June 2015

Soon in-flight Wi-Fi will be reshaped by some of the same trends affecting Internet connectivity on the ground. People are shifting away from traditional, fixed broadband connections and toward wireless connections that allow them to surf the Web outside the home and office on their mobile devices. Cisco predicts that by 2019, Americans will consume 10 times more mobile data than they did in 2014. Those forecasts will undoubtedly affect how the industry provides in-flight Wi-Fi. Upgraded communications satellites will soon allow not just faster airborne Internet, but also fancy video services such as live sports, music streaming and even in-flight mobile advertising, providing what will be a "near-home type experience."

New satellite technology promises speeds of 50 megabits per second, up from the 500 kilobits per second on older satellites. The big question is whether all of these new features will also come with lower prices for consumers, or if carriers like Gogo will charge premium rates for such access. The problem is reminiscent of what's happening on the ground. It's expensive to set up all the hardware needed to provide Internet. But what will likely keep pushing the in-flight Wi-Fi industry forward is the knowledge that consumers' expectations are constantly rising. They want the same experience that they get in their home, an experience that's enabled by ground-based Internet providers and content services.

“A campaign store is a very significant piece of a modern political campaign,” said Dale Emmons, president of the American Association of Political Consultants. Buy an item from a campaign store, and you are not actually purchasing a product; you are making a donation.

According to Federal Election Commission regulations, candidates are not allowed to sell items for personal profit, so the product is the “premium” you get in return for your pledge. As a result, when you put, say, a T-shirt or a coffee cup in your cart and go to checkout, you will, besides being asked for your full name, shipping address, phone and e-mail, be met with the statement, “federal law requires us to collect the following information”: employer, occupation and whether you are retired. So far, so like any other online donation. But when retail is involved, a little something extra is, too: personal preferences at a level beyond candidate. The choice of a product can reveal whether you are a beer drinker, a sports fan or what cellphone you use. It can suggest that there are a lot of joggers headquartered in a specific region of the country, indicating that a campaign may want to direct its health communications to that state; or that you really, really, hate the other guy. It can reveal that you have a baby, or at least are close to someone who has a baby. While the money is nice, the information is invaluable. “It’s all about learning who your supporter base is,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of the NPD Group. “How do they live? What are their trigger points? What words resonate with them? It’s worth its weight in gold, in the political arena just like the consumer arena. We call it demographic profiling, because voter profiling sounds like a dirty word, but that’s what it is.”

[Commentary] If you're being driven crazy by robocalls, help may be on the way. Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO) has introduced legislation to strengthen the Federal Communication Commission's ability to crack down on what's become a high-tech pain in the tuchis. "These calls can be annoying or frustrating to many of us, but they can be much more devastating to those, especially seniors, who fall victim to them," Sen McCaskill said. Her bill would give the FCC more enforcement authority, allowing it to slap harsher penalties on robocallers. It also would extend the agency's reach in cracking down on so-called spoofers -- robocallers that hide their identity from caller ID systems or appear as a call you'd want to take, such as from your local police department or a nearby hospital.

For its part, the FCC is trying to get phone companies more involved. It announced that telecom firms "face no legal barriers" in adopting technologies aimed at filtering robocalls. The need for help from on high was underlined by EBay and PayPal, both of which recently announced that they were modifying their terms of service to allow "auto-dialed or prerecorded calls or text messages" to contact users. That's exactly what it sounds like. EBay and PayPal, which are now in the process of splitting apart, are reserving the right to robocall you. They say they might do this to collect debts, offer promotions or ask survey questions. It seems clear that robocalls can't be cut off at the source. The best bet for consumers is to intercept them before they reach people's homes, just as the most effective way of addressing e-mail spam is for Internet service providers to block unwanted messages before they reach subscribers. Lawmakers and regulators are in agreement: More needs to be done to stop robocalls. They're doing what they can. It's now up to phone companies to do their share in protecting customers.

[Commentary] While politically motivated hacks such as the ones that may have disrupted France’sTV5Monde and WBOC Salisbury (MD), are scary, they aren't likely to be typical. Stations and networks are more likely to be hit by garden variety malware and malicious code intrusions because where there is Internet protocol (IP), there is vulnerability. An area of particular security concern to broadcasters is the nation’s Emergency Alert System, which is increasingly dependent on networked and IP-based services.

What then can most broadcasters do to beef up protection and improve survivability? “The first step is cyber hygiene,” says Kelly Williams, senior director of engineering for the National Association of Broadcasters, echoing the consensus of most cybersecurity experts across all sectors. Broadcasters should know where their vulnerabilities are and take the appropriate basic steps to make it more difficult for intruders to gain access, he says. “Where is your firewall? Is everything you have protected? Did you change all the default passwords on every piece of equipment you own? “I can’t stress enough the concept of understanding what your risk is. You get 50 percent of the way there if you sit down and have a conversation with your staff and you look at where all the vulnerabilities are.”

[Cynthia Brumfield is a veteran communications and technology analyst who is currently focused on cybersecurity]