Going to try to ease back into the swing of things, though there’s still a lot of non-site work in my life right now still going on. But just a few notes to let you know I’m still alive:
1. Good friend and collagist extraordinaire rx has released an eight-minute trailer of his latest magnum opus – a remix-documentary of the 2008 presidential election. rx isn’t a big fan of deadlines (especially those self-imposed), but he tells me the full doc should be ready for public viewing hopefully by the end of this year or early next. Continue reading “Catch-Up Notes of Miscellany”
Category: Media Policy
Comcastic Adventures: Capping Your Bandwidth
By now, you’ve all heard about the FCC slapping Comcast’s wrists for engaging in data discrimination; it’s simply been required to disclose its current and future “network management” practices, under penalty of…nothing, really. Both Comcast and those who called for the FCC to act on its shady attempts at subverting network neutrality are appealing the FCC’s decision.
We’ve already covered Comcast’s history of opaque and unreliable service, especially when it comes to crippling your e-mail. Comcast’s initial response to the FCC ruling has been the announcement of a 250 gigabyte per-month usage cap on all residential users, effective next month, with extra-special throttling on the most intensive users at any given time (to be determined at Comcast’s discretion). Continue reading “Comcastic Adventures: Capping Your Bandwidth”
Raising FM-HD Power Levels Will Cause Increased Interference
And not just to adjacent stations – iBiquity’s proposed 10-fold power hike for FM digital sidebands will cause what one commentator has called “honkin’ interference” to an HD parent station’s analog signal. Although the suspicions of just what increasing the signal strength of FM-HD sidebands would do to analog FM radio coverage have been well-discussed in the engineering community for nine months now, the new report from NPR Labs confirms the worst.
The “monumental 18-month study,” involving extensive laboratory and field-testing of increased FM-HD sideband power finds that increased digital interference is simply unavoidable. While the tests do show that increasing FM-HD sideband power by a factor of 10 will make digital service coverage equivalent to (or, in some cases, slightly exceed) the coverage of a station’s analog signal, the modification comes at a price: Continue reading “Raising FM-HD Power Levels Will Cause Increased Interference”
Post-Facto Piracy: Not So Bad
I just updated the Enforcement Action Database: FCC field agents really went on a tear in July, and they are on pace to meet or beat their enforcement record set just last year.
But the really interesting cases I found involved stations who were licensed, let them lapse, and then just kept running as if nothing was amiss. Continue reading “Post-Facto Piracy: Not So Bad”
Translator-Mongers and AM Stations Eye Expanded FM Band
Two suspicious proposals to expand the FM spectrum have surfaced at the FCC. While on its face the idea seems promising, the devil, as always, is in the details.
The first proposal was filed in late July by the Educational Media Foundation – parent company of the K-LOVE and AIR-1 Christian music radio networks, which can already be heard on more than 150 full-power, low-power, and FM translator stations.
A second, new group, called the “Broadcast Maximization Committee,” which represents the interests of AM broadcasters, followed up with its own proposal within days of EMF’s filing. It is difficult to believe the timing of the filings were coincidental. Continue reading “Translator-Mongers and AM Stations Eye Expanded FM Band”
LPFM: Movement in Congress?
It appears that the U.S. Senate may be moving toward a floor vote on the Local Community Radio Act. This bill originally began under the auspices of undoing the Congressional fiat in 2001 which severely restricted the promulgation of new low-power FM (LPFM) radio stations. By imposing draconian channel-spacing regulations on the new service, LPFM stations were precluded from being sited in areas of the nation in which 80% of the population lives.
The Local Community Radio Act has been the focus of a seven-year campaign to right this wrong. Most importantly, it would relax channel-spacing rules for LPFM stations (allowing them to be placed in more urban areas) and give LPFM stations a semblance of parity with regard to other classes of FM station. This would make LPFMs less susceptible to being bumped off the air by a larger station looking to move or otherwise modify its own transmission infrastructure. Continue reading “LPFM: Movement in Congress?”
Miscellaneous Follow-Upage
After months of frustration, the hosting provider for DIYmedia.net has saved my day by stepping in and graciously providing me with independent, unrestricted e-mail capability. I’ll never have to rely on Comcast again for that application (provided Comcast’s general broadband network uptime remains reliable, which is a questionable proposition).
You know you’ve got a systemic problem when the first prompt a customer encounters at your 1-800 number is, “For trouble with your service….” Continue reading “Miscellaneous Follow-Upage”
"Glimmer" Downgraded to "Mirage"
What a difference a weekend makes.
Last week, Congress passed a bill retroactively legalizing and expanding the surveillance of the communications of U.S. citizens. This bill may have unintended and negative effects on the campaign to re-instill the principle of network neutrality as a point of law.
Shortly after Congress’ action, two developments took place: both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union filed lawsuits against the FISA Amendments Act, challenging its constitutionality on a number of levels. Notably, none of the principals of the media-reform movement have signed onto these legal efforts as of yet. Continue reading “"Glimmer" Downgraded to "Mirage"”
Glimmers of Hope for Network Neutrality
Although Congress may have just inadvertently given telecommunication companies a huge legal boost to engage in network management via the pretext of “terrorism-related” surveillance, it is a long shot from being a done deal. For starters, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched the first in what is expected to be a multi-lateral legal attack on the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act; the starting point is a claim that the law violates the separation of powers clause of the Constitution, in that Congress’ action unconstitutionally empowered the Executive branch while emasculating any judicial oversight or reprimand of abuses conducted under the permission of the legislature.
Should the entire FISA Amendments Act be declared unconstitutional – and not just the provision granting telecom companies retroactive immunity for spying on us without proper legal justification – the diminishment of network neutrality under the auspices of national security would be undermined, perhaps fatally. That would be a very good thing. EFF’s legal experts don’t expect action on their lawsuit to really begin to gain traction until later this year – right around (or shortly after) the November elections. The case itself won’t likely be resolved until sometime next year at the earliest. Continue reading “Glimmers of Hope for Network Neutrality”
Congress Shreds Constitutional Privacy, But It's Not Over Yet
Today the U.S. Senate voted to approve legislation that essentially legalizes the warrantless surveillance of the communications of U.S. citizens. We know such behavior’s been going on for more than two years, when a whistleblower stepped forward to disclose that AT&T had been working closely with the National Security Agency (NSA) – so much so that the NSA now has its own special rooms in AT&T communications backbone facilities. In these rooms are giant, electronic taps that essentially monitor, record, and allow for the analysis of every phone call, facsimile transmission, and all other electronic communications passing through AT&T’s network.
As the largest telecommunications provider in the United States, it is virtually impossible for any communications network traffic to travel from point A to point B without transiting some node in AT&T’s vast infrastructure. Which in effect means that for as long as this program has been going on, we’ve all been under Big Brother’s scrutiny to some degree. Continue reading “Congress Shreds Constitutional Privacy, But It's Not Over Yet”