AllThingsD » Blair Levin

Weekend Update 3/20/10–The Broadband Plan Edition

Beth Callaghan — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:13:25 +0000

BoomTown traveled to Washington, D.C., this week for festivities surrounding the 25th anniversary of the registration of the first .com domain name, and while in our nation’s capital–in addition to lugging a giant binder containing a paper printout of the National Broadband Plan to various historic spots for educational opportunities–dropped in on Blair Levin, executive director of the plan and former FCC exec. Levin shared his thoughts about the scope of the plan and some of the challenges it faces on the way to implementation. Elsewhere, at an event for the .com domain anniversary, former President Bill Clinton gave a keynote that focused, naturally, on health care and global warming. He made up for it, apparently, when he sat down with VeriSign (VRSN) CEO Mark McLaughlin for an entertaining interview. Of course, Clinton probably wasn’t as entertaining as Kathy Griffin–Kara also attended a dinner honoring the star of “My Life on the D List” at which Griffin shared some R-rated Twitter action words.

The release this week of a flood of documents pertaining to the Viacom (VIA)-YouTube lawsuit shed light on a lot of interesting data–and a lot of, uh, not-so-interesting stuff. Peter Kafka was on duty this week to discern the difference, so you don’t have to. Among the highlights: YouTube’s pre-Google finances revealed, how YouTube split up Google’s (GOOG) billions, proof that Viacom wanted to buy YouTube four years ago, and a whole lot of emails, but no smoking gun. It’s all on MediaMemo.

Over at Digital Daily, John Paczkowski wondered if the licensing of its webOS could be a salvation for Palm (PALM), and later in the week, whether Palm’s dismal third-quarter earnings mean the beginning of the end. John also reported that given details revealed Monday morning, Windows Phone 7 could make Microsoft (MSFT) a contender in the mobile operating system wars. Microsoft isn’t the only company having a good month, however–Mac sales during February were up 43 percent for the month, after a 36 percent spike in sales during January. Accordingly, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has declared 2010 the “Year of the Mac.”

In Personal Technology this week, Walt took a look at two new ThinkPads from Lenovo. A departure from Lenovo’s standard template, they sport lower prices and new designs, and both got good grades. Watch the video of Walt’s comprehensive review and then check out his appearance on WSJ’s “Digits” for more on the new ThinkPads and a discussion of Google’s upcoming foray into television. At Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt answered readers’ questions about sharing e-books and wiping hard drives. And in the Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret tested Xobni Mobile, an app that generates contact info for everyone users have ever communicated with in Microsoft Outlook. So far Xobni is available for BlackBerry only, but word is, the company’s considering apps for Android and the iPhone.

More next week.

The FCC's National Broadband Paper Plan Gets a BoomTown Tour of the Nation's Capital!

Kara Swisher — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:19:44 +0000

When I went to Washington, D.C., last week to visit the Federal Communications Commission on the occasion of its release of its National Broadband Plan, I was actually given a paper version in a giant binder.

Yes, a dead-tree copy of a federal government scheme to make the United States more digital!

And, at hundreds of pages, it weighed more than when I was lugging my kid around the nation’s capital when he was a baby.

Thus, my big idea to take the analog plan around and show it the sights of Washington, with a little help from some tourists.

Ever the most excellent PR dude, the FCC’s Mark Wigfield wrote me in an email:

“It would have been hard to take broadband.gov on a tour of D.C., so I think the binder served a useful purpose!…I would be remiss in not telling you that I think our new media team’s Web presentation of the plan is really fantastic and user-friendly :)”

Nice try, Mark, you decimator of forests!

In any case, here’s my video, including stops at the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the White House and the Smithsonian:

[ See post to watch video ]

(You can also see the FCC’s NBP executive director Blair Levin trying to foist another paper plan on me in this interview about it.)

National Broadband Plan Guru Blair Levin Speaks! (Plus the Press Release and Exec Summary)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:34:52 +0000

While trolling around Washington, D.C., this week, BoomTown dropped in on Blair Levin, executive director of the National Broadband Plan, the opus just released by the Federal Communications Commission.

Aimed primarily at boosting the proliferation of high-speed access across the United States, the plan has been shepherded by the telecommunications analyst and former FCC staffer.

We talked about the main themes of the plan, which will require action by the FCC, the White House and Congress to be fully effective.

While Levin will move on soon, now that his job is done, he had several observations about the potential bottlenecks and more.

As in: Will broadcasters resist the spectrum suggestions? Will there be money to fund a digital literacy corps? And most of all, how can the cost of broadband be lowered?

The Yale-trained lawyer would know. As chief of staff to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt from late 1993 to late 1997, he oversaw, according to his bio, “the implementation of the historic 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, the first spectrum auctions, the development of digital television standards, and the Commission’s Internet initiative.”

Here’s the video of my interview with Levin, as well as the press release and executive summary of the plan, below (you can find out more here on the FCC site about it):

[ See post to watch video ]

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FCC Eyes Average Internet Speeds for Rural Areas

Amy Schatz — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:06:52 +0000

With two months to go until the FCC is scheduled to unveil its plan for improving broadband service across the U.S., agency officials seem to be settling on relatively modest speeds for rural areas.

Officials at the Federal Communications Commission looking at setting a floor for Internet speed to which all Americans have access, particularly in rural areas which still rely on dial-up Internet service. FCC officials are looking at speeds in the 2-4 mbps range, said Blair Levin, a former telecom analyst who’s overseeing the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. Mbps, or megabits per second, represents the millions of bits per second that flow across Internet lines to your PC.

“That’s kind of the range. A lot of people say that we ought to have big goals of 100 mbps to every home. When you look at the countries who say they’re doing that, what they’re doing is offering 100 mbps to some homes,” Mr. Levin said Monday on the CSPAN show “The Communicators,” which airs this weekend.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Jerry Brown Tops Google/Yahoo Antitrust Pig Pile

John Paczkowski — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:08:10 +0000

Now that the Justice Department has asked a hotshot litigator to review the proposed search-advertising partnership between Google and Yahoo, everyone seems to be getting into the act. California Attorney General Jerry Brown is reportedly looking askance at the deal, apparently with an eye toward an investigation. While Brown’s office hasn’t yet taken any formal action, it is said to be sharing documents with the Justice Department through “a confidential online document repository.”

Google (GOOG), for its part, continues to claim its pact with Yahoo (YHOO) is beneficial to competition, and seems prepared to go through with it. “While there has been a lot of speculation about this agreement’s potential impact on advertisers or ad prices, we think it would be premature for regulators to halt the agreement before we implement it and everyone can judge the actual impact,” the company said after the Association of National Advertisers sent a letter to the Justice Department opposing it. Of course, the flip side of that is that it might be premature for Google to move ahead with the agreement before regulators say they’re comfortable with it. Said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Blair Levin, “it would be risky … to proceed if they are getting signals that the agency has serious concerns.”