neutrality: Fear the FCC, not Comcast
   The Only Legitimate FCC Hybrid Network Neutrality Approach - Scott Cleland op-ed
   The FCC’s powers of taxation: A signal of bad governance - AEI op-ed
   British Telecom Calls on FCC to Regulate Broadband 'Special Access' [links to web]
   Fiber fight: Broadening broadband Gig City touted as model in broadband debate [links to web]
   AT&T joins case; Chanute needs state nod to offer fiber broadband, says 1947 law [links to web]
   New York Public Library will rent Wi-Fi hotspots to people who need it most

ACCESSIBILITY
   FCC Forms Disability Advisory Committee
   Renewing ITU's Mandate to Promote ICT Accessibility - press release [links to web]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Padden: Auction Rules Could limit Payout [links to web]
   The New York Times Entirely Misunderstands The FCC Spectrum Auction - Tim Worstall op-ed [links to web]
   FCC Seek Comment on Request of Engineers Frequency Advisory Committee to be Certified as a Part 90 Frequency Coordinator - public notice [links to web]
   Sprint Vows to Halve the Bills of AT&T and Verizon Defectors [links to web]

CONTENT
   The Dynamically-Delivered Future of Mobile Apps - op-ed
   Facebook is built for storytelling. Should the law blame people who use it to spin stories? - analysis [links to web]
   Facebook doesn’t transform free speech into a lesser right - Washington Post editorial [links to web]
   Apple to Defend Against iPod Antitrust Suit [links to web]
   Twitter Improves Tools for Users to Report Harassment [links to web]
   News organisations ‘go native’ to find new source of ad revenue [links to web]

PRIVACY/SECURITY
   Reinventing the Internet to Make It Safer [links to web]
   Report Says Cyberattacks Originated Inside Iran [links to web]
   Protecting Data Privacy at School and at Play [links to web]

EDUCATION
   Protecting Data Privacy at School and at Play [links to web]
   Federal grand jury subpoenaed documents from LA Unified [links to web]

LOBBYING
   Study: Campaign Cash Brings Tax Benefits On Capitol Hill
   CTIA’s Baker Guides Wireless Industry’s Agenda [links to web]

POLICYMAKERS
   Obama's pick to lead the Pentagon, Ashton Carter, is big on cybersecurity [links to web]
   CTIA’s Baker Guides Wireless Industry’s Agenda [links to web]
   Peter Bale named new head of the Center for Public Integrity [links to web]
   Shawn Chang Joins Wiley Rein [links to web]
   NHMC Welcomes New Policy Counsel, Elizabeth Ruiz [links to web]

COMPANY NEWS
   Amazon's Bezos thinks e-books made the book industry healthier [links to web]
   Amazon's Jeff Bezos Explains Why He Bought The Washington Post [links to web]
   Amazon's Jeff Bezos Has Chosen an Heir Apparent [links to web]
   Scripps Stations Get Options From DC Bureau [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   Renewing ITU's Mandate to Promote ICT Accessibility - press release [links to web]
   Patriot Blogger Embodies Beijing’s Web Vision [links to web]
   Russia reportedly blocks blogs of terrorism analysts [links to web]
   UK carrier EE uses small cells to deploy rural LTE network [links to web]
   A Village Has What All of Italy Wants: The Internet [links to web]

MORE ONLINE
   DirecTV, DISH: FCC Shouldn't Hike Regulatory Fees [links to web]

