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The National Broadband Plan hasn’t been completed as a draft or even bullet points, but the ax is already coming down. The Plan is likely to disappoint us, says Business Week in their article National Broadband Plan: Why Consumers May Be Let Down:

Defining broadband is an important effort (so is mapping out where broadband is), but consumers are likely to be disappointed by the National Broadband Plan, because the divide between what the American people want and how the government works means a lot of consumers’ desires will fall into the chasm between.

There’s no “likely” about it. American citizens who are hoping for better access to the Internet–or any access at all–will most certainly be disappointed to find out that nothing will change except for the increasing cost. I’m not surprised, but wish it wasn’t costing taxpayers so much.

Telecom lobbyists are paying less and getting more for their campaign contributions these days. I don’t see a reason to believe that things will change, given the current perspective and dialog. More importantly in this article, the notion of “broadband” (the means of getting access to the Internet) is being framed as the end game. Broadband is not the end game.

Make no mistake: Broadband is NOT the same as the Internet. Broadband is a poorly defined speed, a pipe, the means by which we access the Internet. It’s a marketing term used by the telephone and cable companies to describe their paltry offerings, which have resulted in the United States being ranked 17th in the world (and falling). A significant problem with using “broadband” as our national goal is that the FCC has not defined or measured it, or assessed its distribution (PDF). Of course the telephone and cable companies know, but they aren’t telling. And they’re effectively in charge for now.

If I could pull the plug on this well-financed debacle, I would in a heartbeat. Instead of focusing on the means (the pipe used to get there), let’s focus on the real goal: access to the Internet.

I propose that instead of pursuing this losing battle, we start talking about a Global Internet Plan for America. Why?

• We’re really trying to get access to the global Internet resources: everything that is available now and being created in the future. We want access to the global Internet. The Internet offers advanced information services and benefits to everyone, in many languages and many forms.
• The United States of America has unique political and technological resources, so this Plan is uniquely designed for Americans. Americans care about each other. We want our nation recover to economically. We want the best for our kids. We want all benefits to be widely available, in rural as well as urban settings. We don’t want our families, friends, or ourselves to be denied or limited access to the benefits of the Internet for any reason.

How do we get there? The current “debate” needs to be reframed to show priority for citizen-customer concerns and experiences. As the debate is framed now, it allows incumbent service providers to divide and conquer the conversation, the possibilities for change, and our future. Here are a few new ways to talk about this global Internet plan for America.

Decoupling access from delivery: The global Internet represents significant economic development benefits in the form of more competitive choices, lower prices, and faster performance. However, our service providers are increasingly serving as gatekeepers, choosing what information and how (devices, speed, etc.) we can or can not access it. Americans will realize the greatest benefit only if we decouple the Internet goods and services from the delivery pipe (broadband). This is called structural separation. For the greatest amount of benefit, we should be allowed to choose for ourselves what information to access, on our schedules and according to our needs, using our choice of hardware devices and software.

Monopoly rents as private taxation: Since the telephone and cable companies are the only game in town (where there is Internet access), they have considerable persuasive abilities when it comes to raising rates.  Citing Kushnick’s Law: “A regulated company will always renege on promises to provide public benefits tomorrow in exchange for regulatory and financial benefits today.” For instance, we’ve already paid $300 billion dollars in approved phone rate increases for telephone company promises that have never been fulfilled. One way of looking at this is as a private tax that takes in ever-increasing amount of our income. How often have you heard of local Public Utilities Commissions denying rate hikes? That doesn’t happen very often!

Coverage is not competition: Broadband service over telephone lines (DSL) has physical distance limitations, so is not available to all homes or businesses. Broadband over cable lines (cable modem service) passes a majority of homes in the nation, and is sometimes the only choice for access. In these areas, the price of access is high. What this means is that there are parts of the nation which either do not have access to the Internet at all, or have effectively one choice for providers. A Brookings Working Paper from 2002, The United States Broadband Problem: Analysis and Policy Recommendations (PDF), states the problem accurately:

Thus the effect of current industry structure is to generate a stable duopoly in residential Internet services, with continued monopoly control in most other markets – by the ILECs in voice and business data services, and by the CATV industry in residential video. Neither industry would logically be interested in provoking highly dynamic competition in open-architecture, high speed, and/or symmetric broadband services to either businesses or homes. Hence the slow pace of improvement in broadband services is not surprising. Unfortunately, however, it damages the economic growth, social welfare, and national security of the United States, and indeed of the world.

