Russia export controls and sanctions

Internet policy makers are girding themselves for future fights with those in the international community who seek to impose new restrictions and regulations on the Internet. While lawmakers Tuesday commended the work of U.S. delegates to oppose new international regulations at the recent World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), they said at a joint Congressional hearing on the topic they must redouble efforts to combat further restrictions on the Web.

SES and VimpelCom, a Russia-based mobile carrier, signed an agreement for additional capacity on SES’s NSS-9 satellite to deliver what SES called high-quality data services in eastern Russia. The capacity “will be used to provide data services to VimpelCom’s corporate clients based in the Kamchatka, Magadan and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky regions” and enable VimpelCom to optimize the use of satellite capacity for their 3G network in the far eastern Russia and East Siberia region,” SES said in a press release (http://xrl.us/bod6go).

In a world of file-sharing, “entertainment industry output and options have been expanding over the last decade,” according to a new study by Floor64 commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (http://xrl.us/bob627). The study focuses on the books, games, music and video industries in Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, Russia and Spain. File-sharing is creating new ways for entertainment industry members to engage with consumers, as evidenced by the growth of markets for e-readers readers and e-books, which are “opening up opportunities for new kinds of content that couldn’t have been published in the past,” said Floor64 and TechDirt CEO Michael Masnick. Similarly, video is seeing increased online distribution -- feature-length films can be “streamed to PCs and mobile devices as well” as broadcast on TV -- and videogames are “moving beyond consoles/PCs to smartphones, tablets, social networks and into nearly every part of daily life,” the report said. These other entertainment industries are learning from the music industry’s initial resistance to file-sharing, said Masnick during a Thursday press call announcing the report. “It appears that certainly [that for] the books, games and films market[s], the transition has probably been less gut wrenching in some ways” than it was for the music industry, he said. “I think they've certainly learned some lessons.” But the music industry is not “waning,” the report said, suggesting that the music industry “focus on adapting to new digital technologies and business models -- not [look] to preserve outdated distribution methods.” As content creators have more opportunities to reach consumers, they face a challenge in that “the roadmap for those creating content or releasing content can be less clear,” Masnick said. While the report generally avoids discussing specific policies and doesn’t take policy positions, he said he hopes the research can inform policy discussions. “Some of these discussions take place without really looking at the data,” he said. Additionally, the study’s authors hope “that it will encourage more openness” among industry and government organizations to share their data.

The Internet can be severely harmed when governments, rather than stakeholders, attempt to regulate it, said Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., Wednesday at the State of the Net conference. Scalise, chairman of the Republican Study Conference and member of the House Communications Subcommittee, pointed to the ITU’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) as an example of government interference harming an open Internet. The ITU has expertise in traditional telephone policy, he said: “Those are not the same kinds of rules that we want to apply to the Internet."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said Monday he plans to work on a bipartisan basis to pass cybersecurity legislation in the next Congress. His comments came in a floor speech as he discussed the Senate-passed 2013 National Intelligence Authorization bill (S-3454). The bill contains a provision that would require the director of national intelligence to submit a report on the security of the U.S. IT supply chain and telecom networks. The U.S. needs to protect its critical infrastructure from “nation states, like China, Russia and now Iran who seek to do us harm through the Internet,” he said. “It is the largest threat we face that we are not prepared to handle.” Committee Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., said the threat of a catastrophic cyberattack keeps him up at night, along with “spicy food and nuclear proliferation.” Congress must act to “keep up with the cyberthreats of today and tomorrow,” he said.

Intelsat and ITC Global signed two agreements for broadband capacity. ITC plans to use Intelsat 18 at 180 degrees east “to provide C-band services to its mining customers in eastern Russia,” Intelsat said in a press release (http://xrl.us/bn7cdu). Intelsat said ITC will integrate its services into a sophisticated network and incorporate carrier-in-carrier technology. ITC also signed a contract for capacity on Intelsat 906 at 64 degrees east, “enabling broadband service to a major natural resources provider in Western Australia,” Intelsat said.

