January 2010

MMTC Has Concerns about National Broadband Plan

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission's Blair Levin, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council raises seven concerns about the framework for the National Broadband Plan released December 16.

1. SDB and MBE Engagement. The Framework fails to mention market entry barriers affecting SDBs and MBEs. Further, the Framework fails to prioritize the use of Tribal-owned broadband providers in the development of Tribal lands.

2. Present Effects of Past Discrimination. The Framework fails to discuss how the National Broadband Plan will seek to bring broadband to communities—many of which lack basic electricity—where historical racial discrimination and credit redlining persist to this day.

3. The Unique Circumstances of Women. The Framework fails to address the unique circumstances of low-income women, many of whom are minorities seeking to reenter the workforce.

4. Tribal Lands. The Commission's efforts to address broadband in Tribal communities should be more robust. The plan should include a joint Federal/Tribal board to monitor the use of USF funds, a generously increased allocation of spectrum to Tribal lands, and a commitment to ongoing research and mapping of broadband in Tribal lands.

5. Hyper-Targeted Adoption Efforts. The National Broadband Plan should be hypertargeted to specifically address the unique needs of local communities.

6. Education. The Framework does not address the desirability of using E-Rate funds for teacher development, digital literacy for non-adopting businesses and consumers, and home broadband adoption for students.

7. Specific Voting Reforms. The Framework does not address the specific reforms raised by civil rights organizations to improve voter registration, privacy, and online voting in areas predominantly comprised of minority and low-income constituents.

DOJ's Measured comments on National Broadband Plan

[Commentary] A closer look at the Department of Justice filing on the National Broadband Plan:

1) The DoJ recommends that the Federal Communications Commission go beyond information about infrastructure and availability to look closely at actual pricing.

2) DoJ suggests that the highest value use for new spectrum may actually be to make it available for license by new rivals.

3) The FCC could promote standardized information provision - akin to nutrition labeling.

4) The FCC should monitor closely those markets that have just one or two high-speed Internet access providers. Price regulation may not make sense for residential Internet access services, unless (perhaps) affordability is an important factor for consumers. We don't know yet how strongly correlated affordability is with adoption.

Internet, broadband, and cell phone statistics

In a national survey between November 30 and December 27, 2009, Pew finds:

1) 74% of American adults (ages 18 and older) use the Internet -- a slight drop from Pew's survey in April 2009, which did not include Spanish interviews. At that time Pew found that 79% of English-speaking adults use the Internet.

Since 2006, the number of American adults using the Internet has leveled.

2) 60% of American adults use broadband connections at home - a drop that is within the margin of error from 63% in April 2009.

3) 55% of American adults connect to the Internet wirelessly, either through a WiFi or WiMax connection via their laptops or through their handheld device like a smart phone. This figure did not change in a statistically significant way during 2009.

"The Internet, it's pretty clear, is a saturated market," Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, said. The lack of growth in broadband use at home may relate to economic stress, "with people not renewing their contracts, scaling back, or not venturing into this area," Rainie said. He predicted growth in broadband use given the injection of funding aimed at spurring broadband access and adoption as part of the federal economic stimulus package passed last February.

Broadband Policy Lessons for 2010

[Commentary] In the Telecommunications Act of 1996 Congress laid out the principles and policy options that were intended to promote competition in the communications and broadband markets. These open access policies require telecommunications providers, mostly incumbents, to make available to their competitors, usually at regulated rates, various parts of their network or service, so that the competitors can begin to compete using these components as part of their service, without having to replicate the full investment that the incumbent originally made.

Open access policies include:

1) Unbundling -- gives competing broadband companies the right to use local copper loops;

2) Bitstream access -- gives competitors the right to use existing DSL lines;

3) Collocation -- gives competitors the right to install equipment in phone company facilities;

4) Wholesaling or functional separation -- requires incumbents to offer services at wholesale prices to competitors, or establish separate companies selling unbundled components.

But from the start implementation of unbundling was burdened and thwarted, largely by incumbents who resisted implementation through footdragging and litigation, but also by a judiciary that was highly skeptical of the theory behind unbundling, receptive to the arguments of the incumbents, and who exhibited little deference to the judgment of the FCC.

In their new book, The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies, Jonathan Knee, Bruce Greenwald, and Ava Seave come to this conclusion regarding telecommunication infrastructure:

"An ideal world would consist of local hybrid networks—wireless and fiber—with exclusive territories cooperating across regional boundaries. The resulting structure would minimize costs, maximize potential service quality, and not coincidentally generate high profits at reasonable profits."

The Google Phone Won't Open Up the Wireless Industry

[Commentary] Higginbotham hoped Google's Nexus One would be a hardware-based crowbar. It isn't, and Google so far seems to be working with the carriers even as it offers its own web store for Android devices.

If Google wants to bring about affordable and open wireless to everyone, as well as encourage more competition in the wireless industry, here are a few steps it should take to bring that about.

