Tying, subsidizing, and IMS
In response to my post a couple of days ago about the possibility that VZ might not plan to comply with the 700 MHz “open platform” rules, someone wrote:
would you have the FCC mandate that every mobile device must be capable of running every operating system? If Verizon sells me a BlackBerry, should the device allow me to install Android, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, or Symbian OS? Obviously, Google believes the answer is yes (they will make the most money if they can install their OS on every device). Is it good for consumers if the FCC starts managing software specifications for computers and mobile devices?
Here’s the problem that the question doesn’t aknowledge: VZ controls its network AND markets devices, and would like to tie the two together. The Google petition suggests that VZ plans to give its subsidized devices exclusive “better” access rights to its network (we don’t know in what way) than other, non-VZ-connected devices. VZ also plans to “cripple” the devices it provides (or “optimize” them) to run only the applications and operating systems and everything else it wants to offer. This isn’t good for anyone other than VZ, and puts VZ in control of innovation in both devices and applications.
Marketing differently-abled devices is obviously fine in the abstract. The problem here is that if VZ can say “only our devices will work well with our network,” “only our devices can be subsidized in the way you’re used to,” and “you can do only X, Y, and Z with these devices, but don’t worry, they’re cheap,” they will have successfully returned us to the pre-Carterfone days. Without Carterfone, we wouldn’t have had modems. Without modems, we wouldn’t have had the commercial internet. That’s why we should be deeply concerned about VZ’s plans.
The problem is that VZ is a dominant, vertically-integrated network operator and device-provider. This isn’t any old new-gadget-maker - it’s Ma Bell, reconstituted.
VZ will say: Trust us. We’re here to provide the best possible consumer experience. Why would we ever do anything that would interfere with all possible uses of our network? Don’t force us to allow all devices to use our network - that will squelch our wildly-innovative nature.
Well, VZ has every incentive to compete with the open internet. They can’t adequately monetize the open internet. So the point of the “open platform” conditions, weak and game-able as they were, was to de-link network provision from both device-provision and application-provision. Now it appears that VZ may argue that those links are necessary in order for their network to work properly.
Now, I’m not saying that government drafting specs is generally a good idea - but to characterize the certification of Part 15 devices (say) as the drafting of specs is unfair. To the extent there is a need for ANY specifications for attachment to internet access, and perhaps there may be for wireless access, there is a role for government to come up (in cooperation with all netops) with a standard set of specs for devices that are permitted to attach to highspeed networks, to work to ensure that those specs don’t allow the network operators to discriminate in ways that serve its revenue plans, and then to police an effective de-linking of devices from network-provision.
Here’s why this is so important: VZ plans to overlay on all of its networks, wired, fiber, and wireless, a cell-phone-like-billing-system called IMS. IMS comes in many guises and isn’t fully baked yet (I believe, but who knows), but it’s a child of the mobile phone system. It allows for discrimination and billing and other “management” efforts that VZ thinks are appropriate. Add IMS together with network-provision and subsidized-device-provision, and you’ve achieved the traditional telephone model: a fully-managed network, where everything requires permission and can be billed for perfectly.
That’s not the internet.
Internet Week New York
During which OneWebDay will host a panel discussion - and Stephen Colbert will receive a Webby.
More details here.
700 MHz Update: Will VZ comply with the rules?
Last Friday (HT: IPDemocracy), Google filed a petition [PDF] asking that the Commission ensure that Verizon understands what those “open platform” requirements for the C Block really mean. Verizon has taken the position in the past that its own devices won’t be subject to the “open applications” and “open handsets” requirements of the C Block rules, and Google says it is concerned that Verizon doesn’t plan to follow those requirements in the future.
This is big. Here’s the background.
In the 700 MHz auction rules, the Commission noted that public advocacy organizations were claiming that “incumbent wireless carriers . . . routinely choke bandwidth to users, cripple features, and control the user experience” in order to protect their highspeed internet access businesses. Verizon had argued strenuously that “imposing an open access business model undermines the auction process and competitive bidding,” but the Commission nevertheless stated that it would “require licensees to allow customers, device manufacturers, third-party application developers, and others to use or develop the devices and applications of their choice.” The nickname for this requirement imposed on the C Block of spectrum (a large 22 MHz block divided into a few regional licenses) was “open platforms for devices and applications.”
