Tales of the Sausage Factory

An insider’s view of the media hegemony

I Testify at Tomorrow’s Incentive Auction Hearing on Connection between Wireless Auctions and Larry Bird.

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I am testifying at this hearing tomorrow at the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology: “So, How’s that Incentive Auction Thing Going?”  You can read a copy of my testimony here. I can guarantee I am the only one to bring up the 1985-86 World Champion Boston Celtics, or ask the question: “What if The Chairmen and the Ranking Members of the committee and subcommittee were real estate developers?”

To elaborate a bit more, my testimony hits the following points:

1. We actually can still design an auction where we (a) get more low-band spectrum licenses for wireless broadband; (b) boost competition by making sure some of those licenses go to someone other than AT&T or Verizon; (c) pay for FirstNet all while (d) actually improving the current availability of unlicensed TV white space (TVWS) aka “super-WiFi” by opening up more TV white space in the urban markets. Oh yeah, and we’ll still have free over-the-air television for them what wants it.

Sounds too good to be true? Weird as it seems, we can for once have some serious wins on all fronts, giving something to everyone and overall improving public policy. We just have to be smart, patient, and work our way through this very complicated puzzle in a transparent process that emphasizes evidence rather than rhetoric.

Yes, you knew there would be a catch, didn’t you.

For those not up to reading my testimony, here is the brief summary of how we get to — if not the Promised Land, at least the ‘pretty decent place to be’ Land.

Step one: Please stop bashing FCC staff for trying to do their jobs.  Srsly. This is not helpful, particularly since your next question is: “why don’t we have more public notices on stuff.”

Step two: Stop refighting the “yes unlicensed” v. “no unlicensed” battle and accept that fact that the statute says “yes unlicensed.” We can find good ways to get enough open spectrum out there to create a national band for unlicensed use that will have significant value for urban and rural broadband (as well as other uses, like machine-to-machine). The FCC should have a workshop and Public Notice on this issue to get the ball rolling.

Step three: We need a “No Piggies Rule” to keep Verizon and AT&T from snarfing all the good spectrum licenses like the did back in’08. Yes, this is legal under the statute. And, while auction revenue is not supposed to be the focus of all this, a “No Piggies Rule” will likely increase auction revenue.

Should be a fun hearing. Remember, you can find livestreaming link on the Committee’s Hearing Page right before things start at 10:30 a.m. July 23.

Stay tuned . . . .

Update: You can see a copy of my opening statement here.

Is Sauce for the .Halal Goose Sauce for the .Kosher Gander At The ICANN Meeting In Durban?

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A rather peculiar circumstance has come to my attention over the new generic top level domain (gTLD) process currently chugging along at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). As is so often the case with such things, it is at the same time both trivial and highly illustrative of the problem of dealing with a global medium where symbols have semantic meaning as well as functionality.

 

It also highlights the bind for the U.S. Government. Other governments are free to weigh in on behalf of various orgs and groups that petition them for help, if those governments so choose. The U.S., because if its relationship with ICANN, faces serious political problems if it weighs in with regard to TLD policy. This does not preclude the U.S. from acting if it wants (as folks who remember the .XXX controversy will recall). Nevertheless, for the U.S. to preserve the integrity of the process and avoid accusations of meddling, it needs to tread very cautiously before wading in on behalf of any specific TLD or objection.

 

All of which brings us to the current case. It involves the treatment of two proposed gTLDs, “.kosher” and “.halal.” They have similar meanings to their respective communities, and similar concerns arise from allowing their use. We can certainly say to both communities “sorry, but nothing requires you to respect the designation of the gTLD manager, so just learn to live with it.” Alternatively, we might say “these TLDs raise some questions that impact these communities disproportionately, lets deal with them differently than from regular applications.” But it would be hard to justify treating the terms differently from a principled standpoint. the objections to one apply equally to the other — or not.

