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BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2011

Wireless and cybersecurity on today's agenda http://bit.ly/gPXdze

AT&T|T-MOBILE (See all our coverage http://benton.org/taxonomy/term/7436)
   Battle over AT&T, T-Mobile deal begins in Washington
   Congress will Scrutinize AT&T|T-Mobile merger
   AT&T, T-Mobile Merger: A Regulatory Quagmire?
   Want to Complain About AT&T and T-Mobile? Here’s How
   Fact-checking AT&T's merger claims
   What AT&T and T-Mobile Merger Means for Innovation
   Who's Going To Buy Sprint Now? Verizon? Comcast? Google?
   Whither T-Mobile's policy agenda? Fate uncertain for David v. Goliath telecom issues
   AT&T and T-Mobile: All About the iPhone 4G in 2012?
   AT&T May Be Haunted by iPhone Network Load in T-Mobile Merger
   AT&T May Be Haunted by iPhone Network Load in T-Mobile Merger
   In AT&T & T-Mobile Merger, Everybody Loses
   AT&T: T-Mobile deal would produce a bigger, better operator ultimately benefiting consumers
   AT&T’s Full Cost for Getting T-Mobile
   AT&T merger bid puts Obama in a bind
   Why Media Companies Will Feel the Pinch if AT&T and T-Mobile Seal the Deal

MORE WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Broadcasters To FCC: Take Holistic Look At Spectrum
   Station Groups: FCC Spectrum Proposals Are Illegal
   FCC, not free market, best for spectrum auction
   The tiny cube that could cut your cell phone bill

BROADBAND/INTERNET
   National Broadband Plan: A Quartet for an Anniversary
   AT&T Caps Off Broadband Plan Anniversary
   Broadband Caps: Maybe It’s Not Just About TV
   FCC Releases Internet/Local Telephone Reports
   Crime and the FCC
   Open Networking Foundation Pursues New Standards
   Should Public-Private Partnerships Be in Your Broadband Future?
   Taxing Digital Goods: We Need a National Framework
   Let the wiring begin: Medina County fiber optic network officially under way

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Consumer advocates: FCC should require more disclosure on political ads

RADIO
   Now it's time to defund NPR
   In rural Alaska, public radio is often the only radio
   In a renaissance for radio, more listeners are tuning in

HEALTH
   Could Fourth Time Be the Charm for Telehealth Bill?

CONTENT
   Google fined over Street View privacy breach
   Online Self-regulation May Not Satisfy Obama Administration
   Microsoft Sues Barnes & Noble, Foxconn Over Nook E-Reader
   BIA/Kelsey: Local Online Ad Revenues Will Double By 2015
   Apple Sues Amazon Over Term 'App Store'
   Apple’s Jobs Must Answer Questions in ITunes Downloading Antitrust Dispute

OWNERSHIP
   Tribune Company bankruptcy deadlocked, judge says

OPEN GOVERNMENT/GOV AND COMMUNICATIONS
   Court Revives Lawsuit Over Government Surveillance
   Freedom of Information Act Regulations

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   China Tightens Censorship of Electronic Communications
   UK Culture Sec Hunt hints rules could curb media owners
   Ofcom moves to help mobile group 3
   Liberty to buy Kabel BW for €3.2bn

