1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2016

January 2016

Court Grants Motion by Nonprofits and Sprint to Extend WIMAX Service Through March

A Massachusetts state court granted a joint motion to extend a preliminary injunction that temporarily saved Internet access to 1,820 nonprofits, 429 schools, and 61 libraries across the country. The motion was made by six nonprofit organizations who provide broadband access to more than 300,000 vulnerable Americans and Sprint Spectrum LP, though the telecommunications company remains a defendant in ongoing legal action with the nonprofits.

“This request is a positive step forward for everyone involved. We’ve made great strides in our effort to migrate our users to Sprint’s LTE network, but there’s still more work to do,” said Katherine Messier, founder and managing director of Mobile Beacon. “This extension will enable us to ensure that the students, seniors, disabled, and other vulnerable populations who rely on our service keep their broadband access. We’re not going to stop until we’ve given every last person the chance to make the switch to LTE.” The original preliminary injunction required Sprint to keep WiMax operating in 80 cities through February 2, 2016. The modifications to the injunction create a schedule for a phased WiMax shutdown with 16 cities shutting down by February 2nd, 39 cities by February 29th, and the remaining 25 cities by March 31st.

CMS: For approval of Medicaid home health services, telemedicine counts for face-to-face visits

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published a final rule clarifying requirements for face-to-face encounters for Medicaid beneficiaries to be eligible to receive home health services; the rule outlines that telehealth can be used for such encounters. To authorize home health services via aides, nurses, equipment and/or appliances, CMS mandates that recipients must have a face-to-face encounter related to the reason for the request either 90 days prior to or 30 days after start of services. CMS says physicians and certain non-physician practitioners must document the encounters, which can be conducted via telehealth, "subject to requirements in section 1834(m)" of the Affordable Care Act. Some of the comments on the proposed rule were in support of telehealth, CMS notes.

One person was "pleased that CMS [was] ready to offer technical assistance to state Medicaid agencies to use telehealth as an alternative so that the requirement" could be implemented in a manner that allows for the continuation of services. "Telehealth and telemedicine are service delivery modalities that have very specific protocols that ensure quality patient care, and do not include all electronic communications," CMS says. The agency notes that telephone calls or e-mail will not suffice for face-to-face encounters, but puts the onus on states to determine which forms of telehealth can be used.

Why You (Still) Can't Vote Online

The advantages of online voting are may: it is convenient for a lot of voters, more accessible for the elderly or those who can't get off from work and still works in the case of a national disaster. But this butts up against one big, recurring problem: despite its promise, the possibility of security failures has thus far proved a nearly insurmountable hurdle. And that's why, at a time when more Americans are using the Internet for their shopping, banking, and even dating, the voting process has been almost entirely untouched by the digital revolution.

Once concern of cybersecurity experts is protecting both the anonymity of a voter, and allowing the voter to prove that their vote was actually cast. In an online purchase, both the merchant and credit-card company or bank attach the customer's name to the purchase. Purchases are tied back to individuals -- something customers want so that they can verify their purchases. But an online-voting system would need to separate the two -- a voter's identity from their ballot -- to protect voter anonymity. In that case, how can that voter be confident that their vote is counted at the end of the day?

GOP Debate Without Trump Draws 12.5 Million Viewers

The Fox News Republican debate without Donald Trump on Jan 28 drew 12.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen. The number will probably be interpreted in different ways.

From one perspective, it is the second-lowest viewership figure of the seven Republican debates, next to Fox Business’s mid-January debate, which attracted 11.1 million viewers (and, like the others, had Trump front and center). The figure fell off sharply from December’s CNN debate, which had more than 18 million viewers.

On the other hand, Trump’s absence did not produce the big drop-off in viewers from other recent debates that Trump had suggested would happen. In a somewhat drastic overstatement, Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, had said the ratings number for the Fox News debate, without Trump, would drop to “one to two million people.” The debate easily beat the competition on CNN and MSNBC. The two cable channels together had about 2.8 million viewers between 9 and 11 p.m., nearly 10 million fewer than Fox News. The networks provided live coverage of Trump’s competing event in Iowa — an appearance honoring and raising money for veterans — for about 15 minutes before moving on to round-table discussions and analysis. During Trump’s event, which took place roughly from 9:15 to 10:15 p.m., CNN attracted about 2 million people, while MSNBC had about 1.4 million. The debate had about 12.8 million viewers during that time block.

What Politico’s implosion tells us about the media business

[Commentary] Politico, the media company that revolutionized the speed and tone in which politics was covered over the past decade, is no more. Yes, the company will continue on. But what it will be is something very different than what it was when it launched in early 2007 -- or even what it is today. That's because of the news that broke Jan 28: All but one of the key players in the organization's senior management will leave -- either immediately or at the end of the 2016 election. The rise and fall (or at least pending reinvention) of Politico is a fascinating window into the current media world -- and just how hard it is to build a financial success in such a crowded marketplace.

What Politico was (a hyper-metabolized political report that treated campaigns and Congress as a giant game involving some of the most powerful, important and self-important people in the world) and what it evolved into (a site that relied heavily on wonky, policy focused, subscriber-only content) is the story, in a lot of ways, of what happens when journalistic ambition meets business reality. We need Politico -- and every other journalistic enterprise -- to keep trying to tackle the problem of profitability (or lack thereof) in the media business. Politico's trajectory to date, however, provides a cautionary tale of the difference between succeeding as a journalistic endeavor and succeeding as a business venture. We would all do well to heed it.

More Americans using smartphones for getting directions, streaming TV

Just as the Internet has changed the way people communicate, work and learn, mobile technology has changed when, where and how consumers access information and entertainment. And smartphone use that goes beyond routine calls and text messages does not appear to be slowing, according to a Pew Research Center survey of US adults conducted in July 2015.

The percentage of smartphone owners who say they have ever used their phone to watch movies or TV through a paid subscription service like Netflix or Hulu Plus has doubled in recent years – increasing from 15% in 2012 to 33% in 2015. Among the smartphone activities measured, getting location-based information is the most universal task. Nine-in-ten smartphone owners use their phone to get directions, recommendations or other information related to their location, up from 74% in 2013. The share of smartphone users who report using their device to listen to online radio or a music service, such as Pandora or Spotify, or participate in video calls or chats has also increased by double digits in recent years. (2015 was the first year in which we surveyed about using a mobile device to buy a product online or get sports scores and analysis.) Younger adults are especially likely to reach for their phone for something other than calling and texting. Getting location-based information is the one activity measured that is common across all age groups, however.

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