1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2016

January 2016

Consumer Action asks FCC not to narrow criteria for Lifeline phone service

Consumer Action filed a petition with 2,585 signatures to the Federal Communications Commission in opposition to proposals to sharply reduce the ranks of low-income Americans who would be eligible for the Lifeline telephone subsidy. The Federal Lifeline program helps people in low-income households move out of poverty, by giving them access to job opportunities, health care, and public safety. The FCC voted in June to consider expanding the Lifeline program to also pay for broadband Internet service.

Consumer Action applauds the FCC for recognizing that to be truly effective in connecting low-income Americans with crucial services and opportunities, low-income households must have Internet access. Unfortunately, fears of program abuse have led to recommendations from some to limit Lifeline eligibility to households on the federal Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and to rely on a voucher or other Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT)-based payment system to provide benefits. Consumer Action opposes such a move for several reasons given outlined in a fact sheet and created a petition to the FCC to counter the recommendations. The petition filed shows that consumers share Consumer Action’s concerns about steps that could seriously narrow or otherwise damage the Lifeline program.

Obama Administration plans shake-up in propaganda war against the Islamic State

The Obama Administration is overhauling its faltering efforts to combat the online propaganda of the Islamic State and other terror groups, US officials said, reflecting rising White House frustration with largely ineffective efforts so far to cut into ISIS’ use of social media to draw recruits and incite attacks. Officials will create a new counter-terrorism task force, which will be based at the Department of Homeland Security but aims to enlist dozens of federal and local agencies. Other moves include revamping a State Department program that was created to serve as an information war room to challenge the Islamic State online and erode its appeal. US officials said the unit at the State Department will turn its focus toward helping allies craft more localized anti-terror messages, and will stop producing any videos or other material in English -- ending a campaign that had been derided by critics.

Charter: New York State Approves Time Warner Cable Deal

Charter said that New York has approved its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable. Charter hailed the approval as putting it in a "strong position" as it tries to get the Federal Communications Commission to follow suit. The commission has paused the informal shot clock on its review of the merger, but that appears to be related to the holidays and time to review new document submissions rather than a signal of any issue. Stoppages of the 180-day clock are not unusual in merger reviews.

New York's approval comes with new commitments on high-speed broadband—60 Mbps as a minimum offfering and 300 Mbps throughout the state, building out more unserved residential and commercial areas, and investing in and improving customer service, Charter said. “This is a significant step forward, not only for Charter but also for our future customers, and we are very happy to have obtained this approval from the New York State PSC,” said Tom Rutledge, president and CEO of Charter.

Why Amazon's Data Centers Are Hidden in Spy Country

[Commentary] Once in a while—not quite often enough to be a crisis, but just often enough to be a trope—people in the United States will freak out because a huge number of highly popular websites and services have suddenly gone down. For an interminable period of torture (usually about 1-3 hours, tops) there is no Instagram to browse, no Tinder to swipe, no Github to push to, no Netflix to And Chill. When this happens, it usually means that Amazon Web Services is having a technical problem, most likely in their US-East region. What that actually means is that something is broken in northern Virginia.

Of all the places where Amazon operates data centers, northern Virginia is one of the most significant, in part because it’s where AWS first set up shop in 2006. It seemed appropriate that this vision quest to see The Cloud across America which began at the ostensible birthplace of the Internet should end at the place that’s often to blame when large parts of the US Internet dies. Before I knew northern Virginia as the heart of the Internet, I knew it as spook country—that is, home to a constellation of intelligence agencies and defense contractors. To explain why a region surrounded mostly by farmland and a scattering of American Civil War monuments is a central point of Internet infrastructure, we have to go back to where a lot of significant moments in Internet history take place: the Cold War.

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