1. Monthly archive
  2. September 2016

September 2016

Remarks of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, CTIA Super Mobility Show 2016, Las Vegas

“What do we need to do seize the 5G opportunity?” The answer, of course, starts with competition. With four nationwide carriers, the US wireless industry continues to invest in faster, better networks with $33 billion invested in 2015 and nearly $100 billion invested over the past 3 years. That’s over and above the investment of billions in spectrum acquisition. New services and applications are constantly being introduced and consumer demand seems insatiable. Wireless data use more than doubled from 2014 to 2015, and continued growth is projected for the foreseeable future.

There are three keys for what the Commission can do to help unlock the 5G opportunity: 1) ensuring ample availability of spectrum to a range of competitors; 2) taking all steps to foster competitive provision of infrastructure; and 3) removing unnecessary hurdles to siting. In all these areas, the Federal Communications Commission has activities underway. Yet, let’s be realistic, there is more to be done if 5G is to realize its promise.

5 stages of regulation grief — FCC style

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s disastrous set-top box proposal to force companies to “share” their set-top box content with other businesses has faced almost unanimous opposition. As opposition mounts from creators, civil rights groups, Silicon Valley innovators, organized labor, almost 200 Members of Congress, and many others, the arguments of proponents of Chairman Wheeler’s set-top box regulation keep shifting. We’ve noticed that they seem to follow the famous five stages of grief.

1. Denial -- Almost immediately after Chairman Wheeler released his proposal, people began to point out that it was premised on allowing commercial use of copyrighted works without any provisions to ensure proper respect for those rights or existing copyright licenses.
2. Anger -- Perhaps sensing the weakness of their denial, in a fit of pique, proponents of the Wheeler regulations lashed out at the Copyright Office. Worse, a handful of academics went so far as to try to censor the Copyright Office’s analysis before it was written.
3. Bargaining -- When name-calling didn’t work, the trade association for Silicon Valley behemoths that want to use regulation to over-ride the free market (and call it “competition”) tried to offer a revised version of the Wheeler proposal.
4. Depression -- Having realized that Chairman Wheeler’s windfall is doomed, proponents have switched to a scorched-earth policy. T
5. Acceptance -- Don’t hold your breath. These guys are famous for never admitting they’re wrong. So expect to keep hearing attacks on the Copyright Office and empty claims about competition when what they really mean is government regulation.

[Dan Schneider is the executive director of the American Conservative Union. Larry Hart is a Senior Fellow for Government Reform with the American Conservative Union Foundation.]

Sounding the Alarm on Predictive Policing

[Commentary] “Predictive policing” sounds good on paper. After all, what could go wrong with a data-based approach to law enforcement? It turns out: plenty. That’s why Free Press joined a broad coalition of civil rights, privacy and technology groups in sounding the alarm about how predictive policing reinforces racial bias. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights mobilized the coalition, which counts the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice, Color Of Change and the NAACP among the 17 signers. The statement released last Wednesday notes that “the data driving predictive enforcement activities — such as the location and timing of previously reported crimes, or patterns of community- and officer-initiated 911 calls — is profoundly limited and biased.” Indeed, a damning report from the tech consulting group Upturn, which surveyed the nation’s 50 largest police forces, confirms this view. Upturn found “little evidence” that predictive policing works — and “significant reason to fear that [it] may reinforce disproportionate and discriminatory policing practices.”

While the idea of using data to direct police resources sounds like an effort to remove human bias from the equation, that isn’t how it works in practice. In fact, predictive policing embeds police bias in an algorithm that then has the appearance of being neutral. The police response to low-income communities — in particular communities of color — is completely different from the response to wealthy white communities.

Report: Government Mobility Spending Lags Behind Private Sector

Government agencies spend less of their total budget on making operations mobile than commercial groups do, according to new research from IDC. Public-sector spending is about 17 percent of its budget, compared to about 25 percent of private-sector counterparts, according to an as-yet unpublished survey from IDC.

Analyst John Jackson described some of the findings at an AT&T event Sept 7 in Washington. Concerns about the security of apps and the data stored in those apps have been the primary barrier to adoption, Jackson explained. And for at least the past three years, concerns about integrating back-end systems into a mobile strategy have been the second largest barrier to adoption. Jackson predicted public- and private-sector organizations will soon spend more on software services, but spending on software itself is not likely to move much, he said.

European Union seeks to spur fast broadband roll-out with telecoms reform

The European Union aims to spur the roll-out of fast broadband across the 28-nation bloc by relaxing rules that force telecommunication companies to open up their networks to competitors. Under planned reforms of the sector, national telecoms regulators will be required to take into account existing commercial agreements between operators when deciding whether to force them to allow competitors access to their networks. Fostering investment in new fiber-optic networks, to meet rising demand for data services, is a major plank of the European Commission's reform of its 15-year-old telecoms laws. National regulators will also have to weigh up the range of retail choices available to users to ensure that regulation is not more of a burden than necessary on operators' decisions to invest.

