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Weekly Update August 24, 2012

Legislative and Political

Polls show Wisconsin's in play; will Ryan bounce last?

President Barack Obama’s modest but consistent edge in Wisconsin has mostly evaporated in the aftermath of Rep. Paul Ryan’s selection for the GOP ticket, making the state a virtual toss-up, a raft of new polling suggests. It’s possible the Ryan home-state “bounce” will be temporary. But if it isn’t and it endures into the fall, Wisconsin could present the Romney campaign with its best opportunity to play offense in this campaign and pick off a state that Democrats have long relied on to build electoral majorities. “It’s very close,” says Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Poll, which has Obama leading Romney 49% to 47% in a survey released Thursday. “The question is, does the bump that Romney got in Wisconsin due to Paul Ryan have a lasting effect?” The Ryan bounce is a little bigger in some polls than others. But taken together, the polling paints a similar picture. Four surveys by four different pollsters using different polling methods have two things in common. They all show a somewhat tighter race since Ryan was picked. And they all show a contest well within the polling margin of error.

On Politics: Gov. Walker set to speak Tuesday at RNC

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention next Tuesday, Republican officials announced Tuesday. Walker will join several other Republican governors, who are all expected to address that day’s convention theme, “We Built It.” Tuesday night’s speaker line-up will also include Govs. John Kasich of Ohio, Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, Bob McDonnell or Virginia, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Susana Martinez of New Mexico, and Chris Christie of New Jersey.

Two new polls show Thompson leading Baldwin

Rolling on from last week's primary victory, Republican Tommy Thompson leads Democrat Tammy Baldwin in the U.S. Senate race, two new polls show. A poll by Marquette University Law School found the former governor and federal Health and Human Services secretary leading the U.S. representative from Madison by 50% to 41%, a lead that has grown from 48% to 43% earlier this month and was larger than the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. Also Wednesday, a new poll by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling gave Thompson a 49% to 44% lead, a bump from a poll by the firm in July that had the pair tied at 45%.

Van Hollen asks Supreme Court to take up photo ID law

State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to step in and review rulings by two judges striking down the state's voter ID law and to do so in time for the November presidential election. The photo identification law was not in place for the June 5 recall election for Gov. Scott Walker because two judges in Dane County each separately ruled the law was unconstitutional. One judge said it created a "substantial impairment of the right to vote" guaranteed by the state constitution. The state's highest court has already declined once this year to intervene and overturn rulings by the two circuit court judges at an earlier stage in the cases. Now, the GOP attorney general is asking the court to reconsider. The Supreme Court is expected to eventually take these cases, but it is unclear if it will do so before an appeals court has ruled on them or in time for the November election.

Democrats challenge Thompson to release tax returns

With their Republican opponent set in the U.S. Senate race, Democrats have wasted little time going after Tommy Thompson and his refusal to release his tax records. Tammy Baldwin released 10 years of tax returns in May, and the Democratic candidate has called on Thompson to do the same. But Thompson has emphatically refused, with his campaign saying he would only release them after he's elected. It's not clear how much the issue resonates with voters. Some say they're concerned about more substantive matters, and others say they've already made up their minds about who'll get their vote. That hasn't stopped Baldwin's campaign from using the issue to draw early battle lines. Democrats insinuate that the refusal by Thompson, who has worked as a Washington lobbyist for the past several years, means he has something to hide. Republicans say Democrats must be grasping at straws if they're building a campaign strategy on a non-issue.

Walker pushes again for venture capital legislation

In a bid to develop venture capital legislation that could lead to more jobs, Gov. Scott Walker has asked the state commerce agency to bring together financiers, trade officials and other industry leaders for a series of discussions. Walker had proposed similar legislation last year, but it died amid disagreement among politicians and special interest groups about how the program would work. Walker hopes to avoid dissension this time by assembling a coalition of groups who can speak with a unified voice, said Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie. The governor has asked the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. "to bring together individuals to pass a meaningful venture capital bill in the future," Werwie told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A range of advocacy groups, politicians and others already have begun meeting to discuss the new attempt at venture capital legislation. Tom Thieding, a spokesman for the commerce agency, said it was too early to discuss all the ideas that have been proposed.

