An article on BoingBoing.net alerted me to some
new FOIA documents on
http://www.governmentattic.org -- at least two of
which which may interest SWL Fest list members:
NEW - Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) 2010
2012 BBG Technology Strategic Plan and BBG
Technology Update - 2009 - [06-Jun-2011]
http://www.governmentattic.org/4docs/BBG-TechStratPlan_2010-2012.pdf
NEW - Inventories of Voice of America (VOA)
legacy analog recording data assets - [06-Jun-2011]
http://www.governmentattic.org/4docs/BBG-FOIA-Logs_2008-2010.pdf
-Ed Cummings
http://boingboing.net/2011/06/06/voice-of-america-ope.html
Voice of America operator plans "sunset" for shortwave radio broadcasts
Rob Beschizza at 1:00 AM Monday, Jun 6, 2011
The sun is setting on Voice of America's
shortwave radio service, heard worldwide in dozens of languages for 70 years.
A strategic technology plan prepared by the
Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the
federal agency responsible for Voice of America,
Alhurra, Radio Free Asia and other international
stations, concludes that it should end many
shortwave broadcasts in favor of "more effective" media such as internet radio.
"The intrinsic high cost of operating high
powered shortwave stations is constantly being
weighed against the rapidly diminishing
effectiveness of shortwave within a growing
number of countries," the report states. "... the
cost effectiveness of shortwave transmissions
continues to wane and is expected to be
circumscribed to a very small number of target
countries in the relatively near future."
The "sun-setting strategy" proposed will reduce
the number of stations owned by the BBG in favor
of lease or sharing arrangements withor
outsourcing toindependent broadcasters. A
"long-term analysis" of each country and
language, and in-house research on shortwave's
effectiveness in each, would determine which areas retain service.
The report, released following a Freedom of
Information Act request by Government Attic, took
six months to surface and it isn't clear to what
extent its recommendations have been implemented.
In February, however, Voice of America ceased shortwave broadcasts in China.
Its authors anticipate "political pressure" to
continue widespread use of shortwave radio
broadcasts. The BBG's own 2012 Budget Request
(PDF) reported that it "must continue to
broadcast via traditional technologies such as
shortwave [because] the impact of not investing
in infrastructure improvements will be the loss
of capability and the loss of audience." It noted
Burmese listeners as particularly dependent on shortwave service.
Titled 2010-2012 BBG Technology Strategic Plan,
the report claims that BBG-funded broadcasts
reach 101.9m people worldwide by radio, 81.5m by
television, and 2.4m via internet. Internet
broadcasts accounts for 1.4 percent of the unduplicated total audience.
The largest internet audiences are in Iraq, China
and India, with large percentages of the
population listening online in Oman, Kosovo and
Morocco. The report notes that Voice of America's
audience in Iran was about half that of the BBC
World Service during recent electoral unrest
there. A brief overview of anti-censorship
software the BBG supports, such as Freegate and Tor, was also offered.
Much of report, however, is dedicated to
describing the upgrades and management shake-ups
required to address problems within the BBG's
apparently shambolic I.T. department, whose
failures are covered in detail and illustrated with photographs.
Throughout, the complexities of maintaining and
staffing a worldwide, multilanguage broadcast
media network weigh heavily on the report's
author. But criticisms often fall upon
particularly egregious lapses such as servers
hidden under nests of network cabling, major
software choices determined by the "dogmatic
beliefs" of influential staffers, and redundant systems standing idle.
"The most serious situation presents itself at
the heart of the BBG IT network," the report
states. "Currently, the network is dependent on a
single enterprise-class Cisco core router whose
failure would severely cripple the entire agency
for an extended period of time."
Adds the author: "Many other such situations
exist ... such as servers equipped with dual
power supplies but with both power cords plugged
into the same electrical circuit."
While the engineering section is said to be
well-functioning, disaster recovery plans rely on
"the presence of key individuals." The department
lacks "baseline operational discipline" and
labors under "several historical and
personality-related 'accommodations' designed to
isolate certain individuals and maintain legacy reporting relationships."
