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  2. June 2016

June 2016

Comcast promises better service, adding Wi-Fi hot spots in Minneapolis

Comcast said that it is trying to improve its customer experience and will add new services in 2016 in the Twin Cities (MN). "We have listened to what our customers are saying,” said Jeff Freyer, the company’s regional vice president. “We know we have work to do to improve the customer experience, and we’re on a mission to do it.”

The company promised to roll out simpler billing statements, allow customers to track their technician once he or she is 30 minutes away and give customers $20 off their next bill if a technician does not arrive on time. The firm is in the process of hiring 400 people in the Twin Cities for phone and online customer service. Competition for cable and Internet customers has ramped up in the Twin Cities in recent years. CenturyLink is sending salespeople on door-to-door missions in parts of the metro, and US Internet is slowly expanding its network across south Minneapolis.

ITI and the Newseum Launch New Internet Access Initiative: “Connecting the Unconnected”

ITI, the global voice of the tech sector, and the Newseum are proud to launch a new initiative, sponsored by Microsoft, entitled, “Connecting the Unconnected,” which will bring leading technology companies, broadband and development experts, multi-lateral development banks, academics and policymakers together to develop a series of tools to expand Internet access globally and promote connectivity. More than half of the world's population lack access or affordable access to the Internet, limiting opportunities Internet connectedness can provide to enhance education, communication, job creation and economic growth.

In launching the initiative, ITI and the Newseum said Internet access is a vital development tool, enabling countries and people to fully participate in an increasingly data-driven and digitally-based economy. The Connecting the Unconnected initiative will convene thought leaders for at least four closed-door discussions over the course of the rest of year to discuss existing efforts to expand Internet access and share best practices, with the intention of creating a “policy toolbox” to motivate and assist other countries still at the digital starting gate. The sessions are designed to allow for robust discussion and will be held at the Newseum in Washington (DC).

Your Data Is Forever

You may not remember your Myspace account—the early aughts were a while ago—but it remembers you. So does your LinkedIn account, even though you haven’t logged into it since you were desperately casting about for a job after college. Those retail-website accounts that promised 15 percent discounts? They haven’t forgotten, either. The Internet is in a constant state of flux. Websites come and go, logos are redesigned, and advertisers find new ways to track people. Even the pages that appear most set in stone—like, say, a Pulitzer-finalist series of investigative journalism—may one day disappear. “Link rot” has riddled blogs, news websites, and even the Supreme Court with dead links.

Despite this online transience, one type of data does have a deceptively long lifespan. User information—usernames, passwords, profiles, and related personal data—can endure for years, in part because it’s commercially valuable for companies to hang onto it. And those details can survive even long after a website changes ownership or goes dark. That means that a social-network or shopping-website account you created as long as a decade ago can still come back to haunt you.

VTEL Broadband Dispute: Is Vermont Funding an Overbuilder?

Could ongoing controversy in Vermont involving network operator VTEL be a precursor of controversies to come involving broadband funding for unserved areas? The state of Vermont will allow network operators to collect public funding to deploy broadband to areas where VTEL apparently provides at least some coverage using wireless technology.

At issue is how extensively VTEL covers several Vermont communities where the company received federal broadband stimulus dollars to deploy broadband using wireless. Those communities were part of a bigger project that included building out fiber-to-the-premises in some communities. (VTEL is the incumbent carrier in parts of rural Vermont. The stimulus project included areas inside and outside its home turf.) VTEL has not provided state authorities with a list of addresses in wireless areas that can actually receive service, but there have been so many complaints about VTEL service not reaching some locations that the state made the decision to fund overbuilds of some VTEL wireless serving areas. (Vermont’s budget for broadband deployments is $556,273 for this year, VTDigger reports.) All of this raises some interesting questions.

