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IP DemocracyIP Democracy///**/ ////]]>  homeabout uscontact us November 18, 2008Eric Schmidt: Open Broadband to Competition(Washington, DC) Riding high on his visible role as an adviser to the Obama campaign, Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to a packed auditorium in the Ronald Reagan Center here today at an event sponsored by the New America Foundation. During his talk, Schmidt addressed two core topics -- energy policy and technology development -- but his basic theme was that the government needs to inject innovation into both crucial areas."You never know where innovation will come from," he said, as he stressed the need to open up decision-making to the wisdom of the crowd. "A community makes a better decision than an individual," Schmidt said, adding that "open systems have this very clear promise of constant innovation and choice."Schmidt repeatedly stressed that the government needs to take a bigger role in fostering innovation, particularly through increased spending on R & D. Decrying the decline in federal budget R & D expenditures during the Bush administration ("as if we don't care"), Schmidt said that "most of the interesting innovation...has taken place in universities" operating under federal grants. Obama's proposal to double R & D is therefore "long overdue," he said.Extending visas for visiting scientists is another policy goal that should boost America's innovation, Schmidt said. "I've not had someone explain to me in a rational way why we don't want the best and brightest coming to this country. It's bizarre, it's disgusting."Energy policy was the unexpected dominant theme of Schmidt's talk. "We're at one of those points where we have to get this right," he said. He ran through a variety of proposals, from mounting new wind and solar energy initiatives to giving utilities matching funds for clean energy projects they've already mounted to holding constant the per capita consumption of energy for twenty years. Not only do these programs promise to solve our energy problems, but they're also jobs programs that could ameliorate our unemployment issues.In terms of Internet and communications technology, Schmidt highlighted lack of competition in broadband service as a key problem the government should solve. "We have no competition in these markets. We have one or two [providers in a given area] when we should have four or five."He applauded the FCC's recent decision to open up the unused TV broadcast spectrum known as white spaces for new communications development, an outcome largely driven by Google itself, but suggested that the government could do even more. We can make "even more effective use of the spectrum" in spurring broadband competition. November 5, 2008Time Warner's Tale of Two BusinessesMedia giant Time Warner issued its Q3 08 earnings report this morning (PDF) showing ongoing shrinkage and weakness in its AOL albatross unit but solid performance in its separately traded cable unit, which is soon to be split off almost entirely from the parent company. Time Warner's intense efforts to turn around the ailing online unit over the past five years have produced almost no improvement in AOL. During the quarter, AOL lost 740K dial-up subscribers (leaving it with a still-remarkable 7.5 million paying customers) and, worse, experienced an ad revenue drop of 6% year-over-year to $507 million, despite lots of optimistic talk that early this year that AOL was being repositioned to take advantage of what was then an online ad boom. Pretty much everything else was down at AOL too -- total revenue (down 17% year-over-year), total page views (down 3%), cash flow (down 7%) and operating income (down 9%). On the other hand, Time Warner Cable posted a relatively strong performance during the quarter. Although the cable company lost 30,000 basic video customers during the quarter, bringing basic penetration solidly below the 50% mark, it maintained relatively healthy growth in high-speed subscribers and slowing but respectable growth in its digital voice service. As a consequence of growth in high-speed, digital voice and digital video (net gains of 124,000 during the quarter, roughly on par with Q3 07 levels), Time Warner Cable's revenue rose 8.5% year-over-year to $4.34 billion while cash flow advanced by 8.8% to $1.55 billion. Free cash flow soared 143% year-over-year to $454 million. October 29, 2008Comcast's Weak Q3 08 Earnings ReportTop cable operator Comcast issued its Q3 08 earnings report this morning showing relatively healthy financial performance in the face of accelerating core video customer loss and slowing growth in digital telephony, high-speed data and digital video businesses. Total revenue grew 7% year-over-year, but only .4% sequentially, reaching $8.13 billion. Cash flow advanced 6.6% year-over-year, but dropped 3.3% sequentially, to reach $3.25 billion. Comcast continued to pump up its free cash flow (cash flow less capex), which rose 77% year-over-year, but dropped 20% sequentially, to $928 million.Despite the excess cash, Comcast may not complete its previously announced stock buyback program by the end of the year, as anticipated, CFO Michael Angelakis said during the company's earnings call. With the capital markets in crisis, Comcast will play it safe in terms of taking on more debt. Free cash flow growth was aided in part by lower capex spending on consumer premises equipment, expenditures which dropped due to fewer installations of service for new subscribers