Last month, the Norwegian Culture Ministry published a report calling for the turnoff of all analog radio broadcast services in the country by 2017.
Domestic boosters of the plan claim that the switch to the Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) protocol represents “a tool for democratization and a vast increase in choice.” Although DMB is a different technology than HD Radio, the U.S. digital radio broadcasting standard, both suffer from a technologically-agnostic failure to provide qualitative improvements to existing analog radio service. Continue reading “Norway: New Vanguard of Digital Radio?”
Category: Media Policy
Your Tax Dollars At Work
Last July, they first went after nine who wore the title “pirate” on their sleeves, and trafficked primarily in music and movies.
Then, they took down 82 more for selling counterfeit goods on the Monday after Thanksgiving (“Cyber Monday”). The net was expanded to include those vending “sports equipment, shoes, handbags, athletic apparel and sunglasses as well as illegal copies of copyrighted DVD boxed sets, music and software.”
On Valentine’s Day, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “muscle” division, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), seized 18 more web site domains for marketing fake luxury gifts. Continue reading “Your Tax Dollars At Work”
Net Neutrality's Nebulous Future
Just before the end of the year, the Federal Communications Commission made a second try at preserving principles of openness on the Internet – often clumsily called “net neutrality,” but better contextualized as an effort to prevent data discrimination.
There’s been loads of coverage of the decision and predictions of its ultimate success as a regulatory tool. Advocates and critics alike are correct when they say that the issue is more than just one thing – it’s multiple attributes of Internet freedom that are on the line here. Continue reading “Net Neutrality's Nebulous Future”
LPFM's Second Wave
Congratulations to everyone who worked tirelessly – both over the last 10 years and the last two weeks – to convince Congress to finally approve the Local Community Radio Act. Given the recent changes in the political winds of D.C., this was most likely the very last chance to fundamentally expand the LPFM radio service.
Things literally came down to the wire: after locking the bill in stasis for months with secret holds from industry-friendly Senators, last-minute negotiations between LPFM proponents and the National Association of Broadcasters, combined with a multi-faceted grassroots lobbying blitz, ended up in a hasty rewrite of the actual legislation, which the House quickly approved on Friday and the Senate blessed on Saturday. President Obama’s signature is a given. Continue reading “LPFM's Second Wave”
Dear Santa: Please Bring Sanity
I’m not a big fan of the consumptive nature of the “holiday season,” though I do love me some reading. One of the latest on my wish list is Tim Wu’s new tome, The Master Switch. The book itself examines the rise of “information empires” within U.S. communications history, ranging from radio to the Internet.
Wu occupies an interesting place in the media policymaking world: he’s not been afraid to speak his mind, and he’s also remained independent enough to look at our information environment from a strategic perspective, instead of getting embroiled in tactical distractions. Continue reading “Dear Santa: Please Bring Sanity”
Politics-Based Policy, or Policy-Based Politics?
If you haven’t yet read Harold Feld’s humorous critique on the handling of network neutrality as a “political issue” during the recent elections, it’s worth the time.
Harold calls out two functional weaknesses in what constitutes the public interest constituency in D.C.: the desire to score quick political points with no long-term value and the penchant to react in a knee-jerk fashion when the drive to score backfires. Continue reading “Politics-Based Policy, or Policy-Based Politics?”
Faster Facebook or Accurate Forecasts?
The Obama administration’s hunger for wireless broadband spectrum reminds me of a junkie seeking their next fix – they’ll do anything to get more.
In addition to freezing applications for rural low-power DTV stations and threatening to appropriate spectrum from the General Mobile Radio Service (think two-way radio applications, such as those used by industry and public safety agencies), a new proposal would trim the spectrum allocated to weather satellites.
Those of you living east of the Rockies this week got a taste of a “megastorm” which swept the country; the pressure-center of this continental weather-maker was “one of the deepest…ever observed in the continental U.S., outside of a hurricane.” Fortunately, it transited a land mass; if it were over water, this weather system would have qualified as a Category 3 storm. Continue reading “Faster Facebook or Accurate Forecasts?”
The History of LPFM
What is LPFM?
LPFM stands for Low Power FM radio broadcasting. In the United States, the lowest minimum wattage a licensed FM radio station may have is 100 watts. There are lower-power FM transmitters in use, though, by some stations who want to increase their coverage area by extending their signal. These are called translators or boosters.
While these may only have a wattage measured in a range from dozens to hundreds, they are not true broadcast stations by the FCC’s definitions – they do not originate their own programming. They rely on a “parent” station to provide what they air.
Ham (amateur) radio uses a similar system called a repeater; people don’t broadcast from it. They shoot a signal into it, and then it gets re-broadcast to an area larger than what ham operators might reach with their own gear. In a nutshell, translators and boosters are the repeaters of FM radio.
LPFM is the common term used to define an FM broadcast station that originates its own programming but has the power of a translator or booster. Under current FCC rules, operating such a station is simply not allowed. You may also see LPFM referred to by other terms – like “LPRS,” “microradio,” and “mini-FM,” but they all mean the same thing. Continue reading “The History of LPFM”
Net Neutrality Now Sliding Down Tubes
After the clusterf*ck circus, near-“deal”-breaking, and back-channel discussions sparked by a judicial ruling stripping the FCC from preventing data discrimination online, and nothing (substantive) doing from the agency itself as a result, the ball has been tossed to Congress. Where it landed with a thud.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) was poised to introduce a bill that would have effectively been a “compromise” – on an issue in which “compromise” would have meant throttling the FCC’s regulatory authority and leaving lots of loopholes for data discrimination. Bad, bad news. Continue reading “Net Neutrality Now Sliding Down Tubes”
Snookered
A week ago, media reformistas were supposedly “celebrating” the near-avoidance of the death of network neutrality when the FCC declared discussions between it, Google, and Verizon had fallen through.
After a weekend of deep breaths, guess what? Google and Verizon announce a “policy framework” for network neutrality going forward. So much for salvation.
The plan would place the FCC in an “oversight” role to make sure content is not discriminated against online simply for the sake of what it is. Notable, however, is the FCC’s secondary position in the regulation of network neutrality; companies will work out their own deals, and then hand them over to the FCC for rubber-stampage. Continue reading “Snookered”