Category Archives: Legislation

Laws and bills affecting UTOPIA development and deployment.

FCC Unveils Rules for 700MHz Auction

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Despite Google flashing cash and lobbying prowess and pleas from technologists, the FCC has decided that the upcoming 700MHz auction will not require network neutrality provisions or operate as a wholesale network. Consumer groups are calling it a mixed bag since the winner cannot restrict which devices can be used on the network but there will likely be no competing providers. Despite these setbacks, Google still wants to make a play for this valuable slice of spectrum. I suppose we should just be glad the FCC isn't giving this one away.

Robert Cringley thinks it's a foolish thing to bet the farm on, but not so much so if you connect the dots. Google's money-maker has always been selling advertising. To that end, they want to extend the reach of their ad network as far as they can. It could be in the form of expensive "partnerships" with mobile carriers. More likely it's a Google-branded phone. Take Google's announcement of a prototype cell phone, a device no doubt designed to increase its reach beyond the PC. An open 700MHz network works in their favor since they could sell a single phone to multiple carriers and capture a gigantic market.

Google's smart enough to hedge their bets. The partnership with Sprint comes amid the cellular provider's partnership with Clearwire to jointly build a nationwide WiMax network, one they promise will be competitive with the 700MHz spectrum.

Open Spectrum Auction Backed by FCC Chairman

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In a move that immediately gave AT&T and Verizon a case of bunching panties, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has announced that he is in favor of the Google-backed plan to require the 700MHz spectrum to stay open for any compatible device to use any service. This no doubt makes the group behind the open-source OpenMoko phone pleased as punch as they search for a market for the highly-hackable device. Consumer groups are calling for it to go one step further and become a truly wholesale network allowing multiple service providers to compete for business. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, however, is backing the Frontline plan to seize the spectrum to make a public safety network, essentially getting commercial operations in the band for free.

This news goes hand-in-hand with renewed Congressional pushes to require that cell phones be able to seamlessly move from provider to provider, the so-called "cellular Carterphone" regulation named after a ruling that wireline phone systems had to accept any outside device that did not interfere with operations. In conjunction with that are an increasing number of groups calling for the wildly popular iPhone to be unlocked so they can jump ship to other GSM providers.

With these rapid developments in the wireless world, it's not much surprise that San Francisco's City Council chose to delay voting on their high-profile wireless project until a future meeting. Maybe they're thinking it would be best to bide their time for the moment.

Governor's Group Want Internet Tax Ban to Stay Temporary

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The National Association of Governors warned Congress that making the current ban on taxing Internet access permanent is a Bad Thing(TM). Their contention is that keeping it temporary gives the government a nice big stick to carry around in case any ISPs start acting up. I can certainly see that taking Teddy Roosevelt's advice to heart is usually a pretty good idea, though I have to wonder if a club does much good if you never use it once in a while.

(See full article here.)

FTC Excuses Itself from the Net Neutrality Debate

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In a move that sounded a lot like a collective "not my job, not my problem," the FTC decided to downplay network neutrality concerns and get itself onto solid, er, neutral ground. In a recently released report, the FTC chose to take no position on network neutrality and downplayed it as not really being all that important. In the process, they urged legislators to move with caution on the issue. Even though this doesn't outright cave in to the wants of the telcos, they'd all prefer the status quo of ambiguity so they can quietly start enacting their own two-tier Internet and deny they're up to anything.

Users of UTOPIA and iProvo, however, have little to fear. Both systems have built-in network neutrality requirements for all providers, so you're not going to face the possibility of having to pay for some kind of "premium" tier to get your BitTorrent on.

(See full articles here, here, here, here, here and here.)

Illinois Joins the Ranks of the Crazy, Allows Statewide Franchising

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Despite a few concessions calling for compensation for missed/late appointments, limiting service contracts to one year and requiring some deployment to poorer neighborhoods, Illinois pretty much handed the telecom industry a license to cherry-pick service areas with little in return. This bill, more-or-less purchased outright by AT&T, is the latest in a dose of crazy talk that gives a lying and monopolistic industry free reign to bypass cities it doesn't feel like serving and bring benefits only to wealthy and upper-middle class neighborhoods while bypassing "less desirable" areas. Aside from the minor concessions, the silver lining is that municipalities are allowed to build their own networks, potentially filling the gap left in AT&T's wake.

Utah recently made a narrow escape from the lunacy of state-wide franchising when SB 209 stalled in the last hours of the 2007 legislative session. It did pass the Senate, however, so it's important you make sure that your representatives in the Senate and House know that you don't want state-wide franchising in Utah. Not only would poorer areas like Rose Park be completely bypassed, but rural towns would also receive little to no benefit.

(See full articles here and here.)

