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AT&T isn't going to let something like "net neutrality" slow it down from shaking every spare cent out of its customer base. (Source: I'm a customer. Also: see these.) Beginning last year with its blocking of Apple's Facetime app (exempting customers who were paying for higher service tiers) and continuing on through its recent lockout of Google Hangouts, AT&T has skirted neutrality by using one term: pre-loaded.
In its mind, as long as an app is "pre-loaded" by phone manufacturers (and competing options are available), AT&T can block app functionality if it feels it's somehow leaving money on the table. Of course, this irritates many of its customers and brings with it an uncomfortable amount of heat as the word travels around the web.
AT&T has now issued another statement to critics of its Hangout-blocking, one which sends the clear message that the company will gladly welcome streaming video apps with open arms (even pre-loaded apps), just as soon as it's able to simultaneously welcome a fat stream of income. Click headline to read more--
A bit of friendly rivalry is healthy for cities with growing technology ecosystems, but sometimes they set aside the hype and find ways to collaborate. At the onset of this week’s Internet Week New York citywide festivities, representatives from 11 cities from the U.S. and beyond spoke about how their administrations are leverage technology to modernize their cities. Rachel Sterne Haot, chief digital officer in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, introduced representatives who traveled from as far as Beijing, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro to share their stories on stage at Internet Week NY. She pointed out that New York had developed a map that shows the more than 2,000 tech companies across the city, which can be found at WeAreMadeinNY.com along with other information about the local innovation community. Boston’s Nigel Jacob, co-chair of New Urban Mechanics, came out as well to talk about how his city is putting technology to work, literally, in the streets. A mobile app called Street Bump, he says, is in the works to alert the city to roads that need repairs. Street Bump is expected to have its public launch by the end of summer, he says. New Urban Mechanics looks for ways to marry technology with civic needs on behalf of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s administration. After addressing the Internet Week NY audience at the Metropolitan Pavilion, Jacob spoke to me about ways the city is working even more with innovators. In addition to putting public data in tech companies’ hands to create apps that improve city life, he sees more cities interested in working with startups and researchers to make the barriers between public and private institutions more porous. Boston also plans to launch a civic reputation API (application programming interface) system, Jacob says, called Street Cred. Many civic-oriented apps, he says, tend to be rather siloed, but Street Cred, which is expected to have its beta test in June, is aimed at being more pervasive. “We’re interested in finding ways to connect experiences so individuals and the community can get a sense of what people are doing and how any one particular behavior translates into broader impact,” he says. Click headline to read more--
AT&T wants everyone in Oklahoma City to stay off the phone and rely on text messaging for communications with family, friends, and loved ones “given high call volumes.” Although AT&T has announced it is waiving voice, data, and text overage charges through June 30 for customers in the affected areas, it won’t automatically waive your bill for services you cannot use or per message charges incurred if you do not have a texting plan. “AT&T customer service told me the waived fees only cover overlimit fees, not plan fees,” says Susan Ramos, who received a text message on her AT&T phone advising her of the special tornado victim compensation plan. “When I called them to learn the exact terms, they told me if you don’t have a text plan, for instance, you will still be charged a per message fee.” Ramos, who is in Moore, Okla., tells Stop the Cap! AT&T is pleading Oklahoma City customers to stay off their cell phones and rely on text messaging. But without a text plan AT&T will charge 20 cents per text message, 30 cents for each picture or video message. “Looking at AT&T’s website, their generous offer doesn’t seem so generous when you notice they are only selling a $20 texting plan that already provides unlimited messages,” Ramos notes. “How about just waiving all text message fees for everyone until June 30?” Click headline to read more--
If you were going to look for ground zero in the fight against a rapidly consolidating telecom and cable industry, you might end up on the fifth floor of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. Susan Crawford, a professor at the school, has written a book, “Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age,” that offers a calm but chilling state-of-play on the information age in the United States. She is on a permanent campaign, speaking at schools, conferences and companies — she was at Google last week — and in front of Congress, asserting that the status quo has been great for providers but an expensive mess for everyone else. Ms. Crawford argues that the airwaves, the cable systems and even access to the Internet have been overtaken by monopolists who resist innovation and chronically overcharge consumers. