Reversing trend, cable modems win over DSL
Associated Press
May 15, 2008 10:51 AM (ET)
http://apnews.myway.com//article/200805
NEW YORK (AP) - Cable companies attracted more Internet subscribers than
phone companies did in the first quarter, reversing a 3 1/2-year trend,
according to a research report Thursday.
The 19 largest cable companies in the U.S. added 1.19 million broadband
subscribers in the January-to-March period, according to a tally by
Leichtman Research Group.
Phone companies added 1.01 million DSL customer in the same period, the
report said.
Since the third quarter of 2004, phone companies had been adding
subscribers faster than cable, closing in on cable's lead in total
subscribers. But that lead is now widening, with cable companies having a
total of 34.7 million subscribers compared with 29.5 million at the phone
companies.
"With telephone companies generally curtailing prior aggressive price-based
offers to woo subscribers, the telcos added about two-thirds as many
broadband subscribers as a year ago," wrote Bruce Leichtman, president of
the firm.
Phone companies have moved resources into upgrading their networks rather
than marketing basic DSL service. Verizon Communications Inc. is replacing
its copper network with fiber, and added a net of just 4,000 subscribers to
its copper-based DSL service in the first quarter. It gained 262,000
customers for its fiber-based service.
AT&T, the country's largest Internet service provider, is focused on
raising DSL speeds in some areas so it can provide TV service over phone lines.
Meanwhile, cable companies are poised to boost their maximum available
Internet speeds this year with a relatively cheap upgrade using new cable
modem technology.
the new extra class license went live on the FCC ULS yesterday this now means I don't have to sign
WA4WGA/AE on frequencies for which the extra class operators are authorized. Now we're just waiting for
the paperwork to come in the post before I fly to the UK.
Ray T. Mahorney
WA4WGA
Al Gore and the perpetrators of the "man made" global warming hoax are to be considered as terrorists
When Bush stated that there were those who would talk to the terrorists without precondition, He was
telling the Truth. Obama made such a statement that he would do just that in February. His being on a
whinging defense and calling the truth a personal attack is yet another example of how unfit he would be
as president. Good on both Bush and McCaine for telling the truth about Obama and showing him as the
inexperienced inept and unqualified fool he really is.
Ray T. Mahorney
WA4WGA
Akron Ohio
Al Gore and the perpetrators of the "man made" global warming hoax are to be considered as terrorists
Jimmy Carter's Second Term
By
Jeffrey Lord
Published 5/13/2008 12:07:55 AM
You have to admit it takes guts. Audacity, even.
Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive nominee of the Democrats, has in essence just defeated the heiress
of the Clinton era by campaigning as the heir-apparent
of the Carter era.
The question for the rest of the year is this: Are there enough voting Americans who survived the
disastrous odyssey through the late 1970s that was led
by blessedly now ex-president Jimmy Carter? While Ronald Reagan is rated in poll after poll by Americans
as a great president, (most recently he rated
second only to Lincoln), are there enough people who recall that Reagan's election came about because of
Carter's...ahhh..."performance" in the Oval Office?
And will they be able to make the Obama-Carter connection for younger voters hearing terms like "windfall
profits tax" for the first time? More to the
point, can Senator John McCain do this?
The greatest charade of the year thus far is the idea that something "new" is being said in this campaign.
By anybody. To be bluntly accurate, the only
thing new is that one of the final two candidates is black. It seems to escape some that in a country even
as young as America, 55 presidential elections
(2008 is the 56th) covers just about all the ground there is to cover in debating any given next four
years in the life of the United States. Consider.
Since the 1788 election that produced (unopposed) George Washington as the first president, the agenda for
presidential elections has been narrowed to
one underlying issue: the role of government. Understood in that fashion, the following 220 years of
American history can be read as if with Superman's
X-ray vision. From slavery to abortion, the War of 1812 to the War in Iraq, from Lincoln's support for
"internal improvements" to John McCain's disdain
for congressional earmarks, the question at issue was the role of government. Whether dealing with the
isolationism of Washington or Robert Taft or Ron
Paul instead of the internationalism of Jefferson's chase after the Barbary pirates, Wilson's League of
Nations or Ronald Reagan's determination to win
the Cold War, the underlying question every time was the role of government.
This can be expressed in terms of its size (big or small), of its engagement with the world (the kind and
quality of diplomacy) and its ability to protect
American citizens (do we do it here or over there?). Yet always the issue is exactly the same. It is the
underlying skeleton and vital organs of every
question of policy facing the American people.
So too is it more than safe to say that America has seen every kind of candidate there is to be had in
these 55 elections. Only the packaging is different
in number 56, a truism of every previous election. Black this time for Obama, female for Hillary, there
was Catholic for JFK. Short for Martin Van Buren,
tall, skinny and hot tempered for Andrew Jackson. A failed haberdasher in Truman, a glossy movie actor in
Reagan, a joke-cracking railroad lawyer in Lincoln
and a school teacher in LBJ. A peanut farmer with Carter. Yet what each was saying both as candidate and
president fell along one side or the other of
the role of government argument. And as the string of American presidents and presidential campaigns gets
longer, the newest candidates and the latest
president have taken to looking backwards to select the presidential policies of admired predecessors
Which makes the audacity of the Obama campaign more than amusing -- and amazing -- to watch. Consciously
or not, Obama has selected the philosophical template
of the Carter administration, from defunding the military, fighting the "special interests" down to
imposing the windfall profits tax on the rich. Well,
as Justice Clarence Thomas might say: whoop-dee-damn-do! This is precisely the philosophy of Jimmy Carter,
although Carter had the good sense not to campaign
as the pacifist he really is in 1976, waiting until the moment his hand came off the bible for that.
IS IT POSSIBLE that America really wants to return to those depressing days of gas lines and leisure
suits? Of malaise and shock over the aggressiveness
of America's enemies? The days when the policies Obama is advocating raised unemployment rates, interest
rates and inflation rates into the double digits?
When America's enemies looked the President of the United States in the eye -- and found he really wanted
to kiss them on the cheek?
After all of those 55 previous elections for president, with policy results seriously on record from
George Washington to George W. Bush, it doesn't take
much now to understand what doesn't work. The policy failures, not only of American presidents but world
leaders in general, are all right out there to
be seen.
Obama's windfall profits tax idea? A Jimmy Carter biggie. "Unless we tax the oil companies, they will reap
huge and undeserved windfall profits," fumed
Carter on national television in 1980. The New York Times agreed, warning darkly that "legislators who sit
by idly while oil profits soar will have to
answer to the voters." With Democrats controlling Congress they got their way. As if on cue, oil
production -- fell. To the tune of 1.6 billion fewer barrels.
America's dependence on foreign oil rose. Eventually even the Times was agreeing the tax had to be
repealed, and by 1988 Reagan, who campaigned against
it, signed the repeal (by a Democrat Congress no less) into law. And Obama wants to do this all over
again? Yes. It's not only not a new idea, it's not
a better idea. Yet in terms of Obama, most tellingly it was a Carter idea.
Another Carter favorite was to appear to attack the wealthy, going after "rich businessmen" who enjoyed
themselves with the "$50 martini lunch." Elected,
Carter went after the martini business lunch tax deduction all right, but then quickly turned on the
middle class with a Social Security payroll tax. Obama
is already well on board with Carteresque rhetoric about "tax cuts for the wealthy." What taxes will a
President Obama raise that, as with Carter, can't
be discussed as a candidate?
Appeasement and the notion that we can look evil in the eye and smile? Another Carter favorite (captured
forever with the image of the American president
kissing Brezhnev on the cheek at a Moscow summit in 1979) that more famously was the notion underpinning
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's desperate
face-to-face sitdowns with Adolph Hitler. Didn't work either time, nor will it ever work as Obama seems to
be seriously proposing with Iran. Why? Because
bullies are bullies -- be they Russian Communists, German dictators or Iranian mullahs. Senator John
McCain succinctly sums up Obama's take as a lack of
both judgment and experience, which surely is true.
BUT OBAMA'S VIEWS are also something else. They are the product of a world view that has been around for
centuries -- failing every time it's tried. Obama's
campaign website says Obama "will take several steps down the long road toward eliminating nuclear
weapons. He will stop the development of new nuclear
weapons; work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek
dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of
nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate- range
missiles so that the agreement is global." He also pledges
to stop the research and deployment of a missile defense, the same system that Reagan created to end the
Cold War.
