wifi

THE LWVCT MEDIA STUDY: Concurrence achieved a long time ago!
Concurrence Unofficial Page - read up on the subject of WIFI and technical matters. Sorry it took us so long to mention that LWVCT adopted it!

League has been thinking about Net Neutrality and related subjects for a while!

C O N T E N T S

WHAT'S NEW...and a story not brand new, that may explain some technical things!
F.C.C. latest (net neutrality close top being codified?)
Legislation CT and beyond to the WASHINGTON, D.C. electronic information superhighway.
New CT LWV position on Internet and the Media - click here.
Fall Conference on E-Democracy: A 21st Century Citizen's Right to Know and Participate STREAMING HERE!
More new stuff - link here to report on high speed internet access in U.S.A. as of 2006 - compare this to what I-BBC reports: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7114728.stm#anchor
INTRO to the topic: inspired by Free Press' presentation at LWVCT Convention '07...
Which Committee is in charge of these issues in the U.S. House of Representatives?
Tech info;
THE NEXT GENERATION - WIMAX - modem for laptop, alternative possibly the real alternative to WiFi (no technical problems) - similar speeds to DSL (?)
Interesting insight: GOOGLEBLOG;
CT news.
Duke University WiFi problem? Apple I-phone culprit...
WiFi locations and cost (if not FREE). NOTE: not an all-encompassing list - http://pcworld.jiwire.com/
More on WiFi in CT.
Background reports on WiFi and Media Study matters...

Since the CT League achieved concurrence...

Social media monitored more by law enforcement
Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, August 13, 2011

In New York, police are poring through Facebook updates as if they were lineup photos. In Great Britain, authorities are posting Twitter tweets to round up rioters. And here in California, prison officials are on the lookout for inmates visiting social networks from their cells. This week's headlines highlight how law enforcement agencies around the world are increasingly monitoring popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter to root out criminal behavior.

It's not quite "Big Brother." It's more like "Big Friend." And it's a trend that has civil libertarians concerned.

"Something you post even in jest could have deep ramifications for your life," said Rainey Reitman, activism director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

IRS, immigration uses

But it isn't a new phenomenon. The San Francisco digital rights organization has gathered documents through the Freedom of Information Act that illustrate how the federal government has been using social networking for years to gain information about people. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, set up a "Social Networking Monitoring Center" during the days before and after President Obama's inauguration in 2009, the foundation said. The operation mined Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Bebo, Craigslist, the politics blog Daily Kos and other Internet sites for "items of interest" as it sought to protect the new president.

"It's not just the FBI trying to track down terrorists," Reitman said. "A lot of social media sites are accessed by the IRS or the immigration service to decide whether or not to grant (immigrants) citizenship in the United States."

Earlier this week, the California Department of Corrections announced it was working with Facebook, of Palo Alto, to block inmates who were violating prison regulations by accessing the social network, an activity the agency says opens the door to criminal activity outside jail walls. Also, the New York police department formed a special unit to patrol social networks for evidence of gangs, rowdy house parties and other potential criminal activity by juveniles, according to the New York Daily News. Police in Toronto are also using social networks to help with investigations.

It helps that some criminals announce themselves on social networks, such as an 18-year-old man the NYPD arrested in March after he bragged on Facebook about a murder at a house party in Queens.

And last month, authorities nabbed a man sought on domestic violence charges in Utica, N.Y., after he had taunted police with a Facebook wall post that read, "Catch me if you can, I'm in Brooklyn." That's where U.S. marshals found him, logged onto Facebook on a computer.

This week in the United Kingdom, authorities criticized how rioters used Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry's Messenger app to organize the deadly riots that broke out across London.

Some Twitter users bragged about their participation in looting. And police turned to Flickr to post photos - some found on Twitter streams -of suspected rioters.

Enforcing terms of service

Prime Minister David Cameron added another layer of controversy by calling for a temporary ban on social networks in times of civil unrest to curtail criminal activity.

"Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organized via social media," Cameron said. "Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them."

Cameron said he will summon representatives from Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion for a meeting with British authorities. Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the company looks forward to the meeting to explain the steps it has already taken. Threats of violence and organizing acts of theft, vandalism and fraud violate the company's terms of service.

"In recent days, we have ensured any credible threats of violence are removed from Facebook and we have been pleased to see the very positive uses millions of people have been making of our service to let friends and family know they are safe and to strengthen their communities," he said.

Rachel Bremer, a Twitter spokeswoman based in London, said "we'd be happy to listen," but declined to comment further.

However, if the past is a guide, Twitter may resist attempts at censorship. When Twitter came under fire after its use by antigovernment protesters in the Middle East earlier this year, co-founder Biz Stone said the company's "position on freedom of expression carries with it a mandate to protect our users' right to speak freely."

Law enforcement should be expected to patrol social media to protect the public, "but what's not a good thing is the large-scale dragnet surveillance on people when they've never done anything wrong," said the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Rainey Reitman.

Worries of intrusions

For example, she said U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration documents showed the agency has examined "not only what you post, but who you're connected to."

And that raises concerns about law enforcement crossing the line by not respecting privacy and civil liberties, she said. She did note that the Department of Homeland Security in January issued a fairly thorough report assessing privacy impacts of social networking investigations. Still, she said, "they're vacuuming up all this data. The question as we go forward into an increasingly digital world is how well law enforcement is going to be respecting that line and how firmly the courts need to be defining that line."

E-mail Benny Evangelista at bevangelista@sfchronicle.com.

SF transit blocks cellphones to disrupt protest
YAHOO
By TERRY COLLINS - Associated Press
13 August 2011

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A decision by San Francisco Bay Area transit officials to cut off cell phone service at some of its stations to thwart a planned protest drew angry response Saturday from one transit board member who said she was shocked that officials acted as "this type of censor."

Bay Area Rapid Transit officials have said they shut down power Thursday evening to cellular towers for stations stretching from downtown to the San Francisco's airport after learning protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate its demonstration.

"I'm just shocked that they didn't think about the implications of this. We really don't have the right to be this type of censor," said Lynette Sweet, who serves on BART board. "In my opinion, we've let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that's not fair."

BART Deputy Police Chief Benson Fairow on Friday told KTVU-TV that the agency decided to turn off underground cell service because it received reports that a rowdy group that had protested in July had similar plans.

"It all boils down to the safety of the public," Fairow said. "It wasn't a decision made lightly. This wasn't about free speech. It was about safety."

To some, BART's tactic drew comparisons to those of former president of Egypt to squelch protests demanding an end to his authoritarian rule. Authorities there cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days earlier this year.

"BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on its website.

Michael Risher, the American Civil Liberty Union's Northern California staff attorney wrote in blog: "The government shouldn't be in the business of cutting off the free flow of information. Shutting down access to mobile phones is the wrong response to political protests, whether it's halfway around the world or right here in San Francisco."

The ACLU already has a scheduled meeting with BART Police Chief Kenton Rainey on Monday over other issues and Thursday's incident will added to the agenda, spokeswoman Rebecca Farmer said Saturday. Yet others said while the phone shut-down was worth examining, it may not have impinged on First Amendment rights. Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center, a nonprofit educational organization, said freedom of expression can be limited in very narrow circumstances if there is an immediate threat to public safety.

"An agency like BART has to be held to a very high standard," he said. "First of all, it has to be an immediate threat, not just the mere supposition that there might be one. And I think the response has to be what a court would consider reasonable, so it has to be the minimum amount of restraint on free expression."

He said if BART's actions are challenged, a court may look more favorably on what it did if expression was limited on a narrow basis for a specific area and time frame, instead of "just indiscriminately closing down cell phone service throughout the system or for a broad area."

BART officials were confident the cellphone disruptions were legal. It said in a statement that it's illegal to demonstrate on the platform or aboard the trains, and that it has set aside special areas for demonstrations.

"We had a commute that was safe and without disruption," BART spokesman Jim Allison said Friday.

The demonstrators were going to hold a second protest over the fatal shooting of Charles Blair Hill by BART police on July 3 at the Civic Center/UN Plaza station in San Francisco. Hill was shot in the torso by officers responding to reports of a "wobbly drunk" The officers claim Hill came at them with a knife. Several protesters were taken into custody after a demonstration on July 11 disrupted service during the rush-hour commute and prompted the closing of BART's Civic Center station.

BART has been battling image problems after a white officer fatally shot an unarmed black passenger on New Year's Day 2009 at an Oakland train station that led to violent protests.

SF transit blocks cellphones to hinder protest
YAHOO
By PAUL ELIAS - Associated Press
13 August 2011

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Transit officials blocked cellphone reception in San Francisco train stations for three hours to disrupt planned demonstrations over a police shooting.

Officials with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, better known as BART, said Friday that they turned off electricity to cellular towers in four stations from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. The move was made after BART learned that protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate a demonstration on train platforms.

The tactic drew comparisons to those used by the former president of Egypt to squelch protests demanding an end to his authoritarian rule. Authorities there cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days earlier this year.

"BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on its website.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the tactic, saying on its blog that it was the "wrong response to political protests."

BART officials were confident the cellphone disruptions were legal. They said in a statement that it's illegal to demonstrate on the platform or aboard the trains, and that it has set aside special areas for demonstrations.

The demonstration planned Thursday failed to develop. "We had a commute that was safe and without disruption," said BART spokesman Jim Allison.

The demonstrators were protesting the July 3 shooting of Charles Blair Hill by BART police, who claimed Hill came at them with a knife. Several people were arrested when a July 11 demonstration disrupted service during the rush-hour commute and prompted the closing of BART's Civic Center station.

Broadband Services Approach Advertised Speeds
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 2, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — New government data find that the nation's major broadband providers deliver Internet connections that are generally 80 percent to 90 percent of maximum advertised speeds.

The data were released Tuesday by the Federal Communications Commission. They show that the three most popular wired broadband technologies in the U.S. — DSL, cable modems and fiber-optic connections — all do a good job of delivering speeds promised to consumers, even during peak usage periods.

The findings are based on an FCC study of residential Internet service offered by 13 of the largest broadband providers in the U.S., including AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. The study measured Internet speeds delivered to thousands of subscribers in March.

The study didn't look into speeds provided by wireless services.

FCC chief stands by ‘net neutrality’ push
By David Eldridge, The Washington Times
2:15 p.m., Thursday, May 5, 2011

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Wednesday offered a strong defense of his agency's new Internet traffic regulations in the face of questioning from skeptical Republican lawmakers.

"In my view, while critically important, antitrust laws alone would not adequately preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet," the Obama-appointed FCC head told a House Judiciary subcommittee on the hot-button issue of "net neutrality."

The issue has led to sharp disputes between major users of the Web and telecommunications giants such as Comcast and Verizon, which operating the basic wiring underlying the global information network.

Led by Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, Virginia Republican, who is chairman of the subcommittee, GOP congressmen at the hearing questioned whether the new rules pushed through by Mr. Genachowski usurp congressional authority and federal antitrust laws.

But Mr. Genachowski said the new regulations, first announced late last year, are necessary.

The FCC, he said, needs to "provide enough certainty and confidence to drive investment in our innovation future. As we heard during our FCC proceeding, antitrust enforcement is expensive to pursue, takes a long time and kicks in only after damage is done."

Robert McDowell, one of the two Republicans on the commission who voted against the FCC's "Open Rules of the Road" for the Internet, disagreed again with the FCC chairman, telling Mr. Goodlatte that the regulations will stifle innovation in the tech sector of the American economy.

The net-neutrality rules will "disproportionately affect smaller companies who will have to bear the adjudication costs," he said.

Net neutrality, which President Obama campaigned on before the 2008 elections, is designed to prevent the telecommunications giants from using their gatekeeper status to impede the business of their competitors, from Web powers such as Google down to small startup Internet businesses.

Republicans have called the new regulations a power grab by federal bureaucrats and a "solution in search of a problem."

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

PLASTIC SOCIETY (L) V. (R) "MENDING WALL" - ROBERT FROST
100% quotation directly from Google/Wikipedia:
"Mending Wall" is a metaphorical poem written in blank verse, published in 1914, by Robert Frost (1874–1963). The poem appeared as the first selection in Frost's second collection of poetry, North of Boston. It is set in the countryside and is about one man questioning why he and his neighbor must rebuild the stone wall dividing their farms each spring. It is perhaps best known for its line spoken by the neighbor: "Good fences make good neighbors." The line is listed by the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as a mid 17th century proverb, which was given a boost in the American consciousness due to its prominence in the poem.

Planned wireless Internet network threatens GPS
YAHOO
By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer
6 April 2011

WASHINGTON – A new, ultra-fast wireless Internet network is threatening to overpower GPS signals across the U.S. and interfere with everything from airplanes to police cars to consumer navigation devices.

The problem stems from a recent government decision to let a Virginia company called LightSquared build a nationwide broadband network using airwaves next to those used for GPS. Manufacturers of GPS equipment warn that strong signals from the planned network could jam existing navigation systems.

A technical fix could be expensive — billions of dollars by one estimate — and there's no agreement on who should pay. Government officials pledge to block LightSquared from turning on its network as scheduled this year unless they receive assurances that GPS systems will still work.

The stakes are high not only for the GPS industry and its users, but also for those who would use LightSquared's network. In approving it, the Federal Communications Commission seeks to boost wireless competition and bring faster and cheaper Internet connections to all Americans — even in remote corners of the country.

LightSquared and the FCC both insist the new network can co-exist with GPS systems. But device makers fear GPS signals will suffer the way a radio station can get drowned out by a stronger broadcast in a nearby channel.

The problem, they say, is that sensitive satellite receivers — designed to pick up relatively weak signals coming from space — could be overwhelmed when LightSquared starts sending high-power signals from as many as 40,000 transmitters on the ground using the airwaves next door.

"The potential impact of GPS interference is so vast, it's hard to get your head around," said Jim Kirkland, vice president and general counsel of Trimble Navigation Ltd., which makes GPS systems. "Think 40,000 GPS dead spots covering millions of square miles in cities and towns throughout the U.S."

One of the biggest risks is to the GPS navigation systems used by about 40 percent of commercial and private planes. Backup systems that rely on ground-based radio signals are not as accurate and have coverage gaps. Some older private planes have no backup at all.

With GPS interference, a pilot "may go off course and not even realize it," said Chris Dancy, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

LightSquared's network could also undermine the Federal Aviation Administration's multi-billion-dollar program to upgrade the nation's air-traffic control system, which is based on World War II-era radar technology.

The new GPS-based system is more precise and lets planes fly more direct routes. That will save airlines time, money and fuel and cut pollution. It is also key to accommodating projected increases in airline traffic by enabling planes to fly safely closer together.

Public-safety officials, too, are nervous about LightSquared because they rely on GPS to track and dispatch police cars, fire trucks and ambulances. Many 911 systems also use GPS to help locate people. Disruptions could delay responses to emergencies, said Harlin McEwen, an official with the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Even the Pentagon has expressed concern as it relies on GPS to guide planes, ships, armored vehicles, weapons and troops.

LightSquared plans to compete nationally with super-fast, fourth-generation wireless services being rolled out by the likes of AT&T and Verizon Wireless. It won't sell directly to consumers, though. Instead, LightSquared will provide network access to companies including Leap Wireless, parent of the Cricket phone service, and Best Buy, which will rebrand the service under its own name.

LightSquared has its roots as a satellite-phone operator, so its airwaves historically have been reserved primarily for satellite communications. FCC rules adopted in 2003 allowed the company to back up those signals with ground-based wireless service, but only to fill in coverage gaps.

In January, however, the FCC gave LightSquared permission to use its airwaves for a broader, conventional wireless data network. Although the company will continue to offer satellite service, it plans to cover at least 92 percent of Americans by 2015 with high-power wireless signals transmitted by base stations on earth.

Until now, GPS receivers haven't had much trouble filtering out noise in the adjacent airwaves because it consisted mostly of low-power signals beamed from space. But GPS manufacturers warn that will change once there is a major ground-based broadband network. Both LightSquared and the FCC say further testing is needed to determine the true extent of any interference. The FCC is requiring LightSquared to participate in a study group with GPS manufacturers and users.

LightSquared won't be allowed to turn on its network until the government is satisfied that any problems are addressed, FCC spokesman Rob Kenny said.

"We have every reason to resolve these concerns because we want to make sure there is a robust GPS system," LightSquared executive vice president Jeffrey Carlisle said.

Dan Hays, a consultant with the firm PRTM, insists the technical solution is straightforward: GPS devices need to include better filters to screen out the LightSquared signals. Estimates on the costs of a fix, however, range widely. Hays believes it will cost no more than $12 million — or 30 cents per device — to install better filters in roughly 40 million standalone GPS units made worldwide each year. Cell phones, he said, will be fine because they don't rely solely on GPS to determine location and have better filters anyway.

But Tim Farrar, a consultant with TMF Associates, insists cellphones need upgrades, too — raising the annual cost to as much as $1 billion. Tens of billions of dollars of existing equipment may also need to be replaced, Farrar said. GPS manufacturers insist that neither they nor their customers should have to pay. That's because GPS receivers were designed to screen out low-power signals next door, and now the government is changing the rules, said Scott Burgett, software engineering manager with Garmin Ltd.

But Hays said GPS receivers are "eavesdropping on signals outside of where they are supposed to be" — in LightSquared's space. That was not a problem — until now. Moreover, LightSquared and the FCC say the GPS industry should have been preparing for a ground-based network nearby since the FCC first allowed backup wireless systems in that space in 2003.

The real dilemma, Hays said, is this: "This is a situation where the neighbor built the fence too far over the property line and may not have realized it at the time. Now the other neighbor wants to build a pool and there is not enough space. So the question is: who has to pay to move the fence?"

FCC adopts rules to drive wireless competition
YAHOO
By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology
7 April 2011

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators adopted rules Thursday to drive more competition in wireless broadband as more people access the Internet using iPhones and other popular mobile devices.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to require big wireless carriers to open their data networks to smaller regional operators in places where they don't have their own systems. The large carriers have to offer network access at reasonable prices, and the FCC would resolve any disputes.

The so-called "data roaming" rules are a response to consolidation in an industry dominated by two nationwide carriers, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless. And they come just weeks after AT&T, the nation's second-largest wireless company, announced plans to buy T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest, in a $39 billion cash-and-stock deal.

Existing voice roaming rules already allow regional competitors to use the big carriers' networks to handle phone calls outside their own service territories. That enables Leap Wireless, for instance, to offer nationwide calling service. It pays other carriers for access to their systems when customers make calls outside Leap's service area.

But smaller wireless providers say they need to be able to be able to do that with data, too, as subscribers increasingly use smartphones not just to make phone calls but to send pictures, watch online video and access bandwidth-hungry mobile applications.

"Consumers ... expect to use their mobile phones throughout the nation for voice calls or data — like email or mobile apps," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat.

Parul Desai, policy counsel for the consumer watchdog group Consumers Union, said the new rules should help lower prices by giving consumers more choices for nationwide data services.

Steven Berry, president and chief executive of the Rural Cellular Association, added that the rules should make it easier for rural carriers to grow by ensuring that they can get the nationwide data roaming agreements they need to attract customers and funding for their networks.

"In this day and age, consumer expectations are that their devices work anytime, anyplace, anywhere," Berry said. "What consumer would buy a phone that only works in one small regional area?"

The FCC's three Democrats voted to adopt the data-roaming rules over the opposition of the agency's two Republicans. Republican Robert McDowell said he believes the agency lacks the legal authority to impose such requirements on the wireless industry.

AT&T and Verizon warned that they will have less incentive to invest in their high-speed wireless networks if they have to share them with competitors at regulated rates. In a statement, Verizon said the rules represent "a new level of unwarranted government intervention."

But Sprint Nextel Corp., the nation's third largest wireless carrier, and Leap Wireless, parent of the smaller Cricket phone service, welcomed the rules.

Divided FCC adopts Internet traffic rules
YAHOO
By Jasmin Melvin
21 December 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. communications regulators adopted Internet traffic rules on Tuesday that prevent providers from blocking lawful content but still let them ration access to their networks.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the "Open Internet" order after FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's plan got the support of fellow Democrats Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn.

The rules aim to strike a balance between the interests of Internet service providers, content companies and consumers, but some industry analysts think a court challenge is still likely.

At issue is whether regulators need to guarantee that all stakeholders continue to have reasonable access to the Internet, a principle often called "net neutrality," or whether the Internet is best left to flourish unregulated.

The FCC's ability to regulate the Internet has been in doubt since an appeals court in April said the agency lacked the authority to stop cable company Comcast Corp from blocking bandwidth-hogging applications.

Senior FCC officials have said they will invoke new legal arguments not employed in the Comcast case.

The two Republican commissioners at the agency opposed the latest rule-making effort, saying it was unnecessary and would stifle innovation. Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker told an FCC open meeting that they believed the rules would fail in court.

High-speed Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon Communications can "reasonably" manage their networks under the rules and perhaps charge consumers based on levels of Internet usage.

The rules, to be somewhat looser for wireless Internet, could help cable companies in competition with plans by Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and Amazon.com to deliver competing video content over the same Internet lines the cable companies run to customers' homes.

Adoption of the measure had been expected after Copps and Clyburn had issued statements on Monday saying they would support the proposal despite some misgivings.

But McDowell warned on Tuesday that the FCC was defying the court and also circumventing the will of Congress. Republicans will be in control of the U.S. House of Representatives come January and made gains against Democrats in the Senate in November's elections.

"Litigation will supplant innovation. Instead of investing in tomorrow's technologies, precious capital will be diverted to pay lawyers' fees," McDowell warned.

Genachowski, speaking last at the meeting, said the Internet currently was unprotected and invoked the names of his Republican predecessors to back adoption of the rules.

"The rules of the road we adopt today are rooted in ideas first articulated by Republican Chairmen Michael Powell and Kevin Martin, and endorsed in a unanimous FCC policy statement in 2005," said Genachowski.

Internet rules to get go ahead by US regulators
By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
21 December 2010 Last updated at 05:34 ET

Controversial new rules affecting the running of the internet are expected to be approved by US regulators today.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote on a principle known as net neutrality; a tenet that ensures all web traffic is treated equally.

The rules have been criticised for setting different standards for fixed line broadband and mobile operators.

Officials said the regulations are "the first time the Commission has adopted enforceable rules" to govern the web.

Tuesday's vote is the culmination of five years of fighting over how best to ensure the free flow of information in all its forms over the internet.

The proposal also comes at a time when consumers are increasingly accessing the web via smart phones and turning to the internet to watch TV shows.

'Rules of the road'

The Commission's ability to regulate the internet was thrown into doubt following an appeals court decision earlier this year that said the agency lacked the authority to stop cable firm ComCast from blocking bandwidth-hogging applications.

The FCC's agenda said the vote will address "basic rules of the road to preserve the open internet as a platform for innovation, investment, competition and free expression".

That is a view backed by chairman Julius Genachowski.

"We're adopting a framework that will increase certainty for businesses, investors and entrepreneurs," Mr Genachowski said in remarks prepared for the meeting.

"We're taking an approach that will help foster a cycle of massive investment, innovation and consumer demand both at the edge and in the core of our broadband networks."

The five member Commission is expected to vote 3-2 along party lines.

Michael Copps, a Democrat, said in a written statement that he will not block the plan after weeks of what senior FCC officials called "robust engagement" with the Commission to toughen the rules.

"The item we will vote on is not the one I would have crafted but I believe we have been able to make the current iteration better than what was originally circulated," said Mr Copps.

"If vigilantly and vigorously implemented by the commission, it could represent an important milestone in the ongoing struggle to safeguard the awesome opportunity-creating power of the open internet."

Fellow Democrat Mignon Clyburn is also expected to concur on the rules, whilst Mr Genachowski's vote is expected to push it through. Republicans Meredith Baker and Robert McDowell are expected to vote against the order.

The regulations are expected to be challenged in court.

'Squandered'

A number of interested parties including internet providers, developers and companies like Google have said the rules will provide some regulatory certainty going forward. Many have acknowledged that the proposal could have been much worse.

The new regulations would prohibit telecommunications companies that provide high-speed internet service from blocking access by customers to any legal content, applications or service.

But, for the first time, there will be a policy that will allow for what has been termed "paid-prioritisation", where companies will be able to pay for a faster service.

The FCC proposal would also place tougher restrictions on wired services from cable and phone companies than on wireless carriers, which have more limited bandwidth.

It comes at a time when an increasing number of people are using smart phones or tablet devices to access the web or watch TV shows.

The rules would allow mobile firms to block access to sites or applications that specifically compete with a carrier's voice or video services.

Supporters of net neutrality feel the new regulations should have gone further and have slammed them as "fake net neutrality".

"I think today is a tremendously important day in the fight to preserve a free and open internet," Aparna Sridhar of advocacy group the Free Press, told BBC News.

"Chairman Genachowski has completely squandered a golden opportunity to make this vote meaningful. Until now we have had a certain amount of regulatory uncertainty and the carriers have had an incentive to stay on their best behaviour.

"This rule will endorse bad practices in the wireless space and I think we will see the flood gates open from the blocking of applications to the slowing down of competitors' apps to monetising every application that seeks to travel over their network," added Ms Sridhar.

In an opinion piece for the Huffington Post, Al Franken, US Senator for Minnesota, called the FCC vote "the most important free speech issue of our time" and the draft order the FCC will vote on a "badly flawed proposal".

New Radio Copps?
The FCC commissioner supports troubling new regulations on the airwaves.
National Review
December 16, 2010 4:00 A.M.

‘What we have had in recent years is an aberration in which we’ve had no oversight of media.” So says FCC commissioner Michael Copps, who is now advocating the institution of a quadrennial “public-value test” for broadcasters. If he gets his way, stations across the country could be put on probation, and subsequently denied FCC licensing, for failure to meet a broad set of criteria involving local coverage, percentage of resources devoted to news, and several kinds of disclosure.

Speaking to Betty Kays of the BBC’s World News America, Copps, a Democrat, explained his reasoning. Journalism is, he said, in its hour of “grave peril.” The “American media has a bad case of substance abuse.#…#We are not producing the body of news and information that democracy needs to conduct its civic dialog.#…#We’re going to be pretty close to denying our citizens the essential news and information that they need to have in order to make intelligent decisions,” he added.

This has raised speculation on the right that Copps hopes to effect that perennial leftist dream — the revivification of the Fairness Doctrine, which from 1928 until 1987 allowed government regulators to carefully police radio stations to ensure equal allocation of time to opposing political viewpoints, and whose destruction during the Reagan years permitted the emergence of talk radio as we now know it.

Copps denies an intention to revive the Fairness Doctrine, but the end of that policy was part of the “aberration” — the communications deregulation — he referred to. When pressed on the specifics of what he would like to implement, Copps, a former history professor and decades-long civil servant, denies that his plans raise the “specter of overt government control” of acceptable opinions. “It’s not that kind of value,” he told the BBC regarding the public-value test. “What we’re talking about is, are you producing news, are you putting more resources into news and information? We’re such a diverse country now#…#[and] so many stations are owned by absentee owners hundreds or thousands of miles away.#…#So this is a minimal assertion of the public interest.”

In a speech to the Columbia Journalism School on December 2, Copps clarified. First he asserted the FCC’s right to demand more of broadcasters by saying that they have “free use of airwaves that belong exclusively to the people,” and therefore can be expected to use them in the “public interest.” (Critics contest even this fundamental point by highlighting a Catch-22: The FCC artificially limits the spectrum usable for radio broadcasting, and then uses the “scarcity” of frequencies as the basis for arrogating to itself the power of regulating their use on behalf of the public.)

Copps proceeded from that premise to list the goals he considers instrumental to adequately protecting the public interest, which he would like to see the FCC move toward quickly: “meaningful commitments to news and public-affairs programming”(measured by man-hours and money devoted to news); “enhanced disclosure” (requiring stations to make their program content easily available online so that citizens can decide whether they are worthy of public support); “political-advertising disclosure” (both of campaign material and the political interests that might be behind other advertisements); “reflecting diversity” (increasing minority employment and guarding against stereotyping of minorities); “community discovery”(requiring programmers to interact with and investigate their areas); “local and independent programming” (devolving the control and focus of stations to better reflect local concerns); and “public safety.” Copps concluded the 4,000-word speech by saying, “These few criteria for a public-value test are neither excessive nor onerous.”

On December 6, Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas) shot back in a public letter to the commissioner. “I do not believe the subjective opinions of five unelected officials,” he wrote, “should hold sway over the content broadcasters air of the licenses they hold to air it.” He demanded to know if Copps believed “the FCC should reinstate the Fairness Doctrine,” and asked, somewhat rhetorically, if “five commissioners can do a better job of ensuring American have access to a wide diversity of content and viewpoints than Americans can themselves by expressing their preference through their viewing and listening choices in the vigorously competitive marketplace.”

On December 10, commissioner Copps replied. “The Fairness Doctrine is long gone and it’s not coming back,” he reiterated. Copps even turned Congressman Barton’s rhetoric about diversity of viewpoints around by saying the proposed “public-value test” would serve exactly that end — by preventing massive centralization of media around a few powerful centers via, for example, the local-coverage requirements.

A spokesman for the FCC clarifies that the FCC has not yet taken any action to assert more control over the airwaves. Copps’s ideas are, at this point, just his recommendations, which he is advancing in public fora, rather than through his official powers. But he’s been explicit about his desire to eventually implement the above goals, and unshaken by the sharp questioning and criticism he’s received. In order to move forward, Copps will require three votes (his own included) from the five FCC commissioners. At that point, the policy will apply to the public airwaves (but, of course, will not touch cable news, etc.).

The FCC spokesman believes that Copps has received unfair criticism. He insists that Copps’s proposals are not comparable to the Fairness Doctrine — Copps intends only to police the relative allocation of time and financial resources to different kinds of coverage, not to police the views expressed in the opinion portion of programming.

The FCC is right to point out that — some hyperbolic rhetoric aside — no reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, massive crackdown on talk radio, or institution of state-run media is imminent. But they’re wrong to be dismissive of critics’ concerns. It’s unclear whether political-opinion shows count as “news” programming, and the proposed increase in local news would necessarily cut into the time that stations can allot to national opinion shows such as Rush Limbaugh’s and Alan Colmes’s. The boundary separating news from opinion is contested and philosophically fraught — to demand more of what unelected administrators consider to be news at the expense of what they consider to be opinion can itself be a way of advancing some opinions over others. The nature of the “public interest,” which Copps takes it upon himself to advance, is itself contested. It is elitist presumption for highly placed bureaucrats to push citizens and journalists away from talk-radio-style opinion, and toward the approved “public interest” programming, when the nature of the public interest is the very thing citizens are supposed to democratically debate, in the media and elsewhere, and decide.