1) Build a phone that can roam: A software-defined radio (SDR) could be the key for a universal handset. Google could contribute dollars or talent to making SDRs faster, cheaper and more power-efficient so they work inside mobile phones.

2) Get carriers to ditch SIM cards. If Google can convince a carrier to let a SIM-free device (perhaps biometric access to a network would be secure enough for carriers) onto its network, then we could see the beginning of a world where it's easy for a device to use the best, lowest-cost network available and pricing for mobile broadband comes way down.

If Google can help build devices that can roam anywhere, across a variety of networks, including Wi-Fi, and can push carriers to find another way to authenticate people on their networks without sacrificing security, then they could release a device that could be just as disruptive as the iPhone.

Google's biggest announcement was not a phone, but a URL

[Commentary] The Nexus One is a sharp-looking smartphone, but, as nice as it is, it is the least significant thing that Google announced on Tuesday. The real news is Google's online store, and what it means for the US wireless industry. Google has confirmed that Nexus One, and all subsequent Google phones sold via the company's online store, will be available unlocked for use on every participating carrier. If a particular Google-branded phone is not on a particular carrier, then that's only because that phone doesn't have the proper radio to support its network. In addition to being unlocked, the phones will also have bundled plan options where the pricing and details are up to the carrier. By offering a lineup of phones that is essentially carrier-independent (with the radio compatibility caveat), Google has separated the two previously interlocked parts of the phone/plan-buying experience—phone selection and carrier selection—and has done so in a way that threatens one of the most important enablers of carrier lock-in.

Apple to Acquire Mobile-Ad Network Quattro Wireless

Apparently, Apple Computer is jumping on the mobile-advertising bandwagon and will acquire mobile ad network Quattro Wireless in a deal valued between $250 million to $275 million. Joining the advertising fray is a striking departure for a company that has honed its reputation on creating a superior and seamless user experience, first by the PC and now the smartphone. Yet, given Apple's success with the iPhone App Store -- a repository of more than 100,000 free and paid mobile applications -- it's logical that the company would want to extend its mobile efforts by providing a seamless path for its app developers to cash in on the ad dollars while helping itself to a share of that revenue. Google said Apple's move reveals a competitive market for mobile search. Google said during its presentation of the Nexus One that search queries increased by five times over the last year. The search engine wants to be able to extend its dominance in search advertising on desktop Internet use to wireless phones. It's also acquired AdMobs, which is being reviewed by the FTC, to grab advertising dollars from display ads as well.

Smartphone U.S. Market Share Reaches 17%

The proportion of adult U.S. subscribers owning smartphones jumped to 17% last year from 11% in 2008 and 7% in 2007, according to new data from Forrester Research. The growth rate has held steady from 2008 even as the user base has expanded -- a good sign, because new technologies often initially have gaudy growth numbers before declining rapidly as adoption increases, said Forrester.

While Apple may boast the glamor device of the smartphone world, the research firm points out that BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion has maintained a two-to-one advantage over the iPhone in market share. It cites factors such as availability across all carriers, pricing and its Qwerty keyboard for the BlackBerry's continued popularity.

What about 2010? "This will be the year of the smartphone, now that multiple device OEMs and multiple carriers are offering Android devices, and those ranks will grow (we expect AT&T to join the crowd in the first half of the year) as will the range of Android form factors and prices," wrote Forrester mobile analyst Charles Golvin.

Writers Guild East, Songwriters At Odds On Network Neutrality Rules

The Songwriters Guild of America is insisting that rules banning Internet service providers from discriminating by offering prioritized access will hinder efforts to fight piracy. This week, the organization filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission insisting that a regulation banning Internet service providers from discriminating "would continue to permit rampant Internet piracy." The Writers Guild of America, East, meanwhile, makes the opposite argument. That group says that a strong non-discrimination provision is vital to ensuring that big media companies don't gain an unfair advantage over independent writers. As for copyright infringement, the Writers Guild East says that anti-piracy initiatives and neutrality principles can co-exist. "Everyone opposes car theft but no one proposes that we restrict access to the highways," the organization argues.

Groups ask for FCC workshop on Network Neutrality's impact on access to broadband

The Asian American Justice Center, the Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, and the National Conference of Black Mayors are again asking the Federal Communications Commission to move cautiously on Network Neutrality regulation.

The groups are asking the FCC to drill down into issues like whether network neutrality issues should apply to search engines and content and application providers -- the FCC has signaled it should be confined to the ISPs. They also suggest that a number of "facially neutral, idealistic" social policies unintentionally widened social divides by race and income, citing Medicare and Social Security, for example. It also points to school desegregation and the FCC's own minority broadcast ownership rules as examples of programs that failed to close divides due in part to insufficient enforcement. "What can be learned from these experiences and how can that knowledge be applied to the design and implementation of potential network neutrality regulations?" They ask whether the FCC should do more research into whether net neutrality rules would widen the divide or lengthen the timetable for closing it.

Benton

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