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Old 08-02-20, 08:34 AM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Join Date: May 2001
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - February 8th, ’20

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"It was just incredible — watching one after the other after the other." – Dr. Cliff Johnson, Northwestern University






































February 8th, 2020




Google Fiber Kills its Traditional TV Service for New Customers
Kyle Wiggers

Google Fiber, a service under the Access division of Alphabet that provides fiber-to-the-premises service in the U.S., today announced that it will no longer offer traditional TV bundles with news, sports, premium, and local broadcast channels. Current subscribers to Fiber plans that include TV won’t see their existing service modified or changed, but new customers won’t have the option of signing up for IPTV content going forward.

“As we return our focus to where we started — as a gigabit Internet company — we’re also ready to challenge the status quo, to finally come right out and say it: customers today just don’t need traditional TV. The best TV is already online. And we want to help you watch it, in the ways that work best for your budget and your own viewing preferences,” wrote Fiber in a blog post. “[W]e’ll be happy to help everyone explore other options to get their favorite programming the way TV is watched now — over the Internet, with the virtually unlimited choice and control online viewing provides.”

The writing was on the wall, it could be said. Fiber recently rolled out a partnership with YouTube that let customers sign up for its YouTube TV service at the same time they sign up for Google Fiber. (This perhaps contributed to YouTube TV’s success in 2019, a year it ended with over 2 million subscribers.) And this week, Fiber took wraps off of a partnership with FuboTV, an over-the-top streaming service that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, and international soccer, plus news, network television series, and movies.

Consider too that, according to The Washington Post, “the cost of acquiring video content was ‘the single biggest impediment'” to Fiber’s wider rollout, Fiber executive Milo Medin told an audience in 2014. Google was reportedly paying “twice as much” compared with more established service providers for video rights, in part because it lacked comparable vertical integrations and legacy deals.

“Now, new Fiber customers have at least two options to choose how they want to get the live and on-demand programming they know and love. When you have a smooth, steady connection of a gig (or more!), getting all your TV online — live, show by show, your DVR — is possible and easy,” continued Fiber. “You’ve been telling us for a long time that you wanted more choice and more control. You wanted no contracts and more flexibility. You made your voice heard with where and how you spend your money, and Google Fiber is listening.”

Fiber’s TV package — Fiber TV — included more than 150 high-definition and some standard definition channels such as HBO, ESPN, Comedy Central, and Disney. It came with a set-top box that allowed customers to navigate content using an on-screen guide, pull up on-demand programming and rent movies, and set programs to record to a local DVR. A remote streaming feature dubbed TV Everywhere let subscribers watch shows from certain channels when they were away from home, and a companion app for Android and iOS devices doubled as a remote control.

The aforementioned DVR could hold up to 2 terabytes of data (which translates to about 500 hours of high-definition programming) and was able to record up to eight shows simultaneously. Additionally, it could store personal files, like photos, music, and home videos, which could be viewed or played through any connected TV via a dedicated apps menu.

The elimination of a traditional TV bundle from Fiber’s lineup comes after Google said it would no longer sell 100Mbps broadband plans to new Fiber customers. Since December, Fiber has only offered gigabit (1,000Mbps) plans in all 18 regions where it has launched to date.

Fiber was first introduced to the Kansas City metropolitan area in 2011, including 20 area suburbs within the first three years. It later expanded to Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah in April 2013, and subsequently to Atlanta, Charlotte, the Triangle, Nashville, Salt Lake City, and San Antonio in 2014 and 2015. And in 2016, Fiber acquired San Francisco-based Webpass to expand its reach in apartment and condo buildings with up-to-gigabit point-to-point wireless internet.

In mid-2016, Fiber had 68,715 television subscribers and was estimated to have about 453,000 broadband customers, but the company was forced to scale back its ambitions following internal tumult. In October 2016, on the heels of the departure of CEO Craig Barratt, Fiber cut its staff by 8% and paused fiber plans in 11 cities. Most recently, it was forced to switch off its network in Louisville, Kentucky and exit the city after fiber installation failures left cables exposed in the roads.

Fiber’s discontinued 100Mbps plan — Fiber 100 Internet — started at $50 per month and didn’t offer complimentary Google Drive storage, unlike the pricier gigabit plan. Additionally, it couldn’t be bundled with Fiber’s TV plan (but could be bundled with its $10-per-month Fiber Phone plan) and didn’t come with the hardware included in upmarket plans, namely a TV box and the eight-tuner DVR.
https://venturebeat.com/2020/02/04/g...new-customers/





AT&T is Doing Exactly what it Told Congress it Wouldn’t Do with Time Warner

AT&T lost $1.2B in Q4 by preventing Time Warner shows from airing on Netflix.
Jon Brodkin

AT&T's decision to prevent Time Warner-owned shows from streaming on Netflix and other non-AT&T services reduced the company's quarterly revenue by $1.2 billion, a sacrifice that AT&T is making to give its planned HBO Max service more exclusive content. AT&T took the $1.2-billion hit despite previously telling Congress that it would not restrict distribution of Time Warner content, claiming that would be "irrational business behavior."

