April 2015

Network neutrality e-mails raise suspicions

A number of messages to lawmakers purporting to be from average constituents who oppose the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules don’t appear to have come from people within their districts, according to the company that manages the technology for some House members.

The notes have identical wording to those organized by a group called American Commitment, which is led by Phil Kerpen, a former top aide at the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity. The flood of traffic seemed to raise some lawmakers’ eyebrows, including Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), whose office soon determined some of the messages had come from constituents who didn’t recall sending them. Her aides pointed to a memo sent to members’ staff by Lockheed Martin, which manages the technology behind some lawmakers’ “contact me” Web pages. Lockheed initially said it had “some concerns regarding the messages,” including the fact that “a vast majority of the e-mails do not appear to have a valid in-district address.” In some cases, Lockheed also questioned the “legitimacy of the e-mail address contact associated with the incoming message[s].” “The idea that an outside group could use consumer data to impersonate constituents suggests an attempt to hijack the important feedback members of Congress need to truly represent their districts,” Rep Speier said. Kerpen said that American Commitment hadn’t impersonated members’ constituents. But he said that other groups had mounted similar campaigns, and borrowed the pre-written text available on his website.

US Internet users pay more and have fewer choices than Europeans

More than a quarter of Americans cannot go online at home to check their children’s grades at school, apply for jobs, pay bills or research health issues. They don’t have what has become a crucial service for participation in modern society: Internet service at home.

The proportion of households with Internet service had been rising steadily for decades, according to the Pew Research Center, until the past few years when the adoption rate slowed. One reason? The high cost of broadband and the lack of competition that leads to those high prices. A Center for Public Integrity analysis of Internet prices in five US cities and five comparable French cities found that prices in the US were as much as 3 1/2 times higher than those in France for similar service. The analysis shows that consumers in France have a choice between a far greater number of providers -- seven on average -- than those in the US, where most residents can get service from no more than two companies. The Center’s analysis echoes the findings of several studies on Internet pricing disparities worldwide. By mapping the service areas of US providers, The Center for Public Integrity also found that telecommunications companies appear to carve up territory to avoid competing with more than one other provider.

US to establish sanctions program to combat cyberattacks, cyberspying

President Barack Obama will sign an executive order establishing the first sanctions program to allow the Administration to impose penalties on individuals overseas who engage in destructive attacks or commercial espionage in cyberspace.

In the works for two years, the order declares “significant malicious cyber-enabled activities” a “national emergency” and enables the treasury secretary to target foreign individuals and entities that take part in the illicit cyberactivity for sanctions that could include freezing their financial assets and barring commercial transactions with them. The move expands the set of legal tools available to the administration to punish and deter activities including the theft of large quantities of credit card data, espionage conducted for commercial gain and cyberattacks aimed at damaging critical computer systems.

Bright House Deal Advances Malone’s Cable Ambitions

Cable tycoon John Malone missed out on a big prize when the company he backs, Charter Communications, failed in its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable. But he’s finding other ways to once again become a formidable player in the US cable industry. In the latest deal, Charter agreed to acquire Bright House Networks, a closely held cable operator with two million customers, for $10.4 billion in cash and stock. Charter is already expected to gain management control of several million more customers through divestitures if Time Warner Cable’s pending sale to giant Comcast closes. If they win approval from regulators, the deals would leave Charter with about 10.1 million owned and managed video customers, not far off Time Warner Cable’s 10.8 million. Malone’s Liberty Broadband Corp. has been Charter’s biggest shareholder.

Newhouse family enters cable’s top tier

The Newhouse family’s media empire spans the glossy magazines of Condé Nast, a clutch of local US newspapers and a controlling stake in Discovery Communications, home of cable networks TLC and Animal Planet. Now the family’s latest and biggest deal could propel billionaire brothers Si and Donald Newhouse into the top tier of the rapidly consolidating US cable television industry at a time of sweeping changes in the way media is created, distributed and consumed.

Their private company, Advance Publications, is poised to become the largest shareholder in the nation’s second-largest cable operator, if Charter Communications’ $10.4 billion bid for Advance’s Bright House Networks is successful. The structure of the proposed deal gives Advance a 26.3 percent stake in the enlarged company, eclipsing John Malone’s Liberty Broadband, which would hold 19.4 percent of the combined group. Advance will hand Liberty the larger vote, however, by transferring 6 percentage points of its voting stake to Malone’s group.

Introducing dial-up mode

As we've rolled out Google Fiber in Kansas City, Provo and Austin, we’ve learned that Fiber has been impacting our subscribers in ways that we didn’t expect. Loading bars used to give people an opportunity to pause and take care of the little things -- like making a cup of coffee, taking a bathroom break or playing with the dog. We’ve been told that Fiber’s seemingly instant connections have taken away that precious time. This got us thinking -- what if we could help people get their time back even while they used Fiber?

We worked with dial-up engineers, 56k researchers and T1 enthusiasts across the world to build our newest feature: dial-up mode. By incorporating dial-up technology, we were able to reduce Fiber speeds up to 376 times by withholding photons from the fiber strands. In doing so, the light-based fiber optic technology dims to a flicker of its previous capacity, giving our users those precious moments to load the dishwasher, hug the kids or walk the dog. To activate this new feature, simply click the menu at the top right-hand corner of your browser and select 'Dial-up Mode'. Then sit back, relax and enjoy the power of slowness.

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