Tales of the Sausage Factory

An insider’s view of the media hegemony

The Best 10 Ironies About The “Obama Phone”

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There is so much about the “Obama Phone” nonsense that tickles my funny bone in odd places. It’s not just that everything conservatives say about it is factually wrong. It also proves that the cherished progressive belief that every policy ever adopted under Reagan and under W were universally unmitigated disasters for the poor and people of color is also wrong. (No, I’m not saying one good policy makes up for a load of bad policies – but honesty demands acknowledging that the Universal Service Fund (USF), of which Lifeline/Linkup is part, started under Reagan and got expanded to wireless by former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Kevin Martin under Bush).

 

As if this were not ironic enough, the “Obama phone” was approved by the FCC in part to address the massive sudden need for subsidized mobile phones for Katrina victims. In 2005-06, Tracfone distributed 30,000 phones to Katrina victims under the expanded Lifeline program, and raised awareness of the new program through the devastated Gulf Coast region, i.e, the same red state regions now bellyaching about the program. For Progressives, consider that the “Obama phone” was invented in part as a response to Katrina by the President who “didn’t care about black people.”

 

Even better, it’s an example of how Republicans once upon a time took action to create programs to address the needs of poor people, even when it meant raising rates on the wealthy – a thing neither conservatives or progressives appear willing to acknowledge ever happened. Then, of course, there is the irony that the people most upset about the “Obama Phone,” rural conservatives, are subsidized out of the same program at a much higher rate. For us law geeks, it’s fun to remember that USF started with the FCC exercising its “ancillary authority,” that the D.C. Circuit affirmed this massive expansion of FCC authority, and the Republican Congress would later approve, endorse, and expand this as part of the 1996 Act.

 

Another irony on the Republican side is that USF is exactly the kind of “teach a man to fish” program for the poor that at least some Republicans say holds the key to winning back the working class vote. Rather than just being a hand out, it puts an important tool for participating in the national economy in the hands of the poor so that they can find and keep jobs and become self-sufficient. Anyone who has applied for a job, or just about anything else these days, recognizes that having a mobile phone so your work can find you (especially if you are a day laborer or some other form of self-employed) is critical to success. Republicans should be arguing that this is exactly the kind of program that gives people tools to improve their lives rather than “creating dependencies,” etc.

 

Finally, as with so many of these things, legislation to end the “Obama phone” (as proposed by a number of Senators recently) would probably drive a serious spike into provision of rural wireless – and ultimately rural broadband and telephony generally.

 

So here are my Top Ten Ironies about the “Obama Phone.” Not that I expect actual history to matter much. But for my own amusement, and for the handful of telecom geeks like me that find this stuff entertaining, I elaborate below . . .

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Rural Call Completion and the Problem of Network Neuropathy.

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I made a passing reference to the rural call completion problem in a post about 2 months ago. I’ve now written a much longer piece explaining the problem of rural call completion, and the nature of the problem, for the Daily Yonder. You can find the article, and the very nice illustrations they added, over here.

To give a very brief recap for why y’all should click through to learn the details of rural call completion — rural call completion is an unexpected side effect of the transition of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to an all-IP based network. Using IP-packets gives you greater flexibility to pick how you route calls. To avoid very expensive rural termination fees (which subsidize rural systems and keep them operating), Least Call Router systems can send calls through lots of hops, creating latency or even trapping the call in a perpetual loop. As a result, calls to some rural systems don’t go through, or quality degrades to where rural areas may not be able to have reliable phone service or reliably reach 9-1-1. The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to address the problem, and every Commissioner has emphasized that making sure the phone netwok remains reliable is a core mission of the FCC.

I and my Public Knowledge colleagues have emphasized both network reliability and service to all Americans as part of our “Five Fundamentals Framework” to guide the transition of the PSTN to all-IP. The rural call completion problem demonstrates precisely why we need a framework to guide us, rather than jumping right away into the “deregulation v. regulation” fight so many people want to have instead of focusing on the real issues.

It is also an example of a phenomenon I call “network neuropathy,” how problems in networks may first manifest themselves in failures of service around the extremities.

More below . . . .

