DigitalTV
PIAC Meeting Summary
Telephony
FCC: MCI/WorldCom Merger
WSJ: The Bells Unleash Their Lawyers
TelecomAM: Jurisdictional Issues Dominate Section 271 Arguments In St. Louis
TelecomAM: Oregon PUC To Appeal Court Decision Striking Down Big U S West
Rate Cut
Internet
NYT: Venture Promises Far Faster Speeds For Internet Data
WP: Intel Unveils Technology That Speeds Web Surfing
NYT: Internet Registrar Plots Its Post-Monopoly Future
NYT: Rules For Filtering Web Content Cause Dispute
Education
NYT: New Toys Try to Make Computer Programming Child Play
Microsoft
WSJ: Microsoft Reiterates How It Has Complied With Judge's Order
WP: Microsoft in Contempt, Justice Repeats
** Digital TV **
Title: PIAC Meeting Summary
Source: Benton
http://www.benton.org/Policy/TV/meeting3.html
Issue: Digital Television
Description: A summary of the third meeting of the President's Advisory
Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters
is now available. Friday's agenda included panel discussions on digital
technology and educational programming as well as briefings on access for
people with disabilities and natural disaster information.
** Telephony **
Title: MCI/WorldCom Merger
Source: FCC
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Comments/worldcom/
Issue: Mergers
Description: Common Carrier Bureau Establishes Webpage for MCI/WorldCom
Merger. On November 21, 1997, WorldCom, Inc. and MCI Communications
Corporation (MCI) filed an amendment (Amendment) to the Consolidated
Application for Transfer of Control of MCI and Request for Special Temporary
Authority (Applications) that WorldCom originally filed with the Commission
on October 1, 1997. By the Amendment, WorldCom and MCI seek approval for a
single, one-step transfer of control to WorldCom of licenses and
authorizations held by MCI and its subsidiaries. According to the Amendment,
the revision is necessitated by the November 9, 1997 WorldCom and MCI
agreement to merge the two companies, pursuant to which MCI will become a
wholly-owned subsidiary of WorldCom. On November 25, 1997, the Common
Carrier Bureau released a Public Notice that established a pleading cycle
for the Application as amended by the Amendment.(2) Interested parties filed
comments regarding or petitions to deny the Amended Application on or before
January 5, 1998. Oppositions or responses to these comments and petitions
may be filed no later than January 26, 1998.
Title: The Bells Unleash Their Lawyers
Source: Wall Street Journal (Op-eds, A19)
http://wsj.com/
Issue: Competition
Description: The gov't.'s antitrust case against the Bell system argued
that AT&T used its local monopolies -- the Bell companies -- to impede
competition in the long-distance and telecommunications-equipment markets.
After a yearlong trial, AT&T accepted the consent decree requiring it to
divest the Bell companies, thereby opening those markets to full competition
under the supervision of the FCC and the presiding judge in the case, Harold
Greene. Two decades of careful enforcement of the Communications Act and the
antitrust laws by the FCC and the courts opened the long-distance and
telecom-equipment market to competition. But the problem of the Bell
monopolies over local service remained. Congress assumed that if the Bells
were offered the ability to enter the long distance business in return for
implementing
a "checklist" of actions to open their local service areas to competition,
they would do so, thereby avoiding possible litigation. The assumption was
wrong. Freed by the Telecom Act of judicial supervision under the AT&T
consent decree, the Bells have unleashed their lawyers -- first to attack
the FCC's efforts to open their markets to competition and the requirement
that they implement the checklist before entering the long distance business.
Title: Jurisdictional Issues Dominate Section 271 Arguments In St. Louis
Source: Telecom AM---jan. 20, 1998
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Competition
Description: The FCC and its supporters argued that the U.S. Appeals Court
is the wrong place to settle disputes over Section 271 cases. Opponents
countered that what was wrong was the FCC's use of criteria that the St.
Louis court ruled last summer was beyond the Commission's jurisdiction. AT&T
attorney David Carpenter, supporting the FCC, said the appeal of the
Commission's use of pricing standards in the deciding Section 271 cases
should be decided by the U.S. Appeals Court, which the Telecom Act gives
sole authority to review Section 271 cases. But Iowa Utilities Board
attorney Diane Munns said the FCC's actions violated the St. Louis court's
ruling last year that only states can set local prices. She said the court
made considering local pricing "off limits" for the FCC, even in determining
long distance entry.
Title: Oregon PUC To Appeal Court Decision Striking Down Big U S West Rate Cut
Source: Telecom AM---jan. 20, 1998
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Telephone Regulation
Description: The Oregon Public Utility Commission says it is appealing an
Oregon Circuit Court decision voiding an order to US West for a $97 million
rate cut and $102 million refund, and remanding the case back to the PUC for
further consideration of directory-revenue imputation issues. The PUC said
it's going to the Court of Appeals because the lower court acted contrary to
state law in disregarding the PUC's reasoning for including $60 million of
directory publishing revenues in US West's rate base and reflecting US
West's poor service quality record by setting a rate of return at the lowest
point of the reasonable range.
** Internet **
Title: Venture Promises Far Faster Speeds For Internet Data
Source: New York Times (A1,D7)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/012098telephone.html
Author: Seth Schiesel
Issue: Internet Technology
Description: The Compaq Computer Corporation, the Intel Corporation and the
Microsoft Corporation have joined forces with most of the nation's largest
telephone companies in an effort to enable consumers to access Internet data
via telephone lines at speeds much faster than what is currently available.
The formation of this group is a significant move in what promises to be a
"years-long battle between telephone companies and cable television
companies for control of how consumers get high-speed access to the
Internet." Executives of the three computer corporations said they will
formally announce the venture next week at a communications conference.