AT&T's actual Q4 2019 revenue was $46.8 billion, but the company said it would have been $48 billion if not for "HBO Max investments in the form of foregone WarnerMedia content licensing revenues."

An AT&T spokesperson told Ars that the $1.2 billion in lost revenue was primarily caused by the decision "not to sell existing content—mainly Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and Fresh Prince—to third parties such as Netflix." As we've previously reported, AT&T took Time Warner shows off Netflix in order to give the exclusive streaming rights to AT&T's HBO Max, which is scheduled to debut in May 2020 for $14.99 a month.

"We made the strategic decision to give HBO Max exclusive streaming rights for top programs, including Friends, Big Bang Theory, and other popular shows. In the past, we would have sold these externally," AT&T CFO John Stephens said in an earnings call.

The amount of forgone revenue could grow in future quarters, as Friends just left Netflix on January 1. The Big Bang Theory and Fresh Prince were not on Netflix in the United States, so in those cases the forgone revenue is apparently from not entering into licensing deals instead of ending them. AT&T also pulled Pretty Little Liars off Netflix in mid-2019 in order to give HBO Max the exclusive streaming rights.
AT&T in 2016: “It would be irrational”

AT&T won a court case allowing it to complete its purchase of Time Warner in June 2018 after telling Congress that it wouldn't do exactly what it is now doing with Time Warner-owned shows.

In December 2016, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told a Senate antitrust subcommittee that AT&T would continue to distribute Time Warner content as widely as possible instead of restricting it to AT&T's own platforms:

Nor is there any reason to believe we could use Time Warner programming or AT&T networks to hurt related markets. Simply put, it would be irrational business behavior to do so. Time Warner's programming is more valuable when distributed to as many eyes as possible. Moreover, in order to have great programming, it is imperative that we attract great creative talent to develop it. The best way to attract that talent is through widespread distribution of Time Warner content.

Time Warner business “depends on licensing”

AT&T made similar claims to a federal judge in the court case in which AT&T defeated the Department of Justice's attempt to block the merger. The claims in court filings were more narrowly limited to content owned by Turner Broadcasting, one of the main pieces of Time Warner along with HBO and Warner Bros. (Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Fresh Prince, and Pretty Little Liars are all Warner Bros. shows.)

In a May 2018 court filing, AT&T claimed that the "real-world economics of the programming business" disproved the DOJ's case that AT&T would withhold video content from other distributors in order to boost its own TV services:

Turner's entire business depends on licensing and advertising revenues, and those revenues in turn depend on broad and uninterrupted distribution of its programs. Whatever revenues AT&T would earn from the tiny percentage of subscribers AT&T [TV services] might gain if Turner went dark on a rival distributor would be vastly outstripped by the licensing and advertising revenues Turner would lose. Turner, accordingly, would no sooner walk away from this "kabuki dance" after the merger than before—and everyone knows it.

AT&T court filings also touted its binding promise to use "baseball-style" arbitration to settle any licensing disputes over Turner content with distributors. While that pledge will restrict AT&T's behavior with Turner, AT&T's treatment of Friends and other Warner Bros. shows seems to contradict Stephenson's claim to Congress that "Time Warner's programming is more valuable when distributed to as many eyes as possible."

AT&T also raised prices of its TV services multiple times after saying in a court filing that buying Time Warner would "enable the merged company to reduce prices."

Warner Bros. revenue dropped 8 percent

AT&T said its Warner Bros. quarterly revenue was $4.1 billion, down 8 percent year-over-year partly due to the decision to give up licensing revenue from Netflix and other streaming services. AT&T's Turner division—which is subject to the arbitration promise—had quarterly revenue of $3.3 billion, "up 1.6 percent year over year due to a 3.1 percent increase in subscription revenues and a 7.3 percent increase in content licensing and other revenues, partially offset by a 2 percent decline in advertising revenues."

Giving up $1.2 billion in quarterly revenue is apparently worth it to AT&T because of how crucial HBO Max is to its TV plans. In addition to buying Time Warner for $85 billion, AT&T purchased DirecTV for $48.5 billion in July 2015. But the company's TV business has cratered, with AT&T losing more than 4 million customers from its satellite, wireline, and linear streaming-TV services in 2019.

HBO Max, which will bring HBO content together with other Time Warner video, including shows formerly available on Netflix, is supposed to solve AT&T's TV woes. AT&T says it's aiming to get 50 million US subscribers within five years for its Netflix-style service—and exclusive streaming rights to shows that would otherwise be on Netflix will be a big part of AT&T's pitch to customers.
https://arstechnica.com/information-...ng-on-netflix/





Netflix Starts Streaming AV1 on Android to Save Cellular Data
Abner Li

Netflix announced today that it’s beginning to stream video using AV1 on Android. This high-performance, royalty-free codec provides 20% improved compression efficiency over VP9.

