Author Archives: John S. Quarterman

Internet Radio: Live Air?

header_mic.gif Sunday was when Internet radio was supposed to turn into dead air, after even an emergency court hearing had failed. However, during a Congressional hearing Friday,
…Jon Simson, director of SoundExchange – the label-affiliated organization responsible for setting royalty rates – told Congress that the group would not enforce the new royalty rates and would continue to work on negotiating new rates with the Digital Media Association (DiMA), who are acting on behalf of webcasters. “This is definitely a step in the right direction,” Pandora founder Tim Westergren, told us this morning. “At this point, provided there’s good-faith negotiations, they’re not going to go after people.”

— Public Outcry Staves Off Destruction of Internet Radio, Evan Serpick, Rock & Roll Daily, Rolling Stone, 7/13/07, 12:54 pm EST

Is this any way to run a regulatorium? All the regulatory bodies stonewalling, the courts not listening, and only one man deciding not to proceed? Continue reading →

Global Media Consolidation

mediabrands.jpg In case you thought media ownership in increasingly fewer hands was a uniquely U.S. problem, here’s a handy graphic illustrating its worldwide scope. There are links to the research behind it.

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TV4U? Not Me!

soglin.gif Franchise reform, if you don’t have enough supporters, apparently you can just write their names in anyway:
At a Capitol press conference, several others leading the fight against the bill — including former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin and communications professor Cynthia Laitman — said their names also falsely showed up as supporters of the deregulation bill on petitions given lawmakers by TV4Us, the private group leading the ad and public relations push for the bill.

“I don’t know how it happened,” said Soglin, who said he has pushed for tight municipal controls and consumer protections over the cable TV industry since 1971. “AT&T gets very confused.”

— Legislators seek probe of misuse of names, By Steven Walters, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WEDNESDAY, July 11, 2007, 11:15 a.m.

How confused? Continue reading →

AT&T’s Striped Bass

ph_striped_bass.jpg You may recall that the FCC at the last minute in 2006, after the elections and before the electees took office, agreed to some conditions on the merger of Bellsouth with AT&T. Among them was a $10/month DSL plan.
The merger commitment specifies that the plan had to be offered. That means to me that it has to be put forth as an option!!! (If there’s a fifty pound striped bass somewhere out there in the ocean, that’s not an offer of fish!)

So I don’t think AT&T is honoring its $10/month commitment.

— Is AT&T Honoring its Merger Commitments? David Isenberg, isen.blog, Friday, July 06, 2007

This is the same $10/month service USA Today announced AT&T was developing back in January. Maybe they’ll just keep “developing” it until the 48 month time limit expires, or make it available to a few people and claim they’ve honored their commitment.This is what SBC used to do: claim availability if one person per ZIP code could get a service, and the FCC let them get away with that.

Isenberg asks:

Do you think the FCC will investigate?
Continue reading →

A Cisco Way

bio_100x125_jeff_campbell.jpg Cisco has a policy blog, in which they back no regulation before market failure:
In other words, there is no reason to rush to impose burdensome Net Neutrality regulations in the broadband market. If there is one thing that we have learned from 70+ years of communications regulation, it is that regulation has significant costs and unintended consequences. The FTC clearly recognizes that government should react to actual problems, not hypothetical ones.
It’s funny how the Internet grew up with net neutrality, but now it’s “burdensome.” Maybe innovation and competition are burdensome to incumbents.

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Market Failure?

bruegel_babel2_grt.jpg Here’s an interesting directive from the White House:
The order requires federal officials to show that private companies, people or institutions failed to address a problem before agencies can write regulations to tackle it. It also gives political appointees greater authority over how the regulations are written.

— House Balks at Bush Order for New Powers, By Jim Abrams, The Associated Press Tuesday, July 3, 2007; 8:16 PM

How does this work?

Continue reading →

Franchise Reform?

shutesbury.jpg In the previous post, I quoted a paper as saying competition would promote lower prices. Here’s what the authors recommend to produce that competition:
Federal reform and additional state-specific reforms have focused on reforming “video franchising” laws to reduce barriers to entry and investment by new service providers. We commend such policies as likely to contribute to investment and competition in broadband services.

— The Effects of Broadband Deployment on Output and Employment: A Cross-sectional Analysis of U.S. Data, By Robert Crandall, William Lehr and Robert Litan, Brookings Institution, 2007

Here’s what some affected parties think about that:
Two years ago we profiled the rural Massachusetts towns of Shutesbury and Leverett, who have long been trying to get broadband from anyone — but aren’t deemed profitable to serve by Comcast or Verizon. While towns as close as 300 feet get service, these two towns are still waiting, though some have concocted home brew solutions. Locals tell us they were insulted when approached by Verizon to support “franchise reform,” which all but seals their fate by eliminating build out requirements.

—Broadband Black Holes: FiOS? We’ve never been able to get DSL, by Karl, BroadbandReports.com, 10:42AM Thursday Jul 05 2007

It seems “franchise reform” may be one of those newspeak phrases like “tax relief” which is used to persuade those who will suffer to support something that will benefit those who propose it.

It’s enough to make you nostalgic for FDR and the REA.

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Broadband Produces Employment

crandall.jpg
lehr.jpg
Litan.jpg
Many have assumed that broadband is good for the economy; now here’s a study with rivets:
More specifically, for every one percentage point increase in broadband penetration in a state, employment is projected to increase by 0.2 to 0.3 percent per year.

— The Effects of Broadband Deployment on Output and Employment: A Cross-sectional Analysis of U.S. Data, By Robert Crandall, William Lehr and Robert Litan, Brookings Institution, 2007

Of course, this is like saying every state in medieval Germany that had a printing press produced employment in the printing industry. There are economic and social effects far beyond mere employment. What should be done?

The paper has a few recommendations:

The surest route to lower prices is provided by increasing competition in the delivery of broadband services.
Continue reading →

Broadband in Two Countries

BBArussfig1070702.gif Broadband growth is slowing in the U.S.:
Price reductions and other factors led to 40 percent growth in adoption from March 2005 to March 2006. Over the following year, growth was a more modest 12 percent, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said in a report Tuesday.

“The low-hanging fruit was picked … so you saw a slowdown understandably going to 2007,” said John Horrigan, Pew’s associate director for research.

— Study: Broadband Growth Slowing in U.S. By Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer, 3 July 2007

Meanwhile, back in the USSR Russia:
The broadband market in Russia, particularly in Moscow, is growing quickly. The Ministry of IT and Communications reports that the fixed broadband market grew 42% and wireless broadband market showed a 61% annual growth rate in 2006.

— FTTx and DSL in tussle for Moscow market share, PointTopic, 3 July 2007

And in Russia it’s mostly fiber to the home, enabling even faster future speeds.

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The Tree of Liberty

On this day in the United States we celebrate the Declaration of Independence with
Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfire and Illuminations
as John Adams recommended in 1776.

The Declaration laid out a “a long train of abuses and usurpations” and referred to “certain unalienable Rights”, which the former colonials went on to spell out in a written Constitution (the oldest in the world today) to which they added a Bill of Rights. Is their work done? Continue reading →