Even the email system is outmoded, according to
the report, which recommends platform
consolidation, virtualization, systems
colocation, cloud computing to cut the number of
physical servers in use, "clear standards and
expectations for interpersonal behavior," and
adoption of MPEG-4 for broadcast and archive use,
as part of a two-year plan to fix the problems while trimming costs.
The report was released after a FOIA request from
Government Attic, which posted it in full at its
archives early Monday morning. One paragraph of
the report, concerning disaster recovery, was redacted.
27 Comments Add a comment
#1 2:13 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
That's right, stop the short wave broadcasts and put it all on internet radio.
That way, people in countries who are subject to
torture and imprisonment if found listening to
"subversive" broadcasts in the relative privacy
of their own home on their commonly-available
short wave radios need now simply pop into their
local uncensored, "no records of your activities
kept unless required to do so by the relevant law
agencies", internet cafe and listen amongst a
group of complete strangers which won't include any government informers.
Marvellous brainwave!
#2 2:45 AM, Jun 6 Reply
pidg
This is also happening to the BBC World Service.
I guess it makes sense, given these stations are
basically means of distributing propaganda, to
move to more modern/effective ways of spreading
the message. But it's a shame nonetheless.
#3 2:46 AM, Jun 6 Reply
rebdav
I hate this sunsetting of quality shortwave
content. While I find VOA to be reasonably boring
with terrible music selection but it follows in
the footsteps of the BBC which is great for
hourly news updates, I don't like the trend.
There have been episodes of jamming in the past
but like old school numeric paging or wired pay
phones it is a technology easily made available
even to the poor that is robust and requires
little infrastructure for the impact it can have.
Also I don't want my great customized shortwave
travel radio to become obsolete, it is brilliant
for bicycle tours in non-English countries.
I guess we can all just rely on CRI China Radio
International for as long as we need shortwave.
#4 2:53 AM, Jun 6 Reply
osmo
Wait isn't this the same gang who gave us Radio
Free Europe back in the 50's? When they decided
that the Hungarian rebellion against the USSR
wasn't worth even mentioning at all because the
rebels had red flags over their heads?
I mean its shit that its going... but it was the
west information-version of the KGB. To me I
think we could just as well make a blood rose of it.
#5 3:11 AM, Jun 6 Reply
toyg
Coming to light a few days after internet access
from Syria was effectively blocked because of
political unrest, this report does look a bit idiotic.
Yes, issues in the IT dept. should be addressed
(I suspect they're not much different from what
you get in your average bureaucracy anyway), but
completely renouncing such a resilient propaganda
and communication tool would be extremely short-sighted.
Looks like our Empire cannot afford to send
regular messengers to its most remote outposts
anymore... quite a sign of decadence.
#6 3:35 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
Wait isn't this the same gang who gave us Radio
Free Europe back in the 50's? When they decided
that the Hungarian rebellion against the USSR
wasn't worth even mentioning at all because the
rebels had red flags over their heads?
As someone who's lived in Hungary for many years,
I find your version of history to be completely
at odds with what really happened.
Hungarian-language Radio Free Europe, far from
not mentioning the Hungarian Revolution of 1956,
talked incessantly about it and in fact made
promises to the rebels that American assistance
would be coming if they continued to fight the
Soviets, despite the cautioning of RFE bosses
against this type of talk. Since this did not
happen, many Hungarians even today hold this
against us, as I myself have found out on occasion.
As for your comment about rebels with "red flags
over their heads," I have no idea what you mean.
I've never heard anything like that. The only
thing the rebels did with their national flags
was cut out the hammer and sickle in the middle,
as it was a symbols of Soviet dictatorship. So
the Hungarian tricolor flag with a hole was a symbol of the revolution.
