Post Tech

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a bill today to expand a federal Internet program to bring e-book readers and residential broadband services to students.

Markey was the author of the original e-rate program, a $2.25 billion annual fund used to finance broadband projects for schools. Since the bill passed in 1996 as part of the Telecom Act, schools wired for Web access rose to 95 percent from 12 percent.

"Now with the expansion of the scope of technology, students need more than just Web access at school, and our e-rate 2.0 bill is intended to reflect those expanded needs," Markey said in a statement. He is a former chairman of the House communications, technology and Internet subcommittee.

Along with co-authors Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), Markey said the bill will help narrow the digital divide by increasing the number of technologies available to low-income students.

Specifically, the bill would direct the Federal Communications Commission on three pilot programs:

1. Vouchers to allow low-income students to get broadband Internet service at their homes.

2. Funding for broadband equipment and services for community colleges and Head Start schools through a competitive grant program.

3. Discounts on services and technologies like e-books for schools serving low-income students.

The White House launched today what it calls its Open Government Dashboard to keep track of how federal agencies are progressing in their mandates to make information better accessible to the public.

Part progress report, part information guide, the online dashboard was announced in a blog by national chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra and chief information officer Vivek Kundra. The officials launched the dashboard in their attempt to make government information transparent and accessible, an endeavor that President Obama said would lead to efficiencies and greater engagement between the public and agencies.

In the dashboard, agencies including the Justice, Commerce and Energy departments are given the grades on goals each outlined to make the agency more open. The grades are "meets expectations," "progress toward expectations" and "fails to meet expectations."

In April, the White House will supplement the dashboard with more features on agencies' goals and assessments on their progress.

Did Verizon Wireless overreact in blocking 4Chan.org? Depends on whom you ask.

Verizon says it didn't block the popular online bulletin board, but "eliminated connectivity" to portions of 4Chan that appeared to be flooding the network with traffic from a denial of service attack. The nation's largest wireless service provider said it would restore service to the site by the end of Monday.

"The most important thing we offer? Our network," Verizon spokesman James Gerace wrote in a blog. "When our network is attacked, or at risk of attack in a way that could harm our customers' ability to make and receive calls, or use wireless multimedia and data services, we jump to action."

4Chan, in an email to Post Tech late Monday, disagreed.

"4Chan did *not* conduct any kind of 'malicious attack' against Verizon's network and was mostly certainly 'blocked'," wrote founder Christopher Poole. He said the company wasn't warned ahead of time that Verizon would block its sites and compared Verizon's actions to an episode with AT&T last year.

Last July, 4Chan said it was blocked by AT&T because of a denial of service attack from portions of the site. The action sparked an uproar from users and critics who called the action a violation of free speech and net neutrality.

So what happened over the weekend? According to 4Chan, a denial-of-service attack was launched against the company's servers, spoofing the originating IP addresses so that it appeared to be coming from the Web site. But Poole said the attack was limited.

"The small number of SYN-ACKs coming from one of our servers would *ABSOLUTELY NOT* have degraded network performance," Poole wrote. And if Verizon would have informed 4Chan of its plans to eliminate access to the sites, it would have averted the public relations fallout from the action.

"Most likely a trigger-happy tech saw the traffic and instead of investigating, decided to blackhole the /32," Poole wrote.

The public Interest group Free Press said that despite the origins of the problem, carriers such as Verizon need to inform online users and Web sites of such actions. And, it said, the episode underscored the need for clearer guidelines for how Internet service providers control traffic over their networks.

"Currently, actions like Verizon's that likely serve legitimate ends ... follow no clear guidelines or standards," said Chris Riley, policy counsel at Free Press. "Clear rules of the road would not only protect consumers, but would also allow Verizon to act in response to security threats, without fear of reprisal."

Google said Monday it is lowering a fee it charges Nexus One customers who cancel service for their phones early following a review by the Federal Communications Commission into the charge.

The company said it has reduced its "equipment recovery fee" to $150 from $350 for customers who cancel service subscriptions with T-Mobile after 14 days and within 120 days of purchasing the phone. Customers who cancel subscriptions within 14 days aren't charged penalties by Google.

The recovery fee provoked a backlash among consumers and public interest groups. Coupled with T-Mobile's $200 own early termination fee on service for the phone, the charge from Google could make returns of the Nexus One handset cost customers as much as $550.

"We’ve been working with T-Mobile to improve our customers’ overall Nexus One experience through a reduction in the equipment recovery fee (ERF) associated with purchasing the Nexus One with a T-Mobile service plan," Google said in a statement. "Google’s overall financial philosophy with regard to operator service plans remains unchanged: We make no profit from commissions from operators or from equipment recovery fees, and our recovery fees are based on operator charges to Google for early termination of service."