America was led down this philosophical garden path most recently by Carter. Whether advocated by Carter
in 1979, Chamberlain in 1939 or a President Obama
in 2009, the philosophy behind this idea has simply never worked. Period. Yet , to borrow from Reagan's
line in his debate with Carter, here we go again.
With all of the sweep of American history to look back on, with virtual libraries of history recording
what works and what doesn't when running the American
government, Obama has stunningly selected the Carter policies as his role model.
Tax cuts? Not for Obama. Military superiority? No, not for Obama. Do tax cuts work? Yes, as shown by
Presidents Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan and Bush 43.
Military strength? Yes, decisively too. From Lincoln's Union Army to Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet
and his maxim to "talk softly and carry a big
stick," from Wilson's Allied Expeditionary Force to FDR's vow to victory "so help us God" to Ronald
Reagan's peace through strength, the idea of overwhelming
military superiority works -- if the enemy believes you will use it. Or you actually use it.
But Obama, as with Carter, is having none of these approaches. From hiking Social Security payroll taxes
to investing 20 percent less in defense budgets
to telling Americans they had an "inordinate" fear of Communism, step by step Carter's policy selections
and his decisions on the role of government led
the American people down a dark and dangerous path that produced the worst economy since the Great
Depression along with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
and a beachhead in Central America with the Communist take-over of Nicaragua. When his policy towards Iran
resulted in abandoning the Shah in favor of
the extremist mullahs and the taking of American hostages, Carter's military was in such bad shape that
American soldiers died in the Iranian desert during
a miserably failed rescue attempt.
PERHAPS MORE ASTONISHING than his advocacy of a return to Carterism, Obama channels the Republican
president to whom Carter was frequently compared --
Herbert Hoover. Obama is completely on board with protectionism, seemingly oblivious to the lessons of the
Smoot-Hawley tariff that was a product of the
Hoover administration in 1930. Upping the tariff on some 20,000 goods it is famous forever as the
disastrous idea that deepened the severity of the Great
Depression.
One has to wonder about the survival prospects down the road for the Democrats. They either can't get
elected because their ideas are so bad -- extremist
or tried and true failures -- or every once in a good while the latest crowd of American voters actually
forgets their history (or never learned it in
the first place) and gives a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton a go at holding the reins. Enemies are then
appeased, taxes raised, and judges go wild -- which
in turn creates a new generation of conservatives who begin to understand why the last generation voted
Republican.
The question for Senator McCain, accused by Obama of wanting to serve George W. Bush's third term, is
whether he will hold Obama's feet to the fire on
Obama's apparently passionate desire to serve Jimmy Carter's second.
Jeffrey Lord is the creator, co-founder and CEO of
QubeTV
, an online conservative video site. A Reagan White House political director and author, he writes from
Pennsylvania.
Ray T. Mahorney
WA4WGA
Al Gore and the perpetrators of the "man made" global warming hoax are to be considered as terrorists
OVER A BARREL
By ARIEL COHEN
May 11, 2008 -- As you go deeper into debt filling up your tank with $4 gas this weekend, look on the
bright side - you're helping to fund countries that
hate you.
From Russia to Iran to Venezuela, America's adversaries are splurging on oil windfalls, while programs
directed against Uncle Sam and his allies are funded
by petroleum revenues. Big bucks are allowing the oil sultans and dictators to intimidate US allies, buy
politicians and academics, and purchase election
outcomes.
Oil prices are going up partly because of supply and speculation - but also because these countries can
decide to punish the US or limit our influence,
particularly when they disagree with policies toward Iraq and Israel.
Part of the reason they can do this is that governments of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries
(OPEC) cartel, and the non-cartel producers like Russia,
make sure that international oil companies do not own reserves in the ground. Exxon, for instance, spent
only 4 percent of its exploration budget in the
Middle East last year - local governments do not allow Western companies to take control of their own
destiny.
Thus, the global oil production is at the mercy of opaque and corrupt national oil companies, while the
governments that own them enjoy skyrocketing oil
prices and the growing, mindboggling wealth.
The revenues of the major oil producing countries have quadrupled in three years. Since 9/11, oil prices
have more than quintupled. This year Europe and
the US will spend approximately $2 trillion on imported oil, while the world will spend close to $3
trillion.
This money recycles back to the US and the West, often in the most legitimate ways. Sovereign Investment
Funds have acquired large chunks of America's financial
flagships: Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Blackstone and the Carlyle Group.
A foreign government acquiring a serious stake in US corporate gems can influence US policies in the
Middle East and elsewhere. The oil sheikhs can "tweak"
attitudes towards extremism and terrorism, and buy access to politicians through lobbying and campaign
contributions. In the future, these funds may acquire
defense and technology flagships: Boeing, General Electric, Lockheed Martin and others, or go after
primary media assets, from CNN to FOX.
*
However, oil revenues may be used in much more sinister ways. Money can buy nuclear weapons programs,
ballistic missile arsenals, and other arms. It can
also pay for terrorist armies.
Today's attempt to overthrow the pro-American government in Lebanon is bankrolled by Iran. Hezbollah is a
wholly-owned Iranian subsidiary. Its chief has
the official title of the "representative of Iran's Supreme Leader" in Lebanon. Iran paid for the 27,000
rockets Hezbollah has aimed at Israel.
Iran also buys Hamas weapons and popularity in Gaza. In a recent children's TV broadcast by Hamas' Al Aqsa
TV, a "Hamasnik" boy is shown assassinating President
George W. Bush in the Oval Office and declaring that the White House will be turned into a mosque. Money
may not buy you love, but it sure pays for propaganda.
Al Jazeera, the Qatari Arabic and English language TV is a propaganda arm with global reach. Viciously
anti-American, it talks to tens of millions of Arabic
speaking Muslims worldwide, as well as audiences in Pakistan, India, London and Detroit.
Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Salafi-Jihadi ideology known as Wahhabism, is financing hundreds of religious
seminaries (madrassahs), educating generations
of US-hating and anti-Semitic Muslim extremists from Michigan to Manila. Some of them will pick up arms to
fight the US and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wahhabis deny other religions the right to exist in dignity, as a recent religious ruling (fatwa) in Saudi
Arabia demonstrated. Two journalists who argued
for tolerance were sentenced to death.
In the US a majority of mosques partake of Saudi and Gulf largesse. The Saudis often provide religious
leaders (imams), textbooks and curricula, to Muslim
communities and schools. There is little to no control as far as the content of the teachings or school
books, but a Freedom House study found that these
are anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-American and anti-Israel.
Despite trips by President George Bush and Vice President Cheney, Saudi Arabia refuses to increase
output - and why would they? They can use it as leverage
to get their way, particularly in Israel.
Riyyadh also employs an army of lobbyists and other "influencers" in Washington, London, Brussels and
elsewhere around the world. These shadow mercenaries
promote a benign image for the Kingdom.
They appear on TV, write newspaper and journal articles, direct university programs on Islamic or Middle
Eastern studies. Saudi princes have poured tens
of millions into prestigious universities, from Georgetown and Harvard to Cambridge and Edinburgh.
Former senior government officials and ambassadors are on the royal payroll influencing their colleagues
in the diplomatic service. This is how the Saudi
"peace plan" calling for undermining Israel through a massive influx of Palestinian "refugees" received US
support at the highest levels.
This is how the Carter Center in Atlanta ended up taking millions in Gulf oil money. This is why Jimmy
Carter looks like he's shilling for the Iranian-Saudi
client, Hamas.
*
If all this were not enough, Hugo Chavez, the socialist-fascist ruler of Venezuela, is spending billions
in dollar oil subsidies to assemble an empire of
dependencies in Latin America. According to evidence on a laptop taken from a dead guerilla leader in the
neighboring Ecuador, Chavez supports the FARC
narco-guerillas who are attempting to overthrow the democratically-elected government of President Alvaro
Uribe of Colombia.
Chavez, an ally of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, provides cheap oil and loans to Daniel Ortega
and his wife, the Sandinista rulers of Nicaragua.
Chavez also supports leftist leaders and forces in Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay. Their intent is to
deny the US influence and allies in South America,
and ease the way for an Iranian-Hezbollah penetration of the Southern Cone.