 

There is, however, a rather important political difference: there are about ten to twenty times more people in the world who (potentially)  care about .halal than care about .kosher.  in fact, there are probably more people in the city of Cairo who would care if .halal were held by a Shia rather than a Sunni than there are people in the world who care if .kosher is held by someone who holds by chalav yisroel or not. (The vast majority of the world, of course, does not even know what the last sentence even means.)

 

Also, as discussed below, while certain governments have voiced objections in the ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC) have voiced objections to the .halal TLD, no one has for .kosher. (Israel does not participate in the GAC, for those who jumped to the next logical question.) This has prompted the kosher organizations objecting to the .kosher TLD application to send letters to Commerce Secretary Pritzker, as well as ICANN Chair Fadi Chehade asking for reassurance that .kosher and .halal will be treated the same. While there is no indication that they won’t, we Jews do not take equal treatment for granted (it’s a history thing, got an hour for me to explain it? No? So trust me on this . . .) As noted above, this potentially puts the U.S. in something of a bind.

 

Which brings me to the peculiar story of .kosher and the question of whether it will or will not be treated like .halal. Because whatever the actual outcome, it would be nice to think that the two communities will be treated with equal fairness regardless of size or political clout. I mean, no one really expects it, but it would be nice.

 

More below . . . .

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I Talk On Wisconsin Public Radio About The End of the Phone System

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This morning I was the guest on Joy Cardin Show on Wisconsin Public Radio. We talked about the end of the phone system. Not surprisingly, a lot of the talk focused on swapping copper for fixed wireless.  You can download the show here. While regular readers will hardly be surprised by my positions, it is worth listening to the concerns of the Wisconsin residents — particularly from rural areas.

Unfortunately for Wisconsin, Governor Scot Walker is one of the chief cheerleaders in the Chump Parade — as I like to call the states that have decided to totally deregulate their telecom sectors and thus cut themselves entirely out of the most important conversation on telecom we’ve had in 100 years. Mind you, he had a lot of help. As usual, the bill had huge bipartisan support because . . . . well . . . . umm . . . Ma Bell monopoly era regulation bad investment jobs IP magic pixie dust! We didn’t start the fire . . . .

This is rather unfortunate for Wisconsin because, as I noted recently wrt the NY PSC and Fire Island, the only reason the residents of Fire Island have any way to express their displeasure and push Verizon to give them something else is because New York has not joined the Chump Parade and deregulated everything. So the good folks in Wisconsin better hope that nothing bad happens. But really, we’re just playing with critical infrastructure on which every person and every business depends. What could possibly go wrong?

Wisconsin better hope the FCC gets it right. Or perhaps they could call their state legislators and Governor Walker — while they still can — and ask what happens if something goes wrong in the Libertarian Nirvana.

 

Stay tuned . . . .

Lessons From The Fire Island Voice Link Debacle — This Is Still A Public Utility And People Really Do Care.

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We now have some preliminary data for how much Fire Island customers love Verizon using them as guinea pigs for untested services such as Voice Link. Turns out – surprise! – they totally hate it.

 

Actually, “hate” understates the matter. Forcing Fire Island residents to take Voice Link ranks up there with Microsoft Vista as “most loathed involuntary ‘upgrade’ from our monopoly provider.” Reaction has been so terrible that it likely will have ripple effects for the broader question of the whole copper-to-wireless conversion.

 

Which in some ways is a shame, because Voice Link is not intrinsically a bad idea and is not a bad product in and of itself. But a combination of disregarding the inability to support certain features as “not important” and a failure to properly introduce the product into the community has created a serious backlash on Fire Island.

 

On the plus side for our summer sitcom series That Darned Voice Link, everyone has the opportunity to learn some valuable life lessons to make things better for next time. This is, after all, the typical time in the story arc when everything hits the fan.  But if you learn the right lessons, scrappy little Voice Link can still have a the Montage of Self-Improvement, regain people’s trust, and be a successful replacement product for grouchy old Uncle Copper so he can finally retire in peace.

