Thursday, September 13, 2018
Headlines Daily Digest
FCC Activates Disaster Information Reporting for Hurricane Florence
Don't Miss:
What's the Cost of the Rural Digital Divide?
Wheeler: Who will stand up for the First Amendment on internet platforms?
FTC Hearings Begin Today: Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century
Emergency Communications
Broadband
Wireless
Ownership
Platforms
Privacy
Security
Journalism
Communications and Democracy
Elections
Television
Telecom
Labor
Policymakers
Company News
Stories From Abroad
Emergency Communications
As Hurricane Florence approaches the East Coast, the Federal Communications Commission is working to prepare for the storm, coordinating with our federal and state partners and letting them know that we stand ready to work with them and assist in any way we can. At this point, FCC staff have already been deployed to survey the radiofrequency spectrum across critical areas of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, and our Operations Center is open 24 hours a day. Our staff has also reached out to broadcast associations, wireless carriers, and other telecom companies in the areas expected to be hit by Hurricane Florence. We will closely monitor communications outages data in the coming days and work to support restoration and recovery efforts. We also urge residents of the affected areas to charge their wireless phones, laptops, or tablets, sign up to receive emergency alerts and warnings, and follow other communications tips available on the FCC’s website to stay connected with family and friends.
In this Public Notice, as required by the RAY BAUM’S Act of 2018, the Wireline Competition Bureau seeks information and data for the Federal Communications Commission’s report on promoting broadband Internet access service for veterans. Section 504 of the RAY BAUM’S Act of 2018 directs the Commission to, within one year, “submit to Congress a report on promoting broadband Internet access service for veterans, in particular low income veterans and veterans residing in rural areas” and “provide the public with notice and an opportunity to comment” in preparing the report. In the report, the Commission is required to examine veterans’ access to broadband and how to promote such access, and provide findings and recommendations for Congress on those issues. Specifically, we seek comment on veterans’ use of and need for broadband for health care, in particular telehealth services, counseling, mental health services, and other health-related services.
Interested parties may file comments by Oct 12, 2018 and reply comments by Oct 29, 2018.
The lack of broadband access for 6.3 million electric co-op households results in more than $68 billion in lost economic value, according to new research by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). The new report, Unlocking the Value of Broadband for Electric Cooperative Consumer-Members, investigates the cost of the digital divide and the growing economic advantages to America’s rural communities. The study analyzed the value that households place on broadband access. It noted that households in parts of America with broadband access receive, on average, a benefit of $1,950 annually. Applying this value to 6.3 million electric co-op households without broadband, the study finds a total lost value of $68.2 billion to cooperative members nationwide. Importantly, the deployment of broadband would be expected to enable additional economic benefits such as expanded jobs, education and economic growth. None of these factors were examined in the NRECA study.
The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) has submitted comments to the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS), urging the agency to treat affordability for lower-income rural residents as a key factor in implementing its E-Connectivity Pilot, a new grant and loan program for financing broadband projects in rural areas that lack “sufficient” broadband access. NDIA’s comments recommend the following:
- Affordability of service absolutely should be included in evaluating whether an area already has ‘‘sufficient access’’.
- RUS should consider setting an affordability benchmark for “sufficient access” that’s based on whether existing broadband costs exceed a reasonable percentage (we suggest 2.5%) of the average income of the poorer half of local households.
- RUS’s project review and approval standards for the e-Connectivity Pilot should give preference to projects:
- whose network business plans include affordable service options for lower-income households, and
- whose marketing and community engagement plans include digital inclusion support in addition to the affordability options (such as community partnerships to provide digital literacy training and access to affordable devices).