This means that any claims of nationwide coverage are suspect. As mentioned above, actual coverage and subscriber/customer data is not shared with the government, so the FCC doesn’t know how bad this problem is. However, there is no reason that access to the benefits of the Internet should be denied to any of our nation’s citizens. Keeping the data secret does not serve in the nation’s best interest. I want an Internet plan that works for all Americans.

There are more issues that can be properly described: problems inherent in the current state of the industry, and solutions that support ubiquitous access to the global Internet by all Americans. This is a plan I want to see come to life. This is the plan that will bring benefits to the entire nation. I am not alone in calling for this plan.

I welcome your additions in the comments below. Thanks go to George Lakoff for perspective on reframing this issue.

Content, Devices, Network, Policy choice, incumbents, Internet, self-determination, service providers

The Blandin on Broadband blog has an informative post by Gary Fields called The 4 D’s of Incumbent Telco Public Policy. Gary writes,

Just recently I had the opportunity to participate in the State of Minnesota Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force, a public policy effort similar to my earlier efforts, but with more official State authority and legislation behind it. I was shocked to see the same strategies and tactics utilized by the provider representatives. At the same time, I have observed actions conducted by the FCC and recognize the same influences. To help others engaged in these important public policy discussions I decided to prepare a summary of the tactics deployed by providers to help facilitate a more constructive effort. With perseverance and diligence we may yet reclaim our global leadership role in telecommunications service and reap the economic benefits that position will bring.

I laughed when I read this post because while the four “D” words are so common in telecommunications (aka telco, telecom) policy, they also work on so many levels for so many people! For example, in a Dilbert world you’d see the four “D” tactics being used to help ineffective people protect their jobs. That said, there are a few more “D” words that are useful in these conversations.

The real lesson here is that if you see anyone engaged in tactics centered around these four “D” words, recognize and understand that these are diversion tactics. Their intent to distract does not diminish your priorities. You may need to respond by being more direct with your questions and needs. This is especially true for telecom policy these days.

Network, Policy broadband, choice, closed content, closed networks, control, debate, distractions, Policy, telecom

The New America Foundation kindly recorded a meeting in which a coalition of diverse interests and groups gave a call to action. It’s nearly an hour and a half long, and worth the time to listen and learn.

UPDATE: The US Broadband Coalition’s Jim Baller follows up with a 30 minute piece from C-SPAN, entitled The Communicators: Broadband Lobbying Efforts that informs about upcoming steps to accomplish the broadband strategy.

Network, Policy Anne Veigel, broadband, C-SPAN, choice, Communicators, control, Internet, James Baller, Policy, strategy, telecom, US Broadband Coalition

Yesterday the NY Times ran an article on passwords as access tools for our online accounts. The author rightly points out that passwords have problems:

Password-based log-ons are susceptible to being compromised in any number of ways. Consider a single threat, that posed by phishers who trick us into clicking to a site designed to mimic a legitimate one in order to harvest our log-on information. Once we’ve been suckered at one site and our password purloined, it can be tried at other sites.

The solution urged by the experts is to abandon passwords — and to move to a fundamentally different model, one in which humans play little or no part in logging on. … In short, we need a log-on system that relies on cryptography, not mnemonics.

The article continues, extolling the virtues of Identity cards and bemoaning the security distraction caused by OpenID. I think the author is missing the point about how we have choices as to combining tools. No single tool is going to be a silver bullet.

The Times article also rightly points out the challenge in adopting any alternative access system: users must adopt tools that are workable for them, and the websites must allow access to their services through these tools. This is really the more significant problem.

Identity authentication, choice, identity cards, openID

Big shout out and great appreciation to Eric (of I Can Has Cheezburger and soon: LOLcats book fame), who located the appropriate tools to import ALL of my prior Blogger posts into my new and improved WordPress blog.

Thanks also to Manoa Geeks (truly a friendly bunch!) for sharing their expertise all around.

Life choice, emergence, IDmanagement, ownership, relationships, self-determination

Yesterday afternoon was a fascinating introduction to digital identity management. Today: discussions on creating “newbie” documentation to the field, interests of data silos, and shortly: videos, use cases, sandbox development, and more!

I’m going to take things a bit out of order here. First speaker: Ryan Jenssen, who has a very informative blog that’s been tracking this space for the last 6 months. He provided a very nice overview of digital ID management, pointing out that our digital ID is “the stuff you assert about yourself.”

