isen.blog

Let's remember.

The FCC could have set aside a few MHz for unlicensed, Wi-Fi-like uses. This would have changed the world for approximately three hundred million U.S. residents.

!magine! We could have free wireless Internet access everywhere one used to be able to get broadcast TV.

Instead we're getting an auction, as if this once-in-a-lifetime event were a house its owner couldn't keep up the payments on, or a head of cattle, or some used couch gathering dust in a barn.

Technorati Tags: 700MHz, FCC

See all the comments at OpenLeft!

To get a neutral net, we need structural separation!
Senator Durbin,

I agree with you that Net Neutrality is essential to democracy and a meritocratic marketplace in applications and services, but I am concerned that if Congress passes a law that simply says, "Telcos must play nice and offer non-discriminatory Internet access," that the telcos will completely eviscerate this law in a few short years.

In the past, the Bells said they wanted competition, but they gutted it. Now they say they will honor a (voluntary) commitment not to "block, impair or degrade any content application or service," but, they say, we don't need a network neutrality law to make them behave. Yeah, right.

The Bells stand to make billions if they do get to put toll gates between us and our political discourse, us and our friends, us and our purchases, us and our travel plans, us and our medical information, so it is no wonder they don't want a law.

A neutral Internet is fundamental to our future as a nation, to our economy, to our freedom, but I do not believe that a Network Neutrality law will ensure a neutral Internet. We have seen the Bells fight persistently, for years and years, to eviscerate laws that impede their legacy business. They will do it again with a network neutrality law, for certain. {aside: Do you know anybody who has found how to get the $10/mo DSL that ATT committed to offer as a merger condition last December? Neither do I!}

A law mandating Network Neutrality is, to the Bells, a law against their way of doing business. So, at minimum, it must have teeth, billions in fines for violators and long jail sentences for their executives. A more focussed law would remove the inherent conflict by making it illegal for the Bells (or any large provider of Internet access) to have any financial interest in what it carries. This is called Structural Separation.

The 1996 Act's unbundling did not work because of how the Bells work, and a Net Neutrality law that merely mandates good behavior will get the same result. I believe we must proceed to the next level and mandate that the Bells either divest of Internet access businesses or divest of all interests in what is accessed.

David I

Technorati Tags: Competition, NetworkNeutrality, StructuralSeparation

See the entire set of comments on OpenLeft!

"Hands-Off" is NOT a Citizens Group

Senator Durbin,

I agree with you that, "Part of the Internet's success derives from the concept of open access that all participants and all information is treated the same." I'd go even further; this is the Internet essential difference from all other communications networks.

But please be careful when you suggest that there's some kind of equivalence between netizen-citizens and the "Hands Off the Internet Coalition." "Hands Off" is an astroturf organization started and funded by the Bells. I met Chris Wolf, the Co-Chairman of "Hands Off," on February 13, 2007, at the FTC hearing on broadband competition, and he told me personally (and with some pride!) that he personally approves each "Hands Off" blog post before it is posted. It is NOT a group of citizens, it is a top-down astroturf organization of paid PR professionals falsely posing as a citizens group.

"Hands Off" frames Network Neutrality (NN) as a fight between Google and Verizon, but it is not. It is really a fight of individuals to have a voice and small innovators to succeed in a meritocratic marketplace. But "Hands Off" frames NN as a business issue and asks whether we want "government interference" or a "free market." This is false framing. The Bells got big because they were a part of a U.S. Government regulated monopoly, not because they offered better products and got ahead in a merit-based marketplace.

We actually had broadband competition briefly in 1999 and 2000, and we saw hundreds of competitive telcos and internet service providers appear, despite Bell resistance, slow-rolling and litigation. Then the Bells got a bunch of FCC and court rulings that gutted the practice of unbundled network elements, culminating in the FCC Triennial Order of 2003 (which privatized fiber in the loop), the Brand X decision (which privatized cable Internet access) and the FCC's DSL order of 2005 (which privatized DSL).

The bottom line is Don't. Trust. The. Bells. "Hands Off" is the tip of the phony Bell campaign to pour the Internet into a Bell mold. Please don't mistake them for "the voice of the people."

David I

Technorati Tags: Astroturf, Framing, Freedom, NetworkNeutrality

Tonight, when Senator Durbin is on OpenLeft soliciting our views about what makes good broadband policy, i intend to introduce the idea that behavioral solutions don't work in this country because the telcos litigate, legislate and lobby until such requirements are moot. Unbundling was such a behavioral solution. So were the long distance checklist requirements. I've laid these arguments out already, but it never hurts to say important stuff again, in different ways, until it is heard.

To make Network Neutrality last, we need Structural Separation, the legal separation of content from carriage. Otherwise, there's conflict of interest, and the big telcos are in the driver's seat.

Michael Fraase has a good summary of the argument.

Doctor Weinberger also makes the case eloquently.

Susan Crawford concludes that Structural Separation is in the national public interest.

Seeya online tonight!