National organizations representing municipalities are rebelling against Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr’s plan to streamline the deployment of the 5G wireless infrastructure known as small cells. The proposal, set for a Sept. 26 vote, would preempt local government authority, a measure of run-around that wireless giants like AT&T and Verizon say may be necessary for 5G deployment given delays they face at the local level. That doesn’t sit right with the municipal groups, which say the plan amounts to federal overreach that could harm public safety and local governments’ ability to collect vital revenue. If Carr’s plan is enacted unchanged, the US Conference of Mayors “and its members will seek relief in federal court to overturn this unprecedented overreach,” CEO Tom Cochran said. The National League of Cities is also opposed and “absolutely” expects litigation to follow, Angelina Panettieri, the league’s principal associate on telecommunications. The National Association of Counties is objecting too, says spokesman Brian Namey: “By narrowing the window for evaluating 5G deployment applications, the FCC would effectively hinder local governments’ fulfillment of public health and safety responsibilities during the construction, modification or installation of broadcasting facilities.” The Conference of Mayors complained that the FCC itself estimated its proposed small cell streamlining “threatens future revenues to local (and state) governments by billions of dollars over the next decade” (Commissioner Carr had touted estimates funded by Corning, a company with a financial interest in small-cell deployment). In the days leading up to the FCC’s Sept. 26 vote, “I do think you’re going to see a lot of response from municipalities, from utilities,” the NLC’s Panettieri said. Commissioner Carr, for his part, has sought to talk with local officials and called several, including Panettieri. He maintains local leaders broadly back his plan. “I'm pleased that dozens of mayors, local officials, and other state leaders all support FCC action,” Commissioner Carr said.
While wireless-industry executives say applications that tap the full potential of 5G—self-driving cars, virtual reality and remote surgery—are several years away, leading the way does matter for a country’s economy, if the race to 4G is a guide. If the US hadn’t led the way on 4G, the country might not dominate mobile technology, and its platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat and perhaps even Facebook and Netflix might not have become global powers.
“The Ubers, the Airbnbs, the Netflixes of the world came about because of 4G,” says Rob McDowell, a Republican former Federal Communications Commission commissioner. “No one foresaw the app economy coming. What’s exciting about 5G is that nobody can really fathom what’s going to happen.” Being slow to 5G, he says, would put “the US at a competitive disadvantage globally.”
But some 5G skeptics question how great an impact the new technology will have. For instance, William Webb, a former Motorola director of corporate strategy who is now a telecom consultant, doesn’t see huge promise in the technology. “5G doesn’t bring anything I can imagine that you can’t deliver with 4G,” he says. He compares the 5G to the Concorde, the innovative passenger jet that was a commercial failure because not enough people were willing to pay for the extra speed it offered to justify its expense. Autonomous vehicles can’t rely on cellular connectivity in tunnels or even bad weather, since rain or extremely high humidity could distort 5G signals even more than it does with 4G, he says. That means most of the brains of self-driving cars will be inside the car’s computer instead of over a mobile network. Webb says that virtual-reality headsets and remote-surgery machines are more likely to be connected to Wi-Fi routers, which are connected to land lines that will still be faster than 5G. Like some other skeptics, Webb also says it doesn’t matter which country comes first, especially in an increasingly globalized world where multinational companies have offices everywhere.
Several potential presidential candidates for the 2020 election have expressed an interest in policies that would battle monopolies in the US, including in the tech industry, said Barry Lynn, the executive director of the Open Markets Institute. “Well more than six of the likely presidential candidates this next time around, we’ve had extensive conservations with about these issues,” he said. Lynn hesitated to name names but said getting Open Markets’ policy positions — which include calling out Big Tech by name — in front of both Democratic and Republican candidates is a goal for the organization. Lynn also said he’s not sure Republican allegations of bias against conservatives reflect any actual intention on tech companies’ part, but contended it’s true that platforms are major arbiters in how information gets to the public. And privacy problems are also monopoly problems, in Lynn’s view — he said flaps like Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal are a direct result of too few companies holding the information of too many people. Lynn also said Google should have attended the recent congressional hearings, arguing that sitting them out was emblematic of a longstanding pattern for the company. “Google as an institution has not shown, over the last 10 years, a lot of respect for the US government,” he said, calling the company’s attitude “patronizing.” Lynn suggested the government could start seeking to simply break the big tech companies up, for instance splitting off Facebook’s WhatsApp and Instagram into their own companies again. Breaking up Google, he said, would be more complicated because all of its services are integrated. One idea would be to separate maps from search and search from YouTube so that they’re discrete services. “This sounds radical … but this is something we’ve done many times in the past,” he said.
