Benton RSS Feed
AT&T officials might be "confident" that they can usher their merger with T-Mobile past federal regulators, but that doesn't mean a formidable set of opponents won't do everything in their power to stop it.
A diverse group of industry and public-interest figures is lining up to campaign against the proposed deal, which would create the nation’s largest wireless carrier. Advocacy sources predict a wall-to-wall lobbying campaign over the merger, featuring aggressive ad buys, events on Capitol Hill and the formation of a new coalition to try and scuttle it. Sprint has already begun articulating an argument against the deal and, long story short: the companies may have different doors open to them as they fight their way through the regulatory process. What's more, Sprint has close allies in Washington's consumer advocacy community — no stranger to war with AT&T. Sprint has worked with public interest groups on a range of issues, including special access, data roaming and the proposed D Block spectrum auction. Public Knowledge, Consumers Union, Free Press and the Media Access Project have already come out against the AT&T merger on the grounds that it is anticompetitive and could hurt consumers. The groups have sway with Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission and on Capitol Hill. Free Press and Public Knowledge have already begun email campaigns against the acquisition.
Broad coalition taking shape to battle AT&T, T-Mobile merger
AT&T’s bid to buy T-Mobile isn't really a proposal to merge telephone companies. It’s about building a bigger mobile network for accessing the Internet.
As customers move toward smarter and faster wireless Internet devices, the phone part of the cellphone matters less and less. Many of the functions that have been the traditional basis for mobile phone service are now available as free Internet applications. Skype, Google Voice and Viber allow wireless users to make calls over the Web and avoid charges for minutes of use. Texting services such as GroupMe, Beluga and LiveProfile let users tap messages to one another without the fear of blowing monthly limits. Now the big telecoms are scrambling for new ways to serve consumers, and finding that with so many free and low-cost applications available, the biggest game in town is mobile Web access.
For telecoms, success rests in mobile Web access
LightSquared, a company building a new wireless broadband network to compete with those of AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Clearwire, announced its first phone-company customer, Leap Wireless. Leap Wireless, the parent of the Cricket phone service, plans to use LightSquared's fourth-generation, or 4G, network to supplement its own.
LightSquared gets its first wireless broadband deal with a phone company
[Commentary] Federal authorities have always made it difficult to bring a legal challenge against the government’s warrantless wiretapping enterprise that was set up by the Bush administration in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Because the wiretaps were secret, no one could know for certain if they were being tapped, so the government urged judges to throw out lawsuits for lack of proof of real harm. That strategy was halted on Monday when a federal appeals court said that civil liberties and journalism groups challenging an eavesdropping law could pursue a suit trying to get the government’s wiretapping declared illegal. In an important ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated a lawsuit that a federal district judge had thrown out in 2009. The new decision might lead to a significant — and far too long delayed — legal review of the statute.
The Right to Sue Over Wiretapping
Since its inception in August 2009, the Progressive Talent Initiative, or PTI, has trained nearly 100 pundits who have appeared 800 times on television and radio. Media Matters For America uses that metric to pitch donors for more contributions, but its leadership believes that the surge of camera-ready liberals has recaptured lost ground in the media wars against conservatives.
“There was a chronic imbalance,” said David Brock, the founder of Media Matters, which picks up the entire cost of the course. “We didn't just want to accept that this is the way it is.” Brock is a former conservative writer at the American Spectator who was instrumental in efforts to discredit Anita Hill and to oust Bill Clinton, and who made a sharp left turn a decade ago. The primary mission of Media Matters, he said, is to obsessively monitor Fox News and call attention to its distortions. But now it’s moving into the operational phase, transforming from observers to shock troops. The organization, he said, had to “professionalize the training and booking” of a left-leaning counterpoise.
Media Matters boot camp readies liberal policy wonks for the camera’s close-up
[Commentary] Some California Democrats are trying again to get Internet retailers such as Amazon to tack state sales taxes onto the price of online purchases, and some California Republicans are again warning that collecting these longstanding and lawful taxes will have disastrous consequences. We'd like to see the millions -- perhaps billions -- of dollars in sales and use taxes owed by sometimes unaware California shoppers get collected, and we're tired of arguments by supposed law-and-order conservatives against collecting lawfully owed taxes.
