BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2016 (Try to remember the kind of September...)
Today's Event -- Fostering the Advancement of the Internet of Things Workshop, NTIA -- https://www.benton.org/node/245564
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Deals Stoke Criticism Over US’s Plan to End Internet Oversight
FCC adopts an integrated plan to address both fixed and mobile voice and broadband service in high-cost areas of the state of Alaska - public notice
Broadband for All Starts With More Public Wi-Fi - Bloomberg editorial
The Internet revolution has not reached all of us - WaPo op-ed
Blame Your Lousy Internet on Poles - Susan Crawford op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Comcast in talks with Nashville utility on new pole-attachment deal [links to Fierce]
Google Fiber gains support from Level 3 in utility pole attachment battle in Nashville [links to Fierce]
AT&T expands reach of gigabit fiber for businesses in Georgia [links to Fierce]
The Internet is systematically changing who people date [links to Washington Post]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Incentive Auction Stage 2 Clearing Target, Schedule Announced - public notice
First round of buyer bidding in spectrum sale doesn't hit target
Wireless lobby reassures critics on demand for spectrum sale [links to Hill, The]
What is 5G and why should I care? - Medium op-ed [links to Benton summary]
5G Race is On, Ericsson Says They Are First Out of the Gate [links to telecompetitor]
COURTS
How America’s tech companies could wriggle out of the nation’s consumer protection laws
Understanding the Ninth Circuit’s Decision in AT&T Mobility v. FTC - analysis
Appeals Court Blasts Big Deregulatory Hole between FCC & FTC Jurisdictions [links to Scott Cleland]
ELECTIONS 2016
House Democrats ask FBI to investigate any Trump connection to cyberattacks [links to Politico]
Trump setting up political debate for a new Golden Era - The Hill op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Two views on media coverage of 2016 [links to Brookings]
Jonathan Make: Challenges Abound for Journalists on the Campaign Trail, SPJ DC Event Told [links to Medium]
Civil Rights Groups Urge Political Parties to Denounce ‘Rigged Election’ Rhetoric [links to Morning Consult]
Julian Assange: American press supports ‘demon’ Hillary Clinton [links to Politico]
Clinton launching TV ads in Arizona, a state that has been reliably Republican [links to Washington Post]
Trump's TV spending less than advertised [links to Politico]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
The NIST Cybersecurity Framework and the FTC - FTC blog [links to Benton summary]
Companies are making money from our personal data – but at what cost? - Guardian analysis [links to Benton summary]
68 million Dropbox emails found but passwords safe [links to USAToday]
Building a new Tor that can resist next-generation state surveillance [links to Ars Technica]
TELEVISION
CBS Launches Ad-Free Version of All Access [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
CONTENT
The streaming music war is getting ugly [links to CNNMoney]
Pokémon Go and the lifespan of fads in the Internet age [links to Washington Post]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Are you safe? Facebook’s Safety Check and the future of emergency management - Brookings [links to Benton summary]
A 911 Lifeline for Your Car, No Fees Required [links to Wall Street Journal]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
A partial inventory of people who disagree with Josh Earnest’s claim of Obama White House transparency [links to Washington Post]
Using Prisoner Phone Calls to Convict? NY’s Highest Court Puts Critical Question on Hold [links to ProPublica]
21st Century U.S. Port Competitiveness Initiative: Launching A National Challenge To Promote Development Of Port Community Information Technology Systems [links to Department of Commerce]
How the Federal Government is Thinking About Artificial Intelligence [links to nextgov]
AGENDA
House GOP Leaders Unveil September Agenda [links to Morning Consult]
FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to Host Technology Transitions Info Session Sept 26 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
POLICYMAKERS
FCC Announces Addition to Senior Technology Staff - press release
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Makes the Most of Her ‘Outsider’ Status
Maine Gov. Paul LePage thinks swearing off the media will fix his problems. It won’t. [links to Washington Post]
APPLE/EU
Treasury secretary: EU targeting US companies with Apple ruling [links to Hill, The]
Ireland’s appeal of Apple tax judgment could be delayed [links to Hill, The]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
EU Looks to Rein In Alleged Excesses of US Tech Giants [links to Benton summary]
French Carrier Pursues Stake in Iranian Wireless Firm [links to Wall Street Journal]
Personal-Privacy Concerns Grip China [links to Wall Street Journal]
How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets [links to New York Times]
ISPs that restrict adult content or block ads could be breaking European Union guidelines [links to Benton summary]
Mobile phone networks should not block adverts, says EU [links to Guardian, The]
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