Developed by the Alliance for Open Media, founding members include Google, Netflix, and Amazon — all large video providers. Netflix says its “goal is to roll out AV1 on all of our platforms.” In starting on mobile, the service cites how “cellular networks can be unreliable” and “limited data plans.” That is particularly the case for subscribers abroad, a key growth market. This results in an overall “good fit for AV1’s compression efficiency.”

At launch, the “Save Data” option — More tab > App Settings > Cellular Data Usage — must be set in the Android client. Netflix only specifies “selected titles” as being available to stream over AV1.

Our AV1 support on Android leverages the open-source dav1d decoder built by the VideoLAN, VLC, and FFmpeg communities and sponsored by the Alliance for Open Media. Here we have optimized dav1d so that it can play Netflix content, which is 10-bit color. In the spirit of making AV1 widely available, we are sponsoring an open-source effort to optimize 10-bit performance further and make these gains available to all.

Moving forward, Netflix’s AV1 usage will expand to more use cases as “codec performance improves over time.” The service is already working with “device and chipset partners to extend this into hardware.”

AV1 streaming today is also available on YouTube.com. Under “Playback and performance,” there is Auto, Prefer AV1 for SD, or Always prefer AV1. The middle tier is capped to 480p with VP9 still handling higher resolutions. Meanwhile, Google warns that AV1 in HD requires a “powerful computer,” and that not all content is available.
https://9to5google.com/2020/02/05/ne...av1-streaming/





Elon Musk's SpaceX Takes Important Step on Path to Providing Internet to Australia with Starlink Satellites

Elon Musk's plan to provide high-speed broadband internet in Australia is one step closer to becoming a reality after receiving regulatory approval.

Key points:

• SpaceX is now on a list that foreign-owned satellite networks must be on before being licensed to operate in Australia
• SpaceX describes its Starlink mission as "the world's most advanced broadband internet system", made up of thousands of satellites
• A few days after the approval on January 24, SpaceX had another successful satellite launch

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced SpaceX had been approved for inclusion on Australia's Foreign Space Objects Determination (FSOD), paving the way for the company's Starlink mission.

Inclusion on the list is essential before a foreign-owned satellite network is allowed to operate on specific frequencies in Australia.

"Inclusion in the determination does not confer a right on that entity to obtain a license, rather it is a prerequisite before a space apparatus licence can be issued," ACMA said.

SpaceX has said Starlink, a network of thousands of satellites, will become "the world's most advanced broadband internet system".

"Starlink will provide fast, reliable internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable," the company's website read.

"Starlink is targeting service in the northern US and Canada in 2020, rapidly expanding to near global coverage of the populated world by 2021."

A few days after the approval on January 24, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites, its fourth successful launch for the program, from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Matt Botwin, SpaceX's director of global satellite government affairs, wrote to ACMA during the submissions process in November last year, saying approval was an important step forward in SpaceX's plan to offer "high-speed" satellite-based broadband to all Australians.

"Inclusion … [on] the FSOD will allow the company to begin the process of seeking regulatory approval to operate in Australia, including obtaining the required space apparatus licence," he wrote.

SpaceX was one of three companies, along with Canadian company Kepler Communications and the US Swarm Technologies, to be approved to kickstart the process "to eventually obtain space apparatus licences to operate in Australia".

They are the 18th, 19th and 20th inclusions on the list.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-...ralia/11934158





Musk’s SpaceX Plans a Spinoff, IPO for Starlink Business
Ashlee Vance and Dana Hull

Company to provide high-speed internet globally via satellite
Service will cost less for much faster speed, Shotwell says

Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to spin out and pursue a public offering of its budding space-internet business Starlink, giving investors a chance to buy into one of the most promising operations within the closely held company.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has already launched more than 240 satellites to build out Starlink, which will start delivering internet services to customers from space this summer, President Gwynne Shotwell said Thursday at a private investor event hosted by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Miami.

“Right now, we are a private company, but Starlink is the right kind of business that we can go ahead and take public,” said Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer. “That particular piece is an element of the business that we are likely to spin out and go public.”

Investors have to this point had limited ways to own a piece of SpaceX, which has become one of the most richly valued venture-backed companies in the U.S. by dominating the commercial rocket industry. It flies satellites into orbit for customers including the U.S. military, carries cargo to the International Space Station and aims to start flying NASA astronauts and high-paying tourists soon.

But the rocket-launch business remains competitive and tough. Starlink and its ability to provide high-speed internet across the globe has helped private investors in SpaceX justify a roughly $33 billion valuation. Musk has long maintained that the parent is unlikely to go public until it is regularly ferrying people to Mars.