New foreign markets have been deemed detrimental to U.S. intellectual property, the U.S. Trade Representative said in its annual Notorious Markets List (http://xrl.us/bn6izu). The list “identifies selected markets, including ones on the Internet, that are reportedly engaged in substantial piracy and counterfeiting” and “have been the subject of enforcement actions or that may merit further investigation for possible [intellectual property rights] infringements,” the USTR said in the report.

Most of the eligible delegations at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) signed on to the revised International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) Friday in Dubai during a ceremony to close out the conference, but a significant number of nations outright refused to endorse the controversial treaty or were still consulting with their national governments. Of the 144 nations with signing rights in the ITU, 89 signed onto the ITRs Friday. An additional 55 “may sign later,” the ITU said, but that figure includes the U.S., Australia, Canada, the U.K. and others that have outright committed to not sign the document (http://xrl.us/bn6iov). The figure also includes the nations consulting with their governments, including the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Poland. The EU condemned the attachment of a non-binding Internet governance resolution to the ITRs (see separate item in this issue). That resolution was one of several provisions included in the revised ITRs that prompted the U.S. decision not to sign (CD Dec 14 p1).

Britons lead the world in using the latest TV technology, including accessing TV online and owning smart televisions and digital video recorders, the U.K. Office of Communications said Thursday in an international communications market report (http://xrl.us/bn59vp). The report compared the U.K. with France, Germany, Italy, the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Poland, Brazil, Russia, India and China. U.K. consumers are most likely to access TV over the Internet, with 23 percent of Internet users claiming to do it every week, driven by the popularity of catch-up services such as BBC iPlayer and ITV Player, it said. The U.S., where 17 percent of Internet users said they access TV content online, came second. But despite the increase in online TV availability, scheduled linear TV remains popular, with minutes of viewing per person up among most of the countries surveyed, Ofcom said. Italy and the U.S. led the list, with the U.K. third, it said. By the end of 2011, 99 percent of U.K. homes had digital TV, surpassed only by Spain, whose digital switchover is now complete. Satellite TV was the largest platform in the U.K. (44 percent), while terrestrial TV was the main platform in 38 percent of TV homes, it said. Value-added services such as digital video recorders and high definition TV continue to grow, with Britain having the greatest uptake in DVRs in 2011, followed by the U.S. The U.K. also had one of the biggest percentages of TV homes with HDTV, higher than France, Germany and Japan but behind the U.S. The U.K. had the highest rate of digital radio take-up, Ofcom said. The fastest-growing radio markets are India, Brazil, Russia and China, but radio markets in Sweden, the U.S. and Germany generate the most revenue per head of population. Spending on laptop and desktop Internet advertising is highest in Britain, followed by Australia, the regulator said. The U.S. mobile Internet advertising spend grew by 2.5 times, reaching Japan’s level, it said. U.K. Internet users access the Web via laptop more than those in any other country, it said. The most searched for term online, except in Japan, Russia and China, was “facebook,” it said. In the telecom arena, U.K. users consume the most mobile data per connection, with 424 MB of data downloaded per mobile connection in 2011, it said. The U.K. is also a leader in text messaging, with the average person sending 199 SMS messages per month last year, up 17 percent from 2010 numbers. Fixed-voice revenue, however, fell in all countries, and fixed-voice call volumes dropped in all except France. Five percent of U.K. broadband connections were superfast (advertised speeds of 30 Mbps or more) by the end of 2011, it said. Other findings included that total telecom, TV, post and radio sector revenues rose 7.3 percent, reaching $2.1 trillion; and that global advertising expenditure rose nearly 4 percent, to $481 billion, the highest since 2007.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The U.S. delegation put its foot down in Wednesday’s session of the World Conference on International Telecommunications. There must be clear limitations on what kind of operators will be covered by the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), said Richard Beaird, deputy head of the U.S. delegation, introducing language to limit the treaty to “operating agencies authorized or recognized by a Member State to establish and operate a public correspondence international telecommunications service."