BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2015
For opinion and analysis, visit our Digital Beat blog https://www.benton.org/blog
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Is US Broadband Working? The Administration Is Working On It - Kevin Taglang analysis
FCC Chairman Wheeler on the Choices in the Network Neutrality Debate - speech
Five things that could kill network neutrality rules - The Hill analysis [links to web]
FCC: Title II Suits Jumped Gun
Symbolic net neutrality amendment moves through
Sprint CEO: Without network neutrality rules, we're toast
Sprint: Lifeline Mobile Broadband Pilot Sees Weak Adoption
Verizon tells Congress to step up to the plate
AT&T opposes municipal broadband bill in Tennessee
Bill Seeks to Bring High-Speed Internet to Maine's Rural Farmers, Small Businesses [links to web]
The Path Toward Tomorrow’s Internet [links to web]
Internet infrastructure is vulnerable to attacks that can cause prolonged outages
US Coding Website GitHub Hit With Cyberattack [links to web]
Could offline Internet access bridge the digital divide? [links to web]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC Announces Tentative Agenda For April 2015 Open Meeting
Innovation in the 3.5 GHz Band: Creating a New Citizens Broadband Radio Service - FCC Chairman Wheeler press release
AWS-3 Auction: Lessons Learned - FCC Commissioner O'Rielly press release
LABOR
Ellen Pao Loses Silicon Valley Gender Bias Case Against Kleiner Perkins [links to web]
After Pao's loss, will male-dominated Silicon Valley change its ways? - analysis
PRIVACY
AT&T’s plan to watch your Web browsing -- and what you can do about it
CONTENT
Why did Instagram censor this photo of a fully clothed woman on her period? [links to web]
Comcast Says It’s Not Talking to Apple About Apple TV, Because Apple Hasn’t Asked [links to web]
ComScore Finds Huge Growth in Mobile Media Consumption [links to web]
WDBJ Fine Highlights Broadcast Inequality - Harry Jessell editorial [links to web]
It’s Really Here: TV for Babies [links to web]
ADVERTISING
Google’s Tricky TV Audition - Miriam Gottfried analysis [links to web]
OPEN GOVERNMENT/GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS
Sec Kerry orders probe of US State Department e-mail procedures [links to web]
Iowa’s governor doesn’t seem to understand what a smartphone is or how e-mail works [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
Sen Harry Reid will not seek reelection [links to web]
Rep Johnson seeks ouster of Commerce Department inspector general [links to web]
The White House’s first chief data scientist is no stranger to Washington [links to web]
Why Google Was Spared - L Gordon Crovitz editorial [links to web]
COMPANY NEWS
AT&T's de la Vega: We are ahead of the competition in many areas [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Someone hijacked the Google of China to attack anti-censorship tools
British users can sue Google in UK over “secret tracking” [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
IS US BROADBAND WORKING?
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] Back in January we reported on a series of speeches by President Barack Obama in the run up to the State of the Union address. In those speeches, the President indicated that the Internet would play a central role in his 2015 policies. This week, the Administration offered an update on its progress since January and outlined the next steps in “promoting investment and rewarding competition.” Although the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality order is still the headliner-grabber, this week we review the Administration’s most recent announcements which include: 1) the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s latest -- and last -- update of the National Broadband Map; 2) reaching the President’s high-speed wireless goal; 3) creation of the Broadband Opportunity Council; 4) ongoing support of community broadband; 5) grants for rural telecommunications infrastructure; and 6) second phase FirstNet funding.
