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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 National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the Department of Agriculture released their initial 121 page “Notice of Funds Availability” (NOFA), the “stimulus program” for “broadband” projects. (I note with some consternation that the NOFA is specifying a tool (broadband) rather than the end goal of providing access to the Internet.) One of the major challenges in this NOFA is that it is designed to promote projects in unserved areas. The reason this is a challenge is that obtaining numbers for communities that are served, under-served, or unserved are difficult to come by, and even harder to prove.

Geoff Daily of AppRising has an intriguing idea. In his article Why Not Force Incumbents To Show Which Areas Are Served? Daily points out that the definitions underlying rural Internet access subsidies are rather problematic because they effectively limit funds to only the most rural areas (by excluding marginalized urban areas), and allow the incumbent telephone interests to refute claims of service by the upstarts. To address this problem:

I’d like to propose an alternative solution: why not force incumbents to show which areas are already served by threatening to consider all areas unserved that they don’t produce verifiable data for showing that they offer service there?

By doing this we’ll save applicants from wasting a lot of time and money collecting data that already exists, plus we’ll also enable them to know if the area they’re putting together a project for qualifies for subsidies before submitting their application. Additionally we’ll be able to take this data and use it to inform the broadband maps we’re charged with creating.

On the carrier side, we give them a clear reason for why they should give up their data on the availability of their services so as to insure we’re not subsidizing duplicative investment. And at the same time we can remove any appearance of prioritizing the protection of private service provider interests over making real progress in the deployment of broadband.

Hey, the incumbents have the real numbers. Why not make good use of them?

Network, Policy, Uncategorized access, incumbents, Internet, SOHO Nets, stimulus, underserved, unserved

I keep seeing references (like the first paragraph of http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/13/atkinsonweiser.htm ) to the idea that proponents of network neutrality are in favor of regulation, and opponents are against regulation. This is nonsense. If opponents are against regulation, let’s see them advocate in favor of lifting the ban against municipalities that want to require open access, and repealing laws against municipalities that want to build wireless nets.

And what do you call the rules that prevent cities from setting the terms of cable franchises? I call them regulations, and anyone who doesn’t is a lying sack of fertilizer. It’s part of the same mendacious mentality that uses the word “express lanes” when they really mean “impair my packets so yours can go faster”. If they could, they’d favor a special-interest law of physics that lets them use faster-than-light technology for their packets–and only their packets.

If existing regulatory measures were not in place, neighborhood activists could lobby their city councils in favor of net neutrality. Citizens would throw out boards of supervisors and city councils that could be seen to be in the pocket of the hated Cable Guy. Any city politician who wanted to keep their job would insist that cable franchisees must treat packets fairly. The only reason cities don’t do that is that because of a lot of regulations, cities have lost their negotiating rights.

Bottom line, I’d be fine with “express lanes” for data, if the market was competitive and not a duopoly. Actually, if there was more competition, I doubt if any ISPs would even consider impairing my packets. But as long as we have in place shelves full of regulations that protect incumbents, I say “Maximum speed 186 thousand miles per second: It’s the law”.

Network, Policy cable, closed networks, incumbents, muni networks, network neutrality, open networks, regulations

Threateninig to go around service provider revenue with your new mobile handset? Bad customer, bad suppliers, say telco consultants.

New mobile devices based on a version of the Symbian OS are a serious threat to mobile operator revenue streams, according to consultancy Mako Analysis. Savvy users can use devices running on Symbian’s Series 60 operating system (OS) to completely bypass a range of services that are normally charged for by their mobile operator, the UK-based consultancy warned on Monday. While the threat is currently minimal, the loophole has the potential to cause major headaches for operators.

‘The increasing sophistication of high-end mobile devices opens up a range of additional problems and will continue to undermine the data revenue streams of mobile operators at a time when they desperately need them to be increasing,’ a Mako spokesperson said.

Devices, Policy handsets, incumbents, mobileTech, profits, telco, telephone

Will the courts get it right? Will the FCC? Who will be the first governmental body to show future wisdom in determining guidelines for our regulatory future?

A US court of appeal has rejected a request by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take another look at its October decision which defined cable TV companies as bit carriers, thereby falling under the FCC guidelines for telecommunications services.

If this court decision remains unchanged, it will mean that all of the wholesale and network sharing rulings that apply to US telcos will now apply to cable companies.

This is the reason that all the telco DSL providers in the US work hand-in-glove with ISPs, but so few of the cable TV companies deliver their services through ISPs. The same applies to Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs).

Network, Policy cable TV, CLEC, court, FCC, guidelines, ILEC, incumbents, telcos, telecom, telecommunications