Infrastructure

S. Korea “Sender Pays” Is a Warning, Not a Model, or Why (Almost) Everyone Keeps Telling the EU This Is a VERY Bad Idea.

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Economist/NYT opinion writer Paul Krugman coined the term “Zombie idea” to describe an idea that, despite being repeatedly refuted with evidence, keeps coming back. Not surprisingly, zombie ideas typically have powerful constituencies that benefit from the adoption of the zombie idea they push, and who invest a great deal of money and energy continuing to resurrect the idea each time it gets killed.

 

This Halloween brings us the return of the “content companies should pay money to last mile networks because they use more resources” idea. I first explained why this was a dumb idea back in 2006, after then-AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre explained that he wasn’t going to let companies with content his subscribers actually wanted “use his pipes for free,” Despite lots of reasons why this is a Dumb Idea that would end up seriously reorganizing the internet economy for the worse, you find carriers around the world reviving it because $$$. This is particularly true outside the U.S., where the argument also gets caught up in debates about American dominance of internet content and popular culture. There is a separate U.S. flavor, supported by folks like Brendan Carr, about charging “big tech” to build out broadband infrastructure, which I’ve also previously criticized. But the non-US flavor has been gaining traction as a function of the “Techlash” and therefore needs some in depth discussion — especially since we can actually see the predicted bad consequences play out in real time in South Korea.

 

Back in 2016, South Korea adopted a new interconnection rule based on a long-standing telco compensation rule called “sending party network pays” (SPNP). As I’ll explain in detail below, SPNP has deep roots in the whacky world of telecom “settlement” (the fancy word for who pays whom in international calling) how networks compensated each other for exchanging traffic. Those opposed to adopting this approach predicted (based on about 100 years of history) that it would prove impossible to enforce without super intrusive government oversight and would introduce severe latency into S. Korea’s networks as the “sending networks” (such as Netflix, but also gaming companies and others with high resolution visual content) routed traffic in clever ways to avoid paying significant charges. To the surprise of no one except the advocates for the proposal, the predicted badness happened. The cost of transit skyrocketed, latency dramatically increased, and the Korean government keeps needing to consider new and more intrusive ways to (a) stop companies from avoiding the fees to ISPs while (b) trying to target foreign content providers while protecting domestic uses they like — such as video chat and video games.

 

Despite this real world example, and an impressive array of folks explaining in detail why they totally hate this stupid idea, important folks in the European Council (egged on by the EU telcos) continue to think this is a Totally Awesome Idea. So I will explain how we got here, what traditional “sending network party pays” actually means, why this ain’t it, but even setting that aside, why what happened in S. Korea shows this is a Really Dumb Idea.

 

More below . . . .

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Get Ready for the 2022 Season of Spectrum Wars!

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It isn’t the sultry Regency drama of Bridgerton, the action psycho-drama of Moon Knight, or even the, um, whatever the heck Human Resources is. But for those of us in Telecom land, the annual season of Spectrum Wars holds an attraction like no other. This year is shaping up to be a major spectacular, with lots of old plot lines coming back (like 5.9 GHz), sleeper issues (like 12 GHz) and an unexpected new dramatic plotline around the FCC’s overall auction authority — and More! With the FCC close to finally getting a full cast, it’s looking like 2022 could be a total blockbuster (which will, of course, end in the cliffhanger of a new Congress — with Ted Cruz as potential Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee!).

 

Of course, not every potential plotline will work out, and we’ll undoubtedly have plenty of surprises along the way, but here’s a (not so) brief recap of what you need to know to follow along this season. If I missed your favorite show, let me know in the comments.

 

(And no, we’re not going to talk about net neutrality. Or any of the broadband money. This is just spectrum, not wireless service.)

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What the Eff, FAA? My Insanely Long Field Guide to the FAA/FCC 5G C-Band Fight.