Accordingly, . . .we will require only C Block licensees to allow customers, device manufacturers, third-party application developers, and others to use or develop the devices and applications of their choosing in C Block networks, so long as they meet all applicable regulatory requirements and comply with reasonable conditions related to management of the wireless network (i.e., do not cause harm to the network.).
Specifically, a C Block licensee may not block, degrade, or interfere with the ability of end users to download and utilize applications of their choosing on the licensee’s C Block network, subject to reasonable network management.
The rules explicitly say that C Block licensees may not “disable features on handsets it provides to customers,” and “shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice.”
When this rule was released I expressed skepticism about the “reasonable network management” and “regulatory requirements” wiggle room provided. I also noted that Verizon had insisted on retaining the ability (1) to privately “certify” applications and devices for use on its network (a process during which a great deal of mischief is possible, as we know from the pre-Carterfone days), (2) to sell heavily-subsidized handsets of its partners in its retail stores (which will make it unlikely for competing, full-price handsets to be popular), and (3) to prioritize its proprietary or charged-for content over “ordinary” Internet traffic.
But even I didn’t imagine that Verizon would actually claim that the handsets *it sells* for use on its 700 MHz network would not be subject to these limitations, weak as these limitations are. That’s what Google’s petition says:
Notwithstanding the clarity of the rule, Verizon has taken the public position that it may exclude its handsets from the open access condition.
Apparently VZ plans to treat customers using non-VZ handsets differently from VZ-handset customers, by giving them different access rights. And maybe VZ plans to not allow *its* handsets to download particular applications. In a nutshell, it’s unclear what VZ’s plans are in detail, and for this reason Google wants to make sure that VZ will adhere to the rules.
This petition appears to be designed to smoke out the truth: did the Commission draft these conditions so loosely (”regulatory requirements”) that VZ’s reading is tenable? Or is VZ simply playing fast and loose, hoping that it will be too difficult for any single actor to challenge it, given the Commission’s comfort with ambiguity? Or were the rules actually designed to be unambiguous?
My own opinion is that VZ will do anything it can to retain discretion over use of its networks, both wired and wireless, and that there likely is at this moment a strongly-held belief inside that company that no reasonable regulator could possibly require VZ to operate an “open platform.”
“Where’s the revenue in being a commodity transport provider? VZ is a broadcaster!” Watch for First Amendment claims from VZ in response to the Google petition.
[My article on the auction is available here.]
Consciousness-raising
I have a favorite book: The User Illusion. Yesterday, starting another read of it triggered the realization that it was my first introduction to undecidability, complex systems, the Turner halting problem, information theory, Maxwell’s Demon, and a host of other related concepts, people, and ways of looking at the world and at consciousness. I remember puzzling through its early chapters the first and second time around, about ten years ago. It’s still a challenging book for me, but now I’m familiar with the patterns it describes. I’ve learned something since I started working with this book, by reading many related books.
So I wanted to mark this and remember this day: this book has become part of my consciousness in a way it really wasn’t at the beginning. A friend of mine used to call it “My Big Book of Consciousness.”
Short form
I’ve had a Twitter account for a while, and at the beginning of this month I started writing feverish tweets about OneWebDay progress - I’d been told that was essential.
Well, last night on a call someone said: “I don’t email any more. I don’t IM. I don’t blog. It’s all Twitter.” And then that person made sure that I had a special *OneWebDay* Twitter account, so that people would be following the DAY rather than me. And I dutifully followed her into a wild (for me) world of Twittering - the OWD Twitter account is following almost 700 people, and hoping to soon be followed by just as many. Come watch at http://twitter.com/OWD! I’m watching all the tweets go by, myself.
But that’s just the beginning. There’s Twhirl, for running multiple Twitter accounts (that’s me). There’s Twemes, for aggregating all of those tweets.
And, most beguiling of all, there’s Twistori, to lose a few hours over. (ht: Cory Ondrejka)
I have been blogging since September 2003, and I know I’ll enjoy getting back to it once I have a bit more time to reflect. (Right now, we’re busy here at the Susan Crawford blog.) All those tweets have to link to something. But I can see the tremendous appeal of the short form.
Here’s a fan site - note the long list of twitter-puns.
CFP08
The Yale Information Society Project recently posted its 9.5 Theses for Technology Policy in the Next Administration:
1. Privacy. Protect human dignity, autonomy, and privacy by providing individuals with control over the collection, use, and distribution of their personal information and medical information.