INTERNET OVERSIGHT
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John McKinnon]
The US government plans within weeks to end much of its oversight of the California nonprofit that helps run the internet, a move with broad international support. But recent business deals by the nonprofit are threatening to roil those plans. Under the deals, the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, is set to give significant new business to its largest contractor, Verisign, under circumstances that some say show favoritism. One of the deals would give Verisign a no-bid extension on its current contract to run the huge dot-com domain. In the other deal, Verisign emerged as a surprise potential winner of the contract to operate the new dot-web domain by quietly putting $130 million behind another firm’s bid in an Icann auction. Icann denies that it has given special treatment to Verisign, saying its focus has been promoting the internet’s stability and security.
benton.org/headlines/deals-stoke-criticism-over-uss-plan-end-internet-oversight | Wall Street Journal
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FCC ADOPTS PLAN TO ADDRESS BROADBAND IN ALASKA
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
Given the unique climate and geographic conditions of Alaska, the Federal Communications Commission finds that it is in the public interest to provide Alaskan carriers with the option of receiving fixed amounts of support over the next ten years to deploy and maintain their fixed and mobile networks. If each of the Alaska carriers elects this option, we expect this plan to bring broadband to as many as 111,302 fixed locations and 133,788 mobile consumers at the end of this 10-year term.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-adopts-integrated-plan-address-both-fixed-and-mobile-voice-and-broadband-service-high | Federal Communications Commission | Clyburn statement | Pai statement | O'Rielly statement
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BROADBAND FOR ALL STARTS WITH MORE PUBLIC WI-FI
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The 21st-century equivalent of Herbert Hoover’s chicken-in-every-pot promise is a faster Internet connection in every home. It’s a laudable but, for now, elusive goal. While working to reach it, however, the next president -- whether that’s Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, both of whom have promised far greater investment in public infrastructure -- must attain a more immediate objective: finishing the Obama Administration’s work of connecting so-called anchor institutions across the nation. Stories of public school students congregating outside schools or libraries so they can use their public Wi-Fi networks to do homework are stirring evidence of the digital divide. Addressing this inequity will require a broader definition of “anchor institutions,” which include not just libraries but public-transit systems and parks. Public Wi-Fi needn’t be confined by roofs or walls. Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission must conduct yearly reviews of whether advanced telecommunications capability “is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion,” and take “immediate action” if it is not. When it comes to anchor institutions, and consumers who have nowhere else to turn for vital access, “immediate action” remains overdue.
benton.org/headlines/broadband-all-starts-more-public-wi-fi | Bloomberg
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THE INTERNET REVOLUTION HAS NOT REACHED ALL OF US
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Larry Downes]
[Commentary] The Internet is celebrating some important milestones. The week of Aug 22 marked both the 40th anniversary of the first mobile connection and the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web. Millennials can’t even remember what life was like without it and, even for us baby boomers, the changes to everyday activities have been at once profound and subtle. But the information revolution is far from finished. Indeed, for many living in the developing world, and even for some Americans, the Internet still hasn’t arrived. Over the past 25 years, the Internet has steadily absorbed every network and every technology imaginable — or, more to the point, unimaginable. Once-separate radio, TV, voice and data all travel over the same systems, a virtual Postal Service now delivering a sextillion bytes a year. For the remaining digital holdouts, however, availability and cost are no longer the main obstacles. While the rest of us find ourselves unable to look away from our screens even for a few minutes, the unconnected — primarily older, rural, or less educated — consistently tell researchers that their principal reason not to go online is that there’s nothing there for them. Given the Web’s growing importance for education, health care and jobs, non-adopters are wrong about relevance. So the focus now needs to be on persuading them to join us. And join us they must. The Internet’s gravity is such that the more users who join the network, the faster each added connection increases its value, exhibiting what economists call network effects. That means the communities absent from the Internet’s global village are as valuable to us as we are to them, if not more.
