February 2015

Google Plans New Headquarters, and a City Fears Being Overrun

Google is expected to propose new headquarters -- a series of canopylike buildings from Heatherwick Studio, a London design firm known for works like the fiery caldron at the 2012 Olympics, and Bjarke Ingels, a Danish architect known for his innovative designs. The project in Mountain View (CA), which Google has not made public but has discussed with members of the City Council, is likely to aggravate an increasingly testy relationship between the company and community leaders who fear the company is overrunning their small city.

When Google moved to Mountain View in 1999, it had a dozen employees and a search engine known only to computer aficionados. Now, its 20,000 local employees make it the biggest employer in a city that is bursting at the seams. “This last election we had maybe 12,000 voters,” said Jac Siegel, a city councilman who left office in 2015. “If you brought 5,000 people in and they all work for Google and they said, ‘We want you to vote for this candidate,’ they can own the town.”

FCC Library Invites Technology Manufacturers and Service Providers to Showcase their Tablets, Telephones and eBook Readers

The Federal Communications Commission Library proudly celebrates National Library Week with its Annual Open House to take place on Wednesday, April 15, 2015. Once again, in partnership with the FCC Technology Experience Center, the FCC Library will showcase how local, state, federal, and academic libraries use electronic or digital content to provide 24/7 cyberspace access for a wide array of personal use devices. Manufacturers and vendors are invited to participate in this event. Of particular interest are smart phones, eBook readers, tablets, technology kiosks and library-specific application solutions.

Presidential Memorandum -- Establishment of the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center

President Barack Obama directed the Director of National Intelligence to establish the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC). The CTIIC will be a national intelligence center focused on “connecting the dots” regarding malicious foreign cyber threats to the nation and cyber incidents affecting US national interests, and on providing all-source analysis of threats to US policymakers.

The CTIIC will also assist relevant departments and agencies in their efforts to identify, investigate, and mitigate those threats. In creating the CTIIC, the Administration is applying some of the hard-won lessons from our counterterrorism efforts to augment that “whole-of-government” approach by providing policymakers with a cross-agency view of foreign cyber threats, their severity, and potential attribution. The CTIIC will not be an operational center. It will not collect intelligence, manage incident response efforts, direct investigations, or replace other functions currently performed by existing departments, agencies, or government cyber centers.

Chairmen Upton and Chaffetz Statement on Chairman Wheeler’s Refusal to Testify

We are deeply disappointed in Chairman Wheeler’s decision.

As Chairman Wheeler pushes forward with plans to regulate the Internet, he still refuses to directly answer growing concerns about how the rules were developed, how they are structured, and how they will stand up to judicial scrutiny. After hearing from over four million Americans on such an important topic to our economic and cultural future, it's striking that when Congress seeks transparency, Chairman Wheeler opts against it. The last time a rule of this magnitude was voted on by the FCC, then-Senator Obama was motivated to call for transparency at the commission. We continue that call today.

Reports as late as Tuesday suggest that changes in the proposed rules are still possible, with just hours left on the clock before the commission votes. So long as the chairman continues to insist on secrecy, we will continue calling for more transparency and accountability at the commission. Chairman Wheeler and the FCC are not above Congress. This fight continues as the future of the Internet is at stake.

What the Net Neutrality Battle Means for Entrepreneurs

Will the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules threaten the entrepreneurial spirit of small startups and vendors online? One hundred companies -- including Yelp, GitHub, Foursquare Labs, Etsy, Kickstarter, and Tumblr -- wrote to the FCC, saying, "Any claim that a net neutrality plan based in Title II would somehow burden ‘small, independent businesses and entrepreneurs with heavy-handed regulations that will push them out of the market’ is simply not true." The Internet could be our last truly level playing field in business. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, eBay -- the list goes on of companies that began in garages or dorm rooms, and went on to become the beams and hinges of how we live and work online. Without a neutral net, the next Bezos or Jobs could be left in the slow lane.