Last year Weinberger bought a Mac Powerbook G4 and gave it to his daughter within weeks. He had too many windows dependencies in his work style. This year things have changed. The new MacBook windows emulation seems to work well enough for the wonkiest windows wanker. Weinberger writes:

It's solid, it's fast, the display is beautiful. Oh, I've had program crashes, and there's UI stuff that seems thick-headed (how about letting me use just one finger to delete forward? Jeez!), but, well, it's just a computer. And I'm enjoying it more than any computer since my original KayPro II.

More from DW himself.

Technorati Tags: Apple, DavidWeinberger, Mac, Microsoft

Senator Dick Durbin put out a call for participation, a request for help drafting broadband policy, yesterday on the OpenLeft blog. He writes:

What should be America's national broadband strategy?
Sun Jul 22, 2007 at 13:06:58 PM EDT

Today I'm writing to invite you to participate in an experiment -- an interactive approach to drafting legislation on one of the most significant public policy questions today: What should be America's national broadband strategy?

Starting this Tuesday, July 24 at 7pm EST on OpenLeft.com, I will be engaging in a series of four nightly broadband policy discussions with the online community. During those four nights, I am looking for the best and brightest ideas on what Congress should do to promote and foster broadband.

I will begin each night's discussion with a conversation about some of the core principles I think are important, and then I'll ask for you to contribute your ideas that will help me craft legislation.

He seems to be doing it for all the right reasons . . .

I think we need more public participation and transparency in the way Congress crafts significant legislation. This is an approach to legislation that has never been tried before. If it's successful -- as I believe it will be -- it may become the way lawmakers approach drafting bills on other issues like education, health care, and foreign policy.

. . . broadband policy is one of the most important public policy issues today. Frankly, America does not have a national broadband strategy, and we are falling behind.

I'll be there tomorrow at 7PM!!!

Thanks to Matt Stoller for this pointer.

Technorati Tags: Broadband, Democracy, Internet, Politics, USLosingLead

"Requiring Google to bid on spectrum in order to get decent carriage of its bits, is like requiring GM to bid on road construction projects to ensure it cars will be allowed on the highway. It is a sad commentary on how badly policy makers in Washington have lost sight of the fundamental principles of open communications."

Mark Cooper, Research Director of Consumer Federation of America, by private correspondence today, reprinted by his permission.

Technorati Tags: 700MHz, Broadband, Bushco, Competition, Content-Conduit, Framing, Google, Infrastructure, KevinMartin, MarkCooper, QuoteOfNote, Regulatorium, Spectrum, USLosingLead

“Taking lighters away is security theater . . . It trivializes the security process.”

Kip Hawley, Assistant Secretary of TSA, quoted in yesterday's New York Times in an article about un-banning our Bics.

Thanks to Cory at BoingBoing [link].

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Freedom, QuoteOfNote, Stupidity

In my previous post, I wrote:

So the new scenario is that the whole auction is priced way too high. The FCC "does its duty" by holding the auction on time, but golly, where are all the bidders?

Now Google CEO Eric Schmidt has told [.pdf] FCC Chairman Martin that Google is prepared to meet or exceed the FCC's $4.6 billion minimum bid if the auction's conditions include . . .

". . . clearly delineated, explicitly enforceable, and unwavering obligations to provide (1) open applications, (2) open devices, (3) open wholesale services, and (4) open network access . . ."

See Googleblog for more on this.

Now the FCC has two choices. It can meet Google's conditions -- which, incidentally would go a LONG way towards preserving a genuinely open Internet -- or it could deny them or dilute them into meaninglessness, which would play into the hands of incumbent telcos, cablecos and corporatized media.

The telcos, natch, are furious. The nerve of some upstart nouveau-riche billionaire-company-come-lately, with no appreciation of the ancient traditions of blue-blooded telephony!

So, Chairman Martin, what will it be? Preserve the openness of the Internet or preserve the cozy integrity of the club?

Technorati Tags: 700MHz, EricSchmidt, FCC, Google, KevinMartin, NetworkNeutrality, Spectrum

AT&T has been whining [.pdf] about FCC Chair Kevin Martin's proposed 700 MHz auction rules, calling them "Google's rules" and saying, e.g., that they, "would inhibit broadband deployment by keeping the spectrum out of the hands of those that value it most," -- that's the telcos, dontchaknow -- and threatening that the Martin rules, "would invite a serious legal challenge." See my previous post on this.

(Never mind that the Martin rules don't require the winners to offer the public's spectrum at wholesale rates, and there's no 700 MHz spectrum whatsoever that will be administered like Wi-Fi is.)

But now AT&T's singing a new song. Leslie Cauley, at USA Today reports that AT&T has now flipped -- now it endorses the Martin auction rules! She writes:

"We think Chairman Martin's plan is a creative compromise that balances the interests of companies and consumers," said Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive vice president of public policy.

As for AT&T's explicit written objections [,pdf] to the rules, Cauley writes,

Cicconi says that is patently wrong. "That was never the case. Nor did we ever say that."

"Woohoo!" you might think. But, says Cauley, you might be wrong. Martin's no Google stooge. She ends the article like this:

Cicconi described Martin's plan as a "put-up or shut-up" to Google and other companies that endorse a wholesale approach. "It's a big block (of spectrum) and it would allow them to offer a national service if they are serious about doing that," he added.