In the abstract, Copps’s ostensible goals aren’t purely objectionable (local news may well be more useful to the average citizen than more from the Washington circus, for example). But in practice, Copps’s recommendations — however well intended — necessarily entail expanding the power of bureaucrats to monitor media content, power which can then be used for objectionable and politicized goals. It’s not just talk-radio-loving conservatives who should be worried, either. Richard Nixon used the Fairness Doctrine against his enemies list during his presidency, for example — every political faction can be tempted to abuse regulatory power. It’s not difficult to imagine ways in which requirements that radio have more news time, more local coverage, and less opinion, could be used to muffle critics of any administration.

There is a long and ignoble tradition, dating back to Plato’s Phaedrus, of fear of chaos introduced by new media (Plato’s dialecticians were worried that writing would disastrously impoverish Greek oral traditions and learning). In the light of history, Commissioner Copps’s concerns about uncontrolled airwaves may seem as silly and elitist as medieval scholastics’ objections to the printing press, or as clearly politicized as earlier not-so-subtle attempts to crack down on talk radio.

It is disappointing that such a prominent official of a government founded on free speech considers the past decades of media deregulation — which significantly increased the range of options available to consumers of news — a lamentable “aberration.”

Feds propose shifting airwaves to broadband
YAHOO
By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer
15 November 2010

WASHINGTON – Federal officials looking for more airwaves to deliver wireless broadband services are recommending that the government reallocate a sizeable chunk of radio spectrum currently used for weather satellites and naval radar systems.

The proposal is intended to keep up with ballooning demand for iPhones, laptops and other mobile devices that connect to the Internet. The recommendation is outlined in a report released Monday by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

In June, Obama administration committed the federal government to making available an additional 500 megahertz of airwaves for wireless broadband over the next 10 years. The new proposal would free up 115 megahertz of spectrum over the next five years. Lawrence Strickling, head of the NTIA, calls it a "significant down payment towards realizing that goal."

U.S. Pushes to Ease Technical Obstacles to Wiretapping
NYTIMES
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
October 18, 2010

WASHINGTON — Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say.

The officials say tougher legislation is needed because some telecommunications companies in recent years have begun new services and made system upgrades that caused technical problems for surveillance. They want to increase legal incentives and penalties aimed at pushing carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to ensure that any network changes will not disrupt their ability to conduct wiretaps.

An Obama administration task force that includes officials from the Justice and Commerce Departments, theF.B.I.and other agencies recently began working on draft legislation to strengthen and expand a 1994 law requiring carriers to make sure their systems can be wiretapped. There is not yet agreement over the details, according to officials familiar with the deliberations, but they said the administration intends to submit a package to Congress next year.

Albert Gidari Jr., a lawyer who represents telecommunications firms, said corporations were likely to object to increased government intervention in the design or launch of services. Such a change, he said, could have major repercussions for industry innovation, costs and competitiveness.

“The government’s answer is ‘don’t deploy the new services — wait until the government catches up,’ ” Mr. Gidari said. “But that’s not how it works. Too many services develop too quickly, and there are just too many players in this now.”

To bolster their case that telecom companies should face greater pressure to stay compliant, security agencies are citing two previously undisclosed episodes in which investigators were stymied from carrying out court-approved surveillance for weeks or even months because of technical problems with two major carriers.

The disclosure that the administration is seeking ways to increase the government’s leverage over carriers already subject to the 1994 law comes less than a month after The New York Times reported on a related part of the effort: a plan to bring Internet companies that enable communications — like Gmail, Facebook, Blackberry and Skype — under the law’s mandates for the first time, a demand that would require major changes to some services’ technical designs and business models.

The push to expand and the 1994 law is the latest example of a dilemma over how to balance Internet freedom with security needs in an era of rapidly evolving — and globalized — technology. The issue has added importance because the surveillance technologies developed by the United States to hunt for terrorists and drug traffickers can be also used by repressive regimes to hunt for political dissidents. An F.B.I. spokesman said the bureau would not comment about the telecom proposal, citing the sensitivity of internal deliberations. But last month, in response to questions about the Internet communications services proposal, Valerie E. Caproni, the F.B.I.’s general counsel, emphasized that the government was seeking only to prevent its surveillance power from eroding.

Starting in late 2008 and lasting into 2009, another law enforcement official said, a “major” communications carrier was unable to carry out more than 100 court wiretap orders. The initial interruptions lasted eight months, the official said, and a second lapse lasted nine days. This year, another major carrier experienced interruptions ranging from nine days to six weeks and was unable to comply with 14 wiretap orders. Its interception system “works sporadically and typically fails when the carrier makes any upgrade to its network,” the official said.

In both cases, the F.B.I. sent engineers to help the companies fix the problems. The bureau spends about $20 million a year on such efforts.

The official declined to name the companies, saying it would be unwise to advertise which networks have problems or to risk damaging the cooperative relationships the government has with them. For similar reasons, the government has not sought to penalize carriers over wiretapping problems. Under current law, if a carrier meets the industry-set standard for compliance — providing the content of a call or e-mail, along with identifying information like its recipient, time and location — it achieves “safe harbor” and cannot be fined. If the company fails to meet the standard, it can be fined by a judge or the Federal Communication Commission.

But in practice, law enforcement officials say, neither option is ever invoked. When problems come to light, officials are reluctant to make formal complaints against companies because their overriding goal is to work with their technicians to fix the problem. That dynamic can create an incentive to let problems linger: Once a carrier’s interception capability is restored — even if it was fixed at taxpayer expense — its service is compliant again with the 1994 law, so the issue is moot.

The F.C.C. also moves slowly, officials complain, in handling disputes over the “safe harbor” standard. For example, in 2007 the F.B.I. asked for more than a dozen changes, like adding a mandate to turn over additional details about cellphone locations. The F.C.C. has still not acted on that petition. Civil liberties groups contend that the agency has been far too willing on other occasions to expand the reach of the 1994 law.

“We think that the F.C.C. has already conceded too much to the bureau,” said Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “The F.B.I.’s ability to have such broad reach over technical standard-setting was never anticipated in the 1994 act.”

The Obama administration is circulating several ideas for legislation that would increase the government’s leverage over carriers, officials familiar with the deliberations say. One proposal is to increase the likelihood that a firm pays a financial penalty over wiretapping lapses — like imposing retroactive fines after problems are fixed, or billing companies for the cost of government technicians that were brought in to help.

Another proposal would create an incentive for companies to show new systems to the F.B.I. before deployment. Under the plan, an agreement with the bureau certifying that the system is acceptable would be an alternative “safe harbor,” ensuring the firm could not be fined.

The proposal may also modify how the “safe harbor” standard is established. Five years ago, the F.B.I. drafted legislation that would have given the Justice Department greater power over the standard while requiring the F.C.C. to act more quickly on petitions. That bill, however, was not ultimately filed.

Starbucks: Free Wi-Fi at 6,700 US sites
YAHOO
By ASHLEY M. HEHER, AP Retail Writer
14 June 2010

CHICAGO – Starbucks Corp. will begin offering unlimited free Wi-Fi at all of its company-operated U.S. locations next month, part of an ongoing effort to bring more customers in the door.

The free wireless Internet will be available July 1 at about 6,700 locations.

The coffee house, which recorded its first quarterly increase in customers in 13 quarters earlier this year, had previously offered two free hours of Web access each day to registered customers.

After that, consumers at the Seattle chain were charged a small fee.

Access will continue to be offered through AT&T. But it won't require a Starbucks loyalty card, according to the announcement Monday by CEO Howard Schultz, who spoke at a conference in New York.

The move comes six months after Starbucks' competitor McDonald's Corp. began offering free Wi-Fi at 11,500 U.S. locations.

The two companies have sparred in recent years at McDonald's revamped its coffee and rolled out a successful McCafe line offering everything from drip coffee and lattes to cappuccinos to icy coffee drinks.

Along the way, Starbucks struggled as it was hit by the recession and overwhelmed by its own rapid expansion.

As business soured, it brought back Schultz, who helped build the company, to lead the day-to-day operations. And it shut hundreds of locations and laid off thousands of workers to scale back its spending.

Also Monday, Starbucks said customers will get free access to certain online content through its Wi-Fi this fall. Called the Starbucks Digital Network, the program will give Starbucks Web surfers free access to paid sites like the Wall Street Journal, along with exclusive content and free downloads from other organizations such as Apple Inc.'s iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA TODAY, Yahoo and Zagat.

Starbucks shares climbed 34 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $27.49 in midday trading Monday.

AT&T caps phone data usage with new wireless plans
YAHOO
By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
2 June 2010

NEW YORK – In time for the widely expected launch of a new iPhone model, carrier AT&T Inc. is pulling in the reins on data usage by its customers with smart phones and iPads.

The sole U.S. carrier of the iPhone is introducing two new data plans, starting June 7, with limits on data consumption. They'll replace the $30 monthly plan with unlimited usage that it has required for all smart phones, including the iPhone.

With the change, AT&T is adopting a carrot-and-stick approach to assuage the data congestion on its network, which has been a source of complaints, especially in cities such as New York and San Francisco that are thick with iPhone users. The new plans will take effect just as Apple is expected to unveil the next generation of its iPhone at an event Monday in San Francisco.

Subscribers who use little data or learn to limit their consumption will pay slightly less every month than they do now, while heavy users will be dinged with extra consumption fees.

One new plan will cost $25 per month and offer 2 gigabytes of data per month, which AT&T says will be enough for 98 percent of its smart phone customers. Additional gigabytes will cost $10 each.

A second plan will cost $15 per month for 200 megabytes of data, which AT&T says is enough for 65 percent of its smart phone customers. If they go over, they'll pay another $15 for 200 megabytes.

With that plan and voice service, a smart phone could cost as little as $55 per month before taxes and add-on fees, down from $70 per month. Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T's consumer business, said that means smart phones can become accessible to more people.

"Customers are getting a good deal, and if they can understand their usage, they can save some money," de la Vega said in an interview.

Current AT&T subscribers will be allowed to keep the unlimited plan, even if they renew their contracts. But all new subscribers will have to choose one of the two new plans.

Figuring out which one to choose may not be easy, given that many people have only a hazy notion of the size of a gigabyte and how many they use now. A gigabyte is enough for hundreds of e-mails and Web pages, but it's quickly eaten up by Internet video and videoconferencing.

De la Vega said AT&T is doing its part to educate consumers, by letting them track their usage online. The iPhone contains a data usage tracking tool. The carrier will also text-message subscribers to let them know they're getting close to their limits.

Data usage over Wi-Fi, including AT&T's public Wi-Fi hot spots, will not count toward the limits.

The new $25-per-month plan will replace the current $30 plan with unlimited usage that is available for the iPad, the tablet computer Apple Inc. released just a few months ago, though iPad owners can keep the old plan as long as they keep paying $30 per month, AT&T said.

Paradoxically, the data caps arrive at time when carriers have started to lift the limits on other forms of wireless use, by selling plans with unlimited calling and unlimited text messaging. That's not a big gamble, because not many people have the time to talk phone for eight hours a day or spend every waking minute sending text messages. But smart phones can draw a lot of data, depending one where and how they're used. With the new plans, de la Vega hopes to see high-consumption applications like Internet video being steered toward hot spots, where they don't clog up AT&T's cellular network.

Consumers have rebelled against the idea of data usage caps on home broadband, at least when the limits are set low enough to make online video consumption expensive. Time Warner Cable Inc. was forced to back away from trials of data caps last year after consumer protests and threats of legislative action.

In the wireless world, where data capacity is more constrained, usage caps are more common. Most wireless carriers, for instance, limit data cards for laptops to 5 gigabytes per month.

But with intense competition for smart phone users, phone companies have been reluctant to impose similar limits on those devices, although Sprint Nextel Corp. reserves the right to slow down or disconnect users who exceed 5 gigabytes per month. It remains to be seen whether AT&T's rivals will join it in imposing caps or use their own "unlimited" plans as a marketing advantage.

FCC's neutral net plan tough balancing act
DAY editorial
Article published May 10, 2010

Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to be making a good-faith effort to strike a balance between providing enough regulation to maintain the creative vitality of the Internet, without acting so heavy-handedly that he damages, rather than enhances, its entrepreneurial potential.

It's a big challenge, but Mr. Genachowski recognizes a problem that needs addressing.

His plan is to adopt "net neutrality" rules, assuring that Internet providers such as Comcast and AT&T allow data to travel to subscribers' computers without interference. Internet companies, like Google and eBay, need unencumbered access if they are to expand high-bandwidth services such as video and games, necessary to grow and compete.

The danger in the absence of regulation is that Internet providers could choke off access, slow some broadband traffic and play favorites, ultimately reducing consumer choice and dynamic competition.

This potential problem became more than a hypothetical in April when an appeals court ruled that the FCC had overstepped its bounds in sanctioning Comcast Corp. for intentionally slowing some broadband traffic in 2008. By enhancing existing FCC regulations with new specific rule making, Mr. Genachowski wants to provide "a solid legal foundation" for enforcing net neutrality "in the most effective and least intrusive way."

But this will not be an easy balancing act. Internet providers warn that strict net neutrality rules would interfere with their ability to innovate in a constantly evolving field. And while Mr. Genachowski says he will not require service providers to share their lines with rivals at government-regulated rates, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sort out rivals on the Wild West Web.

More challenging, Mr. Genachowski will be using FCC regulations adopted during the early stages of the Internet that prevent service discrimination, protect privacy, require reasonable rates and provide a complaint process. While far from ideal, it is preferable to having Congress rewriting rules, which would invite a high-level lobbying slugfest between Internet services and providers seeking to twist rules to their favor.

The exact outline of how this will work awaits completion of a rule-making process that will include several months of public comment. The goal, net neutrality, is a good one. It's not going to be easy.

Editorial: The F.C.C. and the Internet

April 19, 2010

With the Internet fast becoming the most important communications channel, it is untenable for the United States not to have a regulator to ensure nondiscriminatory access, guarantee interconnectivity among rival networks and protect consumers from potential abuse.

Yet that’s exactly where the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit left us all when it said this month that the Federal Communications Commission didn’t have the authority to regulate the Internet — and specifically, could not force the cable giant Comcast to stop blocking peer-to-peer sites.

The decision, in the words of the F.C.C.’s general counsel, Austin Schlick, undermines the agency’s ability to serve as “the cop on the beat for 21st-century communications networks.” It also puts at risk big chunks of the F.C.C.’s strategy for increasing the reach of broadband Internet to all corners of the country and fostering more competition among providers.

Chairman Julius Genachowski said the commission is not planning to appeal the decision, and is studying its options. The F.C.C. could try to forge ahead with its broadband plan despite the court’s decision. Or Congress could give the F.C.C. specific authority to regulate broadband access.

But the court tightly circumscribed the F.C.C.’s actions. And with Republicans determined to oppose pretty much anything the administration wants, the odds of a rational debate on the issues are slim.

Fortunately, the commission has the tools to fix this problem. It can reverse the Bush administration’s predictably antiregulatory decision to define broadband Internet access as an information service, like Google or Amazon, over which it has little regulatory power. Instead, it can define broadband as a communications service, like a phone company, over which the commission has indisputable authority.

The F.C.C. at the time argued that a light regulatory touch would foster alternative technologies and aggressive competition among providers. It assumed that the Internet of the future would be dominated by companies like AOL that bundle access with other services, justifying its conflation of access and information. And it claimed that it could still regulate broadband access even if it was classified as a service. All it had to do was convince the courts that it was necessary to further other statutory goals, like promoting the roll-out of competitive Internet services. This legal argument did not hold up.

Any move now by the F.C.C to redefine broadband would surely unleash a torrent of lawsuits by broadband providers, but the commission has solid legal grounds to do that. To begin with, the three arguments advanced by the F.C.C. during the Bush years have proved wrong.

Rather than seeing an explosion of new competition, the broadband access business has consolidated to the point that many areas of the country have only one provider. Broadband Internet has unbundled into a business with many unrelated information service providers vying for space on the pipelines of a few providers.

And most persuasively: broadband access is probably the most important communication service of our time. One that needs a robust regulator.

FCC loses key ruling on Internet `neutrality'
YAHOO
By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer
April 8, 2010

WASHINGTON – A federal court threw the future of Internet regulations and U.S. broadband expansion plans into doubt Tuesday with a far-reaching decision that went against the Federal Communications Commission.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC's authority to impose such "Net neutrality" obligations on broadband providers.

The ruling marks a serious setback for the FCC, which is trying to adopt official Net neutrality regulations. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, argues that such rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over Internet access to favor some online content and services over others.

The decision also has serious implications for the massive national broadband plan released by the FCC last month. The FCC needs clear authority to regulate broadband in order to push ahead with some its key recommendations, including a proposal to expand broadband by tapping the federal fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities.

In a statement, the FCC said it remains "firmly committed to promoting an open Internet and to policies that will bring the enormous benefits of broadband to all Americans" and "will rest these policies ... on a solid legal foundation."

Comcast had no immediate comment.

The court case centered on Comcast's challenge of a 2008 FCC order banning the company from blocking its broadband subscribers from using an online file-sharing technology known as BitTorrent. The commission, at the time headed by Republican Kevin Martin, based its order on a set of Net neutrality principles it adopted in 2005 to prevent broadband providers from becoming online gatekeepers. Those principles have guided the FCC's enforcement of communications laws on a case-by-case basis.

But Comcast argued that the FCC order was illegal because the agency was seeking to enforce mere policy principles, which don't have the force of regulations or law. That is one reason that Genachowski is now trying to formalize those rules.

The cable company had also argued that the FCC lacks authority to mandate Net neutrality because it had deregulated broadband under the Bush administration, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005.

The FCC now defines broadband as a lightly regulated information service. That means it is not subject to the obligations traditional telecommunications services have to share their networks with competitors and treat all traffic equally. But the agency argues that existing law gives it authority to set rules for information services, including Net neutrality rules.

Tuesday's court decision rejected that reasoning, concluding that Congress has not given the FCC "untrammeled freedom" to regulate services without explicit legal authority.

With so much at stake, the FCC now has several options. It could ask Congress to give it explicit authority to regulate broadband. Or it could appeal Tuesday's decision to the Supreme Court.

But both of those steps could take too long because the agency "has too many important things they have to do right away," said Ben Scott, policy director for the public interest group Free Press. Free Press was among the groups that alerted the FCC to Comcast's behavior after The Associated Press ran tests and reported that the cable company was interfering with attempts by some subscribers to share files online.

The more likely scenario, Scott believes, is that the agency will simply reclassify broadband as a more heavily regulated telecommunications service. And that, ironically, could be the worst-case outcome from the perspective of the phone and cable companies, he noted.

"Comcast swung an ax at the FCC to protest the BitTorrent order," Scott said. "And they sliced right through the FCC's arm and plunged the ax into their own back."

The battle over the FCC's legal jurisdiction comes amid a larger policy dispute over the merits of Net neutrality. Backed by Internet companies such as Google Inc. and the online calling service Skype, the FCC says rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from prioritizing some traffic or degrading or blocking cheaper Internet calling services or online video sites that compete with their core businesses. Indeed, BitTorrent can be used to transfer large files such as online video, which could threaten Comcast's cable TV business.

But broadband providers such as Comcast, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. argue that after spending billions of dollars on their networks, they should be able to manage their systems to offer premium services and prevent high-bandwidth applications such as BitTorrent from hogging capacity and slowing the network for everyone else.

For its part, the FCC offered no details on its next step other than to stress that it remains committed to the principle of Net neutrality.

"Today's court decision invalidated the prior commission's approach to preserving an open Internet," the agency's statement said. "But the court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet; nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end."

Page last updated at 09:36 GMT, Tuesday, 16 March 2010

US plans to give high-speed broadband to every American

By Maggie Shiels, Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Pressure groups see broadband investment as vital to the US economy

US regulators have unveiled the nation's first plan to give every American super-fast broadband by 2020.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which will now submit the plan to Congress, said broadband was the "greatest infrastructure challenge".

It estimates that one-third of Americans, about 100 million people, are without broadband at home.

The FCC's goal is to provide speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps), compared to an average 4Mbps now.

"Broadband for every American is not too ambitious a plan and it is absolutely necessary," former FCC chairman Reed Hundt told BBC News.

"The consequences of not succeeding are heartbreaking. Every nation needs a common medium to gather around and to have the internet as a common medium where a third are left out is unacceptable."

'Silver bullet'

In an executive summary released ahead of the presentation to Congress on 16 March, the FCC said: "Broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life.

WHAT GOVERNMENT WILL DO

Connect 100 million homes to super-fast broadband with speeds up to 100 megabits per second

Allocate spectrum to allow network updates for wireless broadband

Increase adoption rates to 90% and make sure every child is digitally literate before they leave school

Encourage greater competition among providers to make prices cheaper and deals easier to understand

Use digital switch-over fund to bring cheap broadband to rural areas

Provide one gigabit broadband to schools, hospitals and military installations

"It is changing how we educate children, deliver healthcare, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organise and disseminate knowledge".

For industry analyst Erik Sherman of business and news site BNet.com, all the talk "sounds like an overstatement".

"The plan cannot be a silver bullet for all these issues and problems which exist for a number of different reasons and not just because of a lack of broadband.

"The plan is very big in scope and if you look at the rationale, the FCC is basically saying we need more money for more internet. I am not saying we don't need a broadband plan but we have to be realistic about what it can and cannot do," Mr Sherman told BBC News.

'Fairy wings and wishes'

Months of hype and speculation has preceded the presentation of the country's first comprehensive broadband roadmap. The FCC has also held a series of briefings previewing its goals.

"It's an action plan, and action is necessary to meet the challenges of global competitiveness, and harness the power of broadband to help address so many vital national issues," said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

Wide differences in broadband access are revealed by statistics

The executive summary revealed that access to high-speed internet services had grown dramatically from eight million Americans 20 years ago to nearly 200 million today.

Estimates to implement the plan have been put at $350bn (£233bn). How that bill will be split between private investment and tax dollars is not known.

"Who pays and how much is the big fight ahead," said technology industry analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group.

"The devil is in the detail and right now it's all fairy wings and wishes. The Republicans are going to fight anything that is excessively expensive while the Democrats have to be wary of looking like they are cutting cheques at a time when the government is for the most part broke."

The FCC will auction off some 500 megahertz of spectrum to pay for some of the expense. More than $7bn will come from President Obama's 2009 stimulus package, which targeted broadband-related initiatives.

'Digital exclusion'

For years the technology industry has pushed for the US government to create a national broadband plan.

Ahead of today's meeting with Congress, a number of hi-tech companies wrote to Mr Genachowski to praise the plan.

"Broadband is critical to America's long-term economic and social well-being. As society increasingly moves online, the costs of digital exclusion grow as well," said the signatories of the letter, which included Cisco, Sony, Salesforce, Microsoft, Facebook and Intel.

One possible battleground is expected to be over the sale of spectrum that is mostly in the hands of television broadcasters.

Mobile carriers like AT&T and Verizon have said they will need more spectrum in future to provide superfast reliable internet connections to every customer.

"The problem is most of the spectrum is occupied by somebody else. They are going to want a lot of money for this," said Adam Thierer, president of the free-market leaning Progress & Freedom Foundation.

F.C.C. Plan to Widen Internet Access in U.S. Sets Up Battle
NYTIMES
By BRIAN STELTER and JENNA WORTHAM
March 12, 2010

The Federal Communications Commission is proposing an ambitious 10-year plan that will reimagine the nation’s media and technology priorities by establishing high-speed Internet as the country’s dominant communication network.

The plan, which will be submitted to Congress on Tuesday, is likely to generate debate in Washington and a lobbying battle among the telecommunication giants, which over time may face new competition for customers. Already, the broadcast television industry is resisting a proposal to give back spectrum the government wants to use for future mobile service.

The blueprint reflects the government’s view that broadband Internet is becoming the common medium of the United States, gradually displacing the telephone and broadcast television industries. It also signals a shift at the F.C.C., which under the administration of President George W. Bush gained more attention for policing indecency on the television airwaves than for promoting Internet access.

According to F.C.C. officials briefed on the plan, the commission’s recommendations will include a subsidy for Internet providers to wire rural parts of the country now without access, a controversial auction of some broadcast spectrum to free up space for wireless devices, and the development of a new universal set-top box that connects to the Internet and cable service.

The effort will influence billions of dollars in federal spending, although the F.C.C. will argue that the plan should pay for itself through the spectrum auctions. Some recommendations will require Congressional action and industry support, and will affect users only years from now.

Still, “each bullet point will trigger its own tortuous battle,” said Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

For much of the last year, Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman and the plan’s chief salesman, has laid the groundwork for the Congressionally mandated plan by asserting that the United States is lagging far behind other countries in broadband adoption and speed. About a third of Americans have no access to high-speed Internet service, cannot afford it or choose not to have it.

In a speech last month, Mr. Genachowski observed that the country could build state-of-the-art computers and applications, but without equivalent broadband wiring, “it would be like having the technology for great electric cars, but terrible roads.”

The plan envisions a fully Web-connected world with split-second access to health care information and online classrooms, delivered through wireless devices yet to be dreamed up in Silicon Valley. But to get there, analysts say the F.C.C. must tread carefully with companies like Comcast and AT&T that largely control Internet pricing and speeds. Already, there are questions about the extent to which the F.C.C. has jurisdiction over Internet providers.

The F.C.C. says it can make some important changes on its own. They include reforms to the Universal Service Fund, which spends $8 billion a year from telephone surcharges to ensure that rural and poor people have phone lines at home. It also supplies Internet access to schools, libraries and rural clinics.

By reducing the phone subsidies over time, the fund could instead “support broadband access and affordability,” especially in remote locations where private companies have little incentive to build networks, said Colin Crowell, a senior counselor to Mr. Genachowski.

In recent weeks, the most-talked-about idea in the television industry has been a voluntary auction of over-the-air spectrum for future mobile broadband uses. In total, the F.C.C. is hoping to free up roughly 500 megahertz of spectrum, much of which would come from television broadcasters, which would be compensated if Congress acts.

The proposal already faces resistance from the TV industry. Stations say they still serve a valuable public service, especially during emergencies, and say the F.C.C. proposals could cause gaps in signal coverage.

But F.C.C. officials assert that the spectrum changes are necessary given a looming spectrum shortage. “It isn’t a crisis tomorrow, it’s a crisis in five or six years,” Mr. Crowell said, but allocation “literally takes years.”

The plan will advise that some of the spectrum become unlicensed, so it can serve as a test bed for new technologies.

Also notably, the plan will include an initiative the chairman calls 100 Squared — equipping 100 million households with high-speed Internet gushing through their pipes at 100 megabits a second by the end of this decade. According to comScore, the average subscriber now receives speeds of three to four megabits a second.

The government is “setting a stake in the ground by setting a standard for broadband speeds in order to be a competitive nation,” said Dan Hays, director of PRTM, a global management consulting firm in the telecommunications industry.

He said the plan could place “significant pressure” on incumbent providers to improve their networks.

Mr. Genachowski also argues that broadband expansion can be an economic stimulant, a crucial selling point in a time of high unemployment. “Broadband will be the indispensable platform to assure American competitiveness, ongoing job creation and innovation, and will affect nearly every aspect of Americans’ lives at home, at work, and in their communities,” he said Friday.

According to officials briefed on the proposals, the plan will also call for a “digital literacy corps” to help unwired Americans learn online skills, and recommendations for $12 billion to $16 billion for a nationwide public safety network that would connect police, fire departments and other first responders.

In a move that could affect policy decisions years from now, the F.C.C. will begin assessing the speeds and costs of consumer broadband service. Until then, consumers can take matters into their own hands with a new suite of online and mobile phone applications released by the F.C.C. that will allow them to test the speed of their home Internet and see if they’re paying for data speeds as advertised.

“Once again, the F.C.C. is putting service providers on the spot,” said Julien Blin, a telecommunications consultant at JBB Research.

AP Exclusive: Network flaw causes scary Web error
YAHOO
By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer
January 16, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private information.

The glitch — the result of a routing problem at the family's wireless carrier, AT&T — revealed a little known security flaw with far reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.

In each case, the Internet lost track of who was who, putting the women into the wrong accounts. It doesn't appear the users could have done anything to stop it. The problem adds a dimension to researchers' warnings that there are many ways online information — from mundane data to dark secrets — can go awry.

Several security experts said they had not heard of a case like this, in which the wrong person was shown a Web page whose user name and password had been entered by someone else. It's not clear whether such episodes are rare or simply not reported. But experts said such flaws could occur on e-mail services, for instance, and that something similar could happen on a PC, not just a phone.

"The fact that it did happen is proof that it could potentially happen again and with something a lot more important than Facebook," said Nathan Hamiel, founder of the Hexagon Security Group, a research organization.

Candace Sawyer, 26, says she immediately suspected something was wrong when she tried to visit her Facebook page Saturday morning.

After typing Facebook.com into her Nokia smart phone, she was taken into the site without being asked for her user name or password. She was in an account that didn't look like hers. She had fewer friend requests than she remembered. Then she found a picture of the page's owner.

"He's white — I'm not," she said with a laugh.

Sawyer logged off and asked her sister, Mari, 31, her partner in a dessert catering company, and their mother, Fran, 57, to see whether they had the same problem on their phones.

Mari landed inside another woman's page.

Fran's phone — which had never been used to access Facebook before — took her inside yet another stranger's page, one belonging to a young woman from Indiana. They sent an e-mail to one of their own accounts to prove it.

They were dumbfounded.

"I thought it was the phone — `Maybe this phone is just weird and does magical, horrible things and I have to get rid of it,'" said Candace Sawyer.

The women, who live together in East Point, Ga., outside Atlanta, had recently upgraded to the same model of phone and all used the same carrier, AT&T.

Sawyer contacted The Associated Press after reporting the problem to Facebook and AT&T.

The problem wasn't in the phones. It was a flaw in the infrastructure connecting the phones to the Internet.

That illuminates a grave problem.

Generally Web sites and computers are compromised from within. A hacker can get a Web page or computers to run programming code that they shouldn't. But in this case, it was a security gap between the phone and the Web site that exposed strangers' Facebook pages to the Sawyers. Misconfigured equipment, poorly written network software or other technical errors could have caused AT&T to fumble the information flowing from the Sawyers' phones to Facebook and back.

Fortunately, Hamiel said, the vulnerability would be of limited use to a hacker interested in pulling off widespread mayhem, because this hole would let him access only one account at a time. To do more damage the criminal would have to pull off the unlikely feat of gaining full control of the piece of equipment that routes Internet traffic to individual users.

AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said its wireless customers have landed in the wrong Facebook pages in "a limited number of instances" and that a network problem behind those episodes is being fixed.

The Sawyers experienced a different glitch. Coe said an investigation points to a "misdirected cookie." A cookie is a file some Web sites place on computers to store identifying information — including the user name that Facebook members would enter to access their pages. Coe said technicians couldn't figure out how the cookie had been routed to the wrong phone, leading it into the wrong Facebook account.

He also said AT&T could confirm only that the problem occurred on one of the Sawyers' phones, possibly because they had logged off Facebook on the other two before reporting the incident.

Facebook declined to comment and referred questions to AT&T.

Some Web sites would be immune from this kind of mix-up, particularly those that use encryption. A Web browser would have trouble deciphering the encryption on a page that a computer user didn't actually seek, said Chris Wysopal, co-founder of Veracode Inc., a security company.

Sensitive sites and those used for banking and e-commerce generally use encryption. But most other sites, including some Web-based e-mail services, don't use it. One way of checking: The Web addresses of encrypted sites begin with "https" rather than "http." Facebook uses encryption when user names and passwords are entered, to cloak the sign-on from snoops, but after the credentials are entered the encryption is dropped.

It's unclear how many people were affected by the problem the Sawyers discovered, and whether it was limited to Facebook.

The reason all three women experienced the glitch is a function of the way cellular networks are designed. In some cases, all the mobile Internet traffic for a particular area is routed through the same piece of networking equipment. If that piece of equipment is misbehaving or set up incorrectly, strange things happen when computers down the line receive the data.

Usually that means a Web site simply won't load, said Alberto Solino, director of security consulting services for Core Security Technologies. In the Sawyers' case, "somehow they got the wrong user but they could keep using that account for a long period of time. That's what's strange," he said.

The AP tried to contact two of the people whose Facebook pages were exposed to the Sawyers, but the calls and e-mails were not returned. It's unclear whether they are also AT&T customers, though security experts said that's likely the case.

Indeed, it was the case in a similar incident in November.

Stephen Simburg, 25, who works in marketing, was home for Thanksgiving in Vancouver, Wash., when he logged onto Facebook from his cell phone. He didn't recognize the people who had written him messages.

"I thought I had gotten really popular all of a sudden, or something was wrong," he said. Then he saw the picture of the account owner: A young woman.

He got her e-mail address from the site, logged off and wrote the woman a message. He asked whether he had met her at some point and she had borrowed his phone to check her Facebook account.

"No," she wrote back, "but I was just telling my family that I ended up in your profile!"

Simburg and the woman figured out they were both using AT&T to access Facebook on their phones. (AT&T had no comment because the incident wasn't reported to the company.)

"I felt like I had been let down by the phone company and by Facebook," he said.

He says he has put the incident behind him. But one piece of it remains: He and the young woman are now Facebook friends.

Comcast, FCC take net neutrality dispute to court
YAHOO
By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer
Fri Jan 8, 2010 3:50 am ET

WASHINGTON – The Federal Communications Commission staked out new ground nearly three months ago when it began drafting rules that would require Internet providers to give equal treatment to all data flowing over their networks.

Now the FCC hopes to use a dispute with the nation's largest cable TV and Internet provider to establish its legal authority to adopt such "network neutrality" regulations. The rules would aim to prevent phone and cable companies from abusing their control over the market for high-speed Internet access.

A federal appeals court was holding oral arguments Friday in Comcast Corp.'s challenge of the FCC's 2008 order banning the company from blocking its broadband subscribers from using an online file-sharing technology known as BitTorrent.

The commission, at the time headed by Republican Kevin Martin, based its order against Comcast on a set of net-neutrality principles it adopted in 2005 to prevent broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain types of Internet traffic. Those principles have guided the FCC's enforcement of communications laws on a case-by-case basis.

Formally adopting those guidelines as binding regulations is a top priority for the FCC's new Democratic chairman, Julius Genachowski. The agency voted in October to start writing those rules.

And now, with Comcast appealing the FCC order against it, one key question that could come up in the courtroom is whether the commission has legal authority to mandate network neutrality. A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, expected this spring, could bolster the FCC proceeding if the agency prevails.

"Comcast and others have challenged the FCC's authority to take action to protect consumers and ensure their access to a free and open Internet," FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick said. "This case provides the court of appeals an opportunity to reject those arguments and confirm that the commission has the power it needs to accomplish those goals."

The policy dispute over network neutrality has pitted some of the country's leading Internet companies, including Internet search provider Google Inc. and the Internet calling service Skype, against the big phone and cable operators. The Internet companies say that without such rules, broadband providers could become online gatekeepers and prioritize traffic for those who can pay extra, while degrading or blocking cheaper Internet calling services or online video sites that compete with their core businesses.

Indeed, BitTorrent, the online file-sharing technology blocked by Comcast, can be used to transfer large files such as online video, something that threatens Comcast's core cable TV business.

But broadband providers such as Comcast, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. argue that after pouring billions of dollars into their networks, they should be able to offer premium services to differentiate themselves from competitors and earn a healthy return on their investments. They also insist they need flexibility to manage their systems so high-bandwidth applications such as BitTorrent don't hog too much capacity and slow down the network for everyone else.

For its part, Comcast wants to keep its challenge to the FCC order narrow. It argues that the order is illegal because the agency was seeking to enforce mere policy principles, which don't have the force of regulations or law. As a result, the Philadelphia-based cable company says, it never had clear rules to follow and was never given fair notice of what conduct was prohibited. In fact, Comcast insists, the FCC proceeding to adopt the 2005 principles as formal regulations underscores its point.

Comcast also maintains that because that proceeding is still in the early stages, it remains unclear whether the agency even has legal authority to mandate net neutrality obligations. This larger question, however, should be left for another day, Comcast says. Yet that is exactly the question that the FCC hopes the court will address. The commission argues that a 2005 Supreme Court ruling upholding its move to deregulate Internet service gives it the jurisdiction it needs.

The high court upheld the FCC's decision to define broadband as a lightly regulated information service, which is not subject to the obligations traditional telecommunications services have to share their networks with competitors. But a 1996 federal telecommunications law still gives the agency authority to set rules for information services — including, the FCC now argues, net neutrality rules.

An appeals court ruling that accepts this argument would "strengthen the agency's hand ... and provide validation" in its broader net neutrality proceeding, said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a leading advocate for net neutrality rules. Free Press brought Comcast's actions to the FCC's attention after The Associated Press ran tests and reported that the cable company was interfering with attempts by some subscribers to share files online. But even if the court concludes that the FCC lacks authority to adopt such regulations, it would not necessarily be a devastating setback — just a delay — for the commission.

That's because Congress, with a number of key Democrats in support of net neutrality, would likely step in to give the FCC the necessary powers. Either way, Friday's oral arguments could provide a road map. After all, even if the court issues a very narrow ruling, the FCC's upcoming net neutrality regulations are likely to face a court challenge, too.

FCC to begin crafting 'net neutrality' rules
Washington Times
Joelle Tessler ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally published 12:03 p.m., October 22, 2009, updated 12:12 p.m., October 22, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators took an important step Thursday toward prohibiting broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain kinds of Internet traffic.

Despite the concerns of the agency's two Republicans and prominent telecommunications companies, the Federal Communications Commission voted to begin writing so-called "network neutrality" regulations. Proponents say the rules would prevent phone and cable companies from abusing their control over the market for broadband access.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the rules are needed to ensure that broadband subscribers can access all legal Web sites and services, including Internet calling applications and video sites that compete with the broadband companies' core businesses.

"Internet users should always have the final say about their online service, whether it's the software, applications or services they choose, or the networks and hardware they use to the connect to the Internet," Genachowski said.

The FCC's two other Democrats voted to support his plan. The agency's two Republican commissioners voted merely to start the formal rule-making process, and said they remain opposed to the substance of Genachowski's proposal.

Next up for the FCC is to actually craft the rules, with a vote on them expected to come by next summer.

That would culminate a five-year debate in Washington that has pitted Internet companies such as Google Inc. against some of the nation's biggest phone and cable companies -- which say the government should not tell them how to manage their networks.

Hurdles remain as FCC ponders Internet data rules
YAHOO
By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer -
Sun Oct 18, 2009 12:57PM EDT

WASHINGTON -

With Democrats in charge in Washington, supporters of so-called "net neutrality" rules seem poised to finally push through requirements that high-speed Internet providers give equal treatment to all data flowing over their networks.

These rules — at the heart of a five-year policy debate — are intended to guarantee that Internet users can go to any Web site and access any online service they want. Phone and cable companies, for instance, wouldn't be able to block subscribers from using cheaper Internet calling services or accessing online video sites that compete with their core businesses. Yet making that happen is proving thorny — and it's likely that the courts and perhaps even Congress will ultimately get involved.

The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote Thursday on a proposal by the agency's chairman, Julius Genachowski, to begin crafting regulations to prohibit broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against Internet traffic. Although Genachowski has the support of the other two Democrats on the five-member commission, his proposal has run into strong opposition from the large phone, cable and wireless companies that provide the bulk of U.S. high-speed Internet connections.

Broadband providers such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp. argue that after pouring billions of dollars into their networks, they should be able to operate those networks as they see fit. That includes offering premium services over their lines to differentiate themselves from competitors and earn a healthy return on their investments. Genachowski's proposal has also encountered misgivings among Republicans on the FCC and in Congress, who fear network neutrality rules could discourage broadband providers from continuing to expand and upgrade their systems.

"The risk of regulation really inhibits investment," said Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell. Noting the agency's estimated price tag of up to $350 billion to bring broadband connections to all Americans, he added: "How do we pay for all that?"

One thing everyone agrees on is that the FCC will have to sort through some tricky issues as Genachowski's plan moves forward. One question is how much flexibility broadband providers should have to keep their networks running smoothly by ensuring that high-bandwidth applications such as YouTube videos don't hog too much capacity and impede other traffic like e-mail and online searches. In other words, when does legitimate network management cross the line to become discrimination?

Lawrence Spiwak, president of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Policy Studies, a think tank that promotes free-market approaches, fears the FCC could hurt small, rural carriers that face higher costs to build out their systems. Without the ability to manage traffic, he said, these companies could be forced to make expensive network upgrades they cannot afford. The FCC also needs to sort out how the rules would apply to wireless systems, which have less bandwidth capacity than wire-based networks and might have greater need for traffic management. AT&T, the exclusive U.S. carrier for Apple Inc.'s iPhone, already is running into capacity challenges given the popularity of the gadget and its scores of bandwidth-consuming applications.

"There could be unintended consequences of applying net neutrality to wireless," said Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association, an industry trade group.

Genachowski's plan calls for the agency to formally adopt four broadband principles that have guided the FCC's enforcement of communications laws on a case-by-case basis. Those principles state that network operators must allow subscribers to access all online content, applications, services and devices as long as they are legal.

The FCC relied on those guidelines last year when it ordered Comcast to stop blocking subscribers from using an online file-sharing service called BitTorrent, which is used to transfer large files such as online video. Comcast is challenging the FCC ruling in court. Genachowski also wants the FCC to adopt two more principles. One would make it clear that broadband providers couldn't discriminate against particular content or applications, either by blocking them completely or by letting other traffic jump ahead in the queue. The other would require providers to disclose network management practices.

He is also seeking to extend all six principles to wireless systems, which have been largely unregulated.

Thursday's vote will launch a proceeding to draft rules based on those principles and open them to public comment. The agency would likely adopt formal regulations by next summer. Supporters of net neutrality regulations want to prevent broadband companies from becoming online gatekeepers by abusing their control over Internet networks. They warn that a startup like YouTube or Facebook might never have a shot if broadband providers can prioritize their own online services or those of business partners.

"If bandwidth is disproportionately consumed by those who can pay, it would destroy the Internet as a level playing field," said Ben Scott, policy director for the public interest group Free Press.

Colin Crowell, a senior counselor to Genachowski, described regulations as "sensible rules of the road to preserve a free and open Internet, which has been an economic and innovation engine for the nation."

But the service providers, along with many Republicans and even some Democrats in Congress, say the FCC chairman has not shown a need for more regulation given the few known examples of discrimination. Besides Comcast's actions last year, the other major incident occurred in 2005, when a small telecom company in North Carolina blocked subscribers from accessing Vonage Holding Corp.'s Internet phone service. The company reversed course after the FCC stepped in.

"The FCC has a responsibility to prove a market failure before intervening in the market," said Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida, the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees communications and technology. "I don't think they have proven that."

McDowell, the Republican commissioner, argues that antitrust laws — which aim to prevent companies from abusing their market power — already provide a clear framework to handle such incidents.

Meanwhile, looming over the entire FCC proceeding are questions of jurisdiction. In challenging the BitTorrent ruling, Comcast argued that based on the FCC's deregulation of Internet service in 2002 — a move the Supreme Court upheld three years later — the agency doesn't have authority to mandate nondiscrimination rules.

A decision in the Comcast case is expected next year and if the court rules in the company's favor, it could undermine the net neutrality proceeding at the FCC — forcing the agency to reverse course on deregulation or drawing Congress into the debate.

FCC begins probe of Google Voice
YAHOO
Joelle Tessler ASSOCIATED PRESS
Saturday, October 10, 2009

Federal regulators will look into complaints by AT&T Inc. that Google Inc.'s free messaging and calling service, Google Voice, blocks calls to rural communities where local phone companies charge high connection fees.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday sent a letter to Google requesting information about its Voice service, which lets people sign up for one number that can route incoming calls to cell, office or home phones. The service also lets users place calls, including international calls, at low rates.

As part of a broader quarrel with Google, AT&T has complained that Google Voice blocks calls to phone numbers in some rural communities to reduce the access charges it must pay. So-called "common carrier" regulations prevent AT&T and other big phone companies from blocking those same calls.

Google Voice "has claimed for itself a significant advantage over providers offering competing services," AT&T said in a letter to the FCC last month. Those concerns were echoed in a letter sent to the FCC this week by 20 members of Congress who represent rural districts.

Among other things, the FCC is asking Google to explain how its Voice service works, whether it blocks calls to certain numbers and whether it informs users that it does so.

In a blog post Friday, Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media counsel, explained that Google Voice restricts calls to phone numbers held by companies that "charge exorbitant termination rates for calls" and "partner with adult sex chat lines and 'free' conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic."

He said Google could not afford to offer the service "if we paid these ludicrously high charges." Google also maintains that its Voice service should not be subject to common carrier laws because it is a free, Web-based software application, not a replacement for traditional phone service.

AT&T's complaint comes as the FCC prepares to vote Oct. 22 on "network neutrality" rules that would prohibit the big phone and cable companies from favoring or discriminating against Internet traffic flowing over their broadband networks.

That proposal has pitted Google and other Internet companies that support net neutrality against the big phone and cable companies, including AT&T, that want to be free of restrictions on what they can do with their networks.

AT&T's complaint to the FCC on Google Voice was an attempt to turn the tables on Google: AT&T claimed that Google Voice flouts net neutrality principles by blocking certain calling traffic.

But in his blog post on Friday, Google's Mr. Whitt said that "despite AT&T's lobbying efforts, this issue has nothing to do with network neutrality or rural America."

This is not the first time the FCC has looked at Google Voice. The agency has been investigating why Apple Inc. does not allow a Google Voice application to run on the iPhone - which is carried exclusively in the U.S. by AT&T.

That inquiry is ongoing, but it did prompt AT&T to reveal that under its agreement with Apple, Apple cannot enable any Internet calling applications that use AT&T's 3G network without AT&T's permission. AT&T reversed course on that rule this week.

FCC chairman proposes `open Internet' rules
YAHOO
By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:14AM EDT

NEW YORK -

Wireless carriers shouldn't be allowed to block certain types of Internet traffic flowing over their networks, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission chairman said Monday in a speech that figures to provoke a fight with the industry.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said wireless carriers should be subject to the same "open Internet" rules that the agency has begun to apply to home broadband providers.

It's unclear how the rules would apply in practice to wireless data. For instance, carriers officially restrict how Internet-access cards for laptops are used, but rarely enforce the rules. The government also has been investigating Apple Inc.'s approval process for iPhone applications, but Genachowski isn't directly addressing manufacturers' right to determine which applications run on their phones.

Essentially, Genachowski wants to codify the principles the FCC has already been applying to wired Internet traffic — and extend them to wireless.

Last year, the agency sanctioned Comcast Corp. for secretly hampering file-sharing traffic by its cable-modem subscribers. In making that ruling, the agency relied on broad "principles" of open Internet access that hadn't previously been put to the test. The cable company filed suit, saying the FCC didn't have the authority to tell it how to run its network. The case is still in federal appeals court.

The chairman is now proposing to make it a formal rule that Internet carriers cannot discriminate against certain types of traffic by degrading service. That expands on the principle that they cannot "block" traffic, as articulated in a 2005 policy statement.

Internet service providers, both wired and wireless, are struggling with the question of how to distribute network capacity among their subscribers. Heavy users can easily overwhelm cellular toward and neighborhood cable circuits, slowing traffic for everyone. Wireless carriers are also likely to object to new regulation by pointing out that their industry is intensely competitive.

At the same time, consumer advocates and Web companies like Google Inc. want to safeguard what has been an underlying "Net Neutrality" assumption of the Internet: that all traffic is treated equally by the network. If the carriers can degrade or block traffic, they become the gatekeepers of the Internet, able to shut out innovation, these critics say.

Comcast has already changed its system to one that does not look at what types of traffic subscribers are using. Instead, it throttles back the speed of heavy users if there is congestion on the network. However, there are other companies that might fall afoul of the new principle. Cox Communications, another cable company, has been testing a system that slows traffic that it deems less time-sensitive, like file downloads and software updates, to keep Web pages, streaming video and online games working faster.

In his speech Monday in Washington, which was broadcast on the Internet, the FCC chairman also proposed to make it a formal rule that Internet service providers have to tell customers about how they manage traffic to handle congestion. Some companies might be managing traffic in subtle ways without notifying customers.

Editorial: Competition in Cable TV
NYTIMES
September 6, 2009

To foster media competition, the Federal Communications Commission has limited individual cable companies to serving no more than 30 percent of the nation’s subscribers. A federal appeals court struck down that cap last week. It is an unfortunate decision, but in reality, the 30 percent cap was not getting the job done. The ruling should prod the F.C.C. to find a fresh approach.

In 1992, Congress directed the F.C.C. to promote price competition and diversity of programming in cable television by imposing reasonable regulations on the industry. The F.C.C. responded with the 30 percent cap. The courts struck it down, and the commission adopted it again, with a new rationale.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has now thrown it out again. The court, which found the cap “arbitrary and capricious,” objected that the F.C.C. did not take into account the competition from satellite television providers and the growth in the number of channels now available.

The court’s reasoning is unpersuasive. Congress wanted the F.C.C. to create a competitive cable market, and imposing a 30 percent cap was a reasonable attempt at doing that. The problem with the cap is not that it is too onerous, but that it is not demanding enough.

Even with the cap — and satellite television — there is a disturbing lack of price competition. The cable companies have resisted letting customers choose, a la carte, the channels they actually watch.

Having a few large players dominating the industry — primarily Comcast and Time Warner — also stifles competition in programming. Because of their enormous market power, the large companies can make it extremely difficult for channels they do not support to launch.

It is wrong that the 30 percent cap has been struck down, but defending an ineffective benchmark should not be the F.C.C.’s highest priority. Instead, it should develop a fundamentally new approach to cable regulation. It needs to ensure that customers have an array of choices among cable providers, and that there is real competition on price and program offerings.

That is what Congress asked the F.C.C. to do 17 years ago. There is still a long way to go.

Oklahoma, Utah Lead Going Cell-Only; Calif, NY Lag
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:21 p.m. ET
March 11, 2009

Trendy California isn't a trendsetter when it comes to relying on cell phones. And while the 1987 movie ''Wall Street'' helped introduce the then-brick-sized mobile phone to popular culture, New York and other Northeast states lag in dropping landlines. Surprisingly, Oklahoma and Utah lead in going wireless, according to federal estimates released Wednesday.

At least 26 percent of households are now cell-only in Oklahoma and Utah, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated. That rate was at least 20 percent in nine other states -- Nebraska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee -- and the District of Columbia.

The study is sure to be watched closely by telecommunications companies trying to understand state and local markets better, and by government, academic and commercial survey researchers using telephone polling to monitor health trends, politics and much more.

The CDC, blending its own 2007 survey data with Census updates, found the prevalence of cell-only households varies widely by state -- sometimes within regions and even between neighboring states. This is tied to differences by state in demographics known to predict wireless-only ownership, especially being young and renting rather than owning a home.

States with the fewest cell-only households: Vermont (5 percent) and Connecticut, Delaware and South Dakota (6 percent each). South Dakota was near the bottom even though next-door Nebraska was near the top. Also below 10 percent: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Hawaii, California (9 percent), Montana, Massachusetts and Missouri.

In New York -- where Michael Douglas as corporate raider Gordon Gekko roamed lower Manhattan barking orders on a huge early cell phone in ''Wall Street'' -- 11 percent of households were cell only.

The study also estimated how many adults only have cell phones. Those estimates mostly came within a point or two of the household numbers.

The study's lead author, Stephen Blumberg, senior scientist at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, noted the data are from 2007 and all signs indicate people keep substituting cell phones for landlines at a steady pace.

''We would expect that today in 2009 the prevalence rates in every state have increased, perhaps by 5 percentage points or more. What we don't know is whether the rate of growth is the same in every state,'' Blumberg said in an interview.

By asking about telephone usage in its monthly in-person health surveys, Blumberg's agency is the only source for data on prevalence of cell-phone-only households. It estimates more than one in six American homes -- 17.5 percent -- had only wireless phones as of a year ago.

The health survey doesn't have enough interviews to produce reliable state-level estimates in most states, so Blumberg's team looked to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, with large state samples. The researchers compared CPS data on demographic groups known to be associated with cell phone usage and adjusted the CDC state estimates to conform.

U.S. telephone surveys, especially on the state level, typically sample only landline phones. There's growing evidence from the 2008 election that excluding cell phones could hurt poll accuracy, at least a little. Blumberg noted that in health surveys omitting cell-only respondents could, among other things, underestimate the number of smokers and binge drinkers -- and, paradoxically, those who exercise regularly.

AT&T Plans to Add 30 New Cell Sites in Oklahoma
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:31 a.m. ETS
March 11, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- AT&T Inc. said it will add more than 30 new cell sites in Oklahoma this year and will launch its third-generation mobile broadband network in Ada, Ardmore, Enid and Muskogee.

Steve Gray, vice president and general manager for AT&T's mobility and consumer markets in Oklahoma and Arkansas, said Tuesday the expansion builds upon last year's investments in the state, including almost 20 new cell sites and the launch of its 3G network in Shawnee, Lawton and Bartlesville.

''We are constantly evaluating our network and its performance,'' Gray said. ''We have enjoyed a great amount of growth over the past 20 years.''

He said the size of the investment is attributable to the size of the telecommunication company's customer base in the state.

''We are determined to continue to keep our market. It's very, very competitive out there,'' Gray said.

Nationwide, AT&T said it will invest between $17 billion and $18 billion in 2009. The company declined to disclose the size of its investment in Oklahoma but said it invested more than $675 million in its Oklahoma network between 2006 and 2008.

Gray said he expects no increase in consumer costs as a result of the expanded services.

''What we think we have is a great value for the consumer,'' he said.

Some of the new cell sites will be located across the Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas and in Shawnee. Chickasha, Lawton, Stillwater, Weatherford and several other areas also will receive new cell sites and additional AT&T coverage.

AT&T will also continue expanding its AT&T U-verse services, including AT&T U-verse TV, AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet and AT&T U-verse Voice.

AT&T also has completed the integration of nearly 275 cell sites in Oklahoma that it acquired from Dobson Communications. The former Dobson sites are in Adair, Cherokee, Craig, Delaware, Garfield, Mayes, McIntosh, Muskogee, Nowata, Okmulgee, Ottawa, Pittsburg and Washington counties.

Gray said AT&T's focus in investing in its wireless and wired networks is velocity and mobility.

''We are fast-paced culture, so immediate gratification is the thread running through us,'' he said.

Gov. Brad Henry said the company's expansion plans will provide Oklahomans with faster and better options for reaching emergency services and business communications.

''Creating a more robust communications infrastructure provides numerous benefits to Oklahoma consumers and is a big plus in terms of bolstering economic development and luring new companies and industry to our state,'' Henry said.

Deal Collapses for Free Wi-Fi in Parks
NYTIMES
By Sewell Chan
January 7, 2009, 1:29 pm

Updated, 5:48 p.m. | The long-troubled arrangement to install wireless Internet networks in Central Park and other New York City parks has quietly collapsed after the contractor, Wi-Fi Salon, ran out of money because it could not find corporate sponsors.

The networks were quietly shut down in October and Wi-Fi Salon is removing the equipment from the park locations, which include seven hot spots in Central Park, two in Prospect Park, and others at Washington Square, Battery, Riverside, Van Cortlandt, Pelham Bay and Flushing Meadows-Corona Parks, as well as Orchard Beach. This does not affect the privately provided free Wi-Fi at Bryant Park and other locations.

The collapse of the deal was reported Monday by Wi-Fi Net News and picked up today by the NYC Wireless blog and Crain’s New York Business. The parks department confirmed that the city terminated the contract in anticipation of a new plan to offer high-speed wireless at locations across the city, including the parks.

In 2004, Wi-Fi Salon agreed to pay the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation $90,000 over three years for the right to wire 10 parks in four boroughs, including Central Park. (The deal was extended once, for an additional $30,000 for a fourth year.) The fairly tiny concession fee was a fraction of the larger costs needed to make the networks operable. Without sponsorships to sustain those costs, the company’s founder, Marshall W. Brown, said he had no choice but to shut it down.

Wi-Fi service will continue at Bryant Park, where it has been offered by the Bryant Park Corporation for six years. (Photo, 2006: Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)The collapse of the deal does not affect other, private arrangements for wireless access in parks. Perhaps the best-known Wi-Fi initiative in city parks, at Bryant Park, has been up and running, under the direction of the Bryant Park Corporation, since June 2002.

In addition, the Alliance for Downtown New York created wireless hot spots at eight Lower Manhattan sites from 2003 to 2005, including City Hall Park, Bowling Green and the new Wall Street Park.

NYC Wireless, a nonprofit group that did the technical work for those projects and managed the Bryant Park network in its first year, has also set up networks at Union Square, Stuyvesant Cove Park, Madison Square Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park and Jackson Square Park.

But the deal with Wi-Fi Salon, which is based on the Upper East Side, was one of the most ambitious efforts for wireless access in some of the city’s largest parks. The parks department awarded the contract in October 2004 after Verizon Communications, which had been initially selected, backed out of the deal.

While the company installed a network in October 2005 at Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, it missed a deadline that autumn to finish the work at the other parks. The parks department finally set a July 2006 deadline for Mr. Brown’s company to get up and running.

Mr. Brown said he would complete the work, saying that Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications device manufacturer, had signed on as a sponsor. The Nokia sponsorship ended at the end of September 2007, and after that, Wi-Fi Salon raised money by providing wireless service at several special events in the parks.

The parks department decided to terminate Wi-Fi Salon’s contract after it failed to meet a Dec. 5 deadline to make a concession payment of around $23,000; the department also says the company was delinquent in paying earlier concession fees to the city.

“I tried my best but could not get the payment in time,” Mr. Brown said in a phone interview. He said he still owes the city $578. “I’ll be able to pay by the end of the month,” he said, adding that it would take perhaps $20,000 to remove the equipment.

The setback does not mean the Bloomberg administration has given up on offering Internet access.

“The city will soon unveil a series of digital inclusion initiatives focused on expanding access to, and adoption of, broadband technology, including service in parks across the city,” said Jama Adams, a spokeswoman for the parks department.

Nor has Mr. Brown given up. He has another company, Wired Towns, that seeks to create partnerships with business improvement districts that want to offer free wireless Internet in their neighborhoods. Last year, the Union Square Partnership agreed to work with Wired Towns to restart a network in Union Square Park and its surrounding streets.

OUTLOOK 2009 TECHNOLOGY
WiMax edges closer to city; Network to deliver fast, wireless Internet may arrive later in year
Chicago Tribune
By Eric Benderoff | Tribune reporter
January 3, 2009

The future of the Internet was supposed to arrive in Chicago by the end of 2008. Instead, WiMax landed in Baltimore and is heading to Portland. So when will the powerful, high-speed wireless network arrive here? It looks like late in 2009, although the newly merged company rolling it out has yet to confirm plans.

"Chicago is very high on our list," said Todd Rowley, vice president for Sprint's WiMax network, which the carrier calls 4G. "We have many hundreds of cell sites operating already in the area. I hope it will be available in the latter half of the year."

The network already is in place, stretching from Gary to Rockford, but isn't ready to go live. Sprint Nextel Corp. completed its wireless network merger with Clearwire Corp. in December. In addition, the $3.2 billion transaction includes investments by Comcast Corp., Intel Corp., Google Inc. and Time Warner Cable. Why did Baltimore get the nod over Chicago?

Sprint and Clearwire wanted to see how well the wireless signals would traverse older homes with thick walls and how it would travel over hills and a harbor. Also, Baltimore's compact footprint was more appealing than Chicago's sprawl. WiMax has the muscle to compete against the high-speed, land-based home Web connections provided by AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. Yet it also doubles as a cellular network for Sprint, making it accessible from home or the road.

"I was getting 5-megabit-plus download speeds on my laptop throughout Baltimore," said Jeff Thompson, president and chief executive of Towerstream, which offers a commercial WiMax network in Chicago. "To do that on a mobile device, it was amazing."

Launched in September, Sprint conservatively promotes average data download speeds between 2 and 4 megabits per second. By comparison, for home use, AT&T offers high-speed connections between 1.5 and 6 megabits, depending on price, while Comcast offers speeds as high as 12 megabits. The next market to get WiMax will be Portland, Ore., expected to be announced next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

A number of WiMax-capable products will be introduced at the show, including some from Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc. The strength of WiMax is illustrated by the fact that nearly 500 WiMax devices are in development, according to a recent talk by Ron Resnick, an Intel executive and president of the WiMax Forum, an industry group. So far, the most common WiMax product being used in Baltimore is a laptop access card. That's what Towerstream's Thompson used to get on the city's WiMax network during his visit.

