April 2013

The American Cable Association is applauding the creation this week of an House Commerce Committee working group to promote the rural telecom service many of ACA’s members provide.

The 18-member bipartisan group -- nine Republicans, nine Democrats -- was launched by Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Bob Latta (R-OH). "From broadband access and spectrum issues, to problems with call completion, rural areas of our districts often have unique concerns," said Rep Welch. "This bipartisan working group will serve as a forum to educate committee members on rural issues to ensure that rural priorities are understood and addressed in the important work of this committee." ACA is hoping the group will extend its gaze to a host of issues of high interest to the small and midsize operators it represents, including the cost of sports programming, program bundling and retransmission.

Software-defined networking in universities today is like the early Internet decades ago, and big-data researchers in genomics and other fields already need it for their next set of discoveries, according to the head of Internet2.

Internet2 runs a nationwide network linking research institutions, and it's already using elements of SDN on its production infrastructure. SDN, a closely watched set of technologies at various stages of development, is intended to shift the control of networks from specialized devices such as switches and routers to software that can run on standard computing platforms and be virtualized. It promises a range of benefits that could include lower costs, faster service deployment and more network innovation. The Internet itself began as a tool to help far-flung researchers share data and insights. But the massive amounts of data that many scientists work with today, thanks to advances in computing and storage, require new ways to communicate, said David Lambert, Internet2's president and CEO, at the Open Networking Summit conference. The technology used on the Internet today isn't flexible enough to support those new requirements, such as large file transfers, massive data sets, and content caching and distribution, Lambert said.

A bill to prevent wireless communication interruption passed its first hurdle as the California State Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee approved SB 380 by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima). The measure is similar to SB 1160 that Gov Jerry Brown (D-CA) vetoed in 2012. Brown stated in his veto message that the bill should be revised to preserve the ability of law enforcement to interrupt wireless communication in the event that doing so would protect public health and safety. The original bill was introduced after the Bay Area Rapid Transit Agency (BART) shut down mobile services during public protests in August 2011. Since the protests, the BART Board adopted a policy allowing such shutdowns in specific cases.

[Commentary] The First Amendment and the principles of free expression are fundamental to the proper functioning of our society and they are a bedrock of the law. The fact that this sentiment is well-worn to the point of cliche doesn't make it any less true. Speech and other expressive conduct must be protected, even when it's bad speech, and even when the short-term consequences of allowing it seem bad too--because the consequences of having the government decide what kinds of speech are acceptable and what kinds of speech are not are even worse. But the importance of free expression has unfortunately provided some telecom companies with rhetorical cover in their attempt to avoid all oversight, and with aid and comfort from some in the judiciary, they've attempted to characterize business activities that are not expressive as "speech" and to enlist the Bill of Rights in the battle against consumer interests.

Free speech is important, but that doesn't mean that everything important is "speech." The First Amendment protects speech and other expression, but not every business activity that involves moving data from one place to another, or the transmission of photons or electrons or electromagentic waves. When cable and telecoms companies use First Amendment arguments to undermine the public interest, they don't just harm the public interest but the very free expression principles they are claiming to defend. If you broaden the First Amendment's scope of protection to the point of meaninglessness, to where it covers nearly every aspect of the digital economy, it will become meaningless, and viewed as just another argument that some companies make to excuse and explain their behavior. Defenders of free expression cannot allow this to happen.