July 2016

Robocall-killing database should be created by industry, senators say

Sens John Thune (R-SD) and Ed Markey (D-MA) are urging the mobile phone industry to fight robocalls and texts by creating a database of phone numbers that have been reassigned from one customer to another. Reassigned numbers are one of the major contributors to unwanted calls and texts, and carriers haven't done enough to fight the problem, said Sens Thune and Markey. The lawmakers wrote a letter to CEO Meredith Attwell Baker of CTIA–The Wireless Association, a lobby group that represents AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, Sprint, and other mobile carriers. Sens Thune and Markey "believe wireless carriers may have an opportunity to provide consumers and businesses more needed relief by establishing a reassigned numbers database, containing a list of cell phone numbers that have changed ownership," they wrote. "Periodically, consumers receive unwanted robocalls and robotexts because the previous holder of the phone number provided consent. Not only are robocalls and robotexts to reassigned numbers a nuisance to consumers, but they also create liabilities for calling parties."

Sens Thune and Markey asked the CTIA to provide information on how wireless companies could compile reassigned numbers in a database and how they could provide access to the database so that callers (often telemarketers) can determine whether a number is still assigned to the original owner. The senators also asked whether the cost of the database can be covered by charging a fee to callers.

Why some in Silicon Valley don’t like Trump’s VP pick, Mike Pence

Many in the tech industry are already none too pleased with the idea of a President Trump. But Trump's selection of Gov Mike Pence (R-IN) may drive them even further from the Republican ticket.

For starters, Gov Pence is at odds with one of the wealthiest, most popular companies on the planet: Apple. He and the company's chief executive, Tim Cook, faced off in 2015 over a bill that let business owners and workers cite religious objections as a reason not to serve customers. The result, said Cook, would lead to unjust discrimination against consumers based on their physical appearance or sexual orientation. The bill was widely criticized by execs across Silicon Valley, including from Twitter, Yelp, Lyft and LinkedIn.

Both Trump and Clinton stiff-arm the media. Only one is a genuine threat to it.

[Commentary] The Post fact-checking team has a fun look at more than a year of statements by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. You’ll be startled to hear that they concluded that Trump lies a lot more often than Clinton does — and a lot more outrageously, too. Out of 52 statements by Trump, nearly two thirds were deserving of Four Pinnochios, which is to say that they were absurdly outrageous lies. Out of 35 statements by Clinton, a much smaller percentage qualified for that distinction.

However, they also made a point that I have not seen made anywhere else, one that sheds light on an important ongoing debate over how Trump and Clinton treat the press. They noted an important qualitative difference in the process of adjudication that goes on between each of their campaigns and the media. Even if you think Clinton's motives for stiff-arming the media are absurd, it should be acknowledged that her attitude towards it it simply has no equivalence to Trump’s total contempt for the basic functional role of the news media in our democracy. His entire campaign is functionally an exercise in trying to get it to wither away and drop off of our body politic, like a gangrenous limb or frostbitten finger.

Comcast and HUD Announce National Initiative to Connect Low-Income Americans to the Internet at Home

On July 15, the Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Julián Castro, and I announced a significant, national effort to help close the digital divide for low-income Americans. Now, public housing and HUD-assisted residents who live in Comcast’s service area will be eligible to apply for Internet Essentials, the company’s acclaimed, high-speed Internet adoption program for low-income families.

Including homes covered by Comcast’s public housing expansion pilot announced in March, an estimated total of up to 2 million HUD-assisted homes, including Public Housing, Housing Choice Voucher, and Multifamily programs, will now have access to low-cost Internet service. According to HUD, this number is also more than 40 percent of all HUD-assisted households nationwide. The announcement is an official policy change that marks the first time in the history of the program, outside of some pilot markets, that adults without a child eligible for the National School Lunch Program will be eligible to apply for Internet Essentials. This means veterans living in HUD-assisted homes who are transitioning from combat into the workforce will now be able to sign up for low-cost Internet, so they can use it to search and apply for jobs. It means senior citizens will be able to access the Internet from the comfort of their HUD-assisted homes to do the things many of us often take for granted, such as sharing photos with loved ones, communicating via video chat, paying bills, and following the news. Finally, it means adults without children living in HUD-assisted homes can get online and access a wide range of opportunities, from accessing educational resources to healthcare information.

Unlocking the Promise of Broadband for All Americans

The Obama Administration continues to build on this history of innovation by announcing new wireless research efforts that will improve testing and research of advanced wireless technologies. This effort will help spur innovation in many ways, from pushing the frontiers of tele-medicine through robot-assisted remote surgeries, to testing of autonomous vehicles that talk to each other to keep us safe, to the roll-out of smart manufacturing equipment in factories, to providing more connectivity for more people. Each one of these innovations has the potential to support increased productivity growth that can put more money in the pocket of American families.

Thanks in large part to these forward-thinking spectrum policy initiatives, the United States has become a world leader in wireless, achieving the goal the President set in the 2011 State of the Union that more than 98 percent of Americans should have access to fast 4G/LTE mobile broadband, which operates at speeds up to ten times faster than eight years ago. These policies also help to ensure that the United States is ahead of the curve in working to avoid a spectrum crunch, where the fixed amount of spectrum available would limit new development.