Cheaper, Faster

SpaceX is one of a handful of players that wants to build out a space internet system that can serve people who struggle to access the web today via fiber optic and cellular connections. Starlink would beam down relatively high-speed data from its network of satellites orbiting the Earth.

Bezos Is ‘Years Behind’ Musk in Satellite Race, SpaceX COO Says

Right now, SpaceX can only cover higher latitudes, but by the end of the year, it expects to have global coverage, Shotwell said at the conference. Such a service would, in effect, turn SpaceX into a telecommunications company that also has a rocket business.

“This is going to turn SpaceX into a company that is providing service to consumers, which we are excited about,” Shotwell said. The company has been launching roughly 60 satellites at a time into orbit, and with another four launches expects to have global coverage. Shotwell said that service will be “less than what you are paying now for about five to 10 times the speed you are getting.”

An IPO likely would be welcomed by some SpaceX employees and investors. Musk has been reluctant to force SpaceX to endure the scrutiny that comes with being a public company and to reveal the details of SpaceX’s financials. This has left employees sitting on valuable stock, which they’re typically only able to sell during a limited number of private transactions. An IPO for Starlink might also allow its longtime backers to register gains on their high-risk investment.

There have been attempts to build similar space internet services in the past, and no company has figured out how to turn such a system into a huge, global business. Starlink dwarfs all these previous attempts in terms of the size and scope of its ambition.

Over the coming years, SpaceX intends to place thousands of satellites into orbit and will increase the bandwidth of its service with each launch. Exactly how many people will be willing to pay for this service remains an open question.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-pursue-an-ipo





OneWeb Launches 34 Satellites as Astronomers Fear Radio Chatter

Like SpaceX, the company aims to build a constellation of internet satellites, but its orbiters could interfere with telescopes on Earth.
Shannon Hall

The skies are growing crowded.

On Friday from a spaceport in Kazakhstan, OneWeb, a telecommunications company with its headquarters in London, launched 34 satellites into space. During a few hours in orbit, the satellites were steadily deployed and began to build the company’s constellation, which will ultimately include 650 operational satellites — enough to provide high-speed broadband internet to every corner of the globe by the end of 2021, OneWeb hopes.

The prospect has raised alarms for many astronomers, in part because it is the latest launch in a deluge. Since last spring, SpaceX, the rocket maker founded by Elon Musk, has launched 240 satellites, and has sought approval to deploy as many as 42,000 for its own space-based internet system, Starlink. Other companies, including Amazon, Facebook and Telesat, are also eyeing the heavens.

If OneWeb and Starlink succeed, the next decade will see nearly five times as many satellites put into orbit as all satellites launched since Sputnik 1 in 1957.

These constellations will affect astronomy research — disrupting radio frequencies used for deep space observation and leaving bright streaks in telescope images. Astronomers have had a hard time assessing the potential damage to their field, and so far much of their work has focused on Starlink. But OneWeb raises an additional set of worries.

Fuzzy Frequencies

One of the main concerns is that OneWeb’s constellation might produce radio chatter.

Astronomers have long built large radio dishes to study objects that give off little visible light but emit naturally occurring radio waves, such as distant planets, gas clouds and galaxies. Last year, radio astronomers even captured the first image of a black hole. And Earth scientists use these frequencies to measure weather.

While federal regulations protect certain radio frequencies for such research, OneWeb and SpaceX both plan to transmit signals near one of those protected bands. For astronomers, that’s a little too close for comfort.

“It’s very similar to when you have two apartments next to each other,” said Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “To some extent, the sound in one unit is confined, but if it gets too loud, it bleeds over.”

The Federal Communications Commission has required SpaceX and OneWeb to coordinate with radio astronomers. Both companies have been working with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (N.R.A.O.), a federally funded research center, as well as the National Science Foundation.

Although each company agreed to forgo the use of the lower part of their allocated spectrum in order to avoid contaminating the protected band, SpaceX moved more quickly to make changes and sign the final operating agreement. But representatives for N.R.A.O. said that they did not hear from OneWeb for more than two years, although the company was working with the F.C.C.’s counterpart in Europe.

“It seemed to me that they were neglecting their responsibility back here,” said Harvey Liszt, N.R.A.O.’s spectrum manager.

Dr. Liszt filed a comment with the F.C.C. in 2019, and OneWeb returned to negotiations. But the company has not signed a formal operating agreement.

That’s particularly worrisome for Tony Beasley, the director of N.R.A.O., who said that OneWeb’s impact on radio astronomy could be larger than SpaceX’s. The beams sent back to Earth by SpaceX’s satellites are a little less than 30 miles wide, as the company plans to use many satellites to achieve global coverage.

But because OneWeb will use fewer satellites (and because of design differences), its beams are much larger, roughly 700 miles across at their widest. That limits the company’s ability to briefly switch off satellites while passing over locations with radio astronomy facilities, because customers would lose service, too.