There are site-centered and user-driven identities that you use to establish an “account” with entities that you want a relationship with. The biggest problems include 1) the need to repeat information each time, 2) managing our multiple identities and personas, and 3) each entity you connect to may not have any need or desire to protect your information. More of me in more places, shared with more entities.

In the case of a user-driven ID, sites can vouch for their users to other sites (relevant terms: identity providers, relying parties–good def needed). Your identity has several aspects: you connect with your friends, you have specific preferences, you develop a reputation, and you have assets associated with who you are. Taking this one step further, your assets are related to you by a personal broadcast service, and your reputation becomes a reputation engine for recommendations.

Here’s an overview of some of the players in the ID Commons space:

The challenges at this point come from people who use software, need to develop compelling business models or funding sources, and the need to respect the people who have been working in this field for a long time (foundations, early adopters and developers, etc.)

Ok, give me some time to digest this.

Identity choice, IDmanagement, privacy, self-determination

There are few cases where there is broad social acceptance for the government to cast judgments on one’s life in a way that directly affects that person’s livelihood. Practicing as an attorney is one such example. Attorneys must pass through the pearly gates of judgment in order to get a license to practice law.

In California, this amounts to three things:

1. taking and passing the Multi-state Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE),
2. taking and passing the California Bar Exam (current cost: $529 + $119 laptop fee), and
3. applying for and receiving a positive determination of your moral character.

The latter involves filling out an application (currently 37 pages), paying the $431 fee (plus an additional amount for a live scan fingerprint), then waiting about 6 months for the Bar to determine if you’re hiding anything and thus not determined to be of acceptable moral character.

For anyone following it, my moral character (applied for on May 10, 2005 and determined on Sept. 29, 2005) has now expired. I guess that in the eyes of the California Bar examiners, and despite many, many years of being who I am, I can’t stay a good person for long.

Life choice, relationships, self-determination

In an article called “What Can Be Done About Listening” (.doc, html), author Ralph G. Nichols outlines Ten Bad Listening Habits. These habits include pre-judging (the subject, the speaker, the facts) and being distracted (outlining, disturbances, challenging subject matter, emotions). The amusing point here is the last: “Wasting the differential between speech and thought speed.”

Americans speak at an average rate of 125 words per minute in ordinary conversation. A speaker before an audience slows down to about 100 words per minute. How fast do listeners listen? Or, to put the question in a better form, how many words a minute do people normally think as they listen? If all their thoughts were measurable in words per minute, the answer would seem to be that an audience of any size will average 400 to 500 words per minute as they listen.

Here is a problem. The differential between the speaker at 100 words per minute and the easy thought speed of the listener at 400 or 500 words per minute is a snare and a pitfall. It lures the listener into a false sense of security and breeds mental tangents.

However, with training in listening, the difference between thought speed and speech speed can be made a source of tremendous power. Listeners can hear everything the speaker says and not what s/he omits saying; they can listen between the lines and do some evaluating as the speech progresses. To do this, to exploit this power, good listeners must automatically practice three skills in concentration:

• Anticipating the next point
• Identifying supporting material.
• Recapitulating.

Content choice, habits, self-determination

A good deal of the paper crowding my life is interesting articles and thinking I would like to have been influenced by.

For example, on my wall I used to have a quote from “Made to Stick,” on Simplicity. The part I will borrow for this post, and which I will learn to use as a guiding light, is this:

To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize.”

Life choice, self-determination

One thing about being horizontally organized and not entirely digital in my “interesting resources” is that I occupy a lot of surface area. Since my currently available surface area is at a premium and much of my interesting resources are unavailable to me anyway (most is in boxes, mixed with other stuff), I’m motivated to go through a lot of it, evaluate and summarize, then dispose of the physical part.

This is all in support of my new plan: be more consistent about blogging, get rid of boxes, and ultimately move to Hawaii.

This is an ambitious plan. Much of my life has been in storage for more than a year. Boxes and more boxes of paper (files, books), office hardware (filing cabinets, old computers & gear), kitchenware (including packaged food that has, I’m certain, passed the expiration date), clothing, sheets and towels, and a lot of shelves. Oh, and a really big desk. You can bet that I’ll be sorting, shredding, recycling, freecycling, and selling this stuff as soon as I can get myself properly motivated. Right now, I’ll confess: it’s overwhelming.

The remedy, of course: one box at a time.

Life choice, self-determination