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was meant to lay down track to foster competition in a new age, allowed cable companies and telecoms to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly. If you are looking for the answer to why much of the developed world has cheap, reliable connections to the Internet while America seems just one step ahead of the dial-up era, her office — or her book — would be a good place to find out. In a recent conversation, she explained that wired and wireless connections, building blocks of modern life, are now essentially controlled by four companies. Comcast and Time Warner have a complete lock on broadband in the markets they control, covering some 50 million American homes, while Verizon and AT&T own 64 percent of cellphone service. Don’t get her started on the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger unless you have some time on your hands. But don’t look for a jeremiad, either. A violist who plays in string quartets when she is not hammering telecom companies, Ms. Crawford is precise in her arguments and far from frantic in making them. The captains of industry who kidnapped telecoms and cable are not monsters, she says, merely shrewd capitalists who used leverage to maximize returns, no different or worse than the railroad or electricity barons of times past. “They have acted in parallel to exclude competitors and used every lever they had to gain control over their markets. My whole book is essentially an argument to buy stock in cable companies,” she said with a laugh. Her arguments don’t end there. High-capacity fiber connections to homes and businesses are not just a social good, but a business imperative, she says, and the lack of them will cripple American efforts to compete in a global economy. Click headline to read more--
In a note to staff on her first official workday as acting chair of the FCC, Mignon Clyburn said she saw herself as running the middle leg of a relay race, eventually handing off to the president's nominee, Tom Wheeler. "My job is to build on forward momentum, give the next teammate a running start, an improved position, and no matter what, my goal is not to drop the baton," she said. She said she planned to model her tenure -- expected to be several months -- on her former colleague and also acting chair, Mike Copps. "He approached this job with seriousness, humility, and led this agency through the completion of the DTV transition -- a major accomplishment." Clyburn said the two things that set the FCC apart were its people, which she called "world-class talent," and its mission to accelerate "the communications revolution that's transforming our economy, and the way we live." She said her twin goals would be continuity and progress. Click headline to read more--
The Missoula City Council wants to give a shot in the arm to businesses in need of faster and cheaper Internet speeds. On Monday, the council voted 9-1 to spend $13,125 toward a feasibility study “outlining the demand for and options to improve access to extreme broadband at an affordable cost for businesses in Missoula.” “We did a survey around that and identified that one of the needs that folks have is for high-speed, high-capacity connections at an affordable price,” said Councilwoman Caitlin Copple. Copple chairs the Economic Development Subcommittee of the council, a group that formed to research the way municipal government can best support technology infrastructure to bolster local businesses – and recruit more technology startups. “We felt like the time is now to bring on a consultant and really get a professional assessment on what we have, what the demand is and what the potential partnerships are,” Copple said. Earlier this month, the Board of County Commissioners guaranteed $13,125 toward the study. The city and county funds together meet a matching grant requirement for a $26,250 award the Bitter Root Economic Development District secured from the Big Sky Trust Fund, a program of the Montana Department of Commerce. “The city of Missoula recognizes affordable, high-capacity and high-speed Internet service across the city is vital to Missoula’s economic growth,” reads the city’s resolution authorizing the expenditure. Click headline to read more--
The Atlanta Beltline could soon have zippy Internet connectivity — in addition to its speedy bike trails. The City of Atlanta is considering lighting up the 22-mile corridor with "gigabit Internet" — ultra-fast Internet access via fiber optic cable. FTTP (fiber-to-the-premise) technology delivers Internet speeds of between 10Mbps and 300 Mbps. Internet speeds via coaxial cable connection, in comparison, typically ranges between 1Mbps and 6Mbps. The Beltline is an ambitious redevelopment, transforming historic railroad corridors circling downtown and connecting 45 neighborhoods with a network of public parks, multi-use trails and transit. Atlanta’s economic developers wants to drive commerce to the Beltline and hope high-speed Internet connectivity will lure tech, digital media and health care firms. Such businesses need to transfer large files electronically and stream high definition video and audio. "The high-speed Internet access will support greater innovation and entrepreneurs," said Eloisa Klementich, director of business development with Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm. "The key is at what price." Indeed, installing high-speed fiber optic cable in built-up areas is expensive because it requires tearing up streets to lay down the cable. The Beltline, however, is undergoing major renovations and infrastructure upgrades, including the laying of pipes that will deliver electricity and other utilities. Those pipes could also carry the fiber optic cables, Klementich said. Click headline to read more--
As a whole, pay TV service providers don't meet customer expectations thanks to ongoing price hikes and reliability issues. And, in a twist of sorts, cable is seen as "an inferior mechanism for delivering television compared to fiber optics and satellite," according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Information Sector for 2013. Good news for pay TV service providers is that the subscription TV space as a whole ended a three-year run of bad customer satisfaction results with a 3 percent gain to climb to a grade of 68. The bad news is that this is the third worst score of 43 industries the ACSI covers. Pay TV service providers were six points lower than fixed line telephone service, which scored 4 percent higher with a 74. The culprits driving the unsatisfactory results were easy to identify because they were the same ones that crop up every year. Click headline to read more and access hot link to view the ratings chart--
