Los Angeles Citywide Gigabit Fiber RFP: Is This the Future of Broadband in Urban America?

November 07, 2013  TechZone360

By Peter Bernstein , Senior Editor

There is an old saying in the U.S. that if you want to know what the future is going to look like, technologically as well as culturally, start with what is going on in California. And, while the Twitter IPO has captured the imagination of investors and content creators, and tech pubs constantly focus on the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook and their Silicon Valley neighbors, it might behoove everyone to take a hard and sustained look at what is going on in Southern California – Los Angeles to be precise.

In case you missed it, and my colleague Steve Anderson has done a nice job covering it, this week the Los Angeles City Council decided by a unanimous vote to set in motion the creation of a Request For Proposals (RFP), whose end game is the selection of a vendor to deploy a citywide fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network to bring gigabit high-speed broadband service all 3.5 million residents and business within the city proper.

The RFP is expected to be issued in December. Responses, for the network whose initial cost for deployment is pegged at $3 billion to $5 billion, would be due back in March 2014.

Los Angeles says it has no intention of paying for the project, but has promised the winning bidder/bidders (a consortium appears to be acceptable) that the city will get rid of the red tape in the permitting and inspections processes. In return, the city will require the winning entity to open up wholesale access to the network to multiple providers so they can compete in provider value-added services. In addition, part of the plan would include free Wi-Fi access between 2 Mbps and 5 Mbps in certain public areas. Residents and businesses will have to pay for their own broadband subscriptions, which may include phone and TV service. There is also the expectations that the winning bidder will be expected to make donations of home broadband equipment to nonprofits to distribute to those who might not be able to afford it.


Image via Shutterstock

To put all of this is lay terms, LA understands that it economic vitality going forward is directly (pardon the play words) linked to the city having universally accessible and affordable broadband. In short, it is a modern version of the Communications Act of 1934, which created the FCC with a mission to do exactly what is envisioned here. And, as with the history of communications under the 1934 Act as amended and interpreted over time, the goal is to in essence make broadband access a right rather than a privilege under a regime where a franchise is granted in exchange for the regulatory jurisdiction have a major say in pricing and on the terms and conditions for encouraging competition.

On the latter front, as has been widely quoted in various news outlets, Los Angeles Information Technology Agency GM Steve Reneker told Arstechnica, “We're not looking at trying to be monopolistic and try to force anybody out of the market.”

Reaction thus far has ranged from this is the future to it is a boondoggle in the making. My own opinion is that while it certainly is going to be a wake-up call to current network service providers in Los Angeles—including Time-Warner, Cox, Charter, and AT&T—I am hopeful of a modified outcome which the RFP has a chance of setting in motion. Let me explain.

Ever since the breakup of the old AT&T in the mid-1980s I have been on record as saying that if the physical landline network operators were smart they would divest themselves of their outside plant and concentrate on becoming what we now call Over-the-Top (OTT) value-added service providers. Why communities of all sizes need two or more entities digging up streets has always escaped me on a host of fronts not the least of which is economic efficiencies. The deregulation of the electric utility business in the U.S. is a good example of this, and the physical plant that delivers communications services should be viewed as originally intended as a true utility service.

The nice thing about awarding provisioning of fiber as a utility service by a single entity, including the expansion of what would be free basic Wi-Fi services, is that regulators would have a less arduous task on a multitude of fronts. So long as there is equal access and equal interconnection (something the FCC and states have struggled with for decades) provided to qualified competitors the local entity would be in a position as overseer to assure the outside plant utility was not price gauging end users or value-added service providers and was meeting all public safety and operational metrics it proscribed.

There are a few things to highlight under such a scenario.

First, the single physical fiber network provider should be precluded from offering value-added services. It is asking for trouble. The challenge for regulators going back to the beginning of competition in the communications industry in the early 1970s has been figuring out how to let the monopoly regulated entities compete in unregulated markets on a fair basis. To be kind, they have done less than a wonderful job as technology innovation and the markets have moved a lot faster than the rules.

Second, a single entity under strict terms and conditions for deploying fiber to everyone everywhere, would be able to use the divested assets of current providers. The idea of reinventing the wheel seems counter-intuitive, especially in urban areas where broadband competition has caused fiber to be deployed to most if not all areas albeit not necessarily to residential customer premises.

I know this is going to come as a shock to my friends who are providing VDSL2 solutions that extend the life of copper by offering what are today broadband speeds, but having a single fiber utility with the responsibility universally fiber to the home and business for cities looking to gain competitive advantage long-term is less attractive than getting fiber in faster. Indeed, whether it is in Europe or Asia Pacific, counties and entire regions recognize the importance of accelerating the deployment of next-generation speeds and feeds, and the U.S. already lags several countries in terms of the average speeds we provide the average citizen and small business.

What the Internet revolution has spawned was a radical shift in value. It used to be that value in communications was a direct function of owning the network connection because it meant you owned the customer. What the Internet has done is said that owning the servers, applications and content that customers want is where premium value is to be extracted.

