The mashable wiki
Wikis are extraordinarily useful but essentially flat resources. It’s tough to conceive of a wiki being made up of structured data; indeed, a key concept behind wiki-ness is that anyone can edit and make the wiki wiser, and we don’t force people to edit in particular ways. So a wiki is just there, like a painting - a dynamic painting, sure - beautiful in its changing coherence, but not something you can treat like xml data.
At least that’s what I thought until earlier this week, when I went to the ITP spring show (always an inspiring event) and saw Fred Benenson’s CauseCaller.
CauseCaller is just so elegant and powerful. It’s based on Semantic MediaWiki, a free wiki extension that allows people like you and me to add data to wikis by filling in forms. The result? Structured, useful data that other applications can use. Fred’s idea was to populate forms with information about politicians - what party, what state, what phone number. Then he hooked those phone numbers through Asterisk - essentially, an online telephone switch that allows you and me to make calls using our computers.
And - presto - you’ve got a phone tree application. You want to forward a cause? You click on the cause you’re interested in on CauseCaller (or you create a cause of your own and associate it with particular politicians), and the application will start calling politicians for you, one by one. You’ll talk to them, hang up, and call the next one. Lots of people have discovered CauseCaller already who don’t know Fred.
The powerful, beautiful thing about this Fred move is that anyone can add more structured (or tagged) data to the wiki. You could add more politicians; state politicians; anyone anywhere in the world you want to reach. The application doesn’t have to be an online phone tree, although that’s a good thing to have. It could be anything riding usefully on top of the wiki. You can change the templates/tagging for the underlying data when you need to.
All very emergent, mashable, simple, open, and interesting.
D stands for slightly desperate
The FCC released a notice yesterday asking many questions - they boil down to something like “How on earth do we go on with the idea of a public-private partnership for the D Block?”
Here’s the background: As part of the structure of the 700 MHz auction that concluded recently, the Commission proposed that the licensee of 10 MHz of commercial spectrum within the 700 MHz range (paired blocks 758-763/788-793 MHz) (the “D Block”) enter into an agreement with the licensee of “public safety broadband spectrum” (763-768/793-798 MHz). The idea is that this highspeed network would cover both the commercial D Block and the public safety spectrum, and the commercial licensee would build out the public safety network in exchange for secondary rights on the the whole thing (preemptible by public safety in emergency situations).
All of this was driven by concern about 9/11 communication snafus, when police and fire departments in NYC couldn’t talk to one another. (Talk: narrowband, push-to-talk technologies.)
Since 9/11, both NYC and the DC area have solved their “interoperability” problems. Now (or soon) their public safety officers will be able to communicate easily.
For some time now, there’s been a push for nationwide highspeed “interoperable” network operation for public safety. So the FCC established rules for the auction of the D Block, and a pretty high reserve price - and the reserve price wasn’t met. There were so many uncertainties for the commercial operator: would public safety effectively act as a reseller, would it demand fees, would it exact so many conditions that the network wasn’t a money-maker for the commercial actor? Now the FCC is asking questions, hoping desperately that they’ll find a way to make this work.
If you read yesterday’s FCC notice, the whole plan seems dubious. Everything is apparently up in the air. What does public safety really need? (By the way, if they just want to talk, the entire idea of a highspeed network seems like overkill.) How will the private party and the public safety actors work together? What will their respective roles be? Maybe the public/private idea just won’t work. And what does it mean to ask for “interoperable” spectrum, particularly when localities are going ahead to form their own protocols?
This proceeding seems like a deeply difficult one - and the Commission is sounding slightly desperate. They may be writing rules for something that no commercial actor may feel is worth investing in — and that may end up not being useful for the public safety actors concerned. They probably want better equipment more than anything else.
Hitting the nails on the head in Canada
In The Deal of the Century, the 1987 classic account by Steve Coll of the breakup of the Bell System, one of the Bell local operating company presidents (pre-breakup) is furious about MCI’s attempts to build microwave private lines for companies. Here he is, arguing to the AT&T chairman that MCI has to be stopped:
There are large amounts of revenues that are vulnerable, which we can preserve if we choke off now. I think you have to hit the nails on the head.
The AT&T Chairman, John deButts, eventually follows his advice - and when MCI comes to AT&T asking for interconnection agreements in major cities so that it can sell private line services, AT&T delays, avoids, and then directly challenges MCI. Coll says deButts “call[ed] for nothing less than a public anointment of Ma Bell’s right to exercise its monopoly in the national interest” in this speech:
The time has come, then, for a moratorium on further experiments in economics, a moratorium sufficient to permit a systematic evaluation not merely of whether competition might be feasible in this or that sector of telecommunications but of the more basic question of the long-term impact on the public.
In other words, AT&T’s deButts was calling for a moratorium on MCI’s efforts to interconnect with AT&T.
The news today is from Canada, where Bell Canada has called for a moratorium on the efforts of independent ISPs to compete across its lines. “Canadian Regulators Deny Relief For Bell Canada Traffic Shaping.”
The argument from Bell Canada is that its throttling of PDP traffic (before it even reaches independent ISP networks) is not creating a disadvantage to competitors - and thus is not violative of its obligation to sell wholesale access to its network. Although the CRTC found that the ISPs had raised serious questions about tariff compliance, the regulator wasn’t convinced that the harm caused by this practice was irreparable, and so didn’t want to grant interim relief prohibiting the practice.