T-Mobile hasn't lowered it early termination fee for long-term subscribers with the Nexus One, and that penalty has also been the subject of complaints by consumer groups. Many carriers typically cite the cost of subsidizing a handset as the reason for charging stiff early cancellation penalties. But the consumer groups say that because Google's equipment recovery fee makes up for the subsidies on the phone, the carrier's charge appears instead designed to lock consumers into long-term contracts.

Last month, the FCC sent letters to Google and the other major wireless carriers -- AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel to explain why they charge ETFs and in some cases have raised the fees. Verizon Wireless raised its ETFs for smartphones to $350 from $150 late last year.

The Obama administration announced $21 million in stimulus grants to bring hundreds of miles of fiber-optic Internet lines to rural southern Virginia.

The area is the latest to receive stimulus grants aimed at wiring the nation for high-speed Internet access. And like previous grants, the projects are mainly focused on so-called "middle mile" networks that won't bring access to the doorsteps of homes, but serves to connect far-flung areas that are cut off from the main networks in more urban areas.

With Monday's announcement, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has awarded $228 million in grants and 51 state broadband mapping grants worth $97 million. The NTIA is charged with distributing $4.7 billion of a total $7.2 billion in funds for broadband stimulus grants. The Department of Agriculture has announced $364 million in grants.

The southern Virginia grants will help provide new connections for schools and universities -- the community centers of many rural areas.

The Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative will receive $16 million in grants to add 465 miles of new fiber to an existing 800-fiber network. The fiber network will be used to connect 121 K-12 schools to take advantange of distance learning with access speeds of at least 10 mbps.

The Virginia Tech Foundation will receive $5.5 million for a 110-mile open access fiber network between Blacksburg and Bedford City. The resulting network would cross six counties in Virginia's Appalachian region and provide high-speed connections to Virginia Tech's main campus in Blacksburg and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute in Roanoke.

Update: Verizon Wireless spokesman, Jeffrey Nelson, said two of 4Chan's related sites (not its main one) were sources of malicious attacks, which threatened the wireless network. He said the company didn't block the site but was addressing the security concerns. He said both sites should be accessible to users by the end of the day.

Here's his earlier tweet: "@JNels Some 4Chan web sites potentially disruptive of Verizon network now have green-light. We are monitoring network for harm"

Verizon pokesman James Gerace explained why the site was cut off the network in a blog post.

4Chan hasn't immediately responded to questions about Verizon's explanation about malicious attacks through its related sites.

The episode follows complaints by 4Chan last year that its sites were also blocked by AT&T.

And here's our original post:

Headline: 4Chan says being blocked by Verizon Wireless
4Chan, an online bulletin board popular among Japanese anime and gaming fans, said its site is being blocked by Verizon Wireless on mobile devices.

A Verizon Wireless spokesman said the firm was looking in to it and would get back to PostTech. We will update with any comments.

4Chan disclosed the alleged blocking on its Web site and on Twitter, where it said Sunday that the nation's largest wireless services provider confirmed it had blocked the site. Quickly, the company's tweet was "re-tweeted" and spread through Twitterverse over the weekend. 4Chan, started by a 15-year-old in New York who goes by the username "moot," is a popular hub to exchange images on Japanese anime and pop culture. According to its Web site, it gets about 7 million unique visitors each month.

If true, the move would violate guidelines by the Federal Communications Commission that prohibit Internet service providers such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast from shutting down Web sites for their subscribers. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is crafting controversial regulations that would make those principles stronger and allow the agency to punish companies that don't treat all content equally on the Web.

Carriers argue that there aren't many examples of wrongdoing to warrant rules. Companies such as Skype and Sling Media, which had been blocked from AT&T's 3G wireless network for iPhone users, say such examples show the need for stronger net neutrality rules.

According to 4Chan's blog, signs that Verizon was blocking the site began late last week:

Over the past 72 hours, we've been receiving reports from Verizon Wireless customers having difficulty accessing the image boards.

After investigating, we found that Verizon is dropping traffic to/from boards.4chan.org, only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional.

On Sunday, the company confirmed it was being blocked in a tweet to its 22,860 followers:

@cChan Received confirmation from Verizon's Network Repair Bureau (NRB) that we are "explicitly blocked."

Supercomm 2010, the communications trade show for broadband service providers and their partners, has been canceled. The event had been planned for Oct. 26-28 in Chicago.

Trade groups USTelecom and the Telecommunications Industry Association said event coordinator Expo Comm didn't have the money to hold the show this fall. The show has been in the shadow of other trade shows, such as the Consumer Electronics Show and CTIA's spring convention for wireless operators. The convergence of the Web with devices, television and wireless technology have made those shows bigger attractions. But even those conventions have been hit by the economic crisis, which has caused some companies to scale back on exhibits and send fewer people.

