Connected Nation released a best practices guide for communities and states to close the digital divide on Thursday, in conjunction with the Telecommunications Industry Association conference (http://bit.ly/GPWa7Q). Ninety million Americans don’t have broadband, and 1.8 million businesses aren’t connected to broadband, said the report. It said Connected Nation has had an impact in eight states and 165 communities, created 56 local technology action plans, certified 17 “connected communities” and served 5.9 million residents. Eighty-nine percent of counties, 10 percent of cities and 1 percent of regions are participating in a Connected Nation program, said the report. Connected certification recognizes communities that have demonstrated a proficiency for effective access, adoption and use of broadband and broadband-supported technologies, said the report. Certification is awarded to communities that score at least 32 points each in access, adoption and use sub-assessment, and at least 100 points overall, said Connected Nation.

Verizon’s bid to buy Vodafone’s 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion could face delays as a result of the federal shutdown. One of many deadlines coming up is a filing date of Oct. 18 on a public notice asking for comments on the foreign ownership implications of the transaction. Meanwhile, Verizon this week made a filing at the SEC that says the buildup to the deal, the largest telecom transaction in history, dates to at least June 2011. The SEC filing (http://bit.ly/181Crvp), which provides draft notice of a shareholder meeting on an unspecified date on the $130 billion transaction that was announced Sept. 2, offers previously undisclosed details on the buildup to the deal. On June 2, 2011, Lowell McAdam, then president and now CEO, “provided an update to the Verizon Board of Directors regarding efforts to determine whether a strategic business combination with Vodafone was advisable,” the filing said. Discussions were underway at various times that year and on Nov. 10, 2011, the two companies signed a nondisclosure agreement. In January of this year, McAdam and Verizon General Counsel Randal Milch went to London to talk about a possible deal with Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao and Chairman Gerard Kleisterlee and put an offer on the table, the filing said. “In response, Messrs. Colao and Kleisterlee indicated their belief that $95 billion represented inadequate consideration for Vodafone’s indirect 45 percent interest in Verizon Wireless.” In June, the same officials met in Amsterdam and discussed a new $120 billion offer. On June 19, the Vodafone board countered, asking for an aggregate $135 billion. Phone calls, letters and meetings continued throughout the rest of the summer before the deal was unveiled on Labor Day in the U.S. The filing lists the various regulatory clearances the companies need among the risk factors for the transaction. “Our domestic operations are subject to regulation by the FCC and other federal, state and local agencies, and our international operations are regulated by various foreign governments and international bodies,” the filing said. “These regulatory regimes frequently restrict our ability to operate in or provide specified products or services in designated areas and require that we maintain licenses for our operations and conduct our operations in accordance with prescribed standards. We are frequently involved in governmental proceedings related to the application of these requirements. It is impossible to predict with any certainty the outcome of pending federal and state regulatory proceedings relating to our operations, or the reviews by federal or state courts of regulatory rulings."

Streaming TV service Aereo will release its first Android app Oct. 22, said the company in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/16zTi8i). It said the app will initially be released in a public beta and available to Aereo members in markets where the service has already begun: New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Miami, Houston and Dallas. The Aereo app will be compatible with devices running Android operating system 4.2 or higher, and will also let users run Aereo on Roku boxes, said the company. It said Aereo is already supported on Apple’s mobile products and most Web browsers. Downloading the app is free, and Aereo said membership begins at $8 per month. Broadcasters have sued the company for carrying TV station signals without paying retransmission consent fees. (See separate report in this issue.)

A federal court upheld the government’s wish to withhold certain documents on agency information sharing in Electronic Privacy Information Center v. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The opinion was released Wednesday by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (http://bit.ly/GPSnY4). EPIC had been “seeking guidelines describing how the National Counterterrorism Center retrieves and safeguards information from other federal agencies” as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the opinion said. ODNI had released several documents but withheld 21. “The documents concerned ODNI’s consolidation of databases containing detailed personal information on US persons,” EPIC said on its website, describing the opinion (http://bit.ly/15XAQIt). The court pointed to the importance of the intelligence community protecting its methods and past decisions in this vein, saying the National Security Agency can be seen, for this reason, to be “FOIA-proof.” To compel the government to reveal the documents could compromise security, the court said: “There is little doubt that the names of particular datasets and the agencies from which they originate would allow interested onlookers to gain important insight into the way ODNI and its partners operate.”

Time Warner Cable began a cybersecurity awareness campaign to help parents protect their children from online dangers, alongside the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Common Sense Media, TWC said in a Thursday news release (http://bit.ly/1cAkvvo). The campaign will give parents and children tips and resources to help kids “behave responsibly when confronted with issues such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content, online exploitation, and other important topics,” it said. The focal point will be an “Online Safety” portal, said the cable operator. Time Warner Cable said its representatives will visit stores in California, New York and North Carolina to speak with customers about the resources and safety practices.

