isen.blog

Andy Oram has written a carefully considered review of the VON conference in Boston last week, with a lot of attention to Michael Powell's speech.

(I am sorry I could not be there, but VON and Telecosm conflicted this year, as they often do. Both Jeff Pulver and George Gilder are friends and I kept both meetings on my calendar, but George tipped the balance by assigning me a duty -- refereeing a discussion among Roxane Googin, Tom Hazlett and himself -- so I answered that call. Now I am reading reviews of the event I couldn't attend.)

Oram's review is nice work -- but there are a couple places where I don't think Andy went quite deep enough.

In one place, Oram recounts Powell's Four Freedoms:

• Freedom to access content
  
• Freedom to run applications
  
• Freedom to attach devices
  
• Freedom to obtain service plan information

And he says

Powell explained these principles, which add up to a restatement of the end-to-end principle, and underlined his support for it by saying, "IP doesn't work if the person who owns the infrastructure can control the user's freedom of access." Competition thus means much more to Powell than low price or even greater chances for innovation; it means precisely the kind of open commons in communications that Lessig has called for.

Perceptive. Well put. But Oram fails to note that these "freedoms" are weaker than an unfunded mandate. They are voluntary! Powell stumps for them, but he thinks the industry will toe the line just because. What will my ISP do when it needs to choose between voluntary support of the "freedoms" or making money? Duh.

Also, when Oram quotes Powell saying that, "IP doesn't work if the person who owns the infrastructure can control the user's freedom of access," Oram fails to note that "common carrier" is not a phrase in Powell's vocabulary, nor is "market dominance test." Powell seems to believe that market forces will do regulation's job. Even when there's no marketplace and no magic in the dominant player's heavy hand. And even with Googin's Paradox afoot.

On the other side of the coin, Oram notes

. . . competitors of the Bells, such as AT&T, have just about thrown up their hands and given up trying to get access to the last mile. While Powell insists he doesn't want to reinforce a monopoly, he has essentially sealed the monopolies in local phone lines and cable TV that emerged in the late 1990s.

Exception, please! Chairman Mike has worked harder than any FCC chairman ever to foster new wireless technologies, and appropriate wireless regulation. He genuinely believes that new wireless technologies will break the telco-cableco duopoly.

In invoking AT&T as a Bell competitor, Oram seems to miss the larger idea of disruptive technology. Let's be realistic; AT&T will not get it. They are not a "Bell competitor." The future will belong to other, newer entities. In similar fashion, Oram acks the wireless option with a nod to the cellcos. But cellcos are old-tech; they will bring new wireless technology to market only under duress. Newcos will bring new tech to market first.

Despite the above, Oram makes numerous valid points throughout, e.g., where he says

The adoption of VoIP by incumbents such as Qwest and Verizon mark a historic conversion comparable to the Emperor Constantine's embrace of Christianity.

But Christianity had been around for 300 years. It wasn't an upstart cult anymore. It had already become so institutionalized that its founder might not have recognized it.