While radio astronomers are figuring out the impact of satellite constellations on their work, optical astronomers are already tracking satellite streaks in their fields of view.

In mid-November, Cliff Johnson, an astronomer at Northwestern University, was monitoring the Chilean night skies when he saw a train of 60 bright points. It was SpaceX’s second batch of satellites, launched days earlier.

“It was just incredible — watching one after the other after the other,” Dr. Johnson said.

At the time, he was using the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory to observe the outer edges of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds — two dwarf galaxies. Dr. Johnson suspected that when the satellites passed in front of the telescope, he might capture one or two of them. Instead, he counted 19. And SpaceX has since sent 120 more of the satellites into orbit.

“If you have tens of thousands of satellites in orbit, that’s the sort of image you would expect to have very, very frequently,” said Patrick Seitzer, a professor emeritus of astronomy at the University of Michigan.

The growing constellations could pose a serious problem to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (formerly known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) — a 27-foot telescope under construction in Chile that will scan the entire sky every three days. Because the telescope has such a wide field of view, it will more easily pick up the new satellites and could lose significant amounts of observing time, particularly near dusk and dawn.

On the surface, OneWeb’s satellites might appear to pose a smaller problem than Starlink’s.

First, there will be fewer orbiters in OneWeb’s constellation. They also orbit at a much greater distance from Earth. And they are designed to be smaller with a rough surface that reflects less light. Those three characteristics make the satellites fainter than Starlink’s, and invisible to the naked eye. That means the satellites won’t obscure your view of the cosmos during a camping trip, as so many feared when Starlink was first deployed.

But any telescope will be able to see them. In addition, their higher orbit poses a distinct challenge for large research telescopes like the Rubin Observatory.

Satellites like Starlink and OneWeb are visible only because they reflect sunlight. Once they pass into Earth’s shadow, they virtually disappear. Given that Earth’s shadow is shaped like a cone, satellites that orbit lower will be invisible for most of the night, whereas satellites that orbit higher will be visible longer.

Dr. Seitzer has found in his research that because of their higher orbits, OneWeb will be visible for two additional hours every winter evening. During the summer, they will be visible throughout the night.

Their higher orbit, will also make them appear to move more slowly through images captured by telescopes. That means that even though they’re fainter, OneWeb’s satellites could still leave a bright streak.

“It’s like if you pass your hand really quickly over a candle flame, it doesn’t hurt,” said Jeffrey Hall, the director of Lowell Observatory. “But if you pass it more slowly through, then you feel the heat big time.”

Astronomers have expressed these concerns with SpaceX and OneWeb via a small committee formed by the American Astronomical Society. While SpaceX has been receptive and launched a prototype that is partly painted black to study reductions in reflectiveness, OneWeb has only recently joined the conversation.

Ruth Pritchard-Kelly, the vice president of regulatory affairs at OneWeb said the company was committed to working with astronomers.

“It’s like the open sea — it belongs to everybody,” Ms. Pritchard-Kelly said, referring to low-earth orbit. “Making sure that anybody could connect to the internet anywhere on Earth — whether on land, at sea or in the sky — is a pretty nice vision. But so is looking into the stars — literally and metaphorically.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/s...eb-launch.html





FCC Reaches Deal with Satellite Industry to Free up More 5G Spectrum

The C-band spectrum is seen as critical to the deployment of 5G.
Marguerite Reardon

The Federal Communications Commission has struck a deal worth billions of dollars with a group of satellite companies to free up spectrum that can be used for 5G service. On Thursday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released details of the plan, which entails satellite companies giving up valuable spectrum.

The plan calls for the FCC to pay satellite companies $3 billion to $5 billion in compensation for abandoning the so-called C-band spectrum and moving to another frequency so the airwaves can be auctioned. The FCC also said it would pay another $9.7 billion in accelerated incentive payments to operators in the C-band.

The money to pay for this move would come from the auction, which will divvy up the spectrum licenses for 5G use.

Satellite companies including Intelsat and SES use the C-band spectrum to serve TV broadcasters and cable network operators with video feeds. The FCC is asking these companies to modify their use of this spectrum in order to prevent interference from cellphone use.

But the negotiations over how much spectrum these companies would have to give up and how they'd transition their use of the spectrum has been going on for months. Meanwhile the wireless industry has been pushing for this spectrum to be reallocated so they can use it to build their 5G networks.

The C-Band spectrum, which is in the 3.7-4.2GHz range of frequencies, is considered midband spectrum, which many say is crucial to the deployment of 5G. Wireless carriers need a mix of wireless spectrum that consists of very high-frequency spectrum, low-band spectrum and midband spectrum to deliver the coverage and speeds necessary to make 5G a reality.

The C-Band spectrum is also very important because it's a swath of spectrum that's commonly available around the globe and is already earmarked for 5G service in several countries. The Global Mobile Suppliers Association said in a report last month that 23 countries have already auctioned or allocated C-Band spectrum for 5G mobile usage. The countries which have already held C-band auctions include Australia, Italy, Germany, Finland, South Korea and the UK. France is on the verge of allocating spectrum licenses.