Title: Intel Unveils Technology That Speeds Web Surfing
Source: Washington Post (E1,E6)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-01/20/034l-012098-idx.html
Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Issue: Internet Technology
Description: The Intel Corporation introduced new technology yesterday that
it said will offer faster access to Internet sites, cutting back on delays
that have become increasingly frustrating to users of the World Wide Web.
The technology works by allowing Internet access firms to make copies of the
more popular sites on the Web and then zap this material to their users in
smaller files that travel faster. It is expected that Internet service
providers will charge users a modest fee for the new technology.
Title: Internet Registrar Plots Its Post-Monopoly Future
Source: New York Times/CyberTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/012098domain.html
Author: Jeri Clausing
Issue: Internet Domains
Description: As many start-up groups anxiously await for the U.S. Government
to say how and when it will open the Internet address business to
competition, Network Solutions Inc., the current, exclusive, registrar of
top-level domains, is preparing for its loss of monopoly through aggressive
marketing to small businesses. Last week, Network Solutions announced
partnership with Dun & Bradstreet and Inc. Online, and launched its new
WorldNIC registration service. These moves are designed to place Network
Solutions away from its current single focus and into broader Internet
service by offering direct registration access through their new small
business server for small companies that are working to build an online
presence. "We see tremendous potential here," said Gabe Battista, chief
executive of Network Solutions. "In five years, the Internet will carry most
business and personal transactions. Yet today Dun & Bradstreet estimates
that 60 percent of small businesses are not using the Internet. With
WorldNIC we are making a compelling case for small businesses to adopt the
Internet and enjoy a level playing field."
Title: Rules For Filtering Web Content Cause Dispute
Source: New York Times/CyberTimes (1/19/98)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/011998filter.html
Author: Amy Harmon
Issue: Internet Regulation
Description: Members of the World Wide Web Consortium, a group of about 200
computer scientists and engineers, in a private vote by email a few days
before Christmas, endorsed a set of rules that could govern some of the most
fundamental ways that people around the world will obtain -- or will be
prevented from obtaining -- electronic information in upcoming years.
Members of the group say they were just agreeing on a much needed filtering
system for all of the vast information that is available on the Web. They
were building a tool, not a law. Based on that notion, little notice was
taken of their action, which revolved around the technical specifications
and computer code that define the Platform for Internet Content Selection
(PICS). But a growing number of civil libertarians argue that computer code
has the force of law and thus these technologists are acting as some sort of
unelected world government. "This is a technique that is designed to enable
one party to control what another can access," said David Sobel of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center http://www.epic.org. "The most
palatable formulation of
that is parent-child, but the fact is it also allows a government or an
Internet service provider to take on that parental role and decide what
anyone downstream is going to be able to see -- and no steps have been taken
to prevent that." Berners-Lee, who invented the Web at the CERN laboratory
in Geneva, insists that the benefits of the "PICSRules" outweigh its
drawbacks. "I appreciate your concerns," he wrote in response to a statement
from a civil-liberties coalition, the Global Internet Liberty Campaign.
"Whilst I tend personally to share them at the level of principle, I do not
believe that the PICSRules technology presents, on balance, a danger rather
than a boon to society. I can also affirm that the intent of the initiative
is certainly not as a tool for government control, but as a tool for user
control, which will indeed reduce the pressure for government action."
Regardless of the differing opinions, the controversy underscores the large
amounts of influence that technologists wield in formulating the rules that
govern cyberspace and presages increasing tension between the architects of
the Internet and those who use it.
** Education **
Title: New Toys Try to Make Computer Programming Child Play
Source: New York Times (C4)
http://www.nytimes.com/
Author: Karen Freeman
Issue: Education
Description: Researchers at the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology are working to create a wide range of programmable
toys that children can use for entertainment, investigation and learning.
Many of these toys, some in their early stages of development, some already
commercially available, are based on Lego building blocks, with much of the
research being financed by the Lego Group. An example of these
computer-driven construction tools can be found in the current testing of
the Media Lab's new Crickets. The Crickets are small computers that can be
hooked up to motors and light or touch sensors, to drive dinosaurs and other
creations. They communicate with one another and with desktop computers
through infrared light. Dr. Michael Resnick, who leads the research team,
said that the Media Lab group is looking for ways to encourage kids to build
and develop scientific instruments using Crickets and other tools. "If kids
work on these projects, it gives them a new sense of themselves as learners.
They get an understanding of how to go about the process of design and
inventing."
** Microsoft **
Title: Microsoft Reiterates How It Has Complied With Judge's Order
Source: Wall Street Journal (B18)
http://wsj.com/
Issue: Antitrust
Description: Microsoft repeated in a court filing how it has complied with a
court order to offer customers its operating system without tying it to the
software firm's Internet browser product. Judge Jackson issued a preliminary
order which said that the threat of Microsoft using its monopoly in Windows
to build another monopoly in Internet software required that Microsoft halt
its tying practice while he reviewed the situation. The gov't. was expected
to reiterate its allegation that Microsoft violated the court order by
offering computer makers a two-year old version of its Windows operating
system or one that didn't work at all after it was ordered to allow them to
remove the Internet software. Microsoft's filing asserts that even the
gov't.'s expert witness couldn't identify a set of files that Microsoft
could have allowed computer manufacturers to remove as a way of complying
with Judge Jackson's ruling.
Title: Microsoft in Contempt, Justice Repeats
Source: Washington Post (E3)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-01/20/049l-012098-idx.html
Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Issue: Antitrust
Description: The Justice Department repeated their request yesterday to have
the Microsoft Corporation held in contempt of court for flouting a
preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield
Jackson. A legal brief filed by the department last night said, "The court's
order..read as a whole, does not command a response by Microsoft that is
commercially nonviable and senseless." Jackson is scheduled to hear closing
arguments in the case on Thursday.
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