Regulatory and Industry

Police and fire phone fee raises millions; Local official calls fee "a shell game"

The fee was created in the 2009 state budget. It requires residents to pay a 75-cent fee every month for home phones and cell phones. In 2010, the fee brought in $46,233,400. In 2011, it brought in even more: $61,033,400. The money goes into the general fund, which is basically the big pot of money used to pay for government services. From that pot of money, the state sends money back to local governments to pay for things like police and fire protection, roads and parks. Kristin Ruesch is with the Public Service Commission, the agency that administers the fee. She says the PSC has received several complaints from residents about the charge. "We've certainly heard from people who want to see the fee taken off of their phone bill and collected the way it used to be through general fund taxes," Ruesch said. Two Rivers City Manager Greg Buckley has also had residents complain about the fee. "There's been a lot of confusion about that," he said. "People assume that's something extra the city's are getting to pay for police and fire protection when it fact, it was a shell game." Here's how it worked: The state created the new fee to supposedly protect police and fire services from cuts. But instead of adding the new money to the shared revenue program, it simply replaced some of the other tax money used to pay for local services. Then, the state cut the entire shared revenue program by 3.5%. "All it really was was a substitution," Buckley said. "We're not getting more money as the result of that fee that appears on the bottom of your phone bill."

FCC: Nearly One Quarter of Rural Americans Lack Broadband Access

Nearly one quarter of Americans in rural areas lack access to broadband at speeds of 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream, according to a report released today from the FCC. In comparison, only 1.8% of Americans in non- rural areas lack broadband access at the target speed, the report found. The FCC estimates that approximately 19 million Americans in total — about 6% of the U.S. population or seven million U.S. households — do not have access to broadband. The commission also noted, however, that service providers have made progress on the broadband availability front. As of June 2010, 26.4% of Americans lacked access to broadband service at speeds of 3 Mbps downstream and 768 kbps upstream, but as of June 2011, that number had declined to 19%. (The commission likely used the 3 Mbps/ 768 kbps speed rather than the 4 Mbps/ 1 Mbps speed in this case because of previous reporting practices.)

FCC temporarily suspends effort to deregulate special access

The FCC voted 3-2 to temporarily suspend rules that automatically granted requests to change prices on special access services that incumbent telcos sell to competitive service providers and wireless operators. While the vote went through on Aug. 15, the results and order were not made public until late Wednesday. In its decision, the FCC said that there is "significant evidence that these rules, adopted in 1999, are not working as predicted, and widespread agreement across industry sectors that these rules fail to accurately reflect competition in today's special access markets."

Calix Acquires Fiber Assets from Ericsson

Calix’s plan to purchase fiber access assets from Ericsson, announced today, should catapult the company into the international telecom market, where Ericsson has made some major wins with tier 1 carriers such as Telefonica and Vodafone. In a separate agreement, also announced today, Calix becomes Ericsson’s “preferred global partner for broadband access applications” and will be represented by Ericsson’s sales force located in 180 countries worldwide.

WisBusiness interview: AT&T chief says law changes spurred company's upgrades

AT&T has spent a whopping $1 billion in Wisconsin since 2008 and $100 million alone over the past six months in the Badger State. “We’re proud of that investment,” said AT&T Wisconsin president Scott VanderSanden in an interview with WisBusiness.com. VanderSanden said the passage of two laws helped spur the spending spree to upgrade equipment that allowed it to better handle video and to build towers to expand and upgrade its wireless network to handle faster data transmission speeds.

