Wireless Internet

[Commentary] Twelve senators wrote to the Federal Communications Commission expressing concern regarding the agency’s latest Notice of Inquiry. The senators’ letter echoes many arguments pressed by various interest groups which seem misguided, or at least premature, given that the agency is simply asking questions to get better information about the state of the industry. But congressional opposition to the Notice of Inquiry is especially odd, given that the proceeding is, well, required by Congress. They are concerned that the agency might conclude that some Americans access internet-based services on mobile networks rather than fixed broadband networks. And while this would give the agency a more complete view of how Americans access “advanced telecommunications capability,” their unstated concern is that it might also show that fewer of us are internet-impoverished, which undermines the case for regulation.

It’s easy to get fixated on all the “smart” innovations out there—roads that talk to you, cars that talk to the road, and all kinds of sensors. But if it’s not the gadget that makes a city smart, then what does?

The heart of a smart city is actually the data and the brain is using that data to change your decision-making process, to make you react faster in cases where the city needs to react, to make you predictive where you can be to save money or provide a better service, or to give you a better appreciation of what's happening in your city. 85 percent of the data that you need to run a smart city, you’ve probably already got. Any city can be a smart city, or a smarter city, just by getting better control of their data and by understanding what it's saying to them. And it's going to say something different to every city, because every city has different needs and requirements, and different governance structures.

[Commentary] Network neutrality is having a Gilda Radner moment. After years of debate, protests, name calling, and the like, technology is leaving net neutrality behind. Here are at least three indicators that technology is outsmarting net neutrality:

1. 5G will use network slicing, which enables multiple virtual networks on a common physical infrastructure. Each slice can be customized for specific applications, services, customers, etc. Network slicing means the end of treating all internet traffic the same — if that ever really happened — which was supposed be a core principle of net neutrality. 5G explicitly customizes the network to different types of traffic.
2. Netflix and other large edge providers are bypassing the internet. More specifically, they are building or leasing their own networks designed to their specific needs and leaving the public internet — the system of networks that only promise best efforts to deliver content — to their lesser rivals.
3. Mobile internet is leaving wireline internet in its dust in numbers of users and traffic. Mobile internet increasingly bypasses the World Wide Web because about 90% of customers’ mobile time is spent in apps, not the web. Apps are gatekeepers that direct customers only to resources that the app makers choose.

[Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business. He served on the Trump FCC Transition Team.]

Blacks and Hispanics remain less likely than whites to own a traditional computer or have high-speed internet at home, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in fall 2016. But mobile devices are playing important roles in helping to bridge these differences.

Roughly eight-in-ten whites (83%) report owning a desktop or laptop computer, compared with 66% of blacks and 60% of Hispanics. There are also substantial racial or ethnic differences in broadband adoption, with whites more likely than either blacks or Hispanics to report having a broadband connection at home. (There were not enough Asian respondents in the sample to be broken out into a separate analysis.) But despite these inequalities, blacks and Hispanics have mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers in shares similar to whites. There are differences between Hispanics born inside and outside the U.S.: 88% of native-born Hispanics own a smartphone, compared with 62% of Hispanics born abroad. About three-quarters of whites and blacks own a smartphone. Mobile devices play an outsize role for blacks and Hispanics when it comes to their online access options. About two-in-ten Hispanics (22%) and 15% of blacks are “smartphone only” internet users – meaning they lack traditional home broadband service but do own a smartphone. By comparison, 9% of whites fall into this category. In addition, blacks and Hispanics are also more likely than whites to rely on their smartphones for a number of activities, such as looking up health information or looking for work.

Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA) wants us to get real about how much faith we should put in encryption. Rep Issa argued on an Internet of Things panel that it’s high time for a straight-talk discussion about how secure popular encryption protocols actually are. ‘The former FBI director [James] Comey came before Congress and swore under oath that he had no ability to get what he needed from the San Bernardino bomber [sic] except by forcing Apple to create an active remote backdoor into the problem,’ Issa said. ‘Now a matter of weeks later, an Israeli company for a million dollars gave him the data he wanted.’ And, Issa pointed out, a few weeks after that, a University of Cambridge professor appeared to crack it again. Said Issa, ‘We have to have a real debate about whether encryptions and protections are real and unbreakable.’

A startup that wants to build a mobile data network to fuel the Internet of Things is trying to convince regulators to let it use crucial airwaves. It's the second time the company, now called Ligado Networks, has fought this battle. Its previous iteration, backed by Phil Falcone and called LightSquared, hit a dead-end 5 years ago. Now it's back with a new name, lots of money and well-connected allies as it tries to strike gold with connected devices, which it says it can serve using a combination of satellite airwaves and traditional spectrum — creating a sort of hybrid network. If successful, Ligado could become an important Internet of Things player and produce a big payout for big-name investors like Centerbridge Partners, Fortress Investment Group and J.P. Morgan Chase (the industrial Internet of Things market could be worth $110 billion by 2020, according to estimates).