As the dust begins to settle from one of the most significant acquisitions in web-land since the Facebook/Instagram deal, the warm glow of euphoria created by Yahoo’s $1.1-billion takeover of Tumblr has given way to the harsh reality of blending — or, more importantly, not blending — two vastly different companies and cultures. In a statement about the deal, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer promised not to “screw it up,” a comment undoubtedly aimed at the sensitive community of Tumblr fanatics. But is it even possible for Yahoo to keep this promise? Even before the news was confirmed on Monday, critics with long memories were reminding anyone who would listen about Yahoo’s track record with acquisitions, which has some rather notorious bumps in it, including two major ones known as GeoCities and Flickr. Those two deals alone have made many question whether Yahoo will be able to do the right thing with Tumblr — and while it may be unfair to lay the blame for these at Marissa Mayer’s feet, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the future of this latest acquisition. Click headline to read more--
Doppler radars are effective, but they’re outdated. While we can detect storms with Doppler, storms are moving faster than those systems can help prepare citizens for. We need more detail on the storms and where they are moving — and we need that data quicker. With storms as large as Hurricane Sandy, or with tornadoes that have hit downtown areas like Dallas in recent years and suburban Oklahoma City yesterday, we need real-time systems for detecting storms and figuring out exactly what areas they will impact. Enter CASA: the Collaborative Sensing of the Atomosphere (CASA) program. It’s a long name, but it essentially means: predictive storm tracking that gives people in a city much more time to prepare by processing a lot more data more quickly. As UMass Amherst explains, “Having detected a storm, they conduct ‘smart’ scans focused on areas of greatest concern to give a precise location,” providing “data 5 to 10 times more detailed than current radar systems.” But we can’t use these great devices with our current Internet – we need advanced networks with gigabit speeds, software definition, and local cloud capabilities. Next generation applications like those that CASA is developing are especially exciting for us, as they provide tremendous societal benefit, and make the case for why we need to get advanced networks up and running around the country. The latest on the CASA system being installed in Dallas, and in the heart of Tornado Alley, Oklahoma, is below: Click headline to read more--
The Federal Communications Commission’s high-profile attempt to defend its net neutrality rules against a court challenge got major support on Monday from the Supreme Court, which ruled in a separate case that regulatory agencies should usually be granted deference in interpreting their own jurisdictions. In a 6-to-3 decision, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that in cases where Congress has left ambiguous the outlines of a regulatory agency’s jurisdiction, “the court must defer to the administering agency’s construction of the statute so long as it is permissible.” That has big implications for Verizon v. F.C.C., in which Verizon challenged the F.C.C.’s Open Internet Order, its rules on net neutrality. Those rules said that an Internet service provider must treat all traffic on its system roughly equally, not giving priority to any one type of data or application as it moves through the provider’s Internet pipes. The net neutrality case is pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appeals court was expected to hear arguments in that case this spring, but deferred the case until next fall. Court watchers have speculated that the delay may have been spurred by anticipation of Monday’s decision in Arlington v. F.C.C., No. 11-1545. Click headline to read more--
There is a simple answer to the question of why mobile service providers and would-be providers want more spectrum.
As usage continues to climb, and as access speeds continue to climb, there is little chance of boosting access speeds, in the mobile or fixed wireless realms, without adding more spectrum.
For example, it is possible to deliver 1-Gbps mobile Internet access using Long Term Evolution, but that requires a 40-MHz block of spectrum, not the 10 MHz or 20 MHz channels now used by LTE providers.
Click headline to view chart--
The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, on the eve of the upfront selling season, has released a special report underscoring the breadth of the national cable networks’ collective size versus the “five screens” advertisers and agency customers are looking toward for their ad buys. Created at the request of a number U.S. media agencies, the "Cable Nation: Video Advertising Update," using Nielsen, comScore and Trendrr data, aims to furnish ad budget allocators with statistics that quantify the role that cable plays in the daily lives of Americans. Among the findings: Cable remains the dominant force in ad-supported television, garnering 92% and 75% of total-day and primetime ratings, respectively, against Madison Avenue’s coveted 18-to-49 demo. Moreover, the two screens of cable TV, plus Internet, hold a significant lead over four portals and Facebook with 85 hours per month. That compares with 34 hours spent with broadcast fare, and 24 hours with AOL, Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Facebook. Click headline to read more--
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Rejecting Gov. Pat Quinn's plea to not increase power rates to help improve some of the state's electrical grid, the Illinois senate voted to override his veto of a bill that bulks up the revenue Commonwealth Edison will receive as it modernizes the electrical grid.
