June 2015

Sen Gardner Presses For Expanded Rural Broadband

Sen Cory Gardner (R-CO) announced that he, along with a bipartisan group of Senators, has written a letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asking them to review efforts to bring broadband internet access to rural America and to present an analysis of existing programs and best practices.

The letter to the two Secretaries reads, in part: "As Co-Chairs of the Broadband Opportunity Council (Council), you have a unique opportunity to take a holistic view of our successes and failures at incentivizing broadband deployment and adoption in high-cost, hard to serve areas. The twenty-five different government agencies and entities represented on the Council have tried a variety of approaches to address this complex challenge, and we urge you to carefully review and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the various Federal initiatives administered by each member agency. We also ask that you coordinate with the Federal Communications Commission on this endeavor to learn from their extensive experience. A thorough understanding of what we know already works – and what important questions remain – will help to inform the debate about what more we can do to truly bring rural America into the 21st century. We request a detailed analysis of these initiatives and a list of best practices be included in your report to the President due no later than August 20, 2015."

Maps Show Which Americans Have Broadband Access and Which Don't

In keeping with the changing demands of the economy, the Federal Communications Commission is considering revamping the existing Lifeline program to help the poor log into the majority of society -- which is online. The plan goes to a vote on June 18 and if approved, the process to restructure the program to include a broadband subsidy will get underway. The agency releases data about broadband access annually and recently began representing it visually. A new map from the FCC highlights one of the major disparities in broadband access is between urban and rural areas.

Arizona and Alaska have the largest geographical gap in broadband access, with more than a 7 percent difference between urban and rural users with access to high speed Internet. Trailing Arizona and Alaska, with a difference between 4 percent and 7 percent is Montana, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and the sole Northeast state with such a disparity -- Vermont. The entire West Coast has a gap between 2 percent and 4 percent. Of America’s rural population, 53 percent (22 million people) lack access to high speed Internet, compared to only 8 percent of urban Americans. Rural populations continue to be underserved at all speeds, the FCC reported in March, and tribal lands are even further behind, with 63 percent of residents (2.5 million people) unable to get online.

White House Tells Agencies to Tighten Up Cyber Defenses 'Immediately'

The White House has directed all federal agencies to take a series of swift measures to lock down government systems, in the wake of a devastating hack that possibly delivered Chinese spies data that could compromise national security. A summary of the steps released late June 12 does not explicitly mention the data breach. According to White House officials, the emergency procedures include:

"Immediately" deploying so-called indicators, or tell-tale signs of cybercrime operations, into agency anti-malware tools. Specifically, the indicators contain "priority threat-actor techniques, tactics and procedures" that should be used to scan systems and check logs.
Patching critical-level software holes "without delay." Each week, agencies receive a list of these security vulnerabilities in the form of DHS Vulnerability Scan Reports.
Tightening technological controls and policies for "privileged users," or staff with high-level access to systems.
Dramatically accelerating widespread use of of "multifactor authentication" or two-step ID checks. Passwords alone are insufficient access controls, officials said. Requiring personnel to log in with a smartcard or alternative form of ID can significantly reduce the chances adversaries will pierce federal networks, they added, stopping short of mandating multi-step ID checks.

Agencies must report on progress and problems complying with these procedures within 30 days.

Sen Klobuchar Highlights Ways to Improve Broadband in Comments to Newly Formed Broadband Opportunity Council

As the newly formed Broadband Opportunity Council gathers comments for consideration, Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is highlighting ways to improve broadband in Minnesota and across the country.

In a letter to US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsck, Sen Klobuchar wrote, “As I travel around Minnesota, I often hear from community leaders, residents, and businesses about their need for access to reliable broadband. However, their ability to attract these services varies. Rural residents often have lower speeds than those in urban areas. Additionally, there are still lower adoption rates among seniors and low-income households...The federal government can encourage investment and adoption of high-speed broadband, both wired and wireless, by promoting and strengthening existing federal programs, improving coordination with states, advancing public-private partnerships, and modernizing infrastructure....I encourage the Council to make the comments it receives from all stakeholders public so that they can contribute to a pervasive national conversation about broadband that extends beyond Washington, DC."

Blandin Foundation recommendations to the Broadband Opportunity Council

The Blandin Foundation submitted a formal response to the federal request for input to the Broadband Opportunity Council. The Blandin Foundation recommends enabling, encouraging, and engaging in collaboration across sectors and levels of government. Additionally, to support and spur rural broadband cooperatives and to continue efforts to spur adoption and increase sophistication of use. Specifically, Blandin Foundation supports cooperatives because:

Building a business case for broadband investment in unserved or underserved areas of Minnesota is very challenging for investor-owned providers.
Cooperatives are member-owned and can be more patient investors with delayed or minimal ROI requirements.
Community and economic development benefits derived from broadband investments, both the intrinsic values and the increased community sustainability, are highly valued by locally owned cooperatives.
Establishment of cooperatives may be less objectionable to those who oppose government broadband networks.
There is an established history of public-private partnerships between government units and cooperatives, such as Arrowhead, CTC, Farmers Mutual, and Federated. Returns from successful partnerships remain in the community.