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Exit Julius Genachowski

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FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce his intent to leave the FCC today.  Well, it is the season of the Exodus, and I expect that perhaps Genachowski will be able to say with particular vigor at his seder ”last year we were slaves, this year we are free.”

I will hopefully get something more up later, as I am in the midst of my own Passover preparations and then embarking immediately thereafter on the next leg of my “What Do You Have Say That’s So Important?” Tour. So I will limit myself at the moment to simply this. It is extremely easy to let the disappointment and bitterness over the high hopes I (and others) had back when Genachowski started in 2009 color his sins (whether of commission or omission) blacker than they should be. By the same token, it is easy to allow the lowered expectations we all had after 2010 to make his accomplishments seem better than they where.

For now, what is far more important than any attempt to summarize Genachowski’s putative legacy in a few paragraphs is determining who will succeed him. Certainly I agree with those who have said we want to see someone who will be a champion of the public interest, someone willing to stand up to a hostile Republican-controlled House and powerful incumbents. But I will add one particular plea to the President: Send us no scholar. Send us no visionary to lead us into the promised land of gigabit broadband, nor an ideologue wedded to a philosophy. Send us no seekers of grand bargains or painful compromises. Instead, send us someone who likes to get their hands dirty.

Even more so than in 2009, we stand at a peculiar juncture in the evolution of our national communications infrastructure. After years of anticipating convergence, it is upon us. Every aspect of our communications infrastructure — wireless, wireline, broadcasting, cable — is undergoing dramatic upheaval. There are at once tremendous opportunities for a rebirth of independent media and renewed competition, or a collapse into consolidation and control. We are at a delicate point in what Tim Wu in his 2010 book The Master Switch called “The Cycle,” the point where potentially open and disruptive communications technology reach a new equilibrium and begin to become closed and tame, serving a new elite as the previous structure served the old. Stopping that Cycle takes more than just vision (though vision is certainly required). It takes someone who loves the details with wonkish delight, but who can step back enough from them to stay focused on the bigger picture. Someone with a guiding philosophy that inform decisionmaking rather than an ideology that governs decisionmaking. Someone willing to make the hard call and piss people off, but mindful that the person who always does what he or she thinks is right regardless of cost eventually runs up a heck of a tab. Someone who captures the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 7:16-17: “Do not be too righteous, nor too wise — wherefore would you destroy yourself? Be not too wicked, nor too foolish — wherefore would you die before your time?”

In 2009 we wanted hope and change, in 2013 we need grit and courage.

Stay tuned . . . .

Some Reflections on McDowell Departure, And What Happens Next.

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At yesterday’s open Federal Communications Commission (FCC) meeting, senior Commissioner Robert McDowell announced he would be stepping down sometime in the next few weeks. As regular readers know, I was often at odds with Commissioner McDowell’s positions. Despite coming from Comptel (the trade association for competing telecoms), McDowell generally hewed to a fairly rigid Libertarian line which holds that government intervention in the market to create or enhance competition doesn’t work and that the only reason for regulation is demonstrated market failure — with a standard for market failure so high as to constitute an almost insuperable barrier to action.

On the other hand, as I have also noted previously, McDowell came by his convictions honestly and defended them eloquently and thoroughly — his dissents were always well-researched and sprinkled with a plethora of citations. He was not a shill for any special interest, shifting his position based on the shifting financial interest of some industry patron. He was (and is, after all, he’s not dead) intellectually rigorous and intellectually honest, willing to engage intellectually, personally charming and quick witted — an articulate champion of a philosophy of governance I find anathema and that I believe disserves the public.

Which is, of course, what makes public policy and democracy work. We get together in the public square and duke it out in the marketplace of ideas to see who can carry the day.  While dealing with Commissioner McDowell was often frustrating from an advocacy perspective, it does not diminish my personal respect for the man.

Some additional thoughts, including on what happens next, below . . . .

 

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Announcing the “What Do I Have To Say That’s So Important Everyone Want To Hear It” Speaking Tour!

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I have a fairly busy travel schedule (for me at least) over the next month. When I explained to my Mom why I needed to bug out immediately after Passover, my Mom said: “Wow, what do you have to say that’s so important that everyone wants to hear it?” Which she meant a lot better than it sounds. But it did give me a name for my speaking tour over the next few weeks. If you are going to be at any of these events, or if there is something in particular you think I ought to see or do while out there, let me know. And, of course, I hope I will see you all there.