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AT&T|T-MOBILE

AT&T|T-MOBILE BATTLE BEGINS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
AT&T is arguing that the its deal to buy T-Mobile fits in line with the Obama Administration’s plans to bring broadband to 95 percent of the country. The company is arguing that combining their spectrum assets is the only way to alleviate constraints. Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research said the companies will also likely be willing to promise reduced consumer rates and the unionization of the wireless workforce to appeal to Democrats. Barclay’s Capital’s James Ratcliffe said that the regulatory challenges the deal will face are surmountable, but certainly not easy. Of course, the major obstacle to both players is the risk that the deal will not be approved because of antitrust concerns. AT&T has said that it will be able to win approval for the deal, a sentiment analysts seem to echo. “AT&T’s regulatory team is high-quality, and we don't think the company would be going down this path, (given $3 billion breakup fee, especially), if they didn't have high confidence of success,” Ratcliffe wrote. Analyst Rebecca Arbogast of Stifel-Nicolaus said that she does not believe that even a Democratic Administration will be “stubborn about maintaining four as opposed to three nationwide wireless carriers,” but will be concerned about moving toward a wireless duopoly. She added that some state attorneys general may be able to weigh in, but are unlikely to act on their own to block the deal. From a business perspective, analysts say that the proposal is a win for both AT&T and Deustche Telekom, which will be able to easily integrate their networks. This deal is also a positive for Verizon, some analysts have said. Ratcliffe wrote that, should the merger go through, “it would likely result in a more stable, less aggressively competitive wireless market in the long term. In the near term, the deal will almost certainly result in distraction at both AT&T and T-Mobile as they work to get regulatory approval for the transaction.” As for speculation that Verizon may now counter with an offer to buy Sprint, many analysts do not see that happening. Analysts universally agree that Sprint is the biggest loser from the deal. Also standing to lose in this deal are tower companies, as there will be a large reduction in cell sites. Another winner mentioned in analysts reports is Apple, which can now market its iPhone to T-Mobile’s customer base without having to make a new version of its handset. Taking a wider lens, Arbogast of Stifel-Nicolaus said that the merger could change the conversation about spectrum, as joining forces could reduce spectrum demand and “possibly lower auction revenue estimates."
benton.org/node/53524 | Washington Post | NPR
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MORE WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

BROADCASTERS' SPECTRUM PLAN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Broadcasters have told the Federal Communications Commission to do some more looking before it makes its wireless spectrum leap. In comments on the FCC's spectrum proceeding, the National Association of Broadcasters outlined a five-point plan it said was the right way for the FCC to proceed:
1) assess how the wireless industry could use its spectrum from efficiently;
2) finish and put out for comment a spectrum use study;
3) weigh the costs of shifting spectrum against the potential harms to consumer and the public interest;
4) look for other ways to expand broadband access, and
5) consider and get comment on repacking and incentive auctions before it acts.
NAB was responding to the FCC's proposal to reclassify broadcast spectrum as dual use, broadcast and wireless; have broadcasters share channels, and make improvements to VHF band reception, which is inferior to UHF for DTV. Filing its comments as the combined NAB and the Association for Maximum Service Television, the spectrum lobby group that NAB voted to incorporate into itself, NAB reiterated that it does not oppose incentive auctions, but that the FCC needs to look more broadly and consider all viewers, not just over-the-air viewers.
benton.org/node/53502 | Broadcasting&Cable | CommLawBlog
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STATIONS RESPOND TO FCC
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
More than two-dozen station groups and owners representing more than 200 TV stations across the country have banded together to tell the Federal Communications Commission that its approach to freeing up spectrum is illegal, and in comments to the FCC said, essentially, they can't comment fully on it because of the FCC's piecemeal approach to the issue. The groups, which are commenting collectively as Local Television Broadcasters, include Media General, Nexstar, Allbritton, Granite, Gray, Tribune, McGraw-Hill and a veritable host of others. In their comments on the FCC's spectrum proceeding, they told the FCC that its proposals would do irrevocable harm to broadcasters, viewers, the public interest and the law. And when it comes to mobile DTV, they said the proposal for some broadcasters to channel share would "eviscerate" the service without any corresponding benefit. They also argue that efforts by the FCC to improve VHF reception -- as a way to encourage broadcasters to move there so the FCC can free up contiguous spectrum space in the superior UHF band, are doomed to failure. There are, they say, "immutable VHF propagation characteristics" that make any improvements likely to be only slight and insufficient to protect DTV service quality.
benton.org/node/53501 | Broadcasting&Cable
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CTIA SUPPORTS FCC SPECTRUM AUCTION
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Steve Largent]
[Commentary] In the last few weeks, I have read a number of op-eds claiming that reallocation of broadcast spectrum for wireless use should be left to the free market. While I am a fervent believer in free markets and limited government, there are rare instances in which government involvement is necessary. I agree with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on his proposal that managing the incentive process to voluntarily reclaim broadcast licenses and repack the spectrum is an area that absolutely requires FCC leadership and experience. When the FCC assumed responsibility in 1927 to determine the license holders for the nation's spectrum, there were only a few licensees. Today, and largely driven by the wireless industry, spectrum is a scarce commodity that commands billions when auctioned. To ensure that this finite resource is put to its highest and best use, the federal government acts as manager and aggregator of the licenses. For wireless, it identifies spectrum bands that are nationally, and sometimes internationally, harmonized once underused spectrum is identified and license holders are moved (or repackaged). With thousands of license holders across the country, including broadcasters, it's a challenging task but one the government does well to ensure interference-free service. The FCC rightfully plays a critical role in the voluntary broadcast incentive auction process because it works for everyone involved. Let's work with the FCC and move quickly to get this valuable spectrum to auction--the first step will be legislation that authorizes an incentive auction--so that the U.S. wireless industry can remain the world's leader and continue to offer our consumers the best mobile experience.
benton.org/node/53499 | C-Net|News.com
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BROADBAND/INTERNET

NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN ANNIVERSARY
[SOURCE: Knight Commission, AUTHOR: Blair Levin]
The one-year anniversary of the National Broadband Plan was marked by a number of conferences. I spoke at several. In each, I tried to address a different question.
In the first, hosted by the Joint Center for Economic and Political Studies, I looked at how we should approach increasing adoption. While I am very proud of the plan, on this issue, I have rethought what we did and think the approach we proposed will not work, and that there is a better way. Our approach, based on the voice-related issues of availability and cost are not the right foundation for broadband related issues in which, in addition to availability and cost, we must address use and training. I set out a four-step program that I hope will help reframe the debate, as we need a workable program to solve this problem.
In the second, an investor conference, I looked at some competition issues raised by Professor Susan Crawford in her article on “The Looming Cable Monopoly.” Her piece was based entirely on data from the plan. She didn't misuse the data but, as I discuss in my talk, I think she errs in projecting how she thinks the market will unfold. Projecting data forward is always a tricky business. If it weren't, stock picking would be both easy and not very lucrative. I think cable is in a very strong position, as it was for broadband a decade ago, but I am skeptical it is on the verge of a monopoly. Professor Crawford turns what I think of as a possibility not only into a probability but, further, into a certainty.
In the third conference, held by the Federal Communications Bar Association, I tried to explain what I thought was the core vision of the plan. While many think the core vision should be about faster wireline networks to homes, the speech explains how we were aiming toward high performance knowledge exchange. In sum, the idea is this: The core task for our economy and civic society is knowledge exchange. We gather information, analyze it, act on it, and then through a feedback loop, continually revise courses of action. Three revolutions in the last two decades have dramatically transformed knowledge exchange: the data revolution, the computing revolution, and the communications revolution. This knowledge exchange revolution affects every sector of the economy and every institution that constitutes our civic society.
And finally I spoke at a conference put on by Columbia and Georgetown Universities. My purpose in this one was to put the plan in the context of policy development make that case that, as we often said during the process, “plan beats no plan.” The speech describes how, properly understood, the plan was an agenda setting, target-clarifying device. That is, the plan was a process whose endpoint was to lay out—particularly for the stakeholders—an agenda for action. Further, the plan details policy targets to aim for­in the sense of policies to adopt­or aim at, in the sense of policies to shoot at and propose better alternatives. The speech also tries to provide a framework for how to judge the progress of the plan’s implementation
benton.org/node/53485 | Knight Commission | My Mistake; Our Opportunity | | Looming cable monopoly? reasons to short | The Idea Behind the National Broadband Plan | The National Broadband Plan at 1: As the Plan Grows
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AT&T BROADBAND CAPS
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
[Commentary] AT&T commemorated the one-year anniversary of the National Broadband Plan in its own, unique way. It levied bandwidth caps on its customers. It then told its customers that it was a no-no to use data from their broadband data plan service to connect a Blackberry to a laptop. Not all data is created equal. Separate tethering plan required, it seems. That basically sums up the state of broadband in America. And AT&T bought T-Mobile, further shrinking competition in wireless broadband, further concentrating an already concentrated market. Now instead of the big four wireless companies, there are the bigger three. Given that a year is a short time frame for this sort of thing, it’s still a legitimate exercise to try to evaluate the National Broadband Plan in a couple of frameworks. One is the narrow view ­ which proceedings have been started, which have been completed, which stand no chance of seeing the light of day, that sort of thing. By that standard, the FCC isn't exactly moving with blazing broadband speed. By the Benton Foundation’s reckoning, 34 percent of the 218 recommendations have yet to get started, 9.6 percent have been finished, and 40.4 percent are still in progress. By the FCC’s reckoning, they have completed about 80 percent of the plan, including issuing notices of inquiry and notices of proposed rulemaking. Whatever. Such bean-counting misses the picture. It really doesn't matter how many notices the FCC puts out, although it’s nice to see the Commission will apparently tackle the issue of agreements among mobile carriers for data ­ the kind that already exist for voice calls. What matters in the larger sense is whether the country has any prospects for improved broadband and whether consumers have any hope of getting to lower prices and more competition.