Congress has also been pushing the FCC to reallocate the C-band spectrum for 5G. A bipartisan bill was introduced last week in the Senate to provide money to help move satellite providers.

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg called Pai's C-band proposal "monumental."

"Chairman Pai's historic announcement sets forth a bold vision for bringing much needed mid-band spectrum to auction this year," he said in a statement. "Most importantly, his plan ensures that this critical spectrum is not only auctioned quickly, but cleared on an accelerated basis. This speedy transition will undoubtedly ensure that the US will preserve its global leadership in 5G and will produce hundreds of billions of dollars in economic benefits for the country."
https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-reache...e-5g-spectrum/





US Broadband Gaps Are Twice as Bad as the Government Claims

Researchers estimate that 42 million Americans still have no access to either fixed or wireless broadband, double FCC estimates.
Karl Bode

The FCC’s 2019 Broadband Deployment Report states that 21.3 million Americans lack access to any broadband whatsoever, be it cable, DSL, fiber, or wireless. But according to a new study by broadband availability tracking firm BroadbandNow, that number is probably twice as bad as the FCC indicates, thanks to flawed FCC methodology and government apathy.

The firm examined broadband availability across the U.S. using more than 11,000 addresses from a dataset of 1 million. Those addresses were first compared to FCC data, then verified via the broadband availability websites of nine different internet service providers (ISPs).

Even taking a conservative approach to estimates, the group claims the actual number of unserved American households is closer to 42 million—double FCC estimates.

Why the disparity?

For decades the FCC has taken the broadband industry’s word on where broadband is actually available via “form 477” data collected from internet service providers (ISPs). The FCC then uses a flawed methodology to declare that an area is fully served with broadband even if just one home in a census block has service.

As a result, the government doesn’t actually know where broadband is available, and tends to view the problem through rose-colored glasses, something often reflected by FCC policy.

It only takes a few minutes fooling around with the FCC’s $350 million broadband map to get a good read on the problem. The map routinely tells users they have the choice of six or seven ISPs, even if just one—or none—are available. It also fails to track consumers’ biggest broadband complaint: pricing.

"I don't have a good answer for why the FCC hasn't moved faster on this,” BroadbandNow CEO John Busby told Motherboard. “It's been long known that the census-block approach overstates broadband availability, but the size of the gap hasn't been quantified or estimated. Our hope is that this study helps to spur the change needed.”

BroadbandNow’s study took the data and broke the problem down state by state, highlighting the significant difference between where the FCC says broadband is available, and where ISPs say they can actually provide service—an issue that’s worse in rural markets.

“FCC overreporting disproportionately impacts rural communities,” the researchers said. “As an example, in South Carolina, where 50 percent of residents live in an urban area, unserved addresses are 30 percent higher than FCC estimates.”

BroadbandNow is just the latest to point out the FCC doesn’t actually know where U.S. broadband exists. Last year Microsoft made similar complaints in filings with the agency, as have consumer groups and Senators eager to obtain subsidies for state-level broadband improvement efforts.

Giant broadband providers like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast have historically lobbied against efforts to improve broadband mapping, wary that more accurate data will highlight the competitive shortcomings that plague the U.S. telecom market—resulting in high prices, slower speeds, spotty coverage, and atrocious customer service.

At the same time the FCC has lagged on fixing its broadband mapping, it has fought against local town and city efforts to build better broadband networks. Trump FCC commissioners have falsely insisted community broadband poses a threat to free speech, and the agency has supported state laws—usually written by industry—banning or hindering such networks.

The FCC finally acknowledged the mapping problem last summer, announcing it would consider a more granular approach using crowdsourcing and geospatial data provided by ISPs. Those efforts have yet to materialize, and the wireless sector is currently lobbying the FCC to have next-generation 5G wireless networks excluded from any mapping improvement efforts.

The FCC did not respond to a request for comment.

ISPs could simply report availability based on individual street-level addresses, but efforts by the previous FCC to embrace address-level data were also opposed by the industry.

“We believe that address-level availability data is essential to close the digital divide, and that Americans should have clear and open information about how they can purchase high-speed internet,” Busby told Motherboard.

FCC boss Ajit Pai has long insisted his top priority is curing the digital divide. But you can’t fix a problem you don’t understand, and there’s no indication we’ll be getting a solid handle on the scope of the U.S.’ broadband monopoly problem anytime soon.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j...ernment-claims





Google and Facebook Turn their Backs on Undersea Cable To China

Tech giants’ high-speed internet link to Hong Kong has become politically toxic
Mark Harris

Google and Facebook seem to have resigned themselves to losing part of the longest and highest profile internet cable they have invested in to date. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission last week, the two companies requested permission to activate the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) between the US and the Philippines and Taiwan, leaving its controversial Hong Kong and Chinese sections dormant.