https://www.benton.org/blog/us-broadband-working-administration-working-it
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WHEELER’S SPEECH AT OHIT STATE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler returned to Ohio State University – this time focusing his remarks on the FCC’s recent network neutrality order. He said the order “rests on a basic choice -- whether those who build the networks should make the rules by themselves or whether there should be a basic set of rules and a referee on the field to throw the flag if they are violated.” Addressing many, contradicting objections to the rules, Chairman Wheeler said, “We should conclude that the biggest broadband providers in the land have one objective -- to operate free from control by their customers and free from oversight from government. If they succeed, then, for the first time in America’s communications history, private gatekeepers will have unfettered power to control commerce and free expression.” “The true choice,” he said, “is between protecting the gatekeepers or protecting consumers and insurgents who wish to boost the greatest strength of America’s economy, namely innovation.”
benton.org/headlines/fcc-chairman-wheeler-choices-network-neutrality-debate | Federal Communications Commission | LA Times
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DID NET NEUTRALITY SUITS JUMP GUN?
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Federal Communications Commission lawyers say the lawsuits filed against the commission's new Title II based network neutrality rules were filed prematurely and should be rejected on procedural grounds. In a March 27 letter to the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which will choose the federal appeals court that will hear the rule challenge, FCC Deputy Associate General Counsel Richard Welch said that in its view both challenges were premature since they were filed before the decision was published in the Federal Register. "We believe that because the order in question was issued in a notice-and-comment rulemaking proceeding, the period for seeking judicial review of the order does not commence until the order is published in the Federal Register,” Welch told the panel. He said the FCC expected the decision on dismissing the suits would be made by the circuit hearing the case, which will be randomly selected by the panel, but said he wanted to let the panel know in case the FCC was incorrect in that assumption.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-title-ii-suits-jumped-gun | Multichannel News
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SYMBOLIC NET NEUTRALITY AMENDMENT MOVES THROUGH
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
A bipartisan budget amendment expressing support for some type of network neutrality rules was unanimously adopted during the evening of March 26's “vote-a-rama” in the Senate. The measure called for a deficit-neutral reserve fund “to preserve and protect the open Internet in a manner that provides clear and certain rules” while also protecting consumers, competition and other issues. The measure was entirely ceremonial and non-binding. Still, the mere fact that Senators of both parties could agree on the idea that there should be some rules in place to protect Internet users represents a partial bridging of the partisan split on the issue, and may offer a flicker of hope to supporters of a compromise piece of legislation. “Passage of this amendment is a good omen that Congress can come together, on a bipartisan basis, to address uncertainty facing the Internet and consumers,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD), who co-sponsored the measure along with Ranking Member Bill Nelson (D-FL). “This amendment underscores that Congress has a role and responsibility to set policy for protecting an open Internet.”
benton.org/headlines/symbolic-net-neutrality-amendment-moves-through | Hill, The | Chairman Thune | read the amendment
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SPRINT CEO: WITHOUT NET NEUTRALITY RULES, WE'RE TOAST
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon]
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure praised the Federal Communications Commission's decision to implement rules governing the open Internet -- which includes wireless data -- arguing that his company couldn't survive without them. "Unless there is light-touch regulation that oversees AT&T and Verizon, they are going to drive us out of business," he said. Claure acknowledged that the company's stance on network neutrality may not make him popular among other wireless providers, including some of the smaller rural operators with whom he shared a stage at the conference. But he said that without the regulation, Sprint and any other company trying to compete with AT&T and Verizon are dead in the water. "I'd rather there be light-touch regulation than a complete free-for-all," he said. His comments on a light regulatory touch refer to the FCC's move to strip out the more onerous regulations set up for old-fashioned telephone service, including the FCC's power to set rates and force providers like AT&T to open up access to their lines by competitors. Broadband providers fear the Title II designation would give future FCC commissioners the power to exploit those rules.