The senators voted 44-11-1 on the measure, topping the 36 votes needed to override Quinn's veto of the measure this month.
Under current law, three-fifths of legislators in each chamber of the legislature must agree to override a veto from the governor. The original bill passed with more than 70 percent support in the House and Senate back in March.
In exchange for $2.6 billion in consumer rate hikes over 10 years, ComEd had pledged to digitize the electrical grid. The utility said that operational changes would ultimately save money and that in-home devices would give consumers more control over their electricity usage. New smart meters were to be installed throughout ComEd's service territory of roughly 3.8 million customers. About 130,000 have been installed as a pilot project.
But when it came time for 2011 law to be implemented, ComEd and the Illinois Commerce Commission disagreed. ComEd appealed 12 technical matters worth about $100 million a year it. The dispute continues in court. Click headline to read more--
Sprint Nextel has increased its offer to acquire the approximately 50% of Clearwire that it does not already own, from USD2.97 per share to USD3.40, effectively succumbing to the demands of vocal minority Clearwire shareholders and blocking DISH Network’s unsolicited USD3.30 per share offer for Clearwire. The targeted company has indicated that the special committee of its board will review Sprint’s new offer, with shareholders set to convene on 30 May to discuss the issue, a week later than scheduled.
NTIA’s Report on Broadband Availability is out. They have tracked availability from June 2010 to June 2012. Here’s the quick answer above… "Broadband at the basic speed combination of 3/768 is available to 98.18% of the population, and 94.39% of Americans can subscribe to services of at least 10 Mbps." I’d like to remove that 3/768 track, but the NTIA explains why they track such slow speeds… "NTIA begins its analysis at the combined advertised connection of 3 Mbps downstream and 768 kbps upstream, which is the closest combination of speeds for which NTIA collects data that would allow a consumer to “access a basic set of applications that include sending and receiving e-mail, downloading Web pages, photos and video, and using simple video conferencing.” I think it’s also important to know their definition of available; it’s a little non-standard… "For the purposes of NTIA’s data collection, broadband is “available” if it can be deployed to a business or consumer within 7-10 business days and without an extraordinary commitment of resources. This definition is in contrast to “adoption,” which means that a consumer or business subscribes to or uses broadband at a particular location. The definition of broadband does not specifically include price, latency, bandwidth limitations, or other factors that may impact a user’s ability to purchase or use the service." What about Minnesota?
As always I’m most concerned with how Minnesota stacks up in the report. They include a list of the top 15 States with Most Broadband Access at 10, 25, and 50 Mbps. Minnesota does not make any of those lists. I guess on a silver lining note, we don’t make the worst list either. Minnesota also got no mention on a recent Akamai report that track speed and adoption. About a week ago, Connect Minnesota gave a sneak preview on Minnesota’s broadband availability. (Connect Minnesota provides data to NTIA for their report.) Click headline to read more--
With substantial obfuscational aplomb, Craig Silliman, Verizon’s senior vice president of public policy and government relations, called for a “21st – century policy framework” that will “move away from large, technology-specific legislative set pieces and focus on a technology-agnostic policy framework that puts consumer-protection at its center.”
In other words, Verizon – no surprise – will not push for an overhaul of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, although it will encourage various government entities to develop a broad, albeit politically volatile and undefined “framework,” that has, as Silliman calls them, “four core objectives”: “Protect consumers. Encourage innovation. Encourage investment. Be technology-agnostic.”
Q: Where have we heard that before? A: Almost everywhere.
