That came as a disappointment to public interest groups that have been pushing the FCC to take quick action after almost a year of seeking input on net neutrality rules, which would prohibit Internet providers from favoring one type of content traffic over another.

The idea of net neutrality has often pitted Internet providers, including cable and telecom companies, against consumer groups and content companies, like Google and Amazon, who have warned that without rules, broadband risks developing into the pay-for-play tiered system of cable TV.

But the dynamics of the debate changed considerably last month, when Google and Verizon offered up a proposed compromise, in which net neutrality rules would apply to the wired Internet but not to wireless. In addition, broadband providers would have flexibility to offer up certain “differentiated online services,” like high-definition video, online gaming and medical monitoring, at a premium as that would be part of a dedicated network.

“Recent events have highlighted questions on how open Internet rules should apply to ’specialized’ services and to mobile broadband — what framework will guarantee Internet freedom and openness, and maximize private investment and innovation,” Genachowski said in a statement. “As we’ve seen, the issues are complex, and the details matter.”

The FCC was headed toward a vote on the rules earlier this year until it lost a legal battle to Comcast in April, putting the commission’s legal standing to regulate the Internet in doubt.

Genachowski’s solution has been to reclassify the Internet as a “Title II” telecommunications service. He has the votes to do it — two fellow FCC commissioners, Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn, say they favor the plan — but the proposal has triggered fierce opposition from cable and telecom companies as well as Republicans and a sizable number of Democrats on Capitol Hill.

While some lawmakers are calling for Congress to take action to establish the FCC’s authority, such an action is ever more unlikely with the approaching midterm elections, and perhaps out of the question if Republicans gain control of one or more of both chambers of Congress.

David Sutphen, co-chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance, an org of telecom and business groups, said that the Title II classification could invite a legal challenge that could create even more uncertainty for Internet providers, curbing further innovation. The Google-Verizon plan “at least creates an environment where you can see a structured solution,” he said.

The Google-Verizon proposal was intended to find common ground on the contentious issue, but it landed with a thud among some consumer groups, who say that by exempting wireless from the net neutrality rules they are providing a huge loophole. Instead, the compromise seems to have only reinforced their sense of urgency for regulators to act.

“The FCC continues to kick the can down the road and prolong this process, but the longer the FCC ponders the politics of net neutrality, the longer consumers are left unprotected,” Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, said in a statement. “It is time for the FCC to stop writing notices and start making clear rules of the road.”

By Ted Johnson, Variety

These five countries — which the consulting firm dubbed BRICI — account for 45 percent of the world’s population and 15 percent of global GDP (gross domestic product), BCG said, noting they are currently home to 610 million Internet users. That number is set to double to 1.2 billion by 2015, it said, predicting the number of users will increase at compound annual growth rates of 9 percent to 20 percent.

Plan for the unexpected with batch integration: Download nowIn these countries, home computers aren’t the most important means of getting online, unlike in the U.S. and other countries where PCs are used to connect to the Internet. “Personal computers are much less prevalent than mobile devices in the BRICI countries — and play nowhere near the role in catalyzing digital consumption that mobile devices and Internet cafes do,” the report said.

As the costs of mobile Internet access comes down and operators expand the reach of their networks, the number of people accessing the Internet in these countries will grow, it said.

While Internet usage will grow in all five BRICI countries, China will remain the country with the highest Internet usage, BCG said. Chinese Internet users now spend an average of 2.7 hours online each day, and that is expected to increase to 3.1 hours per day by 2015, it said.

By comparison, Russian Internet users spend 1.7 hours online every day, on average. Users in India, Brazil and Indonesia spend an average of 0.5 hours, 0.9 hours and 1.1 hours online, respectively.

The high projected growth rate for Internet access and digital content means companies that operate in this space should make plans to enter these markets, BCG said.

“As digital consumption moves into the mainstream of BRICI society over the next few years, the online habits of the current generation of digital consumers will form the digital-market ecosystems that will be in place for generations to come,” the report said.

By Sumner Lemon, Network World

A community group in the Tregaron area, in Ceredigion, intends to lease them back to phone companies, which had seen the area as commercially unsustainable.

Masts are planned in the villages of Ystrad Meurig and Llanddewi-Brefi, while a third is set for Tregaron.

The group is to apply for a £150,000 grant to help pay for the first one.

Duncan Taylor, chair of the Ger-y-Gors Community Forum, said residents and businesses in the remote area of Ceredigion had learned to live without a mobile signal, but were “fed up” with it.

Mr Taylor, from Pontrhydfendigaid, near Tregaron, said his mobile phone cost him £10 per year, but he had never used it in his signal “dead spot” village.

Mr Taylor said: “We believe this is an important social economic project that will benefit our community for many years to come. It will give peace of mind to the local population and the many visitors who use trails in the rural area where no land-line is available.

“It will bring fast and reliable broadband to a farming community where government returns are increasingly reliant on broadband connectivity. Many of our venues offering conference facilities are also currently losing business due to the problems associated with the lack of signal.

