March 2017

Refreshing Our Understanding of the Internet Economy

The lag between policy design and the innovation of the internet and its businesses is understandable given the sheer speed with which the internet has moved, but it is time to catch up. Designing internet regulations without properly understanding the sector can seriously undermine the success of its businesses and users for years to come. The Internet Association presents this white paper as a first step in refreshing the dialogue between the industry, policymakers, and other stakeholders to help avert poorly-informed policy decisions. It offers the first attempt to compile economic contribution estimates for the internet, calculates the first estimate of the economic contribution of mobile internet and app services to the economy, and lays out a better approach to conceptualizing the internet within our economic taxonomy. The goal is not to solve these issues in their entirety, but rather start the conversation and reinvigorate it with nuance, analysis, and consideration.

Maine Fiber Company: Utility pole attachment make-ready is our single largest operating expense

Maine Fiber Company (MFC), the company behind building the state’s wholesale dark fiber-based Three Ring Binder (3RB) middle mile network, is showing support for Maine lawmakers’ proposed LD 406 bill that’s designed to upgrade the state’s outdated pole attachment regulations. LD 406 was introduced by Senator David Woodsome of York, Maine, and co-sponsored by Representative Seth Berry of Bowdoinham and Senate President Michael Thibodeau of Waldo, Maine.

Rep Lieu and Sen Wyden push for FCC to tackle major cellphone security flaw

Rep Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to take "swift action" on a known cellphone security flaw. “It is clear that industry self-regulation isn’t working when it comes to telecommunications cybersecurity,” Sen Wyden and Rep Lieu wrote in a letter they cosigned, on March 28.

At issue is Signaling System 7 (SS7), which allows cellphone networks to communicate with one another - among other purposes, letting cellphones roam from one network to another. In 2014, German security researcher Karsten Nohl determined that there was a bug in SS7 that could allow an attacker to record phone calls, place calls from other accounts, and create other mischief. The relatively obscure phone protocol, though, now has the attention of Congressional lawmakers.

President Trump attacks NY Times in tweet

President Donald Trump attacked The New York Times, days after he called one of the paper’s reporters to give an exclusive interview on the decision to pull his healthcare plan from the House floor. “The failing @NYTimes would do much better if they were honest!” President Trump tweeted on both his personal and official White House accounts.

The tweet linked to a piece by New York Post columnist John Crudele, in which he said he canceled his Times subscription “because I felt the paper had become ethically challenged in its coverage of the presidential election.” Crudele ripped the paper’s coverage of the federal investigation into whether Trump associates helped Russia meddle in the 2016 election and Trump’s wiretapping claims.

President Trump gives cable news a ratings boost in 2017

Despite prognostications that cable news would suffer a ratings dip after the 2016 election, the ratings from the first quarter of 2017 are proving that Washington DC under President Donald Trump is now a must-see spectacle across the country. Fox News had the best quarter in cable news history for 24 hour viewership, topping even the final quarter of 2016, which included election night. Each hour "broke a network record" for ratings among 18-34 year old viewers, Fox News said in a news release. Fox was the number one channel on cable overall, beating the likes of ESPN, HGTV, Nickelodeon and USA network for overall viewers in both primetime and total day.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Makes Case on Hill for Funding

Corporation for Public Broadcasting president Patricia Harrison was on Capitol Hill March 28 to pitch full funding for noncommercial TV and radio—even as President Donald Trump has proposed cutting all federal funds—but to some Republican pushback over a familiar topic: alleged liberal bias, though to some encouraging words from the Republican chairman of the subcommittee. She also signaled that Federal Communications Commission spectrum auction funds wouldn't be a big boon for noncommercial stations looking for funding elsewhere. Harrison asked for full funding for 2020 (the service is forward-funded to attempt to insulate it from politics), $55 million for 2018 for interconnection systems and $30 million for the Ready to Learn program at the Department of Education.