Cicconi noted that if the bids aren't rich enough (the FCC has set a "reserve" price) the agency will pull back the spectrum and re-auction it without the consumer choice rules.

The upshot: If bidders sit it out, or don't ante up, the FCC could wind up dropping the open-device requirement. Cicconi declined to comment, saying only that AT&T would decide its bidding strategy once the FCC's rules are finalized.

So the new scenario is that the whole auction is priced way too high. The FCC "does its duty" by holding the auction on time, but golly, where are all the bidders? [Note: scenarios always come in sets, with their alternatives.]

Meanwhile, if we had just a sliver of 700 MHz under Wi-Fi-like rules, we'd show all of them who values it the most. In our dreams.

Harold Feld's erudite inside take on the whole 700 MHz mishigas here, here, and here, undoubtedly with more to come.

Technorati Tags: AT&T, FCC, 700MHz, Spectrum

Link to original.

Now this is useful! Even so, it is incomplete. I'm very familiar with one Massachusetts town, Falmouth, depicted above as having two broadband providers, where friends living in various places around town can only get one service, usually cable.

The FCC is an Expert Agency, you'd think it could do at least as good a map as our regional Red Sox Report.

Thanks to Jim Baller for this.

Technorati Tags: Broadband, FCC, Press

Art Brodsky, in a HuffPost piece called, "Chateau AT&T Produces a Vintage Whine," takes AT&T to task for its July 12 FCC filing [.pdf] threatening to sue the FCC if it fails to conduct the 700 MHz auction just-so, writes

The July 12, 2007 from Chateau AT&T . . . is bold and robust, dominated by classic indignation, accented with dark undercurrents of threatened litigation and yet, through it all, not a hint of irony. This is a whine for the ages.

It has to be that good because it is paired with the rare and delicate 700 MHz spectrum, in itself a complex blend of public safety, incumbent operators, license sizes, service conditions and a promise of innovation that confounds even the most dedicated of telecom palates.

Brodsky deservedly lambastes the AT&T filing with the gusto of a connoisseur. The filing sets a new benchmark in flagrant incumbent arrogance. It will age like a telco exec doing ten to twenty in the cooler.

Technorati Tags: AT&T, FCC, Spectrum, wine

"I believe the only effective and long-term solution to this problem [discrimination by Internet access providers] is true structural separation: forcing operators to separate the broadband infrastructure business from the service business so that customers do not have to get their Internet service from the same company that owns the broadband infrastructure through which those bits are carried. Anything short of structural separation will be circumvented by operators who have deep pockets. They will file lawsuits, influence regulators disproportionately and play funny games."

Esme Vos, in her excellent MuniWireless Newsletter/Blog [link]

Technorati Tags: NetworkNeutrality, QuoteOfNote, StructuralSeparation

To date, the FCC has posted 27,063 comments it has received from the Citizens of the United States about its Network Neutrality NOI, aka Broadband Industry Practices WC Docket No. 07-52 [.doc, .pdf]. The first hundred, with links to the rest, are here found by going here, entering 07-52 in the "Proceeding" box in the upper left and hitting Return. [Gosh-a-mickle, it probably helps if you whirl a chicken at midnight on a new moon, too.]

The FCC has one of the least user-friendly sites on the Internet. Thanks to Sean Donelan, Fred Goldstein and Mark Cooper for helping me find the comments!

My comment, describing one small piece of the elephant, is posted on my blog, but I have no idea where it is on the FCC Web site.

The FCC must collect comments, but it doesn't have any requirement to pay attention to them. We can, though, and we can quote from the good ones, send them to our congress-folks, etc. Tim Karr, over at savetheitheinternet.com says the comments are running 20:1 in favor of Network Neutrality.

Now I'm going to settle in and read a few.

Technorati Tags: FCC, NetworkNeutrality, Regulatorium

Prices are per mbit/sec/month. [source]

In the original post, I noted that a 50 pound striped bass somewhere out in the ocean is not an offer of fish. John Quarterman, amusingly posts this reply and amplification, entitled AT&T's Striped Bass.

John's parting shot is unfortunate wishful thinking. He write that things won't improve . . . "Unless we get net neutrality regulations, or more competition, or both." When we got more competition -- remember the CLECs of the late 90s? -- the telcos gutted it. When we got a merger commitment, AT&T and BellSouth are burying the parts they don't like. And when we get a Network Neutrality law, guess how they'll honor it.

If we want a neutral Internet, we will need more than a Network Neutrality law.

Yo! AT&T! Like this:

Technorati Tags: AT&T, BellSouth, Fish, NetworkNeutrality

[Note: this article was updated on 7/14.]

Following on my previous post, there's now more evidence it is almost super-humanly difficult to get the $10/month DSL that AT&T promised it would "OFFER" in return for FCC approval to merge with BellSouth.