“Major cellular providers have indicated that leasing space on the masts is commercially viable for them, whereas providing masts of their own wasn’t.”

Running costs
 
Mr Taylor said income from the leases would help pay for the maintenance and the day-to-day running costs of the masts, which will be owned and operated by a non-profit-making company.

He added: “It seems ridiculous in an era of mobile-led technology that communities such as ours cannot use mobile phones.

“It is restrictive and difficult for people, especially farmers and the emergency services.”

Llyr Jones, manager of the Bont Pavilion venue in Pontrhydfendigaid, said poor mobile phone coverage was “holding back” the business.

“The only complaint we get from customers, clients and visitors is about the lack of mobile phone coverage,” he said.

“A few weeks ago we hosted a JRR Tolkien festival and we had people here from all over the world cut off from the outside world. They all had to use the village telephone kiosk to make calls.

“The masts will give a huge boost to the area. We will be able to compete with larger venues because at the moment it’s holding us back.”

Two local farms have been selected as the sites for the new masts.

The forum is set to apply for a £150,000 grant from the Welsh Assembly Government, which will help pay for the first mast in Ystrad Meurig.

It is hoped that will be working by the end of next year, with the following two masts in Llanddewi-Brefi and Tregaron, which has limited coverage, planned over the next three to five years.

The group recently received a £4,300 grant from the Communities First Trust Fund to pay for a second cellular mast survey.

The fund is managed by Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), and has funded more than 10,000 community projects in Wales’ most economically deprived areas since it was launched in 2002.

-BBC

The in-built microphone in the phone monitors a patient’s heartbeat when it’s held up against their chest, and can provide an accurate read-out that can be sent to the doctor via email.

Peter Bentley, a computer scientist who designed the iPhone application called iStethoscope pro, says it’s become popular with patients who live a long way from their doctor.

The BBC reported that feedback from doctors said that smartphone applications like the one devised by Bentley, make it easier to collect and share data.

But cardiologists also warn that the readings themselves shouldn’t be the only tool used to monitor a patient’s heart health.

“Many of the things that we can pick up in a doctor-patient relationship, there really isn’t any substitute for, so they may assist and they may be an adjunct but I don’t see them replacing the doctor-patient relationship,” British cardiologist Dr Mark Westwood told the BBC.

But doctors all over the world are using it. Millions of downloads have taken place since its launch in 2009.

-TVnz

“If you could stay in your house another 10 minutes because you know the bus isn’t here yet, and don’t have to stand in freezing rain till it gets there, wouldn’t you?” said Stern, who moved in July to Austin.

Cities across the USA use the Internet and smart phone technology to help riders make connections with their transit systems, whether the system is bus or rail or tram.

Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston are among the cities that have begun test-driving systems within the past eight months. Orlando announced in July that it had given the green light to a project to provide bus schedule information on select routes to riders with smart phones by October

San Francisco, Washington and Chicago have apps that allow riders to use their Internet-accessible phones to get real-time information showing when their next bus or train is due. “It’s part of what had to happen in the evolution of transit, bringing technology into it,” said Stern, who maintains a public transportation blog called Inside Transit.

Most apps are available for all kinds of phones with Internet access. The apps provided by the municipal transit authority are free. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority relaunched its “Next Bus” program in July 2009 after a trial run in 2007. Next Bus is available on 335 routes with 12,000 stops for no charge.

To read more, click here.
By Jeff Schweers, MassTransit

The rules apply to everyone, including foreigners visiting China for a short stay, the China Daily newspaper reported.

The paper said the regulation was “the latest campaign by the government to curb the global scourge of spam, pornographic messages and fraud on cellular phones.”

But some say China is looking for a way to track people who might spontaneously join protests. Users could previously buy low-cost mobile phone SIM cards anonymously with cash at convenience stores and newspaper stands and use them right away.

“I think the government has an eye on Iran where protests were fueled by text messages and Twitter and they are doing this for social stability reasons,” said Wang Songlian, research coordinator with the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

She added that the new requirement fits a pattern of tightening government control over new communication technologies.

China censors Internet content it deems politically sensitive and blocks many websites, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Following ethnic riots in far western China’s Xinjiang, international phone service and the Internet in the region were suspended for months.

The new regulation probably won’t impact Chinese dissidents, many of whom already have their phones closely monitored, but it could help police track down ordinary people who take part in protests, Wang said. China has seen a growing number of protests sparked by labor disagreements, anger over pollution or other issues.

The ID requirement is also raising new privacy concerns and will likely upset some customers unwilling to give personal information to vendors and telecom companies for fear it will be resold, said Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd., a technology market research firm.

China is far from alone, however. Similar rules have been implemented in several Asian, European and Latin American countries, often after phones were used to detonate bombs, organize terrorist attacks, or conduct criminal activities. Federal legislation has been introduced in the U.S., where prepaid phones have long been used by drug dealers. In many places, however, the rules are easily skirted with fake IDs or false names varies from place to place.

