Universal Service
NYT: F.C.C.: Needy Should Get Internet First
TelecomAM: Kennard Defends Subsidies for Schools and Libraries
Internet
WSJ: Internet Contains a Racial Divide On Access and Use,
Study Shows
NYT: Racial Divide Found on Information Highway
Telephony
WSJ: Tough Calls: It's Hard Not to Notice Phone Service
Leaves a Lot to Be Desired
Television
NYT: Increase Seen in Number Of Violent TV Programs
NTIA: Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital
Television Broadcasters
Spectrum
NTIA: 16th Annual International Spectrum Management Seminar
InfoTech
NYT: Year 2000 Council Holds Their First Meeting
** Universal Service **
Title: F.C.C.: Needy Should Get Internet First
Source: New York Times (Breaking News)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Internet-Subsidies.html
Author: The Associated Press
Issue: Universal Service
Description: In response to pressure from Congress, Federal Communications
Commission Chairman Bill Kennard yesterday expressed that the nation's
poorest libraries and schools should be the first to receive cheap hookups
to the Internet. "The discount must -- let me repeat -- must go first and
foremost to those places where it is most desperately needed," he said in a
speech. As it currently stands, "the discounts, to be given out soon, would
go to qualified schools and libraries on a first-come, first-served basis."
But FCC officials said that schools and libraries that filed during a 75-day
period that ended on April 15, would all be treated as if they filed at the
same time. Legislation in the Senate would require that the schools and
libraries most in need receive the first discounts. Senate legislation would
also direct the FCC to "restructure" the programs, which provide up to $2.65
billion a year in Internet subsidies for schools, libraries and rural health
care facilities. "I intend in the next few weeks to propose ways to further
consolidate and streamline universal service administration so that we have
the most effective, efficient and accountable universal service
administrative process possible," Chairman Kennard said.
Title: Kennard Defends Subsidies for Schools and Libraries
Source: Telecom AM
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Universal Service
Description: Speaking before 200 school administrators meeting in Washington
DC, Federal Communications Chairman Bill Kennard responded to critics of the
new schools and libraries program. Chairman Kennard said the FCC will not
overfund the program nor will the program undermine the high-cost fund which
keeps rates affordable for rural customers. The Chairman has promised to
suggest changes to how the Schools and Libraries Corporation is run, but he
praised the "small but diligent" staff of 13 that has processed *45,000*
applications in a few months [emphasis added]. Republican FCC Commissioners
Powell and Furchtgott-Roth have said the FCC is endangering the high-cost
fund by giving too high a priority to the schools and libraries program.
** Internet **
Title: Internet Contains a Racial Divide On Access and Use, Study Shows
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://wsj.com/ (B10)
Author: Rebecca Quik
Issue: Internet
Description: An article published in Science today quantifies what has long
been suspected: there's a racial divide on the Internet. Among high-school
and college students, 73% of white students interviewed in a new study had a
computer at home -- just 32% of black students had one. Even when just
looking at households with incomes below $40,000/yr, whites are still twice
as likely as blacks to own a computer. Nielsen Media Research interviewed
5,813 randomly selected people from December 1996 through January 1997.
White students are six times as likely to find alternative ways to access
the Internet if they do not own a computer. "That's astonishing," said
co-author Prof Donna Hoffman of Vanderbilt University. "This shows that not
only do we have a problem with the status of technology in schools, but it's
also a problem in our communities."
Title: Racial Divide Found on Information Highway
Source: New York Times (A1,A22)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/041798race.html
Author: Amy Harmon
Issue: Internet/Minorities
Description: A study to be published today in the journal Science has found
that black Americans are less likely to use the Internet than white
Americans. The "sharp" racial divide is particularly evident "among
households below the median income." The study, authored by Donna L.
Hoffman, a professor of management at the Vanderbilt Univ., and Thomas P.
Novak, found that "in households with annual incomes below $40,000, whites
were six times as likely as blacks to have used the World Wide Web in the
past week. Lower-income white households were also twice as likely to own a
home computer as were black households." The study is "significant" because
it documents concerns that the recent growth of the Internet "might further
exacerbate the gap between the nation's rich and poor. And while it is no
surprise that Americans with lower incomes are less likely to own a
computer, the study highlights for the first time what may be the more
disturbing role of race in determining who has access to digital
technology." "As we move into the information age, you need more than
reading, writing and arithmetic to participate in our society. You need
information literacy, and if African-Americans don't have it, that's a
serious problem," said B. Keith Fulton, director of programs and policy for
the National Urban League. "One of the things it looks like we have here are
some solid, up-to-date statistics that paint a more comprehensive picture
than we've understood in the past," said Andrew Blau, director of
communications policy at the Benton Foundation which studies the impact of
technology and signs my paycheck. "It's not one that offers anybody easy
relief, but having a better understanding of the nature of the problem is
the first step toward devising a solution." The study's results
were based on data collected in a telephone survey conducted by Nielsen
Media Research from Dec 1996 through Jan 1997.