benton.org/headlines/sprint-ceo-without-net-neutrality-rules-were-toast | C-Net|News.com
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SPRINT: LIFELINE MOBILE BROADBAND PILOT SEES WEAK ADOPTION
[SOURCE: Wireless Week, AUTHOR: Andrew Berg]
A trial mobile broadband offering from Virgin Mobile under the Federal Communication Commission's Lifeline program garnered lackluster adoption rates. According to an ex parte filing by parent company Sprint, Virgin Mobile marketed a total of four offers for 1GB of data on Mi-Fi devices to its Assurance Wireless customers in Massachusetts and 38,000 customers in Ohio. A total of approximately 104,000 Massachusetts customers and 150,000 Ohio customers received an offer for Broadband Lifeline service from Virgin Mobile. Virgin Mobile had planned for participation by 2,500 customers for each offer but said numbers were "in the hundreds" on any given month. Virgin Mobile also found that only a handful of participants used the full 1GB of access allowed through the plans. So why the slow uptake? While 70 percent of Assurance Wireless Lifeline subscribers report having no access to Internet, Sprint said that any kind of upfront cost, which ranged from $30 to $70 depending on the offer, was a "significant barrier" to adoption. Sprint suggested that any kind of Lifeline offering for mobile broadband should include a subsidy for hardware. The carrier also recommended a robust consumer education effort would need to precede any similar offers in the future.
benton.org/headlines/sprint-lifeline-mobile-broadband-pilot-sees-weak-adoption | Wireless Week
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VERIZON TELLS CONGRESS TO STEP UP TO THE PLATE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
Lawmakers in Congress have largely ceded their ground to regulatory bureaucrats, the head of Verizon told legislators. In a letter to the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees, CEO Lowell McAdam lent support to Congressional efforts to update the 1996 Telecommunications Act, saying the existing telecommunications laws and regulatory processes are “outdated and broken.” “It is time for Congress to re-take responsibility for policymaking in the Internet ecosystem,” he wrote. “It is time for Congress to assert its longstanding role of setting, in a bipartisan fashion, public policies for the communications sector that both protect consumers and provide incentives for investment and innovation in new products and services.” In the short term, he urged lawmakers to come together on legislation to replace the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality regulations, which take the controversial step of reclassifying Web service to treat it like a public utility and “lead to far more questions than answers.” In his letter, he also pointed to the scuffle over the FCC’s recent auction of some government airwave licenses, during which two Dish Network subsidiaries were able to obtain about $3 billion in government subsidies intended to incentivize small businesses to participate.
benton.org/headlines/verizon-tells-congress-step-plate | Hill, The
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AT&T OPPOSES MUNICIPAL BROADBAND BILL
[SOURCE: The Tennessean, AUTHOR: Jamie McGee]
For many rural Tennesseans, the bills that would allow municipal broadband providers to expand services is a step toward faster Internet. For the telecommunications industry, it is unwanted competition. AT&T Tennessee President Joelle Phillips has emailed Tennessee employees, encouraging them to reach out to legislators and oppose two bills filed in the General Assembly, versions of which have been killed in at least three previous legislative sessions. "Government should not compete against the private sector, which has a proven history of funding, building, operating and upgrading broadband networks," she said in the emailed statement. "Rather than delivering more broadband, we believe that this policy will discourage the private sector investment that has delivered the world-class broadband infrastructure American consumers deserve and enjoy today." Chattanooga, Clarksville, Jackson, Bristol, Morristown, Pulaski, Tullahoma and Columbia are among Tennessee cities that provide broadband access to residents and businesses, but they can connect only those within their electric service limits. The bills, filed by Republican legislators Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma) and Rep. Kevin Brooks (R-Cleveland), would allow the government-owned providers to serve homes outside those boundaries. Phillips said AT&T is not opposed to municipal networks, but government-owned providers should be limited to areas where broadband service from the private sector is unavailable or is not likely to be available in "a reasonable time frame." The proposed bill "allows for unfettered deployment of these publicly funded networks," she said.