Russian leaders, more anti-American today than ever, have written the book on using money and energy
muscle to buy friends and influence neighbors. They
made an example out of Ukraine, by cutting gas supply to it on New Year's Day for four days.
They also intimidated France and Germany into bucking the US at the Bucharest NATO summit and objecting to
Georgia and Ukraine being issued a North Atlantic
Treaty Association membership plan.
Russia's Gazprom has hired former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder as the Chairman of a pipeline
consortium, and made a similar offer to former Italian
Prime Minister and the top Eurocrat Romano Prodi. Vladimir Putin does brisk energy business with Silvio
Berlusconi, and with the French President Nicolas
Sarcozy, though both are considered pro-American. German businessmen enthusiastically lobby Chancellor
Angela Merkel on the Kremlin's behalf. Russia, some
argue, has more clout today in Europe than Washington.
Finally, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and even US friend Kuwait are dumping the greenback in favor of the Euro
in energy transactions. This is likely to decrease
demand and increase the supply of dollars, sending the US currency into a tailspin. Weaker dollars and
higher inflation may add insult to injury in the
prolonged process of America's economic deterioration.
To stave it off and to combat its oil-rich adversaries, the US needs, in the short term, to expand its
domestic energy sector. Increasing oil and gas production
in the West, along the Pacific and Atlantic continental shelf, and in Alaska will help, and so will a coal
and nuclear power build-up.
The US Congress should also abolish corn ethanol subsidy and lift tariffs on the really competitive
ethanol made from sugar cane. Brazil and Africa can
produce more ethanol than Iowa and Nebraska. However, in the long term, more advanced technological
solutions are vital to stem the global wealth redistribution
to OPEC potentates and other America-haters.
World powers have risen and fallen over major economic factors. This should never be the case of our
nation. The oil potentates should know that the US
will not be intimidated - or bankrupted out of existence.
Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in International Energy Security at The Heritage Foundation
and the author of The Real World, a weekly column
published in The Middle East Times.
Home
May 13, 2008, 0:30 a.m.
McCain's Assault on Reason
Another Al Gore for president.
By Roy Spencer
John McCain's global-warming speech on Monday made it clear that there will be no presidential candidate
this year willing to question the assertion that
global warming (a.k.a. "climate change") is manmade, or the assertion that we can fix global warming by
passing a few laws.
Along with Clinton and Obama, McCain's proposal to attack global warming now gives voters three choices
for a car color - as long as it is black. Like
Clinton and Obama, McCain's proposal involves a "cap and trade" mechanism to legislatively limit CO2
emissions in the coming years, with the free market
minimizing the economic damage by allowing a trading of emission credits between companies. He also
includes an allowance for carbon offsets, although
everyone (except Al Gore) believes this to be more smoke-and-mirrors than a real-world strategy for
reducing carbon emissions.
What worries me is the widespread misperception that we can do anything substantial about carbon emissions
without seriously compromising economic growth.
To be sure, forcing a reduction in CO2 emissions will help spur investment in new energy technologies. But
so does a price tag of $126 for a barrel of
oil. Finding a replacement for carbon-based energy will require a huge investment of wealth, and
destroying wealth is not a very good first step toward
that goal.
When the public finds out how much any legislation that punishes energy use is going to cost them, with no
guarantee that anything we do will have a measurable
impact on future climate, there will be a revolt just like the one now materializing in the U.K. and the
EU. At some point, as they are faced with the
stark reality that mankind's requirement for an abundant source of energy cannot simply be legislated out
of existence, the public will begin asking, "Just
how sure are we that humans are causing global warming?"
And this is where the science establishment has, in my view, betrayed the public's trust.
Even though there has never been a single scientific paper published that has ruled out natural
variability for most of the warming we've seen since 1850,
Big Science has managed to convince politicians and much of the public that the science is settled.
Apparently, our addition of nine molecules of carbon
dioxide to each 100,000 molecules of air over the last 150 years can now be blamed for anything and
everything we choose. Hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves,
floods, glaciers flowing toward the sea.. all of these used to happen naturally, but no more.
The warming that allowed the Vikings to farm in Greenland 1,000 years ago was surely natural. But we are
now told that warming in Greenland today is surely
manmade. Glaciers retreating in western Canada have revealed evidence of previous forests, showing that
warming and cooling cycles do indeed occur, even
without SUVs. Yet the SUV is now the scapegoat for retreating glaciers.
McCain pointed to shrinking Arctic sea ice and collapsing Antarctic ice shelves as obvious evidence that
humans are to blame, even though the sea ice did
the same thing in the 1920s and 1930s, and those ice shelves must break off eventually, as new glacial ice
flows toward the sea to take their place.
But McCain has made it clear that the science really does not matter anyway because, even if humans are
not to blame for global warming, stopping carbon-dioxide
emissions is the right thing to do. And if we had another choice for most of our energy needs, I might be
willing to accept such a claim as harmless enough.
But carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth, and I have a difficult time calling something so
fundamentally important a "pollutant." Maybe the amount
of CO2 in the atmosphere is higher now than it has been in hundreds of thousands of years. So what? I am
increasingly convinced that its influence on climate
pales in comparison to the influence that natural climate events like El Niño and the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation have on regional climate. Indeed, most
of the warming we've seen in the last century might well be due to these natural modes of climate
variability alone.
The trouble is that no one has been funded by the government to investigate such a possibility, and the
mandate for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) is to address manmade climate change - not natural climate change.
So, here we are with bad science ready to support bad policy decisions that will lead to bad economic
times ahead, and no presidential candidate who is
willing to ask the hard questions. While we hate to be pandered to by politicians, in this case I can only
hope that they really are pandering - that this
is hot air and not prospective policy.
- Dr. Roy W. Spencer is a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is
author of the new book,
Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians, and Misguided
Policies that Hurt the Poor.
- Roy W. Spencer is principal research scientist at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center of the
National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville,
Ala.
May 9, 2008 11:57 AM PDT
Why Uncle Sam must stop subsidizing inefficient companies
Posted by Charles Cooper
News.com
From time to time, I'm going to open up this space to guest writers with
an interesting point of view.
This week, Gregory L. Rosston is taking a turn in the spotlight.
Rosston is the deputy director of the Stanford Institute for Economic
Policy Research and of the Public Policy program at Stanford University. He
served as the deputy chief economist of the Federal Communications
Commission from 1994 to 1997.
http://www.news.com/8301-10787_3-994031
The Federal Communications Commission is about to continue its
anticompetitive policy of protecting incumbent telecommunications providers
at the expense of consumers. The FCC has one focus--making consumers better
off by forcing suppliers to compete. Yet, nearly every recent FCC decision
seems to promote incumbents instead of consumers. Next up is the FCC's
proposal to cap universal service funding for new entrants, while
maintaining excessive subsidies for incumbent telephone companies.
Ever look at the details on your telephone bill? It shows some, but not
nearly all of the money you pay for inefficient "high-cost" subsidies to
telephone companies. It's about 10 percent of your bill. That adds up to
more than $4 billion per year to subsidize telephone service in certain
locations. The costs of this system could grow substantially if Congress or
the FCC votes to include more advanced services. The FCC has a chance to
revamp the system to inject competition, or even better to eliminate
completely the inefficiencies.
Why do we give a $4 billion gift to "rural" incumbent telephone companies?
Because they have high costs--even they admit higher costs than their newer
competitors. A normal market rewards more efficient providers. But this is
the bizarro world of regulation. In this bizarro world, the incumbents are
rewarded for their inefficiency. They keep the same subsidies even as they
lose customers. Instead of encouraging more efficient competitors and
penalizing less efficient competitors, regulators are set to cement in
place a system that does the opposite, at the expense of consumers across
the country.
High cost "universal service" programs are grossly inefficient because they
tax the wrong things and the wrong people, and subsidize many who could
easily afford service or who would pay for it themselves. No serious
economic analysis shows otherwise.
But rural interests have political power out of proportion to their
numbers. That's why taxpayers subsidize rich farm corporations and why
urban telephone customers subsidize rural telephone customers, rich and
poor alike. Even worse, low-income urban subscribers pay fees to universal
service funds that benefit upper- and middle-income residents of suburbs
and rural areas. A separate program offers subsidies to low-income
consumers, but this program, which at least make distributional sense and
is not at issue here, is only a small fraction of size of the high-cost fund.