AT&T argeed to offer $10/month DSL to first-time customers, but if you don't already have the three digit code from the bill of your existing voice telephony account, you are SOL. And that's not all folks. You can wait on hold or jump through on-line hoops to get the $10 DSL, or accept one of their fast-track offers to order the $18 DSL . . . it reminds me of my Verizon Bait-n-Switch post. At one point the evidence provider even got transfered to the "Sorry our lines are full, call back another time," department, just like Verizon does with problem customers who want the service the phone company OFFERS.

Do you think the FCC will intervene to make AT&T actually OFFER what they've committed to offer?

UPDATE: John St. Julien, deep in BellSouth territory, prodded by my previous post, digs deeper into the hunt for $10 DSL and confirms that figuring out how to get it is far from obvious. He observes:

I've long since gotten to the cynical spot where I automatically assume that any obligation that BS/AT&T or Cox make that can be evaded will be evaded. They simply don't act in good faith.

"We're the phone company so we don't have to," is deeply embedded in the corporate culture. It is certain to extend to Network Neutrality too.

Technorati Tags: AT&T, BellSouth, CustomerService, DSL, FCC, NetworkNeutrality, Organizational Culture

Here's the Official Announcement of OneWebDay2007, to be held September 22, 2007, from Susan Crawford and the rapidly growing OneWebDay band of volunteers:

We're passing along the word about OneWebDay, a global day to celebrate and protect the internet: Sept. 22. It's described as an Earth Day for the internet.

Here's a short video about OneWebDay. [very nicely done! -- David I]

OneWebDay is made up of local physical events (teaching sessions, discussions, speeches) and online collaborations (video describing how the web has changed lives around the world, photo collections celebrating the internet). People holding local physical events are encouraged to upload videos about their events to blip.tv or youtube, tagged "onewebday2007".

OneWebDay participants around the globe will be making their own short videos and posting them on blip.tv or youtube tagged "onewebday2007". Making these videos available via dotSUB.com, a free platform for creating subtitles, will mean that people using all languages will be able to understand everyone else. Suggested topics:
+ how the web has changed your life
+ how you'd like the web to change the world in the future
+ highlights of what you've seen online the day you make the video
+ your favorite online event ever
+ something you've done online to help people in other countries.

OneWebDay is Sept. 22, every year.
What will you be doing on OneWebDay?

Disclosure: I am an uncompensated volunteer Director on the OWD Board. I do it for fame. because it is the Right Thing To Do!

More details: OneWebDay has recently achieved non-profit (501c3) status; if you donate money, we promise to use it very productively!

Technorati Tags: Global, Internet, OneWebDay, OneWebDay2007

“I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary . . . If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”

Wendy Vitter, wife of Senator David Vitter, whose name recently showed up in "DC Madam" Deborah Jeanne Palfrey's little black book. [Source NBC News story, via TPM Muckraker]

Technorati Tags: Identity, Infrastructure, Politics, QuoteOfNote

You too can file an FCC comment using this form. It's easy! The deadline is next Monday, July 16! (Unlike voting, you CAN file early and often -- the carriers certainly do.) You can make the comment brief, e.g., "Fast Pipe, Always On, Get Out of the Way!" but you should file by Monday.

My comment:

I notice that the FCC's NOI document of March 22, 2007, WC Docket No. 07-52, to which this Comment is addressed, "found no evidence that [broadband providers] were operating in a manner inconsistent with the Policy Statement." The Policy Statement (doc, .pdf), formerly known as the Four Internet Freedoms, has the effect of stating that customers are entitled to use the Internet to access content, run applications and services, and attach devices to the Internet, as long as the law is not broken and the network is not harmed. The fourth "Freedom" -- to have clear, explicit service plan information -- has been supplanted by a vague entitlement to competition.

The focus of the current NOI is wireline-based broadband service, yet recently the FCC has included wireless broadband service in its US broadband deployment statistics [.pdf], and the current NOI makes no distinction between wired and wireless casrriers, asking for, "a fuller understanding of the behavior of broadband market participants today, including network platform providers, broadband Internet access service providers, other broadband transmission providers, Internet service providers, Internet backbone providers, content and application service providers, and others."

It has recently come to my attention that most mobile (cellular) broadband terms of service severely restrict customer choice in the accessing of content, the running of applications and services, and the attachment of devices.

The FCC shouldn't have it both ways. If wireless broadband services are to be included as broadband services, they should be subject to the Policy Statement. On the other hand, if they're not held to the Policy Statement's principles, such crippled, attenuated should not be included in the FCC's broadband statistical report.

Technorati Tags: Broadband, Broadband-per-capita, FCC, NetworkNeutrality, Regulatorium, WirelessNetworks

Many blogger friends who hate the US's occupation of Iraq have simply stopped writing about it. No matter how putrid and disgusting the occupation becomes, it is still my country perpetrating it so, as a U.S. citizen, I have a duty to keep blogging it.

Bob Herbert's column today, behind the NYT paywall, points to a massive study recently published in The Nation, where 50 Iraq veterans were systematically interviewed. What came out was a very common pattern of civilian abuse that, in my opinion, is almost certainly a war crime.