Is the Internet a failed utopia?

[Commentary] Putting aside the faulty premise of the argument -- "is the Internet a failed utopia?" is a completely loaded question -- the main reason I was undecided is that it's too soon to decide if the Internet has been a success or failure. The real question should've been: is the Internet going in the right direction or not? When you look at it through that lens, it becomes a much more complicated issue, but the answers that you might stumble upon by working through it are probably more useful.

Is the Internet an equal playing field where anyone can be successful, or should we worry that the Facebooks and Googles of the Internet are in the process of divvying up cyberspace into the same megacorp-monopolised tranches that we see in the capitalist real world? Do we truly have freedom of speech and expression on the Internet, or will the world's governments pass legislation that keeps the Web firmly under control? Ultimately, despite any misgivings about the current state of the Internet, I don't think anyone disputes that it has made a wealth of human knowledge freely available to billions of people. Knowledge that, among many other things, includes the details of how to build another Internet. If this Internet becomes a failed utopia, then someone will just make another one and try again.

Will FCC Lock-in Net Neutrality Gains in Legislation or Risk All in Court & Ballot Box?

[Commentary] The appellate process will only get tougher for the Federal Communications Commission’s Title II Open Internet Order from here, which means both legal and electoral uncertainty over the permanence of the FCC’s network neutrality authority will only grow as the appellate process plays out and the 2016 Presidential election approaches. Simply, do the FCC and its congressional supporters essentially cash in and keep their net neutrality gains long term for consumers in bipartisan net neutrality legislation now, or do they double down by waiting and maybe losing it all in either the Supreme Court or the 2016 Presidential election? Bipartisan congressional legislation is the only path to a permanent net neutrality solution here for consumers, and the clock is ticking.

[Scott Cleland is President of Precursor LLC, a research consultancy for Fortune 500 companies]

TVStudy Passes the DC Circuit Test

[Commentary] A seemingly small but crucial element of the Federal Communications Commission’s incentive auction preparations has survived a broadside attack in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. As a result, TVStudy lives on and the auction’s approach continues unimpeded. At issue was the fact the FCC decided, in connection with the auction, to tweak the way it calculates TV station coverage areas and interference. Of course, what looks like a useful tweak to a regulator may look like a major -- and harmful -- overhaul to a regulatee. Luckily for the Commission, the court saw tweak rather than overhaul.

The result here probably shouldn’t surprise us. After all, the subject matter -- the operation of OET-69, a process which even savvy communications lawyers may not be familiar with -- is highly technical. Often, judges seem uncomfortable wading into deep technical weeds, especially when, under Chevron, the agency is supposed to be accorded mucho deference. Whether TVStudy was indeed the innocent and inspired innovation that the FCC claimed or a bit of high tech high jinks, as some feared, it makes little difference now. The court has blessed TVStudy, and we will have to look forward to its implementation as the auction plays out.

Here’s What Happens to Your $10 After You Pay for a Month of Apple Music

You don’t have to pay anything to try Apple’s new streaming music service, since the company will offer a free three-month trial when it launches at the end of June. But if you stick around after that, you’ll need to pay $10 a month for the on-demand, all-you-can-eat subscription service. And Apple will end up passing along more than $7 of that to music labels, music publishers and other music owners.

The fact that Apple will pay music rights owners around 70 percent of its revenue shouldn’t be a surprise to industry music observers, since that’s a fairly standard ratio. Apple’s pitch to the music industry, essentially, is that its seven-tenths of a dollar will be worth much more than Spotify’s seven-tenths of a dollar in the long run, because its free service isn’t meant to compete with its paid service, and because it will sign up many more subscribers than Spotify, which says it has 20 million paying users.

Report for America: a community service-based model for saving local journalism

[Commentary] It’s time for a dramatic new approach grounded in community service. In a new report underwritten by the Ford Foundation that will be released June 16 at Montclair State’s Engage Local conference, I attempt to draw lessons from a world not usually thought relevant to journalism: the three-decades-old movement of national and community service programs such as AmeriCorps, City Year, and Teach for America. A new national service program focused on local reporting would more efficiently deploy philanthropic resources to the media enterprises that need it most, while instilling a new sense of idealism into community-based coverage. It is time to Report for America.

[Steven Waldman is a journalist and digital entrepreneur]

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