A good argument can be made that just being in the “dumb pipe” business is actually a good business. In fact, Google’s fiber efforts may prove this out assuming there is a watchful eye on Google using its myriad of online services in untoward ways. The fact is that Google may just be testing the waters to force others to accelerate fiber deployment. It is hard to imagine they have ambitions of fibering all of the top SMSA in the U.S.

Finally, for years the attraction of U.S. municipalities being service providers has been tantalizing. The problem, including Los Angeles interest in providing its own free Wi-Fi service, has been intense pushback from incumbent suppliers who see value in their franchises and the correct assumption that this is not an activity that government can and should be engaged in. That said, really good oversight, including protections for consumers and those who wish to use facilities to provide value-added services is a role government can play.

The reason to pay attention to what is going on in LA thus is not whether there is an RFP or whether the envisioned network under it gets built. We have entered a watershed period in the history of the converging broadly defined communications and adjacent industries, and industry restructuring is picking up speed in accordance with the roiling changes being driven by technology and consumer expectations. It is why I am hopeful the unintended consequence of the RFP lead to a future whose goal is the same as the intended consequences, but that the road taken is a cost-effective and more efficient short-cut as to how to get from here to there.

Is Los Angeles the future of urban broadband services delivery? It very well could be, and the next several months will be telling.


Edited by Alisen Downey

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Protesters Call for an End to NSA Mass Surveillance

About 5,000 people attend a rally in Washington to protest NSA programs

 By Grant Gross
Sat, October 26, 2013 CIO

IDG News Service (Washington, D.C., Bureau) — A crowd of about 5,000 people, chanting "stop spying, stop lying" and "hey, ho, mass surveillance has got to go," marched through Washington, D.C., Saturday to protest the U.S. National Security Agency's mass surveillance programs unveiled in press reports this year.

Protesters, from a seemingly wide range of political beliefs, called on the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama to end mass data collection and surveillance by the NSA.

"The government has granted itself power that it does not have," said former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the 2012 Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. president. "We have to stand against this."

Hundreds in the crowd held signs or wore stickers thanking Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor whose leaks to news organizations exposed mass surveillance and data collection programs at the spy agency. Others held signs with the text of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protests residents against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Another popular sticker, from antiwar group Code Pink, featured lipstick marks and the message, "Make out, not war."

During the rally, members of the groups Fight for the Future and Restore the Fourth delivered a petition, with more than 575,000 signatures, calling on Congress to investigate NSA surveillance programs, to Representative Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican an outspoken critic of the NSA surveillance programs.

Many politicians want people to believe that a small group of people can't make a difference in the U.S. government, said Craig Aaron, president and CEO of digital rights group Free Press. "It's not such a small group," he told the crowd. "There are millions of people siding with us."

The rally, organized by the StopWatching.us coalition, was held on the 12th anniversary of the date former U.S. President George W. Bush signed the controversial Patriot Act into law. The NSA has used portions of the Patriot Act as the foundation for its mass surveillance programs. Protests were also scheduled in a handful of other cities in the U.S. and Germany.

The NSA and members of the Obama administration have defended the data collection and surveillance programs as necessary to protect the U.S. against terrorism. While the NSA collects phone records in bulk, the agency only obtains content for phone calls when it suspects criminal activity, Obama administration officials have said.

Rally attendees said it was important for them to be at the event, although some were unsure if it would make a difference.

Showing up at the rally was a way of "doing something" instead of just complaining about the NSA, said Lauren Schreiber, community outreach and event coordinator at the Council on American Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C.

The Muslim community in the U.S. has long been the target of surveillance, she noted. "I feel like if the government doesn't respect the very basic right of privacy, then all of our other rights are going to be trampled," she said.

Paul Charnetzki IV traveled to Washington from Chicago to attend the rally. He's opposed to the increased surveillance in the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., he said.

Asked if the rally would make a difference, Charnetzki said, "Who knows?" He talked to a staffer at his congressman's office before the rally, and the staffer questioned if he was an extremist, he said.

"It got a little tense in there," he added.

The U.S. government needs to return to the protections of the Fourth Amendment, added John Lambert, from central Virginia. The U.S. government also needs to stop its surveillance on foreign leaders, he said, noting news reports this week.

"Spying on Americans without warrants is illegal," he said. "Spying on allies is just stupid."

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's email address is grant_gross@idg.com.

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MEPs vote to suspend US data sharing

24 October 2013 Last updated at 08:52 ET BBC

Leaked documents allege bank data unrelated to terrorism was shared with US

The European Parliament has voted to suspend the sharing of financial data with the US, following allegations that citizens' data was spied on.

The allegation forms part of leaked documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The vote is non-binding but illustrates MEPs' growing unease over how much data was shared with the US.

It comes a day after it was alleged that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone calls were monitored.

The European Parliament voted to suspend its Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) agreement with the US, in response to the alleged tapping of EU citizens' bank data held by the Belgian company SWIFT.

The agreement granted the US authorities access to bank data for terror-related investigations but leaked documents made public by whistleblower Edward Snowden allege that the global bank transfer network was the target of wider US surveillance.

MEPs also want to launch a full inquiry into the alleged spying.
Merkel phone
The row over exactly how much snooping was done on European citizens appears to be escalating.

Germany has summoned the US ambassador in Berlin over the claims that the US monitored Mrs Merkel's mobile phone calls.