Free Data Options Open Opportunities for Low-Income Households

[Commentary] Are free data options a good thing for American consumers? I guess it depends on whether you ask consumers or advocates. For some in Washington D.C.’s rarified, digital, public interest policy elite, the very idea that mobile innovators would offer creative new low-cost or no-cost data service to consumers is a bad thing. New free data choices they say may create (in some unspecified and unproven way) a less “neutral” Internet.

But if you were to ask most Americans, particularly lower-income Americans who increasingly rely on their mobile devices to access the Internet, the answer is a resounding, unequivocal, and emphatic yes. This is just the question the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) posed in their new white paper. And what they found is that the new, innovative free data options a range of wireless operators and content providers are bringing to market could be a game-changer, helping millions of American families struggling to make ends meet more easily access the mobile Internet — and all the benefits and opportunities it offers — without digging into their monthly data plans.As we prepare to enter the next great wireless frontier, users should fully benefit from pro-consumer options, including free data that will continue to fuel our mobile future.

Can grapes surf the Internet?

Except for a few rotten tomatoes, we don’t generally think of fruit as having access to the Internet. But today, farmers are harnessing the power of the Internet of Things (or “IoT”) to bring their crops online, conserving resources and increasing yields in the process. At Hahn Family Wines in California’s Monterey County, wine-growers are using data from small sensors in the fields to monitor the need for watering, fertilizer or other interventions. Real-time data is uploaded wirelessly and transmitted to Verizon’s ThingSpace dashboard, where growers can analyze conditions and target watering with precision. This kind of connectivity is becoming common, as more and more devices are connected to the internet. Connectivity that used to be limited to computers and mobile devices is now finding its way into everything, from appliances to automobiles to oil rigs. Gartner, a Connecticut-based technology consulting firm, estimates that by 2020 there will be over 26 billion IoT devices, and some say the number could be much higher. And that’s a good thing. IoT creates the potential to create more sustainable agriculture and cleaner cities.

It can help deliver higher quality healthcare, bring transformative efficiencies and safety improvements to transportation, conserve water, boost productivity and, in short, improve the way people live, work and play. To achieve that potential, we’ll need a robust and secure underlying communications network to serve as a foundation. That network will need both sufficient spectrum to power this new wave of connected innovation and policies that will promote investment in the necessary supporting infrastructure. And we’ll need to work together to create a consistent policy framework that accelerates, rather than slows down, the growth of IoT

Broadband Privacy Can Prevent Discrimination: The Case of Cable One and FICO Scores

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission has an ongoing proceeding to apply Section 222 (47 USC 222) to broadband. For those unfamiliar with the statute, Section 222 prohibits a provider of a “telecommunications service” from either disclosing information collected from a customer without a customer’s consent, or from using the information for something other than providing the telecom service. While most of us think this generally means advertising, it means a heck of a lot more than that — as illustrated by this tidbit from Cable One.

Briefly, according to Cable One CEO Thomas Might, Cable One used predictive analytics to determine that customers with low FICO credit scores are “hollow value” customers (i.e. customers who often pay late or don’t pay, and who don’t buy additional services regularly). These customers either provide little profit to the company, or actually cost the company money (due to the expense of maintaining customers while their bill is disputed, and any costs associated with cancellation and bill collection). While Might explained they did not “turn people away,” they used FICO scores to determine what quality of customer service to provide. Cable One technicians aren’t going to “spend 15 minutes setting up an iPhone app” for someone with a low FICO score, according to Might — regardless of whether the customer in question actually pays her bills on time.

Worse, the use of FICO credit scores for this purpose disproportionately impacts communities of color, and vulnerable populations such as those struggling after a prolonged period of unemployment. These same populations are the ones least likely to have a home subscription to broadband. But without strong privacy rules in place, even those who can afford a home broadband subscription may not get the customer service they deserve because their provider considers them a “hollow customer” based on their FICO score. This is exactly the kind of discrimination that civil rights organizations have warned about in their 2014 “Civil Rights Principles For The Era of Big Data,” and on which the FCC has sought comments for in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

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