In Aug it was reported that T-Mobile was asking the small operators that resell T-Mobile's excess network capacity (Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)) to write letters and opinion pieces in support of the company's proposed $36 billion merger with Sprint. By helpfully suggesting talking points to resellers —including Mint Mobile, Republic Wireless, and Ting, all of which lease access from the Big Four network operators (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile) in order to sell phone and data services to customers, T-Mobile is following the usual "air of inevitability" merger playbook.
Price-aware consumers are in for a particularly rough ride if the merger goes through. A new T-Mobile would control more than 45 percent of all wholesale connections, which means MVNOs will have very little leverage in negotiating their arrangements. T-Mobile has not promised to allow MVNOs to continue using its towers and wires following the merger, and no law obligates T-Mobile to do so; a new T-Mobile would be an equal player in a cozy trio with Verizon and AT&T, with the incentive and ability to eliminate low-price plans and MVNOs altogether, becoming much more like gold-plated Verizon and AT&T in its practices.
The tens of millions of value-oriented wireless customers don't have much of a voice at the Federal Communications Commission these days. T-Mobile has nothing to fear from them. But T-Mobile knows that MVNOs can write letters. And the MVNOs know they cannot take the risk of alienating T-Mobile. If the merger does go through, they'll be at T-Mobile's mercy. So some have apparently decided that they might as well send a wooden letter into the FCC parroting the arguments T-Mobile is pushing in support of the deal, even though there is no universe in which fewer choices for resale equal a better business environment for them.
[Susan Crawford is a professor at Harvard Law School]
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) slammed Google as part of his ongoing criticism of the company's alleged bias against conservatives, mentioning its work with China, its search results accidentally showing one of the ideologies of the California Republican Party as “Nazism”, and for work it did to mobilize the Latino vote. “It’s their own executive that they said they have a silent donation where they tried to help people to help Hillary,” he said, referencing a report by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that described an email sent by Google’s Multicultural Marketing department head. The email, which was published by Breitbart, shows Eliana Murillo describing the company’s efforts to help non-partisan Latino voter mobilization non-profit, which Murillo described as a “silent donation.” The emails don’t show Murillo expressing support for a candidate with the mobilization efforts. Regardless, Majority Leader McCarthy wrote on Sept 11 that Google “[c]laims to be fair, but gave a 'silent donation' to a left-wing group to stop Trump." He wrote, "It’s time for @Google to answer some ?’s An invite will be on its way."
The Internet Association, a group representing more than 40 major internet and technology firms including Facebook, Amazon, and Alphabet, said it backed modernizing US data privacy rules but wants a national approach that would preempt CA's new regulations that take effect in 2020. The Internet Association said, "internet companies support an economy-wide, national approach to regulation that protects the privacy of all Americans." The group said it backed principles that would ensure consumers should have "meaningful controls over how personal information they provide" is used and should be able to know who it is being shared with. Consumers should also be able to seek deletion of data or request corrections or take personal information to another company that provides similar services and have reasonable access to the personal information they provide, it said. The group also told policymakers they should give companies flexibility in notifying individuals, set a "performance standard" on privacy and data security protections that avoids a prescriptive approach and set national data breach notification rules.
Microsoft is calling on governments to follow a set of principles for cross-border data access policies, including independent judicial review and dispute resolution mechanisms. Microsoft’s Sept. 11 call for law enforcement data access standards follows the European Commission’s introduction recently of proposed e-evidence legislation. In March, Congress passed legislation governing how U.S. law enforcement can access data overseas. The company laid out six principles that it said “have driven, and will continue to drive, our advocacy as governments reform their laws and negotiate international agreements.” Microsoft urged government officials to allow cloud providers to notify users about government access to data; give providers a path for challenging such requests; seek data directly from companies rather than cloud providers when possible; and provide for transparency, in addition to calling for judicial review and dispute mechanisms.