 

But seriously, above all else, do not use disaster victims as guinea pigs for your new product. They totally hate that.

 

More valuable life lessons on a Very Special Episode of That Darn Voice Link below . . .

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My July 4th Reflection

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For me the contradiction of the American experience is summed up by the fact that George Washington wrote this letter to the Jewish Community of Rhode Island while holding slaves and pursing an “Indian policy” that regarded Native Americans as savages to be quelled.

As a Jewish American, I cannot forget that when my ancestors were dumped by pirates in New Amsterdam, America became the only place in the world at that time to accept Jews with no legal disabilities. After more than fifteen hundred years  in which the best Jews could hope for was “tolerance” as a matter of grace, we became citizens with rights. When George Washington wrote the letter linked to above it was still true that not a single other country in the world permitted Jews to be “citizens” with rights and freedoms exactly the same as any other citizen.

This is a thing that cannot ever be forgotten. It is one reason why I will always love America, and celebrate July 4th publicly as a holiday of pride in my American heritage.

To say all this does not wipe away or somehow ‘balance out’ the real oppressions, ranging from petty indignities to genocides, that populate American history. Nor did this official liberality mean an end to the struggle for real equality for Jews in the United States. And, just as I cannot judge impartially the virtues of the Roman Empire which destroyed the Temple and murdered and enslaved millions of Jews, I do not expect that African Americans or Native Americans who were the primary objects of national policies calculated to crush and enslave them, should share this view.

But nor do these very real evils wipe away or somehow balance against the good that was done and the recognition that all people should be equal in the eyes of the law –even when those who made this declaration and believed in it were able to rationalize their own assault on this fundamental truth.

To borrow from another great American President: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work” of making the ideals of freedom and equality reality. “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us” to resolve the contradiction between word and deed.

To make the sentiments of Washington’s letter real, we must recognize our virtues and our flaws. For it is only in the recognition of our virtues can we give them power to triumph over our flaws. When we have achieved this, we will achieve the vision of Micah quoted by Washington in his letter. “And each shall sit beneath his fig tree, and his vine, and none shall make him afraid — this the mouth of the Lord has promised.”

Happy 4th

Voice Link Sitcom Now Playing The Borscht Belt — Shows Why We Need STATE Jurisidiction Not Just FCC.

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New York is extremely lucky that it has not joined the Chump Parade and totally deregulated its telecom sector, although apparently it has such a proposal on the table. I say this because New York now faces one of those quintessential local problems that is much, much better handled at the state level than on the federal level.

It involves Verizon’s Voice Link product.  As regular readers know, That Darn Voice Link is the summer replacement series for Game of Sprint –  the Sprint/Softbank/DISH/CLWR drama which is now winding down.The plot for That Darn Voice Link is fairly straightforward. Scrappy little Voice Link, the daughter of the highly successful Verizon Wireless family, must get along with curmudgeonly old Uncle Copper while learning the family business and replacing Uncle Copper as the landline substitute. Will Voice Link provide a valuable alternative service? Or is Voice Link not yet ready for her big debut? Hijinks ensue!

In this week’s episode, Voice Link may have been selling herself a little too aggressively to some problem customers up in the Catskills. The State Attorney General thinks Voice Link crossed the line, but Voice Link insists she was just being helpful.

So is Voice Link going to get in trouble? Will the Federal Communications Commission get involved? Will this hurt Voice Link’s big debut on Fire Island?

Probably not. But it does underscore the very real question of what does it mean for Verizon to offer Voice Link as an alternative service while still genuinely offering copper, and stresses the importance of state jurisdiction — because there is no way the FCC can handle this sort of one-off local practice thing effectively.

 

More below . . .

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Congratulations To Senator Markey! Good News For Telecom on Unlicensed, Competition, and Consumer Protection.