Netflix’s main business -- DVDs delivered by mail -- couldn’t be more 1990s. But increasingly, the company’s streaming online video service has emerged as a threat to cable and satellite television providers.

The company is now warning the Federal Communications Commission that unless the agency strengthens a key portion of its proposed net neutrality rules, companies like theirs won’t ever make it to the mainstream. And Netflix worries the merger by Comcast and NBC would make it even easier for the cable giant to give its own content priority over that of competitors.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in House and Senate hearings last week that the company has no incentive to withhold NBC content from competitors. But he didn’t speak specifically about how that content would be offered and if, as one competing ISP said, the company would make NBC shows and movies available at such steep prices and conditions that it would be difficult for competitors to lease rights to the content.

In recent comments to the agency, the Los Gatos video services company said the “managed services” portion of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s open-Internet rules could be a loophole for the biggest Internet service providers to gain unfair advantage for their own applications over those of competitors.

“If left unchecked, the “managed services” category could engulf
the Commission’s open Internet policies altogether. As such, the Commission
must carefully circumscribe the network operators’ ability to exempt certain
services from the openness rules by classifying them as managed services,” Netflix wrote in its filing.

Think of a managed service as a dedicated channel on the Internet for things like telemedicine or streaming video like Netflix. A carrier allots a certain amount of bandwidth and assurance of quality to that channel. Those companies have pushed for exemptions in the FCC's net neutrality rules, bringing up examples of video for remote medical care that need prioritization. But also imagine how a company would put their own video services in that channel – essentially extending the cable television model to the Internet.

Netflix is among a growing number of Internet video companies pairing up with TV makers like LG and set top boxes like that of Roku, which sit at the intersection of the Web’s convergence with the television. Those companies have pushed a slow but remarkable move by consumers to cut their cable and satellite subscriptions. Parks Group Associates, a research firm, said last week that 8 percent of broadband users (5.5 million homes) would cut the chord on paid TV services, down slightly from 11 percent the year earlier. The company said about 0.5 percent of all homes have cut the chord.

Consumer advocates say viewers are largely reluctant because they still can’t get full libraries of their favorite shows online. They media companies like NBC, Viacom and News Corp. aren’t as inclined to strike distribution deals with newcomers like Vuze and YouTube because of their relationships with carriers. Those upstarts don’t have the built-in subscriber base that those cable and satellite companies have.

They also point to a recent cable and satellite television strategy called TV Everywhere that brings cable and satellite content online, but only to subscribers of both paid TV and broadband services.

“By bundling the traditional cable TV offering with Internet delivery of content, vertically integrated MVPDs and network operators are potentially extending and expanding their dominant market position at the expense of competitive online offerings,” Netflix wrote. “Moreover, the recent announcement of the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC Universal serves to exacerbate the growing concern that MVPDs will use their control over programming networks to stifle competition, including the growing competition from online video providers like Netflix.”

In a blog post this morning recapping the Hill hearings on Comcast and NBC's proposed merger, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen stressed that bi-partisan members asked for a fast review. And while there were many tough questions, he said "the tone was almost always respectful" (read: Franken?) and overall it "went well" for the companies.

"Brian and Jeff were able to articulate why this transaction is pro-consumer and strongly in the public interest and we feel that we took an important step forward in the review process of this transaction in Washington," Cohen said in the post.

Paul Gallant, a telecom policy analyst at Concept Capital, noted that no lawmakers said outright the deal should be rejected. But several concerns over how the merger would affect the future of video distribution over the Internet could give a roadmap for regulators.

"These concerns may give momentum to the FCC and/or DOJ to pursue regulatory conditions aimed at ensuring that broadcast programming continues to be available on the Internet for free," Gallant said. Other conditions could be a requirement that Comcast does not influence content owners (Viacom, News Corp., Time Warner, Disney) to withhold programming from Internet vendors like Apple, Netflix and Google, Gallant said.

Cohen went on to outline points the company is making as it prepares for regulatory reviews by the Justice Department and FCC. He said the merger won't result in big job losses and that the merged company would face lots of competition as the video market expands to online applications and as telephone and satellite companies become bigger providers of paid television services.

Some lawmakers criticized the company for arguing that program access rules would protect competitors, while it sues in courts to overturn that rule.

"The short answer is that there is no inconsistency in our position," Cohen wrote. "We don’t intend to behave any differently than we have under the rules and we’re willing to accept a condition that we abide by those rules, even if the court declares them invalid."

It's the Franken-Zucker-Roberts duel that tech policy land is talking about. Now you can see it on video. Thursday, as Post Tech reported, Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) had some strong words about NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker: don't trust him. He also grilled Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

The media giant's proposed $30 billion merger with Comcast was under the spotlight on Capitol Hill yesterday.