Here's an excerpt from the Nation study:

Much of the resentment toward Iraqis described to The Nation by veterans was confirmed in a report released May 4 by the Pentagon. According to the survey, conducted by the Office of the Surgeon General of the US Army Medical Command, only 47 percent of soldiers and 38 percent of marines agreed that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect. Just 55 percent of soldiers and 40 percent of marines said they would report a unit member who had killed or injured "an innocent noncombatant."

*snip*

Veterans described reckless firing once they left their compounds. Some shot holes into cans of gasoline being sold along the roadside and then tossed grenades into the pools of gas to set them ablaze. Others opened fire on children. These shootings often enraged Iraqi witnesses.

*snip*

We heard a few reports, in one case corroborated by photo­graphs, that some soldiers had so lost their moral compass that they'd mocked or desecrated Iraqi corpses. One photo, among dozens turned over to The Nation during the investigation, shows an American soldier acting as if he is about to eat the spilled brains of a dead Iraqi man with his brown plastic Army-issue spoon.

"Take a picture of me and this motherfucker," a soldier who had been in Sergeant Mejía's squad said as he put his arm around the corpse. Sergeant Mejía recalls that the shroud covering the body fell away, revealing that the young man was wearing only his pants. There was a bullet hole in his chest.

"Damn, they really fucked you up, didn't they!?" the soldier laughed.

The scene, Sergeant Mejía said, was witnessed by the dead man's brothers and cousins.

*snip*

The study quotes Sgt. John Bruns, who estimates he raided 1000 Iraqi homes:

"You go up the stairs. You grab the man of the house. You rip him out of bed in front of his wife. You put him up against the wall. You have junior-level troops, PFCs [privates first class], specialists will run into the other rooms and grab the family, and you'll group them all together. Then you go into a room and you tear the room to shreds and you make sure there's no weapons or anything that they can use to attack us.

"You get the interpreter and you get the man of the home, and you have him at gunpoint, and you'll ask the interpreter to ask him: 'Do you have any weapons? Do you have any anti-US propaganda, anything at all--anything--anything in here that would lead us to believe that you are somehow involved in insurgent activity or anti-coalition forces activity?'

"Normally they'll say no, because that's normally the truth," Sergeant Bruhns said. "So what you'll do is you'll take his sofa cushions and you'll dump them. If he has a couch, you'll turn the couch upside down. You'll go into the fridge, if he has a fridge, and you'll throw everything on the floor, and you'll take his drawers and you'll dump them.... You'll open up his closet and you'll throw all the clothes on the floor and basically leave his house looking like a hurricane just hit it.

"And if you find something, then you'll detain him. If not, you'll say, 'Sorry to disturb you. Have a nice evening.' . . . "

This, my fellow U.S. citizens, is our tax dollars at work. In economic terms, we're funding a "public bad." Disgusting.

Whole Nation study here.

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Iraq, Occupation, War

"George Santayana’s adage “Those who do not understand the past are destined to repeat it,” is usually invoked as a caution not to repeat mistakes; but when it comes to the architecture of the Internet, our plea is to study its history in order to repeats its past success."

Mark Cooper, in Open Architecture as Communications Policy, Mark Cooper, ed., 2004 [link.pdf], page 21.

Technorati Tags: End-to-End, Internet, MarkCooper, QuoteOfNote, savetheinternet, Stupid Network

"George Santayana’s adage “Those who do not understand the past are destined to repeat it,” is usually invoked as a caution not to repeat mistakes; but when it comes to the architecture of the Internet, our plea is to study its history in order to repeats its past success."

Mark Cooper, in Open Architecture as Communications Policy, Mark Cooper, ed., 2004 [link.pdf], page 21.

Technorati Tags: End-to-End, Internet, MarkCooper, QuoteOfNote, savetheinternet, Stupid Network

John Koppel, a civil appellate attorney with the US DOJ has risked his career by publishing a scathing OpEd in the Denver Post criticizing the Bush DOJ.

Opener:

As a longtime attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this time.

The public record now plainly demonstrates that both the DOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful.

Closer:

I realize that this constitutionally protected statement subjects me to a substantial risk of unlawful reprisal from extremely ruthless people who have repeatedly taken such action in the past. But I am confident that I am speaking on behalf of countless thousands of honorable public servants, at Justice and elsewhere, who take their responsibilities seriously and share these views. And some things must be said, whatever the risk.

The whole thing is well worth reading for its inside perspective. Now what'll they do to him?