The Free Market Royalty Act would make copyrighted music more free, said Free State Foundation fellow Seth Cooper in an blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/1aqpwBY). Cooper said the existing market for copyrighted music isn’t that free, since there are forced access mandates and rate controls, including government regulations and royalties. The Free Market Royalty Act would “bring some needed free market reforms to federal policy regarding royalties for copyrighted music,” he said. The bill would “eliminate compulsory licensing and rate controls for public performances of copyrighted music content by commercial music service providers. And the bill would treat all music services equally,” all of which are provisions he welcomes, he said. House Judiciary Intellectual Property Subcommittee ranking member Mel Watt, D-N.C., introduced the bill, HR-3219, in September (CD Oct 1 p7).

Vonage said it plans to buy Vocalocity, a small and medium-sized business (SMB) communications provider, for $130 million -- $105 million in cash and $25 million in Vonage stock. Vocalocity has had success in the SMB hosted VoIP market, a segment Vonage wanted to enter as part of “the growth strategy we outlined last year,” said Vonage CEO Marc Lefar in a news release. Vocalocity had $28 million in revenue in the first half of 2013 -- a 39 percent increase from the same period last year. The total North American SMB hosted VoIP market is worth $15 billion, Vonage said. Vocalocity CEO Wain Kellum will become Vonage’s president-business services when the deal is complete. Vonage said it anticipates the purchase will close in Q4 (http://bit.ly/180wm25).

The White House and the intelligence community should make a better case for its surveillance activities, argued Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Intelligence Project and former CIA official. National Security Agency surveillance success is exemplified in the September 2009 foiled New York City subway bombing plot of Najibullah Zazi, a case frequently cited among intelligence officials, Riedel said Thursday at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution. “As a citizen, I think we need more transparency about how this program has worked in the past.” But, Matt Apuzzo, a reporter who authored a new book about the foiled plot, disputes that the Zazi case justifies bulk collection of any data by the government. “It in no way says this is why we need Prism,” Apuzzo said. “This is not the case that proves that [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section] 702 and Prism are necessary.” He called framing the foiled plot that way “a stretch.” Zazi is an Afghan American who admitted coordinating with al Qaeda to bomb the New York City subway, and the NSA intercepted an email he sent to a “go-between” in Pakistan when asking about bomb instructions, Apuzzo said. That interception was “the moment,” allowing for authorities to foil the plot, he said: “You can’t crack this case without being up on the email address.” But that “go-between” was already the subject of a investigation in the U.K. and in coordination with the FBI, with the email address known from that investigation, according to Apuzzo. Intelligence officials, in light of recent surveillance leaks, “repeatedly came back to the Zazi case,” he said, indicating they're “not being totally honest with us.” The number of plots foiled by the government’s surveillance practices has been hotly disputed in recent months. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pressed officials to admit that fewer plots had actually been foiled than they had touted when questioned at an Oct. 2 hearing. Government agencies “would have been up on that email address anyway” due to the former British investigation, totally unrelated to the bulk collections of Prism, Apuzzo said. Riedel expressed amazement at the level of access achieved by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked a “mother load” of documents about the activities -- “I never saw the [intelligence agency black] budget,” he said. “This guy had the whole budget.”

Time Warner Cable and Univision signed a multiyear agreement to deliver more Univision content to TWC and Bright House subscribers. The agreement “will bring a comprehensive selection of Hispanic networks and content to Time Warner Cable customers, including Univision’s new networks,” TWC said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1czRiAF). TWC will be among the first distributors to carry the El Rey Network, a new English-language entertainment network geared toward young adult audiences, it said. The deal also provides subscribers with content for digital platforms and VOD, “which includes additional TV Everywhere content for TWC TV’s out-of-home platforms and authenticated access to Univision’s UVideos and Univision Deportes digital properties,” it said.

One in three millennials watch TV online and watch no broadcast TV, said New York Times research previewed by the journalism education nonprofit Poynter Institute Thursday (http://bit.ly/16zsrtc). Video hosting sites are most popular for video (63 percent), followed by social media (44 percent), TV sites (29 percent) and news (28 percent), said the research. Users spent the most time with funny videos (52 percent), movie clips (46 percent), music videos (39 percent) and news (35 percent), said the research. For news, users were more likely to watch videos (50 percent) when they want to be entertained than are likely to read (14 percent), but they are more likely to read when they want a more complete story (53 percent) than watch a video (12 percent), said the research. The study surveyed more than 4,000 online video users, and Brian Brett, Times executive director-customer research, will present the research at the International Newsmedia Marketing Association Audience Summit in Las Vegas Thursday, said Poynter.