Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Note to Obama Administration: Please Reform the NTIA-ICANN Relationship.

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One of the sad legacies of the Clinton Administration is the never ending circus of internet governance known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. The idea, in those optimistic “anything not government is good” days, was to insulate management of the domain name system (DNS) from politics by setting up a structure outside government to handle the name and number system of the internet. The notion was that you could take a critical foundation of the internet’s architecture, on which a company called “Network Solutions” had built a huge business on maintaining a friggin’ database, and prevent people from trying to control it by moving it out of big bad government and into a noble non-profit corporation. As a double protection, they expressly limited ICANN’s mission to “technical coordination” via “private contracts” and absolutely not, not, NOT governance. Oh, and fixing trademark and cyberquatting issues. And having governments involved via the “Government Accountability Committee” (GAC). And creating competition in the domain name registration biz. And DNS security. But other than that, no governance.

Some of us at the time warned (a) that there was nothing magic about government v. non-government, control over a critical resource just about ensured that government-like stuff would happen, (b) you can’t be “no governance, just technical coordination, except whatever” anymore than you can be “absolutely all abstinence except for the no sex part,” and (c) Anyone who thought governments — including the U.S. government — would just let DNS go its merry way and limit input to an “advisory committee” for a “technical coordination body.”

Guess what? Turns out we were right. So now the Obama Administration gets to inherit the perennial problem of how to deal with all the conflicting interests around ICANN and management of the DNS system — a most unrewarding job given the number of conflicting interests and the fact that while the issue is potentially of significant importance to the smooth management of the internet, the actual pay off for any specific decision is pathetically puny compared to the massive headache caused by making a final decision. Which is why this has festered for ten years.

A bit more, and an outrageously simple suggestion, below . . .

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Inventing the Future:
What are laws for?

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Why do we have laws? It seems to me that the only good reason for creating a law or regulation is to protect an identifiable victim. Other arbitrary purposes, such as defining or imposing morality, are simply not good enough. But is this distinction a founding principal of our governing civil institutions? I don’t know. Anyone? (Harold….?)

We do have a variety of non-secular institutions that define rituals, beliefs, behavior, and other constructs along different lines, and these are not bound by the principal of protecting an identifiable victim. Does our separation of civil and religious institutions cover this principal, or does our Western and Judaic tradition blur the distinction?

While civil governments do issue proclamations, such as defining an official seal of the state, or designating a day of commemoration, this seems to me to be a separate function of government outside that which can be decided and acted on by the court system. A political body or office-holder may well declare that one plus one is two — or three — but there are no legal consequences for disagreeing. Unless we can define a specific and testable group to be protected by an answer of two or three, it would be inappropriate to elevate either proclamation to be a law or regulation.

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Did 3.65 GHz Really Cause TV Interference In Philly? Why I'm Skeptical.

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Harry Jessell over at TVNEWSDAY has this story about a possible interference problem between operation of 3.65 GHz band equipment and the neighboring C-Band satellite receiver operated by CBS-owned KYW in Philadelphia.

According to the article, KYW experienced interference on its C-Band downlink near the 3.70 GHz frequency in February 2008, and resolved the problem by shifting to a higher frequency. The interference stopped a short time later, then flared up again in September, prompting KYW to call the FCC. That seems to have taken care of the problem, indicating it was a byproduct of some human operation addressed by the FCC enforcement — although possibly not. According to the article, the FCC won’t talk about it — which is standard procedure in an enforcement complaint.

According to the article, KYW Chief Engineer Rich Paleski thinks the problem was a “WiMax operator” using the 3.65 GHz. Paleski worries that 3.65 GHz will not be compatible with C-Band satellite downlink operation and warns “that should concern every station that imports programming via C-band satellite, which is to say just about every station in the United States.” He wants all television broadcast engineers to be alert for interference in the lower part of the C-Band near 3.70 GHz.

Given the rule limitations on use of the 3.65 GHz band, I am extremely skeptical of Paleski’s conclusion. Why? Because given the rules for operation in the band, no one should have been operating on the band in Philadelphia. And even they were operating illegally, they would have needed to hack the equipment to get within 25 MHz of 3.70 GHz, or have anything like the power needed to cause the kind of interference Paleski reports.