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Democracy, FirstAmendment, Freedom, Press

"Data Service sessions may be conducted only for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) corporate intranet access (including access to corporate email, customer relationship management, sales force automation, and field service automation applications). PROHIBITED USES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, USING SERVICES: (I) WITH SERVER DEVICES OR WITH HOST COMPUTER APPLICATIONS, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WEB CAMERA POSTS OR BROADCASTS, CONTINUOUS JPEG FILE TRANSFERS, AUTOMATIC DATA FEEDS, TELEMETRY APPLICATIONS, PEER-TO-PEER (P2P) FILE SHARING, AUTOMATED FUNCTIONS OR ANY OTHER MACHINE-TO-MACHINE APPLICATIONS; (II) AS SUBSTITUTE OR BACKUP FOR PRIVATE LINES OR DEDICATED DATA CONNECTIONS; (III) FOR VOICE OVER IP; (IV) IN CONJUNCTION WITH WWAN OR OTHER APPLICATIONS OR DEVICES WHICH AGGREGATE USAGE FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES PRIOR TO TRANSMISSION; (V) USING THE SERVICES FOR ANY ACTIVITY THAT ADVERSELY AFFECTS THE ABILITY OF OTHER PEOPLE OR SYSTEMS TO USE EITHER THE SERVICES OR OTHER PARTIES' INTERNET-BASED RESOURCES INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION OF NETWORK OR SYSTEM RESOURCES (WHETHER INTENTIONAL OR UNINTENTIONAL) AND "DENIAL OF SERVICE" (DOS) ATTACKS AGAINST ANOTHER NETWORK HOST OR INDIVIDUAL USER; OR (VI) INTERFERENCE WITH OR DISRUPTION OF OTHER NETWORK USERS, NETWORK SERVICES OR NETWORK EQUIPMENT. EXCEPT FOR CONTENT FORMATTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH AT&T'S CONTENT STANDARDS, UNLIMITED PLANS CANNOT BE USED FOR UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING OR STREAMING OF VIDEO CONTENT (E.G. MOVIES, TV), MUSIC OR GAMES. FURTHERMORE, UNLIMITED PLANS (EXCEPT FOR DATACONNECT AND BLACKBERRY TETHERED) CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY APPLICATIONS THAT TETHER THE DEVICE (THROUGH USE OF, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, CONNECTION KITS, OTHER PHONE/PDA-TO-COMPUTER ACCESSORIES, BLUETOOTH® OR ANY OTHER WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY) TO LAPTOPS, PCS, OR OTHER EQUIPMENT FOR ANY PURPOSE."

Source. Compare the Martin FCC's Four Entitlements (.doc, .pdf) -- this breaks the first three, but fortunately "consumers" are still entitled to "competition", which means we're entitled to not own an iPhone.

Technorati Tags: AT&T, FCC, iPhone, NetworkNeutrality, QuoteOfNote

"Data Service sessions may be conducted only for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) corporate intranet access (including access to corporate email, customer relationship management, sales force automation, and field service automation applications). PROHIBITED USES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, USING SERVICES: (I) WITH SERVER DEVICES OR WITH HOST COMPUTER APPLICATIONS, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WEB CAMERA POSTS OR BROADCASTS, CONTINUOUS JPEG FILE TRANSFERS, AUTOMATIC DATA FEEDS, TELEMETRY APPLICATIONS, PEER-TO-PEER (P2P) FILE SHARING, AUTOMATED FUNCTIONS OR ANY OTHER MACHINE-TO-MACHINE APPLICATIONS; (II) AS SUBSTITUTE OR BACKUP FOR PRIVATE LINES OR DEDICATED DATA CONNECTIONS; (III) FOR VOICE OVER IP; (IV) IN CONJUNCTION WITH WWAN OR OTHER APPLICATIONS OR DEVICES WHICH AGGREGATE USAGE FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES PRIOR TO TRANSMISSION; (V) USING THE SERVICES FOR ANY ACTIVITY THAT ADVERSELY AFFECTS THE ABILITY OF OTHER PEOPLE OR SYSTEMS TO USE EITHER THE SERVICES OR OTHER PARTIES' INTERNET-BASED RESOURCES INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION OF NETWORK OR SYSTEM RESOURCES (WHETHER INTENTIONAL OR UNINTENTIONAL) AND "DENIAL OF SERVICE" (DOS) ATTACKS AGAINST ANOTHER NETWORK HOST OR INDIVIDUAL USER; OR (VI) INTERFERENCE WITH OR DISRUPTION OF OTHER NETWORK USERS, NETWORK SERVICES OR NETWORK EQUIPMENT. EXCEPT FOR CONTENT FORMATTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH AT&T'S CONTENT STANDARDS, UNLIMITED PLANS CANNOT BE USED FOR UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING OR STREAMING OF VIDEO CONTENT (E.G. MOVIES, TV), MUSIC OR GAMES. FURTHERMORE, UNLIMITED PLANS (EXCEPT FOR DATACONNECT AND BLACKBERRY TETHERED) CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY APPLICATIONS THAT TETHER THE DEVICE (THROUGH USE OF, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, CONNECTION KITS, OTHER PHONE/PDA-TO-COMPUTER ACCESSORIES, BLUETOOTH® OR ANY OTHER WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY) TO LAPTOPS, PCS, OR OTHER EQUIPMENT FOR ANY PURPOSE."

Source. Compare the Martin FCC's Four Entitlements (.doc, .pdf) -- this breaks the first three, but fortunately "consumers" are still entitled to "competition", which means we're entitled to not own an iPhone.

Technorati Tags: AT&T, FCC, iPhone, NetworkNeutrality, QuoteOfNote

Tired of all the hand-wringing about AT&T's negative effects on iPhone? Back on January 10 I wrote, "Apple Blows It." Nothing has happened that I didn't anticipate in those four paragraphs (except that Cisco would agree to let 'em call it iPhone).