Other leaders are also likely to want further clarification from Washington over the activities of its National Security Agency (NSA) in Europe.

Meanwhile student group, europe v facebook, is launching a fresh attack on how deeply the social network was involved in the US spying programme.

It has won the right for a review of why the Irish data protection commissioner is not investigating the amount of European data shared with the US.

Commissioner Billy Hawkes has previously claimed that there "is nothing to investigate" over Facebook's role in the PRISM programme.

Max Schrem, who heads the group, remains unconvinced.

"When it comes to the fundamental rights of millions of users and the biggest surveillance scandal in years, he will have to take responsibility and do something about it," he said.

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New California law will let minors digitally erase their online past

By Bryan Bishop on September 23, 2013 08:41 pm The Verge





Earlier this year Google's Eric Schmidt suggested that the internet should have a "delete" button for individuals that wanted to remove troubling information from the web, and thanks to a new law minors in California will get that chance. The SFGate reports that California governor Jerry Brown signed a new law today that will require internet companies to pull down online activity from their services should a minor make the request. While the law is a step forward it has more than a few loopholes. Companies won't need to remove any data from their servers — they'll just need to take it offline — and it only covers photos, data, or other online activity that is generated by the requesting individuals themselves. Minors won't be able to force companies to pull information posted, or reposted, by others. It's scheduled to go into effect in 2015.

While most mainstream services already allow users to delete their accounts, the new law is the latest development in what's been a particularly proactive effort by California legislators to deal with online issues. The state already has provisions in place that ensure victims of domestic violence can have information pulled from the web, and last year it passed a law that prevents employers and universities from demanding Facebook login credentials from individuals.

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ITIF: How Much Will PRISM Cost U.S. Cloud Computing Providers?

Policy Memo

The U.S. leads in cloud computing not just domestically, but abroad where it dominates every market segment. Recent revelations about the extent to which NSA obtains data from third-parties will likely have an immediate and lasting impact on the competitiveness of the U.S. cloud computing industry if foreign customers decide the risks of storing data with a U.S. company outweigh the benefits. Unless the White House or Congress acts soon, the U.S. cloud computing industry stands to lose $22 to $35 billion in revenue.  Read the memo.

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OECD: U.S. Ranks in Middle of Global Broadband Pack

7/23/13 at 12:24 PM by Joan Engebretson  telecompetitor

Has U.S. broadband subscriber growth stalled?


The U.S. ranked near the middle of 34 developed and developing nations measured by the number of wired broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, according to new research from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD is an international organization that promotes policies aimed at improving the economic and social well-being of people around the world.

The U.S. has about 28.8 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, according to the OECD, giving the country a ranking of 15 out of 34 OECD nations, behind 12 European countries, Canada and Korea. The top 5 countries were Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Korea and France, all of which had at least 36 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Data was collected as of year-end 2012.

The U.S. saw an increase of 1.5% in broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants between June 2012 and December 2012, ranking it in the middle of the pack there, too. Thirteen European countries, Mexico and Chile saw greater growth. Mexico topped the list with a 5.2% increase in broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in the six-month study period, followed by Greece, Poland, Slovak Republic and Portugal. All of those countries had six-month growth rates of at least 3.9%.

In looking at broadband connectivity per 100 inhabitants, the OECD also collected data about the type of technology used – and there was considerable variation from one country to another. While the U.S. and Canada had more cable than DSL subscribers, DSL subscriptions outnumbered cable subscriptions in most other countries. Meanwhile Asian countries Korea and Japan had the highest percentage of broadband subscribers using fiber. Both countries have more subscribers on fiber than on all other broadband technologies combined.



Several European countries also have relatively high percentages of total broadband subscribers on fiber. Sweden, Estonia and Slovak Republic had between 30% and 40% of total broadband subscribers using fiber.

In the U.S. that percentage was 7.4%, giving the U.S. a ranking of 21 out 34 OECD countries.

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FCC Launches E-Rate Reform Proceeding

"[T]he Commission seeks comment on a range of proposals to focus funds on supporting high-capacity broadband, including: simplifying rules on fiber deployment to lower barriers to new construction; prioritizing funding for new fiber deployments that will drive higher speeds and long-term efficiency; phasing out support for services like paging and directory assistance; ensuring that schools and libraries can access funding for modern high-speed Wi-Fi networks in classrooms and library buildings; and allocating funding on a simplified, per-student basis."

FCC   

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ITIF: How to Stop The Billions Wasted Annually On Email Spam

Almost 10 years after the CAN-SPAM Act, email spam is still a worldwide concern, wasting valuable network bandwidth, lowering productivity, and costing businesses and consumers billions of dollars per year. While there have been many attempts at technical and policy solutions to this challenge, spam still remains an ever-present problem on the Internet. Moreover, spam is the symptom of a much larger disease, a flourishing underground Internet economy designed to meet the needs of cybercriminals by exploiting computer security vulnerabilities. In this report, ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro outlines the scope of the spam problem today, the challenges in reducing it, and recommendations for additional steps policymakers can take to combat this problem and related cybersecurity challenges.


Read the report.

