Month: June 2010

1:37 am on June 9, 2010 · broadband (122), SSRC (1), underserved (1)

Report: Broadband Adoption in Low-Income Communities

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As part of the preparation for the National Broadband Plan the Social Science Research Council was asked by the FCC to prepare a report – Broadband Adoption in Low-Income Communities which was issued in March 2010.

Conclusions:

(1) Broadband access is increasingly a prerequisite of social and economic inclusion, and low-income communities know it. Demand for broadband in these communities is consequently growing, even as the economic crisis undermines family and community resources to support Internet use.

(2) Price is only one factor shaping the fragile equilibrium of home broadband adoption, and price pressures go beyond the obvious challenge of high monthly fees. Limited availability, poor quality of service, hardware costs, hidden fees, and billing transparency are major issues for low-income communities.

(3) Libraries and other intermediaries fill the gap between low home adoption and high community demand, and providing Internet access and related support is increasingly part of the core missions of these institutions. Even as home broadband becomes more prevalent, third spaces have a crucial role to play as safety nets for access, and as providers of training and task-based assistance for their communities. Often this helps users gain the skills that lead to confident, sustainable home broadband adoption.

Further notes:

* Of those who have ever had broadband at home, 22% are now un-adopters, mainly due to financial concerns.

* Bad service by ISPs was a constant factor in non-adoption.

* Business increasingly benefits through training and job-seeking activity at community access centers, without bearing the cost.

* Investments in Internet proficiency remain critically important in low-income communities

* Investments in promoting or justifying Internet use to low-adoption communities, in contrast, would appear to be a waste of money.

* There is a continuing need for efficient, resilient ways of accessing essential social services in person, via telephone, and via paper correspondence.

* Social service providers need to re-evaluate eligibility criteria to include Internet access.

* Expensive triple-play plans are an unaffordable luxury that can exacerbate poverty of access.

The report’s appendix includes an exhaustive directory of community access organizations across the nation.

3:58 pm on June 3, 2010 · copyright (81), p2p (5), troll (1)

Massive P2P copyright trolling increase

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Nate Anderson has been keeping an eye on the activities of copyright troll firm Leesburg, Virginia-based Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver, whose efforts make the RIAA look like “amateurs”.

As Anderson notes :

The model couldn’t be simpler: find an indie filmmaker; convince the production company to let you sue individual “John Does” for no charge; send out subpoenas to reveal each Doe’s identity; demand that each person pay $1,500 to $2,500 to make the lawsuit go away; set up a website to accept checks and credit cards; split the revenue with the filmmaker.

14,583 Does have now been sued in federal court, with lawyers from Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver handling each case. The number is extraordinary; even after years of lawsuits, the RIAA campaign against file-swappers targeted 18,000 people (you can see the bump caused by RIAA lawsuits in the chart below between 2003 and 2008).

The sheer volume suggests that these cases aren’t designed for prosecution—and they don’t need to be. As the RIAA lawsuits showed us, most people will settle. Data from the recording industry lawsuits, revealed in a court case, showed that 11,000 of the 18,000 Does settled immediately or had their cases dropped by the labels. Seven thousand either refused to settle or never responded to the settlement letter, but after the RIAA subpoenaed their identities and filed “named” lawsuits against them, nearly every one settled.

After years of litigation, the number of people who have pursued a trial all the way to a verdict can be counted on one hand.

The legal campaign has the potential to earn real money. Copies of the settlement letters and settlement contracts seen by Ars Technica show that Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver generally asks for $1,500 to $2,500, threatening to sue for $150,000 if no settlement payment is forthcoming. Assuming that 90 percent of the current targets settle for $1,500, this means that the lawyers, studios, and P2P detection company would split $19.7 million.

Once the infrastructure has been set up, this sort of system is simple to replicate, since it’s built largely on sending out letters and collecting cash. If the lawyers can continue signing up indie film clients at the current rate, they could be on their way to filing nearly 30,000 lawsuits by year’s end, which would double the potential cash on the table.

Anderson notes that Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver insist that they will seek the maximun $150,000 award, and defendants will incur high costs if they don’t settle. He details futile attempts by defendants to quash the cases.

While Verizon and Comcast are going along, a possibly more successful quash motion has been filed by Time Warner, saying they just don’t have the resources to keep up with the demand for user identification requests.

Lastly he details one particular case where the defendant denies any P2P activity and is preparing to go thru the courts.

3:57 pm on June 1, 2010 · ICANN (196), newgtlds (19)

New gTLD Draft Applicant Guidebook, Version 4 Available for Public Comment

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A fourth draft of the Applicant Guidebook that describes the process of applying for new generic top-level domains was released today along with explanatory memoranda and detailed analysis of comments received. The program continues to improve and moves toward completion thanks to the outstanding collaboration from the ICANN Community working groups whose expertise helped to address and bring toward closure several challenging issues.
Also posted are the summaries and analysis of the public comment period on topics such as: trademark & community protections, potential for malicious conduct, IDN issues and registry operations & agreement.
The new version has new content, including:
* Incorporation of trademark protections, including improvements to the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS), the Trademark Clearinghouse (TM Clearinghouse), and the Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Proposal (PDDRP);
* Changes to rules for geographic TLDs, including a prohibition on country names as gTLDs;
* A new gTLD Registry transition process model, including provisions for emergency transition in the case of prolonged Registry technical outages;
* A model for providing centralized zone file access (ZFA) to aid in combating malicious conduct;
* A revised base Registry agreement, the contract future registries must sign with ICANN, including new features such as:
o Registry-Registrar cross-ownership language — proposed position pending the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) policy-development work;
o Emergency Registry transition provision — to be used for protection of registrants in the event of prolonged Registry technical outage;
o Special new agreement provisions for governmental and inter-governmental organization (IGO) applicants — based on negotiations with Universal Postal Union (UPU) for .post (subject to modification for different circumstances of other similar organizations);
o New “hybrid” process for future amendments — based on consultations with Registries and others;
o New provisions for centralized registry zone file access (ZFA).
Among the accompanying materials, also open for comments are:
* Proposed New gTLD Program Budget
* Market/Economic Study: an initial analysis of the costs and benefits of the introduction of new gTLDs – to be released shortly
* Review & provide feedback to Applicant Guidebook
* Read Explanatory Memoranda & Related Reports
* Read Comments Summaries & Analyses