Posts from Federal Communications Commission

The US Needs A New Spectrum Policy

I have written before about open spectrum and the need for a new spectrum policy in the US. Spectrum policy is back in the news because the federal government is soon going to make a bunch of decisions about spectrum that is coming back from the broadcast TV operators.

Our policy for the past thirty years has been to sell the spectrum to the highest bidder and let the goverment pocket the money. This is short term thinking of the worst kind. The incumbent duopolist carriers are always the ones who can afford to pay the most money for the spectrum and they have no incentive to innovate on what they do with the spectrum. So it goes mostly underutilized while the demand for wireless broadband increases exponentially.

All you have to do is look at the massive innovation and performance curves in the rare unlicensed bands (wifi and bluetooth) to see that an open spectrum approach with captialist style competition will create the fastest performance improvements over time.

The President appointed an advisory committee to study our spectrum policy and make some recommendations. That committee reported last year that making more spectrum unlicensed would be the best policy.

The report's authors cited a European study:

freeing 400 megahertz of radio spectrum to be shared using new technologies would be equivalent to an economic financial stimulus of 800 billion euros

This points out the most pernicious aspect of our current spectrum policy. And that is that the spectrum being auctioned off is being priced based on its current value not its potential value that can only be unlocked by the kind of permissionless innovation we see in the unlicensed spectrum. So we not only are we giving the incumbent duopolist carriers more control over our spectrum but we are also selling it at a fraction of what it could be and should be worth.

We need a new spectrum policy in this country and we need it now.

Related articles
FCC will crack open unlicensed spectrum to speed up wireless Internet
Hey FCC: Time to Expand Unlicensed Spectrum!
It's Not Super WiFi, but It's Still Important: The Debate Over 'Unlicensed Spectrum'
Can the FCC Create Public "Super WiFi Networks"?
FCC to Free New Chunk of Unlicensed Wi-Fi Spectrum – Largest Block Made Available Since 2003
FCC plans to free up spectrum, boost Wi-Fi speeds
#Politics

Good Summary Of The FCC's Open Internet Rules

Barbara van Schewick, Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, and a leading academic voice in the Net Neutrality debate, has a good blog post about the FCC's adoption of Open Internet Rules last week. I've been traveling and out of the country since the FCC adopted these rules and have been meaning to get updated on what was finally adopted. I'm pleased to see that the final order was worded in a way that deals with some of our concerns.

In particular;

– Non discrimination: This is the key net neutrality provision for entrepreneurs and investors in internet based businesses. We need protection that those who control the last mile of internet access will not discriminate against certain services and favor others. We believe the ideal approach is an application agnostic standard. In the words of Commissioner Copps:

“In discussing the “no unreasonable discrimination” standard, we put particular emphasis on keeping control in the hands of users and preserving an application-blind network—a key part of making the Internet the innovative platform it is today.”

– Access fees: We believe that Internet access providers charging application providers for access to their customers should be prohibited. The order comes very close to doing so:

The text of the order clearly prohibits network providers from charging application and content providers for access to the network providers’ Internet service customers

However, it does provide the possibility of "paid prioritization" with a very high hurdle.

as a general matter,” arrangements of this kind [paid prioritization] are “unlikely” to be considered reasonable

– Wireless: We believe that the Open Internet Rules should be applied to both wireline and wireless networks. That didn't happen leading many to interpret it as the end of net neutrality for wireless networks. I am optimistic that the FCC will remain vigilant regarding open wireless networks and may push for wireless net neutrality in the future.

We emphasize that our decision to proceed incrementally with respect to mobile broadband at this time should not suggest that we implicitly approve of any provider behavior that runs counter to general open Internet principles.

Nothing is perfect that comes out of a political process and when you add in a negotiation between carriers and service providers, it is amazing we got anything of value. I think Chairman Genachowski, who is a friend of mine, did a terrific job on this and we thank him and his staff at the FCC for pushing these rules forward in a very difficult political climate.



#Web/Tech