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The cloud privacy wars are coming

July 09, 2013

With the recent NSA blowback in Europe, we will likely see the privacy battles heat up in the United States as well

By David Linthicum | InfoWorld

Germany's interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich -- the country's top security official -- cautioned privacy-conscious residents and organizations to steer clear of U.S.-based service companies, according to the Associated Press. As InfoWorld's Ted Samson has reported, "Friedrich is by no means the first E.U. politician to issue this type of warning, and as details continue to emerge about the U.S. government's widespread surveillance programs, such warnings are certain to garner greater attention."

The blowback in Europe around NSA surveillance is no surprise. Privacy has always been a huge issue in Europe, as demonstrated by confrontations with Google, among others.

[ InfoWorld's Galen Gruman on how users might win the privacy wars. | Get the no-nonsense explanations and advice you need to take real advantage of cloud computing in InfoWorld editors' 21-page Cloud Computing Deep Dive PDF special report. | Stay up on the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]

However, the real privacy wars in the cloud have yet to be fought, both in the United States and in Europe. This battle will likely occur in courtrooms and in government regulatory agencies.

The reality is that people who working with cloud-based platforms won't stop using those platforms -- but they will get much better at security and privacy. With such improvements in security and privacy, law enforcement and government agencies won't have ready access to some data. That means legal battles will occur in many countries, with the use of remote data hosting services, such as cloud services, in the middle of those frays.

One result of businesses taking steps to ensure that their data won't be monitored by government agencies will be wider use of both encryption and physical restrictions on access. However, if the government wants to see the data and obtains a court order (sometimes in secret), it will want access to that data. To get that encrypted or restricted-access data in the cloud, the government will need an additional court order to gain access. That's when lawsuits will be filed and all hell breaks loose.

Some people believe these issues can be avoided by not using public cloud providers. But that's naive. If the government wants your data and if there is cause to support their concerns to a judge, it will come after that date whether it's in your closet or a cloud. Welcome to the new world order.

This article, "The cloud privacy wars are coming," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Read more of David Linthicum's Cloud Computing blog and track the latest developments in cloud computing at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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EFF Lawsuit Over Surveillance Moves Forward

Group Aims to 'Restore Americans' Constitutional Rights'

by Karl Bode yesterday Broadband Reports

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a Federal Judge this week rejected the government's attempts to bury the organization's lawsuit over domestic surveillance, and allowed the EFF's lawsuit to continue (though some of the statutory claims were dismissed). "Over the last month, we came face-to-face with new details of mass, untargeted collection of phone and Internet records, substantially confirmed by the Director of National Intelligence," states the EFF. "Today's decision sets the stage for finally getting a ruling that can stop the dragnet surveillance and restore Americans' constitutional rights."

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California lawmaker introduces unprecedented personal data disclosure bill

"Right to Know Act of 2013" would force companies to tell Californians what they know.

by Cyrus Farivar - Apr 2 2013, 3:30pm PDT, ars technica  

 

It may seem odd, but in the European Union citizens have a near-blanket right to compel companies to release personal data held about them. The concept is sometimes referred to in its Latin shorthand: habeas data. It’s the principle through which an Austrian law student has become a thorn in the side of Facebook, trying to compel the social network to disclose the vast amount of data that it holds about him.

 

Here in the United States, we generally don’t have this right.

 

But after lobbying by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, California Assembly Member Bonnie Lowenthal (who represents parts of the Los Angeles area) recently introduced a bill that could extend that concept to the Golden State for the first time. The "Right to Know Act of 2013" (AB 1291) was re-read and amended a second time on Monday.

 

The Legislative Counsel’s Digest summarizes the bill as it is currently written this way:

This bill would instead require any business that retains a customer’s personal information, as defined, or discloses that information to a third party, to provide at no charge, within 30 days of the customer’s specified request, a copy of that information to the customer as well as the names and contact information for all third parties with which the business has shared the information during the previous 12 months, regardless of any business relationship with the customer. This bill would require that a business subject to these provisions choose one of several specified options to provide the customer with a designated address for use in making a request for copies of information under these provisions.

If a company does not comply, citizens can file a civil suit to force compliance.

 

California has a history of pushing privacy concepts into law and influencing non-California businesses to comply. For example, the California Online Privacy Protection Act requires websites to prominently describe data collection and use. (Condé Nast, Ars’ parent company, does this even though it is not based in California.)

 

As the EFF wrote on Tuesday: “Hopefully, as companies put efficient systems into place to enable Californians to learn what is happening to their data, it will be easy for the companies to make those systems available to people outside of California. And like California’s model for data breach notification laws, (first enacted in California in 2002 and now integrated into law in 46 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands), transparency will become the default, helping consumers while saving companies money down the line.”

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H-1B demand this year will be fast, furious

Proponents will call demand come April 1 evidence of need while opponents will emphasize offshore outsourcing is behind demand

By Patrick Thibodeau

April 1, 2013 06:00 AM ET                                                                                

Computerworld - WASHINGTON - The U.S. begins accepting new H-1B visa petitions today and heavy demand is expected. This is going to be followed by much fury.

Industry proponents of the H-1B visa will argue -- at megaphone strength -- that high demand is evidence of both an improving economy and the need for skilled workers.