Sprint also introduced in December a dual-mode modem that plugs into a USB port to access either the carrier's 3G or 4G networks. By the end of this year, there will be at least one mobile phone, perhaps more, that can access either network, Rowley said. "It's a laptop service mostly today."

Accessing the network costs $80 a month, he said, noting that mostly singles and apartment dwellers in Baltimore are replacing their land-based Internet service with WiMax. Some Chicago companies are receiving a WiMax signal thanks to Towerstream. The Providence, R.I., company has offered a version of "fixed wireless" broadband for about 8 years and has been a pioneer in pushing for WiMax standards.

"We have about 1,300 customer connections," Thompson said, with "more than 100 in Chicago."

Those customers receive a WiMax signal to their building, where the signal is then distributed via wires to individual desktops, much like any other business-type IT infrastructure. But as WiMax networks get more robust, Towerstream will be able to offer customers other services, like roaming with portable devices. "When WiMax starts getting advertised like Wi-Fi did, and I think you'll start seeing that late in 2009, that will really help the market," Thompson said.

Mr. Obama’s Internet Agenda
NYTIMES Editorial
December 16, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama recently announced an ambitious plan to build up the nation’s Internet infrastructure as part of his proposed economic stimulus package. Upgrading the Internet is a particularly smart kind of stimulus, one that would spread knowledge, promote entrepreneurship and make this country more competitive globally.

The United States has long been the world leader in technology, but when it comes to the Internet, it is fast falling behind. America now ranks 15th in the world in access to high-speed Internet connections. A cornerstone of Mr. Obama’s agenda is promoting universal, affordable high-speed Internet.

Mr. Obama, who had notable success with online fund-raising and voter turnout, spoke during the presidential campaign about the transformative power of the Internet to improve Americans’ quality of life. He argued that it could, among other things, reduce health care costs, create jobs and make it easier for citizens to participate in government decision-making.

In a speech this month about his economic stimulus plan, he said that he intends to ensure that every child has a chance to get online and that he would use some of the stimulus money to connect libraries and schools. It is a critical goal. Children trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide are deprived of a fair chance to educate themselves and to compete for high-skill, high-paying jobs.

Mr. Obama has also been a strong supporter of “network neutrality,” the principle that Internet service providers should not be able to discriminate against any of the information that they carry. Net neutrality laws are necessary to ensure that Internet service providers do not block content they disagree with or give financial breaks to big tech companies, squeezing out smaller competitors and stifling innovation.

Mr. Obama will need to work with Congress — and fight against corporate lobbyists — to accomplish some of his goals. Some he can achieve on his own. With the right appointments to the Federal Communications Commission, he should be able to get good net neutrality regulations.

“This is the Eisenhower Interstate highway moment for the Internet,” argues Ben Scott, policy director of the media reform group Free Press. Restoring America to its role as the world’s Internet leader could be an important part of Mr. Obama’s presidential legacy.

NEWS RELEASE from...
The Alliance for Community Media is the national nonprofit membership organization representing the interests of over 3000 Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) access organizations. For more information contact the Alliance at 202-393-2650.

September 18, 2008

U.S House Subcommittee will ask FCC to examine harm to public, educational and governmental television

In response to testimony from Alliance for Community Media members yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government voiced strong bi-partisan support for public, educational, and governmental (PEG) access for communities and asked the FCC to examine whether AT&T and other cable operators are in compliance with the Cable Act of 1984.

In opening remarks, Subcommittee Chairman Congressman Jose Serrano (NY-D) and Congressman Mark Kirk (IL-R) expressed concern that local PEG access channels are in danger of declining or disappearing as a result of the current regulatory and business environment.

Barbara Popovic, Executive Director of Chicago Access Network Television, representing the Alliance, and Michael Max Knobbe, president of the Alliance’s New York chapter, and Executive Director of BronxNet, presented testimony that detailed multiple problems with PEG access channel delivery arising out of recent actions by the FCC, state legislatures, the cable industry and AT&T. Problems that were outlined included a loss of funding and channels, movement of PEG to higher numbered channels (referred to as “channel slamming”), reduced quality and functionality of existing channels, and loss or reductions in public cable drops to schools, libraries and other public centers. Regarding the issues of AT& T’s treatment of PEG channels, Ms. Popovic said “Bottom line, AT&T, the company that promotes ‘choice’ in cable franchising, is giving viewers no choice when it comes to PEG.” Mr. Knobbe discussed the problems associated with channel slamming, which include additional costs to consumers to view PEG channels.

FCC Media Bureau Chief Monica Desai agreed that at least one of these practices may be illegal, stating “We believe that placing PEG channels on any tier other than the basic service tier may be a violation of the statute.” When asked why the FCC was not enforcing that provision of the statute, Ms. Desai indicated that the FCC needed a formal complaint in order to act, and had not received any. In response, Subcommittee member Adam Schiff (CA-D) stated that he believed the FCC had authority to enforce the law whether or not they’d received complaints.

In closing, Subcommittee Chairman Serrano (NY-D) and Representative Kirk (IL-R) announced that they would send a letter to the FCC asking it to deal with the issues raised at the hearing.

Community Access Channels Feel Snubbed By AT & T
Hartford Courant
By AMANDA KUSHNER | Courant Staff Writer
August 10, 2008

Advocates for community access programming say they are getting snubbed by AT&T in the telecommunications giant's bid to provide television service in Connecticut.

Nineteen months after AT&T began offering television programming through telephone lines, only one community access channel is up and running on the service, called U-verse.

While a handful of the approximately 40 community access channels in the state are contemplating joining U-verse, others aren't so sure. They say U-verse would stymie their efforts to serve their viewers and offers poor picture quality, no closed captioning and no ability to record programs.

Under the current system, U-verse bundles all community access programs on one channel, rather than giving each its own channel, as cable television does. The government and education channels are also bundled. To watch a community access channel on U-verse, viewers must turn their TVs to Channel 99, click OK on a remote control to load the stations, scroll through potentially dozens of options, find the one they want and wait for the station to load.

U-verse is available in more than 80 towns in the state, but AT&T won't release exact figures of subscribers, said David Mancuso, AT&T spokesman.

Community access programmers fear being lumped together on one channel, potentially denying them viewers who might find them while channel surfing or on a guide menu.

Although numbers are not available on how many people watch community access channels, educational and local government programming supporters stress the value of the stations.

"Our job is to embrace and really foster that public voice," said Jennifer Evans, executive director of West Hartford Community Access. She said until the station is offered its own channel, it is reluctant to join U-verse.

"New technology provides so many opportunities and it should always enhance the experience," she said. "We hope that they will improve their system so they can carry us as a full channel."

In Wallingford, U-verse subscribers used to watching community access programming during election season complained in 2007 when they couldn't find the right channel, said Susan Huizenga, chairwoman of a regional cable advisory council.CT-N, a nonprofit station that covers state government, isn't on U-verse yet because officials there believe the quality of their programming would be degraded, said William Bevacqua, director of communication and marketing for CT-N. AT&T offered to bundle CT-N and CT-N2 on their own channel, but the station and AT&T disagree over who will cover the costs, Bevacqua said.

The Alliance for Community Media, which represents more than 3,000 community access channels nationwide, believes the U-verse service is problematic, and is working with state legislators and federal regulators to resolve the issues.

"The channels are treated in a substandard and inferior manner to other commercial and noncommercial channels," said Matthew Schuster, chair of the alliance's board of directors.

AT&T is trying to address the complaints. John Emra, regional vice president for external and legislative affairs for AT&T, acknowledged Channel 99 initially had inferior picture quality, but said it has since been upgraded to match other channels on the service.

Users must now wait about 30 seconds to load community access channels, but Emra said an update in the next couple of weeks will cut that time to 8 seconds. In the spring an additional upgrade will shorten the time to 3 seconds, Emra said.

Not everyone is unhappy with U-verse, however.

Sound View Community Media, which serves six towns in the Bridgeport area, is the only channel in the state on Channel 99.

"It is going very well and we are receiving quite a few compliments," said Thomas Castelot, president of Sound View.

Branford Community Television and North Haven Community Television have signed on to U-verse, and Nutmeg Television is close to signing a deal, Mancuso.

U-verse is obligated under state law to provide community access channels, and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said AT&T is being monitored to make sure it honors that obligation."We are hearing some complaints, but we are still at such an early stage that we can't really reach definitive conclusions," Blumenthal said.

Blumenthal said his office would "take action to address complaints if they are persistent and pervasive."

Evans said she hopes AT&T will fix the problems.

"We honestly want it to look good. We never dreamed we would be a channel that no one could get to."

FCC set to test wide-range broadcast internet
DAY
By Kim Hart
Published on 7/25/2008

Wasington - The nation's top technology companies have spent millions of dollars and nearly two years building devices, poring over laptops and working in federal labs trying to come up with a new way of providing high-speed Internet to bandwidth-hungry cities as well as hard-to-reach rural regions.

Last week, the companies moved from lab to field.

Engineers from the technology heavyweights, including Motorola and Philips, lugged their laptops, antennas and other equipment to parks, homes and high-rises around the Washington area, hoping to prove to the Federal Communications Commission that the unlicensed airwaves between television stations, known as white spaces, could provide a new form of mobile Internet service.

Using white spaces “will provide a way to provide broadband across long distances at much faster speeds than cellphone networks and WiFi,” said Jake Ward, spokesman for the Wireless Innovation Alliance, which includes Google, Microsoft, HP and Dell.

The group is trying to convince regulators that using the airwaves will provide broadband to rural schools, beam high-definition online video to low-income households and let consumers stream music while sitting in highway traffic.

First out of the gate was a team from Motorola. On a recent steamy day in the middle of Patapsco Valley State Park about 10 miles west of Baltimore, Dave Gurney, an engineer for the company, set up shop in a parking lot surrounded by dense forest.

A large black box the size of a suitcase hooked up to a laptop sat near the base of a tree-covered hill. An antenna perched on a tripod rested a few feet away. A group of engineers stared intently at the contraption, as if it were about to spring to life.

”It's done!” Gurney said. He held his breath as the men leaned in further and quickly jotted down a cryptic list of numbers. Then he ran the test again.

The stakes are high for this mysterious black box. Tech giants and Silicon Valley start-ups are betting that using white spaces could extend the Internet's reach. They also hope it will spark a new wave of portable devices.

But the idea faces big hurdles. Broadcasters use adjacent airwaves to beam TV shows to viewers, and they say the technology could interfere with over-the-air signals. Wireless microphone users, from pop stars to mega-church ministers, say using white spaces could blot out their sounds.

White-space backers say their devices will be able to detect and avoid frequencies being used by broadcasters and wireless mics. Critics say the devices are not reliable enough.

The FCC is trying to settle that debate. For more than a year, the agency has been testing prototypes with mixed results. An early prototype built by Microsoft failed to operate in the FCC's lab. Microsoft later determined the device was broken.

The FCC is now testing other prototypes built by Philips and Motorola as well as Silicon Valley start-up Adaptrum and Singapore-based Institute for Infocomm Research. The Motorola device connects to a database of TV stations operating within 200 kilometers and scans the airwaves nearly every second for other signals that may pop up unexpectedly, such as a wireless microphone.

If the device senses that it is within or close to a TV station's coverage area, it is supposed to avoid that station's frequency. It then ranks empty frequencies by their proximity to existing signals. If a new signal suddenly appears, the white-space device should automatically switch to another open channel.

”We're testing multiple times to make sure the results are consistent,” Gurney said.

But the results can be hard to decipher. At the first location, Motorola's device indicated that channel 51, for example, was open and available. At the second location, the device picked up a weak signal on the channel, suggesting that it was already in use.

Motorola's engineers say that means the signal changed slightly between locations, and the device would be able to avoid that channel as soon as it was detected. But Bruce Franca, vice president of policy and technology for the Association for Maximum Service Television, a broadcasting industry group, is skeptical.

”The results of every single test were different,” he said. “The device failed to recognize that certain channels are actually being occupied by TV signals. ... Clearly this is not ready for prime time.”

Shure, which makes microphones and other audio equipment used in Broadway shows and sports games, argues the tests have not proven that the prototypes can consistently detect TV signals, let alone wireless microphones that hop on frequencies without notice.

The FCC plans to test the white-space devices at an entertainment venue in the next few months. The National Football League has offered the Baltimore Ravens' stadium or the Washington Redskins' park as possible venues. And the Recording Academy, which puts on the Grammy Awards, has offered up the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago next month for testing.

”That's where the rubber will meet the road,” said Mark Brunner, senior director of brand management at Shure.

Global Dreams for a Wireless Web
NYTIMES
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: May 25, 2008

Menorca, Spain

SITTING on the porch at Finca Torrenova, his 800-acre retreat on this Mediterranean island, Martin Varsavsky ticks off the credentials of the group of Internet entrepreneurs finishing lunch at a nearby table.

“He has 40 million uniques, he has 50 million, and he has 8 million,” Mr. Varsavsky says, referring to the number of visitors to Web sites owned by his guests — many of whom are also business associates and have joined him for several days of brainstorming about the digital future.

These days, commercial victory on the Internet is all about scale, and Mr. Varsavsky, a 48-year-old from Argentina, can be forgiven for speaking longingly and in detail about his peers’ achievements. No stranger to success — he has had a tidy crop of new media and telecommunications hits since the 1990s — he is still struggling to bring his newest Internet venture to fruition.

Three years ago, aiming to create a global wireless network, he founded FON, a company based in Madrid that wants to unlock the potential power of the social Internet. FON’s gamble is that Internet users will share a portion of their wireless connection with strangers in exchange for access to wireless hotspots controlled by others.

The swaps, in theory, would allow “Foneros” to have ubiquitous, global wireless access while traveling for business or pleasure. But despite $55.2 million in backing from such corporate heavyweights as Google and BT, the former British Telecom, as well as newer enterprises like Skype and a handful of venture capital firms, FON and Mr. Varsavsky are still missing a crucial ingredient: scale.

At the moment, there are just 830,000 registered Foneros around the world, and only 340,000 active Wi-Fi hotspots run FON software. Because it’s built upon the concept of sharing Wi-Fi access, FON works well only if there are Foneros everywhere.

And as he struggles to expand the FON network, Mr. Varsavsky faces particular hurdles now that the Internet’s commercial side has reached a crossroads. Born a few decades ago as an anarchic, digital version of a barn-raising, the wireless Internet is now a battleground between two giant technology consortiums seeking to rein in the Web’s chaotic openness in favor of creating uniform, global access built upon wireless data networks.

The two camps, known as WiMax and L.T.E., for “long-term evolution,” are both top-down, highly structured approaches that will cost billions of dollars to build and may close a door on some of the architectural openness that led to the rapid growth of the Internet.

But their potential advantage is that closed standards can encourage the kind of growth that offers more access to mainstream consumers and business users, as occurred when Microsoft imposed a measure of conformity on software development.

For his part, Mr. Varsavsky hopes that FON can offer a middle ground — deploying the original, bottom-up strengths of the early Internet movement and at the same time wedding them to a more formal, corporate approach to expansion.

Although FON faces huge obstacles in realizing those ambitions, the company also has a growing number of devotees.

“The wireless Internet market today is fragmented and complex — it can be accessed through 3G operators, through WiMax, through private hotspots, through paid hotspots and through corporate networks,” said Michael Jackson, a partner at Mangrove Capital in London and a former FON board member. “In summary, it is a nightmare for a consumer. FON can and will change this.”

But others have their doubts.

“I know that the people at Google like this idea,” said John Saw, the chief technology officer at Clearwire, the WiMax start-up of Craig McCaw, which recently announced a $14.5 billion joint venture to build a nationwide WiMax network with Sprint, Google, Intel, Comcast and others. “But we’re skeptical.”

Undeterred, Mr. Varsavsky says that what he currently lacks in scale he can make up for in huge cost savings, particularly because FON avoids the expensive proposition of having to build a worldwide network of cellular towers and Wi-Fi nodes from scratch.

“Our army of Foneros is a much more efficient way of distributing a signal,” he says. “We believe WiMax operators will be happy to have some customers use their services for free and save billions in infrastructure deployment.”

MR. VARSAVSKY has worked overtime trying to line up more high-profile partners for FON. To that end, he traveled to Cupertino, Calif., last fall to meet with Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple.

During that 90-minute meeting, Mr. Varsavsky says, the two men discussed why a partnership might make sense.

Apple has sold millions of its Wi-Fi routers to residential customers, and its community of Wi-Fi users who share router access would be an ideal platform for FON. For his part, Mr. Jobs had developed an interest in Wi-Fi sharing because of the expanding number of iPhone users who are often frustrated by locked Wi-Fi access points.

But, Mr. Varsavsky says, from the moment that he and Mr. Jobs met, their discussion devolved into an argument. (Mr. Jobs did not respond to requests to comment on the meeting.)

At the outset, Mr. Varsavsky recalled, Mr. Jobs asked sharply, “Who needs your community?” and “Why should British Telecom bother to do a deal with you, and why shouldn’t people just leave their routers open for sharing?”

Mr. Varsavsky says he responded, “Why should you bother to do a deal with AT&T? Shouldn’t iPhones just be connected freely with any cellphone network?”

Mr. Varsavsky says he left the meeting with the uncomfortable feeling that Apple might end up as a competitor rather than as a partner. But it wasn’t only because of Mr. Jobs’s legendary stubbornness that the Apple meeting apparently went awry. Mr. Varsavsky’s own substantial ego also came into play — something he freely acknowledges when he talks about how he first got into business.

“My father died and my mother was saying, ‘Martin, get a job, get a job,’ ” he recalls. “And I would go to job interviews and they would say, ‘How do you see yourself in five years?’ And I would say, ‘Well, at least as your boss!’ ”

That attitude surfaced in other forums as well. In high school in Argentina during the 1970s, he says, he persuaded classmates to open their own office supply store to compete with a store across the street from their school. He also declared his interest in left-leaning politics, which he said attracted the attention of the Argentine military junta that was purging high schools of dissidents. In the “dirty war” of 1976-83, the government killed thousands it suspected of being leftists.

An officer told the school to expel him, Mr. Varsavsky says, and he left for Brazil. Around the same time, he believes, his cousin was kidnapped and killed by the military. The Varsavsky family fled to the United States, and Mr. Varsavsky earned his undergraduate degree in economics and philosophy at New York University in 1981. He later attended Columbia University, where he received graduate degrees in international affairs and business administration.

MR. VARSAVSKY says start-ups got into his blood during graduate school, when he made his first million in a real estate foray: renovating and reselling lofts in New York.

After moving to Spain in the 1990s, he had three big telecommunications and Internet successes. He says that a $200,000 investment he made to start a long-distance company, Viatel, in 1990 was worth about $240 million when he cashed in his stake in 1999; that the 5 million euros he used to start Jazztel in 1997 has given him a stake now worth about 150 million euros; and that the 38 million euros he used to start a Spanish Internet service provider, Ya.com, in 1999 had grown to about 149 million euros when he sold the company the next year.

Then, after this first round of success, Mr. Varsavsky was hit with a loss that he describes as a striking, gut-wrenching failure. His German start-up EinsteinNet, founded in 2000 as an effort to sell software over a private fiber optic network, collapsed in 2003, leaving him with a personal loss of $50 million.

“I used the most money of my own in a company where I lost it all, and I consider it my business black eye,” he recalls, saying that he also drew a valuable lesson from the misadventure: “I don’t invest on my own. If other people don’t want to back me, it’s a sanity check.”

TO that end, Mr. Varsavsky has become a tireless networker, traveling the world to participate in a continuous parade of technology conferences and cultivating a global retinue of friends and contacts. He has also been active on the philanthropic front, earning kudos from a onetime resident of the White House.

“Martin represents the future of entrepreneurial culture and is helping to transform the way people give,” former President Bill Clinton says. “He has found different ways to use his acute business sense and creativity to improve our world and the lives of others.”

This month, Mr. Varsavsky brought together more than 70 Internet business people and technologists from Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States for a conclave on his Menorca farm. Some guests represented the more than 20 digital enterprises in which he has a stake; others were “friends of Martin,” a loose-knit group that comprises his informal business network around the world.

The four-day conclave featured several unscripted “tech talks” in which entrepreneurs described problems they faced building their businesses. Participants included Lukasz Wejchert, the chief executive of Onet, Poland’s dominant Internet portal.

Deals with companies like Onet will be crucial if Mr. Varsavsky is to make good on his goal of having a million FON customers on each of three continents by 2010. The two companies recently came close to a deal, Mr. Wejchert says, but Onet decided that it was still to early for it to become an Internet service provider in Poland because the regulatory environment worked against new entrants.

That major players like Onet are beginning to find FON a potentially profitable partner is promising, and Mr. Varsavsky’s formidable networking abilities with politicians and entrepreneurs are also a plus. Ultimately, however, FON’s success will hinge on its strategic soundness and operational prowess — not on Mr. Varsavsky’s skills at working the cocktail circuit.

He likes to refer to FON as a “revolution,” but so far his crusade has had difficulty gathering momentum because formal corporate alliances have been slow to jell.

In Mr. Varsavsky’s approach, FON’s business is subsidized by non-Foneros — passing Web surfers who buy time for access to the network — which he can then share with FON’s customers. The approach is different from that of Boingo, a Wi-Fi aggregator based in Los Angeles that charges users a monthly fee for using hotspots while they are traveling.

Yet both FON and Boingo have faced significant resistance from Internet service providers that carefully restrict access to their customers, leaving the idea of a seamless wireless Internet based on Wi-Fi technology an unfulfilled dream so far.

Mr. Varsavsky said he initially hoped that selling $30 Wi-Fi routers embedded with FON software would be all he needed to expand the ranks of Foneros around the globe. But this approach failed to gain traction fast enough, and he shifted gears. Now he is trying to steadily stack up distribution deals with I.S.P.’s.

While some I.S.P.’s have ignored his company, Mr. Varsavsky says FON has gained ground among I.S.P.’s that are looking for a way to attract new customers in competitive markets as well as to compete with high-speed wireless cellular networks.

FON now has a growing range of alliances, including ones with the BT Group, Neuf Cegetel in France, Livedoor (a Japanese I.S.P.), and Time Warner in the United States, as well as a recent agreement with the city of Geneva, which is distributing hundreds of FON routers to residents. Now strongest in Britain, France and Japan, FON has recently made progress with new agreements with two major Japanese retailers and a Taiwanese I.S.P. And Mr. Varsavsky said he is close to major agreements in India and Russia.

FON’s losses have shrunk from more than a million euros a month to less than 500,000, Mr. Varsavsky says. He also hasn’t given up his belief that a coming generation of wireless Internet technology will eventually give FON an even bigger boost.

The first generation of Wi-Fi technology was limited in range, making it impractical for Foneros to share their routers widely. But a new wireless technology, known as 802.16, which should be more widely available to consumers over the next two years, will offer far greater ranges.

This next generation of wireless communication, called WiMax by Intel and others, may allow him to complete his dream — in effect making it possible to weave together a wireless digital network in an urban area with nothing more than an army of Foneros willing to let their routers be used as micro cell towers.

“Why should anyone have to build their own towers?” he asks.

FON’s future, he argues, will revolve around universal access to the wireless Internet. In the meantime, he faces a big obstacle in one of the world’s most lucrative communications markets: the United States, where newer cellular networks with flat-rate pricing may prove a challenge because they will provide universal high-speed coverage.

In Europe, the Internet landscape looks more promising. The European Commission’s decision last summer to place a price cap on voice calls — to make cellphones more affordable for residents traveling within the European Union — didn’t include mobile data. Recent high-speed wireless networks introduced in Europe also use per-megabyte pricing, discouraging the streaming of large files like video.

That leaves a potentially big opportunity for a widely accessible sharing solution for travelers. Yet even in Europe, there are potential roadblocks, not the least of which has been a historically inhospitable atmosphere for entrepreneurial gambits.

“Europe has a larger market than the U.S.A., but it is culturally fragmented and risk-averse,” Mr. Varsavsky says. “But the differences are narrowing, and now there are European venture capitalists and a local entrepreneurial culture.”

Yet he remains undaunted when he discusses his unfinished revolution and FON’s prospects.

“FON,” he said, “is like a telephone company built by the people,” he said.

Spectrum Auction Raises $19.6 Billion
NYTIMES
Article Tools Sponsored By
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 18, 2008

Filed at 4:57 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bidding has closed on a record-setting government airwaves auction, with the total amount pledged reaching nearly $19.6 billion. But enthusiasm in the result was tempered by doubts concerning the future of a proposed emergency communications network.

The total was the most bid since the Federal Communications Commission began using auctions in 1994 to decide who should be granted rights to use the publicly owned airwaves.

About one-sixth of the spectrum at auction was dedicated to the creation of an emergency communications network for first responders. But the so-called D block did not attract the minimum bid required by FCC auction rules.

E-Democracy: A 21st Century Citizen's Right to Know and Participate...LWVCT Fall Conference
If you want to participate in the League of Women Voters Media Study, JOIN the Weston LWV HERE:

LEFT TO RIGHT:
Keynote speaker CT Att'y General Richard Blumenthal, Jon Bartholomew of Common Cause, Tony Riddle of Alliance for Community Media, Alexandra Russell of Free Press

WATCH THESE GREAT PRESENTERS! This program is 2 hours and 20 minutes long.

DIRECTIONS:

Click on the appropriate link below, depending on whether you have a broadband (cable or dsl) internet connection, or a dialup modem connection. The video is in Windows Media Player format. If you are using Internet Explorer, and have Windows Media Player installed on your computer, the program should begin playing shortly after you click on the link. With some other browsers, such as Firefox, the entire download will have to occur before the program will begin playing. That may take considerable time, depending on the speed of your connection. The files are very large, due to the length of the program! The broadband version is 354 mB (megaBytes) in size, and the dialup version is 54 mB. If your computer does not have Windows Media Player installed, you can download and install it from www.microsoft.com. Microsoft has a version of WMP for Apple as well as for Windows computers.

Once the download process has completed, but not before, you will be able to skip around to arbitrary points within the program, by dragging the position slider in the Player program.

Cable or DSL:
http://www.lwvweston.org/LWVCT12-1-07CableVersion.wmv

Dial Up:
http://www.lwvweston.org/LWVCT12-1-07ModemVersion.wmv

FALL CONFERENCE 2007: E-Democracy: A 21st Century Citizen's Right to Know and Participate
At the Capitol, Saturday morning, December 1, 2007 9am to Noon in the Old Judiciary Room...CT State Capitol, 210 Capitol Avenue, Hartford. Interest around the country in the program - example here.

HOW DID IT GO? WATCH IT AT THE LINKS ABOVE!!!

It was fantastic, AG great, other speakers super and audience q&a spectacular (and the Old Judiciary Room was packed)!!! President Jara Burnett started us off, reporting on the Media Study's near completion and preparation for presentation to Local Leagues. Kathy Wilson of the Hartford LWV moderated most ably.

Food for thought as LWVCT Media Study Committee prepares final document for member Concurrence! It was truly inspiring to hear Att'y General Blumenthal thank the League for letting him talk about deep and serious issues for our democracy (rather than consumer issues only as his portfolio as CT AG lets him do usually).

Common Cause was delighted to hear what CT and its AG were up to; PEG specialist from Alliance for Community Media in D.C. was SUPER and had the full background about PEG--where its been and where it must go. Advocating for the people, Alliance for Community Media was thoughtful and gave the Study Committee some direction.

A rousing presentation by Free Press (reminding us that the League is an organization that she admires and sees as an invaluable ally in this push for an open Internet)...
---------------
Keynote Speaker: CT Attorney General Richard Blumenthal - get some background here;
Watch Ben Scott of Free Press speak about net neutrality on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ladtEC-G7pU
and...on the iPod hearings at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8hxJ73320M

STAMFORD WIFI

Photos in bottom 2 rows courtesy of the City of Stamford IT guys. THANKS!
STAMFORD WIFI ZONE- a way to support universal access in compact areas - all you need is a laptop and a library card.
It works like this: in a part of the downtown of Stamford, CT: from public buildings and public spaces, DSL access is free to anyone with a CT Library card. Within a circle of connectivity, users may access the Internet free. The spot where this started is Stamford Library, then to City Hall and to parks andpublic plazas, hopefully from roof tops to the train station. This is an experiment of "One Coast, One Future," and a similar WIFI experiment is up and running @ a train station in Norwalk; there should be something going on in Bridgeport, too.

WIFI ALLIANCE

DEFINITION AND LEXICON FROM THE SOURCE

Wi-Fi allows LANs to be deployed without cabling for client devices, typically reducing the costs of network deployment and expansion. Spaces where cables cannot be run, such as outdoor areas and historical buildings, can host wireless LANs.

As of 2007 wireless network adapters are built into most modern laptops. The price of chipsets for Wi-Fi continues to drop, making it an economical networking option included in ever more devices. Wi-Fi has become widespread in corporate infrastructures, which also helps with the deployment of RFID technology that can piggyback on Wi-Fi [2].

Different competitive brands of access points and client network interfaces are inter-operable at a basic level of service. Products designated as "Wi-Fi Certified" by the Wi-Fi Alliance are backwards inter-operable. Wi-Fi is a global set of standards. Unlike mobile telephones, any standard Wi-Fi device will work anywhere in the world.

Wi-Fi is widely available in more than 250,000 public hotspots and tens of millions of homes and corporate and university campuses worldwide. WPA is not easily cracked if strong passwords are used and WPA2 encryption has no known weaknesses. New protocols for Quality of Service (WMM) make Wi-Fi more suitable for latency-sensitive applications (such as voice and video), and power saving mechanisms (WMM Power Save) improve battery operation.

Disadvantages of Wi-Fi

Spectrum assignments and operational limitations are not consistent worldwide. Most of Europe allows for an additional 2 channels beyond those permitted in the US (1-13 vs 1-11); Japan has one more on top of that (1-14), and some countries, like Spain, prohibit use of the lower-numbered channels. Europe, as of 2007, is now essentially homogeneous in this respect. Some countries, such as Italy, formerly required a 'general authorization' for any Wi-Fi used outside an operator's own premises, or require something akin to an operator registration.[citation needed] Equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) in the EU is limited to 20 dBm (0.1 W).

Power consumption is fairly high compared to some other low-bandwidth standards, such as Zigbee and Bluetooth, making battery life a concern.

