June 2016

Could network neutrality stand in the way of traffic safety?

Recently, Google signaled its intention to make significant changes to the appearance of ads on Google Maps. According to a spokesman, the company is currently “developing and experimenting with a variety of ad formats on [Google] Maps that make it easier for users to find businesses as they navigate the world around them. For example, Maps users may start to see promoted pins for nearby coffee shops, gas stations or lunch spots along their driving route.” The Maps app levels off Google’s increasing ability to track individual users as they switch between devices — mobile, desktop, and tablet — wherever they may be. It is an ideal vehicle for channeling dynamic, customized, and targeted marketing to consumers in real time because of its near universal adoption by Android consumers — if not explicitly, then implicitly via the array of free and subsidized navigation apps funded in large part by advertising revenues generated from the Google empire.

While turning navigation apps into advertising vehicles benefits consumers by alerting them to deals that are “too good to miss,” this poses a potential challenge for traffic safety. Distracted driving is a complex problem, but luckily the Federal Communications Commission may have the tools needed to help us stay safe on the roads. That is, of course, if the agency is willing to venture into non-neutral territory.

[Bronwyn Howell is general manager for the New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation and a faculty member of Victoria Business School, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.]

The FCC's Modernized Comment System Is Coming Soon

As part of our efforts to upgrade the Federal Communications Commission’s major IT systems, we’ve been working to modernize the Commission’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) to improve the public’s ability to engage with the Commission on important issues. Public comments play an essential role in the Commission’s work. Our goal is to provide a more efficient and reliable way for the public to submit and access input on Commission activities. To reach that goal, we have spent months engaging with external stakeholders from law firms, industry and public interest groups, the press and FCC staff to solicit their feedback on the new system. Thanks to this essential feedback, we are nearing the final stages of the modernization effort and we expect to fully transition to the new system in late June 2016. The new cloud-based system provides the same features as the current ECFS, combined with some significant improvements:

Improved usability: Improved layout and functionality based on stakeholder feedback, making it easier to file comments, check filing status, conduct research, and complete tasks faster.
Greater reliability: Built on a commercial cloud platform, providing the ability to automatically adjust during periods of heavy usage.
Streamlined process: Because we are no longer trying to replicate a paper-filing process, the new system is not designed to convert filings to PDF before they can be publicly viewed. Filings will be made available to the public in their native formats.
Documented API: Providing outside groups the ability to submit and pull comments in bulk, with details on this API available here.
Greater efficiency: More efficient model for the cost to maintain the new system, compared to a legacy “on premise” model.
Increased accessibility: Ability to “read out loud” the text contained in ECFS filings, so that filings are more easily accessible to everyone.

FCC Incentive Auction Task Force Announces Deputy Chair for Transition

The Federal Communications Commission’s Incentive Auction Task Force announced that Jean L. Kiddoo is joining the task force as Deputy Chair for Transition. Working with task force Chair Gary M. Epstein and Vice Chair Howard Symons, Kiddoo will focus on planning for and implementing the post-auction transition. During the transition period, the Commission will reauthorize and relicense the facilities of broadcast television stations that receive new channel assignments. The transition also involves paying winning reverse auction bidders and administering the $1.75 billion relocation reimbursement fund authorized by Congress. Like the auction itself, the transition will be an inter-disciplinary effort that involves multiple bureaus and offices within the Commission and will span several years.

Kiddoo’s addition to the task force reflects the Commission’s increasing attention to the transition now that the auction is underway. Kiddoo has served as deputy chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau since 2014, in which capacity she has participated on the Incentive Auction Task Force Steering Committee. Kiddoo has also overseen the bureau’s Auctions, Broadband, and Mobility Divisions and has taken a leadership role in coordinating the Commission’s auctions systems, personnel, and resources across the various other bureaus and offices. Prior to joining the Commission, Kiddoo spent more than three decades in private practice, representing telecommunications, media and technology companies before federal agencies, courts, state regulatory commissions, and local authorities nationwide. Kiddoo is a graduate of Colgate University and earned her law degree from the Catholic University of America.

FCC General Counsel Announces Staff Changes

Federal Communications Commission General Counsel Jonathan Sallet announced his selection of Jennifer Tatel as deputy general counsel, with responsibility for administrative law issues. Tatel currently serves as chief of staff in the Office of General Counsel and will continue in that position, in addition to her new role. Sallet also named John Williams as senior counselor to the general counsel, enlarging his role in the office. Williams has served as a senior legal advisor in the office since 2015. Prior to joining the Office of General Counsel, Tatel was legal advisor for media and consumer issues to Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker and chief of the Media Bureau's Industry Analysis Division. Before joining the FCC, she was an attorney in private practice and worked as a social worker. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Illinois, her master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, and her law degree from George Washington University Law School. Before working at the Commission, Williams was general counsel of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation under then-Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV. Williams earned his doctorate in history from the University of Chicago and his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.

