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  2. August 2017

August 2017

President Trump’s business advisory councils disband as CEOs abandon president over Charlottesville views

President Donald Trump’s relationship with the American business community suffered a major setback Aug 16 as the president was forced to shut down his major business advisory councils after corporate leaders repudiated his comments on the violence in Charlottesville (VA) this weekend. President Trump announced the disbanding of the two councils — the Strategy & Policy Forum and the Manufacturing Council, which hosted many of the top corporate leaders in America — amid a growing uproar by chief executives furious over President Trump's decision to equate the actions of white supremacists and protesters in remarks he made Aug 15. But those groups had already decided to dissolve on their own earlier in the day, apparently.

Earlier Aug 16, the chief executives of Campbell Soup and the conglomerate 3M resigned from the manufacturing council. “Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville,” Campbell Soup chief executive Denise Morrison said. “I believe the president should have been — and still needs to be — unambiguous on that point.”

President Trump’s remarks defending neo-Nazis were full of right-wing media talking points

President Donald Trump parroted multiple right-wing media talking points during a press conference as he responded to questions about deadly white supremacist violence in Charlottesville (VA). President Trump, following in the footsteps of right-wing media personalities, mostly from Fox News, called counter-protesters the “alt-left,” suggested that calls to take down Confederate statues is a slippery slope that could lead to demands to take down statues of other historical figures, and defended his failure to condemn white supremacists in his initial response to the violence.

Distinguishing Bandwidth and Latency in Households’ Willingness-to-Pay for Broadband Internet Speed

We measure households’ willingness-to-pay for changes in key home broadband Internet connection features using data from two nationally administered, discrete choice surveys. Both surveys include price, data caps, and download and upload bandwidth, but only one includes latency. Together, these surveys allow us to measure tradeoffs between bandwidth and other connectivity features such as price and data caps, and perhaps most notably, provide the only empirical evidence to date of tradeoffs between bandwidth and latency. We find that households' valuation of bandwidth is highly concave, with relatively little added value beyond 100 Mbps.

For example, households are willing to pay about $2.34 per Mbps ($14 total) monthly to increase bandwidth from 4 Mbps to 10 Mbps, $1.57 per Mbps ($24) to increase from 10 to 25 Mbps, and only $0.02 per Mbps ($19) for an increase from 100 Mbps to 1000 Mbps. We also find households willing to pay about $8.66 per month to reduce latency from levels obtained with satellite Internet service to levels more common to wired service. Household valuation of increased data caps is also concave as caps increase from 300 GB to 1000 GB, although consumers place a significant premium on unlimited service. Our findings provide the first relative valuation of bandwidth and latency and suggest that current U.S. policy may be overpenalizing latency relative to reductions in bandwidth and data caps. For example, we find that in its CAF Phase II Auction, the FCC is imposing a bidding penalty for latency that is about five times higher than what our WTP estimates suggest it should be relative to bandwidth offered.

Don't want your phone bill to rise? It's time to learn about net neutrality

[Commentary] Although the Federal Communications Commission said it intends to alter the Open Internet rules, it won’t fill in specifics until probably this fall, after the comments are analyzed. That makes it hard to pin down precise effects on cost, although that hasn’t prevented predictions.

Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor who came up with the phrase “net neutrality,” said it’s clear the rule changes would bring price hikes in a betrayal of the populist rhetoric that helped decide the election. “Did Trump voters really vote for higher cable bills?’’ he asked in a New York Times opinion piece the week the FCC announced its review. “Cable costs have gone up year after year, by multiples of the cost of living index,’’ said Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner and now a special adviser to Common Cause. “The more monopoly power you have, the more prices are going to go up.’’ Opponents of net neutrality say the business model wouldn’t change with the new rules, so rates should remain stable. “I don’t think you would see very much difference,’’ said Daniel Lyons, a professor at Boston College specializing in law and telecommunications.

The more likely outcome, though, is that prices will go up for some, and perhaps down for others, while consumers have more options based on how and how much they use the internet. A key part of the likely change will be “paid-prioritization,’’ which means companies could pay for faster and dedicated bandwidth as well as better positioning for their content – the same way a Google ad goes to the top of your search listing. Those costs are almost certainly going to come back to consumers in one way or another.

[Anders Gyllenhaal is senior editor at McClatchy]

Lifeline Connects Coalition Discusses Lifeline Reform Issues

The Lifeline Connects Coalition met with Federal Communications Commission Wireline Competition Bureau staff on August 10, 2017 to discuss the Lifeline National Eligibility Verifier. The Coalition discussed improvements to the timing of subscriber proof of eligibility for migration to the National Verifier, the recent decision not to provide a service provider application programming interface to the National Verifier, and the proper interpretation of the June 29, 2017 Public Notice regarding service provider liabilities under the National Verifier. The Coalition also discussed its Petition seeking reconsideration of minimum service standards and the GAO Lifeline Report.

Verizon -- Yes, Verizon -- Just Stood Up for Your Privacy

Fourteen of the biggest US tech companies filed a brief with the Supreme Court on Aug 14 supporting more rigorous warrant requirements for law enforcement seeking certain cell phone data, such as location information. In the statement, the signatories—Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft among them—argue that the government leans on outdated laws from the 1970s to justify Fourth Amendment overreach. One perhaps surprising voice in the chorus of protesters? Verizon.

Verizon's support means that the largest wireless service provider in the US, and a powerful force in Silicon Valley, has bucked a longtime trend of telecom acquiescence. While carriers have generally been willing to comply with a broad range of government requests—even building out extensive infrastructure to aid surveillance—Verizon has this time joined with academics, analysts, and the company’s more privacy-focused corporate peers. Carpenter v. United States is “one of the most important Fourth Amendment cases in recent memory,” wrote Craig Silliman, Verizon’s executive vice president for public policy and general counsel. “Although the specific issue presented to the Court is about location information, the case presents a broader issue about a customer’s reasonable expectation of privacy for other types of sensitive data she shares with any third party.… Our hope is that when it decides this case, the Court will help us better apply old Fourth Amendment doctrines to an evolving digital era.”

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