The most common wireless encryption standard, Wired Equivalent Privacy or WEP, has been shown to be easily breakable even when correctly configured. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA and WPA2), which began shipping in 2003, aims to solve this problem and is now available on most products. Wi-Fi Access Points typically default to an open (encryption-free) mode. Novice users benefit from a zero-configuration device that works out of the box, but without security enabled, providing open wireless access to their LAN. To turn security on requires the user to configure the device, usually via a software graphical user interface (GUI). Wi-Fi networks that are open (unencrypted) can be monitored and used to read and copy data (including personal information) transmitted over the network, unless another security method is used to secure the data, such as a VPN or a secure web page. (HTTPS/Secure Socket Layer)

Many 2.4 GHz 802.11b and 802.11g Access points default to the same channel on initial startup, contributing to congestion on certain channels. To change the channel of operation for an access point requires the user to configure the device.

Wi-Fi networks have limited range. A typical Wi-Fi home router using 802.11b or 802.11g with a stock antenna might have a range of 45 m (150 ft) indoors and 90 m (300 ft) outdoors. Range also varies with frequency band. Wi-Fi in the 2.4 GHz frequency block has slightly better range than Wi-Fi in the 5 GHz frequency block. Outdoor range with improved (directional) antennas can be several kilometres or more with line-of-sight.

Wi-Fi pollution, or an excessive number of access points in the area, especially on the same or neighboring channel, can prevent access and interfere with the use of other access points by others, caused by overlapping channels in the 802.11g/b spectrum, as well as with decreased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between access points. This can be a problem in high-density areas, such as large apartment complexes or office buildings with many Wi-Fi access points. Additionally, other devices use the 2.4 GHz band: microwave ovens, cordless phones, baby monitors, security cameras, and Bluetooth devices can cause significant additional interference. General guidance to those who suffer these forms of interference or network crowding is to migrate to a WiFi 5GHz product (802.11a) usually a dual band product as the 5GHz band is relatively unused and there are many more channels available. This also requires users to set up the 5GHz band to be the preferred network in the client and to configure each network band to a different name(SSID).

It is also an issue when municipalities[3], or other large entities such as universities, seek to provide large area coverage. Everyone is considered equal for the base standard without 802.11e/WMM when they use the band. This openness is also important to the success and widespread use of 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, but makes it unsuitable for "must-have" public service functions or where reliability is required.

Interoperability issues between brands or proprietary deviations from the standard can disrupt connections or lower throughput speeds on other user's devices that are within range. Additionally, Wi-Fi devices do not, as of 2007, pick channels to avoid interference.
-----------------------
Glossary:

LAN - A system of connecting PCs and other devices within the same physical proximity for sharing resources such as an Internet connections, printers, files and drives. When Wi-Fi is used to connect the devices, the system is known as a wireless LAN or WLAN. (See WAN, WLAN, WMAN, WPAN).

RFID - Radio Frequency Identification. An electronic identification technology that uses radio frequency signals to read identifying data contained in tags on equipment and merchandise. An alternative to bar codes.

WIFI - A term developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to describe wireless local area network (WLAN) products that are based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) 802.11 standards. (See Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ - "The certification standard designating IEEE 802.11-based wireless local area network (WLAN) products that have passed interoperability testing requirements developed and governed by the Wi-Fi Alliance.")

WPA2 - Wi-Fi Protected Access 2. The follow on security method to WPA for wireless networks that provides stronger data protection and network access control. It provides enterprise and consumer Wi-Fi users with a high level of assurance that only authorized users can access their wireless networks. Based on the ratified IEEE 802.11i standard, WPA2 provides government grade security by implementing the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) FIPS 140-2 compliant AES encryption algorithm and 802.1X-based authentication. There are two versions of WPA2: WPA2-Personal, and WPA2-Enterprise. WPA2-Personal protects unauthorized network access by utilizing a set-up password. WPA2-Enterprise verifies network users through a server. WPA2 is backward compatible with WPA. Like WPA, WPA2 uses the 802.1X/EAP framework as part of the infrastructure that ensures centralized mutual authentication and dynamic key management and offers a pre-shared key for use in home and small office environments. Like WPA, WPA2 is designed to secure all versions of 802.11 devices, including 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g, multi-band and multi-mode. (See WPA2-Enterprise, WPA2-Personal).

WMM - Wi-Fi Multimedia. A group of features for wireless networks that improve the user experience for audio, video and voice applications. WMM is based on a subset of the IEEE 802.11e WLAN QoS draft standard. WMM adds prioritized capabilities to Wi-Fi networks and optimizes their performance when multiple concurring applications, each with different latency and throughput requirements, compete for network resources. By using WMM, end-user satisfaction is maintained in a wider variety of environments and traffic conditions. WMM makes it possible for home network users and enterprise network managers to decide which data streams are most important and assign them a higher traffic priority. (See 802.11e, QoS).
------------------------

Questions about the subject of "WIFI":

What is it?
Is there a realistic way to provide Universal Internet Access?

In the U.S.A.? In Connecticut?
What role does population density play?
Topography?
Is it a good option in remote areas otherwise underserved by commercial providers?

What is government's role?

Entry level ones here in Connecticut, the "Land of Steady Habits":

Who's in charge in CT? Is it the DPUC?
Does DPUC have egg on its face, or does the Legislature? We will follow this summary U.S. District Court decision...
It passed - how do we keep an eye of our issues re: "citizen's right to know" umbrella from national? News on 2007 Long Session on website - check out http://www.cga.ct.gov/2007/BA/2007HB-07182-R01-BA.htm;
"What's hot" at the DPUC link, in their opinion;
How about a really nice Connecticut map of Cable Providers' franchise areas? Or is this a map of the Balkan States? And the major link to DPUC - http://www.state.ct.us/dpuc/

AVAILABLE AT LWVCT OFFICES... video of LWVCT Convention 2007 activity in main meeting room, (for those Leagues not able to be at the one-day event)...

freepress speaker at LWVCT Convention '07 tells their version of the story...POWER POINT presentation here!
The who, what, when, where, why, and how of Wi-Fi; "Net Neutrality" - where WiFi fits into the new LWVCT Study.

A source used during caucus for advocates at LWVUS Convention '06 ...http://www.freepress.net/
So what is "Broadband" all about? What does it mean?
From across the pond, an illustration - but BEWARE - as of 1:55pm Thursday, July 12, 2007, this UK website was infected with a virus!!!
The E.U. has a broadband policy...do we? Down under they deal with it this way; And a "poor-man's WiFi" from New Zealand...
Elsewhere around the globe? http://www.green-wifi.org/
Did you know that "Wi-Fi" is something many of us have in our own homes? Do your computers work together as a "network" - without having a wire connecting them? Like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11

WiFi? Why not!
Read research study that raises the major questions (in the Executive Summary) and gives an excellent overview...
(found via Google from footnotes on "Broadband" - Wikipedia).

Above is an example of "WIFRY" - narrowing signal for better quality and range (also can use a WOKTENNA) - instructions below:
Make 2.4GHz parabolic mesh dishes from cheap but sturdy Chinese cookware scoops & a USB WiFi adaptor! The largest so called "WIFRY" or "WOKTENNA" (12"= 300mm diam) shows 12-15dB gain (enough for a LOS range extension to 3-5km),costs ~US$5 & comes with a user friendly bamboo handle that suits WLAN fieldwork- if you can handle the curious stares! Neater boutique versions may better appeal indors.

What is it ("WiFi")?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi

Some more on what it is...
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wireless-network.htm

How is WiFi building in America?
Imagine having to make this type of system work over greater distances than from the kitchen to the upstairs office!
And from the Free Press website (nice graphics):

Community Internet across America;
Municipal WiFi Option

A better result elsewhere? Check this out!

TECHNICAL INFO:
Want to talk like a Wi-Fi techie? Some words you should know...

What is "bluetooth?" Bad circulation in your teeth? Here's a link to another "glossary"...here is annd more definitions of computer terms; another!

Wi-Fi Alliance - its the IEEE 802.11a-g and an "n" version is forthcoming, according to our technical consultant - on the web: http://wi-fi.org/

A Subect of Interest All Over The World
http://www.wifinetnews.com /

Bluetooth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth

BLOGGING IT:
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/

We found this niche blog article - blog itself has now been merged into the The Wireless Report (www.thewirelessreport.com), which covers all things wireless - http://wifi.weblogsinc.com/2006/01/24/two-u-s-cities-make-top-10-hotspot-list/

B A C K G R O U N D R E P O R T S . . .

THE BASICS:

Most users know they need a laptop that's equipped with a wireless card to connect to a WiFi network. Here are some other tips about how to get a strong signal from a citywide system.

• Look for a node: Before you subscribe, look to see where the closest node is to your building. If it's within eyesight, you're more likely to get a strong signal.

• Work by a window: If possible, use your computer near a window on the first or second floor. You won't get a signal from the middle of a building with no windows.

• Use a CPE: To get a signal indoors, use a wireless router called a CPE, or customer-premise equipment, that strengthens the signal. EarthLink offers one at no charge to customers who sign up for a one-year subscription and sells them to other customers for $69.95.

Source: Chronicle research

AT&T Rolls Out DISH Service In Ex - BellSouth States
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Published: April 2, 2008

Filed at 2:10 p.m. ET
Skip to next paragraph Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T <T.N> said on Wednesday it is rolling out a joint video, Internet and phone service with satellite provider DISH Network Corp <DISH.O> in states previously covered by BellSouth Corp.

AT&T, which acquired BellSouth in late 2006, has stopped marketing DIRECTV Group Inc <DTV.O> service in the nine states, a spokesman told Reuters.

AT&T has not yet made a final decision on video partnerships for its entire territory, and was still in negotiations with DIRECTV and DISH, the spokesman said, adding a decision was due by the end of the year.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke and Ritsuko Ando, editing by Richard Chang)

Comcast to Stop Hampering File-Sharing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 27, 2008
Filed at 3:34 p.m. ET

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Comcast Corp., an Internet service provider under investigation for hampering online file-sharing by its subscribers, announced Thursday an about-face in its stance and said it will treat all types of Internet traffic equally.

Comcast said it will collaborate with BitTorrent Inc., the company founded by the creator of the popular BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, to come up with better ways to transport large files over the Internet instead of delaying file transfers.

Since user reports of interference with file-sharing traffic were confirmed by an Associated Press investigation in October, Comcast has been vigorously defending its practices, most recently at a hearing of the Federal Communications Commission in February.

Consumer and ''Net Neutrality'' advocates have been equally vigorous in their attacks on the company, saying that by secretly blocking some connections between file-sharing computers, Comcast made itself a judge and gatekeeper for the Internet.

They also accused Comcast of stifling delivery of Internet video, an emerging competitor to the core business of the nation's largest cable operator.

It was not immediately clear what effect, if any, the move will have on the FCC's ongoing probe, but Net Neutrality groups remained skeptical.

''This deal is the direct result of public pressure, and the threat of FCC action, against Comcast,'' said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, a media reform group. ''But with Comcast's history of broken promises and record of deception, we can't just take their word that the Internet is now in safe hands.''

Shares in Comcast rose 29 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $20 in midday trading Thursday.

Comcast has said that its practices were necessary to keep file-sharing traffic from overwhelming local cable lines, where neighbors share capacity with one another.

On Thursday, Comcast said that by year's end, it will no longer target files based on the type of protocol used, such as BitTorrent's, and will instead explore alternatives.

''The outcome will be a traffic management technique that is more appropriate for today's emerging Internet trends,'' Tony Werner, Comcast's chief technology officer, said in a statement.

One option is to delay file transfers for the heaviest downloaders, regardless of protocol, the Philadelphia-based company said.

Comcast said it also was monitoring Time Warner Cable Inc.'s experiment in placing explicit caps on the monthly downloads for new customers in Beaumont, Texas. Subscribers who go over their allotment will pay extra, much like a cell-phone subscriber who uses too many minutes in a month.

But Comcast may be wary about charging certain users more because of competitive pressure, especially after rival Verizon Communications Inc. said recently that such traffic is legitimate and that its FiOS network can handle the flow, said Harold Feld of Media Access Project, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

Comcast has been hampering the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, which together with the eDonkey protocol, accounts for about a third of all Internet traffic, according to figures from Arbor Networks. The vast majority of that is illegal sharing of copyright-protected files, but file-sharing is also emerging as a low-cost way of distributing legal content -- in particular, video.

On Thursday, Werner all but embraced peer-to-peer file transfers, saying the techniques have ''matured as an enabler for legal content distribution.''

The company initially veiled its traffic-management system in secrecy, saying openness would allow users to circumvent it. Werner said the company now would ''publish'' the new technique and take into account feedback from the Internet community.

Comcast and BitTorrent said they want to work out network management issues privately, without the need for government intervention.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell agreed as much, saying in a statement that ''the private sector is the best forum to resolve such disputes.''

For its part, BitTorrent acknowledged that service providers have to manage their networks somehow, especially during peak times.

''While we think there were other management techniques that could have been deployed, we understand why Comcast and other ISPs adopted the approach that they did initially,'' Eric Klinker, BitTorrent's chief technology officer, said in a statement.

Comcast also said that the issue is larger than BitTorrent. It said it was in talks with other parties to find solution, although the cable company might not have much of a choice.

Verizon recently announced that by sharing information with Pando Networks, another file-sharing company, Verizon was able to speed up file-sharing downloads for its subscribers while reducing the strain on its own network. AT&T Inc. has been looking at similar collaboration.

However, phone companies are in a better position than cable companies to deal with file-sharing traffic, since neighbors don't share capacity on phone lines.

Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out
By IAN URBINA, nytimes.com
March 22, 2008

PHILADELPHIA — It was hailed as Internet for the masses when Philadelphia officials announced plans in 2005 to erect the largest municipal Wi-Fi grid in the country, stretching wireless access over 135 square miles with the hope of bringing free or low-cost service to all residents, especially the poor.

Municipal officials in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and 10 other major cities, as well as dozens of smaller towns, quickly said they would match Philadelphia’s plans.

But the excited momentum has sputtered to a standstill, tripped up by unrealistic ambitions and technological glitches. The conclusion that such ventures would not be profitable led to sudden withdrawals by service providers like EarthLink, the Internet company that had effectively cornered the market on the efforts by the larger cities.

Now, community organizations worry about their prospects for helping poor neighborhoods get online.

In Tempe, Ariz., and Portland, Ore., for example, hundreds of subscribers have found themselves suddenly without service as providers have cut their losses and either abandoned their networks or stopped expanding capacity.

“All these cities had this hype hangover late last year when EarthLink announced its intentions to pull out,” said Craig Settles, an independent wireless consultant and author of “Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless” (Hudson Publishing, 2006). “Now that they’re all sobered up, they’re trying to figure out if it’s still possible to capture the dream of providing affordable and high-speed access to all residents.”

EarthLink announced on Feb. 7 that “the operations of the municipal Wi-Fi assets were no longer consistent with the company’s strategic direction.” Philadelphia officials say they are not sure when or if the promised network will now be completed.

For Cesar DeLaRosa, 15, however, the concern is more specific. He said he was worried about his science project on global warming.

“If we don’t have Internet, that means I’ve got to take the bus to the public library after dark, and around here, that’s not always real safe,” Cesar said, seated in front of his family’s new computer in a gritty section of Hunting Park in North Philadelphia. His family is among the 1,000 or so low-income households that now have free or discounted Wi-Fi access through the city’s project, and many of them worry about losing access that they cannot otherwise afford.

Philadelphia officials say service will not be disconnected.

“We expect EarthLink to live up to its contract,” said Terry Phillis, the city’s chief information officer.

But when City Council leaders here held a hearing in December to question EarthLink about how it intended to keep service running and complete the planned network, the company failed to show up.

Officials in Chicago, Houston, Miami and San Francisco find themselves in a similar predicament with EarthLink and other service providers, and have all temporarily tabled their projects.

Part of the problem was in the business model established in Philadelphia and mimicked in so many other cities, Mr. Settles said.

In Philadelphia, the agreement was that the city would provide free access to city utility poles for the mounting of routers; in return the Internet service provider would agree to build the infrastructure for 23 free hotspots and to provide inexpensive citywide residential service, including 25,000 special accounts that were even cheaper for lower-income households.

But soon it became clear that dependable reception required more routers than initially predicted, which drastically raised the cost of building the networks. Marketing was also slow to begin, so paid subscribers did not sign up in the numbers that providers initially hoped, Mr. Phillis said.

Prices for Internet service on the broader market also began dropping to a level that, while above what many poor people could afford, was below what municipal Wi-Fi providers were offering, so the companies had to lower their rates even further, making investment in infrastructure even more risky, he said.

EarthLink, which has seen a recent decline in profits and subscribers, lost its chief executive, Garry Betty, to cancer in January 2007, and with him went one of the nation’s most vocal advocates of municipal Wi-Fi. Mr. Betty’s successor, Rolla P. Huff, announced plans to cut costs and move the company in a new direction by laying off about 900 workers, about half the company’s work force, and withdrawing from municipal wireless projects.

Chris Marshall, an EarthLink spokesman who declined to be interviewed, said in an e-mail statement, “We concluded that our Municipal Wi-Fi operation is not consistent with our strategic direction and we’ve committed to a plan to sell the Muni Wi-Fi assets.”

For San Francisco residents, EarthLink’s change of plans was an especially big letdown. Unlike most other cities where municipal wireless was going to be offered in free hotspots and at a reduced price for residential service, San Francisco planned to offer citywide wireless free in a three-way deal with EarthLink, which was to build the grid, and Google, which would have paid to advertise through the network.

“It was a huge disappointment for us,” Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco said about EarthLink’s shift in course, “and, with all due respect, it doesn’t seem like a smart way to run a business to work with a city for two years over a major plan and then suddenly one day to call and say you are pulling out.”

Mr. Newsom said that rather than select a single Internet provider to blanket the city, he might team up with multiple nonprofits and companies, and set up smaller free Wi-Fi areas, especially in poor neighborhoods.

Smaller cities, too, have run into problems with municipal wireless efforts.

Tempe, for instance, was one of the first midsize cities in the nation to go live in 2006 with its municipal wireless network, after erecting about 900 routers on utility poles and contracting with Gobility, a Texas-based provider, for residential service at about $20 per month. In December, the company suddenly pulled service after failing to get enough subscribers.

“The entire for-profit model is the reason for the collapse in all these projects,” said Sascha Meinrath, technology analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.

Mr. Meinrath said that advocates wanted to see American cities catch up with places like Athens, Leipzig and Vienna, where free or inexpensive Wi-Fi already exists in many areas.

He said that true municipal networks, the ones that are owned and operated by municipalities, were far more sustainable because they could take into account benefits that help cities beyond private profit, including property-value increases, education benefits and quality-of-life improvements that come with offering residents free wireless access.

Mr. Meinrath pointed to St. Cloud, Fla., which spent $3 million two years ago to build a free wireless network that is used by more than 70 percent of the households in the city.

But projects covering larger cities have proved far more difficult to sustain financially, and much of the attention has turned now to Minneapolis, which is rolling out a network based on a new business model that many market analysts believe will avoid the financial risks that EarthLink encountered in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

In Minneapolis, the Internet service provider agreed to build the network as long as the city committed to becoming an “anchor tenant” by subscribing for a minimum number of city workers, like building inspectors, meter readers, police officers and firefighters.

This type of plan is more viable, according to market analysts and city officials, because the companies paying to mount the routers and run the service are guaranteed a base number of subscribers to cover the cost of their investment.

Some companies have also begun offering technological alternatives that may help expand wireless access.

Meraki, a wireless networking company based in Mountain View, Calif., has jumped into the void in San Francisco with a program it calls “Free the Net.” The company sells low-cost equipment that can be placed in a person’s home to broadcast a wireless signal. The company also sells inexpensive repeaters that can be placed on rooftops or outside walls to spread the original customer’s signal farther. The combination of the two types of equipment creates a mesh of free wireless in neighborhoods. The company says it has almost 70,000 users throughout San Francisco.

Back in Philadelphia, Cesar’s older sister, Tomasa DeLaRosa, said she had faith that city officials would find a way to finish the network and keep her Internet service going.

“Our whole house is totally different now,” said Ms. DeLaRosa, 19, who had never had Internet access at home until last December because she could not afford it.

After signing up for a job training program and completing its course work, Ms. DeLaRosa received a free laptop, training and a year’s worth of free wireless service from Esparanza, a community group.

Greg Goldman, chief executive of Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization that was set up as part of the city’s deal with EarthLink, said that about $20 million had already been spent on the network, and only about $4 million more would be needed to cover the rest of the city.

Mr. Goldman’s organization is responsible for providing bundles that include a free laptop, Internet access, training and technical support to organizations like Esparanza so they can use them as incentives for their low-income clients like Ms. DeLaRosa to complete job training and other programs.

“For us and a lot of people in this neighborhood,” Ms. DeLaRosa said, “the Internet is like a path out of here.”

State Commissioner Brokers Meeting With AT&T, Union ; Communications Giant Has Plans To Eliminate 213 Jobs In Connecticut
DAY
By Patricia Daddona,
Published on 2/2/2008

AT&T's union president has agreed to meet with the company and a state commissioner to address not only the announced 213 company layoffs but also the larger issue of work leaving Connecticut.

William Henderson, the president of the Communications Workers of America Union Local 1298, met late Friday with Joan McDonald, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development. John Olsen, head of the AFL-CIO, joined them, they said.

“We're going to see where it goes,” said Henderson, who was miffed initially that Gov. M. Jodi Rell has not yet met with him personally.

“This is not an AT&T labor issue as much as it is a state of Connecticut issue,” said Henderson. “We are bleeding jobs in Connecticut and I'm asking the governor to put a tourniquet on. My point was our communication system in this state is as important to Connecticut as I-95 is because we have to have the best on the information highway.”

The concern also is looming, he said, that more AT&T jobs could be lost here when the contract is renegotiated in 2009.

AT&T is eliminating 213 jobs as it shifts collections work to Tennessee, global accounts to Dallas, and repair work to Ohio. Positions will be lost at call centers in Hartford, New Haven and Meriden.

“This is the beginning, not the end” of a steady erosion of jobs in the state, Henderson said.

McDonald said Rell has asked her to take the lead among a variety of commissioners, including the head of the state Department of Labor. She said she will have a “roll-up our sleeves working meeting to see what types of initiatives might make sense” before anything goes to the governor.

The meeting McDonald plans to hold with AT&T and Henderson will address training programs to “make sure that our work force locally has all the right skills” as well as broader “macro” issues about jobs in the state, she said.

Earlier in the day, McDonald said Henderson refused to meet with her, but Henderson disputed that, saying he didn't see the point in meeting with anyone but the governor since Rell could best effect change. Later, the two met with Olsen.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who urged Rell by letter to meet with Henderson, said Friday Rell is in a position to intervene and help prevent AT&T layoffs much the way the governor of Massachusetts has.

“I'm somewhat dismayed and disappointed by the complete refusal to speak personally with the two sides,” Blumenthal said. “Only the governor will have the kind of sway and persuasive influence that would reverse this decision, with all due respect to the commissioner. None of this is to be personally critical, because I know the governor shares a concern for jobs and families.”

McDonald said Rell has been delegating responsibility on the matter and “not refusing to meet” with Henderson.

Rich Harris, a spokesman for the governor, said Rell is busy attending to the budget and getting ready for the upcoming legislative session, which begins Wednesday.

“Gov. Rell's record is clear,” he said. “She will fight tooth and nail to save any job that she can. She remained as concerned about these jobs as she was about the jobs at the sub base, MetLife, Aetna, ING and all of the other jobs she's fought for. The governor's going to work with all of her commissioners ... to see what the best way to proceed will be and that's an evolving strategy.”

Seth Bloom, an AT&T spokesman, emphasized that directly affected employees will have the option of taking a severance package or moving into other positions within the company. And to lessen the impact of severance on these employees, the company extended the severance offer to a larger group of employees, which is expected to open up new positions for workers, he said.

“There certainly are other call centers in other states that will do this work,” said Bloom. But “every person who has a job with us will continue to have a job with us unless they take a severance package. Furthermore, we continue to add jobs to the state's economy where we're growing for U-Verse broadband and wireless.”

AT&T's union president has agreed to meet with the company and a state commissioner to address not only the announced 213 company layoffs but also the larger issue of work leaving Connecticut.

William Henderson, the president of the Communications Workers of America Union Local 1298, met late Friday with Joan McDonald, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development. John Olsen, head of the AFL-CIO, joined them, they said.

“We're going to see where it goes,” said Henderson, who was miffed initially that Gov. M. Jodi Rell has not yet met with him personally.

“This is not an AT&T labor issue as much as it is a state of Connecticut issue,” said Henderson. “We are bleeding jobs in Connecticut and I'm asking the governor to put a tourniquet on. My point was our communication system in this state is as important to Connecticut as I-95 is because we have to have the best on the information highway.”

The concern also is looming, he said, that more AT&T jobs could be lost here when the contract is renegotiated in 2009.

AT&T is eliminating 213 jobs as it shifts collections work to Tennessee, global accounts to Dallas, and repair work to Ohio. Positions will be lost at call centers in Hartford, New Haven and Meriden.

“This is the beginning, not the end” of a steady erosion of jobs in the state, Henderson said.

McDonald said Rell has asked her to take the lead among a variety of commissioners, including the head of the state Department of Labor. She said she will have a “roll-up our sleeves working meeting to see what types of initiatives might make sense” before anything goes to the governor.

The meeting McDonald plans to hold with AT&T and Henderson will address training programs to “make sure that our work force locally has all the right skills” as well as broader “macro” issues about jobs in the state, she said.

Earlier in the day, McDonald said Henderson refused to meet with her, but Henderson disputed that, saying he didn't see the point in meeting with anyone but the governor since Rell could best effect change. Later, the two met with Olsen.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who urged Rell by letter to meet with Henderson, said Friday Rell is in a position to intervene and help prevent AT&T layoffs much the way the governor of Massachusetts has.

“I'm somewhat dismayed and disappointed by the complete refusal to speak personally with the two sides,” Blumenthal said. “Only the governor will have the kind of sway and persuasive influence that would reverse this decision, with all due respect to the commissioner. None of this is to be personally critical, because I know the governor shares a concern for jobs and families.”

McDonald said Rell has been delegating responsibility on the matter and “not refusing to meet” with Henderson.

Rich Harris, a spokesman for the governor, said Rell is busy attending to the budget and getting ready for the upcoming legislative session, which begins Wednesday.

“Gov. Rell's record is clear,” he said. “She will fight tooth and nail to save any job that she can. She remained as concerned about these jobs as she was about the jobs at the sub base, MetLife, Aetna, ING and all of the other jobs she's fought for. The governor's going to work with all of her commissioners ... to see what the best way to proceed will be and that's an evolving strategy.”

Seth Bloom, an AT&T spokesman, emphasized that directly affected employees will have the option of taking a severance package or moving into other positions within the company. And to lessen the impact of severance on these employees, the company extended the severance offer to a larger group of employees, which is expected to open up new positions for workers, he said.

“There certainly are other call centers in other states that will do this work,” said Bloom. But “every person who has a job with us will continue to have a job with us unless they take a severance package. Furthermore, we continue to add jobs to the state's economy where we're growing for U-Verse broadband and wireless.”

Microsoft and Yahoo's shotgun marriage
Friday 1 February 2008 13:68 GMT

ANALYSIS
By Tim Weber
Business editor, BBC News website

Yahoo founder Jerry Yan and Microsoft founder Bill Gates
Jerry Yang's and Bill Gates' legacies are at stake

Is this Bill Gates' last big throw?

Microsoft's proposal to buy internet veteran Yahoo for a whopping $44.6bn (£22.4bn) certainly grabs the attention.

But does it make business sense?

In a way this won't be the Microsoft founder's problem. This summer Mr Gates will leave the company to work full-time on fighting global poverty and diseases like Aids, Malaria and TB.

But the Microsoft managers who have to make it work will be asked whether this is a case of one failing giant trying to prop up another.

The Google factor

Yahoo has been on the ropes for a long time.

Once the top dog of the internet, the company has been haemorrhaging users and money. With advertising income not anywhere near where it should be, Yahoo's share price is stuck in the doldrums.

"If Yahoo agrees to the deal with Microsoft, it will be a shotgun marriage, but it will be Google holding the shotgun."

Last June Yahoo's board chucked out chief executive Terry Semel and brought back co-founder Jerry Yang to recapture the firm's dominance - to little avail.

One word explains all of Yahoo's troubles: Google. While Yahoo invested in content to lure its audience, the search engine rival simply focused on delivering what users really wanted: good search results.

Fighting over the mobile web

Microsoft has watched Yahoo's struggle closely, and seen the writing on the wall.

As Google has grown into a billion dollar business, it has increasingly strayed into Microsoft's territory, competing not just for advertising revenue but rivalling core Microsoft products like email and word processing.

That alone would not be enough to persuade Microsoft to make this unsolicited offer.

"Microsoft was late to the internet and has always been playing catch up."

Darren Waters, technology editor, BBC News website

Don't forget, despite its many challenges Microsoft is still in rude health. It has one of the world's largest research and development budgets, and key software products like Windows and Office are still licences to print money.

But Microsoft also knows that its stronghold, the PC business, is getting less and less important.

The future of today's IT industry is the rapidly growing mobile internet space, and Google has made no secret that it is prepared to spend a lot of money to conquer this market.

Ultimately, Google and Microsoft pursue the same market, although they approach it from two different directions.

Google wants to enable its customers to organise and find the whole of human knowledge, and is providing the tools to do so.

Microsoft is a provider of tools that just happen to help users to process and use information.

Now both firms are meeting in the middle and fight for market space.

Shotgun marriage

If Yahoo agrees to the deal with Microsoft, it will be a shotgun marriage, but it will be Google holding the shotgun.

If Yahoo's management says "yes, I do", it will be an admission that its attempts to turn around the company have failed.

Yahoo shareholders, in turn, will not be able to believe their luck. Microsoft was probably the only company with pockets deep enough to bail them out.

For Microsoft, however, this is the deal that could break it.

Making the offer is an admission that Microsoft's management has been scared by the success of Google.

The bid is also an acknowledgement that its numerous attempts to become a dominant internet content provider have failed.

But to make it pay, Microsoft will have to demonstrate that the combined company can offer a superior business model.

The big bet

Microsoft is promising that together with Yahoo it can offer "a competitive choice" that offers "more value... to advertisers, publishers and consumers".

That holds true only if the combined Microsoft and Yahoo can do what they did not achieve as separate companies, namely develop search algorithms that rival those of Google.

Anything short of that would result in one of the biggest destructions of shareholder value since the disastrous merger of AOL and Time Warner at the height of the dotcom boom.

If Microsoft succeeds, it will be able to extend its hold on the PC world to all aspects of our lives.

Bill Gates and his top managers are betting an awfully large part of the company in the hope of making it a success.