The FCC has a problem--new entrants are taking customers away from
incumbents. Since the new entrant gets a subsidy when it steals a customer
but the incumbent never loses a subsidy, competition paradoxically
increases the total subsidy.
The obvious solution to this "problem" is to end this mindless pork barrel.
At the very least, the FCC should cap the total subsidy and divide the
subsidy according to the proportion of rural customers each firm serves.
Congressman Joe Barton just introduced a bill to do at least this. Instead
of following that logic, the FCC is proposing to cap payments to the
successful new entrants, but to maintain fully the payments to the
incumbents who are losing customers. The Barton bill actually adds another
potentially beneficial step--using "reverse auctions" to drive down the
subsidy dollars in each area.
Far better than even the Barton bill would be for Congress and the FCC to
declare the high-cost universal service program a success and close it
down. The entire program could be capped this year and then phased out over
the next five years. A gradual elimination of the program would allow firms
to cope with the transition, but it would mean a real transition.
In five years most rural areas are likely to still have service from
well-funded rural telephone companies--the cost of continuing to serve a
customer is a small fraction of the cost of installing a high-cost
telephone line to that customer, and most of those lines were installed
years ago. In addition, wireless providers continue to expand their
coverage areas, and satellite technology is already making Internet service
available anywhere in the country. But these competitive alternatives are
less likely to sprout and thrive if they have to compete with an unfairly
subsidized provider.
They say the third time's a charm and they must be right. With 41 out of 50 I am a newly minted extra.
Just in time for the trip to the UK.
Ray T. Mahorney
WA4WGA/AE
Al Gore and the perpetrators of the "man made" global warming hoax are to be considered as terrorists
(no surprise the only question was when)
Cable Broadband Users, Get Ready For Overage Fees
Clear caps? Great. $1.50/GB Overage fees? Wait a !@$% minute...
http://www2.dslreports.com/shownews/Cab
What seemed like a vague industry possibility just a few months ago now
seems like an inevitable certainty. Multiple carriers in North America
are now either employing or considering monthly caps where users pay per
gigabyte should they "over eat." But the move begs a number of
questions. Not least of which is whether opening the door to overage
fees invites a broadband future where ISPs use the nebulous specter of
"excessive use" as a new piggy bank -- and as a pre-emptive weapon
against competing content.
Earlier this week I broke the news that Comcast is considering
implementing a 250GB monthly cap, with a $15 penalty for each 10GB over
that cap you travel. I've been reading through the various subsequent
coverage (Associated Press, New York Times, CBC) , and came across this
Business Week report. In it, Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley
confirms they're still on track to begin testing their own overage
system. If you recall, we also broke the news of that system, which
could come with caps as low as 5GB per month.
The public backlash apparently didn't scare Time Warner Cable away from
the project. While Time Warner Cable and Comcast are still cooking their
overage plans, Canadian cable operator Rogers just became the first
major North American broadband operator to implement such a system (60GB
cap, between $1.25-$5 per additional gigabyte). Some smaller U.S. cable
broadband providers like Oregon based BendBroadband have also embraced
the idea (10-50GB cap, $1.50 per additional gigabyte).
If the caps are generous (and Comcast's 250GB cap is), being clear about
them is certainly a welcome shift. However, many caps won't be so
generous. And the sudden decision by the U.S. broadband industry to
adopt a system where "excessive use" is punished by per-GB charges
raises a lot of new questions.
What's To Keep FiOS From Eating Cable's Lunch?
Verizon has thus-far said they won't cap or restrict their FiOS FTTH
service. With the cable industry suddenly imposing overage charges on
high-consumption users, it immediately puts them at further marketing
disadvantage to a product they're already afraid of. Sure, 250GB is
reasonable, but it won't be hard for Verizon or AT&T's ad agency to make
cable broadband service seem miserly. Cable won't have to worry about
Qwest, who has their own invisible consumption ceiling and hasn't
invested in fiber.
What Will Keep Caps And Overage Fees Reasonable?
Honestly, what's to keep investor pressure from constantly forcing caps
downward and overage fees upward? Unless you're living in denial, we can
generally agree that most broadband markets in the United States consist
of a largely uncompetitive duopoly. In order to please investors and
create consistent quarter over quarter growth, ISPs have been selling
everything that isn't nailed down (your personal browsing data and even
your typing mistakes).
Does anyone really believe that once overages become commonplace, the
general trend won't be consistently lower caps and consistently higher
overage fees? Once we've agreed to the monetization of "excessive
consumption," what stops ISPs from constantly lowering their definition
of "excessive," while hiking user penalties? The highly lobbied FCC? A
bickering Congress? A cap that begins as reasonable can quickly become
oppressive.
ISP Usage Meters Suck
Sorry to be blunt. Don't believe me? Spend some quality time in our
HughesNet or Wild Blue satellite broadband forums talking to users of
these services. Both providers cap monthly use, then throttle customers
who exceed consumption limits. The provided meters for these providers
have been so unreliable, many customers have been forced to code their
own. Australia ISP Telstra created a billing nightmare when they tried
to accurately track consumption back in 2002. Hopefully Time Warner
Cable and Comcast do a better job.
Usage Caps and Overages Impact Content Competition
It's a constant meme thrown out by network neutrality supporters, but
it's true. The future consists of any number of bandwidth eating
services that haven't been invented yet. The present consists of
multiple, independent operators trying to force high-definition content
down Comcast's pipe. DirecTV is launching an HD-delivery system that
uses your bandwidth as a VOD delivery vessel.
Time Warner Cable's overage trials involve caps ranging from 5GB to 40GB
per month. If we agree that independent video is a direct and serious
threat to Time Warner Cable television revenue, and we agree that the
bandwidth needed for HD services will only grow, then what stops any
cable operator from lowering the definition of "reasonable consumption"
to deter use of competing HD services?
Why Not Just Make Gluttons Pay For a Business-Class Tier?
Time Warner Cable and Comcast agree that "bandwidth hogs" make up a very
small portion of their overall subscriber base. Comcast pegs the number
of bandwidth hogs as the top 0.1% of their user base (14,000 customers
out of Comcast's 14.1 million users). Time Warner Cable argues that 5%
of their subscribers utilize over half of the total network bandwidth.
So why would TWC want to impose a 5GB cap on lower-tier users?
These ISPs could simply force these high-consumption users to a more
expensive business tier. Instead, they're choosing to monetize
"excessive consumption." This is happening just at a point when their
bread and butter income (TV and its endless rate hikes) is being
threatened by alternative video. It's fair to ask whether the move is
less about network strain, and more about a pre-emptive strike against
competing video delivery systems.
Is This A Prelude To Billing By The Byte?
I've talked at length with multiple ISP executives who say their
companies have no plan to currently shift from a flat-rate pricing model
(the current U.S. standard) to a bill-by-the-byte model. The truth is
that existing profit margins (particularly for VoIP) are very healthy,
and many U.S. consumers already feel they pay too much for what they
get. It's an uphill battle to convince consumers they should pay more,
to get less.
The general consensus among executives seems to be that they'd love to
migrate to such a model, but they're afraid of consumer backlash. But
what if you could warm the public to per-byte billing via baby steps?
What if you could convince Joe consumer that a bandwidth apocalypse is
looming thanks to video and P2P, and per-byte billing is a "necessary
evil" to save the Internet as we know it?
This Is About More Than 250GB Being Reasonable
To be clear, I do think having reasonable caps on consumption is vastly
superior to nebulous caps, vague enforcement, and the throttling of
upstream P2P traffic. But while I embrace clear caps, I think a shift
toward per-GB overages is a dangerous migration that could have serious
repercussions down the line for consumers and content competition. This
is a door, once opened, that can't be stepped back through.
(it has and it will continue to do so for some time to come.)
May 09, 2008
Has Big Media Global Warming Bias Begun to Endanger the Public?