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5G has been accused a lot of ridiculous things — causing Covid, causing cancer, causing autism. This article provides a list of 9 separate conspiracy theory/whacky things 5G is supposed to do, from killing birds to depopulating the planet. Today we can add another thing to the list to make an even ten — causing planes to fall out of the sky. Unfortunately, the source of this particular new rumor is the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). Specifically, the new FAA “Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin” on “Risk of Potential Adverse Effects on Radio Altimeters” (generally referred to as “FAA guidance” by the industry). This has lead to a spate of articles where FAA folks anonymously leak statements about how sister agency the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is outa control and does what she wants, bitch, whatevah! and planes are gonna fall outa the sky and shut down air travel for everyone unless the FCC stops the roll out of 5G in something called “C-Band” (with phased in roll out scheduled to start in December — now delayed until January).

 

If this sounds familiar, it’s because a different agency within the Department of Transportation pulled the same nonsense over the FCC’s efforts to reclaim unused spectrum from the auto industry in the 5.9 GHz band. The Department of Defense has made similar accusations against the FCC wrt its approval of Ligado. I could list several more cases, but they basically boil down to the same thing — the federal government’s processes for addressing spectrum policy is severely broken. Unhappy federal agencies that don’t like the outcome of an FCC proceeding respond by undermining the FCC in the press and trying to wage proxy wars through allies in Congress. But the FAA’s actions here take this behavior to new heights of irresponsibility and danger.

 

As I explain in greater detail below, the technical evidence on which the FAA bases its interference concerns have a lot of problems — not least of which that about 40 other countries operate similar 5G deployments in the same C-Band without any interference showing up. Either physics works differently in the U.S., or the report at the center of this controversy needs to explain why this hasn’t shown up in any other country where deployments are either authorized or have already taken place. What is worse, the FAA has basically been playing “chicken” with the FCC by failing to turn over needed information to verify the report or replicate the results until literally the day before FAA staff leaked the “planes are gonna fall out of the sky” story to the Wall St. J.

 

But more importantly, we need this inter-agency warfare over 5G spectrum policy to stop. Things have always been difficult That we now have an FAA that would prefer to actively undermine confidence in the safety of air travel than actually work with the FCC (and trust the FCC to do its job) underscores just how bad this problem has become. Congress can help by swiftly confirming Alan Davidson as head of NTIA (the federal agency that is supposed to mange the spectrum management process on the federal side) and Jessica Rosenworcel and Gigi Sohn at the FCC.

 

More below . . .

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We Will Have a Dream Team FCC (and NTIA) — But You Still Have To Fight For Your Right To Broadband!

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President Biden has finally made his critical telecom appointments to fill out the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA). As expected, Biden named Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to serve as full chair and renominated her to fill her expired term. As hoped, he also nominated my former boss (and all around Telecom Boss) Gigi Sohn to be the third FCC Commissioner. In addition, Biden nominated Alan Davidson to serve as Administrator/Assistant Sec. for NTIA. In addition to the critical role NTIA plays in spectrum policy, NTIA will also be the agency running the multi-billion broadband infrastructure program in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (assuming that passes).

 

This makes lots of important things possible. Not just headline items like reclassifying broadband as Title II (which one would expect any Democratic FCC to do at this point). It includes developing smart and innovative policies to close the digital divide, enhance competition, put consumer protection front and center, and advance new spectrum management technologies that move us from scarcity to abundance. This trio (combined with already serving FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, a champion of privacy and inclusion) are as potentially transformational in telecom policy as the appointment of Lina Kahn and Alvaro Bedoya to the Federal Trade Commission.

 

The Key word here is “potentially.”

 

One of the biggest mistakes that people keep making in policy and politics is that you can just elect (or in this case, appoint) the right people and go home to let them solve the problems. Then people get all disappointed when things don’t work out. Incumbents are not going to simply surrender to new policies, and political power has limits. This will be especially true if Congress flips in 2022. So while this is definitely cause for celebration, we are going to have to fight harder than ever to get the policies we need to create the broadband (and media) we need — starting with the fight to get them confirmed over the inevitable Republican resistance.

 

Happily, fighting to achieve the right thing is much more enjoyable than fighting to prevent the wrong thing. But no one should think we can just go home, problem solved. As I have said for over 15 years, you can’t outsource citizenship. Citizen movements are citizen driven, or they either get co-opted or die. We are going to need to support (and occasionally push) the new FCC and NTIA in the face of unflagging industry pressure and political obstacles. The laws of political reality have not been repealed — but we have a unique opportunity to use them to our advantage.

 

A bit more about who these people are and the policy opportunities below. . . .

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