This isn’t over - the argument against Bell Canada’s throttling practice is that it amounts to “an anticompetitive move aimed at ensuring that nobody could offer higher quality service than Bell Canada’s Sympatico unit,” and the CRTC will hear that question. This is just an interim order.
In the meantime, however, Bell Canada is successfully choking off competition and hitting the nails on the head. It’s required by law to open up its DSL network to competitors (just as the old AT&T was required to interconnect), but it is unwilling to do so in ways that might leave revenue on the table.
[update: privacy complaint from the Univ. of Ottowa clinic - all that deep packet inspection is troubling]
Blog break
Going offline briefly. Here’s something from The User Illusion for you, at p.220:
Our actions begin unconsciously! Even when we think we make a conscious decision to act, our brain starts half a second before we do so! Our consciousness is not the initiator — unconscious processes are! . . . [T]his result obviously runs deeply counter to our everyday image of what being a human being involves. Our consciousness dupes us!
It tells us that we can decide on what we do. Yet it is apparently a mere ripple on the surface, a little tin god pretending to be in charge of things beyond its control.
The New Clearwire
The new Clearwire could be game-changing, but the rules of the game may not be quite as Clearwire presents them. I have been wondering since last July whether something significant would happen in the Google/Sprint world. The deal announcement earlier this weekseems to be that key development. (Here’s the press release and here are slides describing the transaction.)
In a nutshell, Sprint will contribute its substantial spectrum licenses in the 2.5 GHz range and its WiMAX-related assets and intellectual property. Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks will invest a total of $3.2 billion. The idea is that this combination of investment and spectrum will allow the resulting “new Clearwire” to get a jump on AT&T and VZ in introducing highspeed mobile internet access - perhaps a two-years’ lead. Part of this time-to-market advantage will come through Sprint’s agreement to allow the new Clearwire to use its towers, fiber network, and IT support. Plus the new Clearwire is saying that it’s using a standard — WiMAX — that was developed in 1995. (More about that below.) Verizon’s preferred standard, LTE, or “Long Term Evolution,” isn’t as longstanding.
It’s clearly exciting to have a potential competing provider of highspeed mobile internet access out there that could cover 140 million Points of Presence (units of coverage - a POP is an access point from one place to the rest of the internet that has its own unique IP address) by the end of 2010. But there are . . issues.
Money. Not to sniff at the $3.2 billion investment of the cable/Google team, but there is already a prediction that the new joint adventure won’t have enough money to carry out its plans. To get to the 140 million POPs, the venture knows it will need an additional $2-2.5 billion. Okay, maybe that’s easy, but it’s a hole. And some people are even saying that the venture is radically under-estimating the amount of money it needs - they’re asserting that even after the additional $2.5 billion comes in, the new Clearwire will need another $5.5 billion to roll out “a mobile WiMax network with supporting backhaul in 50 markets in the U.S.” (”Backhaul” means the part of the wireless network, owned or borrowed, that allows the communication to travel from a cell tower to a central site - either a switch or a node on an internet backbone. There’s apparently a backhaul bottleneck that doesn’t get talked about enough.) So it’s unclear whether there’s enough actual or potential money in the system to make it work.
On the other hand, all of this buzz and interest in WiMAX, as well as Intel’s involvement, make it a possible trigger for gadgets and devices etc. for WiMAX - whose presence could in turn make the venture into an attractive investment opportunity in the years to come.
Technology. There seems to be a good deal of concern about WiMAX itself. Will it work? It’s supposed to cover long distances, but will those high frequencies travel through walls? Won’t it be awfully expensive to get towers (and their antennas) close enough to users to make coverage adequate? Clearwire talks a lot about its test of WiMAX going on in Portland, but that is still a beta installation and no one seems to have definitive results. Techies seems to think that you need lots of wires to make wireless work - wires to provide adequate backhaul and reach rural users — and that using the investors’ cable systems for backhaul won’t work because of all the slow upload problems we know about. Although maybe this will prompt the cable guys to upgrade. At any rate, lots of dubitante out there about WiMAX itself.
Openness. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on from the limited information we have on this transaction, but the press release does say that “Google will be THE search provider and a preferred provider of other applications for the new Clearwire’s retail product.” And”Google will become the default provider of web and local search services, both of which will be enabled with location information, for Sprint.”
How does this fit with Google’s earnest (we thought) efforts in connection with the 700 MHz auction to ensure that VZ and AT&T open their devices and networks to foreign applications? It is true that Google’s own blog posting about the transaction says that the resulting highspeed wireless internet access will “allow consumers to utilize any lawful applications, content and devices without blocking, degrading or impairing Internet traffic,” but how does that square with the assertion of Google-exclusiveness (ex-gloogleness?) for the Clearwire “product” — whatever a “product” is in this context?
So we’re cautiously optimistic, here at the Susan Crawford blog. We hope the thing will fly; we hope we’ll be flying down freeways uploading wildly some day (from the passenger seat), and it’s certainly good to see some disruptive investment in the wireless highspeed access area. But we wish Google hadn’t asked for that excloogle placement as part of the deal.
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.”