[Larry Downes is a project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy]
benton.org/headlines/internet-revolution-has-not-reached-all-us | Washington Post
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
INCENTIVE AUCTION STAGE 2 CLEARING TARGET, SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public notice]
By this Public Notice, the Incentive Auction Task Force and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau announce the 114 megahertz spectrum clearing target that has been set by the Auction System’s optimization procedure for the second stage (Stage 2) of the incentive auction. This Public Notice also describes the band plan associated with the 114 megahertz spectrum clearing target, and the number of Category 1 and Category 2 generic license blocks in each Partial Economic Area (PEA) that will be offered during the forward auction in Stage 2. In addition, we provide details and specific dates regarding bidding and the availability of educational materials for Stage 2 of the incentive auction. We also remind reverse and forward auction applicants of their continuing obligations. Stage 2 bidding in the reverse auction will start on September 13, 2016.
benton.org/headlines/incentive-auction-stage-2-clearing-target-schedule-announced | Federal Communications Commission | Appendix A
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FIRST ROUND OF BUYER BIDDING IN SPECTRUM SALE DOESN'T HIT TARGET
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: David McCabe]
Bidding concluded late in the day on Aug 30 in the first round of a historic spectrum sale to wireless providers and other buyers without regulators reaching their target for the sale. The first stage of the Federal Communications Commission’s sale ended without buyers bidding the $88.3 billion needed to hit the price target. The agency will hold another stage of the auction with a lower spectrum clearing target. A bidding pool that includes major wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon as well as other companies, like Comcast, and individuals bid roughly $22.4 billion in the first round. The high price target points to the auction’s first-of-a-kind design. The FCC spent part of 2016 buying wireless spectrum, the invisible frequencies that carry signals to mobile devices, from broadcast stations. Now they’re attempting to resell it to wireless carriers and other bidders. The broadcasters were active participants, leading to the high cost bar that the commission needs to clear. The $88.3 billion number also includes some costs associated with the auction. The commission also set the highest possible target before the auction began for the amount of spectrum it would attempt to sell. The trade group representing broadcast stations on Aug 31 hinted that the showing in the first stage of the auction was evidence that the wireless industry's pleas for more spectrum were misleading.
benton.org/headlines/first-round-buyer-bidding-spectrum-sale-doesnt-hit-target | Hill, The | Broadcasting&Cable
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COURTS
HOW AMERICA'S TECH COMPANIES COULD WRIGGLE OUT OF THE NATION'S CONSUMER PROTECTION LAWS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
Companies such as Google and Facebook thrive on your personal data — the bits of information that tell advertisers how old you are, what brands you like and how long you lingered on that must-see cat video. Historically, how these companies use this data has been subject to oversight by the Federal Trade Commission, the government's top privacy watchdog. But a big court defeat for the FTC is putting the agency's power to protect your online privacy in jeopardy, analysts say. The ruling could wind up giving Google and Facebook, not to mention other companies in the Internet ecosystem, the ability to escape all consumer-protection actions from the FTC, and possibly from the rest of government, too, critics claim, unless Congress intervenes. In the wake of the setback, the FTC is mulling an appeal — which would mean either asking for a rehearing at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, or escalating to the Supreme Court, according to a person close to the agency. But unless regulators can persuade the courts to overturn Aug 29's decision, the result will be "a fatal blow" to consumer protection, said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
benton.org/headlines/how-americas-tech-companies-could-wriggle-out-nations-consumer-protection-laws | Washington Post
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UNDERSTANDING THE NINTH CIRCUIT'S DECISION IN AT&T MOBILITY V FTC
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] The Ninth Circuit issued a fairly important decision limiting the authority of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Unfortunately, certain articles, combined with some overwrought commentary, have generated a lot of confusion. To summarize:
1) This has nothing to do with the Federal Communications Commission’s determination to reclassify broadband as Title II. The court was extremely explicit on this point.
