Today, the
Well Connected Project
of the Center for Public Integrity is excited to launch an issue portal jointly with
Congresspedia
. This issue portal is a wiki, like
Wikipedia
, creating a collection of articles on
telecom, media and technology policy
, in a single location. Anyone can read, write and edit these articles.
This issue portal builds on the great telecom and technology reporting done by the members of the Well Connected Project staff. This venture into collaborative journalism is a first for our project. It adds a new element to our investigative journalism endeavor. First of all, we have the
Media Tracker
, a free database of more than five million records that tells you who owns the media where you live by typing in you ZIP code. If we win our
lawsuit against the FCC
, we’ll also include company-specific broadband information in the Media Tracker.
Second,
our blog
features dozens of quick-turnaround stories on the hottest topics in telecom and media policy. Recent stories have broken news on the battle over 700 Megahertz, on the lobbying over the proposed XM-Sirius satellite radio merger, and also over copyright controls on electronic devices. We also do investigative reports – like this one about
Sam Zell
, the new owner of Tribune Co. – that build on the data that is freely available in Media Tracker.
Now, with the addition of this Congresspedia wiki, our project aims to incorporate citizen-journalism on key public policy issues near and dear to the blogosphere. These are issues like
Broadband availability
,
Digital copyright
,
Digital television
,
Regulating media content
, and
Spectrum
are at the core of what techies care about in Washington. We hope you will add others articles, too. In fact, I’ve already started my own wish list: articles about Patent overhaul legislation, Media ownership, the Universal Service Fund, and Video franchising. Our reporters can summarize these issues and debates, but so can you.
Take a crack at them!
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WASHINGTON, July 3, 2007 – The Federal Trade Commission intends to monitor the information that telecom and cable companies provide about high-speed Internet service in the service plans they offer to customers, according to a report issued last week by the agency.
The FTC asserts in the report, released on June 27, that since it has jurisdiction over matters involving consumer protection, it “will continue to enforce the consumer protection laws in the area of broadband access.”
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Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications, wants the Federal Communications Commission to re-regulate “dedicated special access” services (the telephone services provided to businesses and institutions, as opposed to residential customers). He recently sent a letter to the five commissioners, which said:
My concern is that significant concentration in the special access market through mergers and bankruptcies, combined with the [FCC’s] deregulatory pricing regime, has resulted in higher prices and little competitive choice for special access connections. These are also the conclusions of a November 2006 Report by the General [sic] Accountability Office (“GAO”) ….
I respectfully request each of you to respond to me by close of business on June 11, 2007, as to whether you support or oppose completing any review of special access issues necessary to adopt an Order revising such rules by no later than September 15, 2007.
Markey’s facts are wrong and his prescription will harm rather than promote competition.
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Many in the press (NYT, AP) are commenting this morning about on how Google on Monday encouraged the Federal Communications Commission to design their forthcoming auction of radio-frequencies to take advantage of real-time airwaves auctions. It’s one more bit of news emerging from the 700 Megahertz (MHz) auction, which the FCC must begin before January 2008. In the words of telecom analyst Blair Levin, of Stifel Nicolaus, it is shaping up to be “a pivotal auction” that could provide “new blood for broadband… or [a] telco/cable sweep.”
But there was another noteworthy filing at the FCC on Monday. The White Spaces Coalition — whose members include Dell, EarthLink, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft and Philips Electronics — met with commission officials and provided them with a prototype device for operating in vacant television broadcast channels. Philips’ devices joins one previously submitted by Microsoft. (Look at page 3 for a picture of the “Microsoft TV White Spaces Development Platform.”)
Just as the 700 MHz band offers new hope for telecom and video competition, many technology companies are looking to the vacant TV bands. The reason is simple: television channels so scattered, principally because they were designed around the 1940s-era NTSC standard, named after the National Television Standard Committee. As a look at the broadcast band for the ZIP code 20006 demonstrates, using FCC metrics, no more than four of the 21 channels between 30 and 50 are occupied: 32, 45, 47 and 50. That leaves 17 available within the “white spaces” between the frequencies where those stations broadcast. The occupied channel numbers will vary from city to city, which is why advanced sensing capabilities are needed to even begin to complete utilizing the spectrum in the television zone for something other than broadcasting.
or
http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/telecomwatch.aspx?eid=2940
Those who care about free speech should consider why government taxes are higher on communications than on other goods and services. This new study by The Heartland Institute and the Beacon Hill Institute is eye opening.
Here’s a paragraph from the study:
According to the Tax Foundation, the national average retail sales tax rate (combining local, county, and state sales taxes, weighted by personal income) is 6.61 percent. Taxes and fees on cable TV and telephone subscribers average 13.52 percent, twice as high. In other words, telephone calls and cable services are taxed at two times the rate as clothing, sporting goods, and other household products.
WASHINGTON, April 11, 2007 – The wireless industry association CTIA has retained an economic consulting firm run by the former boss of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to poke holes in proposals modifying a forthcoming auction of radio frequencies.
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Over at TCS Daily today, Derek Hunter points out why a la carte regulation is going to backfire for those who support it in the name of “cleaning up” cable and satellite television:
Smaller religious and family cable stations do not subsidize MTV, VH1, and other channels some people may find objectionable. Rather, the opposite is true, MTV, VH1, et. al, subsidize the small religious and family stations. By bundling them all together, it exposes the smaller channels to people who otherwise wouldn’t choose them, netting them more potential customers. If providers were forced to offer channels individually, the small networks with few subscribers would fizzle out due to lack of exposure. Given the choice between channels, the majority of people would not pick those small channels, their potential audience would shrink dramatically, and less audience means smaller revenues. So that “solution” would actually make the problem worse.
That’s exactly right and I discussed why a la carte regulation would have such unintended consequences in my December 2005 PFF paper, “Moral and Philosophical Aspects of the Debate over A La Carte Regulation.” As I pointed out then:
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A Federal Communications Commission staffer reports that commissioners are considering a 30% cap on the number of households a single cable operator may serve. Multichannel News notes that the cap would primarily affect one company:
Citing Kagan Research, Comcast recently told the FCC that it serves 26.2 million subscribers, or 27% of the country’s 96.8 million pay TV subscribers. Under a 30% cap, Comcast could, in a few years, find itself refusing service to customers seeking to sign up for its fast-growing voice-video-data triple-play bundle. The 30% cap would also effectively block Comcast from buying a cable company with more than 3 million subscribers.
If cable operators were the only source of video programming, it might make sense to have a rule like this. But, as everyone knows, they aren’t. There are the broadcasters, the Direct Broadcast Satellite providers and now the big telephone companies and the Internet. It’s hard to imagine any one company dominates this media galaxy. But if so, that’s why we have the Antitrust Division.
Intuitively, some people feel if we have more cable TV owners and CEOs, it stands to reason we’ll get more diverse views and programming. In reality, most investors and managers are motivated not by individual political, cultural or artistic agendas, but on serving customers
, i.e., providing whatever sells. Others recall that, for whatever reason, back when we had heavy-handed regulation television seemed much more “tasteful” than it does today. But that’s only because society’s values used to be different. It’s impossible to legislate taste and morality.
A 30% cable cap will allow the FCC to extort anything it wants from Comcast, the only cable company with a market share approaching 30%. Because, eventually, Comcast will need to seek a waiver. We don’t know who will be running the FCC when that happens, nor what their political, cultural or artistic agenda may be.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.