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, WalledGardens

David Weinberger picks up the idea that Network Neutrality is desirable but by itself unsustainable. He picks up on earlier, nerdier work by Susan Crawford and me, saying, "Delaminate the Bastards."

The heart of his argument is this:

The carriers view Net Neutrality not as a mere restriction or inconvenient regulation. It is a direct challenge to their business model, that is, to their existence. That's why in 2006 the carriers spent $1.4 million per week lobbying against it [source]. They will do to Net Neutrality what they have done to previous attempts to get them to behave:

* The Telecom Act of 1996 required the carriers to make elements ("Unbundled Network Elements") of their networks available to other companies at prices that would allow these new companies to offer services and earn revenues from them. The carriers tied these new companies down with law suits. In 2003, the FCC eliminated the rules for broadband companies. Net effect of the legislation: None.
* The carriers routinely agree to build out their networks to the poorer parts of the town. Then they don't.
* The carriers took $200 billion [source] of tax payer money to create a fiber optic network that reached to every house. How's your fiber optic connection today?

The carriers will tip their hats at Net Neutrality if they are forced to. They will then ignore it. For the carriers, business models trump regulation, law and reason.

We have history so we can learn from it.

Delaminate the bastards. The only way to get Net Neutrality with teeth is by changing the business models of the businesses providing us with access. Peel apart the layers like a piece of rotting plywood.

In Europe, structural separation is the subject of a mainstream conference (Telecom Separation: Regulatory & Financial Implications, 17th October 2007, Le Chatelain All Suite Hotel, Brussels) that includes national regulators and senior business strategists from the major telecoms. Here in the US of A, separation is still a Dangerous Idea that even Internet public-interest advocates aren't yet considering. As Weinberger says, "The telcos are playing us like a violin." Weinberger's essay is an important step towards opening the discussion here.

Technorati Tags: Content-Conduit, DavidWeinberger, NetworkNeutrality, Organizational Culture, savetheinternet, StructuralSeparation, SusanCrawford, Sustainability

July 21 is the 35th anniversary of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words. According to a recent article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, a Milwaukee police officer patrolling the crowd of Carlin's July 21, 1972 performance, ". . . would have stormed the main stage, stopped the show and dragged Carlin off to jail. Instead, he went to the stage area and complained to a superior officer [who said] 'We'll get him when it's over.'"

The article quotes Carlin,

"I wouldn't have changed anything I did if I had known there were children in the audience. I think children need to hear those words the most because as yet they don't have the hang-ups. It's adults who are locked into certain thought patterns . . . "I find it kind of funny to be hassled for using them [the words that I can't repeat here in a family newspaper even in 2007] when my intention is to free us from hassling people for using them."

Freedom of speech ONLY needs to be protected when it offends. "Polite" speech does not need defending. Freedom of speech remains in danger. Innocent exclamations are punished by large fines while protest signs about bong hits for Jesus are censured by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile topics like Darfur, Pakistan, Global Climate Change and how the Internet threatens the rich and powerful are given short shrift on TV, on radio and in newspapers. Liberal views are systematically excluded from talk shows, and and non-corporate views are rarely expressed. Fuck that shit.

How should we celebrate this important anniversary? Comments please.

Technorati Tags: Constitution, FirstAmendment, Freedom, Language, Law, NetworkNeutrality, Press, savetheinternet, WalledGardens

When the FCC approved the AT&T-BellSouth merger in the waning hours of 2006, AT&T committed not only to Network Neutrality but also to a handful of other conditions, especially (a) to offer 768 kbit DSL to new subscribers for $10 a month and (b) to offer "naked DSL," i.e. DSL without a voice plan, to people in BellSouth territory. [Official merger commitment letter from AT&T to FCC here.pdf]

Yeah right. John St. Julien at Lafayette Pro Fiber Blog had difficulty finding the $10/month plan. It was so difficult that I'd say it'd be approximately impossible for an entry-level Internet user to find it. The page he found points to the BellSouth home page, where clicking on Internet service brings up another page where $19.95 (new! lower! price!) is the cheapest plan offered. The $10/month plan is nowhere to be found! (I don't have a phone number in the BellSouth region, so I didn't explore further.)

The merger commitment specifies that the plan had to be offered. That means to me that it has to be put forth as an option!!! (If there's a fifty pound striped bass somewhere out there in the ocean, that's not an offer of fish!)

So I don't think AT&T is honoring its $10/month commitment.

Do you think the FCC will investigate?

I'm suspicious that AT&T might weasel out of its other commitments too.

It agreed to offer "naked DSL" within six months of the merger agreement -- that would be June 30, 2007, and there's no naked DSL offer from AT&T I can find today, July 6, 2007, either. The FAQ still says, "To enjoy FastAccess DSL [FastAccess is what AT&T calls all its DSL services], you'll need to have local phone service with BellSouth."