Source: Google, Verizon near net neutrality plan
YAHOO
By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer
Thu Aug 5, 4:04 am ET

WASHINGTON – Google Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are close to finalizing a proposal for so-called "network neutrality" rules, which would dictate how broadband providers treat Internet traffic flowing over their lines, according to a person briefed on the negotiations.

A deal could be announced within days, said the person, who did not want to be identified because negotiations are still ongoing.

Any deal that is reached could form the basis for federal legislation and would likely shape efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to broker an agreement on the contentious issue, which has pitted the nation's big phone and cable companies against many big Internet companies.

The FCC has been holding talks with a handful of large phone, cable and Internet companies - including Verizon and Google - to try to reach some sort of industrywide compromise on net neutrality that all sides can accept. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is seeking to adopt rules that would require phone and cable companies to give equal treatment to all broadband traffic traveling over their networks.

Public interest groups and a number of big Internet companies, including Google and online calling service Skype, say such rules are needed to prevent broadband providers from becoming online gatekeepers. They are particularly concerned that the phone and cable companies could start charging extra for priority access, or could slow or even block Internet phone calls, online video and other Web services that compete with their core businesses.

But the phone and cable companies argue that after investing billions in their networks, they need to be able earn a return on their massive investments by offering premium services. They also insist that they need flexibility to manage network traffic so that high-bandwidth applications don't eat up too much capacity and slow down their systems for everyone else.

While there is consensus that broadband providers should not be allowed to block or degrade Internet traffic, the FCC talks have yet to produce an agreement. Two big sticking points center on whether broadband providers should be allowed to offer premium services and whether net neutrality rules should apply to wireless networks, which tend to have more bandwidth constraints than landline systems.

In a statement Wednesday, Verizon said it has been in talks with Google for nearly 10 months to try to strike some sort of compromise on net neutrality. It added that it remains committed to the discussions taking place at the FCC and is "optimistic this process will reach a consensus that can maintain an open Internet and the investment and innovation required to sustain it."

Google had no comment.

Google and Verizon are already business partners since Google's Android operating system powers Verizon Wireless's Droid smartphone. The Droid is the biggest competitor to Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which is available only through AT&T Wireless in the U.S.

An FCC statement said only that "the broad stakeholder discussions continue to actively include Google and Verizon."

AT&T Inc., which is also taking part in the FCC talks, said it is "not a party to the purported agreement between Google and Verizon" and remains "committed to trying to reach a consensus on this issue through the FCC process."

Several public interest groups, meanwhile, voiced concerns that a deal between Verizon and Google would allow broadband providers to offer premium services and would not apply to wireless networks. Josh Silver, founder and president of the group Free Press, warned that an agreement would amount to "a bold grab for market power by two monopolistic players" and would "effectively create two Internets where application and content innovators have to ask Verizon and Google for permission to reach mobile Internet customers."

"The point of a network neutrality rule is to prevent big companies from dividing the Internet between them," said Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of the group Public Knowledge. "We do not need rules to protect Google and Verizon, but we need a rule to protect the customers of Google and Verizon and the competitors of Google and Verizon."

The talks at the FCC are also focused on establishing the agency's authority to regulate broadband. The agency has been scrambling to develop a new regulatory framework since a federal appeals court in April cast doubt on its jurisdiction over broadband - including its ability to mandate net neutrality - under existing rules.

FCC set to reconsider broadband regulations
YAHOO
By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer
17 June 2010

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators are reconsidering the rules that govern high-speed Internet connections - wading into a bitter policy dispute that could be tied up in court for years.

The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday to begin taking public comments on three different paths for regulating broadband. That includes a proposal by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, to define broadband access as a telecommunications service subject to "common carrier" obligations to treat all traffic equally.

Genachowski's proposal is a response to a federal appeals court ruling that has cast doubt on the agency's authority over broadband under its existing regulatory framework.

The plan has the backing of many big Internet companies, which say it would ensure the FCC can prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over broadband connections to determine what subscribers can do online.

"There is a real urgency to this because right now there are no rules of the road to protect consumers from even the most egregious discriminatory behavior by telephone and cable companies," said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition. The group's members include Google Inc., eBay Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and online calling service Skype Ltd.

But Genachowski's plan faces stiff resistance from the broadband providers themselves, including AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. They say it opens the door to onerous and outdated regulations that would discourage them from upgrading their networks.

"This FCC proposal could call into question the business assumptions underlying multibillion-dollar broadband investments," said Howard Waltzman, a former Republican staffer on the House Commerce Committee who is now representing telephone companies as a partner with Mayer Brown LLP.

Many Republicans and even some Democrats on Capitol Hill - as well as the two Republicans on the five-member FCC - oppose Genachowski's plan. At least one House Republican, Rep. John Culberson of Texas, has proposed blocking funding for the FCC if it pursues the plan.

The FCC currently defines broadband as a lightly regulated information service. But in April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that this approach does not give the commission the authority it needs to adopt so-called "network neutrality" mandates, which would bar broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against traffic traveling over their networks.

Supporters of network neutrality say such rules are necessary to prevent phone and cable companies from blocking or degrading online calling services, Internet video and other applications that compete with their core businesses.

Indeed, the recent appeals court decision grew out of a challenge by Comcast Corp. to a 2008 FCC order directing the cable company to stop blocking subscribers from accessing an online file-sharing service. Comcast and other broadband providers insist they need flexibility to manage their networks and ensure that certain applications don't hog too much bandwidth.

The court ruling also undermines the FCC's ability to act on several key recommendations in its national broadband plan - another top priority for Genachowski - including a proposal to expand high-speed Internet access by tapping the federal program that subsidizes phone service in poor and rural areas.

Genachowski says his new regulatory framework would allow the FCC to move ahead on both fronts by placing broadband connections firmly within the agency's jurisdiction as a telecommunications service. At the same time, he has pledged to impose only narrow telecom rules on broadband providers, avoiding burdensome mandates such as rate regulations and network-sharing obligations. He has also stressed that his approach would not impose regulations on Internet content and services.

In outlining his proposal last month, Genachowski called it a "third way" that respects "investment and innovation" and protects consumers and Internet competition.

Thursday's vote will launch a proceeding to examine:

-Genachowski's proposal;

-the implications of leaving the existing regulatory frawework in place;

-and the implications of imposing the full array of traditional telecommunications regulations on broadband providers.

If the FCC ultimately adopts Genachowski's plan, it will almost certainly draw legal challenges from phone and cable companies that fear any shift away from the current deregulatory approach adopted under the Bush administration. That approach was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005 and a battle over any attempt to overturn it could go all the way back to the high court.

Specter pushes in Pa. for electronic privacy laws
YAHOO
By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer
29 March 2010

PHILADELPHIA – Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is pushing for new federal laws on electronic privacy as a school district back home struggles with a lawsuit over attempts to locate missing laptops by turning on webcams — something that could have enabled it to film students at home.

Specter, a Democrat, said at a field hearing of a Senate subcommittee that he believes existing wiretap and video-voyeurism statutes do not adequately address concerns in an era marked by the widespread use of cell-phone, laptop and surveillance cameras.

"My family and I recognize that in today's society, almost every place we go outside of our home we are photographed and recorded by traffic cameras, ATM cameras, and store surveillance cameras," Blake Robbins, the Harriton High School student who sued, wrote in a statement read into the record at the hearing of the crime and justice subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"This makes it all the more important that we vigilantly safeguard our homes, the only refuge we have from this eyes everywhere onslaught," he wrote.

Robbins accuses the Lower Merion School District of spying by secretly activating webcams on the school-issued laptops; officials admit they did so but said they were trying only to locate 42 lost or stolen computers.

Neither Robbins nor his parents attended the session, which did not specifically focus on the Lower Merion case — the subject of ongoing county and FBI investigations. Instead, five experts debated how best to strike a balance between privacy and security concerns.

Lawyer Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that wiretap laws, which now cover audio recordings, should be broadened to include videotaped surveillance. But others disagreed, arguing that wiretap charges should not apply, lest they entangle innocent people using software tracking programs to try to find their own stolen phones or laptops.

"If it does fall under (the Wiretap Act) in the new legislation, we hope there will be an exception for stolen devices," said John Livingston, chairman of Absolute Software Corp., the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company that acquired the LANrev TheftTrack software program deployed by Lower Merion.

The panel debated whether any new law should focus on the intent of the person using the camera; whether the subject's location affords them an expectation of privacy, such as a home or locker room; or the full context of the situation.

Only one person from the Lower Merion district testified, a parent opposed to the Robbins family's lawsuit who urged a middle ground between security and privacy concerns.

Bob Wegbreit said a warning might suffice to let families know the district might activate webcams without a student's knowledge. Students could then choose to keep the computers in other parts of the house, instead of their bedrooms, said Wegbreit, whose group fears the lawsuit will damage the upscale district's finances and reputation.

Federal legislation might help clarify what school districts, employers or others can and cannot do, he said.

"There's no question that I believe the federal government should be legislating in this area," said Fred H. Cate, an Indiana University law school professor who specializes in cybersecurity issues. "We've seen a proliferation of video cameras in every aspect of our lives."

Specter, the only senator in attendance Monday, agreed to lead the effort, noting that at least one federal judge voiced concerns a quarter century ago that privacy laws were not keeping up with emerging technology.

"My sense is my colleagues will be responsive," Specter said. "If there is a gap, it ought to be closed ... after 25 years."

U.S. Justice Department Eyeing Telecom Probe: Report
NYTIMES
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:20 p.m. ET
July 6, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has begun looking at big telecom companies to try to determine if they have abused their market power, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Monday.

The journal, which cited people familiar with the matter, said the Antitrust Division's review was in its very early stages and was not a formal probe of any specific company.

The country's biggest operators are AT&T Inc <T.N> and Verizon <Communications <VZ.N>.

Lawmakers have recently raised questions about whether large wireless carriers were hurting smaller rivals by entering exclusive agreements with the makers of popular phones. Deals like AT&T's multiyear agreement with Apple Inc <AAPL.O> for exclusive rights to sell the iPhone in the U.S. are at the center of some lawmakers' concerns.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel referred questions on any probe to the Department of Justice. But he defended the practice of exclusive agreements between carriers and phone makers, saying they spurred competition and helped companies collaborate on new features.

Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said that his company, which is the biggest U.S. mobile service, had had no notice from the Justice Department about any probe into handset exclusivity. Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications <VZ.N> and Vodafone Group Plc <VOD.L>.

John Taylor, a spokesman for Sprint Nextel <S.N>, the No. 3 U.S. mobile service which has an exclusive agreement to sell Palm Inc's <PALM.O> high-profile Pre phone, declined comment on the reported probe.

He also defended exclusive handset agreements as pro-competitive. "We think that without these exclusivity arrangements carriers are less likely to risk the investment necessary to develop and promote devices like these," he said.

The new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, plans to review the deals. According to a copy of the written responses to questions from Senator John Kerry obtained by Reuters in mid-June, Genachowski said he would "promote competition and consumer choice."

Lawmakers have also raised questions about the pricing of text messages.

F.C.C. Reshapes Rules Limiting Media Industry
NYTIMES
By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: December 19, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission approved two new rules on Tuesday that are likely to reshape the nation’s media landscape by setting new parameters for the size and scope of the largest news and cable companies.

One rule would tighten the reins on the cable television industry. By stipulating that no one company can control more than 30 percent of the market, the rule introduces fresh regulation to an industry where there has been little of it, angering both the cable industry and Republican commissioners, who favor a free-market approach.

The other rule, which gives owners of newspapers more leeway to buy radio and television stations in the largest cities, is a step in the direction of deregulation. It is intended to help the newspaper industry, which is suffering from dwindling advertising revenue, and to recognize that the historical conditions that gave rise to cross-ownership restrictions have changed, now that more news sources are available on the Internet and cable television.

But the change drew criticism from newspaper executives, who said it was too modest to be meaningful, and from prominent lawmakers and commission Democrats, who called it a Christmas present to the nation’s largest conglomerates.

Both rules are certain to be reviewed by courts in the coming months. On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers said Tuesday that they would try to undo the rule about the newspaper industry.

Nevertheless, the votes were an important political victory for Kevin J. Martin, the F.C.C. chairman, who presided over a contentious meeting at which he re-established his control over the deeply divided agency. Mr. Martin had suffered a sharp setback three weeks ago when he was unable to find two commissioners to support a plan to regulate cable television more tightly.

The decisions were a blow to Comcast Communications, the nation’s largest cable company, which has grown substantially over the last decade through a series of acquisitions and will now be unable to buy more cable companies unless it can get the order overturned by a court.

By taking Comcast out of any bidding, the new rule was also a setback to smaller cable operators thinking of selling to other companies.

As for the relaxation of the newspaper-broadcast rule, telecommunications lawyers said it could pave the way for Rupert Murdoch to win permanent waivers to control two television stations in New York, as well as The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.

In one 3-to-2 vote on Tuesday, Mr. Martin sided with the agency’s two other Republicans to relax the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules in the nation’s 20 largest markets. Under the new rule, a company can own both a newspaper and either a television or radio station in those markets as long as there remain at least eight other independent sources of news. If it is a television station, the rule requires that it cannot be one of the top four.

Mr. Martin said that the change was a modest, though vital step toward assisting the newspaper industry, which is struggling financially as advertising and readership migrates rapidly to the Internet. “We cannot ignore the fact the media marketplace is considerably different than when the media ownership rule was put in place more than 30 years ago,” he said.

In a second 3-to-2 vote, Mr. Martin joined with the two Democratic commissioners to impose a limit to prevent Comcast, which controls nearly 30 percent of the market, from getting larger. Mr. Martin has been critical of the cable television industry for raising rates faster than the rate of inflation and for failing to offer consumers enough lower-price choices in subscription packages.

In a series of dissents, the commissioners took issue with Mr. Martin’s assessments.

“In the final analysis,” said Michael J. Copps, a Democratic commissioner who has led a nationwide effort against relaxing the media ownership rules, “the real winners today are businesses that are in many cases quite healthy, and the real losers are going to be all of us who depend on the news media to learn what’s happening in our communities and to keep an eye on local government.”

Robert M. McDowell, a Republican commissioner, was sharply critical of the cable restrictions.

“The cap is out of date, is bad public policy and is not needed in today’s public market,” he said. He called the cable rule “archaic industrial policy” that would surely be struck down by an appeals court, as a similar rule was six years ago.

Although Mr. Martin appears to have won a high-stakes battle over some of the most significant policy decisions of his tenure, he has expended significant political capital and made political enemies of powerful industry groups and influential lawmakers.

For opposite reasons, both rules approved on Tuesday were sharply criticized by industry. John F, Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America, called the new cross-ownership rule “a baby step in the actions needed to maintain the vitality of local news, in print and over-the-air, in all communities across the nation.” Mr. Sturm said he favored eliminating the cross-ownership ban completely.

On the other hand, the cable television industry accused Mr. Martin of once again imposing unfair regulations on it.

David L. Cohen, an executive vice president of Comcast, said it was “perverse to see the commission approving huge mergers by the Bell companies while now telling cable companies, who compete toe-to-toe with the Bells, that they may not also grow larger and achieve the same efficiencies.”

Over the last year, the commission has approved a series of proposals over the objections of the cable television industry. Last December, it approved a measure to force municipalities to accelerate the local approval process for the telephone companies to offer video services in new markets. And two months ago, it struck down thousands of contracts that gave individual cable companies exclusive rights to provide service to apartment buildings.

Consumer groups, which have long pushed for tighter cable television regulation, criticized the change in newspaper cross-ownership. “We’re disappointed that he relaxed the rule,” said Gene Kimmelman, the senior lobbyist in Washington for Consumers Union. “But the new language creating a high hurdle in the small markets, if appropriately implemented, could significantly limit the number of mergers that get through, minimizing the danger to competition and diversity in local news.”

A significant chorus in Congress has been deeply critical of Mr. Martin and repeatedly requested that he delay action on the media ownership vote. On Monday, 25 senators led by Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, sent Mr. Martin a letter in which they vowed to take legislative action to revoke any new rule or nullify Tuesday’s vote.

But in a letter to lawmakers from Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, the administration expressed support for Mr. Martin.

Both the newspaper-broadcast ownership rule and the cable rule are certain to be reviewed by federal appeals courts. Three years ago, a federal appeals panel in Philadelphia struck down a series of deregulatory measures proposed by Mr. Martin’s predecessor, Michael K. Powell, including one that loosened the cross-ownership rules.

F.C.C. Eases Media Ownership Rule
NYTIMES
By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: December 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — By the narrowest of margins, the Federal Communications Commission adopted proposals by its chairman to tighten the reins on the cable television industry while loosening 32-year-old restrictions that have prevented a company from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.

Last month the chairman, Kevin J. Martin, suffered a setback when he was unable to find two commissioners to support his proposal to more tightly regulate cable television. But in a highly contentious meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Martin re-established control when he became the pivotal vote on two rules that could significantly reshape the nation’s media landscape by determining the size and scope of the largest news and cable companies.

In one 3-to-2 vote, he sided with the agency’s two other Republicans to relax the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules in the 20 largest markets. As part of that order, the commission also granted dozens of permanent waivers of newspaper-broadcast combinations in large and small markets that had been given temporary waivers as they awaited the outcome of the rulemaking.

In a second 3-to-2 vote, Mr. Martin joined with the two Democratic commissioners to impose a limit that would prevent the nation’s largest cable company, Comcast Communications, from growing much larger. Under that rule, no company can control more than 30 percent of the market. Analysts say that Comcast is close to that limit.

Mr. Martin has said that a relaxation of the ownership rules was a modest, though vital step toward assisting the newspaper industry as it struggled financially as advertising and readership migrates rapidly to the Internet. He has been critical of the cable television industry for raising rates far greater than the rate of inflation and for failing to offer consumers enough choices in subscription packages.

“We cannot ignore the fact the media marketplace is considerably different than when the media ownership rule was put in place more than 30 years ago,” he said of the newspaper-broadcast rule.

The dissenting commissioners complained strongly about the outcome.

Michael J. Copps, a Democratic commissioner who has led a nationwide effort against relaxing the media ownership rules, said the rule was nothing more than a big Christmas present to the largest conglomerates.

“In the final analysis,” Mr. Copps said, “the real winners today are businesses that are in many cases quite healthy, and the real losers are going to be all of us who depend on the news media to learn what’s happening in our communities and to keep an eye on local government.”

“Despite all the talk you may hear today about the threat to newspapers from the Internet and new technologies, today’s order actually deals with something quite old-fashioned,” Mr. Copps said. “Powerful companies are using political muscle to sneak through rule changes that let them profit at the expense of the public interest.”

And Robert M. McDowell, a Republican commissioner, was sharply critical of the cable restrictions.

“The cap is out of date, is bad public policy and is not needed in today’s public market,” he said. He called the cable rule “archaic industrial policy” that would surely be struck down by an appeals court, as an earlier rule was six years ago.

Although Mr. Martin appears to have won a high-stakes battle within the commission over some of the most important proposals of his tenure, he has expended significant political capital and made political enemies of powerful industry groups and influential lawmakers.

For opposite reasons, both proposals approved on Tuesday have been criticized by industry. The Newspaper Association of America has attacked the proposal for being too modest, and said that Mr. Martin did not go far enough.

“Today’s vote is only a baby step in the actions needed to maintain the vitality of local news, in print and over-the-air, in all communities across the nation,” the president of the Newspaper Association, John F. Sturm, said. “Eliminating the cross-ownership ban completely would enhance localism by enabling broadcasters to increase local news and would not distract from the diversity of viewpoints available to local audiences.”

The cable television industry has said it has repeatedly been an unfair target of Mr. Martin, and that his efforts to regulate the industry are at odds with the broader policies of the Bush administration to remove or lessen regulations.

Over the last year, the commission has approved a series of proposals over the objections of the cable television industry, including one last December to force municipalities to accelerate the local approval process for the telephone companies to offer video services in new markets. Another one last October struck down thousands of contracts that gave individual cable companies exclusive rights to provide service to an apartment building.

Consumer groups, which have long pushed for tighter cable television regulation, were split over the media ownership rules. Some were relieved that it did not go nearly as far as they had feared and that Mr. Martin tightened a loophole by making it more difficult for companies to get exemptions from the rules in smaller markets. Other groups were critical because they said the rule could open the door to further consolidation and a decline in the diversity of voices on the airwaves.

Moreover, a significant chorus in Congress has been deeply critical of Mr. Martin and repeatedly requested that he delay action on the media ownership vote. Earlier this week, 25 senators led by Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, sent Mr. Martin a letter in which they vowed to take legislative action to revoke any new rule or nullify Tuesday’s vote. But the administration expressed support for Mr. Martin.

In a significant victory for the newspaper and broadcast industries, Mr. Martin has signaled that he will not use the new rules to force any companies that already have waivers or exemptions to sell some assets. Some companies, including The New York Times Company, have been able to own both a newspaper and a radio station in the same market under permanent waivers because they held both properties before the restrictions were imposed in 1975. Others have been granted what are supposed to be temporary waivers while the agency considered how to rewrite the rules.

Under Tuesday’s order, 42 newspaper-broadcast combinations that had previously been granted temporary or grandfathered exemptions will not be forced to sell any assets to comply with the new rule.

Both the newspaper-broadcast ownership rule and the cable rule are certain to be reviewed by federal appeals courts. Three years ago, a federal appeals panel in Philadelphia struck down a series of deregulatory measures proposed by Mr. Martin’s predecessor, Michael K. Powell, including one that loosened the cross-ownership rules.

The court said that the agency had the authority to relax the rules, and that it also had the authority to impose some limits on ability of a conglomerate to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. But the judges also concluded that that the commission had not provided a reasoned analysis to support the limits that it chose. The court has continued to hold the case and asked the commission to report back to it once it reconsidered the rules.

The cable concentration caps, as they are known, have long been the subject of debate and litigation at the commission. Six years ago a federal appeals court in Washington struck down a rule that was similar to the one adopted on Tuesday.

The three-judge panel concluded that the commission had failed to provide an adequate justification to overcome the First Amendment rights of the cable companies. But commission officials said that they had provided a different justification for the new rule, which they hoped would pass court muster.

Does Eric talk to David? Guess not!
Democrats Delay a Vote on Immunity for Wiretaps
NYTIMES
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: December 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — In a setback for the White House, Senate Democrats on Monday put off until at least next month any decision on whether to give legal protection to the phone carriers that helped with the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program.

The Bush administration had pushed for immediate passage of legislation to grant immunity to the phone companies as part of a broader expansion of the N.S.A.’s wiretapping authorities. But that will not happen now.

After daylong debate in the Senate on the wiretapping issue, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, announced at the end of the day that there would not be time to consider the legislation this week as he had hoped. With a dozen competing amendments on the issue and an omnibus spending bill separately awaiting consideration, Mr. Reid said he believed it would be difficult to give the wiretapping issue the close consideration that it deserved this week before the Senate leaves for its Christmas recess.

“Democrats are committed to improving our nation’s intelligence laws while protecting Americans’ civil liberties,” Mr. Reid said. “We need to take the time necessary to debate a bill that does just that, rather than rushing one through the legislative process.”

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and presidential candidate, spent much of the day attacking the idea of giving immunity to the phone companies, and he took credit for the delay.

“Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy,” Mr. Dodd said in a statement.

“The president should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecom companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens,” he said. “I thank all my colleagues who joined me in fighting and winning a stay in the rush to grant retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who may have violated the privacy rights of millions of Americans.”

In August, Congress hastily approved expanded powers for the security agency in a vote that many Democrats said they regretted. That temporary legislation expires on Feb. 1, and the White House had pushed the Senate to approve legislation this week — including the much-sought immunity for the phone carriers — so that an agreement could be worked out in negotiations with the House. The House approved a wiretapping measure of its own last month that did not include immunity.

Administration officials expressed disappointment with the Senate delay in dealing with the wiretapping issue.

“It’s very disappointing,” Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said. “There will be very little time to accomplish this when Congress returns in January. Each day of delay brings us closer to reopening a dangerous intelligence gap that we closed last summer.”The decision by Mr. Reid to put off the vote was surprising because it came just hours after the White House’s push for immunity for the phone carriers had cleared an initial procedural hurdle Monday.

By a vote of 76 to 10, the Senate agreed earlier in the day to begin debating the question of whether to provide legal immunity to the phone carriers.

Even some Democrats who oppose the White House’s immunity plan voted to support the motion Monday because they said it was important for the Senate to resolve the issue one way or the other after weeks of debate.

The vote appeared to head off, at least for now, threats by some opponents of immunity, including Senator Dodd, to delay a vote through a filibuster.

Ultimately, the Senate is likely to consider three different approaches: a plan by the Senate Intelligence Committee to immunize the phone carriers from liability; a plan by the Judiciary Committee to leave out immunity; and an alternative plan by Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, to indemnify the companies from legal liability by making the government responsible for any damages instead. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, threw a fourth option into the mix Monday by proposing that the foreign intelligence court, the FISA court, be allowed to decide whether individual companies should get immunity.

Even if the Senate does approve the immunity provision, the fight will not be over. The House this month approved a proposal that left out immunity for the companies, and the two chambers would have to meet to reach an agreement.

There are 40 lawsuits pending against AT&T, Verizon and other major phone companies over their alleged cooperation in the eavesdropping program.

Dodd Halts Measure Aimed At Reforming FISA; Telecoms' immunity provision sidetracked by threat of filibuster
DAY
By Ted Mann
Published on 12/18/2007

As his opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination stayed in Iowa, scrambling for victory in the January primaries, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut came back to Washington and eked out a win on the Senate floor.

With Dodd threatening a filibuster, Senate Democratic leaders pulled a proposed reform of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act Monday night, agreeing to reassess a provision that would have granted retroactive legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that participated in the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The withdrawal of the bill came after Dodd had been on the Senate floor — making speeches, threatening amendments, answering questions — for roughly eight hours.

It also marked a major policy victory for the senator, and one that justified passing up valuable campaigning time in Iowa, where voters at the Jan. 3 caucus will likely decide whether Dodd goes on to future primaries or goes home.

“Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy,” Dodd said in a written statement Monday night, after the compromise was announced. “The President should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecom companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens.”

Speaking on the floor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the Senate would consider the FISA reforms when it reconvenes early next year. The current law authorizing the FISA court, which was passed as a stopgap measure in August, will expire in February. A House version of the FISA reform bill does not include the wiretap immunity provisions to which Dodd and others objected, and will have to be reconciled with any eventual Senate version.

“What has taken place in this country has really hurt the confidence of the American people in their government,” Reid said, going on to mention the invasion of Iraq and the revelation by the news media of the Bush administration's wiretapping program, which bypassed the existing FISA courts without the knowledge of most of the Congress.

Seeming to anticipate criticism for pulling the bill, Reid also said his concern and Dodd's about the administration's anti-terrorist measures “doesn't mean we're any less patriotic than anyone else.”

Dodd has argued for months that the immunity provision, like other aspects of the Bush administration's policies for combating terrorism, has forced Americans to choose between their established civil liberties and the government's efforts to prevent attacks.

“They really promise a false debate on a false choice,” Dodd said in the early going on Monday, referring to his opponents. “Security or liberty, but never both.”

The high stakes of the debate convinced Dodd to pass up sorely needed campaign time in Iowa to fight the immunity provision, a campaign aide said.

“As far as the campaign is concerned, clearly he wants to spend as much time on the ground as possible in Iowa,” the aide said. “But this is something that is absolutely important to the senator. He feels strongly about this.”

The other senators seeking the Democratic nomination — Joseph Biden of Delaware, Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois — all campaigned in Iowa Monday and did not participate in the debate.

In a floor speech, Dodd also accused the administration and those who supported some of the wiretapping policies of forgetting the lessons of the Senate's Church Committee — the panel that investigated 1970s-era abuses of the nation's intelligence services, and eventually gave rise to the FISA laws. That brought stern disagreement from others, like Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who said it was proper to offer immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications providers who “patriotically adhered to legal letters” as they went along with the administration's request for data.

Hatch also argued that opening telecommunications companies up to legal liability could allow lawsuits to reveal the methods of their surveillance, damaging national security.

“We may have been able to protect people in ways they will never know,” Hatch said, “because this area is one of those areas that we just don't talk about.”

Dodd had long pledged to filibuster the reforms of FISA — which had been negotiated by his own party's leaders, Republican senators and the Bush administration — on the grounds that it would improperly shield from prosecution those who have intercepted the communications of ordinary Americans without warrants. The senator had previously tried to block the compromise legislation by placing a “hold” on the bill, and then threatened the filibuster after Reid called a vote on it anyway.

Dodd, with several Senate allies in supporting roles, took to the floor for hours Monday to attempt to amend the bill to remove legal immunity for telecommunications that helped with the warrantless wiretapping, and to filibuster the bill if those amendments failed. His aides said he was prepared for a much longer fight, including the relatively rare step of a Senate filibuster. Under Senate rules, Dodd would have been able to hold off a vote on the FISA bill only if he remained on his feet and continued to speak, yielding only for purposes of questions from his colleagues.

Dodd had a number of allies on the Senate floor, including Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who said that senators had essentially been intimidated into passing the temporary FISA law that will expire next year. That law grants the secret FISA courts lesser powers to dictate how surveillance of communications between foreign individuals and parties in the U.S. is conducted.

“That legislation was rushed through this chamber in a climate of fear,” Feingold said. “Fear of terrorist attacks, and fear of not appearing strong enough on national security.”

Also yielding Dodd time to continue his arguments against immunity for the telecom companies were Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Bill Nelson of Florida, among others.

How's that again department...where did this New York TIMES reporter get his "news"and did it fit for print? (See articles above.)
Telecom Industry Gets a Victory on Eavesdropping
NYTIMES
By DAVID STOUT
Published: December 17, 2007

WASHINGTON — Telecommunications companies won a skirmish in the Senate on Monday as a bill to protect them from lawsuits for cooperating with the Bush administration’s eavesdropping programs easily overcame a procedural hurdle.

By 76 to 10, with Democrats divided, the Senate voted to advance the bill for consideration. A measure to block it, which was led by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut fell short, as those who wanted the bill to reach the floor got 16 votes more than the 60 needed to achieve that goal.

What happens next is not immediately clear. A different bill, which would not grant immunity to the companies, was also expected to be introduced by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee. And whatever bill emerges from the Senate may have to be reconciled with a House version that does not include immunity.

The measures are meant to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, legislation that has deeply divided the White House and Capitol Hill and members of the House and Senate. Some action is necessary fairly soon, because the current FISA law expires in February.

