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IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal) (10 unread)

June 30, 2008
13:36
Google Discovers the Power of Vertical Integration
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

(Back again after an inadvertent blogging break...)

In a move that may go down in the media history books, Google will become an original programming content syndicator come September when it distributes content produced by "Family Guy's" Seth MacFarlane using its AdSense system. Google will place ad-embedded two-minute clips from a new initiative called "Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy" on thousands of relevant (young, male) web sites.

Google calls its new distribution mechanism Google Content Network and plans to spend in the "multimillion dollar" range to create the Cavalcade content. Taking a powerful page from the history of Hollywood and TV, Google, in other words, is vertically integrating into content production and ownership. Once Google becomes both a content producer and content distributor, there's no going back - the entertainment and Internet worlds will be forever changed.
June 25, 2008
15:35
Comcast CTO: P2P Uses Half of Upstream Capacity
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

(Philadelphia, PA) Although regulators and consumer advocates suspect that cable operators had ulterior anti-competitive motives for messing with P2P traffic, cable's top technologists characterize the distributed computing protocols as pure and simple network hogs. During a general session here at the Society of Cable Television Engineers' CableTec Expo, Comcast CTO Tony Werner was asked why Comcast chose to implement a bandwidth management system that only targeted P2P.

"Because that's what consuming 50% of our upstream capacity and that's after management practices," he said. "The only other way that we know of is to look at users who are consuming a lot of bandwidth," Werner added, explaining how Comcast is switching to a new, protocol-agnostic management technique.

Here's how that new technique will work: in situations involving excessive bandwidth consumption (say where 2% to 3% of users are consuming 50% to 75% of bandwidth), the traffic for network hogs will get lower priority. Even in those situations, however, the offending users will still get speeds that are far better than DSL, Werner claims.
14:27
Cable CEOs & CTOs: Our Big Challenge is Change
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

(Philadelphia, PA) Cable CEOs and CTOs alike agree that the pace of technological progress is the biggest challenge facing the cable industry now and for the foreseeable future. Speaking at two consecutive general sessions at the Society of Cable Engineer's Cable-Tec Expo here, industry business and tech leaders underscored how rapidly cable has transformed from a one-way video platform to a full-fledged interactive communications powerhouse.

Comcast President Steve Burke said "our company has changed so dramatically it would have been impossible to predict ten years ago. If you look out over the next five years, I would venture to say there will be more change than there has been in the last ten years."

Charter Communications CEO Neil Smit said that he worries about "how we will deliver at an accelerated rate all the services that a customer demands and how the network will deliver those services."

Although both a challenge and an opportunity for cable operators, technological progress has mostly been a good thing for traditional cable content providers. In terms of the broadband-enabled Internet, "there’s a lot of opportunity for us in that market to grow," Showtime CEO Matt Blank said. By releasing content online, Showtime, which made an early decision to sell content via iTunes, has fostered "a market situation where people are calling and asking for Showtime," Blank said.

HBO, on the other hand, won't stray quite as far out on the Internet lest it risk alienating its core cable operator customers. "We think it is better business for us to roll out our line businesses with our broadband distributors," HBO CTO Bob Zitter said, referring to its HBO on Broadband product, made available only to regular cable subscribers.
June 20, 2008
15:33
Lobbyists Battle on Blogs Over Impending FCC Ruling
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

A fun uber-lobbyist blog fight has broken out today regarding a rumored FCC ruling that would smack down Verizon over its practice of pitching special deals to landline customers slated to switch voice service to cable companies. Back story: Last February, Comcast, Time Warner and Brighthouse Networks filed a complaint at the FCC claiming that Verizon is violating the FCC rules by offering retention incentives to landline customers that have already decided to switch to cable digital voice services.

FCC rules bar incumbent telcos from dangling special deals mid-switch. Although FCC Chairman Kevin Martin (not a friend to the cable industry) and FCC Enforcement Bureau staff had purportedly recommended that cable's complaint be dismissed, an apparent majority of FCC Commissioners, including Martin's usual two Republican allies, are seemingly siding with cable on this one.

Top Verizon lobbyist Tom Tauke cried foul today on Verizon's Poliblog, saying that if the reports are true, then the FCC is "about to decide against transparency and in favor of denying consumers the information they deserve before making a buying decision."