AT&T also pledged to make wireline DSL available to 85% of the households in its territory by the end of 2007. Will it, or is this yet another Kushnick?* (A Kushnick is what a Bell does when it gets a Quid for a future Pro Quo, which it doesn't ever deliver.)

AT&T has already announced that it will be developing technology to violate its pledge of Network Neutrality; this technology will police the AT&T network to keep copyrighted works such as, "music, movies and other content," off. Such technology is likely to flag such work even when it might be covered under license from copyright holders or under the Fair Use doctrine; The LA Times reports:

[AT&T Senior VP James W.] Cicconi said that once a technology was chosen, the company would look at privacy and other legal issues.

Interestingly, the AT&T Commitment on Network Neutrality is completely silent on the matter of illegal content! It simply says that AT&T won't sell

. . . any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth's wireline broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or destination . . .

to its residential customers. So blocking content that may be copyrighted would be a violation. Unless, of course, they do such blocking after the commitment expires on December 30, 2008 (a blink of a telco's eye).

Meanwhile, the $10 DSL and "naked DSL" commitments expire 30 months after AT&T begins to offer them. It might take this long to litigate what "offer" means.

So I hope I'm wrong. I hope AT&T's really offering $10 DSL now and really offering "naked DSL" now and really going to serve an honest 85% of its customers by the end of 2007. But even if I'm wrong on these, there's still AT&T's announced intent to police the content on its network. That should be illegal, period; we have 18 months to pass a law with teeth.

Technorati Tags: AT&T, BellSouth, Broadband, BruceKushnick, Content-Conduit, Copyright, DSL, FCC, NetworkNeutrality, savetheinternet

Still amazingly relevant after all these years . . . give it a quick read, see how many of its claims apply to the United States in 2007. [link]

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Democracy, Politics

Silicon Investor recently pointed to a paper [.pdf] by network researchers at AT&T, University of Nevada and Rensselaer Polytechnic that purports to address Network Neutrality by focussing on "the specific question" whether, "over-provisioning is an economically viable strategy due to the declining cost of capacity, instead of incurring the complexity and operational costs of running a differentiated services network."

SI quotes my former Bell Labs colleague and paper co-author KK Ramakrishnan as saying, "Clearly, an undifferentiated network in this context is less efficient and more expensive . . . We believe understanding the real impacts of the alternative strategies is important as the debate about network architecture unfolds."

I think the papers introductory assertion goes way beyond the scope of the study, and KK's quote, if indeed he is accurately quoted, goes way beyond the data presented.

There's nothing wrong with the study itself, as far as I can see. Looks clean. The research shows that a network that classless networks can require 60 to 100 percent more capacity than networks that use DiffServ to deliver traffic with equivalent delay and loss. Yawn.

But the paper does not address the costs of implementing DiffServ versus its substitute, i.e., more capacity. Does 60 to 100 percent more spare capacity equal 60 to 100 percent more cost? Not in my experience. My 20 Mbit FIOS connection costs me about 20% more than my 768 kbit DSL connection. Same for other measures of capacity; once you have the wire (or fiber or air) interface, power supply, protocol logic, right of way and customer interface, the difference between kilobits and gigabits is mostly a faster clock.

If you insist, two T1s probably cost twice what one costs. By the same token, it used to cost about one year's salary to sail across the Atlantic in 1750, and it *still* costs a year's salary to sail across, if that's how you insist on crossing the ocean. But that's not reality. T1 is as dead as the clipper ship.

The failure of the authors to extend the conclusions from capacity to raw costs of capacity is deliberately misleading, especially when the researchers invoked "economic viability" and "cost of capacity" in their introduction to the work.

Then there's "technological inflation," i.e., if you want to double your throughput without increasing your expenditures, all you've gotta do is wait a year (more or less). They ignore it.

But if you want to provision DiffServ, an engineeer hour this year has the same bang-per-buck as an engineer hour last year. Attendant human error probabilities also have a cost -- according to former BT CTO Peter Cochrane some 25% of network faults are caused by human error. Ignored.

Then there's the cost of denying service during peak traffic times to the poor innovator who can't afford the high-class service. What is the cost of inhibiting the next great idea? Ignored.

If you ask me, 100% over-provisioning is cheaper than ALL the other alternatives, and more beneficial to society too. The main advantage of engineering capacity as if it were scarce is that the telcos get to TREAT IT AS IF IT IS SCARCE by selling capacity to those who can afford it and denying it to those who can't.

Beware of geeks bearing diffs.

[Thanks to Frank Coluccio and Michael Bernstein for pointers to aspects of this work.]

UPDATE: Rudolf van der Berg had trouble posting a comment on this article in the usual way, so he emailed me to say:

You forgot another important element. Total traffic and peak traffic is growing at roughly 50-70% per year. So wowee that using QoS technologies might get you 50% efficiency. That's all gone by the end of the year. The trouble is that papers like these approach QoExperience in a static manner. The internet however is highly dynamic and growing, both endogenic (more traffic per user) and exogenic (more users).

Technorati Tags: AT&T, Economics, Framing, IntelligentNetwork, NetworkNeutrality, QOS, savetheinternet, Stupid Network