Many, many devils in the details: 700 MHz rules
The enormous PDF of the rules came out on Friday evening last week. There is a lot here to chew through, but some highlights leap out:
1. Those Carterfone protections don't mean too much. The no-locking, no-blocking requirements are hedged in by substantial limitations: the winning licensee will be able to lock and block devices and applications as long as they can show that their actions are related to “reasonable network management and protection,” or “compliance with applicable regulatory requirements.” In other words, as long as the discrimination can be shown to be connected (however indirectly) to some vision of “network management,” it will be permitted. (Discrimination “solely” for discrimination's sake is prohibited, but that's not too difficult to avoid.)
Among other limitations, the license winner will be allowed to continue to use its own (non-standardized) certification standards and processes to approve uses of devices and applications on their networks, will be allowed to protect the “safety and integrity” of their networks against non-carrier applications and devices, and will be permitted to restrict use of its network to devices “compatible with [the carrier’s] network control features.” Additionally, carriers will have the ability to deny interconnection to handsets and applications that are unable to provide location-information via the carrier’s E911 system (a system that is controlled by the carrier itself).
All of these elements will provide any incumbent carrier that wins this auction with ample slow-roll capability. It will be very difficult for non-carrier application providers and device manufacturers to work through the incumbent’s certification processes.
2. The “reserve price” gambit is quite astounding. Martin's arrangement for very limited open access is accompanied by a novel escape clause: if the license block that had been conditioned on limited no-locking, no-blocking requirements fails to sell for at least $4.6 billion, it will be re-auctioned in smaller chunks without any conditions applied.
Commr. Copps disagrees with this “reserve price” approach, saying “[t]he procedure in this Order carries chilling risk to the success of the auction. If some of these blocks do not fetch the bid prices stipulated, perhaps because of gaming of the worst sort, they will be re-auctioned with weaker build-out requirements. If the 22 MHz block, where we hope for Carterfone open access principles, fails to elicit a $4.6 billion bid, it will be re-auctioned without Carterfone open access. In the end, all of this micro-managing virtually hands industry the pen to write the auction rules and to constrict all the opportunities this spectrum held forth. The end result could be: same old, same old. What a pity that would be!”
There are many, many devils in these details.
Comments
5 Responses to “Many, many devils in the details: 700 MHz rules”
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As a so-called, ICANN Director (unelected and planted by Esther Dyson),
where is your detailed analysis of the SPECTRUM shown below ?
Where are ALL of the ICANN Director's comments on this SPECTRUM ?
Do ICANN Directors have a clue what that SPECTRUM below is worth ?
What if each /8 was worth $4.5billion in an auction ? Where would that
money go ?
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Are Class A blocks even that important anymore?
If you are referring to some of the blocks below, that is a very good
question. If you are referring to /8s in general, that is even a better
question.
The FCC-regulated carriers would likely take the view that they plan
to use whatever address space they please, when they need it. They
have the clout, via a growing user base, and FCC ties to make that
happen. They certainly are not going to run around the world to
non-profit quango hot-tub parties to debate and trade address spaces.
As for the non-profit quangos, they now have tens of millions of dollars
to retire and party for the rest of their lives. All they have to do is
continue to play out their little charades about I* governance and
stewardship of shared resources (which now come free from the
FCC regulated carriers).
As for the users (and next generation ISPs), they now see the light
(or the Vista) and realize that they can route around the entire
fantasy, again, without spending a dime. Do you think they will be
sending donations to the non-profit quangos ? What would motivate
them to do that ?
There are other more subtle issues coming down the road that impact
the address space(s). One of the major issues is that there is a growing
bandwidth gap between the big island (the USA) and the rest of the
planet. It makes no sense to tie up address allocations to locations that
one can not send broadband packets to no matter how hard you try.
It is easier to move those users to other service platforms, such as
SMS cell phone technology. That is being done and that will make more
address space available when the FCC regulated carriers decide to grab
it. There is a huge amount of wasted/unused space.
Given some of the above, one may wonder why the non-profit quangos
are running around claiming the sky is falling in depleted address
allocations. One reason is that they have banked tens of millions of
dollars selling “virgin” space. Now that people have it, and view they
own it, they are never giving it back. They also may not see a need to
continue paying a lease fee each year. What do they get for those fees?
Is that protection money that makes its way to the routing mafia ?
Back to your question about whether “Class A” address space is
important (vs. what once was called Class E), it will be interesting to
see how the various players below approach the coming “end game”.
Some of the companies do not even exist any more. How do they play ?
Also, how do they justify such large allocations ? Would they lend their
space to an FCC-regulated carrier in return for some free connections?
(BTW…that happens in the small ISP arenas)
As for the users, they just want it to work, and to continue to become
intertwined with their TV, radio and other media experiences. As they
do that, they will find more and more FCC “partnerships” calling the
shots. Since people are already paying for the FCC to do what they do,
why pay again for a bunch of non-profit quangos to create a charade
that looks like the FCC. Why also would people pay when they find
out that the non-profits are full of clueless .NET groupies playing out
some 60's style hippie road show, with chants about “the community”.
Again, the FCC and the FCC regulated carriers are not going to get
into those hot tub parties. They have a network to run.
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[…] its legal challenge to the 700 MHz auction rules. I have a feeling they’ve decided that there are ways to work around [link to post giving work-around clues] the no-locking, no-blocking conditions that the FCC […]
[…] petition, quite a bit has happened. We’ve seen some incremental moves towards openness in the 700 MHz auction rules. But these are only incremental steps, and they’re full of exceptions for network management […]