Given the growing popularity of the 3.65 GHz band for WiMax (as evidenced by projects like these), I think it’s important to look at this very carefully and not go leaping to conclusions. The 3.65 GHz band holds out a lot of hope for rural broadband by wireless ISPs (WISPS) running small businesses and priced out of licensed spectrum. Before anyone starts speculating from this single incident that use of 3.65 GHz poses a danger lets take a careful look at some of the facts around the use of 3.65 GHz and why I don’t think this is an industry-wide issue. It’s always easy to blame the new neighbor — especially when you think “their kind” is trouble. But how likely is it really?

More below . . .

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Inventing the Future:
Publishing: A “New Yorker” for the 21st Century

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I’ve bumped into a series of issues related to publishing recently. I don’t know that they ever will or should combine to form a coherent idea, but it feels like I should record them as though in a design notebook…

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
The Google Non-Story On Network Neutrality — And Once Again Why Citizen Movements Are Citizen Driven.

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Both Dave Isenberg and Tim Karr have already cast a rather skeptical eye over the Wall St. Journal story claiming that Google is in secret negotiations to get “fast lane” treatment for its content in violation of Network Neutrality principles. I’ll therefore limit myself to a few additional points. I’ll not along the way that one of the nice things about having a blog is that I can point to stuff I said a long time ago for the inevitable accusation that I am simply an apologist for the Great Google Overlords.

More below . . . .

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
How is Senator Corker like Laban the Aramite? Perhaps Mr. Corker and His Fellow Republicans Should Spend More Time With the Bible.

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It’s Sunday School time! And our reading today is going to be from Genesis. Specifically, I want to tell you the story of Laban the Aramite. You can find the details in Gen 29:1-32:3. Today’s reading is dedicated to Senator Bob Corker, who may find some bits of the story familiar.

Now when our father Jacob, the memory of the righteous is as a blessing, fled from the anger of his brother Esau, he came to the land of Charan where dwelt his Uncle Laban the Aramite. Laban had two daughters, Leah and Rachel. He also had an abundance of flocks of various kinds.

Now when Jacob had been there a month, Laban asked: “Would you work for me for free? Say what shall be your wage.” And Jacob loved Rachel, and he said: “I shall work for you seven years for your daughter Rachel’s hand in marriage.” And Laban agreed. And so great was Jacob’s love for Rachel that the seven years had seemed but a few days. But at the end of the seven years, Laban tricked Jacob and gave his daughter Leah instead.

And Jacob discovered this and said to Laban: “You tricked me!” And Laban said: “But here we have a law that we will not give the younger in marriage before the elder. Sure, I might have mentioned that before, but hey — it wasn’t my responsibility. You agreed to the terms of the contract without worrying about the underlying legal background which — curiously enough — is controlled by me and my fellow similarly situated Arameans. And while it may seem like we are just picking on you because you are a worker and helpless stranger in our land, that really isn’t it at all. Now, becuase I am such a nice guy, I will let you marry Rachel in addition to Leah in exchange for another seven years of labor.”

And even though Laban had cheeted him, Jacob was without recourse, so he maried Rachel and he worked another seven years for Laban on account of Rachel.

And at the end of the seven years, Laban said: “Now let us negotiate and tell me what you wish your wages to be.” And Jacob said: “I will take all the striped sheep and all the spotted sheep, and you will take all the solid sheep.” And to this Laban agreed. And Jacob guarded the sheep, and did all that he could to maximize the number of striped and spotted sheep because, after 14 years of working for Laban the Aramite, Jacob was no fool and knew exactly what he was getting into. And time and again, Laban the Aramite changed Jacob’s wages without notice. And time and again, God protected Jacob and caused Jacob’s flocks to increase. And throughout all this, although Laban always sought to cheat Jacob, Jacob did his job as best he could. He stood guard at night in the freezing cold. He watched the flocks in the summer heat. And Laban’s flocks grew vast from the labor of Jacob.

But there came a time when Laban and his sons grew Jealous of Jacob. Yes, Jacob did everything he was asked to do. And everytime Laban tried to cheat him and changed his wages, Jacob would still work hard for Laban. And because of Jacob’s labors, Laban and his sons grew very prosperous. But still, the fact that Jacob also grew wealthy stirred their hearts against them. And the sons of Laban said: “Behold how Jacob has taken all that belonged to our father, and from what was our father’s he has gotten his glory.” And Jacob saw that Laban did not look at him as he had before. Because of course, the fact that Laban wasn’t doing nearly as well as he wished he were was totally Jacob’s fault for doing everything Laban had told him, and because every time Laban had tried to cheat Jacob by changing his wage, God had protected Jacob. So Laban and his sons knew that it must somehow be Jacob’s fault. So God told Jacob to gather up all the cattle and wealth he had earned and take early retirement, while Laban and his sons went off to the big sheep convention in Paddan Aram. (Rachel took the opportunity to grab the household idols as a parting gift, but Jacob did not know this.)