Journalism
Quinnipiac Poll: 54% of voters trust media compared with 30% for President Trump to tell the truth about important issues
According to a Quinnipiac University National Poll, American voters trust the news media more than President Donald Trump 54 - 30 percent to tell the truth about important issues. Republicans trust Trump more than the media 72 - 12 percent, the only group that trusts Trump more. White voters with no college degree are divided as 45 percent trust Trump more and 43 percent trust the media more. The news media is an important part of democracy, 69 percent of voters say, as 21 percent say the media is the enemy of the people. Republicans say 47 - 31 percent the media is the enemy of the people rather than an important part of democracy, the only listed group to feel that way.
The Trump Administration appears to be following through on the president’s threats to online freedom of speech. The attorney general of the United States is convening a meeting with state attorneys general “to discuss a growing concern that these companies may be…intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.” Five Republican state attorneys general have been invited to attend so far.
The president’s definition of “fairness” seems to equate to “agreement.” The media are the “Enemy of the People” because they report “fake news”—i.e., coverage he doesn’t like. Now online media such as Google, Facebook and Twitter have joined the list of enemies. “We want fairness,” the president said. Government supervision of fairness is actually something the federal government has done before—and that Republicans fiercely fought. When the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in the Reagan Administration, it was hailed by Republicans as a victory for free speech. The result of not having to present both sides of a story was conservative talk radio—and, one might argue, the modern Republican movement.
What is fascinating about the president’s attacks on the First Amendment is the absence of an outcry from its traditional corporate defenders. Imagine the outcry if the attorney general had convened a meeting to review the news decision-making activities of broadcasters. Think about the outrage if the Justice Department announced an inquiry into the decisions by cable networks about what channels they carry. Envision the explosion if the internet networks were summoned to the Justice Department to explain why content they own is favored over competitors on their networks. Each of these businesses—and their powerful lobbying groups—are mute, however. One could hypothesize that because the Trump Administration is giving the companies all they want on the deregulation and tax cut fronts, they will not risk stepping forward on a matter of principle. The pathology of how principles die begins with a demagogue and the failure of others to defend the principle.
[Tom Wheeler served as the 31st Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2013-2017]
Elections
President Trump issues new order authorizing additional sanctions for interfering in upcoming US elections
President Donald Trump issued a new order authorizing additional sanctions against countries or individuals for interfering in upcoming US elections, but lawmakers of both parties immediately said the effort does not go far enough. The order would allow President Trump to sanction foreigners who interfere in the midterm elections to be held in less than two months. It covers overt efforts to meddle in election infrastructure, such as vote counts, as well as “propaganda” and other attempts to influence voting from abroad, said Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats. Sens Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who jointly introduced a piece of legislation that would impose penalties for election interference earlier in 2018, said the order “does not go far enough to address” malicious activity by foreign entities.
Company News
Google draws conservatives' ire after a leaked 2016 video on Breitbart shows company executives consoling employees after Trump victory
A leaked video of Google executives trying to console employees who were upset after the election of President Trump has infuriated conservatives, who say the remarks illustrate the search giant's political bias and should prompt regulators to take a close look at the company. The video shows executives such as Sergey Brin, the president of Google parent Alphabet, and Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, addressing staff at a private meeting days after the 2016 election, the outcome of which Pichai said caused “a lot of fear within Google.” As they expressed their dismay, Google executives sought to assuage employees, especially immigrants, given the incoming president’s pledge before Election Day to toughen security at the border. In doing so, Google’s leaders encouraged their workers to be understanding of “all sides of the political spectrum,” said Eileen Naughton, the company’s vice president for people operations. Brad Parscale, the president’s campaign manager, said the company “needs to explain why this isn’t a threat to the Republic.”
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
© Benton Foundation 2018. Redistribution of this email publication — both internally and externally — is encouraged if it includes this message. For subscribe/unsubscribe info email: headlines AT benton DOT org
Kevin Taglang
Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Foundation
727 Chicago Avenue
Evanston, IL 60202
847-328-3049
headlines AT benton DOT org
The Benton Foundation All Rights Reserved © 2018