FCC Warm to "Dumb Networks", Universal Access

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In comments at a recent telecom conference, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin emphasized the importance of universal access to broadband connections as well as the role of "dumb networks" in ensuring network neutrality. "Dumb networks" are a lot like the wholesale fiber networks offered by UTOPIA or iProvo where retail and wholesale operations are not operated by the same entity. Even amidst these glimmers of hope, Martin made sure he was playing to the audience of big telcos by taking a wishy-washy stance on local franchising and the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction.

Not everyone in the FCC is content to sit out the spectrum fight. FCC Commissioner Adelstein has openly voiced support for using the 700MHz spectrum to form an open wireless network that anyone can build on top of. With such a heavyweight behind the idea of divorcing wholesale and retail broadband, television and telephone operations, it's entirely possible that the next six months could yield a major win for real competition in these spaces and provide much better service than what we've been stuck with.

Blogger Susan Crawford isn't so optimistic. She's rightfully ticked off at the abuses heaped on us by incumbents and contends that it will take nothing short of a change of leadership in both the FCC and Congress to facilitate change. Here's to hoping she's wrong. 

(See full articles here, here and here.)

Debate on 700MHz Spectrum Heats Up

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A new startup has managed to stir the pot on the 700MHz auction by proposing to build and maintain a national network for both public and commercial interests. Frontline Wireless wants to take the 24MHz of spectrum reserved for police, fire and other emergency use and make it available to everyone while giving emergency workers priority use. Frontline's proposal sounds very similar to Google's push to make the band into a vendor neutral wholesale network that any device could connect to with Frontline simply maintaining it.

Naturally, Frontline's proposal came under immediate fire in the Senate hearing and big telco is already aligning itself to oppose anything but a "winner take all" auction of this valuable wireless spectrum, public interest be damned. Personally, I believe the idea to have a company be no more than a network maintainer is probably a good idea, similar to how there is a gatekeeper for domain name registrations. A vendor-neutral wireless network would encourage us to standardize our various wireless devices and free up a lot of other bandwidth, notably the 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz and 1900MHz ranges used by cell phones. It could also enable the use of a "cellular Carterphone" regulation that requires interoperable handsets between cellular carriers. The question is if the telcos will let this UTOPIA-style model come to pass or not.

(See full articles here, here, here, here, and here.)

Is "A la carte" Cable Coming Soon?

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A new bill in the House, introduced as a way to force the offering of "family-friendly" content, also includes provisions for being able to cancel one channel at a time to save the cost of distribution. The bill would require such a new tier of content to not show any TV-MA or TV-14 content between the hours of 6AM and 10PM for all expanded basic channels. The bill could also restrict when "obscene" content could be shown.

Even with the emphasis on a la carte, only about 53% of consumers would be interested and their pricing expectations are steep. Many would want to pay just $24/mo for 26 channels compared to twice as much for 100 channels with most packages. The proposed bill would allow customers to only save the costs of distributing a channel when canceling it, something I would imagine cable and satellite companies don't want floating out in the wild.

It gets pretty complex once you consider how cable operators pay for channels. ABC, for instance, usually offers a discount for carrying the local affiliate in exchange for carrying some of the Disney stations that aren't nearly as popular. Given deals like that, cable operators might actually be in a hard spot between consumer demand and content producer's demands.

(See full articles here and here.)

North Carolina Municipal Networks Could Be On The Rocks

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Just as Wilson, NC has been ramping up to build their own municipal broadband network, the state House has passed a bill from committee severely restricting their ability to enter the market. Unsurprisingly, Time Warner Cable is the chief backer of the bill. It should also come as no surprise that a talking head from a think tank (in this case, John Hood from the John Locke Foundation) is using partial quotes and half-truths to back up the opposition. It's very hard to make a solid case when you can be caught lying out in the open.

(See full articles here, here and here.)

ISP Bandwidth Shortage May Lead to Video Restrictions

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Reports from the UK show that some ISPs are engaging in "packet shaping" to restrict the use of peer-to-peer video services, even if they're legal. Given the net neutrality debate in the US, we might very well see such things coming to our shores soon, especially since telcos and cablecos can't keep up the connection speeds. Compared to other nations, the US is in the slow lane when it comes to broadband. While the Japanese enjoy an average rate of 61Mbps and our Canadian neighbors zoom along at 7.6Mbps, Americans have an average speed of anywhere from 1.9Mbps to 4.8Mbps depending on who you ask. It's enough to have Congress ask the GAO to get on the task of figuring out where we've gone wrong.

While some will openly question projects like Verizon's FIOS as more bandwidth that we could ever need, it's worth noting that 20 homes in 2010 will transmit more data than the entire Internet did in 1995. With all of the bandwidth crunches and the stopgap measures like U-Verse (which can manage a measly 24Mbps), fiber is truly the only option left to make ourselves competitive again.

(See full articles here, here, here, here, and here.)