2. Access. Promote high-speed Internet access and increased connectivity for all, through both government and private initiatives, to reduce the digital divide.
3. Network Neutrality. Legislate against unreasonable discrimination by network providers against particular applications or content to maintain the Internet’s role in fostering innovation, economic growth, and democratic communication.
4. Transparency. Preserve accountability and oversight of government functions by strengthening freedom of information and improving electronic access to government deliberations and materials.
5. Innovation. Restore balance to intellectual property rules and explore alternative incentives to better promote innovation, freedom, access to knowledge, and human development.
6. Democracy. Empower individuals to fully participate in government and politics by making electronic voting consistent, reliable, and secure with voter-verifiable paper trails.
7. Education. Expand effective exceptions and limitations to intellectual property for education to ensure that teachers and students have access to innovative digital teaching techniques and educational resources.
8. Culture. Ensure that law and technology promote a free, vibrant and democratic culture, fair exchanges between different cultures, and individual rights to create and participate in culture.
9. Diversity. Limit media concentration and expand media ownership to ensure a diverse marketplace of ideas.
9.5 Openness. Support innovation and fair competition by stimulating openness in software, technological standards, Internet governance, and content licensing.
As Michael Zimmer says, the idea was to post some “guiding principles from which specific tactics can be formulated.” And to get people talking in advance of CFP2008, which will be held May 20-23 in New Haven, Conn.
Pangea Day
Via GlobalVoices, description here. Inspiring. It’s all happening on May 10.
This is the kind of thing I had in mind for OneWebDay, and it’s my hope that (in time) we’ll have a similar uprising around the world on September 22. Access to the internet, and connectivity generally, is becoming more important to life - whether through mobile devices, personal computers, or public kiosks. The idea behind OneWebDay is to facilitate the creation of a global constituency that cares about the future breadth-depth-accessibility of online resources.
Now that Earth Day is over for this year, OneWebDay is getting advice from Earth Day organizers - once Pangea Day runs (hugely successfully), we’ll be talking to them too.
FISA
eWeek reports that House Republicans are planning to force a vote on the Senate’s version of the FISA amendments - the version that would guarantee retroactive immunity to the telcos that cooperated with the NSA.
(Here’s a useful CRS report comparing the House and Senate bills more generally.)
Someone suggested today that I go back and read the Church Committee reports on the NSA’s Shamrock and Minaret programs (link) and the legislative history of FISA. It is astounding how infrequently the Church Committee backdrop to the entire FISA discussion is mentioned. So I’ll mention it here.
Statutory immunity for the telcos would be a belt-and-suspenders effort - AT&T itself concedes that “Current law … provides a complete defense to any provider who in good faith relies on a statutory authorization,” or some other governmental promise. So what’s the downside of judicial review of the legality of the telcos’ actions? We should know what happened and why - there is so much to understand about surveillance in this country. Plug: Eric Lichtblau’s new book, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice.
It’s been a busy week - sorry for the sketch-like posts. We’re marching towards the end of classes.
This week in the white spaces
The battle lines are being drawn:
[Only a] licensed approach to new services in the TV bands white spaces would provide accountability and regulatory certainty to stakeholders and best protect incumbent users from harmful interference.
(FiberTower Corporation and the Rural Telecommunications Group, Inc.)
We are concerned with the potential effectiveness of devices that rely solely on spectrum sensing techniques to avoid interference to mobile radio systems operating on TV Channels 14-20.
(American Petroleum Institute, Enterprise Wireless Alliance, USMSS)
[F]ully utilizing TV “white space” as a low cost alternative for improving broadband and mobile phone coverage in rural areas [such as Vermont] may well require a simultaneous deployment of what the Commission has termed “fixed/access” and “personal/portable” uses. TV “white space” could be used to support individual handsets, as well as backhaul of wireless traffic through fixed devices.
(Vermont Telecommunications Authority and the Vermont Department of Public Service)
From the NAB’s point of view, . . . potentially having unlicensed portable devices on white spaces interfere with television-broadcast signals was completely unacceptable, and no amount of testing by the Federal Communications Commission could change the NAB’s mind.
(Speech by Kelly Williams, senior director of engineering and technology policy for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), reported here.)
NSL
Several civil liberties groups are supporting legislation this week that would provide better oversight for the use of National Security Letters. Glen Greenwald, of Salon.com, spelled out the entire story last month.