FCC Wireless Bureau Announces Staff Changes

Federal Communications Commission Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Jon Wilkins announced his intention to appoint Suzanne Tetreault as deputy bureau chief. Tetreault will move from her current position as deputy general counsel in the Office of General Counsel. In addition to her current position as deputy general counsel, Tetreault has held senior leadership positions in the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, and Wireline Competition Bureau since she started at the agency in 1991. Prior to joining the Commission, Tetreault worked at the Federal Trade Commission and in private practice. She received her JD from Harvard Law School, and a BA in economics from Harvard College.

Charter’s New Road Map

With its much-awaited purchase of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in the books, Charter Communications now embarks on what is expected to be a years-long journey to put the pieces of all three companies together.

The new Charter has a lot of challenges ahead, and expectations are high. “Unlike the Frontier acquisition that has had all sorts of service issues, which we would have been vulnerable to in the last deal, we’re a little more comfortable with acquiring all the assets of both of these companies, intact and operating,” said Charter CEO Tom Rutledge. “We’ve had sufficient time to map all the relationships between the companies and create clear, accountable authority throughout the organization. We are able to execute the existing business plan as of now.”

Telecommunication Companies: The untapped promise of big data

Now that subscribers constantly connect to their networks through voice, text, and other smartphone interactions, telecommunication companies have access to huge quantities of data. Yet relatively few of those that have adopted big data architectures and analytics technologies have pushed aggressively enough to profit from them significantly, our research suggests. Interestingly enough, however, a small group has achieved outsized benefits from such investments, in a performance pattern that resembles a “power curve” distribution.

We reached these conclusions after surveying executives from 273 global telecommunication companies representing nearly a quarter of industry revenues. Nearly half of the respondents say that their companies are considering investments in big data and analytics, while 30 percent of companies surveyed have actually made them. To find out whether such efforts improved overall performance, we estimated big data’s contribution to earnings in two ways: by asking survey respondents and by conducting a statistical analysis that correlated the profits of companies with their capital and labor investment and their use of big data. The first approach was possible for the 80 companies in our sample that reported making big data investments. The results of the other approach, using external data available for 47 of the companies, were similar.

Media Impact Funders receives two transformative grants to strengthen support of media that matters

Media Impact Funders (MIF), a member-supported network of funders who seek to improve society through media and technology, has been awarded a two-year, $500,000 matching grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies, a limited-life foundation. It is the largest-ever grant awarded to the nonprofit since its incorporation in 2009. In addition, MIF has received a five-year, $250,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation, a portion of which will serve to match The Atlantic Philanthropies grant.

As a result of these sizable grants, MIF further positions itself as an important resource for the philanthropic community. As curators of the most effective public interest media productions, and as connectors linking up funders, media makers and influencers and encouraging their collaboration, MIF continues to serve as a catalyst for social change and philanthropic impact.

To help low-income American households, we have to close the "work gap"

When Franklin Roosevelt delivered his second inaugural address on January 20, 1936 he lamented the “one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” He challenged Americans to measure their collective progress not by “whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; [but rather] whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” In our new paper, One third of a nation: Strategies for helping working families, we ask a simple question: How are we doing? In brief, we find that:

The gulf in labor market income between the haves and have-nots remains wide. The median income of households in the bottom third in 2014 was $24,000, just a little more than a quarter of the median of $90,000 for the top two-thirds.
The bottom-third households are disproportionately made up of minority adults, adults with limited educational attainment, and single parents.
The most important reason for the low incomes of the bottom third is a “work gap”: the fact that many are not employed at all, or work limited hours.

Privacy advocates reject Europe's 'code of conduct' for online speech

In an effort to blunt the spread of racist and extremist content on the web, European Union states along with Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft have agreed on a so-called "code of conduct" to review – and then delete at their discretion – suspected hate speech. But some civil liberty and Internet advocacy groups worry that anointing tech companies as guardians against offensive speech raises privacy concerns for users and concerns about the companies' overzealous enforcement of the code.

"The code requires private companies to be the educator of online speech, which shouldn’t be their role, and it’s also not necessarily the role that they want to play," says Estelle Massé, the EU policy analyst with Access Now, a nonprofit digital advocacy organization based in Brussels. The code is meant to encourage companies to become more vigilant at removing content that violates their own terms of service but that doesn't necessarily violate European law. The problem for civil liberty groups such as Access Now is that companies may monitor for and remove content merely because it’s controversial and they feel they face a liability by leaving it online, says Massé.

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