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October 2016

Trump Accuses Social Media of Burying Clinton Story

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, no fan of the media, tweeted over the weekend that he thought social media sites were suppressing the story about the new e-mails FBI Director James Comey had told Congress were being looked at in relation to Hillary Clinton's e-mail server. The story was getting plenty of play on cable news Oct 28, but Oct 30 Trump tweeted: "Wow, Twitter, Google and Facebook are burying the FBI criminal investigation of Clinton. Very dishonest media!" The tweet appeared to be in response to stories about how much attention the latest twist in the Clinton e-mail story was getting, or wasn't, on social media sites.

Evolution and determinants of digital divide in Brazil (2005–2013)

During the last decades, the widespread growth of information and communication technologies (ICT) has posed incentives to broaden the participation of individuals in social, political and economic dimensions of life. However, utilization of ICT also involves access to technology and infrastructure, and acquisition of skills to deal with innovations and, thus, digital literacy is, primarily, a complementary good. The digital divide expresses inequalities in access and utilization of ICT among individuals and populations in different countries. The study adopts inequalities indexes of Internet access and mobile phone ownership to measure use of ICT goods, accounting for the digital divide in Brazil. The inequality indexes are also split according to main determinants using four nationally representative survey data from 2005 to 2013. Results indicate that the digital divide among individuals is decreasing quite fast among Brazilians over time. However, there is room for policies of mass access to ICT goods based on mobile Internet broadband access. In addition, digital illiteracy, evaluated by lack of education, is one of the main determinants of the digital divide in the country, especially among elderly individuals.

Grey nuances in the black and white debate over subsidized Internet access

Highlights:
Zero rating/Sponsored data plans exempt specific content from metering or provide free access to limited content.
Opponents have concerns about effects on incentives for innovation while advocates consider subsidies a proven way to promote universal access.
Calibrated zero rating can promote positive spillover and free rider opportunities without extending incumbent market dominance.
If disputes arise, ex ante safeguards can provide flexible remedies.

CenturyLink: FCC Rate Cuts Could Be Crippling

CenturyLink says the Federal Communications Commission's new business data services (BDS) proposal could mean crippling rate cuts while ignoring evidence of competition. The company accused the FCC of a flawed and dangerous approach that lacked transparency. The FCC Oct 27 scheduled a vote for the Nov 17 public meeting on FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's BDS revamp.

Initially the proposal was to impose ex ante (before the fact) price regulation on incumbents according to a geographic approach, but that was changed to the case-by-case model. On Oct 28, CenturyLink, which was no fan of the initial proposal, slammed the latest proposal and its incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) price caps, saying there was no basis for cuts in ILEC rates, period, and that the FCC was lowballing the cuts it was proposing. The FCC based its new approach to business broadband (formerly called "special access) on several years of data-collection, but CenturyLink says the commission's new proposal "suggests an intent to ignore" evidence of competition and impose not only a phased-in rate reduction but in some cases an additional, initial, rate reduction.

FCC Holds Off on Security Mandates for Internet of Things

Don’t expect the Federal Communications Commission to rush into issuing network security rules anytime soon, even in the face of a congressional inquiry seeking the agency’s response to the massive Oct 21 distributed-denial-of-service attack. At issue is whether the FCC’s Open Internet rules restrict internet service providers’ ability to block insecure Internet of Things (IoT) devices from their networks and whether the commission should mandate greater safeguards. But the commissioners generally believe the Open Internet order already gives ISPs sufficient leeway to protect their networks from vulnerable internet-connected devices without additional regulations or standards. And, according to FCC officials, there isn’t much of an appetite to issue any new mandates now.

There are also questions as to whether cybersecurity is even in the commission’s purview. Sen Mark Warner (D-VA) sent a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Oct. 25, several days after a hijacked network of IoT devices took large swaths of the United States internet offline. Sen Warner asked detailed questions about the commission’s role in empowering both ISPs and consumers with the means to prevent similar attacks in the future. The senator suggested that the Open Internet rule — adopted in 2015 during the debate on net neutrality — might actually limit the ability of ISPs to block insecure IoT devices from their networks. That could make it difficult to prevent future attacks stemming from those devices. Chairman Wheeler called Sen Warner’s letter “thoughtful” and promised a response. He also disputed the notion that the rules limit security practices of ISPs. “The Open Internet order allows for reasonable network management, which clearly gives leeway to be able to deal with issues like this,” Wheeler said at the FCC’s open meeting on Oct. 27. There is clear language in the rules for ISPs to deny access to networks or devices that could put their security at risk, according to one FCC official, who added that they were “designed for flexibility, particularly when it comes to network security.” The rules allow broadband providers to implement network management practices for the purpose of “ensuring network security and integrity, including by addressing traffic that is harmful to the network,” according to the Open Internet order.

Google Fiber pull-back shows broadband is difficult. But 5G will make it much easier.

[Commentary] Recently, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson plainly acknowledged Google’s victory in the biggest tech policy debate of the last 15 years: “On neutrality. You guys from Google, you won. It’s done.” Yet the sad irony is that Google’s “win” on policy — the imposition in 2015 of old and voluminous monopoly telephone rules onto modern broadband — made Google’s own broadband deployment efforts even more difficult. We have long said that Title II regulation would make broadband less competitive, and Google’s exit of the business is evidence of this effect.

Fifth-generation wireless, or 5G, is a suite of technologies that will be the foundation of the Internet, and of most of the economy, for the next 20 years. It includes more advanced air interface protocols, new “software defined” network architectures, use of huge new swaths of high-frequency spectrum, and deployment of millions of small cells, all of which will dramatically expand coverage and capacity. But not just for mobile. 5G will also power connected cars and the Internet of Things. It could even become a real competitive offering for fixed residential broadband, delivering both interactive Web video and TV-like high-definition video the way only cable and fiber-to-the-home do today. 5G could be powerful enough to deliver a video service on par with cable TV or broadband. Satellite will still have an important role for high definition TV, but 5G can overcome satellite’s limited capacity for interactivity (given the latency incurred over the 46,000-mile round trip to space and back). This new competitive broadband service might be enough to push the AT&T-TW partnership over the line with regulators. And it should also serve as a warning to future market meddlers at the FCC: technology is almost always far more powerful, and pro-consumer, than clever attempts to shape yesterday’s markets.

[Bret Swanson is president of Entropy Economics LLC]

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