The costs of running optic fiber - which can deliver speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second - into households are high. Telecoms operators such as Orange, Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia have long complained that the current rules forcing them to open up their networks to competitors at regulated prices do not allow them get a decent return on investment. According to the Commission's figures, 68 percent of homes in the EU have access to broadband with speeds of at least 30 megabits per second. Malta, Belgium and the Netherlands have the highest coverage while Italy, France and Greece have the lowest. National regulators will be required to monitor the network investment decisions of operators and will have the power to sanction them if they deviate from their declared intentions without justification, the document says. The aim is to protect operators who lay fast broadband networks first in areas where there is little financial incentive, such as rural areas, and where the arrival of a second operator would undermine the first's business case. The Commission, the EU's executive body, will also seek to encourage operators to co-invest in shared rollouts of fiber-to-the-home by offering them lighter access rules in return.

Google Fiber's Nashville proposal clears key vote

In the face of a legal threat and opposition from Nashville’s (TN) two largest internet providers, the Metro Council on Sept 6 gave preliminary approval of legislation that Google Fiber says is critical for its broadband rollout into Nashville. The council voted by a wide 32-7 margin to advance Google Fiber-backed legislation dubbed One Touch Make Ready that would change the city's policy regarding utility poles and help expedite Google Fiber's entry into the Nashville market. The vote was the second of three required to pass the ordinance. The council's action was a big win for Google Fiber and came after the council voted 20-19 to defeat an effort opposed by Google Fiber to delay consideration of the ordinance until December.

"This is an extremely big step forward, an extremely big net positive for Nashville, for internet competition," said Councilman Jeremy Elrod, one of the bill's co-sponsors. "It increases competition, increases telecom and internet investment for we as a city and our citizens as a whole." At issue is a process of attaching new lines to utility poles. Google Fiber says the current system could be improved by allowing one contractor to move all lines at once to make a pole ready for a new provider. New companies must currently wait on each existing provider to move their lines, a process that can take a few months per line and that delays internet installation.

Wisconsin Governor Announces State Broadband Savings Agreement

In a move that will save Wisconsin taxpayers nearly $8 million annually, the state has renegotiated its contract with AT&T and its partners to provide higher broadband speeds at lower costs on the BadgerNet Converged Network (BCN), Gov Scott Walker (R-WI) announced on Sept 6. “The new broadband contract we’re announcing today dramatically improves the quality of service to users," Gov Walker said. “Schools and local governments throughout Wisconsin will have the ability to utilize this contract and potentially save money. Ultimately, this enhances the quality of education for our students, as well as the quality of local government services for our taxpayers."

BCN, which launched in 1995, is Wisconsin’s statewide network — it delivers Internet to all 72 counties by providing wide area network, Internet transport and video applications to state government and educational entities. Once all network upgrades and migrations are completed, capacity for BCN customers will exceed 400 gigabytes; currently installed bandwidth capacity is 90 gigabytes. The contract, effective Nov. 1, 2016, will offer current state agency subscribers and Technology for Educational Achievement educational agencies a 7 percent savings on their current service rates at 1.5 megabytes per second and above.

Tackling the 'Homework Gap': Maryland County to Expand FiberNet Infrastructure, Forge Public-Private Partnerships

In Montgomery County (MD), public officials are assembling an arsenal of technology fixes to address the “homework gap,” the technology deficit that leaves some kids lacking the network access and devices they need to complete their schoolwork. “The Internet and broadband and cloud communications are integral to our society — our businesses, our neighborhoods, our personal lives," said Mitsuko R. Herrera, director of the ultraMontgomery Program in the county’s Department of Technology Services. "So the schools are developing curricula that are heavily Internet-based.” Citing research that shows some 70 percent of teachers assign homework that requires access to broadband, Herrera said not all students have an equal ability to tackle such assignments. “Some students have a robust Internet connection and a computer, but other students either have no connection at home, or they may be relying on a sibling’s smartphone, or they may do their homework at McDonald’s,” she said. “The county wants to ensure that all children have access to the Internet in order to further their education.”

The county is chasing that goal with a number of different means, forging partnerships with private industry while also leveraging its own existing fiber backbone. The county’s FiberNet infrastructure connects all public schools, libraries and government buildings — over 560 sites in all — making it the front line of broadband delivery for students who can’t access the Internet for schoolwork at home.

Donald Trump Is King Of Earned Media

As Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump now starts up a paid TV advertising campaign, he continues to lead in earned media over Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. For the month of August, Trump pulled in $509.3 million in earned media compared to Clinton’s $364.2 million, according to mediaQuant, an earned media measurement company. In July -- the month in which respective party conventions were held -- the race was closer, with Trump getting $573.4 million compared to $539.8 million for Clinton. Earned media is defined as press interviews and appearances on all media including TV, radio, online and print publications. Overall, for the trailing 12-month period, Trump has amassed $4.6 billion worth of earned media versus Clinton’s $2.5 billion. In recent days, Trump has kick-started his first paid TV advertising campaign, which analysts says is traditionally very late for a presidential candidate. Trump said TV advertising has not been necessary, given his wall-to-wall TV appearances .

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