DIGITAL DIVIDE
Digital Empowerment Campaign" Launch
Brazil: Let's Go Postal
Demand For Mobile Phones Soars In Kabul
CABLE
Local Gov'ts Lambast FCC Ruling
Alliance for Community Media to Join Actions Against Cable Modem
Declaratory Ruling
PRIVACY
Privacy, Consumer Groups Fight to Prevent Surveillance of Television
Viewers
DIGITAL DIVIDE
DIGITAL EMPOWERMENT CAMPAIGN LAUNCH
Today, senators and a diverse grassroots coalition will launch a nationwide
Digital Empowerment campaign to support federal technology programs. The
Digital Empowerment coalition, a bipartisan group
of over 75 civil rights, public interest, education, health, religious,
labor, women's, community development, and technology organizations, is
working to preserve and strengthen the federal government's leadership in
expanding opportunity in the Digital Age. This launch will be the first in
a series of events across the nation supporting federal community technology
programs.
[SOURCE: Digital Empowerment]
(http://www.digitalempowerment.org/press/020510.advisory.html)
BRAZIL: LET'S GO POSTAL
In another attempt to close the gap between the wired and the unwired,
Brazil will install computer kiosks in post offices around the country,
where people will be able to log on to the Internet. Correios, Brazil's
postal agency, plans to have at least one computer in each of Brazil's 5,366
post offices. As a way of encouraging people to use the service, the first
10 minutes will be free. It has not yet been determined how much users will
have to pay after that. "Of course we intend to charge a
very low price, at least lower than cybercafes," said Fausto Weiler,
Correios' assessor in the capital city of Brasilia. "Our goal is to open
this new world for those who can't afford to buy a computer,
even in the countryside." According to Weiler, the kiosk project is only a
first step in reducing, and eventually eliminating, the country's digital
divide. Once an easy Web link is established, the plan
is to launch another project, called Permanent Electronic Address (PEA),
that will supply every Brazilian with a free, private e-mail account.
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Paulo Rebelo]
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52414,00.html)
DEMAND FOR MOBILE PHONES SOARS IN KABUL
Over 1,800 mobile phones have been sold since the Afghan Wireless
Communications Company launched its GSM phone service last month. According
to Gavin Jeffery, managing director of the company, "We are pleasantly
surprised by the demand, and there is no sign of that slackening." Until
recently, Afghans relied on sending messages by hand or using the fragmented
postal system. Restoring a healthy telecommunications infrastructure is a
top priority for the interim administration of Hamid Karzai. The Afghan
Wireless Company has spent $50 million to develop the mobile phone network
in Kabul and hopes to extend it to Heart, Mazar-I-Sharif, and other major
Afghan cities.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Reuters]
(http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/3263452.htm)
CABLE
LOCAL GOV'TS LAMBAST FCC RULING
Groups representing the nation's local governments are suing the Federal
Communications Commission over a ruling they say will cost them $300 million
in revenues from lost cable fees this fiscal year
alone. The lawsuit concerns the FCC's March decision to insulate high-speed
Internet services offered by cable companies like AOL Time Warner and AT&T
Broadband from extensive regulations. The FCC tentatively concluded that
local authorities are not allowed to charge a fee for the cable Internet
service like the fee currently charged for video programming offered by the
cable operators. Cable companies currently pay franchise fees of up to 5
percent of their gross revenue from video services, roughly $2 billion
annually. Local governments are not only upset at the loss of revenue, but
at what they say is the FCC's pre-empting their control over their own
public assets, such as the streets that must be torn up and repaired to lay
Internet infrastructure.
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Reuters]
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52531,00.html)
ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY MEDIA TO JOIN ACTIONS AGAINST CABLE MODEM DECLARATORY
RULING
The Alliance for Community Media (ACM) will support a court appeal filed by
the Alliance of Local Organizations Against Preemption (ALOAP) against the
March 15 FCC cable modem declaratory ruling. Bunnie Riedel, Executive
Director of the Alliance for Community Media said,"In the last couple of
months the FCC has handed down some stunning rulemaking. The most notorious
being the cable modem declaratory ruling that classifies cable modem service
as an 'information service' not subject to franchise fees. It is notorious
because it parses out cable services (such as video, telephone and Internet)
and cripples local governments' ability to manage their own rights of way,"
The ACM will also file comments with the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
on regulating cable modem service.
[SOURCE: Alliance for Community Media, AUTHOR: ACM]
(http://www.alliancecm.org/)
PRIVACY
PRIVACY, CONSUMER GROUPS FIGHT TO PREVENT SURVEILLANCE OF TELEVISION VIEWERS
The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) has joined the Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC) in asking a federal court to overturn a recent
ruling that manufacturer SONIC blue track the habits of their ReplayTV 4000
customers. The ruling requires SONICblue to reengineer the ReplayTV 4000 and
record what shows were watched and which commercials were skipped. The data
would then be given to the television studios that could use the information
in lawsuits against consumers. The coalition of privacy and consumer groups
including EPIC, Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Computer Professionals
for Social Responsibility (CPSR), Consumer Action, Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF), Media Access Project (MAP), Public Knowledge, and The
Privacy Foundation have filed an amicus brief in the case asking that the
ruling be reversed. The brief can be found on the EPIC Web site.
[SOURCE: Center for Digital Democracy, AUTHOR: CDD]
(http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/marketwatch/replayTV.html)
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