Technology & Communications

Yesterday, during testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen announced that their Internet Essentials program, designed to encourage broadband adoption among low-income families, has connected more than 1 million Americans to the Internet.

That's more than 250,000 families in a span of just over two years.

"That's more than the entire population of a city like San Francisco or a state like Delaware or Montana" Cohen said.

The Internet Essentials program offers low-cost broadband at $9.95 per month to families that qualify for the National School Lunch Program (and obviously who live in Comcast's service area). They also offer a computer for under $150 and computer literacy education.

Great example of a voluntary program, using no government funding. It's also the kind of program only a company with resources the size of Comcast's could pull off. So remember that when you hear people screaming about broadband companies being too large or too dominant. Big companies can also do big, good things.

I hate to bring back up the topic of net neutrality, since those of us who worked on the issue for a decade are pretty much sick to the teeth of it, and we're all enjoying a brief respite from net neutrality as we await the results of Verizon's court challenge of the FCC's authority to impose net neutrality rules.

. . . (ahhhhhh)

But I can't help but point out that, in the current retransmission dispute between Time Warner Cable and CBS, somehow CBS has managed to turn the major concern of net neutrality proponents on its head.

There is an enlightening (and thus infuriating) article at National Review where a reporter described how she has been issued three free "Obamaphones" in the past month. It's a must-read.

The SafeLink vendor then referred me to his opposite number, a rep from Assurance. She too took down my information, registering me for another Obamaphone.

Traveling to several of the welfare offices in the city, I learned this was common practice. Obamaphone reps come in twos, and both will sign you up if they can.

A Washington Post op-ed today serves as a great follow up to my last post about the Special 301 report, as it describes the danger of the theft of U.S. intellectual property (IP). Put another way, the Special 301 report identifies countries that are a particular problem when it comes to protecting U.S. IP sold, or otherwise provided, into that country.

The op-ed makes clear what happens when our IP is stolen it also makes clear something else -- what happens if there were no longer IP protections in the U.S.? Just read the piece and extend and broaden the impact resulting from piracy. What are those results? More jobs would be lost, even more wealth would be transferred from the U.S. to other countries such as China, loss of the U.S. competitive edge and a long term economic decline, and a loss of our military protections.

There has been a huge problem over the past few years with municipalities dragging their feet on approving permits to allow cell phone towers to be constructed, or even to allow new transmitters to be added to existing towers or to buildings.

Municipalities have been doing this on purpose, largely at the urging of consultants, who suggest the delays at least in part as a way to extract concessions from the wireless companies. It’s been a big problem, with municipalities complaining to the wireless companies about poor service coverage and then at the same time unnecessarily delaying permits to address the problem.

IPI has written about this problem several times, and one of the solutions we suggested was that municipalities should be put on a shot clock and given only a limited amount of time that they could delay such applications.

Which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did.

Upon which action the City of Arlington, Texas, which is just about 30 miles from where I sit, challenged the regulation, claiming that the FCC didn’t have the authority to regulate how they approved applications for cellphone towers.

Several years ago I was at the doctor's office for an annual physical. I noted that this particular physical seemed more thorough than usual and included an electrocardiogram test. After the physical the nurse told me that the doctor wanted to talk to me and that she would be in shortly. I started doing the math and alarm bells went off...extra tests, I am getting older, doctor wants to chat with me. She came back and reported that everything looked fine, that the blood results would be back in a day or so, and then asked me two questions that at that moment I found peculiar—do I regularly wear my seat belt and how good do I feel about my life. Ok, alarm bells again!

As it turned out she was doing what she could to check my health as related to the two most likely causes of death for a 30 something male—car accidents and suicide. Men from 20 - 40 years old commit suicide as much as 3 to 4 times more often than women. Theories abound as to why, from broken relationships to work stress, but regardless the end result is an alarming, heart breaking, sad fact that is rarely discussed much less appropriately focused on.

The 2013 AT&T Developer Summit is underway in Las Vegas today. One of the many sessions hosted by AT&T, which are aimed at developers who are developing products, apps mainly, for use on their platform, was about mHealth, a sub-part of health technology.

Mobile health is an exciting area for many reasons but not the least is the huge potential for better outcomes for patients and opportunities for industry.

We had a great luncheon in Dallas today with a lot of IPI friends who gathered to hear FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. If you missed it, well . . . .you missed it.

In conversation with IPI’s Bartlett Cleland, Commissioner McDowell talked about a wide range of policy issues running the gamut from broadcaster issues and decency regulation, wireless and spectrum issues, and even FCC regulation of children’s toys.

Commissioner McDowell stressed the importance of the attempt by some countries to leave the current multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance and move toward one dominated by governments. In particular he warned that those who want to use the United Nations specialty organization the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) were well organized and sophisticated, that they are patient incrementalists, and that the attempt would be subtle rather than brazen. And that their ultimate plan is a “global USF” fund to finance broadband in developing countries.