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Last night, Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) became Senator Ed Markey. That’s good news for Massachusetts, but also good news for those hoping to see a telecom agenda move through the Senate (assuming Markey is assigned to the Commerce Committee).

For those unfamiliar with Ed Markey’s track record on telecom and media, you should thank him every time you watch television with closed captions. That includes online. Markey has been a champion for the physically disabled and consumers generally, and the closed captioning rules in both the 1992 Cable Act and in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 are the direct results of his efforts.

Markey’s return to the Commerce Committee in the Senate would be particularly welcome in light of the serious “brain drain” the Committee has suffered in terms of its Telecom leadership on both the Democratic and Republican side. Since last Congress the Committee has lost Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), all of whom had significant telecom expertise.

Markey — assuming he takes Kerry’s place on the Committee (as a member not as Chair of the Subcommittee) — will bring passion for critical telecom issues facing the Committee. In addition to being a champion for consumer protection generally, we can hope that Markey will remind his colleagues that there is more to the Incentive Auctions than maximizing revenue. In particular, on the critical issues of preserving spectrum for TV white spaces and using the auction to put spectrum in the hands of competitors, Markey has been a powerful voice in the House.

Equally important, Markey’s experience and ability to reach across the aisle will prove profoundly important as Congress overseas the transition of the telephone system.  As one of the chief architects of the 1996 Telecom Act and one of the few members of the Committee whose tenure goes back to the 1992 Cable Act, Markey brings a perspective that would otherwise be absent after Senator Rockefeller retires. Markey actually remembers why we had these rules in the first place, and the important fundamental principles they are intended to protect and encourage.

While Congress has not yet become active on the PSTN transition, we can expect they inevitably will. When that happens, Markey’s experience in everything from Universal Service Fund to Accessibility issues will be critical to keeping the Committee on the right track.

Stay tuned . . .

For the First Time In 100 Years, Copper Lines Come Down And Don’t Go Back Up. Verizon Files It’s 214(a) To Stop Copper Service In NY & NJ.

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Verizon has filed its request to the FCC to discontinue copper service in certain communities on Fire Island, NY and the Barrier Island of NJ, as required by Section 214(a) and 47 C.F.R. 63.71. You can find a copy here. At some point, the FCC will put this out on Public Notice and then folks can file objections if they want.

In some ways, this is a little thing impacting only a few communities. In other ways, it is a very big deal. If there is a single moment to point to and say “This is it! This is The Day We Started To Shut Down The Phone Network,” that day is today. With this little routine barely noticed filing for an administrative procedure that impacts a handful of communities.

Why? Because for the first time, the local phone company has said “once the old copper lines come down, they are not coming back — ever. We are out of the traditional phone service on Fire Island and Barrier Island and no one else is going to provide it either.”

Yes, there are other services that will sell you voice service. They will tell you its a phone. Each of these does many things the old phone system does, and most of these services do amazing things the old phone system could never do.

But like any transition — especially one that rests on a social contract people have relied upon for 100 years — we must expect a lot of disruption as well as anticipate the potential benefits. Verizon should not need to maintain an increasingly expensive and antiquated copper network until the end of time. Nor should they be required to rebuild copper they expect to shut down again in a few years time.

At the same time, we don’t just throw people under the bus — or send them suddenly scrambling for expensive alternatives. I’ve objected before to the way Verizon has moved forward with Voice Link because Sandy victims should not be guinea pigs for Voice Link’s first ever mass deployment.  At Public Knowledge, we’ve also had some concerns about what Verizon says Voice Link doesn’t do that the old copper service did do. Some of these can be addressed relatively easily, and Verizon has stated publicly it is working on improvements in things like battery life and using commercially available double AA batteries. Services that are considered vitally important by some communities, such as the ability to use international calling cards and receive collect calls, would require more work.