Globally, around 380 submarine cables carry over 99.5 percent of all transoceanic data traffic. Every time you visit a foreign website or send an email abroad, you are using a fiber-optic cable on the seabed. Satellites, even large planned networks like SpaceX’s Starlink system, cannot move data as quickly and cheaply as underwater cables.

When it was announced in 2017, the 13,000-kilometer PLCN was touted as the first subsea cable directly connecting Hong Kong and the United States, allowing Google and Facebook to connect speedily and securely with data centers in Asia and unlock new markets. The 120 terabit-per-second cable was due to begin commercial operation in the summer of 2018.

“PLCN will help connect US businesses and internet users with a strong and growing internet community in Asia,” they wrote. “PLCN will interconnect … with many of the existing and planned regional and international cables, thus providing additional transmission options in the event of disruptions to other systems, whether natural or manmade.”

Instead, it has been PLCN itself that has been disrupted, by an ongoing regulatory battle in the US that has become politicized by trade and technology spats with China.

Team Telecom, a shadowy US national security unit comprised of representatives from the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice (including the FBI), is tasked with protecting America’s telecommunications systems, including international fiber optic cables. Its regulatory processes can be tortuously slow. Team Telecom took nearly seven years to decide whether to allow China Mobile, a state-owned company, access to the US telecoms market, before coming down against it in 2018 on the grounds of “substantial and serious national security and law enforcement risks.”

Although subsidiaries of Google and Facebook have been the public face of PLCN in filings to the FCC, four of the six fiber-optic pairs in the cable actually belong to a company called Pacific Light Data Communication (PLDC). When the project was first planned, PLDC was controlled by Wei Junkang, a Hong Kong businessman who had made his fortune in steel and real estate.

In December 2017, Wei sold most of his stake in PLDC to Dr Peng Telecom & Media Group, a private broadband provider based in Beijing. That sent alarm bells ringing in Washington, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal last year. While Dr Peng is not itself state-owned or controlled, it works closely with Huawei, a telecoms company the Trump administration has accused of espionage and trade secret theft. Dr Peng has also worked on Chinese government projects, including a surveillance network for the Beijing police.

PLCN has been legal limbo ever since, with Google complaining bitterly to the FCC about the expense of the ongoing uncertainty. In 2018, it wrote, “[any further holdup] would impose significant economic costs. Depending on the length of the delay, the financial viability of the project could be at risk.”

Google and Facebook finally secured special permission to lay the cable in US waters last year, and to construct, connect and temporarily test a cable landing station in Los Angeles. But while the network itself is now essentially complete, Team Telecom has yet to make a decision on whether data can start to flow through it.

In the past, Team Telecom has permitted submarine cables, even from China, to land in the US, as long as the companies operating them signed what are called network security agreements. These agreements typically require network operations to be based in the US, using an approved list of equipment and staffed by security-screened personnel. Operators are obliged to block security threats from foreign powers, while complying with lawful surveillance requests from the US government.

In 2017, for example, Team Telecom gave the green light to the New Cross Pacific (NCP) cable directly connecting China and the US, despite it being part-owned by China Mobile, the state-owned company it later denied US access to on national security grounds.

“Normally there wouldn’t be so much fuss over a cable to China,” says Nicole Starosielski, a professor at New York University and author of The Undersea Network. “We’ve had cables to China for a long time and all of these networks interconnect, so even if they don’t land directly in China, they’re only a hop away. It is just one of those moments where it is more difficult to land a cable, no matter who the Chinese partner is, because of the political situation.”

In September, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who sits on Senate committees for technology, communications and homeland security, sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to block PLCN. “[PLCN] threatens the freedom of Hong Kong and our national security,” wrote Scott. “This project is backed by a Chinese partner, Dr Peng Telecom & Media Group Co., and would ultimately provide a direct link from China into Hong Kong … China has repeatedly shown it cannot be trusted … We cannot allow China expanded access to critical American information, even if funded by US companies.”

Google and Facebook saw the writing on the wall. On January 29 last week, representatives from the two companies – but not PLDC – met with FCC officials to propose a new approach. A filing, made the same day, requests permission to operate just the two PLCN fiber pairs owned by the American companies: Google’s link to Taiwan, and Facebook’s to the Philippines.

“[Google] and [Facebook] are not aware of any national security issues associated with operation of US-Taiwan and US-Philippine segments,” reads the application. “For clarity, the [request] would not authorize any commercial traffic on the PLCN system to or from Hong Kong, nor any operation of the PLCN system by PLDC.”

The filling goes on to describe how each fiber pair has its own terminating equipment, with Google’s and Facebook’s connections arriving at Los Angeles in cages that are inaccessible to the other companies. “PLDC is contractually prohibited from using its participation interest in the system to interfere with the ownership or rights of use of the other parties,” it notes.