In his unsuccessful bid to block the legislation, Senator Dodd urged his colleagues not to immunize the telecommunications industry for cooperating with the National Security Agency’s secret program of eavesdropping without warrants. The program was disclosed late in 2005 by The New York Times.

“For the last six years, our largest telecommunications companies have been spying on their own American customers,” Mr. Dodd said. “Secretly and without a warrant, they delivered to the federal government the private, domestic communications records of millions of Americans — records this administration has compiled into a data base of enormous scale and scope.”

“I have seen six presidents — six in the White House — and I have never seen a contempt for the rule of law equal to this,” Mr. Dodd asserted.

Another opponent of the immunization measure, Senator Russell D. Feingold, called it “deeply flawed.”

“This time around, the Senate should stand up to an administration that time and again has employed fear-mongering and misleading statements to intimidate Congress,” said Mr. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.

But supporters of the administration’s program of surveillance without warrants have described it as necessary to protect Americans from terrorists, and they insist the program strikes a sensible balance between national security and personal liberty.

But not all of the 76 senators who voted to advance the bill necessarily agree entirely with the administration. Some do, but others no doubt voted to advance the bill so they can offer amendments to it. For instance, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he would offer an amendment that would substitute the federal government as defendant in lawsuits, in place of the companies.

“The telephone companies have, I believe, acted as good citizens,” Mr. Specter said.

President Bush has threatened to veto any measure that does not grant immunity to the companies. The House version of the legislation, enacted a month ago, was approved by 227 to 189, or dozens of “yes” votes short of the two-thirds needed to overcome a presidential veto.

Dodd prepares to filibuster federal surveillance bill
DAY
By Ted Mann
Published on 12/17/2007

Sen. Chris Dodd is preparing to filibuster a proposed overhaul of federal surveillance laws this morning, objecting to a provision that would grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that assisted the Bush administration’s warrant-less wiretapping program.

Dodd, Connecticut’s senior senator and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has spearheaded opposition to the retroactive immunity provision for the telecom companies, and is trying to strip the proposal from the Senate bill over the objections of his party’s own leadership in the Senate.

The administration and its “allies” in Congress have overstepped their bounds in spying on Americans, Dodd said, while claiming their policies are necessitated by the fight against terrorism.

“They really promise a false debate on a false choice,” Dodd said on the Senate floor. “Security or liberty, but never both.”

I-BBC reports: how fast is your country's Internet download speed (table)? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7114728.stm#anchor

Broadband speeds around the world (graphic-map):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7098992.stm

Push for faster net 'premature'

By Jane Wakefield
Technology reporter, BBC News, 3 Dec 2007

Fibre optic cable
Fibre will cost up to £15bn to roll out across the UK

The push for next-generation broadband could be premature, according to some senior industry figures.

Both regulator Ofcom and BT have expressed doubts about whether the time is ripe for rolling out what would be expensive fibre optic networks.

"We need significant evidence that such a network is required and I don't think it exists yet," said Peter Philips, Ofcom's head of strategy.

Network firms have also questioned if a faster net would make economic sense.

"The question is how to make money and I'm not sure the answer is good," said Justin Paul, a development manager at telecoms equipment firm Alcatel-Lucent.

World map graphic

Broadband speeds around the world

There is also uncertainty over whether people would be willing to pay more for faster broadband.

Super-fast broadband capable of delivering speeds of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second) has worked their way up the political agenda in recent months.

Competitiveness minister Stephen Timms recently hosted a summit on the issue, while MPs recently held an eForum to debate the need for next-generation networks and regulator Ofcom has launched its own consultation.

Fibre networks capable of speeds of up to 100Mbps are already commonplace in Japan and South Korea and are starting to be rolled out in countries such as the US, France and Germany.

"We are not facing large numbers of people today who are constrained by their bandwidth"

Peter McCarthy-Ward, BT

The Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) kick-started the debate in the spring of this year with a major report looking at how and why Britain would need next-generation broadband network.

BSG chief executive Antony Walker said it was not yet time to panic.

"There is lots of competition and innovation in the broadband market and [it is not clear that] current bandwidth is a problem. We don't need to make any rash moves but the time is ripe for some collective thinking," he said.

"You can shoot someone so much quicker at 50 megabits"

Howard Watson, Virgin

Regulator Ofcom is also heavily involved in the debate and is aware that for any company to commit to a multi-billion pound investment in a new network it would require some assurances from the government that it would be able to recoup its money.

While acknowledging that a fibre network "could be one of the most fundamental changes to our communications infrastructure in decades," Peter Philips, head of strategy and market development at Ofcom, is not entirely convinced that it is ready to come out of the starting blocks just yet.

"We need significant evidence that such a network is required and I don't think it exists yet," he said.

"We have to ask ourselves what would be the disadvantage if your investment comes later than others. We would be able to learn from the experiences in other countries," he added.

Commercial incentive

Most industry watchers are aware that the obvious candidate for any network upgrade is the custodian of the current ADSL broadband network, BT.

House graphic

What will deliver next-generation broadband?

BT is planning to up the speeds of ADSL, with a new technology offering speeds of up to 24Mbps and The roll-out of so-called ADSL2+ will begin early next year and by 2011 all of BT telephone exchanges will have been upgraded.

It is also considering the business case of rolling out VDSL - a technology that offer fibre as far as the street cabinets. This would offer speeds of up to 50Mbps.

As far as fibre to the home goes - the real gold standard in the network world - BT has only committed to offering this technology (which offers speeds of up to 100Mbps) on new housing estates, such as Ebsfleet in Kent which will eventually serve thousands of homes.

"No-one would be more delighted if a commercial incentive emerged that enabled us to fibre the nation," said Peter McCarthy-Ward, BT's director of equivalence.

But he is not yet sure the demand is there.

"We are not facing large numbers of people today who are constrained by their bandwidth," he said.

Any commitment to a fibre network would need to be backed by reassurances from Ofcom that it would be able to recoup its investment, he said.

It may sometimes seem like Britain's best kept secret, but there is already a next-generation network serving just over half the population.

Virgin has pledged to upgrade its cable network - which reaches 52% of the population - to 50Mbps speeds by the end of 2008.

Speaking at a recent broadband conference, Virgin Media's chief technology officer Howard Watson admitted that an upgrade of cable would not "be on the same scale as what BT would have to do, but neither is it a trivial amount of money",

But, he said, the investment was crucial to Virgin's strategy going forward.

"We are shifting our position to one driven by broadband and increasing speed," he said.

Triallists at the pilot sites in Ashford, Dover and Folkestone are very happy with the service especially the ability it gives them to do fast downloads and access high-definition TV content, said Mr Watson.

"And gamers love it. You can shoot someone so much quicker at 50 megabits," he said.

Wireless systems going on parkway
Greenwich TIME
By Hoa Nguyen, Staff Writer
Published November 21 2007

Cellular phone service along the Merritt Parkway in Greenwich is on the cusp of being improved, twice.

Verizon Wireless is nearly finished erecting two telecommunications towers at the Round Hill Community Church, while ExteNet, an Illinois company, recently cleared a regulatory hurdle to construct Connecticut's first cellular system for the Merritt Parkway between Westport and Greenwich.

Although each project has a different coverage area, they overlap in Greenwich.

Verizon's project, which weathered opposition from a vocal group of backcountry Greenwich residents who did not want two tall towers in their neighborhood, is expected to be running by early next year. ExteNet's system faced minimal neighborhood opposition but much scrutiny from wireless providers and a group that generally opposes changes to the historic Merritt Parkway.

Despite some initial issues, the proposal, which relies on small antenna equipment strung from utility wires on or near the parkway to relay signals, received Siting Council approval earlier this month.

"It's a landmark decision," said Bridgeport lawyer Julie Kohler, who represented ExteNet. "It's certainly the first case of its kind in Connecticut."

Despite some overlap between the two projects, wireless providers and siting council officials said each has its own strengths.

ExteNet's proposal only addresses gaps along the Merritt Parkway, while Verizon's towers at the backcountry church will boost cellular coverage in the surrounding area, including the Greenwich stretch of the parkway.

Verizon expects to lease space on its towers to other wireless providers. Although some providers interested only in improving service to the Merritt Parkway may look just to ExteNet, Richard Enright, director of engineering for Verizon Wireless in New England, discounted that option, saying the towers give providers the ability to serve a wider customer base in Greenwich. Verizon has said it will not use ExteNet's system.

It's unclear when ExteNet expects to begin building the antenna system and which wireless providers have signed on. Kohler said she was not authorized to speak on that topic.

Derek Phelps, executive director of the siting council, said ExteNet's system, also known as a DAS system, has the additional advantage of keeping telecommunications monopolies from being built on the side of the Merritt Parkway in the future.

"Clearly the council hopes that the deployment of this DAS facility may work to diminish what would otherwise be the proliferation of towers close to the parkway," he said.

But not everyone believes ExteNet will be a good addition to the parkway. Peter Malkin, Greenwich chairman of the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, a nonprofit that lobbies to preserve the historic character of the parkway, said he is concerned because the ExteNet system will lead to the construction of more utility poles and stringing of more wires on or near the roadway.

"We think this is something that will damage the historic nature of the parkway and should be discouraged," he said.

NYTIMES: Op-Ed Contributor
The Daily Show
By KEVIN J. MARTIN, Washington
November 13, 2007

IN many towns and cities, the newspaper is an endangered species. At least 300 daily papers have stopped publishing over the past 30 years. Those newspapers that have survived are struggling financially. Newspaper circulation has declined steadily for more than 10 years. Average daily circulation is down 2.6 percent in the last six months alone.

Newspapers have also been hurt by significant cuts in advertising revenue, which accounts for at least 75 percent of their revenue. Their share of the advertising market has fallen every year for the past decade, while online advertising has increased greatly.

At the heart of all of these facts and figures is the undeniable reality that the media marketplace has changed considerably over the last three decades. In 1975, cable television served fewer than 15 percent of television households. Satellite TV did not exist. Today, by contrast, fewer than 15 percent of homes do not subscribe to cable or satellite television. And the Internet as we know it today did not even exist in 1975. Now, nearly one-third of all Americans regularly receive news through the Internet.

If we don’t act to improve the health of the newspaper industry, we will see newspapers wither and die. Without newspapers, we would be less informed about our communities and have fewer outlets for the expression of independent thinking and a diversity of viewpoints. The challenge is to restore the viability of newspapers while preserving the core values of a diversity of voices and a commitment to localism in the media marketplace.

Eighteen months ago, the Federal Communications Commission began a review, ordered by Congress and the courts, of its media ownership rules. After six public hearings, 10 economic studies and hundreds of thousands of comments, the commission should move forward. The commission should modify only one of the four rules under review — the one that bars ownership of both a newspaper and a broadcast TV or radio station in a single market. And the rule should be modified only for the largest markets.

A company that owns a newspaper in one of the 20 largest cities in the country should be permitted to purchase a broadcast TV or radio station in the same market. But a newspaper should be prohibited from buying one of the top four TV stations in its community. In addition, each part of the combined entity would need to maintain its editorial independence.

Beyond giving newspapers in large markets the chance to buy one local TV or radio station, no other ownership rule would be altered. Other companies would not be allowed to own any more radio or television stations, either in a single market or nationally, than they already do.

This relatively minor loosening of the ban on cross-ownership of newspapers and TV stations in markets where there are many voices and sufficient competition to allow for new entrants would help strike a balance between ensuring the quality of local news while guarding against too much concentration.

The cross-ownership rule is the only media ownership rule that has never been modified since its inception in the mid-1970s. For the last decade, F.C.C. chairmen — Democrats and Republicans alike — have said this rule needs to be revised.

The ban on newspapers owning a broadcast station in their local markets may end up hurting the quality of news and the commitment of news organizations to their local communities. Newspapers in financial difficulty often have little choice but to scale back news gathering to cut costs. Allowing cross-ownership may help to forestall the erosion in local news coverage by enabling companies that own both newspapers and broadcast stations to share some costs.

Since 2003, when the courts told the commission to change its media ownership rules, the news media industry has operated in a climate of uncertainty. Many newspapers and broadcast stations are operating under waivers of the ban on cross-ownership. The F.C.C. needs to address these issues in a coherent and consistent fashion rather than considering them case by case, making policy by waiver.

I confess that in my public role, I feel that the press is not on my side. But it is for this very reason that I believe this controversial step is worth taking. In their role as watchdog and informer of the citizenry, newspapers are crucial to our democracy.

A colleague on the commission, Michael Copps, for whom I have the utmost respect, has argued that our very democracy is at stake in the decisions we make regarding media ownership. I do not disagree. But if we believe that newspaper journalism plays a unique role in the functioning of our democracy, then we cannot turn a blind eye to the financial condition in which these companies find themselves.

Kevin J. Martin is the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Blumenthal's TV Change
DAY editorial
Published on 10/26/2007

It is great that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has seen the light and moderated his anti-competition position when it comes to new television service technologies, but he does not go far enough.

A new state law that took effect Oct. 1 appeared to settle the matter. It provided a format for new emerging technologies — such as AT&T's U-verse and Verizon's FiOS — to compete with cable-TV franchises. The consumer-friendly legislation would let competition determine prices and drive service.

But when AT&T applied for a certificate to offer U-verse service under the new law, Mr. Blumenthal and the Office of Consumer Counsel opposed it. Citing a federal court decision, they argued these new technologies should be regulated under the old monopolistic cable-TV regulations, including forcing them to commit to providing service to entire franchise areas.

Unfortunately, the state Department of Public Utility Control bought their argument and, ignoring the new law, told AT&T it had to apply for a cable-TV franchise. AT&T argued the old regulatory model made no sense in this new age of communication. If necessary, AT&T said it would take the $336 million it planned to invest in a Connecticut U-verse system to other states that welcomed competition. Such a move would also mean the loss of thousands of jobs.

Consumers have reacted with outrage. They want TV service options. Apparently Mr. Blumenthal realized he was on the wrong side of this issue. In a letter to AT&T Tuesday, he said he would be happy to support a stay of the DPUC decision while the courts decide whether to apply the old law or new law to U-verse.

While the change of heart may help Mr. Blumenthal politically (he may run for governor in 2010), a stay wouldn't do much for AT&T or consumers. The company is not likely to sign up new customers and build out its system when an adverse court ruling could force it to unplug them.

The better course of action would be for the DPUC to reverse its decision and let the new law take effect immediately. Meanwhile, a hearing is set for today at which AT&T will ask state Superior Court Judge Robert F. McWeeny to force the DPUC to abide by the new competition-friendly law. The legislature's intent to encourage competition is clear. The Day urges Judge McWeeny to act swiftly and order that the law be implemented.

Comcast blocks some Internet traffic
By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
October 19, 2007

NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.

The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.

The principle of equal treatment of traffic, called "Net Neutrality" by proponents, is not enshrined in law but supported by some regulations. Most of the debate around the issue has centered on tentative plans, now postponed, by large Internet carriers to offer preferential treatment of traffic from certain content providers for a fee.

Comcast's interference, on the other hand, appears to be an aggressive way of managing its network to keep file-sharing traffic from swallowing too much bandwidth and affecting the Internet speeds of other subscribers.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV operator and No. 2 Internet provider, would not specifically address the practice, but spokesman Charlie Douglas confirmed that it uses sophisticated methods to keep Net connections running smoothly.

"Comcast does not block access to any applications, including BitTorrent," he said.

Douglas would not specify what the company means by "access" — Comcast subscribers can download BitTorrent files without hindrance. Only uploads of complete files are blocked or delayed by the company, as indicated by AP tests.

But with "peer-to-peer" technology, users exchange files with each other, and one person's upload is another's download. That means Comcast's blocking of certain uploads has repercussions in the global network of file sharers.

Comcast's technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user.

Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer — it comes from Comcast. If it were a telephone conversation, it would be like the operator breaking into the conversation, telling each talker in the voice of the other: "Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye."

Matthew Elvey, a Comcast subscriber in the San Francisco area who has noticed BitTorrent uploads being stifled, acknowledged that the company has the right to manage its network, but disapproves of the method, saying it appears to be deceptive.

"There's the wrong way of going about that and the right way," said Elvey, who is a computer consultant.

Comcast's interference affects all types of content, meaning that, for instance, an independent movie producer who wanted to distribute his work using BitTorrent and his Comcast connection could find that difficult or impossible — as would someone pirating music.

Internet service providers have long complained about the vast amounts of traffic generated by a small number of subscribers who are avid users of file-sharing programs. Peer-to-peer applications account for between 50 percent and 90 percent of overall Internet traffic, according to a survey this year by ipoque GmbH, a German vendor of traffic-management equipment.

"We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure all our customers have the best broadband experience possible," Douglas said. "This means we use the latest technologies to manage our network to provide a quality experience for all Comcast subscribers."

The practice of managing the flow of Internet data is known as "traffic shaping," and is already widespread among Internet service providers. It usually involves slowing down some forms of traffic, like file-sharing, while giving others priority. Other ISPs have attempted to block some file-sharing application by so-called "port filtering," but that method is easily circumvented and now largely ineffective.

Comcast's approach to traffic shaping is different because of the drastic effect it has on one type of traffic — in some cases blocking it rather than slowing it down — and the method used, which is difficult to circumvent and involves the company falsifying network traffic.

The "Net Neutrality" debate erupted in 2005, when AT&T Inc. suggested it would like to charge some Web companies more for preferential treatment of their traffic. Consumer advocates and Web heavyweights like Google Inc. and Amazon Inc. cried foul, saying it's a bedrock principle of the Internet that all traffic be treated equally.

To get its acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved by the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T agreed in late 2006 not to implement such plans or prioritize traffic based on its origin for two and a half years. However, it did not make any commitments not to prioritize traffic based on its type, which is what Comcast is doing.

The FCC's stance on traffic shaping is not clear. A 2005 policy statement says that "consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice," but that principle is "subject to reasonable network management." Spokeswoman Mary Diamond would not elaborate.

Free Press, a Washington-based public interest group that advocates Net Neutrality, opposes the kind of filtering applied by Comcast.

"We don't believe that any Internet provider should be able to discriminate, block or impair their consumers ability to send or receive legal content over the Internet," said Free Press spokeswoman Jen Howard.

Paul "Tony" Watson, a network security engineer at Google Inc. who has previously studied ways hackers could disrupt Internet traffic in manner similar to the method Comcast is using, said the cable company was probably acting within its legal rights.

"It's their network and they can do what they want," said Watson. "My concern is the precedent. In the past, when people got an ISP connection, they were getting a connection to the Internet. The only determination was price and bandwidth. Now they're going to have to make much more complicated decisions such as price, bandwidth, and what services I can get over the Internet."

Several companies have sprung up that rely on peer-to-peer technology, including BitTorrent Inc., founded by the creator of the BitTorrent software (which exists in several versions freely distributed by different groups and companies).

Ashwin Navin, the company's president and co-founder, confirmed that it has noticed interference from Comcast, in addition to some Canadian Internet service providers.

"They're using sophisticated technology to degrade service, which probably costs them a lot of money. It would be better to see them use that money to improve service," Navin said, noting that BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer applications are a major reason consumers sign up for broadband.

BitTorrent Inc. announced Oct. 9 that it was teaming up with online video companies to use its technology to distribute legal content.

Other companies that rely on peer-to-peer technology, and could be affected if Comcast decides to expand the range of applications it filters, include Internet TV service Joost, eBay Inc.'s Skype video-conferencing program and movie download appliance Vudu. There is no sign that Comcast is hampering those services.

Comcast subscriber Robb Topolski, a former software quality engineer at Intel Corp., started noticing the interference when trying to upload with file-sharing programs Gnutella and eDonkey early this year.

In August, Topolski began to see reports on Internet forum DSLreports.com from other Comcast users with the same problem. He now believes that his home town of Hillsboro, Ore., was a test market for the technology that was later widely applied in other Comcast service areas.

Topolski agrees that Comcast has a right to manage its network and slow down traffic that affects other subscribers, but disapproves of their method.

"By Comcast not acknowledging that they do this at all, there's no way to report any problems with it," Topolski said.

Phone TV Conflict Blurry; Officials Try To Defend Choice By Denying it
By MARK PETERS | Courant Staff Writer
October 21, 2007

TV viewers might find it difficult to choose a side in the fight over cable competition in Connecticut. Should they choose the side of government officials who say they are representing consumers by encouraging TV-service competition as long as everyone in the state can benefit?

That position effectively eliminated a choice between AT&T's new U-verse service and cable TV for as many as 150,000 consumers last week in areas where U-verse was going to become available. Regulators told AT&T it had to stop expanding U-verse and apply for a franchise. Or should consumers take AT&T's side? Starting 10 months ago, the telephone giant began giving some consumers a competitive option to the decades-old monopoly of local cable TV franchises. U-verse delivers television programming over telephone lines.

But AT&T is beholden first and foremost to shareholders, which is part of the reason the company doesn't want to be required to offer TV service to every home in its franchise area.

The legal, technical and business arguments about the new service can be perplexing for consumers. The confusion was evident last Thursday as union workers for AT&T rallied in downtown Hartford to support their employer's position in the battle. A few commuters waiting nearby for their evening bus were trying to figure out what the protesters were shouting about.

"I thought the phone company only had Internet, and obviously, phone service," said Sharon Griffin-Joseph, watching for both the rally and her bus.

But inside the telecommunications industry, the fight is fierce over how new types of TV service should be regulated.

The issue in Connecticut revolves primarily around what's known as a universal service requirement. That regulation would require AT&T to provide TV service to all customers in its franchise area, which could be the whole state.

For years, the state has been divided into cable franchise areas, and each cable company is required to offer service throughout its franchise area. AT&T has said that if it is forced to adhere to the universal service requirement, it will drop its more than 7,000 U-verse customers in the state and proceed with the service elsewhere. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, government regulators and cable companies say universal service must be a requirement, or all consumers won't get the lower rates and other benefits expected to come with more competition.

At stake is an additional option for consumers who have endured years of rising rates for cable TV and the only other available choice, satellite TV. The Federal Communications Commission, in a study of prices for TV service, found that cable rates rose nationally by 93 percent between 1995 and 2005. In areas where effective competition exists, prices charged by cable companies were 17 percent lower, the same study found.

For now, unless they have the benefit of clairvoyance, Connecticut consumers will simply have to decide which side offers the most persuasive argument about what might happen in the future. In the most recent skirmish last week, AT&T lost a crucial battle before the state Department of Public Utility Control. The DPUC ruled Monday that AT&T had to stop signing up new U-verse customers until it followed the same franchise rules as cable companies, including the universal service requirement.

Thomas W. Hazlett, a professor of law and economics at George Mason University and former chief economist of the FCC, said the DPUC's decision won't help consumers. He said challengers to cable won't come into markets if they're required to meet the universal service requirement. And, he asked, why would the government want to stand in the way of increased competition and lower prices for at least some consumers?

"You can't get 100 percent," Hazlett said. "If you can't, get 10 percent or 20 percent."

AT&T points out that universal service requirements weren't imposed on cable companies when they began offering telephone service to compete with AT&T's predecessor companies, SBC Communications and Southern New England Telecommunications Corp. Also, the state has seen this situation before. In the mid-1990s, SNET introduced its Personal Vision product to compete with cable companies, but shut it down in part because of what AT&T now says was a universal service requirement.

But Blumenthal and other consumer advocates have a different view.

Competition won't benefit everyone and won't last unless AT&T - or others - have to serve all customers, said Blumenthal and William Vallee, a lawyer with the state Office of Consumer Counsel, which represents cable ratepayers. They said the fear is that competition will develop only in those areas where AT&T finds it profitable to offer service. That would leave rural areas and, possibly, the poorest section of cities with no competitive choices, Blumenthal said.

He said that without statewide competition, areas without competitive choices would see prices increase more rapidly while customer service declines. The attorney general also predicted that after a period of years, AT&T could become a new monopoly because of the advantage it would have of being able to pick and choose customers. It ultimately would replace cable TV and re-create the problem that competition is supposed to fix.

"The government will be giving its stamp of approval to essentially a different form of monopolistic power," Blumenthal said.

The two sides are due in court this week as AT&T challenges the DPUC's most recent decision.

DPUC: AT&T needs a franchise
By:Harlan Levy, Journal Inquirer
10/16/2007

State regulators on Monday ruled that AT&T must immediately...AT&T must also stop building new facilities to transmit U-verse and must apply for a franchise before Dec. 31. Otherwise, AT&T will be operating illegally, the state Department of Public Utility Control stated. Current service may continue.

The move throws a big wrench in AT&T's plans to expand its 10-month-old service without a franchise wherever it wants to in Connecticut. AT&T had argued that the system is legal based on a two-week-old law that allows legal video services providers that aren't franchised cable systems to operate here with only a certificate. The new law does not mandate that certificate holders serve all communities in the state, nor does it require building public access studios when the video provider enters a cable system's franchise area.

Since December, AT&T has garnered 7,000 U-verse subscribers in 40 Connecticut cities and towns, including Manchester and Windsor Locks, without a franchise. The move began after the DPUC ruled last year that U-verse was not cable television due to its Internet delivery technology and therefore needed no franchise.

However, in July and then on Oct. 2 a New Haven federal judge ruled that the technology was irrelevant and that under the federal Communications Act, U-verse offered the same service as cable and therefore needed a franchise.

In Monday's order, the DPUC seconded the motion, acknowledged that federal law preempted its original decision, and denied AT&T's certificate application because "AT&T is not an eligible entity. AT&T is an unfranchised cable company illegally providing cable service in Connecticut. AT&T is therefore not a lawfully operating video service provider nor is it a franchised cable company seeking to provide competitive service outside its franchise area. Instead, AT&T is a third category - a cable company that is unlawfully operating without a franchise."

What's more, the DPUC stated, "The General Assembly could not have intended, nor would equity permit, AT&T to profit from its unlawful activity."

AT&T responded that it would file an emergency action today in state Superior Court to appeal the DPUC ruling.

"In making this ruling, the DPUC ignored both the spirit and the letter of a brand-new consumer-friendly law and is protecting the cable monopoly," AT&T State President said Ramona Carlow said. "Consumers should be outraged that just as more than 150,000 local households in more than 40 Connecticut cities and towns gained the ability to choose a video provider other than their local cable monopoly, the DPUC and attorney general have acted to protect cable monopolies by eliminating competition."

AT&T has halted all hiring and new capital investment in Connecticut, Carlow said in a statement. If the ruling stands, AT&T said, it will also eliminate more than 300 new jobs, not hire or eliminate 1,000 other jobs in Connecticut, "redirect to other states a significant portion of the $336 million AT&T had planned to invest in video service in Connecticut over the next three years," and disconnect the current 7,000 Connecticut subscribers.

The DPUC's decision was "fabulous," responded William Vallee, principal attorney for the state consumer counsel, who challenged AT&T's application. "They got the law just right."

All cable services providers operating in Connecticut, including AT&T, "must abide by the law in order for there to be a level playing field," Vallee said. "Up to now, the department's original decision and the new statute have only served to skew and imbalance the cable services market, thereby failing to provide the competitive pressures needed to reduce prices, improve service quality, make programming flexible and responsive to consumer need, and promote technological innovation."

AT&T only wanted to serve "the golden banana," Vallee said, "going down the 91 corridor, turning right at New Haven and across the coast to Greenwich. AT&T has no intention of serving areas where they do not believe profits will be high enough to suit their business plan. This decision will change all of that to the better."

That's not so, AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom countered today. ""In less than a year we've expanded to over 40 communities in the state from the urban areas to other communities," Bloom said. "We are committed to targeting all kinds of communities in the state and have already shown that."

Local Cable Company Reaches Deal To Keep Channel 8
DAY
By Jenna Cho
Published on 10/8/2007

MetroCast cable customers are still going to get to watch their favorite UConn teams.

On Sunday, officials from LIN TV and WTNH Channel 8 announced that MetroCast Communications has reached an agreement with LIN TV to continue to broadcast WTNH and two other channels.

Jon Hitchcock, vice president and general manager of Channel 8 and MyTV9 Channel 59, announced the agreement in a short e-mail Sunday afternoon and said he hoped to release further details of the agreement today. Courtney Gurtin, a spokeswoman for LIN TV, also confirmed the agreement. Service was scheduled to be discontinued at midnight Sunday if the parties could not reach agreement.

Last month, MetroCast announced that the cost to keep WTNH, MyTV9 (WCTX, channel 59) and WPRI (channel 12 in Providence) — which were being negotiated with the stations' parent company, LIN TV — would be too great for cable customers who purchase basic service.

Channel 8 in particular is popular for its broadcasts of University of Connecticut basketball and football games, local news and weather and ABC programming. MyTV9 broadcasts Yankees games at least once a week during baseball season. WTNH set up a Web site, at http://iwantwtnhtv.com, urging MetroCast to keep the channels.

MetroCast serves the towns of Waterford, East Lyme, New London, Montville, Griswold, Killingly, Plainfield, Putnam and Sterling.

John Dee, general manager of MetroCast in Waterford, could not be reached to comment Sunday afternoon.

NPU Planning Fiber-Optic Future For Norwich; City government, local business would benefit from high-speed service
DAY
By Claire Bessette
Published on 10/5/2007

Norwich — Imagine a fire call to the city central dispatch for a remote location within the city limits.

As the dispatcher calls the volunteer department, a computer prints a picture and exact directions and sends them electronically to the responding station or even to a portable computer in the firetruck as it speeds out of the station bay.

That would be one way a municipal fiber-optic network could help city agencies and the general public, said John Bilda, general manager of Norwich Public Utilities.

NPU went out to bid Wednesday on installing a fiber-optic telecommunications system in the city that would connect all schools and municipal and public-utilities facilities, including automated sewer pump stations, hydropower units and electrical transformers.

The 32-mile, $2.4 million network would snake through the city in two main loops, with several spurs from the main loop lines to connect more remote systems.

The network, Bilda said, would send data 600 times faster than current speeds along privately owned data lines, and do it more reliably.

Mayor Benjamin Lathrop called officials of the city-owned utility “visionaries,” dating back 104 years to when the city took over by eminent domain a private electric and gas company and converted it to a public utility.

“They were visionaries then, with the (public water) reservoirs and all,” Lathrop said, “and by exploring what they did all those years ago to move their city forward. It's impressive. Our utility has done wonders.”

Immediate plans would have the fiber-optic network serving only Norwich government entities — adding in agencies such as the Uncas Health District, Three Rivers Community College and Norwich Free Academy — and would provide internal communication only within Norwich borders.