Bill Tate
When Maine officials tried to warn residents of the dangers of this winter's near-record snowpack, Big
Media slanted the story, hampering efforts to warn
folks of the danger. "This winters [sic] near-record snowfall has created a flood potential that is above
normal," began a
news advisory
released by the Maine River Flow Advisor Commission on March 6th.
block quote
"Statewide water content readings from this week's snow survey are some of the highest since 1969, the
'snow season' of record, and in some locations higher
than the record." In case there was any doubt, the banner headline on the release reads: "Spring Flood
Potential Elevated Due to Near-Record Snowfall."
block quote end
However, the lead in the Associated Press
story
in the next day's edition of the major regional daily, the Boston Globe, downplayed the threat posed by
the snowpack, referring to it as just "above-average," and
shifting the emphasis to concern about an approaching storm.
block quote
"The National Weather Service says weekend rain could cause some flooding of streets and small streams."
block quote end
The story does eventually reference "near-record snowfall", in the 13th paragraph of a 17-paragraph story,
with a spin that turned the Maine officials'
warning on its head.
block quote
"While this winter's near-record snowfall has created a flood potential that is above normal, that doesn't
guarantee flooding will occur this spring...."
block quote end
The result? "There are people who are losing their property, their homes and their livelihoods," Maine
Governor John Baldacci
said
after the flooding that officials had tried to warn the public about did occur last week.
Why did the AP and the Globe de-emphasize Maine officials' snowpack warning, especially when doing so
endangered the property and safety of the public they
are supposed to serve?
The Globe is owned by the New York Times Company. Both the Times and the Associated Press are heavily
invested in the myth of Global Warming, or -- as I
like to call it -- Global Warning. Record snowpack means higher than normal amounts of snow, colder than
usual temperatures, or both. None of which readily
fits into the MSM's chosen story line that mankind is giving Mother Nature a fever. Big Media's Global
Warning bias has largely remained in the realm of
theory; now it has begun to endanger people's lives and property in real time.
The AP and the Globe had the choice of reporting a truly inconvenient truth -- for them -- or of
perpetuating Global Warning, of facilitating officials'
efforts to protect the public or advancing their ideological agenda. Why are we not surprised by the
decision they made?
William Tate is a former award-winning broadcast journalist and the author of the new book,
A Time Like This.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/200
PM EDT
Ray T. Mahorney
WA4WGA
Al Gore and the perpetrators of the "man made" global warming hoax are to be considered as terrorists
(I could watch Wilmington from where I lived in Jacksonville. Wilmington is on the south east coast of the state just above Murtle Beach SC.)
http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/05/sour
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is set to announce Thursday that the agency will run a test of the switch to digital broadcasting signals in Wilmington, N.C., the smallest TV market in the Tarheel state, sources said.
The congressionally mandated national switch to digital takes place Feb. 17. The FCC didn't return multiple calls seeking comment.
The test in North Carolina, Mr. Martin's home state, is likely to take place before the November sweeps ratings period. If things do not go smoothly during the trial run, it could affect stations' revenues during one of the months used to set advertising rates for the next fiscal quarter.
The Wilmington market, served by affiliates of all the major networks, is the 135th largest measured by Nielsen Media Research, which says 179,760 of the 182,500 homes in the area have televisions.
WWAY-TV, owned by Morris Multimedia, is the ABC affiliate in the area. NBC-affiliated WECT-TV and Fox-affiliated WSFX-TV are owned by Raycom Media. WILM-TV is the CBS affiliate owned by Capitol Broadcasting Co. WMYW-LP is the MyNetworkTV affiliate, and The CW has a cable-only affiliate. The market gets its public broadcast signal from WUNJ-TV.
Local broadcasters did not return calls seeking comment.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps has been pushing for a test in a small market that met certain criteria, including that all broadcast stations' digital signals already are on the air on the same channels where they will be found when the official digital switch takes place.
"This is very good news for the DTV transition," Mr. Copps said in a statement. "Real-world experience is an extremely important step-although only one of many-that will help minimize consumer disruption next February. Broadway shows open on the road to work out the kinks before opening night. The DTV transition deserves no less."
The idea is to learn, among other things, how many TV homes may be unprepared for the transition, which will require viewers to have digital sets, boxes that can convert digital broadcast signals to analog on older sets, or delivery of programs by cable or satellite services.
The sources who confirmed the announcement of the test weren't able to say when it may begin. However, the trial run will be preceded by a big education campaign by local stations about converter boxes and the availability of coupons worth $40 toward the purchase of the converters through local retailers.
Throughout the country, some 1 million coupons have been used as part of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration's converter box coupon program, according to recent information.
(Editors: Jensen, Baumann. Updated at 5:40 p.m. to add Copps statement.)
The Ultimate Little Black Book
One Firm Routes All Phone Calls in North America
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 5, 2008; D01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co
Once upon a time, there was one telephone company. Routing phone calls was
pretty straightforward.
Now there are hundreds, and it's much more complicated. Whenever someone
dials a phone, texts on a cellphone or punches in a Web site on a laptop,
chances are the connection will rely on a central database that belongs to
a Northern Virginia firm.
That database is perhaps the most significant cog in the communications
network that most people have never heard of.
Sterling-based NeuStar is the carriers' digital directory for all phone
calls in North America. More than 800 telephone companies have numbers in
the database. NeuStar assigns blocks of available telephone numbers to
carriers. It also manages the directory for common short codes: five- or
six-digit codes that people punch into their cellphones to take part in
sweepstakes or to vote for game-show contestants, for instance. And about
one out of every four Internet transactions is routed using a NeuStar
database, as NeuStar handles traffic for domains that include .biz, .us,
.org and .info.
NeuStar's databases are so powerful that the FBI a few years ago sought
direct, unfettered access to one containing 310 million phone numbers in
the United States and Canada. The telephone companies that pay NeuStar to
run the database denied the FBI's request, but they did allow NeuStar to
create a site where authorized law enforcement officials with court orders
can obtain carrier information on telephone numbers.
NeuStar is part of an evolving telecom industry that is creating caches of
information attractive to the government without clear guidelines governing
who may have access and under what circumstances. Its registries fall under
international, U.S. government and trade association rules, including those
set by the Federal Communications Commission.
The company is dependent on and crucial to telecom companies and state,
local and federal governments, part of the government-industrial complex
that drives the region's economy. Indeed, said Jeffrey E. Ganek, NeuStar
chairman and chief executive, "this is a business that could only have
grown up in Washington."
NeuStar was once a division of Lockheed Martin, where, under a different
name, it was created in part to help carriers manage one aspect of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996. That law made it possible for consumers to
keep their phone numbers even if they switched service providers or moved
to another state. Competing telephone companies needed a way to keep track
of those numbers to route calls. And other information, such as billing
data, the FCC said, needed to be provided by a neutral, trusted party.
The current contracts, covering all of North America, run through 2015. The
FCC created the rules that govern the contracts, but delegated oversight
and administration of the contracts to the industry.
The carriers in 1997 awarded the work to Lockheed Information Management
Systems. In 1999, Lockheed spun off the division, and NeuStar was born. It
went public in 2005.
Revenue last year was $429.2 million, and profit was $92.3 million, up from
$73.9 million the previous year. Company officials expect revenue to exceed
$500 million this year. Soon, they said, NeuStar expects to be providing
digital directory service for about 85 percent of all wireless devices in
the world.
NeuStar officials say the government has not sought direct access to any of
its databases other than the one the FBI requested, which covered numbers
kept by customers as they switched providers, called a ported number registry.
But Al Gidari, a lawyer representing wireless carriers, said other major
telecom entities -- billing vendors, 911 emergency service providers and
call center operators -- have databases the government might want to tap.
"If the government wanted access to their databases, there are no clear
procedures regulating that access as there are for phone companies," he
said. "That's a danger."
NeuStar says trust is a significant part of its business.
"If we were to precipitously allow some overzealous law enforcement
official access to data that has not been formally authorized by the
courts, we are instantly jeopardizing our franchise," Ganek said.
NeuStar charges its client companies about 89 cents for every update to the
ported number registry, about $500 to $1,000 a month for every common short
code and about $5 a year for each entry in the Internet domain name registry.
NeuStar also helps optimize Web traffic for clients such as Amazon so that
when a customer types in Amazon.com, NeuStar directs the request to one of
Amazon's thousands of servers around the world. It provides the same kind
of service for Oracle, Emirates Airlines and Forbes.
"We're at all the key Internet nodes in the world," Ganek said. "Depending
on the time of the day and the point of origination, we send the traffic to
Seattle, for instance, or to a data center in Miami or another data center
in Singapore. If there's a fiber cable cut in the Pacific, we see it before
[the carriers] do and turn the traffic in the other direction so it goes
counterclockwise around the globe."