benton.org/node/53489 | Public Knowledge
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FCC RELEASES NEW DATA ON INTERNET ACCESS SERVICES, LOCAL TELEPHONE COMPETITION
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
The Federal Communications Commission has released its latest reports on Internet access service connections and telephone subscribership in the US. The reports are based on data submitted by carriers every six months on FCC Form 477. The reports track changes at the state and national level in the number of subscribers to Internet access service in 72 different combinations of speed tiers, and the number of wireline, mobile and interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone subscribers. Both reports include data collected by the FCC through June 30, 2010.
Highlights from the Internet Access Services report include the following:
60% of connections were slower than the benchmark 4 megabits per second (Mbps) download speed identified by the FCC as the minimum bandwidth generally required to accommodate today's uses: high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video.
Growth of fixed broadband service appears to have flattened at 1% in the first half of 2010, to 82 million connections.
Highlights from the Local Telephone Competition report including the following:
Interconnected VoIP grew by 21% between June 2009 and June 2010.
Conventional switched access lines (i.e., traditional wireline telephone lines) decreased by 8% between June 2009 and June 2010.
28% of all residential wireline connections were interconnected VoIP as of June 2010.
An estimated 77% of interconnected VoIP subscribers received service through a cable provider.
The number of subscriptions to wireless phone service grew by 5% in the year.
benton.org/node/53496 | Federal Communications Commission | Internet Access Services | Local Telephone Competition | The Hill
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CRIME AND THE FCC
[SOURCE: Politic365, AUTHOR: Joseph Miller]
[Commentary] Media and technology policy leaders must become anti-poverty advocates. As the first anniversary of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan passes, determining whether the Plan is actually working should be a function of a significant societal factor: its success in reducing the poverty rate. This can only be achieved by discussing broadband in the context of the day-to-day realities of the poor. In addition to establishing a framework for improving individuals’ access to high speed Internet, the Plan is a roadmap for improving the lives of individuals. Even where broadband infrastructure is physically available, additional considerations militate against widespread adoption. Last year, the FCC, the Department of Commerce and leading research institutions -- including the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies -- released several reports discussing the barriers preventing people from adopting broadband. In the Joint Center report, a perceived “lack of relevance” was a primary reason people decided not to adopt broadband. Even in stable households and communities, many consumers simply do not perceive the relevance of broadband. But in many low-income households, this lack of relevance is also symptomatic of deeper societal ills.
benton.org/node/53483 | Politic365
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RADIO

PUBLIC RADIO IN RURAL AREAS
[SOURCE: McClatchy Newspapers, AUTHOR: Erika Bolstad]
Outside the country's most populated areas, tune your radio up and down the dial, and you'll often lock in on just one station: public radio. In Alaska, that station might be airing the fishing report, a local school board meeting, a news report from National Public Radio, happy birthday wishes to locals - or even a tsunami warning. The state's public radio stations have long been an important part of everyday live, and the state's 700,000 residents could be hard hit if Congress limits how local public radio stations spend federal money - or if it does away altogether with government funding of public broadcasting. Alaska's public broadcasters, which include 26 radio stations and four television stations, are keeping a close eye on Washington, where some cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are all but assured. "The more rural and remote you are, the more dependent you are," said Steve Lindbeck, the president and general manager of Alaska Public Telecommunications. House Republicans last month passed a spending bill that would eliminate the $445 million budget of the CPB, which disperses money to 1,300 locally owned and operated TV and radio stations across the country. In Alaska, it added up to $8.4 million in 2009, including $1.3 million for the digital television conversion.
benton.org/node/53492 | McClatchy Newspapers
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