benton.org/headlines/att-opposes-municipal-broadband-bill | Tennessean, The
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INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE IS VULNERABLE TO ATTACKS THAT CAN CAUSE PROLONGED OUTAGES
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Felicia Fonseca, David Lieb]
When vandals sliced a fiber-optic cable in the Arizona desert in February, they did more than time-warp thousands of people back to an era before computers, credit cards or even phones. They exposed a glaring vulnerability in the nation's Internet infrastructure: no backup systems in many places. Because Internet service is largely unregulated by the federal government and the states, decisions about network reliability are left to the service providers. Industry analysts say these companies generally do not build alternative routes, or redundancies, unless they believe it is worthwhile financially. The result: While most major metropolitan areas in the US have backup systems, some smaller cities and many rural areas do not. Despite its own warnings about such vulnerabilities two decades ago, the federal government has taken no steps to require Internet companies to have backup systems, even as it has provided billions of dollars in subsidies to expand broadband Internet into unserved areas.
benton.org/headlines/internet-infrastructure-vulnerable-attacks-can-cause-prolonged-outages | Associated Press
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC ANNOUNCES TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR APRIL 2015 OPEN MEETING
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The following item will tentatively be on the agenda for April’s Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Friday, April 17, 2015:
Citizens Broadband Radio Service: The Federal Communications Commission will consider a Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would leverage innovative spectrum sharing technologies to make 150 megahertz of contiguous spectrum available in the 3550-3700 MHz band for wireless broadband and other uses
benton.org/headlines/fcc-announces-tentative-agenda-april-2015-open-meeting | Federal Communications Commission
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INNOVATION IN THE 3.5 GHZ BAND: CREATING A NEW CITIZENS BROADBAND RADIO SERVICE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler]
Five years ago, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration issued a report identifying possible spectrum bands for reallocation for commercial uses. In the report, it identified the 3550-3650 MHz band as a potential opportunity for future commercial use. At the time, there was relatively little commercial interest in this band. But some saw an opportunity to promote new wireless technologies, new business ideas, and new spectrum management techniques to increase our nation’s broadband capacity. On March 27, I circulated to my colleagues a draft Report and Order that will seize that opportunity by creating a new Citizens Broadband Radio Service. I look forward to my fellow Commissioners’ feedback on the draft Report and Order. I think it provides a peek of the future, and that future is very exciting indeed.
benton.org/headlines/innovation-35-ghz-band-creating-new-citizens-broadband-radio-service | Federal Communications Commission
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AWS-3 AUCTION: LESSONS LEARNED
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly]
From my perspective, the recent AWS-3 auction has to be deemed an overall success. It is hard to say otherwise when it released 65 megahertz of spectrum for more efficient purposes, allocated 1611 licenses to current and prospective wireless providers to expand wireless broadband services, and grossed revenues totaling $44.9billion (net revenues are estimated at $41.3 billion). Nonetheless, this auction highlighted many important issues and raised quite a few concerns. Here are some takeaways that will help shape my views as we consider future spectrum policy:
Licensed vs. Unlicensed Spectrum. This auction clearly demonstrates there is still a critical need for licensed spectrum in our overall spectrum framework.
Paired vs. Unpaired Spectrum. As I have said before, I think the Commission, and the American people, lost an opportunity by not finding appropriate spectrum to complement the A1 and B1 blocks. Specifically, the FCC should have paired this 15 megahertz of spectrum, instead of offering 5 and 10 megahertz unpaired spectrum licenses.
Location Still Matters. This auction confirmed the significance of the value generated from licenses in the largest markets.
Low-Band vs. Mid-Band Spectrum. The overall revenues of this auction also cast doubt on some estimations of the unappreciated value of mid-band spectrum.
Designated Entities. The FCC must rethink its designated entity policies.