A teacher in a Norwich school could draw a line on a computer and have it automatically appear simultaneously on so-called smart boards in every school in the city. But all the sites would still use AT&T for telephone service and 99 Main — the city's Internet provider — for access to “the outside world,” Bilda said.

NPU plans to create wireless hot spots in key locations, such as downtown, that would be available to the public, Bilda said.

Expanding the network to local businesses and residents could follow. NPU plans to apply to the state Department of Public Utility Control for permission to offer service, according to the resolution approved by the City Council Monday.

Bilda couldn't say when that might occur, but he said the cable to make it possible could be in place by next summer. The rest could depend on the DPUC licensing process and the city's desire to open it up to the community.

NPU is a pioneer in municipal fiber-optics installation in the state, but not the first, Bilda said. About five years ago, the town of Manchester helped write the law that now allows NPU to move forward.

DPUC spokeswoman Beryl Lyons said no other city-owned utility has applied for a state license to offer fiber-optic broadband to the general public. Only the few municipally owned utilities that own their own utility poles would be able to tackle the project, she said.

Groton Public Utilities launched its own for-profit cable television company, Thames Valley Communications, three years ago. The cable television and computer broadband company now has 7,000 customers in Groton city and town, and the Groton portion of Mystic and Gales Ferry, said Carl Andersen, marketing director.

Andersen said it has taken longer than expected to get permission to build on poles outside the Groton Public Utilities service area.

NPU owns all its utility poles and many underground utility conduits in the Norwich Business Park.

NPU has no plans to start a cable television company or become an Internet provider or telephone company. Rather, Bilda said, the network would allow NPU and other city entities to greatly consolidate telephone service, buying one telephone-trunk service line from AT&T and using its own fiber-optic network to hook up to numerous telephones and computers.

One of the utilities' aims is to save on its telephone bills. “We're doing this to stay in business,” Bilda said.

The city plans to continue to use 99 Main as its Internet provider, but city computers would be able to communicate with one another much faster and at higher capacities.

If the fiber-optic service is expanded to local businesses and the public, Bilda said, NPU would not make it a for-profit venture. Ten percent of the gross revenues would be turned over to the city, a deal that dates back to the founding of the public utility.

If Norwich wants to venture into cable television or telephone service, the City Council would have to authorize the move. Bilda said the initiative would have to come from NPU constituents.

“We want to do whatever the community wants us to do,” Bilda said. “This provides the backbone for any of these services to happen.”

At least two downtown business owners are counting the days when fiber-optic broadband data transmission service might be available.

Mike Sullivan, owner of 99 Main, said his company has been the city's Internet provider for 11 years. He said the connection would enable him to offer high-speed fiber-optic Internet connections to local small businesses that can't afford the high-speed T-1 lines that are now the standard for high-speed connections.

Fiber optics would far surpass T-1 capacities, Sullivan said. The smallest fiber cable can transmit data at a rate of 155 megabytes per second, while a T-1 line sends at one megabyte per second. Slower DSL lines are still the standard for home and small business use, he said.

Brian Kobylarz, owner of Tele-Cine Productions, served on the initial focus group NPU established several years ago when utility officials first started looking into expanding to cable television and fiber-optic broadband services.

Kobylarz said any business with electronic data needs would benefit. He produces high-definition videos and films for industrial, business and government entities.

Fiber optics would give him quicker, better quality transmissions of video clips to production studios “miles or hundreds of miles away.”

Kobylarz, who also chairs the Downtown Neighborhood Revitalization Zone Committee, envisions the fiber-optic network attracting high-tech businesses to the downtown.

“Major corporations have realized the benefits of this technology for many years now,” Kobylarz said. “The business model says this is the right thing to do. What we are doing in Norwich is the first step. It will be a better step when it begins to open up to the business community. That will spur economic activity and will attract new and better businesses to the area.”

Vaunted WiMax's messy side: the spectrum grab
By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last Update: 10:31 AM ET Sep 29, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- In its drive to roll out a new, cutting-edge wireless technology, Sprint Nextel Corp. has taken on Burke County Middle School and a cast of equally unlikely opponents in a nasty spat over the use of airwaves.

Sprint announced in July that they will team up to cover 100 million people with WiMax networks by 2008. Sprint is placing a risky bet on the largely unproven technology to revive a wireless business that has lost ground to those of rivals Verizon and AT&T, analysts say. Upstart Clearwire, meanwhile, hopes WiMax can one day help the company become a major telecom player.

But laying the groundwork for WiMax has involved a messy endeavor to gather up access to necessary airwaves. Much of the spectrum is owned by non-profits and schools, such as those in Burke County, Ga. Many have held it for years, without assigning much value to it. Wrangling over rights to this spectrum has pitted Sprint against a number of the schools and non-profits, while underlining a rift with Clearwire, an important partner in dispatching WiMax in its early stages.

Decades ago, the Federal Communications Commission allocated to schools and non-profits much of the 2.5 gigahertz spectrum ideal for WiMax. Classified as "EBS," it can't be owned directly by businesses. The North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation, for example, can use it to broadcast programming such as "Prayer Talk" and "Gift and Mystery."

Others, like the Burke County schools near Augusta, Ga., didn't even realize they had it until Sprint came calling. General counsel for Burke County Public Schools, James Hyder, said Sprint made an unexpected offer early last year to lease one of the schools' two spectrum licenses.

"We woke up one day and saw we had these," Hyder said. After a call to a former superintendent to clear up what it was exactly Sprint was after, the schools agreed, Hyder said.

Seeing dollar signs

The relationship took an odd turn late last year, however, when the Burke County schools applied to the FCC to renew a second, expired spectrum license. Around 40 other organizations, ranging from Heartland Community College to Connecticut Public Broadcasting, had also applied for the renewal of expired EBS licenses which, thanks largely to WiMax, have dramatically increased in value.

The FCC granted those requests in January, inviting a flood of hundreds of subsequent late renewal requests. Sprint has called the development a mushrooming threat to its network plans. It filed a petition for the commission to reconsider the late renewals in February.

"These former licensees seek to hijack ... valuable spectrum," Sprint said in its petition, adding that the FCC "should not be mislead into granting new authorizations."

Clearwire, meanwhile, has sided with the schools and non-profits. The FCC hasn't yet issued a decision on the matter.

The EBS spectrum in question was long seen as having little value beyond broadcasting TV signals in one direction. That's changed as companies like Sprint and Clearwire have announced plans to use it for beaming data and voice communication among computers and phones on WiMax networks, and as the FCC has issued rules making it easier to lease for commercial purposes.

"These educational groups who didn't really care ... whether they had these [licenses] or not are now seeing dollar signs," said Tim Sanders, an analyst with research firm Maravedis Inc.
Indeed, some groups have seen handsome windfalls, thanks to the spectrum's increased value. But the grab for airwaves has also resulted in a series of lawsuits and a surplus of acrimony.

Pandora's box

WiMax can blast radio signals far more broadly than WiFi, thus requiring less network equipment to cover large areas, and some believe it also has certain technical advantages over cellular phone technology.

But the FCC's decision to grant renewals of expired EBS licenses could mar Sprint's WiMax rollout by cutting holes in carefully-planned network coverage areas, the company says. Sprint would either have to negotiate new deals for the reinstated licenses, or see them fall to competitors. A number of educational groups with EBS licenses have also joined Sprint in complaining about the renewals, which they say threaten to impinge on existing coverage areas.

"You think you have a three-bedroom house, and then all of a sudden someone comes and says, 'hey, half the house is mine'," said Sprint spokesman Scott Sloat. "This has opened a whole Pandora's box."
So far, at least 188 expired EBS license renewal applications have now been filed with the FCC, Sloat said.

In a filing with the FCC posted Friday, Sprint, Clearwire and a number of license holders put forth a proposed settlement, under which late-renewed licenses would have slightly altered coverage areas.
The impetus for the schools' and non-profits' late renewals, Maravedis' Sanders said, is often "someone approaching them and saying, 'we'll lease your spectrum if you can get your license back'."

"I can't speak to their motivation other than to say spectrum is a valuable asset, and people aware of that may see that as an opportunity for a land grab," Sloat said.

Hyder, the Burke County schools' general counsel, said the decision to renew their second spectrum license and seek a suitor was an easy one. "It's the difference between getting nothing today, and something tomorrow," Hyder said, adding that whatever the schools are offered to lease the spectrum "doesn't have to be too significant" for a deal to make sense.

ACLU Blog
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Verizon Reverses Course on Abortion Text-Messaging

If you want to see what the Internet will look like in a few years without net neutrality, you need look no further than this week's stories about Verizon Wireless' attempts to censor messages on its text-message network. Today the telecommunications giant reversed a decision it made last week to reject NARAL Pro-Choice America's request to make a text-message advocacy campaign available on Verizon networks. The program would allow people to sign up for text messages with NARAL by sending a five digit "short code." These types of programs have become very popular with activist groups and political candidates.

Earlier, Verizon told NARAL it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” Never mind that you have to sign up for the program so you don't get unsolicited messages. If Verizon says your program is controversial or unsavory, you can always go elsewhere.

The problem with that philosophy is that "going elsewhere" is becoming less of an option. As companies gobble other companies to become giant behemoths, competition becomes scarce. The same kind of discrimination against content is happening in the Internet broadband world — in which Verizon is a major player — where there is even less competition, and where the threat of this kind of censorship has even broader implications.

Verizon and AT&T, among others, are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress for the right to discriminate against content on the Internet it deems controversial, unsavory, or even just contrary to its own business interests. Net neutrality would protect your right to see and hear what you wish on the Internet without your service provider acting as a censor. According to the Verizon and AT&T lobbyists, net neutrality would stifle innovation. Translation: it would mean we couldn't force you to see only what we want you to see.

So now that Verizon's changed its mind and will allow NARAL's campaign to move forward, does this mean we don’t need to worry? No. Verizon changed its mind this time, but it can change it again at any time. Only a federal policy of nondiscrimination in content will guarantee this doesn’t happen again.

If the Internet is to truly be a powerful force for freedom of expression, we cannot allow big business OR government to choose the content. Today, it’s Verizon shutting out NARAL. Who will it be tomorrow?

Posted by Marvin Johnson, Legislative Counsel in Free Speech, Privacy & Technology at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | Trackback

REPORT FROM LWV OF WESTON webmaster...

Media Study Commitee watches entire U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee public hearing on Universal Broadband:

U.S. SENATE SMALL BUSINESS & ENTREPRENEURSHIP COMMITTEE
Public Hearing (invited speakers) on Universal Broadband
FULL STATEMENTS BY SPEAKERS TO BE POSTED ON-LINE
September 26, 2007, 10am to @12noon (on-line)

NOTES: This Committee (Chair. Kerry, Ranking Member Snowe) conducted a “public hearing” that made CT and our C.G.A. look not so bad!

“Access For Small Business” was the title for the hearing, and the Committee was seeking word on three things--1)affordability, 2)speed and 3)penetration. Chair. Kerry noted that the Internet was not a luxury and according to whichever report you looked at, America seems to be falling behind the rest of the world.

National Broadband Strategy: a first panel of Michael Copps and fellow Commissioner Edelstein of the FCC discussed the fact that at hearings around the country it has become clear that small business is having a problem competing against larger companies because of the failure to complete President Bush’s vision stated in 2004 of Universal Broadband by 2007. It was suggested that this Committee might do well to invite the other three FCC Commissioners in for a similar Public Hearing.

Data needed: Without adequate data about the three items noted above on a national scale it is impossible to say exactly where the underserved sectors of the economy or actual pockets of no service are located.

Examples from Massachusetts and rural areas, such as the State of Kentucky (“Connect Kentucky”), were discussed by the Committee in the second panel. How to “build out” and reach rural America might be a big part of revitatizing small business (examples from Kentucky). Infrastructure in that effort was 80% State - 20% private.

Other Universal Broadband supporting arguments:

Similarities to the original Telecommunications Act of 1934 were drawn.
A national policy addressing disparities of availibility of DSL (using telephone lines) needed.
It was suggested that this begin with schools and hospitals.
Importance of getting the word out about informing grass roots (generating awareness); need for computers in the home - “No Child Left Off-Line”

FCC chair promotes post-digital TV rule
By JOHN DUNBAR, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 11, 5:42 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Here's the pitch from the cable TV industry: One way or another, all subscribers will still be able to tune in their favorite shows when broadcasters shift to digital-only transmission in 2009.

Seeking more than a promise, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin wants commissioners to require cable companies to provide that service.

"Unless the commission acts, some cable customers may actually be harmed by the transition and lose the ability to view some of these channels," Martin told The Associated Press on Monday.

The FCC, which is scheduled to meet Tuesday, has been split over such a proposal in the past but may be moving toward a compromise.

The greatest impact of the digital conversion will be on viewers of non-digital televisions who receive their signals over the air. Beginning Feb. 18, 2009, they will be forced to buy a special converter box, subsidized by the government, to receive their channels.

The impact of the shift on the nation's cable subscribers is less certain.

Today, cable television system operators receive broadcast feeds in analog and digital format. Come Feb. 18, 2009, broadcasters must stop supplying the analog signal. That creates a problem for the cable industry's 32 million analog subscribers.

Cable operators can either convert the digital signal to analog at the point where their cable signal originates, or they can supply customers with a "down converter" device that will change digital signals to analog at the TV set.

This is essentially what the FCC wants to force the industry to do, under Martin's proposed rules.

Last week, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association launched a $200 million advertising campaign to assure customers that the shift won't affect them. "Every TV set you have that's hooked up to cable will work just fine," happy customers intone in a TV spot.

What the commercials do not say is how the industry is going to manage the transition, something that concerns Gene Kimmelman, federal affairs chief for Consumers Union. "It is astounding that they're telling their customers 'don't worry, we're taking care of you' without telling them at what price."

NCTA spokesman Brian Dietz said analog consumers will not be charged more when the transition occurs. Nor will they be forced to sign up for a more expensive digital service.

The NCTA has committed to doing what the FCC is asking, but is resisting the mandate, a position Kimmelman calls "disingenuous."

The NCTA says what the FCC is doing violates the industry's constitutional rights.

"We've said we will voluntarily take care of our customers, which is different than a government mandate," Dietz said.

Dietz said a government-ordered transition would deny the thousands of cable system operators the flexibility they need in managing the transition.

Kimmelman credited the industry with launching the ad campaign, but said the government should assume an oversight role.

"I think there are some sticks that can be placed over their heads to try to ensure that they don't take advantage of their customers," he said.

SEPT. 6, 2007 - MARKEY REACTS TO JUSTICE DEPT STAND AGAINST NET NEUTRALITY
September 07 2007 press release

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, released the following statement in reaction to the Department of Justice’s comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on network neutrality proposals:
“The Bush administration’s decision to oppose Internet Freedom flies in the face of the open nature of the Internet, which has fostered unprecedented innovation and economic growth. Network neutrality safeguards would preserve the open architecture of the Internet and prevent companies from downgrading and discriminating against competitive Internet services and applications,” said Rep. Markey.

“The Justice Department’s position is consistent with the Bush administration’s failed approach to national broadband policy. American consumers and entrepreneurs deserve better.”

Wireless is beefed up in downtown
By FRANK MacEACHERN, fmaceachern@thestamfordtimes.com
September 6, 2007

STAMFORD —Three small parks in the city's downtown are more than just places to relax on a warm day, they're also areas where people can connect to the Internet via free Wi-Fi service.

City officials hope it's just the start of a "wireless corridor" running from the downtown to the transportation center, said Michael Pensiero, Stamford's director of technology management services.

"Our entire plan is to have a wireless service from Ferguson Library to the transportation center, to create a wireless corridor," said Pensiero.

The service enables people who have a laptop to work in an area where they can't plug in to a wall socket in order to access the Internet. Instead they're able to sit in an area, such as a park, and connect to the Internet wirelessly.

The project is funded by a $15,000 federal grant which was used to purchase the radio equipment and for service fees, said Pensiero. Approval for the grant came last fall and the city received the money approximately two months later.

Last year the city offered the service at Columbus Park. This summer the city added Latham Park on Bedford Street and Veterans Park on Atlantic Street near Stamford Town Center.

The city is working with the state to have the service extended to the transportation center so commuters would be able to use it while waiting for a train, said Pensiero.

To access the Internet users have to type the 13-digit access code on Connecticut library cards. Out-of-state residents have to obtain a library card from Ferguson Library if they wish to connect to the Internet.

There haven't been many users yet, said Pensiero, but he hoped more will take advantage of it once they get to know about the service.

Once users know about free Wi-Fi service they're eager to use it, said Alice Knapp, director of public services at the Ferguson Library.

The library began offering the service three years ago at its main branch and then expanded it this year to the Harry Bennett and the Weed & Hollander Memorial branches in Turn of River and Springdale areas respectively. She estimated about 12-13,000 users have signed on to use the Wi-Fi service.

For people who bring their laptop to the library to work on a project or assignment the Wi-Fi service is another convenience for them. They can work and also access reference material at the same time as others are doing so, said Knapp.

Internet speed at the Wi-Fi sites is very good, said Pensiero, although he cautioned it's affected by how many users are online.

Municipal Wi-Fi faces financial hurdles
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer
Fri Aug 31, 2:54 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - A year ago, it seemed like just about every major U.S. city was drawing up ambitious plans to build wireless Internet networks so more people, both rich and poor, could have online access wherever they wanted. Now, economics is blurring the Utopian vision as city leaders and the companies proposing to build the Wi-Fi networks haggle over whether the projects make financial sense.

The problem came into sharper focus this week as once-ballyhooed projects in San Francisco and Chicago unraveled while another high-profile deal in Houston neared a breaking point.

"Cities and companies are rethinking the models that they are adopting," said Esme Vos, founder of MuniWireless.com, a Web site that tracks trends in the industry. "It's all about economics and risk-sharing now."

MuniWireless estimates Wi-Fi networks have either already been built or are under consideration in 455 cities and counties across the United States, up from 122 two years ago.

The second thoughts about municipal Wi-Fi revolve around questions about whether the networks will generate enough revenue to justify the multimillion-dollar investments to build and maintain them.

EarthLink Inc., an Internet service provider that had been one of the chief evangelists in the crusade to blanket cities with Wi-Fi, has decided it can no longer afford to foot the bill by itself as the Atlanta-based company tries to bounce back from $46 million in losses during the first half of this year.

"We will not devote any new capital to the old municipal Wi-Fi model that has us taking all the risks," Rolla Huff, EarthLink's chief executive, told analysts during a Wednesday conference call. "In my judgment, that model is simply unworkable."

Later Wednesday, Huff informed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom that EarthLink was rescinding a proposal to cover the estimated $14 million to $17 million cost of building the city's Wi-Fi network.

Had the San Francisco system been built, EarthLink planned to charge about $20 per month for Wi-Fi access that would have been three to four times faster than a free service subsidized by ads sold by Google Inc. San Francisco still hopes to find other vendors willing to build a Wi-Fi network in its city, an effort that Google said it will continue to support.

"Google is committed to promoting alternative platforms for people to access the Web no matter where they are, and we encourage others to think creatively about how to address access issues in their own communities," Google spokesman Andrew Pederson said.

Last year, Google completed a free Wi-Fi network in its home town of Mountain View that the company says attracts about 15,000 users per month.

EarthLink had doubts about whether it could sign up enough San Francisco subscribers to recover its costs there, based on its experience so far in other cities, including Philadelphia and New Orleans, where it has already completed or is still building Wi-Fi networks.

Houston was counting on EarthLink to invest about $50 million to build a Wi-Fi network there, but those high hopes are now fading. The city this week notified EarthLink that it will fine the company $5 million for missing its contractual deadlines. The payment will give EarthLink more time to consider whether it wants to abandon the Houston project or find other partners willing to help defray the costs.

Chicago canceled its $18.5 million Wi-Fi project after concluding it would require the city to spend too much money to help finance it.

Financial worries also have jeopardized a $20 million Wi-Fi network in Milwaukee. The project remains in its testing phase, but the vendor, Midwest Fiber Networks, has publicly expressed concerns about whether the network will attract enough customers to recoup the investment.

Vos and other industry observers believe the dreams about wireless Internet access in big cities can still be realized if the some of the financial burden is shifted from the private sector.

"What is happening right now is a black eye (for Wi-Fi), but I don't think it's a death blow," said Godfrey Chua, who follows wireless networking issues for the research firm IDC. "We just need to work on new business models."

Some cities already have agreed to help finance Wi-Fi by sharing some of the upfront costs and guaranteeing subscriptions. Minneapolis, for instance, has agreed to become the "anchor tenant" on its Wi-Fi network — a commitment that will cost the city $1.25 million annually.

Houston had also agreed to pay EarthLink $500,000 annually to give the city's workers Wi-Fi access during the first five years of its contract, but that still might not be enough to keep EarthLink on board.

Newcomer Chosen for Wi-Fi in 2 Counties
NYTIMES
By BRUCE LAMBERT
Published: August 16, 2007

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y., Aug. 15 — A $150 million plan to make wireless broadband available across Nassau and Suffolk Counties, covering 750 square miles and nearly three million residents, took a major step forward on Wednesday when Long Island officials chose a company for the project.

The Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, who originated the concept, was joined by the Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, in announcing the selection of e-Path Communications of Tampa, Fla., to build, own and operate the system.

The project would be bigger than any other municipal system in the country to date, though some systems still being proposed elsewhere would be comparable or larger.

The project in Nassau and Suffolk is considered unusual because it would cover an area that is entirely suburban and does not have one central city.

“You can have connectivity just about everywhere from the Queens-Nassau border to Montauk,” Mr. Levy said.

The Wi-Fi Long Island system is intended for a wide range of users: residents, businesses, government agencies, schools, organizations and tourists.

The applications include helping students to do homework and enabling workers out in the field to keep contact with their employers.

“This will give Long Island a competitive advantage” in attracting business, residents and tourists, Mr. Suozzi said.

The service would offer varied features for different users and places.

It would provide free basic connections for any computer or hand-held Internet device at numerous “hot spots,” including public beaches, major parks, ferries and airports.

Limited home service would be free for residents below the federal poverty line, using a device to relay data indoors. That program would help erase the “digital divide” between the haves and have-nots, Mr. Levy said.

Other residents could subscribe to home service with more capacity, for things like music and picture downloads, for $25 a month, Mr. Levy said. An even higher level of service offering streaming video would be available for $55 a month.

Asked why they chose a relative newcomer like e-Path instead of larger companies, Mr. Levy and Mr. Suozzi said that while the other bidders wanted the counties to help pay for the system, e-Path offered to raise the money itself.

“No taxpayer dollars will be spent,” Mr. Levy said.

Despite e-Path’s relative inexperience — it is building a system for Delray Beach, Fla., and nearing approval to install one in Trenton — the two county executives said they were impressed with the company’s two partners. They are the technology giant Cisco and the energy company KeySpan, whose communications branch is providing a fiber optic network for the wired portion of the system.

Some Wi-Fi systems elsewhere have fallen short in their expected advertising revenue, and Mr. Levy acknowledged that it remains to be seen if e-Path’s innovative financial plan will succeed. “Let’s see how this works,” he said.

The project will start later this year with two locations: the Hub area around the Nassau Coliseum and along Route 110, an office and retail corridor in Suffolk. The plan calls for completing the rest of the system in three years.

Craig J. Settles, a consultant in Oakland, Calif., and the author of “Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless” (Hudson House, 2006), said that e-Path’s partners appear to provide a solid foundation. But he cautioned that the real test will be how much revenue is generated.

“If the network doesn’t make money,” he said, “then all this talk of global connectivity is whistling in the wind.”

New Law Could Nullify AT&T Ruling
By MARK PETERS | Courant Staff Writer
July 27, 2007

A federal judge ruled Thursday that AT&T must follow the same rules as cable TV companies as the phone giant competes for customers with its fledgling video service.

The decision by Judge Janet Bond Arterton strikes down a year-old ruling by the state Department of Public Utility Control. The agency had ruled that AT&T did not have to abide by cable franchise regulations, including requirements that prevent it from offering its service only in select markets.

But it's possible that the ruling from U.S. District Court in New Haven will be blunted or even nullified by a recently passed state law that establishes a new system to regulate cable TV and AT&T's video service.

AT&T, the state's Office of Consumer Counsel and others involved in the federal suit say they're reviewing the ruling to understand how it might affect AT&T's U-verse service. The service, which delivers TV programming over telephone lines, is available in parts of more than 20 Connecticut towns and cities.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Thursday that the federal ruling was good news for consumers, but will probably be negated by the new state law.

"Unfortunately, a new law guts the very safeguards that the court so resoundingly affirmed," he said in a statement.

AT&T said it's reviewing the decision, but pointed out that the court case concerns law that has been changed.

The federal lawsuit against AT&T and the DPUC was filed last July by the consumer counsel, which represents cable ratepayers, and the New England Cable and Telecommunications Association, whose members include Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications.

The trade association and consumer counsel argued that the DPUC was giving AT&T an unfair advantage as it enters the TV market in Connecticut. The phone company did not have to meet public access requirements, provide service to all homes in a franchise area, or go through the lengthy cable franchise renewal process that examines customer service.

AT&T has argued that the cable companies are only interested in keeping their monopoly and avoiding competition.

The cable association could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Bill Vallee, principal attorney for the state's consumer counsel, said Thursday that Arterton's decision supports his argument that AT&T should be treated the same as cable companies, even though the technology is different. He said the ruling could have an effect on AT&T's plans for other states because it is now more likely to be treated like a cable provider wherever it goes.

But the impact of the suit here is likely to hinge on the new state law, which legislators saw as a compromise between the cable industry and AT&T to ensure competition in the industry.

It was widely criticized by Blumenthal and Vallee for eroding consumer protections while continuing to give AT&T certain advantages.

AT&T Is Cable Operator, Says Connecticut Court
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable,
7/26/2007 3:33:00 PM

A Connecticut U.S. District Court has ruled that AT&T's Lightspeed IPTV video service is a cable service subject to local franchising laws.

The summary judgment was a victory for the New England Cable & Telecommunications Association, and the cable industry at large.

It was a defeat for the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC), which had ruled that AT&T's service was an information service, like other data services.

Central to the DPUC's conclusion was the way AT&T delivers its service, which is not to deliver a channel until the subscriber's set-top box requests it, rather than constantly delivering all the channels. That, said DPUC, was a level of interaction that made the service a two-way data exchange, or as DPUC put it "“[AT&T’s] network is unique in comparison to cable operators such as it entails a switched, two-way client server IP-based architecture designed to send each subscriber only the programming the subscriber chooses to view and entails a high level of subscriber interaction

The FCC defines cable service as one-way, though it includes VOD in that definition, so the DPUC concluded AT&T's service did not meet that definition.

The court saw it differently. Although factual findings by expert goverment agencies are due judicial deference under the Chevron doctrine, the court concluded that DPUC's determination that AT&T's was a two-way system was a legal conclusion-on the appropriate definition of "cable service"--rather than a factual finding, and a wrong legal conclusion at that.

AT&T is a cable operator, its service is a cable service, and its network is a cable network, said the court.

The cable industry has argued that AT&T's service should be subject to the same franchise restrictions as their members, but the DPUC had ruled differently.

(From "About Town" website)

WiFi or Free Internet Service in the news:

Click here to read Connecticut City & Town magazine notes about technology in use in CT government!

Read the article linked to below about the next generation of WiFi - known as WIMAX:
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3689826

What should be America's national broadband strategy?
by: Dick Durbin
Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 13:06:58 PM EDT

Today I'm writing to invite you to participate in an experiment -- an interactive approach to drafting legislation on one of the most significant public policy questions today: What should be America's national broadband strategy?

Starting this Tuesday, July 24 at 7pm EST on OpenLeft.com, I will be engaging in a series of four nightly broadband policy discussions with the online community. During those four nights, I am looking for the best and brightest ideas on what Congress should do to promote and foster broadband.

I will begin each night's discussion with a conversation about some of the core principles I think are important, and then I'll ask for you to contribute your ideas that will help me craft legislation...

The second reason I'm doing this is because broadband policy is one of the most important public policy issues today. Frankly, America does not have a national broadband strategy, and we are falling behind. That means our families don't have access to the best medical technologies, our students don't have access to the best educational opportunities, and our entrepreneurs are limited in the markets they can access.

As we work together to draft a bill to solve these problems, the three principles I want to begin with are:

    * Broadband access must be universal and affordable;

    * We need to preserve an online environment for innovation; and

    * We need to ensure that broadband technology enables more voices to be heard.

As I said at the outset -- this is not the traditional way legislation is written in Washington. Some people think that by giving people other than policy experts and special interest groups a seat at the table, this process will never work. I believe differently, and I have a feeling that this week, we'll prove them wrong.

I look forward to talking with you about America's national broadband strategy, starting this Tuesday night.

-- Dick Durbin

July 17, 2007
Senators Push FCC on Network Neutrality
By Roy Mark

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should expand the focus of its network neutrality inquiry to include the impact of carrier practices on content providers, U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said Monday.

Dorgan and Snowe, who have introduced network neutrality legislation in the Senate, also expressed disappointment that the FCC chose to start an inquiry instead of propose concrete network neutrality rules.

Following its 2005 decision approving four network neutrality principles for end users, the FCC in March launched a Notice of Inquiry to determine if the marketplace behavior of broadband carriers threatens the historic open nature of the Internet.

"We…believe you should be asking how all Internet users are affected rather than just consumers," Snowe and Dorgan wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. "With a neutral network, any Internet user can be a producer or consumer. That is the beauty of a free and open Internet."

Both AT&T and Verizon have floated tentative plans to charge content providers extra fees based on bandwidth consumption. Neither telecom giant has implemented the idea.

Proponents of network neutrality claim speed tiers on the Internet would amount to discriminatory network traffic management, creating fast and slow lanes for content providers based on ability to pay.

"If [the carriers] get their wishes, the Internet would become a new world where those content providers who can afford to pay special fees would have better access to consumers," Dorgan and Snowe wrote.

Dorgan and Snowe's bill -- the Internet Freedom Preservation Act -- would prohibit broadband carriers from discriminatory practices, such as pricing in handling traffic from Internet content, application and service providers. The legislation would also require carriers to offer consumers individual broadband service that is not bundled with television or telephone service.

The bill is similar to an unsuccessful amendment introduced in the 109th Congress by Dorgan and Snowe. The then majority Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee defeated the legislation on a narrow vote with Snowe the only Republican voting for the amendment.

Other Democrats signing onto the new bill include John Kerry of Massachusetts, California's Barbara Boxer, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Vermont's Patrick Leahy, New York's Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama of Illinois.

"Broadband providers are now technologically capable and financially incentivized