News Media Alliance to FCC: Stronger Industry Is Best Fake News Defense

The News Media Alliance, the principal newspaper association, has told the Federal Communications Commission there is no "rational explanation" for the commission to continue to preserve the 1975 newspaper-broadcast crossownership ban and that to do so limits their ability to be the counterpoint to the current spate of "fake news."

NMA made the point in comments to the FCC in support of the National Association of Broadcasters, which asked the FCC to reconsider its quadrennial media ownership rule review conclusion last summer that the ban should remain in place. NMA says the rule undermines local news and prevents newspapers from competing in a crowded media landscape. The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, which also backs NAB's reconsideration petition, said that the ban limits competition and hurts broadcasters large and small. NMA said the same applies to newspapers, adding: "A threat to newspapers is a threat to the American people."

Thing #6 Before You Write Next Farm Bill: Rural Development Needs More Champions

There are several places where farmers, rural entrepreneurs and small-town business owners can seek help to create jobs and stimulate the economy in rural areas through farm bill programs, but the most prominent is US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development (RD) mission area. It’s an unsung and some would say underappreciated farm bill “hero” of sorts. With names like “Individual Water & Wastewater Grants,” “Community Facilities Guaranteed Loan Program,” and “Value-Added Producer Grants,” the offerings are not particularly sexy or flashy. But with more than a $216 billion loan portfolio, there’s plenty of potential. And rural leaders say there is plenty of need.

Shortly before President Donald Trump was inaugurated, leaders of over 200 organizations wrote that the “scope of the investment needed is staggering” across rural America. The letter states that “transportation infrastructure improvement is the most obvious need in rural communities,” but also highlights the “critical needs” that “exist in providing clean water for rural families, expanding broadband to connect rural communities to the outside world, and enhancing the ability to supply affordable, reliable and secure power for the rural economy.”

Possible Tribune Suitor Sinclair Woos FCC’s Pai on Regulations

Sinclair Broadcast Group, a broadcaster eager for freedom from US rules limiting mergers, lined up a Republican regulator for a company conference in Baltimore’s (MD) Four Seasons hotel days after the Nov 8 election. Ajit Pai’s trip from nearby Washington turned out to be a coup when Donald Trump’s surprise election win put Republicans in charge of the Federal Communications Commission. Now Sinclair had a soon-to-be FCC chairman on hand for a gathering of its executives and a meeting with its Executive Chairman David Smith, who has guided the Maryland-based broadcaster through explosive growth and wants more. The gleaming harbor-front hotel, home to fare including a $32 crab cake sandwich and a $15 “Ulterior Motive" cocktail, offered a memorable perch for impressing Pai.

Sinclair has tripled its holdings over the past decade to become the biggest US broadcaster by number of outlets, with 173 stations that it owns or helps operate. It needs relief from FCC rules for more deals, such as a possible bid for the 42-station Tribune Media Co. “They are actively courting and buttering him up," said Craig Aaron, president of the policy group Free Press that’s critical of Sinclair, saying the company has sidestepped US rules limiting station ownership. “Clearly Sinclair believes that Ajit Pai is going to clear the way for them to do whatever kind of deals they want to do.”

How Trump Can (and Just Might) Kill AT&T's Time Warner Deal

President Donald Trump's view on the $85.4 billion merger has been quite un-Republican-like, and he wants to keep his campaign promise, which would mean intervening (and stifling CNN nemesis Jeff Zucker). President Trump says he is determined to keep his campaign promises. It is a mantra in the West Wing. All campaign promises have to be turned into executive orders, legislation or regulatory action. That’s the agenda. There’s an actual checklist on which staffers tick off each promise. One of those promises — falling somewhere behind extreme vetting, repealing and replacing Obamacare (well, um, cough, blame someone else for that), tax reform, immigration bans, military expansion, budget cutting, a Mexican border wall and making NATO allies pay up — is to block the planned merger of AT&T and Time Warner.

Benton

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