Click headline to read more--
Fiber To The Home (FTTH) Communications is teaming with Rosemount High School (RHS) Site Council parents to bridge the missing link between the school and the stadium, as well as creating an “Irish” channel on FTTH’s network. The Irish channel will allow, for the first time, stadium games and events, such as graduations, concerts and awards programs, to be broadcast within the community. Rosemount High School, Rosemount School Site Council Parents, and FTTH are launching "Irish Up!"— a fundraising partnership to help pay for the new fiber optic line. The goal is to generate $10,000, which also would create and maintain the RHS channel. Along with stadium events, it would showcase academic and artistic events. For each new subscriber in FTTH’s fiberhoods (Evermoor and Harmony Village), FTTH will donate $50 to the cause. Current subscribers who upgrade their services will earn the project $25. If more than 100 new subscribers sign up, FTTH will increase the bounty to $75, topping out at 200 new subscribers. "Improving coverage of Rosemount High School activities fits with our goals of supporting the communities we serve, growing our business and adding jobs to the local economy," said FTTH CEO Jeffrey Feldman. Click headline to read more--
The "office" is a mutable concept for Joy Hahn. Her typical workday starts early, in the tidy spare bedroom of her suburban Silicon Valley home, tapping out the first e-mails of the day. Then it's off to her mobile office, the family's light tan Cadillac STS – neat and clean aside from the presence of a few Mad Libs pads, because Ms. Hahn often drives clients. She keeps pens and notepads stowed in the glove compartment and memo pads in the trunk. Hahn takes the first call of the day in the car, on the way back home after dropping her 11-year-old daughter off at school, picking up dry cleaning, and buying groceries for her mom. As business development manager for Cornerstone Technologies, a data archival and protection company in Campbell, Calif., just a few miles from her house, Hahn spends much of her time in meetings, virtual and real, organizing events, seminars, and webinars. She's also on the road a lot, meeting with clients. Work, for her, happens just about anywhere. When she runs out to take her mom to the doctor, she works from the waiting room on her iPad; at her daughter's singing lesson, she's on her laptop. She even works while driving, using Siri on her iPhone to dictate e-mails or create calendar appointments. Click headline to read more--
The city of San Leandro has formed a partnership with a local company now named Lit San Leandro to expand business access to the Internet. We talk with San Leandro's Chief Innovation Officer Deborah Acosta and Judi Clark, a consultant with Lit San Leandro, to learn more about their approach. San Leandro already had conduit assets and Lit San Leandro is pulling fiber through it for the deployment. In return, the City is getting both attention for its 10Gbps service availability and many strands for its own use. Rather than simply making dark fiber available, which is most helpful to technically savvy firms, Lit San Leandro is working with ISPs that can take advantage of the dark fiber to deliver services to other customers that don't have the capacity to take advantage of dark fiber directly. We also discuss policies around conduit placement and how to build a healthy tech and innovation system. Click headline to access hot link to listen to the podcast--
At the moment, the technology sector is the focus of a lot of attention — and with good reason. Tech industries have helped turn San Jose and Austin into major economies and brought other large metros, like Detroit, through tough spells. But which small, off-the-radar towns out there also deserve recognition as technology hubs? To explore this question, we analyzed 70 high-tech occupations identified by BLS economist Daniel E. Hecker. The list includes everything from computer systems analysts to forest and conservation technicians. Many of the highlighted economies contain a strong contingent of one or two of these occupations, while other occupations may not be especially concentrated in the region. In order to locate these economies, we had to explore some obscure parts of EMSI’s extensive database. For one thing, we removed cities with very large populations since many of them would come as no surprise. (We already know that Seattle, San Jose, and Austin are capitals of the tech sector.) Cities with very small numbers of tech workers were also cut from the list; if an influx of 10 tech workers could radically shift the economy, it can be hard to gauge whether or not the industry is really growing. We chose to highlight MSAs that have 1,000-50,000 jobs in the industry, have grown by more than 10% since 2001 and more than 0% since 2010, and also have promising concentration (measured by location quotient, LQ). Another factor that we took into account is whether or not the industry grew during the recession (2007-09). After applying all these filters to our data, we chose 11 MSAs which have exhibited impressive growth but which have also, for the most part, sneaked under the radar. The list starts with Los Alamos, N.M., and Williston, N.D., which have already gained attention for their growing economies. Then we’ll move from smallest to largest MSA, examining a key tech occupation in each. Click headline to read more--
It’s important to celebrate whenever social barriers are knocked down — including the one that fell today when Mignon Clyburn became the acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Never before has a president appointed a woman to chair the commission — not even on an interim basis.
It’s not the first time Clyburn has made history. She’s also the first African-American woman to serve as an FCC commissioner.
But there are still many barriers that need to be knocked down. For one, we need to remove the “acting” title for the next woman to chair the FCC.