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INTERNET/BROADBAND

FCC SHOULD TRACK THE APPLICATION OF FIXED INTERNET USAGE-BASED PRICING AND HELP IMPROVE CONSUMER EDUCATION
[SOURCE: Government Accountability Office, AUTHOR: Mark Goldstein ]
The Government Accountability Office was asked to review the use of usage-based pricing (UBP) by Internet providers. This report examines: 1) information available about the application of UBP by Internet service providers; 2) issues related to UBP selected consumers report are important to them; and 3) the potential effects of UBP on consumers. While the Federal Communications Commission is collecting data regarding fixed UBP, it is not using this data to track UBP use because it only recently started collecting the data specifically to analyze prices. As a result, although FCC is charged with promoting the public interest, it may not know if UBP is being used in a way that is contrary to the public interest and, if so, take appropriate actions. GAO recommends FCC: (1) work with fixed providers to develop a voluntary code of conduct to improve consumer communication and (2) make use of existing data to track fixed Internet UBP and its effects on consumers nationwide. FCC said it will monitor complaints and provider plans to determine if a more proactive approach is needed. GAO continues to believe that better communication is warranted. FCC agreed to use existing data to analyze UBP issues.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-should-track-application-fixed-internet-usage-based-pricing-and-help-improve-consumer | Government Accountability Office
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FRAMEWORK FOR AN OPEN INTERNET
[SOURCE: Ohio University, AUTHOR: Trevor Roycroft]
The future of Internet innovation and competition will turn on decisions the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon make in the Open Internet Proceeding. This paper discusses why partial reclassification of sender-side-only traffic is not a reasonable path forward, and argues that there is only one workable path forward -- the FCC should: (1) rely on Section 706 as the foundation for protecting both sides of the two-sided broadband Internet access platform; (2) reclassify both sides of the two-sided Internet access platform as telecommunications; and (3) forbear from the bulk of Title II provisions to deliver “just enough” Title II to support the application of Section 706. This paper discusses the policy synergy associated with the Section 706/Title II/Forbearance approach, and discusses case law that supports the proposition that higher courts will defer to the FCC's reclassification and forbearance decisions.
benton.org/headlines/framework-open-internet-section-706-title-ii-and-forbearance | Ohio University
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FCC STILL PONDERING NET NEUTRALITY PN
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has not decided whether to issue a public notice seeking comment on various proposals on reinstating Title II regulations, according to FCC sources. Staffers had signaled they needed time to vet the various proposals, including hybrid Title II/Sec. 706 approaches -- and the commission had been working on a public notice to solicit additional comment. But according to a report in Politico, the sentiment appeared to be shifting away from having to issue that notice. The FCC has already received comments on the Chairman's original Sec. 706 proposal, and held numerous forums where the hybrid and Title II proposals were vetted, so there may not be any legal requirement to seek more comment on them.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-still-pondering-net-neutrality-public-notice | Multichannel News
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NET NEUTRALITY ESSENTIAL TO OUR DEMOCRACY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Katrina vanden Heuvel]
[Commentary] Network neutrality is, simply put, the fundamental principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. There are very few level playing fields in American life, but in a nation plagued by inequality, the Internet has remained open, free and fair -- a powerful equalizing force that has allowed good ideas to flourish whether they came from a corporate board room or a college dorm room. This equality of opportunity is at the core of net neutrality. And it is under relentless attack by major telecommunications companies seeking yet another advantage to tighten their grip on the market. The importance of preserving net neutrality should be obvious. A tiered Internet will be great for the profits of telecommunications companies, but terrible for entrepreneurs, stifling the kind of innovation that can build massive followings before ever leaving the garage. Worse yet, sanctioning the creation of “fast lanes” could lead to online discrimination, with the providers choking off controversial views to protect their financial or political interests. Net neutrality is also essential to maintaining a genuinely open marketplace of ideas. The fight for net neutrality started long ago, the result of a people-powered movement that has spent years fighting for an open and free Internet. As President Barrack Obama acknowledged in his statement, for example, the Federal Communication Commission’s plan to allow “fast lanes” received almost 4 million public comments, the most in the agency’s history. And today, it seems possible, if not likely, that the public interest will prevail over special interests. But the forces mobilizing against net neutrality have no intention of stepping down from a fight. If the American people are serious about keeping the Internet open and free, the movement that has gotten us this far must continue to demand true net neutrality without delay.
benton.org/headlines/network-neutrality-essential-our-democracy | Washington Post
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FCC COMMISSIONER PAI'S LETTER TO NETFLIX CEO REED HASTINGS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Ajit Pai]
Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai wrote a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings saying he was, "surprised to learn of allegations that Netflix has been working to effectively secure 'fast lanes' for its own content on ISPs' networks at the expense of its competitors", as these allegations "raise an apparent conflict with Netflix's advocacy for strong net neutrality regulations." A response from Netflix is requested by December 16, 2014.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-commissioner-pais-letter-netflix-ceo-reed-hastings | Federal Communications Commission | The Hill | Multichannel News | ars technica
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CABLE LOBBY HEAD FRETS 'ALICE IN WONDERLAND' NET NEUTRALITY PLAN
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
Federal regulators are needlessly going down the rabbit hole by toying with broad new rules for the Internet, according to the country’s top cable lobbyist. “You’re going to make this tectonic shift to radically transform the entire regulatory framework in order to solve a minor legal problem associated with the smaller rules,” said Michael Powell, the head of the nation’s top cable lobbying group, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. “I’ve never seen such an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ series of events in my career." “While it’s self-serving, there has not been a deep-enough, honest-enough examination by the President or anyone else about what Title II really means,” he added, referring to the legal authority governing rules for public utilities. “The consequences of this are going to be, at best, six to 10 years of prolonged ambiguity, uncertainty and confusion in a market that has settled and stabilized 20 years ago,” Powell said. [raise your hand if you were a broadband subscriber in 1994]
benton.org/headlines/cable-lobby-head-frets-alice-wonderland-network-neutrality-plan | Hill, The
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MARK CUBAN ON NET NEUTRALITY: FEAR THE FCC, NOT COMCAST
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Jeff John Roberts]
Mark Cuban doubled down on a recent Twitter rant in which he likened the Federal Communication Commission’s proposed broadband regulation to some sort of socialist dystopia. “We’re seeing competition, but everyone is like ‘the big ISPs are going to f--- everyone,'” said Cuban, who argued that the public is better off waiting for competition between broadband providers than running the risks of regulation. He pointed to the FCC’s reaction to the Janet Jackson nipple-slip incident to argue the agency is inherently political, and will ultimately screw up forbearance or whatever pro-consumer mandate it tries to impose. In Cuban’s view, the widespread fears that ISPs like Comcast will squeeze small websites are illusory, while the outlook for fast Internet is better than we think. Cuban assured his audience that, years from now, we’ll all be awash in 8-gigabit Internet and so we can rest easy. Advocates for Internet competition can only hope that Cuban will follow his Dallas Mavericks basketball team on the road to cities like Brooklyn, where there’s precisely one broadband provider -- and consumers have no hope of switching, no matter how bad the service gets.
benton.org/headlines/mark-cuban-net-neutrality-fear-fcc-not-comcast | GigaOm
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THE ONLY LEGITIMATE FCC HYBRID NET NEUTRALITY APPROACH
[SOURCE: Daily Caller, AUTHOR: Scott Cleland]
[Commentary] In trying to re-impose price controls that the US Court of Appeals found the Federal Communications Commission did not have the legitimate authority to impose in the first place, the FCC is considering basically re-doing what it did the last two times it failed in court, i.e. re-proposing yet a new “hybrid” of combined FCC authorities, in a new hybrid mix of re-packaging, to see if they can get a different appeals court panel to swallow the FCC’s third hybrid cocktail. The only legitimate FCC “hybrid” network neutrality approach is for the FCC to respect the legitimate legal path the US Court of Appeals effectively advised the agency to follow, combined with an official request to Congress for the new legal authority the FCC believes it requires to regulate effectively in the 21st century.
[Scott Cleland is Chairman of NetCompetition, a pro-competition e-forum supported by broadband interests and President of Precursor LLC, a research consultancy for Fortune 500 companies]
benton.org/headlines/only-legitimate-fcc-hybrid-network-neutrality-approach | Daily Caller
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THE FCC'S POWERS OF TAXATION: A SIGNAL OF BAD GOVERNANCE
[SOURCE: American Enterprise Institute, AUTHOR: Mark Jamison]
[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler floated a proposal to increase the E-Rate funding by $1.5 billion, or about 60%, raising total funding to about $3.9 billion. The issue here isn’t whether schools and libraries should have additional funding, or whether they should spend any additional funding on technology. Rather, the issue is that the FCC has become a de facto taxing authority and education funder, a task for which it was not designed.
[Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center (PURC) at the University of Florida]
benton.org/headlines/fccs-powers-taxation-signal-bad-governance | American Enterprise Institute
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NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY WILL RENT WI-FI HOTSPOTS TO PEOPLE WHO NEED IT MOST
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Megan Geuss]
The New York Public Library, as well as the Queens Library and the Brooklyn Public Library, will begin renting out 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to residents. The New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries will rent out the hotspots for six months to a year to residents who don't have broadband and who are enrolled in library programs and adult learning programs. The Queens Library will lend the mobile hotspots from five of its libraries to anyone with a library card. The hotspots will be provided by Sprint. Funding for the program came from a $500,000 donation from a coalition of nonprofits, as well as a $1 million donation from Google.
benton.org/headlines/new-york-public-library-will-rent-wi-fi-hotspots-people-who-need-it-most | Ars Technica
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ACCESSIBILITY

DISABILITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission announced the planned formation of the Disability Advisory Committee and seeks nominations for membership. The FCC will accept nominations until January 12, 2015. The FCC expects to hold its first meeting of the new committee during the first quarter of 2015, coinciding with a year-long celebration of both the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the 5th anniversary of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). The committee, to be created under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, will provide a vehicle for consumers and other stakeholders to provide feedback and recommendations to the Commission on a wide array of disability issues within the FCC’s jurisdiction. The new body will enable the FCC to keep pace with evolving communications accessibility issues and build on its record of ensuring access to communications and video programming for people with disabilities. Some of the issues the committee will address include telecommunications relay services, closed captioning, video description, access to emergency information on television and telephone emergency services, device accessibility, IP and other network transitions, and the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program, as well as new disability and accessibility issues that arise.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-forms-disability-advisory-committee | Federal Communications Commission | Public Notice
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CONTENT

THE DYNAMICALLY-DELIVERED FUTURE OF MOBILE APPS
[SOURCE: Revere Digital, AUTHOR: Chris Maddern]
[Commentary] I’m going to outline another way of thinking about app delivery that I think will be possible in the near future; one which makes discovery faster, installation transparent and the home screen close to redundant. This concept, called “dynamic delivery,” involves delivering an app to your phone, not directly because you told your phone to install that app, but rather in response to a request for some content or action that is best delivered by installing that app. This shift in the model of how we own and access content is the beginning of a trend that will extend to the apps that provide us with access to that content.
[Chris Maddern is co-founder of Button, the leading customer acquisition and retention platform for the on-demand mobile economy]
benton.org/headlines/dynamically-delivered-future-mobile-apps | Revere Digital
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LOBBYING

STUDY: CAMPAIGN CASH BRINGS TAX BENEFITS ON CAPITOL HILL
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Peter Overby]
A new analysis takes aim at one of political science's evergreen topics: What do donors get in exchange for their campaign contributions? The answer, according to three researchers at Arizona State University's W.P. Casey School of Business, is that "investments in on-going access to policymakers are associated with future tax benefits." In other words, when corporations deployed lobbyists and made contributions from their political action committees to tax-writing committees, they got tangible benefits.
benton.org/headlines/study-campaign-cash-brings-tax-benefits-capitol-hill | National Public Radio
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