Opponents will counter that H-1B visa employees are displacing U.S. workers and will point in particular to H-1B visa demand by offshore outsourcing companies.

Immigration experts say visa demand this year will be high enough to cause the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service to hold a lottery to decide who gets a visa. The last time this happened was in 2008...  

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[All because we are not growing our own adequate High-Tech/STEM workforce at home]

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How AT&T Is Planning to Rob Americans of an Open Public Telco Network

Wired

• BY S. DEREK TURNER
• 02.28.13
• 6:30 AM

Photo: MrBill / Flickr

AT&T has a sneaky plan.

It wants to exploit a loophole in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s rules to kill what remains of the public telecommunications network — and all of the consumer protections that go with it. It’s the final step in AT&T’s decade-long effort to end all telecommunications regulation, and the simplicity of the plan highlights a dysfunction unique to the American regulatory system.

AT&T and other big telecom carriers want to replace the portions of their networks that still use circuit-switching technology with equipment that uses Internet Protocol (IP) to route voice and data traffic. But because the FCC previously decided that it has no direct authority over communications networks that use IP, this otherwise routine technological upgrade could lead to a state of total deregulation.

S. Derek Turner

A telecommunications policy expert, S. Derek Turner is the research director at Free Press, a nonpartisan organization advocating for universal and affordable internet access, diverse media ownership, and vibrant public media. It officially opposes AT&T’s petition to the FCC.

We are already living with the consequences of the FCC IP decision: an uncompetitive broadband market. Our broadband providers enjoy the kinds of high profit margins that would make a 19th-century robber baron blush. And our ability to use these networks to communicate openly and freely is under constant assault. Meanwhile, consumers in other countries not only havebetter access, but they pay far less for far better services.

But there are large portions of the public telecom network that don’tuse IP, and that are still subject to varying degrees of regulatory oversight — including traditional landlines, alarm circuits, and many of the “special access” connections that carry voice and data traffic from cellular towers.

Now AT&T wants approval to convert all of this to an all-IP system. And because of the FCC’s flawed view of IP, this move would jettison all of the public interest protections that govern common carriers like AT&T. (The centuries-old “common carriage” concept applied to entities like railroads, shippers, and telecoms that transport goods often using public rights-of-way; since these functions are critical to commerce, common carriers are usually regulated even if they don’t operate in monopoly markets).

The immediate consumer impact of AT&T’s proposal would be swift and severe:

Higher prices. Remember what happened after California partially deregulated AT&T in 2006? The price of some basic voice services tripled. AT&T wants to make this happen everywhere. Also, the ability of many smaller wireless carriers to offer competitively priced services is based on specific regulations that prevent special access providers like AT&T and Verizon from charging exorbitant rates. These protections against monopoly prices will disappear if AT&T gets its way.

Service disruptions. Brinksmanship between AT&T and smaller wireless carriers that use the public network to transport their own traffic would lead to telecom blackouts. Just look at how cable customers are held hostage in carriage spats between cable providers and content owners. The rules that require carriers to get networks back online after outages would also be history if the FCC approves AT&T’s petition.

Inequality and discrimination. Seniors, low-income families, and rural residents — all of whom are more likely to rely on fixed-line voice services or dial-up internet access — would especially feel the pinch. Carriers that are now required to offer universal service will be free to redline poor neighborhoods and disconnect consumers at will. Elderly grandmothers living on fixed incomes rely on rate-regulated landlines to stay connected, but they need not worry: AT&T has an expensive wireless plan they can purchase instead.

It’s bad enough that we’re on the verge of losing all of the consumer protections that keep the price of basic voice service reasonable and ensure the most vulnerable stay connected. But by putting the last nail in the coffin of the public telecommunications network, AT&T’s plan poses an even greater threat to the future of American innovation and internet freedom.

This is because the internet itself would not exist if it were not for a delicate balance of public policies that made sure the public telecommunications network was an open platform: Anyone could use it as a building block for innovation.

Before the FCC adopted rules to keep the public network open, companies like AT&T were able toprohibit customers from using the network for anything other than what it approved. (We wouldn’t have been allowed to have answering machines, for example, if AT&T didn’t approve them.) Thanks to the FCC’s intervention then and continuing oversight, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf didn’t need AT&T’s permission to connect computers. They simply used the public network as a platform to launch the IP technology that led to the internet we all use today.

When Congress updated the Communications Act in 1996, lawmakers reinforced this clear separation between devices on the edges of networks and the wires that connect them. And this approach worked: Consumers had choices for cheap long distance. There were dozens of dial-up ISPs, and even multiple options for DSL and cable modem service. Prices dropped, quality improved, and investment soared.

While the rest of the world followed this American blueprint to great success, our captive regulators dismantled the competitive framework, replacing it with nothing more than the vain hope the market would sort it all out. So it should come as no surprise that the rest of the world is busy undertaking itsown transition to all-IP networks without threatening the basic consumer protections that ensure universal access to essential communications services.