Consumer Federation of America: FCC Chairman Wheeler Proposal Appears Spot On

The Consumer Federation of American wrote to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Communications Subcommittee claiming that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal for new, Title II/Section 706-grounded network neutrality rules are "exactly what is needed to ensure that the principle of open access on which [the Internet's] success has rested is preserved in the future." CFA said that by combining Sec. 706 authority with Title II as needed "puts key policy issues back on the table -- like universal service, consumer protection and competition -- that were never addressed when broadband was misclassified as an information service."

Title II: A new way to collect fees on broadband

[Commentary] If broadband is classified as a telecommunications service, a number of fees could apply to consumers’ broadband Internet bills.

These would most likely be the Federal Universal Connectivity Fee, the Telecommunications Relay, and the Carrier Universal Service Charge. At current rates these fees would likely amount to $17 in federal charges per household annually, according to a study by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). Uncertain, but far more significant to consumers, are fees at the state and local levels. Title II does not create new fees immediately. In the long term, however, it could grant many state legislature, utilities commissions, and municipalities unprecedented authority to collect fees on broadband subscriptions. As the number of landline telephone users decline, classifying broadband under Title II offers an irresistible opportunity to collect fees on a new service. While the FCC and the president purportedly seek to make the Internet “open” and “free,” Title II may actually yield an Internet that is “opaque” and “costly.” It may be the case that Americans support their money being used to subsidize broadband access. The FCC should be forthright, however, in publicizing just how much such an effort will cost.

[Roslyn Layton studies Internet economics at the Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark]

FCC effort to regulate Internet ignores history of past failures

[Commentary] While the specifics differ by industry, economics research over the past half century has consistently found Title II-style regulation to be inefficient, harmful to innovation and, therefore, costly to society.

The historical costs of regulating telecommunications as a public utility are well understood. Regulations protected Ma Bell’s monopoly by blocking entry, not just from competing firms, but even from the company’s own innovations like mobile telephony, which the FCC denied AT&T permission to deploy … for a decade! The myriad problems of regulation, however, do not mean that it would be better to give companies a free pass. The risks of anti-competitive behavior are real. The government should be vigilant in administering antitrust laws. Antitrust is a better solution because it is driven by evidence of market power and consumer harm, necessary whenever the practices in question – in this case, vertical integration – can have positive and negative consequences. Additionally, enforcement is case-by-case and can evolve along with technology and our understanding of the effects of different types of commercial arrangements.

[Wallston is Vice President for Research and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute]

Fox News Adopts GOP Smear Attempt On Net Neutrality, Dubbing It "Obamanet"

Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy pushed a Republican attempt to tar network neutrality when he said that it "could do to the Internet what Obamacare did to the healthcare system," a right-wing attack widely discredited when Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) pushed the idea in November.

During the February 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, correspondent Peter Doocy reported that the Federal Communications Commission will vote on net neutrality protections for the Internet on February 26. Doocy compared the alleged lack of transparency in the FCC's proposed plans to the Affordable Care Act's passage and claimed, "some critics already calling a slowed down web Obamanet, and their fear is that these changes could do to the internet what Obamacare did to the healthcare system."

FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly’s Remarks Before WISPAmerica 2015

The Federal Communications Commission’s role is to create an environment – through its rules and policies – that encourages investment and opportunity and provides the proper incentives to allow all of you to continue to expand and improve your networks and service offerings. I cannot say that the FCC has been completely successful in fulfilling this role.

The prospect of Title II is particularly troubling for [Wireless Internet Service Providers ] WISPs and small cable providers. Moreover, some parties, including WISPA, have pointed to potential deficiencies in the Commission’s initial Regulatory Flexibility Act analysis. They assert that, the FCC did not adequately analyze the impact of proposed net neutrality rules on small businesses, including the costs of complying with new transparency reporting requirements. I couldn’t agree more with this argument.

As for the good news, the FCC is taking the necessary steps to get needed spectrum resources into the marketplace. But we cannot rest on our laurels, more needs to be done to maximize the use of these frequencies and, as we look to the future, the FCC needs to pursue efficient spectrum policy.

Benton

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