and fewer installations of new services for existing customers. During the quarter Comcast lost 147,000 net basic customers, a loss that tops any other quarterly basic subscriber slippage since at least Q1 06. By quarter's end, Comcast counted 24.4 million basic subscribers, which represented a penetration rate of 48.5%, the lowest yet for the operator.During the earnings call, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts acknowledged the bad economy as a possible challenge to further growth but said that Comcast is well-positioned to ride it out. These are "obviously unique and challenging economic times in the U.S.," he said. The picture won't brighten anytime soon, he suggested. "A lot of our planning is that the fourth quarter is a worse period."COO Steve Burke, however, said that the bad economy can be both good and bad for Comcast's subscriber growth. Even as fewer customers are signing up for service, primarily due to slow housing starts, churn is down because the population is less mobile.Aside from losses associated with Hurricane Gustav, the real culprit behind the subscriber loss is competition from the phone companies, particularly AT&T, which has stepped up deployment of its U-Verse multichannel video service. "Clearly we’ve seen a shift of late where AT&T has become a more aggressive competitor than they were," Burke said. October 27, 2008Verizon's FiOS Service Bounces BackWhen Verizon issued its Q2 08 earnings report, the statistics for the telco's fiber-to-the-home FiOS initiative were pretty discouraging. A slow-down seemed to have hit both FiOS broadband and TV service -- quarterly subscriber gains in both categories looked pretty anemic -- sparking worries on Wall Street that the costly fiber build-out would forever be a money drain.But those fears eased up a little today. Verizon issued its Q3 08 earnings report this morning showing a bounce-back in both FiOS broadband and video customer gains and company execs say that FiOS is already cash-flow positive. During Q3 08, Verizon added 225,000 net new FiOS high-speed subscribers, down only slightly from the comparable 233,000 net gains during the year-ago quarter and up by 20% over the gains posted during Q2 08. But even as FiOS broadband gains steam, Verizon's DSL service is slipping. During the quarter, Verizon lost 96,000 DSL customers, a downturn that follows the company's loss of 133,000 DSL customers during Q2 08. CEO Ivan Seidenberg acknowledged that DSL, along with traditional switched access lines, are shrinking businesses for Verizon. "We’re not surprised about the access line loss. We’ve been saying for years that DSL will become less potent" he said, adding that Verizon does have momentum in mobile and FiOS. Verizon made even greater strides with its FiOS TV service, which posted 233,000 net adds, a run-rate up by 15% year-over-year and almost 33% sequentially, thanks to ramped-up roll-out of the multichannel video option. During the quarter, Verizon made the service available to 1.2 million new homes, thanks to finally getting the green light to sell its cable-like wares in New York City earlier this year.According to COO Denny Strigl, FiOS TV has already achieved 10% penetration in Queens. "Despite the rhetoric of cable companies and their advocates, FiOS is a formidable competitor," he said during the company's earnings call. October 22, 2008Comcast Is Launching Its Wideband Modem ServiceAs Broadband Reports first revealed, Comcast is officially launching its next-generation, DOCSIS 3.0 wideband modem service in parts of New England, as well as areas of Philadelphia and New Jersey in addition to parts of Minneapolis/St. Paul, where the faster broadband option has been in testing mode since earlier this year. The operator is offering two new tiers of service in these markets: Extreme 50, which promises up to 50 Mbps of downstream speed and up to 10 Mbps of upstream speed, priced at $139.95/month for existing video customers and Ultra, which promises up to 22 Mbps of downstream speed and up to 5 Mbps of upstream speed at $62.95/month for existing video customers. Small business customers in the DOCSIS 3.0 markets can buy a Deluxe that offers 50 Mbps / 10 Mbps along with a suite of office services for $189.95/month.To illustrate the value of the Extreme 50 tier, Comcast says that a customer can download a 6 GB high-def movie in sixteen minutes, a 2 GB standard-def movie in five minutes and a standard-def TV show in only seconds. Comcast says it plans to continue to roll out wideband across its footprint with a goal of reaching more than 10 major markets and passing nearly 10 million homes and businesses in the next several months.Comcast is also implementing speed boosts for all existing broadband subscribers. "Performance" tier customers will see their speeds double to 12 Mbps/downstream and 2 Mbps/upstream, while "Performance Plus" customers will see download speeds double to 16 Mbps. (Some Broadband Reports' users in New England say they are already enjoying these speed boosts.)With this launch of the long-awaited wideband services, Comcast is stepping up to the competitive threat that Verizon, with its fast FiOS service, has posed over the past two years. AT&T: Mobile, U-Verse Posted Strong Gains in Q3 08Telecom giant AT&T issued its Q3 08 earnings report this morning show a surge in wireless subscribers thanks to its exclusive deal with Apple to sell the iconic iPhone. But those wireless gains ate into AT&T's net income as the carrier sunk even more capital into building up