The question isn’t whether we transition the phone system or don’t. The question is how we transition. This is why my employer Public Knowledge has supported using a Framework of Five Fundamental Principles to guide the transition: Service to All Americans, Consumer Protection, Reliability, Public Safety, and Competition. This is why we have supported AT&T’s call to engage in dialog on the transition, and endorsed the idea of carefully conducted technical trials that protect consumers and genuinely inform the process.

As the FCC and state regulators evaluate Verizon’s application to end copper wire service entirely and replace it with Voice Link, it should evaluate Voice Link under the Five Fundamentals Framework. Does Voice Link provide adequate service to all members of the community, including the poor and vulnerable who have depended most heavily on the “copper safety net” of the old phone system? Does it adequately protect consumers? Will it function reliably in an emergency? And what are the implications for competition?

Above all else, the transition of the phone system and the end of the old copper network must not be a step backward. Handled properly, the transition can benefit everyone. There is nothing magical about copper.  All the fundamental principles we have relied on for 100 years — service to all Americans, consumer protection, reliability, public safety, and competition — were the result of deliberate policy choices. We can maintain these principles as we move forward to new wireless and IP-based networks, or we can chose to discard them.

Verizon and AT&T, understandably, have stressed everything we have to gain from the networks of the 21st Century. It falls to the regulators — and the public that holds them accountable — to make sure these gains do not come by sacrificing the poorest and most vulnerable.

 

Stay tuned . . . .

Quick Update: Verizon Responds To Yesterday’s Blog Post.

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Tom Maguire, Verizon’s point person for the Fire Island deployment, responds to my blog post here. At the end of the blog post, Maguire states that: “In addition, as part of our ongoing communications with the Federal Communications Commission, we have been working with the FCC for some time on filing the appropriate discontinuance filings and other notices for the affected services.”

 

Hopefully, Verizon will file sooner rather than later so that we can have the full and robust debate these important policy questions deserve. Remember, we are not just talking about Fire Island. We are talking about what rules apply anywhere a disaster destroys the copper infrastructure and the provider wants to replace it with something other than traditional copper phone service. For Verizon, that’s Voice Link. But the same rules apply if AT&T (or anyone else) wants to replace traditional TDM service with VOIP.

 

Tom and I were also (separately) interviewed by WAMC (the NPR affiliate in Albany) last week, you can find a transcript and audio here. Tom was responding there to my original blog post arguing that Verizon should replace copper with fiber rather than with an untested wireless technology. Amusingly, Maguire’s call (on cell, not Voice Link) dropped during the interview.

 

Stay tuned . . . .

 

FCC Needs To Step Up On Voice Link; Nature (and Natural Disasters) Abhor A Vacuum

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According to this report from Stop the Cap, Federal Communication Commission (FCC) line staff are telling your average citizen who calls to ask that Verizon can refuse to repair their copper lines as long as Verizon offers Voice Link instead. “It is acceptable” for Verizon to refuse to offer copper service even if “there will be no landlines” available at all, said FCC Representative TSR54. (And no, I did not make up the designation just to make this look more like some faceless bureaucratic drone.)

 

Did I miss the FCC Order on this? No.  But the fact that FCC line staff are taking it upon themselves to say this is totally O.K. shows just how badly the FCC has lost control of the situation. The FCC needs to move quickly to (a) makes Verizon file the necessary application under federal law to discontinue its traditional copper service so the FCC can actually decide this question for real; and, (b) develop a process for carriers in areas where disasters have destroyed copper infrastructure to replace that infrastructure with a new product like Voice Link or voice-over-IP (VOIP). Otherwise, we can forget about having any kind of useful pilot program where we protect consumers and gather information.  Carriers will take the Verizon approach, and convert natural disasters into “nature’s little laboratories.”

 

After all, nature abhors a vacum — whether in space or in policy. If the FCC continues to let Verizon decide on the proper policy for itself, we can expect other carriers to stop playing by the FCC’s rules and follow in Verizon’s footsteps.

 

More below . . . .

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