But Ligado's years-long corporate drama shows the risks involved in making bets on technologies that hinge on regulatory approval. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai hasn't tipped his hand, and there are no indications that a decision is imminent. "We have no update to provide that this point. We're studying the issue," he said recently, adding the agency is listening to all stakeholders. But Ligado is on the clock: it was reported earlier in 2017 that the company was working with bankers to explore a possible sale or find another investment.

[Commentary] A new Broadband Access Coalition of internet service providers has joined forces with consumer, schools and health care advocacy groups to petition the Federal Communications Commission to open up the airwaves for spectrum best suited to a new, superfast broadband service for the whole of America.

This new approach does not rely solely on fiber, which is costly and difficult to deploy, but instead harnesses wireless broadband. This technology can be deployed at up to one tenth the cost of laying new fiber cabling to homes, with far fewer disruptions and project delays. It can also bring new superfast Wi-Fi services to areas that have no or little choice over their broadband provider. 94 percent of our internet traffic traverses Wi-Fi and home or business broadband connections – not more expensive cellular airwaves. The coalition’s petition proposes to open up new wireless spectrum for improving broadband services cost-effectively. This spectrum can provide great coverage in underserved rural areas, and can stimulate new competitive Internet Service Providers to enter the market and connect dense suburban areas. Unfortunately, the mobile industry is lobbying to secure this new spectrum band for its own exclusive use. The new wireless approach means consumers no longer have to be tethered to any physical infrastructure. Unlike challenging other traditional utilities, action doesn’t require consumers to overhaul their homes – all they have to do is make their voices heard.

[Fink is the CPO and Co-Founder of Mimosa Networks]

At a recent panel convened by the Wireless Future Project at New America, Ellen Satterwhite, of the American Library Association, noted that 40 percent of libraries cannot meet the minimum speed requirements set by the Federal Communications Commission (100Mbs for small libraries and 1Gbs for large ones) because of high costs or lack of access. We need only look at Idaho to get a glimpse of this absurd pricing: One library there pays $1000 per month for 5Mb service, while another pays $650 per month for 40Mb service.

So how can we ramp up connectivity in these areas? One potential solution that has shown promise is fixed wireless internet. This, in a nutshell, involves beaming internet access from a broadcasting tower directly into people’s homes via a small receiver on their roof. These sorts of point to multi-point (P2MP) fixed wireless services are becoming increasingly popular, particularly in Middle America, in part because of the relative ease of deployment and the ability to provide gigabit-level speeds. You might be wondering, then, how we can encourage fixed wireless. At the panel, advocates and industry leaders discussed the possible benefits of expanding, or sharing, wireless spectrum access in the 3.7-4.2GHz band to wireless internet service providers, or WISPs. This would be a boon to rural WISPs like Jeff Kohler’s Rise Broadband. Kohler noted that companies like Rise are starting to “feel the squeeze” on the spectrum they’re currently allowed to operate on. He also noted that the cost per customer is considerably less as well, often being roughly $250 for someone using fixed wireless, where the average rural fiber consumer could be upwards of $1,000. In fact, the overall cost of deploying “wireless fiber” for his company was roughly one-tenth of the price of standard fiber.

In October 2016, botnets (an interconnected group of electronic devices under the control of a botmaster, or botherder, who can then use the bot army to steal information or carry out scams on a massive scale) made headlines as the instrument behind a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against domain name system (DNS) provider Dyn that took dozens of websites, including Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Twitter, and even the Swedish government, offline for hours. In response to a Request for Comment from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), OTI offered seven recommendations for addressing the threats posed by botnets:

1. Use bug bounty programs to reduce vulnerabilities in IoT products
2. Design devices such that they can be patched and updated
3. Ship items with unique, random credentials, and let users customize login information
4. Establish clear support windows and end-of-life procedures
5. Let users know which security features are available to them on a device—and which are not
6. Connect consciously
7. Support the products that implement best practices

Dish Network believes that its plan to launch a narrowband Internet of Things (IoT) network will enable it to meet the Federal Communications Commission’s build-out requirements for its spectrum, according to Jefferies Equity Research Americas. But it may need some help. Dish continues to sit on a significant pile of midband spectrum, but the clock is ticking for the company to put its airwaves to use one way or another. FCC rules stipulate that the satellite-TV provider must reach a 70% build-out by March 2020, and Dish faces similar mandates for its licenses in the AWS-4 band.

“We do not believe that it serves the public interest or makes business sense to build out a 4G/LTE network now that would duplicate networks already offered by the wireless incumbents, and subsequently require an almost immediate upgrade in order to be competitive,” the company wrote in a March filing with the FCC. “Instead, Dish plans to deploy a 5G-capable network, focused on supporting IoT—the first to be deployed in these bands anywhere in the world. … This network will not be burdened with a requirement to be backward-compatible with legacy services.”