Next-Generation Investments Do Not Depend on Killing Net Neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission took a highly touted step toward the future of wireless communications by opening up huge blocks of spectrum for “5G” broadband uses. (5G stands for “5th Generation” technology, a generic term for the evolution to follow today’s 4G smartphones.) These next-generation networks promise to be faster, denser and more robust than what we have today. They could help usher in an era of innovative services and applications such as self-driving cars and smart-city technology. 5G technologies are still in the testing phase, but the FCC’s decision makes room for early deployment efforts that could offer enormous benefits to the national economy. Unfortunately, as advocates for Internet users point out, the FCC’s decision is by no means perfect. It doesn’t do enough to guarantee that shared use of spectrum — think Wi-Fi — will be a big part of the 5G equation. Giving exclusive use of these frequencies to carriers like AT&T and Verizon would strengthen their stranglehold on valuable spectrum assets, and it could prevent these new technologies from flowing to everyone, especially those who are on the wrong side of the digital divide: rural residents, low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Nonetheless, everyone agrees that the technological advances are crucial, even if there’s debate about how to make those leaps forward.

Comcast Moves on Verizon Deal with Creation of Mobile Division

Comcast is finally gearing up to move on its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) deal with Verizon. Apparently, Comcast has created a new Mobile Division which will operate under the leadership of former executive vice president of sales and marketing operations Greg Butz. Butz will report directly to Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit. In addition to serving in Comcast’s sales and marketing department, Butz also formerly worked on business development for Comcast Cellular Communications in the early 1990’s. Comcast sold Comcast Cellular to SBC for $1.7 billion in 1999.

Apparently, the move follows Comcast’s activation of its MVNO rights with Verizon. Comcast secured those rights as part of the sale of its spectrum to Verizon in 2011. Comcast also has an active MVNO agreement with Sprint. Comcast said the changes are part of its “testing and learning” phase leading up to the actual launch of services. The representative declined to give a timeline for deployment of wireless services, saying only that the company is “really early in the process” and will “continue to evaluate the space.” “We think the wireless represents a strong business opportunity for Comcast, but we’re still in the testing and learning mode,” a representative said. Comcast’s representative said it was possible the company’s future wireless services would be bundled in with its other offerings, since many of its products are already bundled. Most Comcast customers subscribe to two or three products, the representative said.

When consumers want their traffic to be throttled

[Commentary] One of the starting assumptions for the Open Internet order is that blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization are unilateral actions imposed by Internet service providers to maximize their own positions and will be necessarily harmful to consumer and application provider welfare. Consumer-directed blocking and throttling may be questionable in the US, but the practice is alive and well in New Zealand – one of the OECD countries where no specific position on traffic management has been enshrined in regulations.

The case for selective throttling is an easy one: Internet users are extremely heterogeneous consumers with extremely heterogeneous tastes for Internet content. In a world of heterogeneity, the best way to increase both consumer and total welfare is to allow the development of customized products and prices tailored to differing preferences. Just as consumers can create a better overall experience using selective throttling, so it is possible to imagine plenty of scenarios where content providers or network operators can do the same. Unfortunately, the network neutrality rules seem to take options like these off the table – even before they have been articulated or explored – and instead offer only a strict one-size-fits-all Internet experience. It behoves regulators and net neutrality advocates to remember that, just as with other examples of heterogeneity, perfectly equal treatment may create outcome inequalities that intelligently applied positive discrimination – understanding and catering to individual differences – can ameliorate.

[Bronwyn Howell is a faculty member at the School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.]

How the Internet was invented

The Internet is so vast and formless that it’s hard to imagine it being invented. It’s easy to picture Thomas Edison inventing the lightbulb, because a lightbulb is easy to visualize. You can hold it in your hand and examine it from every angle. The Internet is the opposite. It’s everywhere, but we only see it in glimpses. The Internet is like the holy ghost: it makes itself knowable to us by taking possession of the pixels on our screens to manifest sites and apps and e-mail, but its essence is always elsewhere. This feature of the Internet makes it seem extremely complex. Surely something so ubiquitous yet invisible must require deep technical sophistication to understand. But it doesn’t. The Internet is fundamentally simple. And that simplicity is the key to its success.

Google wants to help you register to vote in the 2016 election

Google is rolling out a new search feature on July 18 that aims to help users register to vote ahead of the November presidential election in the US. The company said that queries for the term "register to vote" will now return detailed descriptions on how to register in each US state, including requirements and deadlines. "No matter which state you’re in or how you plan to cast your ballot, you can find the step-by-step information you need to register correctly and on time — right at the top of your Search page and in the Google app," wrote Jacob Schonberg.

Google has also introduced a search tool that delivers information on the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. When users search for either convention in the Google app, the app will display a summary of the event, information about the nominee, and a list of speakers, alongside related social media posts and a YouTube live stream video.

Benton

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