To read the full article, click here.
By Alexa Olesen, The Washington Post

The mark-up will not apply to access to existing Internet services, which the carriers, such as BCE Inc’s BCE.TO Bell Canada and Telus Corp, must continue to provide to the smaller Internet service providers (ISPs), the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said.

“Requiring these companies to provide access to their networks will lead to more opportunities for competition in retail Internet services and better serve consumers,” CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said in the decision.

Canada has seen a convergence in its telecom, Internet and broadcasting sectors in recent years, as once-dominant regional telephone carriers compete nationally against cable companies such as Rogers Communications and the smaller ISPs.

Until this decision, the established telecom companies could “throttle” third-party services, by slowing them down or limiting downloads.

The established carriers, which also include MTS Allstream, appealed a similar CRTC decision in 2009, saying they spend significant portions of their profits on expanding their networks and should not have to share expensive fiber cable with competitors at wholesale costs.

“The forced unbundling of next-generation networks that aren’t even built yet would place a chill on investment in those networks at a time when the federal government is trying to encourage investment in broadband networks,” Telus said ahead of the decision.

About 400,000 Canadians buy Internet access from smaller ISPs, and most of them get it via the networks of the incumbent telecom operators.

“In recognition of these investments, the CRTC will allow them to charge competitors an additional 10 percent mark-up over their costs for the use of their wholesale Internet services’ higher-speed options,” the regulator said in its decision.

The CRTC also said that the country’s big cable companies must make it easier for the ISPs to gain access their networks to offer their services. It is technically easier for the ISPs to use the telecom companies’ networks than those of the cable networks.

-Reuters

There are a handful of Web sites that are vying to be the one-stop shop for finding programming on the Web. Some, like the three-year-old site SideReel, are trying to get an edge by not only offering links to legitimate sources of shows, like network sites, but also letting users share links to sites where illegal copies are available for instant viewing.

Site visitors can search for the latest episode of a show like “The Office” or “Entourage” and be directed to all of the various sites where those episodes can be viewed.

“Our goal is getting you to content regardless of where it is,” said Roman Arzhintar, SideReel’s chief executive.

Mr. Arzhintar said SideReel receives nine million unique visitors a month and has been profitable for nearly two years, although he declined to discuss specifics. To date, the start-up has received $1.5 million from angel investors.

SideReel, based in San Francisco, lists around 17,000 shows, or half a million episodes. It sends its registered users e-mail notifications when fresh episodes of their favorite programs become available. The site makes money through advertisements, and it also receives a referral fee every time someone purchases a show through Amazon Video-on-Demand, iTunes or Netflix.

Although the majority of the show episodes listed on SideReel are from legitimate sources, it includes lots of pointers to sites with pirated versions.

“The site is freely editable,” he said. “Anyone can add a link to a show. We’ll remove any link from our index that content owners request.”

The company, which recently completed a survey of 3,000 of its users, found that 90 percent of them who watch television on a laptop don’t bother plugging it into their television sets.

“It’s their private screen,” Mr. Arzhintar said.

The survey found that average SideReel users watch 5 to 10 hours of television online per week, which they supplement with an hour on a traditional set.

Mr. Arzhintar said more than half of SideReel’s users still have a cable subscription, although he expects that to change over the next few years.

“More people are finding it convenient to consume content without ever turning on their television,” he said.

By Jenna Wortham, The New York Times

Suicide rates in New Mexico and across the nation are higher in rural areas than urban areas, Werth said in a recent story in Mental Health Law Weekly. Better access to broadband could provide better access to suicide prevention and behavioral medicine resources for both patients and rural physicians and school officials, Werth suggested.

“Even though people live farther apart, there may be stronger connections — they need to rely on one another,” Werth said.

“County by county or state by state, the top areas in terms of suicide are rural,” Werth told the weekly. “The top five states are Alaska, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nevada, whereas D.C., New Jersey, New York Connecticut and Massachusetts have the lowest rates.”

In New Mexico, youth suicide rates have spiked this year on Indian reservations.

Mental illness, a family history of suicide and feelings of hopelessness all play a role in suicide risk, Werth said. But rural residents feel more isolated, may be less willing to ask for help and typically have ready access to more lethal tools for suicide, such as firearms and pesticides, he said.

Werth spoke about his research Thursday at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in San Diego, California, according to Mental Health Law Weekly.

Leading risk factors for suicide in rural areas include poverty, unemployment and importantly, lack of access to treatment, Werth said.

“People are not going to drive five hours to visit a counselor,” he said.

New Mexico has the dark distinction of having the nation’s third-highest suicide rate, behind Nevada and Alaska, according to an analysis of federal statistics conducted by Mental Health America. New Mexico ranks only 36th in the nation for diagnosed clinical depression rates, according to the Mental Health America website — but this could be an underestimate caused by the very low number of psychologists and psychiatrists in rural New Mexico.

By Bryant Furlow, The New Mexico Independent

Source: Today in Telecom