1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2016

January 2016

Facebook’s Regulatory Battle Over Free Basics in India Is Getting Feisty

Facebook’s battle with Indian regulators is turning into a public ‘he said, she said’ debate as the two sides continue to fight over Facebook’s Free Basics app, the social network’s effort to bring free Internet services — including Facebook — to emerging markets.

A new letter published online by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India showcases a number of accusations between the two sides in which the only thing that seems clear is that the entire situation is pretty murky. The tl;dr version: Facebook is trying to recruit users to support its Free Basics app, which is under fire from Indian regulators. These regulators argue that Facebook isn’t sharing all the necessary info with said users in order to ensure they know what they’re arguing for. And Facebook claims regulators are blocking emails of support from its user base.

The longer, more detailed version: TRAI is in the process of collecting public opinion on how the country should regulate zero-rating services like Free Basics. It claims that Facebook, which has been encouraging its users in India to support Free Basics by emailing TRAI from their Facebook accounts, failed to give users the appropriate consultation paper it released and asked people to respond to. In other words, TRAI claims Facebook isn’t sharing the relevant material with people its recruiting to fight for its app.

On the other side, Facebook is accusing TRAI of “unsubscribing” to emails from Facebook users trying to support Free Basics, thus blocking their effort to support Facebook’s app.

National Hispanic Media Coalition Opposes Charter-Time Warner Cable Deal

Saying it should not be approved, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) slammed the Charter-Time Warner Cable merger in testimony before the California Public Utilities Commission, which is holding a public hearing on the deal Jan 26. NHMC was noticeably absent from a memorandum of understanding (MOU) struck between Charter and a dozen diversity groups including the National Council of La Raza, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, SER-National, Hispanic Federation.

NHMC president Alex Nogales said in the PUC filing that he could envision no conditions on the deal that would mitigate its harms. NHMC said the deal "would harm California consumers, particularly Latinos, by leaving fewer choices, negatively impacting diversity in programming and employment, and causing the prices consumers pay for communications services, like broadband Internet access, to go up."

Hillary Clinton e-mails contained 'need-to-know' classified info

The secret information on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal e-mail was more highly classified than previously understood, according to the intelligence community’s internal watchdog. In a letter to Capitol Hill, Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III wrote that Clinton had highly classified information known as “special access programs” (SAP) on her private server. “To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element,” the watchdog told lawmakers in Congress. “These declarations cover several dozen e-mails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and TOP SECRET/SAP levels. “According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources,” he added. The intelligence office is “coordinating with” the State Department “to determine how these documents should be properly treated in the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] litigation.”

The revelation raises the stakes for the types of information in Clinton’s server. More than 1,300 e-mails released by the State Department have been classified, though department officials insist that none of the information was classified at the time the e-mails were sent. The spy agency watchdog had previously claimed that Clinton also had two e-mails with “top secret” information on the server. However, SAP information is above and beyond that, and is used to restrict information on a “need-to-know” basis.

Verizon argues for combining 37 GHz, 39 GHz into single band for 5G

In its latest lobbying efforts at the Federal Communications Commission, Verizon is reiterating the importance of the spectrum bands above 24 GHz to help jumpstart 5G deployment, but it's also arguing for the FCC to combine the 37 GHz band with the 39 GHz band to create a single 3 GHz band of contiguous spectrum, with channels at least 200 MHz wide.

In the ex parte filing, Verizon also said it agrees with the FCC's primary proposal to grant flexible use rights to existing terrestrial licenses in the 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands and to auction the FCC-held licenses. However, the combined 37 and 39 GHz band also should be subject to the same rules. "The band should not be governed by the complex and administratively burdensome 'hybrid' proposal presented in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking," Verizon stated.

In Growing Spat, Facebook Claims India Telecom Regulator Blocked Its E-mails

Facebook and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or TRAI, are engaged in a snippy epistolary argument as the agency prepares to write new policy that would affect Free Basics, Facebook’s discounted Internet offering. Now, in the manner of a passive-aggressive spat between roommates, Facebook has accused the agency—or at least, someone within the agency—of blocking its e-mails.

“Someone with access to the designated TRAI e-mail account appears to have blocked receipt of all e-mails from Facebook,” Facebook wrote to the regulatory agency on January 13. “This appears to have been accomplished by unsubscribing from receiving all further e-mails from Facebook, effectively requesting that Facebook cease delivering e-mails to that address. This action prevented the Facebook system from sending further responsive e-mails to TRAI.” The e-mails in question were collected from Facebook users declaring their support of Free Basics, a “zero-rated” service that allows people in developing countries to connect to a limited number of websites for free. Facebook says it is pushing Free Basics in order to help underprivileged people get online for the first time; opponents say it’s a play to recruit more Facebook users and give the company more control over the Internet.

Twitter Experiences Worldwide Disruptions

Twitter experienced global disruptions that prevented many of its 300 million users from staying connected or from logging on to the social network in the first place. The company cited a technical problem in a recent code change as the cause of the problems, which began around 3 am Eastern Standard Time and prevented many users from sharing updates on their smartphones, computers and other mobile devices. About 1 pm, the company said it had reversed the change, which fixed the issue. Twitter declined to specify how many of its users were affected.

Martin Luther King, Video and #Blacklivesmatter

[Commentary] The rise of the Civil Rights movement and Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr's work took place concurrently with the arrival of television. There is a reason for this, and one that speaks volumes about the power of video, television and the visual media, both in the 60s, and even more so today. Dr King was the right person at the right time with the right technology. There had been other civil rights advocates, but none had been broadcast to the world on a regular basis. Thus, Dr King became the symbol of a movement.

Today, video cameras are ubiquitous. From Ferguson (MO) to Chicago (IL) to Baltimore (MD) we have seen video after video of police shootings of young black men. This is something doubtless was happening all the time, but now, thanks to video, the world sees it and responds. But this power of video, which we all now have, and a great power it is, with great potential for change, need not be limited to simply capturing malfeasance as it happend before us. This is like shooting the tornado as it hits your house. It is powerful, but it does not begin to touch on what you can do with the medium you now posess. Video is powerful. Remarkably powerful. Embrace the tool.

[Michael Rosenblum is the founder of Current TV]

Co-investment in ultra-fast broadband access networks: Is there a role for content providers?

In many countries, Next Generation Access networks (NGA) deployment and penetration rate proceed at a slower pace than expected. It is argued that an ex ante contractual arrangement among residential-access Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and content providers, which builds on the complementarity between infrastructure and content, can promote the roll out of NGA. Indeed, one such contract brings down the portion of the investment cost borne by the ISPs (for a given cost of investment), increases end users׳ demand for improved connectivity and internalizes investment externalities.

It is studied how a departure from network neutrality regulation of the Internet, allowing the ISP to negotiate with the content provider a fee for (priority) delivery of content, affects firms׳ investment incentives. Using a simple model, it is shown that the ISP may invest more with than without net neutrality, since the content provider may have high bargaining power ex post (after NGA investment is sunk). Instead, the content provider may be more willing to co-invest when net neutrality is abandoned, either to evade high ex post fees (if the investment cost is low), or to foster NGA deployment (if the investment cost is high and the ISP has low bargaining power ex post).

© 1994-2025 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.