 

Harold Feld’s “What Do I Have To Say That’s So Important Everyone Wants To Hear It?” Tour

March 13-14 California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) Broadband Consortia Summit and California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) Workshop, Sacramento CA

I’ll be doing a keynote Thursday morning on “How to get people in DC to PAY THE #$@! ATTENTION TO STUFF GOING ON OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY/How to engage effectively on Federal policy issues.

 

April 1-5 WISPAmerica 2013 , Covington KY (aka Cincinnati South)

America’s premier WISP event/tradeshow, put on by the Wireless ISP Association. I’ll be doing a lunch Keynote Thursday April 4 with Steve Coran to discuss What Up In DC on spectrum ‘n stuff.

April 5-7 National Conference For Media Reform (NCMR), Denver CO

From the premier WISP event to the premier Media Reform event. NCMR is put on by Free Press. I will be speaking on a panel at 10 a.m. Friday morning April 5 on “What’s Next For Internet Policy?” (Spoiler alert! I will probably talk about PSTN Transition and spectrum.)

If I can accumulate enough speaking engagements, I will do some tour t-shirts.

Stay tuned . . .

The Progeny Waiver: Will the FCC Wipe Out Smart Grid? Save Thousands of Lives? Both? This Season on Spectrum Wars!

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Depending on whom you ask, the Progeny Waiver will either (a) totally wipe out the smart grid industry, annihilate wireless ISP service in urban areas, do untold millions of dollars of damage to the oil and gas industry, and wipe out hundreds of millions (possibly billions) of dollars in wireless products from baby monitors to garage door openers; (b) save thousands of lives annually by providing enhanced 9-1-1 geolocation so that EMTs and other first responders can find people inside apartment buildings and office complexes; (c) screw up EZ-Pass and other automatic toll readers, which use neighboring licensed spectrum; or (d) some combination of all of the above.

 

That’s not bad for a proceeding you probably never heard about.

 

For me, the Progeny Waiver is a microcosm of why it has become so damn hard to repurpose spectrum for new uses. The added twist here is that this time it is largely the unlicensed spectrum users acting like incumbents and saying that it will be the end of the universe if Progeny lights up its system (although the licensed neighbors say the same thing, pretty much), and Progeny, the licensee, arguing that everything will be JUST FINE, really, and if it isn’t too damn bad because we are licensed and they are unlicensed so there!

 

You might ask, “if this Progeny thingie is so gosh darn important, why have I never heard of it?” Well that’s why you read this blog, you clever reader you. This amazing little proceeding is still so deep in the bowels of the FCC that only the true spectrum wonks have noticed. But action now appears imminent, so consider this a sneak preview of this season’s favorite telecom reality show, Spectrum Wars.

What raises the stakes on this too damn high, however, is the implications for the future of unlicensed generally and the implications for the credibility of the FCC as an agency able to actually do the technical job of managing an increasingly complex spectrum world. Fairly or unfairly, everyone is going to compare this to Lightsquared (waiver, followed by worries about interference, arguments that the FCC failed to follow its own rules and procedures, blah blah). Let us add to this House Republicans who would love to call the FCC on the carpet for mismanaging spectrum – especially around unlicensed. Add to that the car manufacturers in the 5 GHz band and the federal users generally wanting to show that the FCC can’t adequately manage the stuff it has and you have a pack of circling sharks just waiting for the FCC to screw this one up and commence the feeding frenzy. So no pressure.

 

Happily, I have, if not a solution, at least a better way for the FCC to cover it’s rear-end and contain the damage, below . . . .

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Here at Freedom-2-Connect 2013

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For the next two days, I will be hanging out at Freedom-2-Connect (F2C), a neat policy conference at the American Film Institute in Downtown Silver Spring (near the Silver Spring metro). It’s a fun conference designed to bring together policy folks (like me) with people outside D.C. who actually live in the real world and do stuff. If you can, stop by. I’ll try to tweet or blog stuff, but with everything going on not sure I can.

So come by if you can.