Broadband and Internet

FCC May Again Change Broadband Definition Threshold; Also Says They're Going to Study Caps

If you've been following this sector at all for the last decade, you'll note that the broadband industry has had a hard time even accurately defining what broadband is, much less how we should forge a national policy. The FCC originally defined broadband as anything faster than 200kbps, then upgraded that definition to 768kbps downstream and 200kbps upstream -- and only just in 2010 to 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. Now the FCC says they're considering taking another look at the broadband speed definition threshold to raise it so it's better in line with modern users. The FCC says they also plan to start looking more closely at usage caps as part of their overall definition of what qualifies for real broadband.

In Broadband Speed Race, 300 Mbps is the Latest Bogey

There are several consumer broadband offers in the 1 Gbps range. A few municipal broadband providers, including Chattanooga’s EPB offer the ultra fast broadband tier. Residents in Kansas City will soon have access to this luxury via Google Fiber. But in a broader context, it appears that a 300 Mbps tier is the latest broadband speed ‘bogey’ to aspire to, at least for large tier 1 ISPs . Seems like just yesterday when 100 Mbps was the bogey. Verizon lead the pack among these carriers with the launch of FiOS Quantum, touting its ability to serve the growing number of broadband-consuming devices of the digital home and the growing appetite for OTT video as justification for such a high speed offer. Comcast soon followed, topping Verizon with a 305 Mbps offer that will soon be available. Today DSLReports.com reports that Charter may soon follow suit with a 300 Mbps tier offering. That would equal three tier 1 providers offering a 300 Mbps tier, potentially providing coverage for these new ultra high speed Internet offers to millions of households.

Homeless find support on Facebook, Twitter

Here’s something everyone can “like”: Social media fosters community, even for those who don’t have a home. A new study finds social media like Twitter and Facebook tear down economic and geographic barriers to help homeless people connect to their families and support networks. The study, “Shall I Paint You a Protest: Marxist Analysis of Social Media,” was presented August 17 at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Denver. He found that homeless people leverage free services like Facebook and Twitter to find food, shelter and job services, and to keep up with family and friends. All they need is a smart phone or public library with Internet access.

Cellular and Wireless

FCC Approves Cable Spectrum Sale to Verizon Wireless

The FCC today approved Verizon Wireless plan to purchase spectrum in the AWS band from several of the nation’s largest cable companies – a deal originally proposed late last year. In addition the commission approved a proposed spectrum swap between Verizon Wireless and Leap Wireless, as well as Verizon’s plan to sell some spectrum to and trade some spectrum with T-Mobile.

T-Mobile Takes on Sprint with Unlimited Data Move

T-Mobile has been getting crushed of late, when compared to its national wireless competitors of AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. T-Mobile lost 205K post paid customers in 2Q 2012, which was 4X what they lost in 2Q 2011. In 2Q 2012, Verizon and AT&T added 888K and 320K respectively. Something had to give. Today, we found out what it is – an unlimited data plan. With their Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan, T-Mobile joins Sprint as the only two nationwide post-paid focused carriers with unlimited data plans. Over at CNET, Roger Cheng does a great job of comparing Sprint and T-Mobile’s unlimited plans, including comparing their pricing strategy.

IPTV and Video

Are consumers willing to put up with OTT video advertising?

There's a bit of contradictory news this week about what people want when they dash off to watch video on a second screen—also known as over-the-top content or OTT. The contradiction is not surprising, since most people don't know most of the time what they want anyway, but it does offer some insight into how pay TV providers—MVPDs as it were—have an opportunity to cement their customer relationships and fend off outside competition. A survey pushed by digital brand advertising software and services vendor YuMe suggested that people are willing to sit through pre-roll advertisements (as if they have a choice) to get free short-form content on connected devices.

Pay-TV providers face new threats, opportunities from smart TVs

More than 18 million U.S. households had a smart TV at the end of 2011, and rising adoption of this device, combined with changing entertainment consumption habits, creates new challenges for pay-TV providers. There are potential advantages, of course. Innovative pay-TV providers can leverage this new platform to develop and deploy apps, branded social media, and their own OTT (over-the-top) services. The smart-TV platform can serve as a DVR/set-top replacement, lowering equipment and deployment costs.