#7 4:01 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
While living in a rural community as a Peace
Corps Volunteer, VOA on shortwave was at times my
sole connection to home. Listening to it was
where I found solace after hard days working in a
strange country, speaking a strange language, and
longing for a little taste of home. When you are
the only American for miles, let alone the only
foreigner, VOA is invaluable to maintaining
sanity. Furthermore, I worry how many students of
English in those same rural communities will
suffer as a result of limited exposure to English
broadcasting. VOA still is part of our foreign
policy toolbox. Before we shut down VOA, perhaps
we should take a closer look at the useless radio/TV Martí.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/world/article976246.ece
#8 6:00 AM, Jun 6 Reply
H-B-X
This is a great idea - give up the shortwave
radio, which worked if you have an untraceable
and unblockable cheap radio which would work on
batteries or a hand crank in return for internet
radio, which requires a more expensive computer,
connected to a more expensive power grid which
might not be reliable, a costly internet provider
which can be closely monitored, throttled or shut
down completely by the very governments who this
station is supposed to broadcast propaganda against.
"Its authors anticipate "political pressure" to
continue widespread use of shortwave radio broadcasts."
Political? No, in this sense just common sense
shows you that changing to internet broadcasting
will gut the effectiveness of the stations - but
than, maybe that's what this group wants to do :)
#9 6:10 AM, Jun 6 Reply
ill lich
I think it's stupid: as others have noted, if you
are spreading news and/or propaganda you want it
to be heard or at least be available. With
countries making internet firewalls to block off
huge numbers of sites they find dangerous,
shortwave is still simple enough to find even
with jamming atttempts. I doubt many North
Koreans even have access to the internet, but
radios can be hacked to pickup SW bands.
#10 6:36 AM, Jun 6 Reply
LMA in reply to H-B-X
Exactly! The Technopoly must go forward! If
oppressed people around the world now and in the
future want to surrepitiously gain access to
sources of outside information, let them first
build a chip making factory, develop
code-breaking software, and construct and connect
to their own electric grid. If they aren't
capable of those things, well then they deserve to be oppressed, right?
#11 6:51 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Flaminica
By all means, let's switch over all of our rapid,
long-distance communication to a technology that
can be switched off by the government at an
injunction's notice. What could possibly go
wrong? If we have nothing to hide we have nothing to fear, right?
Now if you'll excuse me I have some Morse code to study.
#12 6:59 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
Ending shortwave broadcasts is absurd. Shortwave
is not dependent on infrastructure; it gets
through to places where infrastructure is
nonexistent or where the local government is
hostile to the information presented. Back in the
day VOA penetrated the Iron Curtain with American
culture, unbiased news, and our views on
international affairs. It is still needed, to
present this information in places where
firewalling or logging is a threat to the
listener. The target audiences have changed, but
the need has not. If we lose this resource we
will not be able to re-create it easily or
quickly when needed. The expense of international
broadcasting is a drop in the bucket compared to
the cost of the military misadventures which have
*lost* us hearts and minds all over the world.
#13 7:00 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
By going off the air they are promoting the
internet, my internet. With this newly opened
Bandwidth they can force services up the bands
down to shortwave and give out the upper
frequencies to cellphone companies. All of this
so I can keep up on the Hollywood celebrity
gossip on my hand held wireless device. Progress.
#14 7:19 AM, Jun 6 Reply
narddogz
Goddammit, internet.
#15 7:46 AM, Jun 6 Reply
emmdeeaych in reply to Anonymous
exactly what you said there. Thank You.
#16 7:54 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
I was really shocked at how empty the shortwave
bands were when I got out my shortwave radio last
year and ran a wire out the window to a tree.
I used to be able to tune in the world. Now it's
mostly static, except for Latin and Christian stations. :-(
#17 8:20 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon in reply to H-B-X
But isn't that the way all things are heading
now? People buying walled garden devices that can
be remotely deactivated, cloud computing... we're
turning over our keys to others and hoping for the best.
Some people consider amateur radio to be
obsolete... things Hams could only do a few
decades ago anyone with a decent internet
connection and PC can now do. This is a GOOD thing of course.
But if the internet somehow fails, Ham & shortwave radio still works.
#18 9:15 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
the beauty of radio, it doesn't recognize the
political boundaries on the map. It goes however far the ether will carry it.