We stand at the edge of a cliff, and AT&T is eager to jump. It’s the FCC’s own bad decisions that led us to this cliff. But it’s not too late to step back. In updating its rules for an all-IP world, the FCC shouldn’t let the carriers kill off the public telecom network. We can protect consumer rights and free-market commerce without sacrificing the infrastructure’s open nature and its potential as a platform for innovation.

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Bandwidth-Throttling Copyright Enforcement System Launches Across U.S.

By Ryan Gallagher

 | 

Slate, Posted Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, at 1:55 PM

Policing Internet piracy just got a lot easier, thanks to the new "six strikes" system. 

Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images

For months, American BitTorrent users have no doubt been dreading this day. The new “Copyright Alert System” is finally launching across all of the major Internet providers—which could result in your bandwidth getting throttled if it is suspected you are downloading pirated content.

The organization coordinating the Hollywood-backed scheme, the Center for Copyright Information, confirmed in a blog post this morning that “the implementation phase of the Copyright Alert System” was beginning today. This follows a report last week that AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon were set to launch the controversial program. A source close to the initiative told me that all of these providers were indeed “beginning their [copyright enforcement] systems this week."

The CAS was reported last year but the system’s introduction was delayed, in part due to “unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy.” The system will monitor and collect the IP addresses of computers apparently downloading and sharing copyrighted content illegally, and these users will then be flagged to the Internet providers as part of a “six strikes” program. If you are accused of downloading the latest box office smash illicitly by a BitTorrent website, for instance, you will receive “educational notices” designed to politely warn you that you have misbehaved. If you ignore the notices, the action will get more severe: Your internet browsing might be temporarily blocked or your bandwidth throttled. The CCI has put together a short video to explain how it will work, which is worth watching if you can get past the terrible jazzy soundtrack:

Given that there are an estimated 150 million people using BitTorrent websites to download content, the CAS could impact quite a lot of Americans once it is in full swing. Areport earlier this month suggested that even FBI employees were at it, illegally downloading shows like Homeland and Dexter from their law enforcement computers. Of course, more savvy downloaders, feds or otherwise, will find ways around the system entirely. There are plenty of ways to mask IP addresses, some of which are addressed in a DailyDot article today bluntly titled: “How to Avoid Triggering the New Copyright Alert System.”

Opponents say the system could lead to people being wrongly accused of downloading illicit content. CIS counters that if you receive an alert that you believe is false, you can challenge it—however, you’ll first have to fork out a $35 “filing fee.”

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California Career Technical Education Model Curriculum Standards

On January 16, 2013, the California State Board of Education adopted new Career Technical Education Model Curriculum Standards (CTE Standards) [for K-12]. The CTE Standards have been updated to keep pace with the changes in industry and meet the expectation for the 21st Century workforce, to ensure all students are career and college ready.

The new standards continue to follow California’s 15 industry sectors; however, some industry sectors titles have been changed to align with business and industry terminology. Examples of changes to sector titles include changing from Finance and Business to Business and Finance, Energy and Utilities to Energy, Environment, and Utilities, from Engineering and Design to Engineering and Architecture, and from Information Technology to Information and Communication Technologies.

There are still 58 pathways, some pathways have been dropped or consolidated into others, while new and emerging pathways have been added. The California CTE Standards include Standards for Career Ready Practice, adapted from the national Common Career Technical Core. These practices describe the career-ready skills educators should seek to develop in all students. It is important to understand that while California adapted the Career Readiness Practices from the Common Career Technical Core, California did not adopt the Common Career Technical Core.

In addition to the upgraded sectors and pathways, and the Standards for Career Readiness Practice, California has aligned the CTE MCS Anchor Standards (formerly the Foundation Standards) to the English Language Arts (ELA) Common Core. Additional alignment to the Common Core ELA, Math, Next Generation Science, and History/Social Science standards has been accomplished through individualized pathway matrices, provided at the back of each sector/pathway document. Look for the new CTE MCS document to be available online at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ct/sf/ctemcstandards.asp .

What about professional development related to the new CTE Standards? Look for presentations on the overview of the new CTE Standards to be provided at the 2013 Educating for Careers Conference in Sacramento. In addition, the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CCSESA) Career Technical Education Counsel is in the process of developing a toolkit to assist in the rollout of the new CTE Standards. Look for this toolkit to be rolled out at four regional Train the Trainer workshops in April, 2013.

What about the CBEDS Codes, Credentialing, and the Frameworks? The CBEDS codes are currently being updated to reflect the new CTE Standards and are scheduled to be completed for the next school year. California Department of Education staff has been working with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to resolve credentialing conflicts and a Credential Leaflet with guidelines will be issued. The next step is to upgrade the CTE Frameworks and work on this process will begin in March, 2013.

For additional information regarding all upgraded industry sectors and pathways, Career Ready Practices, alignment to the ELA Common Core and alignment to academic content, please visit the following website: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ct/sf/ctemcstandards.asp

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House To Consider Bill That Would Establish Mobile Apps Competition

BY NINA MANDELL

FEBRUARY 20, 2013, Fast Company

 

Rep. Candice Miller wants to have students from each Congressional district compete to make an app for smartphones and tablets.

The House of Representatives is expected to hear a resolution to launch a technology competition for students, which would initially encourage them to develop apps for smartphones and tablets, according to The Hill's Pete Kasperowicz.
 