At issue is proposed legislation by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, a Democrat representing Berkeley and other East Bay communities. Skinner's bill, much like a 2009 predecessor vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, would require online retailers to collect taxes and remit them to the state in many cases just like their brick-and-mortar competitors do. And why not? Contrary to popular lore, retail sales of books, shoes, clothing or anything else do not magically become tax-free just because the transaction takes place on a laptop or a smart phone. If you have to pay 9.75% in sales tax when you buy a pair of designer shoes at Discount Shoe Warehouse on Ventura Boulevard, you have to pay the same 9.75% when you buy the same shoes online from Nevada-based (and Amazon-owned) Zappos. It's only fair, and more to the point, it's the law.
Are you an online tax cheat?
Broadband providers and content owners will square off in the High Court on March 23 in a judicial review of the UK government’s attempts to control piracy online.
BT and TalkTalk are challenging the legitimacy of parts of the Digital Economy Act, which was passed in the dying days of the Labour government. Four of their five complaints over the legislation relate to legal technicalities over whether the law breaches European telecoms, privacy and e-commerce directives. However, the heart of the legal battle will be fought over whether the act’s provisions against piracy are proportionate – allowing both sides of this highly polarized debate to air well-rehearsed arguments about the potential harm to telecom companies and their customers or the content industry and its employees. As part of the hearings, trade bodies representing rights holders such as television producers, sports groups, record labels and movie studios are expected to intervene to defend the act’s long-sought measures to send warning letters and use other tactics against people caught downloading content illicitly.
Web piracy showdown due in court
The BBC has placed the profits of its commercial arm at the center of plans set out on March 23 to cope with the squeeze on its spending power.
Mark Thompson, director-general, said that inflation was the critical and unpredictable element that would dictate how the BBC adjusted to a freeze in its £145.50-a-household licence fee income. In an agreement reached with the government last October, the BBC agreed to a cut of 16 per cent in real terms to its £3.5bn licence fee income. It also agreed to take on additional costs, including the running of the World Service, that would add £340m to its budget, but Mr Thompson said on Tuesday that he believed this would be covered by an increase in the number of households paying the licence fee, more efficient collection and existing savings. That left inflation as the main threat, he explained. “We think there is significant room for further increases in commercial revenue,” he said.
Inflation to dictate BBC squeeze, says Thompson
[Commentary] The Chinese leadership’s reaction to the Arab spring has so far been more pronounced than that of its people. Although there have been few outpourings of democratic longing, the authorities have crushed any whiff of protest – and even the means by which dissent may be expressed.
This week, Google accused Beijing of disrupting its e-mail service inside the country. Google claims the crackdown was covert, designed to look like an internal error. This episode reflects the Chinese authorities’ attitude to the Internet: they are both dazzled by its economic possibilities and fearful of its political consequences. The ongoing campaign to censor online expression will ultimately prove counterproductive. At present, the Chinese are broadly pliant, accepting prosperity without political liberalization. But tension between economic achievement and the right to exercise political choice can be resolved only by greater freedom. Tampering with Google is certainly a sophisticated means to curtail web freedom. But technical strength is not enough to maintain a regime – such an act ultimately betrays Beijing’s political vulnerability.
Tear down the great firewall
[Commentary] Intellectual property law must strike a difficult balance.
There is public benefit from the widest possible access to and use of creative output. There is also a public interest in ensuring that artists and their publishers have incentives to produce new work. There are few certainties in judging the effects of such policies, but there are some. John Lennon will never sing another song. James Joyce will never publish another novel, and Picasso will never pick up his brush again. No financial incentives can now affect the quality or quantity of their work.
Yet the US Congress and the European Commission have been much exercised in increasing the rights of the dead, or those whose creative years are long behind them. The Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998 extended the term of American copyright in written material and was quickly followed in Europe. Thanks to the efforts of Mr Bono and my doctors, copyright in my prize essay for excellence in Scottish literature will probably endure into the 22nd century. More recent pressure to extend copyright terms has focused on sound recordings. While this plan has been rejected several times, pressure from interest groups is relentless.
The difficult balance of intellectual property