Neither company would comment directly on the new filing. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch, “We have been working through established channels in order to obtain cable landing licenses for various undersea cables, and we will continue to abide by the decisions made by designated agencies in the locations where we operate.”

A Facebook spokesperson said, “We are continuing to navigate through all the appropriate channels on licensing and permitting for a jointly-owned subsea cable between the US and Asia to provide fast and secure internet access to more people on both continents.”

“I think stripping out the controversial [Hong Kong] link will work,” says Starosielski. “But whenever one of these projects either gets thwarted, it sends a very strong message. If even Google and Facebook can’t get a cable through, there aren’t going to be a ton of other companies advancing new cable systems between the US and China now.”

Ironically, that means that US data to and from China will continue to flow over the NCP cable controlled by China Mobile – the only company that Team Telecom and the FCC have ever turned down on national security grounds.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/06/go...able-to-china/





U.S., Allies Should Consider Nokia, Ericsson Investments to Counter Huawei: Barr

U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Thursday stressed the threat posed by Huawei Technologies and said the United States and its allies should consider investing in Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson to counter the Chinese company’s dominance in next generation 5G telecoms technology.

Barr said there had been some proposals that concerns about Huawei “could be met by the United States aligning itself with Nokia and/or Ericsson, through American ownership of a controlling stake, either directly or through a consortium of private American and allied companies.

“Putting our large market and financial muscle behind one or both of these firms would make it a far more formidable competitor and eliminate concerns over its staying power, or their staying power,” Barr said in a speech to a Washington think tank conference on China.

“We and our closest allies certainly need to be actively considering this approach,” Barr said.

The United States alleges that the Chinese government could use Huawei’s equipment for espionage, which Huawei denies.

Reporting by Mark Hosenball, David Brunnstrom and Chris Sanders; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN20029O





No Handshakes at Global Wireless Conference as Virus Spreads
Mark Gurman and Thomas Seal

LG and ZTE unmake plans for world’s biggest smartphone show
Asian tech companies still formulating reaction to coronavirus

Two smartphone makers canceled events at the world’s biggest mobile technology showcase in response to the coronavirus outbreak, and organizers reinforced hygiene protocol for people still planning to attend.

Delegates were warned to avoid handshakes and microphones will be changed for different conference speakers in an effort to avoid infections at MWC Barcelona, an annual event that’s set to draw around 100,000 people from around the world to the Spanish city from Feb. 24 to 27.

This year’s conference is supposed to be a launch pad for a renewed push on 5G devices. However, South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc. said it’s withdrawing from exhibiting at the conference because most health experts advised against “needlessly” exposing hundreds of employees to international travel.

Shenzhen, China-based ZTE Corp., which makes smartphones and wireless networking equipment, cited difficulties in traveling out of China while virus-containment restrictions are in place, and so it’s canceling its MWC press conference, though it will still send a delegation.

The two companies usually occupy two of the largest, most central exhibition zones at the Fira Gran Via venue, and both were expected to contribute to an industrywide push to make the newest generation of networking and devices mainstream this year.

ZTE plans to roll out “a wide variety of new 5G devices” and will keep its usual exhibition spot. LG, keen to match compatriot arch rival Samsung Electronics Co., maintains an outsize presence at the show even when it doesn’t launch any major new products, and so its absence this year will be obvious to attendees.

MWC brings together wireless and tech industry executives to talk shop and do deals. Crowds of gadget fans roam the vast LED-lit conference halls to check out the latest kit -- from smartphones and tablets to artificial intelligence and robots.

The latest hygiene measures were announced on the MWC website by wireless industry lobby GSMA. It had already beefed up medical support at the event and stepped up its disinfection policy for catering areas, entrances and exits and public touch-screens in response to the coronavirus.

Other Asia-based companies are closely monitoring the outbreak and may yet alter their plans, however many are sticking to their existing programs.

- Huawei Technologies Co., based in Shenzhen, is considering a range of options which include leaving its current plans unchanged, flying executives from China to Spain early, or even canceling travel plans altogether, said a U.K.-based spokesman.

- Lenovo Group Ltd., parent of Motorola, says its MWC plans are still under discussion.

- Xiaomi Corp. is sending its contingent to Barcelona as soon as possible “and will make necessary adjustments accordingly,” a spokesman said.

- Samsung, Oppo, Microsoft Corp. and MediaTek Inc. representatives all said their companies are preparing for MWC as planned.

Several major U.S. technology firms, including Qualcomm Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, are also scheduled to participate and play big roles at this year’s conference.

On its website, the GSMA says it “continues to monitor and assess the potential impact of the coronavirus” on its event and has “implemented many measures to help to mitigate the spread of the virus and is continuing to add other actions regularly.”

— With assistance by Sohee Kim, and Yuan Gao
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...id-coronavirus

















Until next week,

- js.



















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