DIGITAL DIVIDE
G8 Nations Mull Digital Divide Task-Force Report (Newsbytes)
Technology Incubator to Focus on India (NYT)
E-Rate Chief Goes Back to School (Wired)
TECHNOLOGY
New Economy: Open-Source Movement Advances (NYT)
Microsoft and AOL Discuss Linking Products (NYT)
INTERNET
Media Consolidation Narrows Control Of Online Time (Newsbytes)
High Speed, Higher Fees For Net Access (WP)
Telecom Failures Hit Customers (WP)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
G8 NATIONS MULL DIGITAL DIVIDE TASK-FORCE REPORT
Issue: Digital Divide
Leaders from eight industrialized nations are reviewing the recommendations
from a yearlong study that could help decision-makers bridge the growing
digital divide between wealthy and developing nations. The report is the
collaborative work of the Digital Opportunity Taskforce - or "DOT Force" for
short - led by the U.S. government and
non-governmental organizations from the remainder of the G8 nations. The DOT
Force was conceptualized at last summer's G8 summit in Okinawa, Japan, as a
way to help close the digital divide, a phenomenon characterized by the
limited access to communications technologies among the world's poorer
citizens.
[SOURCE: Newsbytes, AUTHOR: Brian Krebs]
(http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166371.html)
TECHNOLOGY INCUBATOR TO FOCUS ON INDIA
Issue: Digital Divide
Despite India's $7 billion of software exports and huge talent pool of
technical workers, the country has underperformed in inventing and creating
technology that addresses domestic needs. Driven to create technologies that
benefit India's masses, the government has approved the $1.09 billion Media
Lab Asia project, a collaboration of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and India's information technology ministry. Media Lab Asia will
promote a decentralized, project-based approach to research, said Walter
Bender, executive director of the M.I.T. Media Lab. "Projects will be
designed to change people's lives using innovative and enabling technologies
that can touch all of India," Mr. Bender said. Some of the projects under
consideration include technologies to provide communication to 300,000
Indian villages that have no telephones, and small, low-cost health
appliances to perform simple diagnostics and gather epidemiological
information.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saritha Rai]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/04/technology/04INDI.html)
(requires registration)
E-RATE CHIEF GOES BACK TO SCHOOL
Issue: EdTech
Kate Moor--the woman in charge of managing the e-rate program--is leaving
the Schools & Libraries Division of the Universal Service Administrative
Company to teach elementary school. "The real impact of the e-rate depends
on what happens in the classroom, and that is where I am headed," she said
in a letter posted on USAC's website. The e-rate is credited with connecting
America's classrooms to the Internet. Despite the benefit to many schools
around the country, the program has been plagued with red tape, confusing
applications and poor invoice review procedures. A December report by the
General Accounting Office found that over a billion dollars had gone
unspent. George McDonald, SLD Director of Operations, takes over as acting
president.
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Katie Dean]
(http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,44204,00.html)
SOFTWARE
NEW ECONOMY: OPEN-SOURCE MOVEMENT ADVANCES
Issue: Software
Richard M. Stallman, the philosophical leader of the free-software movement,
fired the latest round in a war of words over open-source, a method of
software development in which a program's source code is freely available to
anyone to read and even tinker with. Craig Mundie, a senior vice president
at Microsoft, recently took the open-source approach to task, essentially
calling it bad for business and a threat to the intellectual property of
software companies. Mr. Stallman responded to the latest round of criticism
to a full audience at the Stern School of Business at New York University,
where Mudie had disparaged Mr. Stallman's pet project, the General Public
License. From all appearances, Microsoft has reason for concern as
GNU-Linux--the open-source operating system that has emerged as a competitor
to Windows--has quickly moved from the fringe to become entrenched in
corporate information-technology departments. I.B.M. says it will spend $1
billion on GNU-Linux this year to help make the software a standard.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Laurie J. Flynn]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/04/technology/04NECO.html)
(requires registration)
MICROSOFT AND AOL DISCUSS LINKING PRODUCTS
Issue: Software
Microsoft and America Online are negotiating a range of licensing and legal
issues related to including each other's software in each's own products and
services. But there are significant and unresolved areas of dispute,
including Microsoft's demand that AOL agree not to challenge Microsoft in
court over antitrust matters. Another key issue is whether America Online's
access software will be included in the consumer version of Microsoft's new
Windows XP operating system. For AOL, underlying the specific negotiating
points is a broader concern that Microsoft is moving rapidly to consolidate
its operating system monopoly and will try to use it to dominate the next
generation of consumer Internet services. AOL has recently shelved plans to
create an "AOL PC," would have used the GNU-Linux operating system in an
inexpensive Internet computer that was outside Microsoft's control.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Markoff]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/04/technology/04SOFT.html)
(requires registration)
INTERNET
MEDIA CONSOLIDATION NARROWS CONTROL OF ONLINE TIME
Issue: Internet
A study by Jupiter Media Metrix reported that the number of companies
controlling half of users' time on the Internet fell from 11 to 4 since
March 1999, shrinking 64 percent. The number of companies controlling 60
percent of user online minutes shrank 87 percent, from 110 in March 1999 to
only 14 in March of this year, the report found. Jupiter found that media
giants are being formed from mergers and acquisitions, such as the AOL/Time
Warner merger that . AOL ranked number one and Time Warner ranked number 11
in the top 11 companies controlling 50 percent of Internet user minutes in
March 1999.
[SOURCE: Newsbytes, AUTHOR: Martin Stone]
(http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166403.html)
HIGH SPEED, HIGHER FEES FOR NET ACCESS
Issue: Internet
Comcast's announcement that it will raise rates for new customers 12.5
percent marks its first increase since it launched in 1996, and the latest
in a rash of major cable or telephone companies' price increases in recent
weeks. The race to raise rates comes on the heels of the elimination or
crippling of competitors in the telecommunications sector and the decrease
in pressure to hold down rates when competition is strong, say economists.
To counter fears that the deregulation of the telecommunications industry
will widen the gap between the information haves and have nots, some
Internet service providers argue that they had set rates artificially low to
compete with new competitors, and now higher prices will allow companies to
expand and improve their services. Critic Gene Kimmelman, co-director of the
Washington office of Consumers Union, refutes this claim. "You have the
cable and telephone companies claiming that they want to compete against one
another and challenge each other to offer consumers better deals for
broadband services," Kimmelman says. "Lo and behold they both jack up their
rates for broadband, demonstrating that they have no intention to compete on
price."
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Christopher Stern and Peter S Goodman]
(http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166399.html)
TELECOM FAILURES HIT CUSTOMERS
Issue: Internet
At least three dozen telecommunications startup companies have failed since
last fall, reports Paul Stapleton, a partner at Rampart Associates, a small
investment banking firm in Boulder, Colo., that specializes in acquiring
startup carriers. With the collapse of competitors comes vanishing phone and
Internet service for their customers. Around 500,000 customers across the
U.S. have lost their dial tones and Internet connections in the shakeout,
according to the Association for Local Telecommunications Services, a trade
organization that represents upstarts. According to one Wall Street
brokerage firm, only ten percent of the upstart companies they follow are
making enough overhead to cover expenses without bringing in additional
capital. "It doesn't make any sense that the need for telecom has never been
greater than it is right now, and yet so many of these companies are going
out of business," says Charles A. Fazio, director of a media design business
in northern Virginia that lost its bankrupt ISP and long-distance carrier.
"Riddle me this, Batman: I don't get it. This is not the way it was supposed
to happen."
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Peter S. Goodman]
(http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/10201-1.html)
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