When Laban heard Jacob was taking early retirement, Laban and his sons rose to persue him and steal from him all the wealth that he had earned from Laban. But God did not think very highly of Laban and his conduct. So he warned Laban that attempts to improve the balance of trade between Charan and Canaan by confiscating all the wealth that Jacob had earned was a very, very BAD IDEA. And the Lord would not look kindly on the efforts of Laban and his sons to resolve Laban’s economic problems at the expense of Jacob and his family.

So when Laban overtook Jacob, he made a big deal about all of this as if it were Jacob’s fault, even though Laban had been the one to ask Jacob to name his wage, and Jacob had labored faithfully at all Laban had asked. And Jacob got really pissed off, and reminded Laban that Laban had tried to cheat him like 100 times, and that everytime it looked Like Jacob would get ahead, Laban tried to cheat him, even though Jacob’s labors enriched Laban and his sons. And Laban was all like “well, I’ll still do you a big favor and let you leave with everything you earned, but I reserve the right to cross the border and take stuff away from you if I think you are mistreating my daughters.” And Jacob did roll his eyes, because everyone knew Laban did give a rat’s patootie for his daughters, but said “fine, whatever. Just bugger off and let me keep what I earned you miserable whanker.”

And Laban and Jacob made their piece, and Laban departed.

Here endeth the lesson. Next week, we’ll take up Exodus, and why crapping all over immigrants because you fear them doesn’t work out very well either. In the meantime, I would recommend Mr. Corker and his Republican buddies spend a bit more time with their Bibles. In particular, I refer them to Deut. 24: 10-16. You should find it instructive on how to reform the personal bankruptcy code.

Stay tuned . . . .

Inventing the Future:
In your face

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This summer we added an exit survey to Qwaq Forums, which was presented a percentage of the time when you quit the application. I and other engineers hated the idea of popping up a survey when the user doesn’t want it. We preferred a feedback box that the users could launch themselves under the Help menu. Anyway, the board of directors were quite clear, so I implemented the survey pop-up as asked, and then in the next release I added the user-launched Help->Feedback box. I thought the exit survey would always be left blank, and that the feedback box would take over.

I was wrong…

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Neutrino:
Same Old, Same Old: How T-Mobile and the Rural Telecommunications Group Propose to Wreck the AWS-3 Auction.

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M2Z Networks recently filed a study I prepared for them in the AWS-3 service rules proceeding (07-195) before the FCC.

In this study I identified how a coordinated effort between T-Mobile and the Rural Telecommunications Group threatened to wreck the AWS-3 auction by writing rules excluding technology proposed by key potential new entrants, including M2Z Networks, and adopting disastrous combinatorial bidding rules like those which provided a nearly half-billion dollar windfall for Verizon in the 700 MHz Band auction.

In brief, T-Mobile has proposed a “bandwidth maximization plan,” first mooted in this filing and elaborated here. The T-Mobile plan would split the J Block in half, giving 5 MHz for uplink and joining the other 5 MHz of J Block with 20 MHz of AWS-3 spectrum for downlink. This would force abandonment of the Time Division Duplex (TDD) technology envisioned by the FNPRM in favor of Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) technology favored by T-Mobile.

That might seem innocuous enough at first glance, but it eliminates consideration of a technology which is both more efficient and more robust than T-Mobile’s FDD alternative, and it is never a good idea to throttle new technologies at the bidding of vested incumbents. However, it is more pernicious still in that it aims at excluding the TDD technology on which Sprint, Intel, Arraycom, and M2Z proposed to build a nationwide network, effectively erecting entry barriers to major competitors to T-Mobile.

The irony is that T-Mobile proposes to kill TDD technology in AWS-3 on the pretext of preventing interference between AWS-3 and AWS-1 spectrum (T-Mobile was a major acquirer of AWS-1 spectrum). However, the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology conducted extensive testing and found that such interference presented no significant problem. T-Mobile’s justification for the technologically-discriminatory erection of this entry barrier is, thus, a lie.

But it gets worse.

More below…

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