Broadband

Eddie Lazarus Reflects on a Dramatic Tenure as Chief of Staff of the FCC

February 23, 2012

ITIF hosted Eddie Lazarus for reflections and a discussion about what's ahead for the FCC.

Eddie Lazarus spent the last two and a half years as chief of staff of the Federal Communications Commission, a tenure rightly described by The Washington Post's Cecilia Kang as, "marked by brutal battles over Internet access rules and the reviews of two massive mergers." Indeed, Lazarus was in the center of high-stakes, politically-charged battles over the soul of Internet and the shape of the communications marketplace. As he leaves public service, ITIF is pleased to host him for some reflections on his experience and discussion about what's ahead for issues before the FCC.

SOPA Support Goes Sour

TechNewsWorld

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/74221.html

Collision Course: Entertainment Media and Bandwidth Constraints

January 18, 2012

| Presentations

Richard Bennett

On January 18, 2012, Senior Research Fellow Richard Bennett will present at the State of the Net Conference on the topic of bandwidth constraints. His panel is titled Collision Course: Entertainment Media and Bandwidth Constraints.

Last year, for the first time ever, we used mobile apps more than opening up a browser window to access Web-based services.

Flurry Analytics, a firm that helps mobile application developers make better apps, deepen consumer engagement and monetize applications, discovered that in the middle of last year our relationship with the Internet underwent yet another transformation. The firm found we spent 81 minutes a day in apps versus 74 minutes in a browser. A year ago, the tally had been an average of 64 minutes in a browser versus just 43 minutes in apps. Read more »

Source

Flurry Analytics

Broadband

In just four years, the app universe has grown from 8,000 to one million and apps are now a nearly $8 billion dollar industry with more than 100,000 developers.

The proliferation of smart phone apps shows that innovation is alive and well in information and communications technology. It also serves as a reminder that public policies must adapt to and encourage these developments so that we can continue to expand economic opportunities in mobile broadband and beyond. Smart phone apps also raise new questions for consumer privacy, self-regulation in the Internet ecosystem and highlight the need to make more spectrum available for these innovations. Public policy needs to better keep pace with private ingenuity in ICT.

Source

One Million Mobile Apps, and Counting at a Fast Pace

Broadband

Tech Firms Eager to Gobble Stimulus Funds

ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7264888&page=2#.TuYuIGNFunA

Major deployment of broadband could create 300,000 jobs for the telecom and tech industries, according to ITIF.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7264888&page=2#.TuYuIGNFunA

Broadband

Live Different: Susan Crawford's Broadband Blinkers

December 5, 2011

| Blogs & Op-eds

Richard Bennett

READ ONLINE

Susan Crawford's Op-Ed in The New York Times is little more than a snatch-and-grab analysis of American broadband. Apparently motivated more by a desire to reinforce an existing point of view than to understand current developments, the analysis misconstrues major new trends in network adoption, usage, and deployment. Mobile is a supplement to wired broadband, not a second class substitute.

Only ten percent of Americans watch TV via over-the-air broadcasts and 51 percent of Americans had 3G or 4G phones in December 2010.

Never mind the quaint idea that one day anyone currently 35 or older will tell their grandchildren about the day they got cable TV or cell phones the size of eggplants. They can be just as amusing or (seem just as old) to their colleagues who are only 25. Indeed, we live in a time of astonishing proliferation of devices, applications and growing demands for spectrum. Unfortunately, we are running the risk of constraining a host of new business opportunities, innovations and consumer benefits because we have not updated how to best allocate spectrum. Read more »

Source

Spectrum Policy for Innovation

Broadband

Playing Politics with the Internet

November 1, 2011

| Blogs & Op-eds

Richard Bennett

READ ONLINE

A recent press release from the Internet Society asserts jurisdiction over the use of Internet technical mechanisms to achieve national policy goals. There is no basis for this claim and its continued assertion is dangerous.

Broadband Company’s Demise Puts Taxpayers on Hook for $74 Million Loan

The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/broadband-companys-demise-puts-taxpayers-on-hook-for-74-million-loan/2011/10/20/gIQAN85FKM_story.html

When trying to subsidize broadband in rural areas, there will be failures. Richard Bennett emphasizes the need to fully investigate such technology.

The failure of the broadband company Open Range clarifies the need for new technologies to be carefully vetted — especially when they are unconventional, like in the case of Open Range. The FCC’s handling of the matter has come under scrutiny by lawmakers partly because the agency promoted a similar venture called LightSquared about the same time it was turning its back on Open Range.

Broadband