NeuStar helps maintain communication during crises. The Sept. 11, 2001,
attack on the World Trade Center took out a large AT&T switch that served
50,000 telephones for the Wall Street area, Ganek said. Within a week, AT&T
found another switching device, trucked it into lower Manhattan and
installed it at a telecommunications facility at 60 Hudson St. As soon as
the switch was plugged in and the green lights on the control panel were
blinking, NeuStar, instructed by AT&T, went into its database and deleted
the World Trade Center address for each of the 50,000 numbers and replaced
it with 60 Hudson St., Ganek said.
"Within 10 seconds of making that change, anyone could dial those numbers
and the calls were sent not to the World Trade Center, but six or seven
blocks south," Ganek said.
About 70 percent of NeuStar's revenue comes from its ported number
database. But as more communication takes place over the Internet, Ganek
foresees a need for more Internet routing information services.
"It's just a matter of time before Google and AOL and Facebook and LinkedIn
are all managing communications between and among users," Ganek said.
In 2005, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration wanted a direct
link to the database in NeuStar's Sterling headquarters, according to a
January 2005 letter from the Justice Department criminal division to a
consortium of carriers that have given NeuStar the contract to run the
database. The department wanted to use the data to identify which carrier
to subpoena for records concerning telephone numbers in an investigation,
the letter said.
"What they were asking for in a nutshell was a copy of the database," said
Mike Warren, NeuStar vice president of fiduciary services. "They wanted us
to send them an update of the database once a day."
Instead, NeuStar set up LEAP, or Local Number Portability Enhanced
Analytical Platform, a Web site to help local, state and federal law
enforcement in investigations that rely on phone call surveillance. The
database gives basic information such as carrier but not more technical
details such as whether a phone number is for a wireless phone or a
landline. Earlier this year, NeuStar added historical carrier information
to that service.
looks like I may be going there for the ham fest on the 17th. I'll be waring a DSTAR hat.
Ray T. Mahorney
WA4WGA
Al Gore and the perpetrators of the "man made" global warming hoax are to be considered as terrorists
MessageThe JARL and Icom have produced a new video which introduces the concepts and basic elements of D-Star as well as possible applications. This might be of interest for radio clubs and/or hamfests. The video runs for approximately 7 - 8 minutes and is about 70MB in size. It can be streamed across the internet or downloaded to a pc (recommended). The video requires Media Player 11 to watch it.
The video can be found at: http://www.icom.co.jp/world/products/vi
Regards,
davidt, VK3Ur
Dstar mailing list
Dstar@lists.wia.org.au
http://lists.wia.org.au/mailman/listinf
April 28, 2008 10:32 AM PDT
FCC dealt setback in broadband-over-power-lines push
Posted by Anne Broache
News.com
Updated at 10:58 a.m. PDT to add comment from the broadband-over-power
lines industry.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-993022
In a potential setback for fans of broadband over power lines, a federal
appeals court has sided in part with amateur radio operators who challenged
rules designed to speed the nascent Internet service's rollout.
When setting rules for BPL operators nearly two years ago, the Federal
Communications Commission said it was trying to encourage deployment of a
"third pipe" to compete with cable and DSL services, while establishing
limits aimed at protecting public safety, maritime, radio-astronomy,
aeronautical navigation, and amateur radio operators from harmful
interference. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL), which represents
amateur and ham radio operators, however, promptly sued the agency,
contending that the FCC's approach was insufficient to ward off
interference with its radios and inconsistent with its previous rules.
On Friday, the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia on Friday
issued a ruling that took issue with the way the FCC arrived at its rules.
During its rulemaking process, the FCC relied on five scientific studies
that measured BPL devices' radio emissions, in an attempt to determine
interference risks with other users of the spectrum. Although the agency
released those studies during a public comment process required by federal
law, it redacted portions of them, arguing they were just "internal"
communications that didn't influence its deliberations. But after reviewing
the unredacted studies in private, the majority of the judges agreed with
the ARRL that it was against federal administrative procedure law to keep
those portions under wraps, particularly since they could called the FCC's
rules into question.
"It is one thing for the Commission to give notice and make available for
comment the studies on which it relied in formulating the rule while
explaining its non-reliance on certain parts," D.C. Circuit Judge Judith
Rogers wrote. "It is quite another thing to provide notice and an
opportunity for comment on only those parts of the studies that the
Commission likes best."
The court also said the FCC had not offered a "reasoned explanation" for
why it rejected ARRL-submitted data that could have influenced its
interference estimates and potentially reshaped its rules. The judges opted
to send the rules back to the FCC with instructions to clarify those points
and publicize its studies more fully, although they did not overturn the
rules themselves.
The court did not side entirely with the ARRL on other key points related
to the substance of the rules.
For instance, the ARRL had argued that the FCC was departing from
longstanding agency precedent by refusing to require that BPL operations
found to cause "harmful interference" be shut down immediately--the
so-called "cease-operations" rule. The court wasn't persuaded by that
argument, saying the FCC had explained adequately that there isn't ample
evidence that "harmful interference" is a real risk.
Still, the court's decision could be significant if it ultimately prompts
revisions to the FCC's rules, which could in turn force some BPL operators
to change the way they operate or create new legal uncertainty for their
operations. The FCC declined to comment on the decision Monday.
The ARRL was quick to applaud the ruling.
"It is obvious that the FCC was overzealous in its advocacy of BPL, and
that resulted in a rather blatant cover-up of the technical facts
surrounding its interference potential," ARRL general counsel Christopher
Imlay said in a statement. "Both BPL and Amateur Radio would be better off
had the FCC dealt with the interference potential in an honest and
forthright manner at the outset."
The United Power Line Council, which represents the BPL industry,
downplayed the significance of the ruling, saying it was largely procedural
and noting that the current rules remain in effect.
"We're a little surprised that the court took issue with those two issues
that it did send back, but I expect the FCC will work quickly on those and
come to a conclusion soon," said Brett Kilbourne, the group's director of
regulatory affairs.
According to the UPLC, there were approximately 35 BPL deployments around
the United States as of last year, serving more than 60 million customers
in 24 states.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 30, 2008
Foreign Law and the First Amendment
By FLOYD ABRAMS
Late in 1941, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion which, for the
first time in our history, starkly distinguished American protection of
speech from that of England.
Two union members had been convicted of assaulting nonunion truck
drivers. The day before they were to be sentenced, the Los Angeles Times
published an editorial urging the trial judge not to grant probation,
but to punish the transgressors severely: "This community," the
editorial asserted, "needs the example of their assignment to the jute
mill."
Contempt of court proceedings were brought against the newspaper.
California law at the time, like that of other states, was rooted in
English law, under which such commentary, aimed at a judge during a
trial, constituted contempt. Under English law, both then and today,
such speech is punishable by massive fines or even imprisonment.
In reversing the ruling of the California courts holding the newspaper
in contempt, the Supreme Court set this country on a different course.
"No purpose in ratifying the Bill of Rights was clearer," Justice Hugo
Black wrote, "than of securing for the people of the United States much
greater freedom of . . . expression . . . than the people of Great
Britain had ever enjoyed."
Today, there are sharp distinctions between U.S. and English law. One
difference is that under the First Amendment we provide far more
protection for speech that is claimed to be libelous.
There is no need for democratic nations to agree upon such matters. The
values of free speech and individual reputation are both significant,
and it is not surprising that different nations would place different
emphasis on each.
But a serious problem has surfaced. In recent years, English libel law
has come to have a disturbing impact on the right of Americans to speak
out.
England has become a choice venue for libel plaintiffs from around the
world, including those who seek to intimidate critics whose works would
be protected in the U.S. but might not in that country. That English
libel law has increasingly been used to stifle speech about the subject
of international terrorism raises the stakes still more.
The case against Rachel Ehrenfeld in England by Saudi banker Khalid Bin
Mahfouz is illustrative. Her 2003 book "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is
Funded and How to Stop It" dealt at length with one of the most
significant (and difficult and dangerous to research) topics – the
funding of terrorism. The conduct of Mr. Bin Mahfouz as a possible
funder of terrorism was one of the subjects discussed in the book, which
was published in New York.