 

Stay tuned . . . .

Shutting Down the Phone System: Comcast’s Very Scary Filing

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I’ve been sorting through the various filings at the FCC in the Phone Network to IP transition docket. I single out the 7-page filing by Comcast as the filing that scares the absolute bejeebers out of me.

 

Why? Because everyone else – no matter what their financial interest or political alignment – at least paid lip service to the idea that we ought to have some kind of regulation. Whether it’s a general nod to a “minimal and light touch regulatory regime” or a specific shopping list, the vast majority of commenters recognized then when you have something as big, complicated and utterly essential to people’s lives as the phone system, you need some kind of basic backstop for people to feel comfortable and to address problems that will invariably come up. Even AT&T has made it utterly clear that it does not see the future of phone service as a regulation-free zone.” Even staunch free market conservatives such as TechFreedom and Free State Foundation acknowledge that, as a practical matter, there is going to need to be some set of rules – even if they hope to keep these rules to what they regard as the barest minimum necessary.

 

Comcast, and Comcast alone, suggests otherwise. Comcast alone thinks we can manage the phone system as the Libertarian Nirvana. This smacks either of unbelievable hubris (“we’re so big everyone will have to deal with us – what could go wrong?”) or an incredible sense of market power (“we’re so big everyone will have to deal with us – heh heh heh”). Either way, this sends chills down my spine, because the filing signals loud and clear that Comcast – one of the largest providers of residential phone service in the United States, the largest residential broadband provider, and the single most powerful entity in U.S. telecom policy – simply doesn’t get it when it comes to the future of the phone system.

 

As I explain below, Comcast needs to understand that “With Great Market Share Comes Great Responsibility.” Because when you are this big, even what you don’t say can have huge consequences. Comcast is beyond “too big to fail.” It is now officially in its own regulatory category called “too big to be allowed to screw up.” Because Comcast is now so big, and so central to communications in the United States, that it could single-handedly crash the phone system by stupidly trying to manage it as if it were the cable world. Unless Comcast gets with the program and acknowledges the need for some kind of ongoing oversight of the phone system, this transition is guaranteed to become an utter disaster.

 

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Cecilia Kang Is Right: There Really Could Be A Free National WiFi Network (of Networks)

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This past week, we’ve had quite the discussion around Cecilia Kang’s WashPo piece describing a plan by the FCC to create a national WiFi network by making the right decisions about how to allocate spectrum between licenses for auction and what to leave available for the unlicensed TV white spaces (“TVWS” aka “Super WiFi” aka “Wifi on steroids”). As Kang describes, the FCC’s opening of sufficient spectrum for TVWS could lead to “super WiFi networks (emphasis added) around the nation so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls  or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month.”

Needless to say, the article faced much pushback, despite a subsequent Washpo clarification to indicate the FCC was not, actually, planing to build a network. Amidst the various critics, there were some general defenders of the concept. My colleagues at EFF noted that increasing the availability of open spectrum for WiFi-type uses , and my friends at Free Press argued that such a free public wifi network (or, more accurately, series of networks) is in fact possible if the FCC makes enough good quality spectrum, suitable for broadband and usable out doors, available on an unlicensed basis.

I will now go a step further than any of my colleagues. I will boldly state that, if the FCC produces a solid 20 MHz of contiguous empty space for TV White spaces in the Incentive Auction proceeding, or even two 10 MHz guard channels that could nationally produce two decent sized LTE-for unlicensed channels, then we will have exactly the kind of free publicly available wifi Kang describes in her article. Or, “Yes Cecilia, there really is free national public wifi. Don’t let the haters and know-it-alls tell you otherwise.”

 

More below . . .

 

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I’m Testifying Tomorrow And It Will Be WCIT-Awesome!

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I will be testifying tomorrow at a joint hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecom and Technology and Several of the Foreign Affairs Committees tomorrow, February 5 at 10:30 a.m. The hearing, Fighting For Internet Freedom: Dubai and Beyond will focus on the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) that took place in Dubai this past December.

If you click on the Hearing Homepage tomorrow, there should be a link for livestreaming. I am hoping this will prove entertaining and informative. Well, at least informative.

Stay tuned . . .