Planning Ahead. To ensure continued growth and innovation in America’s renowned wireless sector, we must identify now the spectrum bands that can be auctioned for exclusive use in the future.
benton.org/headlines/aws-3-auction-lessons-learned | Federal Communications Commission
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LABOR
AFTER THE PAO DECISION
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Paresh Dave]
[Commentary] A jury found that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the nation's most prominent venture capital firms, didn't discriminate against one its employees, Ellen Pao, and didn't fire her in retaliation for her protesting her treatment. The decision has left a number of uncertainties. Will male-dominated Silicon Valley change its ways? Not anytime soon, some fear. “The outcome of the trial sends a message that women simply have to accommodate to such disappointing cultures,” said Bernice Ledbetter of the practitioner faculty of organizational theory and management at Pepperdine University. But in the weeks leading up to the hearing of the case, some venture capitalists said the lawsuit put them on notice and that they were stepping up efforts to find ways to promote women. Only about 5% of decision-makers at venture-capital firms now are female, according to research firm PitchBook. Chris Sacca, an angel investor in Uber and Instagram, said on Twitter Friday that the conversation about technology’s “deep gender discrimination problem” shouldn’t end with Pao’s loss. Meantime, Google, Facebook, Intel and other big tech companies have acknowledged the low representation of women and minorities in engineering roles and are implementing programs that they hope will improve their records.
benton.org/headlines/after-paos-loss-will-male-dominated-silicon-valley-change-its-ways | Los Angeles Times
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PRIVACY
AT&T'S PLAN TO WATCH YOUR WEB BROWSING -- AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
If you have AT&T’s gigabit Internet service and wonder why it seems so affordable, here's the reason -- AT&T is boosting profits by rerouting all your Web browsing to an in-house traffic scanning platform, analyzing your Internet habits, then using the results to deliver personalized ads to the websites you visit, e-mail to your inbox, and junk mail to your front door. Subscribing to a VPN (virtual private network) service would encrypt your traffic before it hits AT&T’s servers, preventing the Internet service provider from analyzing it. VPNs can degrade Internet performance because they cause traffic to also travel through the VPN provider’s servers, and you have to decide whether you trust the VPN provider more than you trust AT&T. But some Internet users may think a VPN worth the expense. Consumers can complain to the Federal Trade Commission about privacy violations, but AT&T’s Internet Preferences doesn’t appear to be facing any challenges. When contacted about AT&T’s Internet Preferences, an FTC spokesperson said the commission’s policy is “not to comment on companies’ practices unless it’s part of a lawsuit or report.” For now, AT&T customers who value their privacy will continue to face a tough decision.
benton.org/headlines/atts-plan-watch-your-web-browsing-and-what-you-can-do-about-it | Ars Technica
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
SOMEONE HIJACKED THE GOOGLE OF CHINA TO ATTACK ANTI-CENSORSHIP TOOLS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Andrea Peterson]
An unknown party hijacked widely used tools developed by Baidu, the largest search engine in China, in an apparent attempt to target online software used to get around Chinese censorship. The assailants injected malicious code into the tools Baidu uses to serve ads on a wide range of Chinese Web sites and to provide analytics for Web developers, according to researchers. The code instructed the browsers of visitors to those sites to rapidly connect to other sites, but in a way that the visitors couldn't detect. That sent a flood of traffic to two anti-censorship tools offered by the group GreatFire hosted on GitHub, a popular site used by programmers to collaborate on software development. One of the tools targeted by the attack effectively allows Chinese users to access a translated version of the New York Times. At times the attack made GitHub, which is used by programmers around the world and the US government itself, unavailable for some users. GitHub was briefly blocked inside China in 2013, but reinstated after an outcry from programmers. Because GitHub uses encryption to hide specific parts of the site, the Chinese government cannot selectively block only some of GitHub's content. But blocking the site wholesale could be damaging to China's economy because it is so widely used by the tech industry. While determining the entities behind these types of attacks is difficult, the Chinese government would be an obvious culprit, said James A. Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The only people who would really benefit from it would be China," he said. Using such a bold tactic to attack content it dislikes seems to be either a way for the government to send a message or test out new capabilities, he said.
benton.org/headlines/someone-hijacked-google-china-attack-anti-censorship-tools | Washington Post
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