For the people at the other end, radio is simple,
needs very little infrastructure, just a few
batteries or a hand to crank it. It brings news,
music, views, stories into places that aren't
even wired for electricity. Heck there are a
humber of places I can't even get cellular
telephone services here in the states, usually
that means wireless internet, too, but will
certainly here all sorts of things via AM, FM and shortwave radio.
so it seems BBC, VOA, DW, just to name a few of
the Big Gun shortwave stations are going to scale
back or eliminate their services because of the
internet. It just doesnt seem wise, especially
after the "Middle East Spring" we had with all
the dissent and political changes. BBC did say
they would turn services back on if ME Spring
services were to happen again, but I seriously
doubt that, once closed, it will probably stay closed.
What a sad, sad day.
#19 9:24 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
Not good
Internet can be monitored
Radio can't
Internet can be controlled or shut down MUCH MORE easily
But it cost a lot to broadcast
It is just no comparison
New technology is good but it can't match Old Radio and perhaps it never will.
#20 11:19 AM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
As a IBB/VOA IT insider, let me say that this
report is over a year old and numerous
improvements have been made both to personnel and
infrastructure. While there is still a long way
to go, numerous single points of failures have
been identified and corrected and the IT posts
decent numbers when it comes to reliability.
#21 1:00 PM, Jun 6 Reply
BT Murtagh
I'll echo one of the anons: I just bought a
shortwave radio, first I'd had since I was a kid,
and the only English-speaking stations I can get
are Christian broadcasts - admittedly some from
exotic locations, but what difference does that
make if they're all discussing the Bible and
nothing else? There are also many Latin-sounding
stations but I don't speak Spanish or Portuguese
so I can't comment on their content.
I remember picking up English-language newscasts
and topical discussions of all sorts from Moscow,
Johannesburg, even Canberra, all kinds of places.
Of course it isn't as if I can't get news from
those places via the Internet, as the report
says, but even for a relatively wealthy New
Worlder like myself with Internet access and all,
there's something to be missed in not being able
to tune in those kinds of programs any more.
#22 5:26 PM, Jun 6 Reply
travtastic
How much do these things really cost to run? From
looking around, it seems like we're probably
talking about an average of 200kW, although they
can apparently get a lot higher. Even assuming
full American residential electricity rates, that
comes out to around $30 an hour.
#23 10:26 PM, Jun 6 Reply
seanc0x0
Seems like the only thing I'll get to listen to
on shortwave broadcast is Radio Havana and
religious wing-nuttery. All the big broadcasters
are shutting down shortwave broadcasts, one by one.
Good thing there's always ham radio. :)
#24 11:16 PM, Jun 6 Reply
Anon
Its tragic that shortwave is dying, many people
in the world are poor and cannot afford, or have access to, the internet.
#25 3:48 AM, Jun 7 Reply
Anon in reply to Anonymous
Concerning the email system which is supposedly
"outmoded". The system has been globally replaced
in the past two years and while the author of the
report may be unhappy with the choice of
software, the fact is that the new system is
extremely robust and has operated at the 99.99%
reliability level for the first six months of 2011.
#26 1:29 PM, Jun 7 Reply
Anon
Terrible idea. Especially considering all the
unrest (the good kind) going on in many places in
the world. Places like Syria, China, Libya, North
Korea keep strict watch over the internet and
limit what sites may be accessed. Furthermore,
many people do not own computers and if they do,
they certainly will not be working during
critical times. Look at what happened in Cairo,
everything was effectively shutoff. However, you
cannot shutoff a radio signal (you can jam it
sure, but then the freq. must be changed). It is
a shame that the BBC stopped its shortwave
broadcasts and it will be a shame when VOA did.
Its much easier to listen to a radio station than
an internet feed. Plus the radio is portable and
not dependent on internet connections.
Close Radio Marti first. Its a cash sucking
station that is ineffective. Nowadays it only
appeases a small segment of American's (Cubans).
Cuba is not a threat to us anymore, if we really
want to start having a cultural influence on the
country, maybe we should stop the embargo and
allow travel there. The problem is that Cuban
American's vote (as we all should) so nobody wants to upset them.
If more American's voted than this wouldn't be much of an issue.
#27 4:10 PM, Jun 7 Reply
Anon
Hmm... I wonder if the "numbers" stations will start to disappear as well.
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