inventories and infrastructure for the broadband mobile device.AT&T ended the quarter with 74.87 million wireless customers, up 14% year-over-year and 3% sequentially, with wireless revenues jumping to $12.6 billion, up 15% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. Wireless data revenues, driven by not only the iPhone but other advanced handsets, soared 50% year-over-year to $2.73 billion.During the company's earnings call, Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T's newly created Mobility and Consumer Markets division, said that the 3G iPhone promises to be even a bigger hit for AT&T. During the 83 days that the 3G model has been for sale, AT&T has sold 2.4 million units. It took nine months for the original iPhone to reach this level of sales.Moreover, AT&T retail store traffic is up thanks to the new device. So far in October, same store traffic is up 12% while overall store traffic is up 25%, de la Vega said.Even as AT&T's overall revenues rose to $31.34 billion, up 4% year-over-year and 2% sequentially, net income dropped 14% year-over-year (but rose 5% sequentially) to $3.23 billion due to the costs of launching the 3G product. During the earnings call, CEO Rick Lindner appealed for patience in the face of this dilution."Some may be concerned with the dilution. This investment funded the acquisition of nearly one million high-end customers new to AT&T," he said. "We’re confident that this investment will provide value in the future."AT&T continued to lose traction in its wireline business, with renewed, although tepid, growth in broadband and promising gains in its U-Verse video business offsetting continued loss in landline voice subscribers and softness in the enterprise business. During the quarter AT&T added 148,000 net new broadband customers, up from the paltry 46,000 net new broadband subscribers added during the previous quarter. But U-Verse, AT&T's terrestrial-based multichannel video delivery service, experience a true surge in growth as the telco seemingly pulled back on marketing its DBS partnerships. During the quarter, AT&T added 230,000 net new U-Verse customers, a run-rate that doubles any previous quarter's gains. By the end of the quarter, AT&T served 781,000 U-Verse customers. During the earnings call, Lindner said that AT&T is on track to end the year with more than one million video customers. Despite the strong growth in U-Verse, AT&T's video customer count rose by only 179,000 during the quarter as the number of the telco's DBS-related video customers dropped by 53,000. October 21, 2008Innovation to Dominate Communications Policy AgendaIf there was any question that technological innovation will come to dominate the communications politics and policy agenda over the coming four years, yesterday's news that Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be stumping for Obama put all doubts to rest. Schmidt is even rumored to be angling for the job of U.S. Chief Technology Officer, the new cabinet level post that Obama has promised to create.Other rumored candidates for the job include high-tech visionairies and leaders such as Vint Cerf, Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos and Princeton's Ed Felten. Whoever gets the job, Computerworld has this excellent run-down of recommendations to the next president from tech luminaries (one of whom is Cerf), who advise the President to step-up science and tech education, spend more on R&D, reorient DARPA away from short-term war-related goals and toward long-term research and generally make science and innovation a new priority. October 15, 2008Skype Continues its Slow and Steady UptickOnline auction giant eBay issued its Q3 08 earnings results (PDF) today showing a 12% year-over-year rise in revenue to $2.12 billion and a net profit of $492 million, compared to a loss of $936 million during Q3 07, when eBay took a $1.4 billion write-down on its Skype acquisition. Despite the good news, eBay lowered its full-year revenue forecast as the global economic slow-down takes it toll. Skype's status as the skunk in eBay's barn is not wholly deserved. During the quarter, the VoIP pioneer added 32.8 million net new registered users, up from the 26 million net adds posted during Q3 07. By quarter's end, Skype had a global user base of 371 million, compared to 246 million at the end of Q3 07.The problem is that eBay hasn't been able to figure out a way to monetize this massive telephone user base. Revenues stem almost solely from Skype Out minutes (calls made to landlines or mobile phones as opposed to calls made PC-to-PC), which jumped to 2.2 billion during the quarter, up from 1.8 billion during the preceding quarter. October 14, 2008McCain Commercials Still Available on the WebAn interesting intellectual property donnybrook cropped up today after the McCain-Palin campaign released a letter (PDF) it sent to YouTube complaining that its campaign commercials have been pulled from the site after the Google-owned video giant received take-down notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Campaign General Counsel Trevor Potter said in the letter that short clips from news broadcasts contained in the allegedly infringing videos meet the statutory definition of fair use and asked YouTube to conduct an internal legal analysis whenever a copyright holder requests the take-down of a political commercial lest political speech, which should be the most protected speech of all, gets chilled.Larry Lessig, one of the original copyleft advocates, says "Bravo to the campaign." Public