Twenty-three copies of the book were sold in England. On that slim
basis, Mr. Bin Mahfouz sued there, claiming that his reputation had been
gravely harmed.
Ms. Ehrenfeld (on the advice of English counsel) refused to appear
before the English courts, and a judgment against her was entered in the
amount of $225,000. At any time, Mr. Bin Mahfouz could seek to enforce
that judgment. Whether or not he does, the harm to Ms. Enhrenfeld's
reputation remains real.
She sought a declaratory judgment in New York determining that the
English judgment was not enforceable here, and that her work was
protected under American law. But the New York Court of Appeals
determined that her suit could not be heard under state law. Any change
in that law, the court concluded, was up to the New York legislature.
To the surprise of those who denigrate the ability of the New York
legislature to act decisively, both the Assembly and its Senate have
unanimously passed a bill that would give Ms. Ehrenfeld and other
citizens who are sued for libel abroad the right to obtain a declaration
here that their works are protected under American law.
Gov. David Paterson has until the end of today to decide whether or not
he will sign the bill. Meanwhile, the Ehrenfeld saga has led Rep. Peter
King (R., N.Y.) to propose federal legislation which would provide
similar relief.
The need for such legislation has become very real – all the more
so since English libel law is increasingly being used to limit public
debate about terrorism. Mr. Bin Mahfouz has personally commenced or
threatened to commence at least 30 law suits in England. This tactic has
served him well in obtaining libel judgments that would be unthinkable
as well as unconstitutional here. The danger is that other American
writers and publishers will shy away from this crucial subject, out of
fear of being sued far from home.
This is a reasonable concern as a good deal of litigation related to
reporting on terrorism has been threatened or started in England by
individuals who have limited contact with that nation, but who find its
libel law congenial.
England should be free to choose its own libel law. But so should we. It
is not too much to ask that American law should protect our people when
they speak in precisely the "uninhibited, robust and wide-open" manner
that the First Amendment was drafted to protect.
Mr. Abrams is a partner in the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
and the author of "Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment"
(Viking, 2005).
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1209517
this Article: (1) http://online.wsj.com/opinion (2)
http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Buffett says recession may be worse than feared
Jonathan Stempel
Reuters
Monday, April 28, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/id
Warren Buffett, the world's richest person, said on Monday the U.S.
economy is in a recession that will be more severe than most people expect.
Buffett made his comments on CNBC television after his Berkshire
Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N: Quote, Profile, Research) (BRKb.N: Quote, Profile,
Research) agreed to invest $6.5 billion in the takeover of chewing gum
maker Wm Wrigley Jr Co (WWY.N: Quote, Profile, Research) by Mars Inc in
a $23 billion transaction.
"This is not a field of specialty for me, but my general feeling is that
the recession will be longer and deeper than most people think," Buffett
said. "This will not be short and shallow.
"I think consumers are feeling gas and food prices," he added, "and not
feeling they've got a lot of money for other things."
He was not immediately available for further comment. Known for his
frugality, the 77-year-old Buffett has lived in the same 10-room Omaha,
Nebraska, house for a half-century, despite being worth an estimated $62
billion.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Commerce Department is expected to say how fast
the economy grew in the first quarter. Economists on average have
projected that gross domestic product grew at an annualized 0.2 percent
rate in the quarter.
Two quarters of declining GDP is a traditional indicator of recession.
That last happened in 2001. Economists expect the U.S. Federal Reserve
on Wednesday to cut a key lending rate for a seventh time beginning last
September.
FCC May Cap Phone Subsidy Fund
By AMY SCHATZ
Wall Street Journal
April 29, 2008; Page A9
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1209428
WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators are on the verge of capping a
multibillion-dollar phone subsidy program, a move that would help consumers
who are frustrated over bigger phone bills.
Within days, the Federal Communications Commission could announce an
agreement to temporarily cap the federal Universal Service Fund, which
subsidizes phone services in rural areas and for low-income Americans.
The fund grew to almost $7.2 billion in 2007 from $5.2 billion in 2002.
Most of the growth came from an increase in the number of cellphone
companies that have been able to tap into it to provide service in rural areas.
The plan would cap the fund at its March 2008 level for the foreseeable
future. Three of five FCC commissioners have signed off on the plan, which
is enough for it to pass. One of the Democratic commissioners, Michael
Copps, voted against it. The other Democratic commissioner, Jonathan
Adelstein, hasn't voted yet.
The program is funded by a fee on consumer phone bills that usually runs a
dollar or two every month for each phone or data line. The FCC's move means
that consumers won't likely see the "Federal Universal Service Charge" on
their phone bills increase much, if at all.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin proposed capping the largest part of the fund six
months ago because of concerns about its growth. The plan stalled at the
agency, however, with some commissioners hoping to use the issue as
leverage to push broader overhaul.
"This thing is spiking out of control and we need to move on," said Robert
McDowell, a Republican FCC commissioner who voted to approve the plan
Monday. "We need to be fiscally responsible here."
While a boon for consumers, the move suggests that broader overhaul of the
subsidy program could be less likely this year. Several efforts to rein it
in have been floated at the agency, including Mr. Martin's proposal to use
a reverse-auction system to pick which phone companies receive
multimillion-dollar payments to provide service in rural areas.
But the Universal Service Fund has powerful supporters on Capitol Hill who
have resisted broad changes to the program, particularly lawmakers
representing rural areas that benefit from it the most.
What's the next big thing for the wireless industry?
By Mike Antonucci
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched: 04/27/2008 01:42:45 AM PDT
http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_907
If it's wireless, it's trendy.
There's grand talk throughout the tech world about a wave of new networks
and wireless innovation that will provide better Internet access, deliver
streaming video and foster an array of consumer-friendly features. Although
it's too early to be sure which companies or networks will be most
successful, the optimists dominate the skeptics.
Moreover, the federal government's recent auction of desirable radio
spectrum - significant portions of which were won by AT&T and Verizon
Wireless - is considered a major catalyst for improved mobile services.
As constantly proclaimed by industry experts at "The Mobile Future"
conference in Santa Clara last week, the wireless industry is supposed to
revolutionize our lives. So, just how will that happen?
. Consider the prospect of two-way video on handheld devices. For instance,
parents may be able to use cell phones to talk face to face with a son or
daughter at college.
. Imagine using your cell phone as a checkbook, said Pradeep Khosla, dean
of the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. You would send
a secure payment authorization from your phone to someone else's, and the
bank would confirm the transaction electronically.
. Think about a cell phone that would download your latest travel
information as you entered an airport, said Ted Selker, an associate
professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. It would
confirm your boarding pass, alert you to a flight delay and give you a map
that shows a Starbucks next to your gate.
. Or think about using the cameras in cell phones to search the Internet,
suggested Bob Iannucci, senior vice president and chief technology officer
at Nokia. People could snap a picture of the Eiffel Tower and then use the
photo as a search prompt to get information. When the photo is recognized,
you could receive tips from online guidebooks. Or think in terms of
shopping: You could take a photo of shoes in a store window and download
product details from the retailer's Web site.
Is there a realistic chance that these ideas, gathered by the Mercury News
at the conference and in other interviews, could be deployed over the next
several years?
"As far as identifying what the next wave of applications is going to be,
no one really knows," said Frank Dickson, chief research officer for
MultiMedia Intelligence, a business consulting firm in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Nevertheless, future wireless networks are expected to offer such robust
bandwidth - highlighted by the high-speed transmission of rich multimedia
content - that big innovations seem inevitable. Plus, the spectrum
auctioned by the government (available because TV stations will relinquish
it next year in a conversion from analog to all-digital signals) is
considered highly effective at reliably spanning long distances with
high-speed data.
"I don't think anybody knows for sure what's going to be on the network we
have three years from now, but we do know it's going to be
video-intensive," said AT&T spokesman John Britton.
Verizon declined to comment for this report.
The absence during the spectrum auction of major new rivals for AT&T and
Verizon, which say they're planning sharply upgraded networks, has raised
concerns about whether consumers will get the price and service benefits of
healthy competition. But even if competition is weak, the convenience and
efficiency of faster and more dependable online connections should prove
compelling.
Don't expect to be able to download a 3-gigabyte movie to your laptop while
heading by taxi to your hotel, said Professor Andrew Odlyzko, director of
the Digital Technology Center at the University of Minnesota. But it will
become a routine task during that time, he said, to download a 20-megabyte
PowerPoint attachment in your e-mail.