The resolution, which is reportedly being brought to the floor for consideration next week, is sponsored by Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) and would have contestants from each congressional district to compete in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. "The support which students will gain through Congressional recognition of their work on STEM-related projects will encourage them to pursue career paths in STEM studies and research," the resolution read (you can see the whole thing here.)
 

Details on the competition were scarce in the resolution, but it does say it will be held each year.

[Image by Flickr user deltamike]

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Phone rate hikes have landline customers ready to cut the cord

AT&T customers report increases of as much as 50% since 2011. And the firm is not alone. Verizon also has been raising basic service rates.

David Lazarus

February 12, 2013, Los Angeles Times

By Lane Kasselman, an AT&T spokesman, defended the latest price hikes by saying they “reflect changes in the marketplace.” Above, the company's headquarters in Detroit are shown in 2007.(Paul Sancya, Associated Press / January 25, 2007)

Joseph Aguon believes in preparing for the worst. So even though he makes most of his calls using a cellphone, he maintains a landline at his home in the Fairfax neighborhood — just in case an earthquake or storm knocked out wireless service.

But Aguon, 61, is finally ready to cut the cord, not because he's less mindful of potential disasters, but because AT&T keeps jacking up his rates.

I've heard from dozens of AT&T customers in recent weeks about big jumps in their bills for basic landlines and measured phone service, which provides customers with a fixed number of local calls each month.

Welcome to the exciting world of deregulation, where state officials allow phone companies to do as they please in hopes of encouraging a more competitive marketplace.

Quiz: How well do you remember 2012?

In Aguon's case, he paid about $20 for his landline in 2011. Last year, the cost rose 15% to $23. Now he's learned his monthly bill has climbed an additional 26% to $29.

That's a 45% rate hike in just two years. And did Aguon's service improve appreciably during that time?

"Not at all," he told me. "It's a landline. You call people. People call you. It's a landline."

Like Aguon, Peter Nardi, 65, maintains a landline at his Los Feliz home just to be on the safe side. His measured service plan cost $12 a month in 2011. It now runs $18.

"That's a 50% increase," Nardi said. "So I called AT&T to complain."

What did the company say?

"They apologized but said there was nothing they could do."

In fact, AT&T can do whatever it wants.

Since 2011, the California Public Utilities Commission has allowed phone companies to raise — or lower — basic phone rates whenever they choose, rather than seek approval from regulators. Since then, costs have steadily gone up.

Jarryd Gonzales, a Verizon spokesman, said the company raised its monthly rate $1.90 for basic phone service to $20.91 in 2010. He said the rate will climb again, to $22, next month.

"They're doing it because they can do it," said Bill Nusbaum, managing attorney for the Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco advocacy group. "The PUC has turned its back on the market."

That's not how AT&T would characterize things. Lane Kasselman, a company spokesman, defended the latest price hikes by saying they "reflect changes in the marketplace."

He said there's more competition for new wireless services such as phones you can plug into any outlet and access your home number. "Prices are going down for the products that people are moving to," Kasselman said.

Perhaps. But that doesn't justify higher prices for the products that people have had for decades. A 50% rate hike in just two years?

"That's not the right way to look at it," Kasselman replied. "You have to look at it from 1994. Our rates were frozen for 14 years."

Um, no. AT&T's and Verizon's rates were regulated for 14 years, meaning that state officials had to approve any price increases. If phone companies could make a reasonable case for why they needed to increase prices, they could do it.

According to the PUC's Division of Ratepayer Advocates, AT&T charged $10.69 a month statewide for its cheapest basic phone service in 1994. The rate remained unchanged until 2008, when it rose to $10.94 — and continued rising every year to $23 now.

Verizon charged $16.85 for basic phone service in 1994, climbing to $17.25 in 2008 and hitting $22 next month.

Talk about making up for lost price hikes: Since the middle of the Great Recession, AT&T has raised basic rates 115% and Verizon will have hiked them nearly 31% as of next month.

The fact that prices for landlines remained relatively stable under regulation reflects the fact that the companies were making a fair profit in officials' eyes. They certainly weren't losing any money offering these services.

Now that their regulatory leashes have been removed, all that extra revenue is just gravy.

Nearly a third of all U.S. households are now completely wireless, according to a government report released last year. That means 69 million adults and 27 million kids have cut the landline cord.

AT&T's landline revenue has fallen about 16.5% over the last four years. Verizon's landline revenue has dropped about 19%.

Yet even as the number of people with landlines steadily dwindles, Nusbaum at the Utility Reform Network said AT&T and Verizon are socking landline customers with ever-higher rates.

"They're basically funding other things and paying off debt on the backs of landline customers," he said.

The companies are also using higher landline prices to prod customers into going wireless and thus relieve AT&T and Verizon of the financial burden of investing in older networks, Nusbaum said.

If so, the effort seems to be working. Both Aguon and Nardi said they're planning to cancel their landlines because of the rate hikes.

Call that a win-win for the phone companies. If people stick with their landlines, AT&T and Verizon clean up with sky-high rates. If people switch to wireless, that's more business for the products the companies want to focus on.

"We think people have more choices than ever before," AT&T's Kasselman said.