Knowledge took the opportunity to point out the irony of McCain-Palin invoking the DMCA on the same day that President Bush signed the Pro-IP Act, which gives copyright holders (read Hollywood and the record companies) even more power to control the use of their content on the Internet. Maybe now "Congress will consider taking a look at the beneficial effects fair use has on society, including on political speech," Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said in a statement.No word yet from YouTube, although it's safe to assume that the company doesn't want the responsibility (or potential liability) of deciding what constitutes fair use. And no word from the Obama-Biden campaign either -- Robert Bauer, General Counsel of Obama for America, was copied on the letter in the hopes that the Democratic ticket would join in the effort.The letter doesn't specify which commericals the campaign is referencing although Saul Hansell cites the abhorrent "Lipstick on a Pig" commercial, which includes a few-second clip from the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. Last month, CBS asked YouTube to take down this commercial saying that it doesn't want to appear to be endorsing any candidate. As excreble as that commercial is, the McCain campaign is right - the short clip of Katie Couric would undoubtedly meet any judge's definition of fair use.Watch for yourself. Another irony surrounding this complaint is that even though the commercial is not seemingly available on YouTube anymore, it's still available all over the net. I found it at DailyMotion after a simple Google search. October 6, 2008Telecom Stocks Sink Along with Everything ElseThere was a time when telecom providers were relatively insulated from the markets' fluctuations. AT&T, the old Ma Bell that is, was known as the proverbial "widows and orphans" stock because it was so dependably steady and returned predictable dividends.Um, not so much anymore. As the chart below shows, the new competitive telecom environment has fostered companies that can rise and fall with investor sentiment. Every single major publicly traded U.S. fixed or mobile carrier has seen its stock price fall by over 33% over the past year, with three (Sprint, Qwest and Fairpoint) plummeting by over two-thirds. September 30, 2008Usage Caps & Metered Prices: Idealism v. RealityMy old friend Om Malik sent me a note this morning highlighting a white paper on metered bandwidth pricing plans written by one of his old friends, researcher and analyst Muayyad Al-Chalabi. Om posted the paper on his site (you can sign up to have a PDF version of the email sent to you but you can also print the paper from Scribd onto a PDF) with the warning that metered usage and bandwidth caps pose a "clear and present danger to the way we use the Internet in this country."The paper itself is a scholarly analysis (complete with formulae and schematics) of how the new bandwidth caps and metered usage schemes being implemented by broadband carriers, most particularly Comcast and Time Warner Cable, are bad for Internet innovation and efficiency because the caps and pricing plans target one group of users: power users, or what broadband providers call "bandwidth hogs." Power users are useful to the functioning of the Internet because they serve as content and application hubs for all other Internet users, the paper argues.Comcast, Time Warner and other broadband providers are measuring usage simply on the basis of bytes used per month, a pricing strategy that will either inhibit innovation or force power users to seek out carriers that don't have usage-based policies. Instead of fostering these kinds of distortions, broadband providers should instead capture for themselves the "hub" function that power users serve today by, for example, caching "hot" content and applications in their own data centers, headends or central offices. September 26, 2008U.S. Copes with Broadband Statistics Void(Washington, DC) Although most experts agree that broadband connectivity is essential for both economic development and national competitiveness, the U.S. lacks any reasonable set of statistics to measure what kind of broadband is available and where. Experts from the public and private sectors, academia and public interest groups assembled here today at BroadbandCensus.com's conference to discuss solutions to this broadband data void problem.The FCC's ongoing broadband data collection effort is widely considered to be inadequate, plagued by carrier confidentiality protections which limit the granularity and utility of the data, among other problems. States are doing what they can to fill the gap but, as California State PUC Commissioner (and former FCC Commissioner) Rachelle Chong noted, data collection is a "huge challenge for state regulators [because] we don't regulate broadband." In order to get broadband providers to play ball, "we schmooze them," she said.The fundamental problem, of course, is that broadband providers "don't want to give it up," according to Art Brodsky, Communications Director, Public Knowledge. It's not enough that broadband providers report where broadband is available and at which price, Debbie Goldman from the Communications Workers of America said. Broadband speed data is equally critical to understanding national competitiveness. On this measure, the U.S. seems to lag the rest of the world. "I almost feel like I'm coming from a third world country in terms of communications speeds," she said. 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