** Telephony **
Title: Tough Calls: It's Hard Not to Notice Phone Service Leaves a Lot to
Be Desired
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://wsj.com/ (A1)
Author: John Keller
Issue: Telephone/Competition
Description: "I'm sick of competition," says one New York state Bell
Atlantic and Sprint customer. "I just want to make a simple phone call and
not worry about it." It seems everyone has at least one horror story to tell
about being "slammed" and receiving bills from a phone company you did not
choose or "crammed" and paying for services you did not choose. The source
of these hassles, Keller reports, is competition. And regulators and phone
executives say this is just all part of the march of progress.
Telecommunications companies are spending big money on mergers and trying to
save money on existing services. To reduce costs, companies are cutting tens
of thousands of jobs, are becoming lax about verifying orders, and are
farming out marketing altogether -- losing supervision of how their service
is sold. Consumer complaints at the FCC have raised 14%
** Television **
Title: Increase Seen in Number Of Violent TV Programs
Source: New York Times (A16)
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/tv-violence.html
Author: Lawrie Mifflin
Issue: Television
Description: A study financed by the cable television industry has found
that the level of violence on television has remained constant over the past
three years. However, the final report also showed that the number of
violent programs appearing in prime time has increased on both broadcast and
cable networks. The three-year study, conducted at the Univ. of Calif. at
Los Angeles and financed by ABC,CBS,NBC and FOX, "examined all broadcast
network prime-time series and children's shows and reported, show by show,
whether they raised 'frequent,' 'occasional' or no concerns about excessive
or gratuitous use of violence." The study said that overall, 61 percent of
programs contain some violence, the same figure as last year and up from 58
percent in 1994-95. It also said that nearly 75 percent of violent scenes on
TV showed no "remorse, criticism or penalty" for the violence within the
scene. "Children under age 7 lack the cognitive ability to consider
punishments that occur later in the program and link them to the earlier
crime," said Barbara Wilson, a senior researcher on the study and professor
of communications at the Univ. of Calif. at Santa Barabara. "So in the short
run, at least, they get the message that violence is condoned." "My reaction
is, 'There they go again,'" said Martin Franks, senior vice president of CBS
who is that network's expert of content and ratings. "Once again, they're
just counting incidents, and if you just count, you don't distinguish
between 'Schindler's List' and 'Die Hard.'" Wilson pointed out that, "We're
not just counting violence, we're looking at how it's portrayed." She also
said that in 40 percent of programs, the perpetrator of violence was not
punished at all, "anywhere in the plot." The study was coordinated at the
Center for Communication and Social Policy at the Univ. of Calif. at Santa
Barabara, and included researchers at the Univ. of North Carolina, the Univ.
of Texas and the Univ. of Wisconsin.
Title: Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital
Television Broadcasters
Source: NTIA
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/pubintadvcom/aprmtg/transcript-am.htm
Issue: Digital TV
Description: A transcript of the April 14, 1998 meeting of the Advisory
Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters
is now available, as well as a RealAudio archive of the meeting
http://play.rbn.com/?rn/piac/demand/piac980414-85.rm [and a summary of the
meeting at http://www.benton.org/Policy/TV/meeting5.html].
** Spectrum **
Title: 16th Annual International Spectrum Management Seminar
Source: NTIA
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/ustti98.htm
Issue: Spectrum
Description: "For the 16th consecutive year, the U.S. Commerce Department's
National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA) and the United States Telecommunications
Training Institute (USTTI) will provide extensive radio spectrum management
training to leading regulators and communications professionals from diverse
parts of the world. The course, to be held April 20 -May 1, 1998 in
Washington, DC, involves participants from 20 developing countries,
including Albania, Cyprus, Moldova, Belarus, Thailand and Uganda."
** InfoTech **
Title: Year 2000 Council Holds Their First Meeting
Source: New York Times (CyberTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/cyber/articles/17millennium.html
Author: Jeri Clausing
Issue: InfoTech
Description: With less than two years left before its deadline, President
Clinton's Year 2000 Conversion Council held its first meeting yesterday to
begin coordinating efforts of how to protect the country from this turn of
the century technological glitch. The council, headed by James Koskinen, the
so called Y2K czar, is compiled of 34 executive and regulatory government
agency representatives. "The big focus is on coordinating the outreach by
federal agencies with organizations and entities outside the federal
government," said Koskinen. "The challenges we have will be medium and
smaller operation in the private sector," he said. "Similarly medium and
smaller operations at the local government level, and I think even some
large operations at the international level." When asked if the government
isn't running a bit behind schedule on confronting this "monumental" task.
Koskinen replies: "If it's any measure of comparison, we are ahead of 95
percent of the world. The federal government has been working on this for
two to three years. And there's no indication that the energy and
telecommunications sectors have not been working just as hard. So now is the
appropriate time for people to pull together and compare notes."
*********