Ultimately, improved networks and technology "will blur the lines between
phones and computers," said Professor Jeffrey Andrews, director of the
Wireless Networking and Communications Group at the University of Texas-Austin.
"Location-based services" could thrive on mobile networks with better
bandwidth, assuming there's a feasible business model, said Erin Defosse,
chairman of the Austin Wireless Alliance.
A classic example of a location-based service would be to use your cell
phone to find the nearest branch of your bank. But Defosse envisions
possibilities such as using your phone for a 3-D preview of a nearby
museum. You'd be able to decide if the exhibits are worth the price of
admission, and even determine that the building had a restaurant and an ATM
- one of which might be sponsoring the preview.
None of the futuristic scenarios lack for challenges.
Some experts are doubtful that phones will have enough battery and
processing power to support the most advanced applications or screen
displays. Moreover, the needs and spending habits of consumers are moving
targets, so figuring out how to make money with new services can be more
formidable than the technological hurdles.
But Selker, an IBM researcher before joining the MIT Media Lab, knows his
phone-as-boarding-pass project is doable. He tested the technology using
reconfigured personal digital assistants in 1997 in New Zealand.
Khosla is working on the secure transfer of currency through personal
devices with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon's CyLab.
And Iannucci is able to look ahead to the potential of object recognition
with cell phone cameras based on work under way at Nokia.
"There's going to be better bandwidth as well as a proliferation of
devices, and streaming video for sports and entertainment is a logical next
step," said Dickson of MultiMedia Intelligence. "That much is safe to say."
(Those of you who were around from shortly after the big bang will recall that weekly general circulation
magazines such as
Life, Look, and the Saturday Evening Post went out of business in the late
50s-early 60s. They still had huge multi-million subscriber rolls when they
shut down. They had an avid readership. What they didn't have were
advertisers. In the late 1950s big advertisers for consumer products moved
their money to TV. Without advertisers the general circulation weeklies
were economically unsustainable and had to shut down.)
The End of Network News as We Know It?
Decreases in Ads and Viewers Mean Change Is in the Air for Big Three
By Brian Steinberg
Advertising Age
Published: April 28, 2008
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?art
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The big three TV network newscasts lost about 1.2
million viewers last year, and advertising on their three big morning news
shows fell to an estimated $1.03 billion. The average viewer is 60 years
old, and the demographic marketers most want to reach is more likely to be
facing a computer screen than a TV screen when the evening news comes on.
Given that rather sobering picture, maybe the discussion shouldn't be over
whether Katie Couric will last at CBS through the election. Maybe it should
be whether we need network-TV news at all.
None of the networks was even willing to entertain the suggestion that it
wasn't completely committed to its evening newscasts, so this isn't a story
about how one or the other is about to close down its news division. But
the economic incentive to reshape their news departments is pressing.
Collectively, ABC, NBC and CBS's network newscasts lost about 1.2 million
viewers in 2007, according to an analysis of Nielsen data by the Project
for Excellence in Journalism, a 5% drop from the year before. Even the
audience for the morning news shows -- the most successful of the news
departments' endeavors -- fell for the third year in a row, the PEJ study
said, down 2% from the year before, its lowest point since 1999.
Not surprisingly, ad revenue has followed viewers elsewhere. Spending on
the three major morning news shows -- ABC's "Good Morning America," NBC's
"Today" and CBS's "Early Show" -- fell to about $1.03 billion in 2007 from
about $1.05 billion in 2005, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus. And ad
spending on the three major-network evening newscasts tumbled to about
$502.8 million from about $538.3 million in 2005.
Target is not at home
The audiences advertisers most want to reach -- upper-income consumers
between the ages of 18 and 49 -- are still at work, not sitting in front of
the tube, when the news comes on. The average age of the evening-news
watcher is 60, according to media agency Magna Global.
"The people that you're after, they are not home watching the 5 o'clock
news or the 5:30 news or the 6 o'clock news," said Debbie Basham, senior
VP-director of negotiation and activation for Interpublic Group of Cos.'
Mullen agency, who oversees local ad buying for the firm. "There are a lot
of media plans that may not have news on there, because the people you are
seeking are not out there."
Networks have already responded to the squeeze. Based on estimates, PEJ
believes total network-news staffing declined 10% between 2002 and 2006,
with the number of on-air journalists falling 7% and the number of
producers off 12%. According to reports, between 100 and 160 employees at
various CBS Corp.-owned TV stations recently were laid off as part of an
initiative to meet budget requirements; several of those were high-profile
on-air news personnel.
As a result, perhaps, subject focus has begun to shift. During the past
several years, coverage of international stories has been scaled back, said
Andrew Tyndall, whose Tyndall Report analyzes the content of network
newscasts. Despite an initial rush to cover the war in Iraq, he said, that
focus has begun to trail off. "Iraq has fallen off the radar" as the U.S.
presidential campaign becomes a bigger story, he said. "That change, I
don't think, is anything that would have happened 20 years ago."
Public-interest obligations
Optimism seems in short supply among financial analysts. Sharing news
operations in far-flung parts of the world seems increasingly likely, said
David Joyce, a media analyst with Miller Tabak & Co. News organizations
that can amortize costs by creating stories for a number of outlets are
probably best off, said Michael Nathanson, a media analyst with Sanford C.
Bernstein. "You would think that NBC has a clear advantage because of their
link with MSNBC, and CBS and ABC probably will have a harder time long term
finding cost synergies," he said.
Digital technology could give these programs new access to younger crowds
-- though it's not clear whether increased efforts in that area would
ultimately bolster the economics of news-gathering by network or
local-affiliate news departments. The belief is TV networks and stations
will deliver news in a broader fashion, in a way that is not as heavily
dependent on sitting in front of a screen at a certain time of day.
Even as the web beckons, broadcasters still have an obligation to act in
the public interest as part of their licenses to use federally owned
broadcast signals. Given the new-media landscape, is it possible the three
networks eventually will be able to make the case to the Federal
Communications Commission that their news divisions would be more effective
on other platforms? Digital opportunities abound, including transmitting
content across multiple TV channels and streaming reports online.
"One of the big questions will be: What are broadcasters' public-interest
obligations in the digital age?" said Scott Cleland of Precursor Group, a
media and technology consultancy.
That issue could be one to argue in the not-so-distant future. "I can say
with no hesitation that we will see changes within the network-news
paradigm over the next few years," said Debora Halperin Wenger, associate
professor of convergence and new media at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Those stories aren't just for TV anymore
Even as support for their flagship newscasts gradually erodes, networks and
local broadcasters are testing ideas designed to harness digital media's
potential. Why wait for 6:30 p.m. to roll around when people are getting
their news online all day -- and network-branded newscasts can insert
themselves into the equation?
NBC News sees a future in distributing content around the clock, whether it
be through online video, a blog written by anchor Brian Williams or its
flagship newscast. The news-gathering operation has aligned itself so its
work can be used by the evening broadcast, MSNBC or digital properties,
said Steve Capus, president-NBC News. The operating idea these days, he
said, is "bring it in once and use it as many times as humanly possible,
and that is how our newsrooms are set up and ... how the business is set up."
At ABC, the news division can point to its "ABC News Now," which delivers
news stories of various lengths to TV, the web and mobile devices. In
September, the network deployed seven "digital reporters" in various places
around the world, said Paul Slavin, senior VP-ABC News, who oversees its
digital operations. These reporters may see their stories on the evening
newscast but are focused on delivering content for multiple venues.
Digital distribution also means hunkering down more strongly on certain
topics, Mr. Slavin said. "We can't be all things to everyone, but we can
have the best investigative unit in the business. ... We can bring a level
of reportage and quality to entertainment reporting, law and justice,
politics."
CBS also sees a chance to try new things, said Sean McManus, president-CBS
News and Sports. Streaming live events online has potential, as does
soliciting opinion and user-generated content from viewers. Like ABC's Mr.
Slavin, however, Mr. McManus sees a healthy future for the traditional
evening news and said a big, recognizable network anchor continues to be an
important part of the recipe.
The online business, however, is viewed as its own product when it comes to
advertising, one that draws a higher cost per thousand given the difference
in reach, though ads on the web versions of the news are much less expensive.
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