Clyburn’s accomplishment is also an opportunity to reflect on the FCC’s history of permitting and even exacerbating inequality. For evidence, just consider the impact of the agency’s policy decisions on women and people of color.
It’s no accident that our nation’s media system looks the way it does; it reflects our nation’s legacy of discrimination. Most of our first broadcast licenses were allocated to white men or white-run companies. And not much has changed.
People of color own just 3 percent of all full-power TV stations and less than 8 percent of all full-power radio stations. Women own less than 7 percent of all full-power broadcast stations. These statistics explain both the lack of diversity among staff at broadcast outlets and the paltry amount of programming featuring people of color.
But instead of adopting policies that would boost ownership diversity, the FCC and Congress have consistently pushed for greater consolidation. Thanks to socioeconomic conditions, the FCC’s approach has made it even more difficult for women and people of color to buy broadcast stations. Click headline to read more--
The quantum computers that Lockheed Martin and Google are buying — and that startup D-Wave is building — have some pretty extreme operating conditions: they need to run at near zero temperatures for the quantum effects to work. As you can see in this photo from venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, D-Wave uses a pulse fridge to cool the quantum computer to .02 degrees above absolute zero, and they use Helium-3 in the cooling process. Quantum computers use a different type of processing compared to traditional computing. As GigaOM’s Jordan Novet explained it earlier this year, “rather than working with binary yes-or-no questions — ones and zeros — quantum computing is more probabilistic, also allowing a combination of zero and one to simultaneously answer many questions with quantum bits of information, or qubits, and tell users more about the likelihood of a situation. It’s not necessarily useful for all kinds of computing, but it could solve problems that current computers can’t.” Keeping quantum computers that can perform such functions cool can be a tricky process. It’s highly energy intensive and can get expensive. But if the quantum computers are not cooled down, the molecules — which are being manipulated to store data — move around chaotically and can’t be manipulated and read. Click headline to read more--
When President Obama nominated Tom Wheeler as the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he praised him as the "Bo Jackson of telecom" -- because he has been an all-star in two industries. During the early 1980s, Wheeler headed the National Cable and Telecommunications Association -- the main cable TV lobby -- and from 1992-2004, he was the chief lobbyist for the mobile phone industry. But to be fair, Wheeler is really a triple threat. He's also a major-league fundraiser who bundled more than $700,000 for Obama's two presidential campaigns. As a consummate industry insider and elite rainmaker, it's really no surprise that Wheeler is getting this job. More surprising perhaps is that so many people with public interest bona fides seem to think he's such a good choice. The remarkably similar arguments that Wheeler's supporters make to skeptics like me can be summarized as follows: I know Tom Wheeler.He isn't Julius Genachowski. (OK, so that is a bonus.)He's "personally liberal" (whatever that means).He won't need another job after this one.He's already rich. I mean, can you even think of a time when putting a rich industry insider in charge of a crucial government agency has not worked out for the public interest? I don't know Tom Wheeler. So I have to base my evaluation of his candidacy on things in the public record, like the fact that he headed not one but two trade associations for the major industries the FCC regulates. Or what he wrote on his blog. We also can now see his financial disclosures, which the Office of Government Ethics made public late last week. Those documents do confirm one thing: Wheeler is definitely rich. There's barely a company under the FCC's jurisdiction that Wheeler isn't invested in. In fact, if he's confirmed for the job, he will have to divest from 78 different companies -- from Akamai to Walt Disney. His holdings include at least $500,000 in stock in both AT&T and Verizon. Click headline to read more--
Apple went to Ireland, and it found a pot of gold. Or more precisely, it managed to bring in $30 billion in overseas profits over a four-year period without paying a dime of corporate income tax to the Irish, American or any other national government. That is one key conclusion in a new report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on the computer giant’s strategies for avoiding U.S. corporate income tax. It is a rare and detailed window into how multinationals juggle their international operations to avoid having to pay the taxman. This report may be about Apple, but the information it contains will sound familiar to anyone who has talked to tax lawyers or studied the 10-Ks of other major companies that do business around the world. “Apple complies fully with both the laws and spirit of the laws,” the company said in prepared testimony on the matter it posted to its Web site (CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to testify Tuesday). “And Apple pays all its required taxes, both in this country and abroad.” Nothing in the report contradicts that assertion, and that is why what it reveals is all the more startling. This isn’t some rogue company playing fast and loose with the tax code. This is one of America’s most successful companies finding ways to shift things around, legally and in plain sight. Here’s how it works: Click headline to read more--
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