Cable's top lobbyist, NCTA CEO Kyle McSlarrow, answered this contention in comments on both Verizon's blog as well as the association's own blog, accusing Verizon of trying to thwart competition.
June 19, 2008
12:21
Apple's $110 Mil./Year Movie Business
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

Underscoring its leadership role in the online distribution of music and entertainment, Apple announced this morning it has sold more than five billion songs via its iTunes store, up by more than a billion since January 2008 when Steve Jobs told MacWorld attendees that the number of songs sold stood at four billion. But Apple also announced a more interesting statistics today: iTunes users are now renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies every day.

At this rate, Apple is selling or renting 18.25 million movies on an annualized basis. Using some reasonable assumptions about the average price per sale or rental, this run-rate translates into about $110 million per year in iTunes movie revenue.
June 17, 2008
11:47
My Two Cents on the AP's Blog Policy Fiasco
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

(Back from the almost-dead...big household move completed. Chief lesson learned: most of the stuff we own we don't need. Very liberating.)

After going off-grid for days, I came back to find learn about the firestorm created by the Associated Press after it sent a take-down request to the Drudge Retort demanding that the blog take down seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 words to 79 words. Following a scorching blast by the blogosphere and after legal experts said that the A.P. really can't bar reasonable excerpts under U.S. copyright law's fair use doctrine, the A.P. conceded its news policy was "heavy-handed" but didn't back down from its demands.

A.P. may or may not be relying on an obscure legal doctrine known as the "hot news" misappropriation to limit the fair use rights of Drudge and other bloggers. The "hot news" exception does limit excerpts or summaries of timely material by direct competitors although use of the hot news claim has apparently fallen out of favor.
June 12, 2008
9:23
Must-Read: Adam Liptak on U.S. Free Speech
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

The great New York Times writer Adam Liptak has this excellent essay, part of a new NYT series that examines unique aspects of America, that examines how the strong First Amendment right to free speech in this country sets the U.S. apart from the rest of the world.

Even in Canada, the law permits government to proscribe speech based on social values as evidenced by a recent case brought against Maclean's magazine for publishing "hate speech." Although Liptak's article contains no real news, it does underscore how ingrained free speech is in the American culture and legal system.
June 10, 2008
11:41
Terrible Troubles with Cable's Tru2Way Initiative?
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

(Still light blogging this week as a big household move gets underway. I've been sitting on this scoop, however, for far too long, so here goes.)

Less than two weeks after the blogosphere and press erupted with stories that the cable TV set-top faced extinction as a result of Sony signing onto a major interactive TV initiative by cable operators called Tru2Way, folks close to Tru2Way say the first certification test of the technology is a "disaster of spectacular proportions." Among the many benefits of Tru2Way technology is the inclusion of set-top technology inside the TV set units themselves, thereby obviating the need for an external box.

Panasonic, which was slated to introduce Tru2Way TV sets at selected retail outlets in test markets in September (more on that below), recently submitted its units for Tru2Way certification testing at the industry's R&D consortium CableLabs. Panasonic failed the tests, with observers reporting "dozens and dozens" of bugs, so many that they doubt a Panasonic Tru2Way TV set will be available by Christmas, much less September.
June 05, 2008
23:43
No Time to Blog - Be Back on Monday Night
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

Way off-topic, and an atypical personal note from me: I'm overrun by huge family and personal obligations (not to mention that I'm moving back into the city in about seven days!) and I'm going off-grid for a few days until the insanity comes to a halt, which should be Monday.

In the meantime, there's so much great stuff being written, big deals getting done and juicy stories about purported ecstasy-spiking tech billionaires to consume.

Will be back on Monday night (I hope).
June 03, 2008
22:37
Comcast Spells Out Protocol Agnostic Management
» ‎ IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal)

(Light blogging this week and next due to...so many things.)

As usual, Karl Bode at Broadband Reports broke news today when he was the first to report that Comcast will begin testing its new protocol agnostic management system in two markets, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and Warrenton, Virginia.

Karl got a hold of an internal memo that makes it clear that Comcast will slow down traffic only in cases whether a customer's bandwidth consumption is very high, regardless of the application in use. I got a hold of the communiques (here and here) that Comcast plans to send to its customers and post on its web sites in the test markets.

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IP and Democracy - (Internet Protocal) (10 unread)