2) There is no “gap in consumer protection” for broadband services – unless Congress or a future FCC reverses the Title II determination. As long as broadband remains a Title II service, the FCC can protect consumers from bad behavior by broadband service providers.
3) Beyond the broadband world, the case has fairly broad and uncertain applications. Arguably, Google could escape FTC jurisdiction by owning Google Fiber, and Amazon could escape FTC jurisdiction by registering its truck fleet as a common carrier freight company regulated by the FMCSA.
Ultimately, however, this case creates real problems for consumer protection by creating significant concerns about the FTC’s authority in a world where large corporations often engage in multiple lines of business – some of which may have “exempt status” under Section 5(a)(2). Hopefully, the FTC will seek review by the full Ninth Circuit, which would be wise to overturn this unfortunate case.
benton.org/headlines/understanding-ninth-circuits-decision-att-mobility-v-ftc | Public Knowledge | Tales of the Sausage Factory
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POLICYMAKERS
FCC ANNOUNCES ADDITION TO SENIOR TECH STAFF
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler announced the appointment of Henning Schulzrinne as Senior Advisor for Technology, based in the agency’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. Dr. Schulzrinne will take over as FCC Chief Technologist at the end of 2016, when the current Chief Technologist, Scott Jordan, leaves the agency. Dr. Schulzrinne previously served as FCC Chief Technologist from 2011 to 2014, and has continued to serve the FCC as a part time advisor. He is Levy professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University. Schulzrinne received his undergraduate degree in economics and electrical engineering from the Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany, his MSEE degree as a Fulbright scholar from the University of Cincinnati (OH) and his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (MA). He helped develop key protocols that enable voice-over-IP (VoIP) and other multimedia applications including the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Dr. Jordan, who will remain as FCC Chief Technologist until he leaves the agency in December, joined the FCC in 2014 from the University of California, Irvine, where he is a professor of computer science. He received his undergraduate degrees, as well as his Master’s Degree and Ph.D in electrical engineering and computer science, from the University of California, Berkeley. His research has focused on communications platforms, and differentiated services on the Internet.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-announces-addition-senior-technology-staff | Federal Communications Commission
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FCC'S CLYBURN MAKES THE MOST OF HER 'OUTSIDER' STATUS
[SOURCE: Morning Consult, AUTHOR: Brendan Bordelon]
Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn really wants you to know she’s not one of those “inside the Beltway” types. That may seem hard to believe coming from the daughter of Rep Jim Clyburn (D-SC), a congressman since 1993 and the No.3 Democrat in the House. But until she took the FCC job in 2009, Commissioner Clyburn never left her home state for more than a few weeks at a time. “I did not come up to DC to be like a lot of others (respectfully, this sounds a little tough) that I see in DC, who always want to be picture perfect, wrapped up in a bow, and ready for presentation,” Commissioner Clyburn says. “I am very different if you to compare me to my colleagues,” she said. Referring several times to her “Southern accent,” she said, “I am very much outside of the Beltway.” Commissioner Clyburn’s quiet and poised demeanor strikes a sharp contrast to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the physically imposing FCC Chairman who exudes a larger-than-life political presence. Yet for nearly six months in 2013, Commissioenr Clyburn sat in Chairman Wheeler’s chair. She was acting FCC Chairwoman while Congress deliberated over Wheeler’s confirmation. There was a historic nature to her chairmanship.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-commissioner-mignon-clyburn-makes-most-her-outsider-status | Morning Consult
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