Except they're of the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't variety.

David Lazarus' column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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Can the FCC Create Public "Super WiFi Networks"?

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Washington Post boldly led a front-page story last weekend with the claim: "The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month."

Let's get one thing straight: the government is not creating its own "super WiFi network", but its plans will indeed make awesome new WiFi networks possible. Technically, what the FCC is actually trying to do is increase the amount of open spectrum that is available for WiFi networks of all sorts—and for other "unlicensed" uses. This is a very good idea. Increasing the amount of unlicensed spectrum will lead to better functioning routers, tablets, laptops, and smartphones—and to a host of other new products in the marketplace. It will enhance the quality and supply of extremely useful open wireless networks, but it will also increase the quality of (somewhat less efficient) password-locked WiFi networks as well.

Leaving spectrum open was a necessary historical step for the creation of WiFi in the first place: all of the popular 802.11 devices and standards we use at home, work, and other places—as well as new high-value "wireless ISPs" (WISPs)—only exist because there is some unlicensed spectrum that they can squeeze into. But it's a portion (the "amateur" section of this chart). Much more of the spectrum has been auctioned off, and while privatized spectrum can be useful, it currently appears to produce much less benefit in terms of utility and innovative products per megahertz than the unlicensed portions. Increasing the amount of open spectrum available for new products to use is likely to produce comparable gains in the future.

In short, the Post was correct to claim that more open spectrum will allow for more efficient wireless networks that would improve the quality of VOIP and video conferencing systems, as well as enable cool new gadgets that do things we haven't even thought of yet.

Despite the obvious gains for innovation, Congressional Republicans are opposing the FCC's plan on behalf of the telecom industry. Instead, they want more auctions, a process by which the government would hand out monopolies on the last remaining scraps of the spectrum. While this earns the government money in the short term (the 2008 auction raised $19 billion), the long-term harms to innovation would be much greater.

Spectrum Auctions Hurt Users and Harm Innovation

Spectrum auctions are very tax-like in the sense that they transfer resources from individuals and companies in the marketplace into the coffers of the federal government. Put simply: if spectrum is open, you can develop around it for free. If spectrum is auctioned to a single company, said company will pass that investment cost—plus a hefty markup—on to its customers via an expensive cellular or wireless data plan. These auction dynamics and limited competition have led to US citizens paying twice as much for their cell phones as people in the rest of the developed world.

While telecom companies claim that such monopolies incentivize them to invest in their own infrastructure, the question becomes: are consumers and network users actually getting more benefit per megahertz from the expensive, auctioned-off spectrum, or from the small amount of free spectrum that is currently left over for wireless networks and other uses that are not centrally planned?

It turns out that the answer often sides with unlicensed uses: open spectrum is currently used more efficiently than spectrum that has been auctioned off. Why?

From an economic perspective, it seems that unlicensed spectrum has simply allowed for more productive technology. A recent working paper by Harvard's Yochai Benkler concluded that in eight major wireless markets—from broadband to healthcare to payments—open wireless technologies proved to be dominant. Opening the white spaces will straightforwardly allow indviduals and firms to build better networks and make better use of the spectrum.

As Public Knowledge's Harold Feld notes in a particularly excellent 2011 article titled "Why The Proposed "Unlicensed Auction" Is Such A Phenomonally Bad Idea -- The Economics":

Licensing encourages the licensee to maximize the profitability of the spectrum... This is why there are only a handful of large licensed network operators and several dozen smaller providers. By contrast, there are several thousand wireless ISPs using unlicensed spectrum to provide broadband in rural areas unprofitable for wireless providers. In addition, there are tens of thousands of coffee shops, hotels, and other establishments offering wifi. Hundreds of manufacturers put wifi – or other protocols using the unlicensed bands -- into everything from printers to refrigerators.

We agree with Feld, although his estimates of the number of users of open spectrum are probably an order of magnitude too low.

While licensed spectrum provides certain benefits (for example, shielding from network interference), unlicensed spectrum allows for greater utilization and scaling. Almost every Internet user utilizes WiFi or devices from manufacturers who have benefited from the ready availability of WiFi. Such low barriers promote innovation and drive down costs. A Stanford paper commissioned by Google also delves into the immense economic and technological benefits of unlicensed spectrum, focusing on the development of WiFi as a prime example of the unforeseen gains that are fostered by available spectrum.

From a more technical perspective, the wireless routers we install in our homes and offices are closer together, allowing them to operate at lower power and with correspondingly greaterarea spectral efficiency. The decentralized architecture of wireless routers scattered everywhere is more efficient than the phone companies' use of comparatively centralized long-range cell towers. 1

Conclusion

The most prudent spectrum policy calls for a healthy balance of open and privately managed bands, because different stewardship models may work better for different generations of technology or application types. But at the moment, there is a problematic imbalance away from openness. Having more open spectrum networks will allow WiFi (whether that's open WiFi, locked networks, or paid-for hot spots) to be faster, longer range, and more reliable; will allow more WISPs that offer low cost point-to-point Internet access; and will allow companies to innovate in ways that we haven't even anticipated yet. We agree with the Washington Postand the FCC: from here, open is the way to go.

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