In Some Countries Broadband Has Become A Legal Right

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has a new snapshot report out with some interesting information. Here's some details:
  
On Competition
During the first decade of the 21st century, new information and communication technologies (ICTs) came within reach of most of the world’s people for the first time in human history – a success story facilitated by the introduction of competition and the creation of independent regulators across the globe.

• By 2010, competition was available in over 90% of countries in mobile and Internet services.
• There are now 157 independent regulatory authorities worldwide – up from 106 at the beginning of the decade.
• The number of mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide grew from under 1 billion to over 5 billion over the course of the decade.
• The number of Internet users worldwide grew from under 400 million to over two billion from 2000 to 2010.
• The following services have seen the strongest growth in competition over the past 10 years:
  • International gateways – competition now available in 78% of countries, up from just 38% in the year 2000;
  • Basic voice services – competition now available in two-thirds of countries worldwide, up from under 40% in the year 2000;
  • Leased lines – competition now available in three-quarters of the world’s countries, up from under 50% in the year 2000;

On Privatization

• Twenty years ago, in 1991, just 37 countries’ main fixed-line operators were privatized. Today, 126 countries’ incumbent operators are partly or fully in the hands of private sector owners.
• Substantial differences remain between regions: 86% of European incumbents have been fully- or partially-privatized; in the CIS the figure is just 50%.
• With many markets already privatized, privatization activity has slowed down over the past few years, especially in the aftermath of the economic downturn, with fewer interested investors and lower investment funds available.

On Making Broadband a National Policy Priority

• By 2010, some 82 countries around the world – from Afghanistan to the United States, Australia to Malawi, and Chile to Slovenia – had adopted or planned to adopt a national broadband strategy.
• National broadband policies and plans are clearly focusing on the benefits of building nationwide broadband infrastructure to provide public services online – including e-health, e-education and e-government.
• Over 40 countries¹ (the U.S. is one) now include broadband in their universal service / universal access definitions – and in some countries broadband access has become a legal right.

FCC Net Neutrality Order Rules - Not Looking Like It's Going To Happen

In my last post I took a look at the first basic rule of Transparency in the 194 page Net Neutrality Report and Order document approved by the FCC on 12/21/10 and released on 12/23/10. Today let’s take a quick look at the second basic rule, No blocking, and the third rule, No unreasonable discrimination.

Starting with the No blocking rule, here’s a quote from page 88 of the report:

A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.

A person engaged in the provision of mobile broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block consumers from accessing lawful websites, subject to reasonable network management; nor shall such person block applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services, subject to reasonable network management.

This rule actually looks pretty good fo the consumer and the content provider but not so good for the ISPs like Verizon and Comcast. Here’s some detail from Stacey Higginbotham over at Gigaom.com hin her review titled Who Wins and Loses Under the FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules.

• ISPs can’t block lawful content, but won’t be put in a position to judge what is lawful or not.
• ISPs are not allowed to degrade content to the point where it can’t go through. For example, Comcast always maintained it didn’t block P2P files; it merely slowed the transmission of those files. However, that had the same effect as blocking P2P files, a distinction the FCC won’t tolerate.
• The rules also seek to prohibit the blocking of devices from wired networks by creating ungainly and expensive certification procedures such as Comcast was recently accused to be doing with Zoom Telephonics.

Higginbotham says this is good for consumers on fixed broadband networks, good for service providers in general, and bad for ISPs interested in overtly blocking competitive content.

Let’s look at the No unreasonable discrimination rule next, starting with another quote from page 88 of the report.

A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access service. Reasonable network management shall not constitute unreasonable discrimination.

This is where the FCC condones usage-based pricing. There is also some crossover with the transparancy rule. Here’s more from the Higginbotham piece on the unreasonable discrimination rule.

• Thanks to ISPs telling end users how they manage their networks, consumers can ensure that discrimination isn’t unreasonable. End users can also discriminate, for example, blocking porn from their homes.
• This is also where the FCC condones usage-based pricing, although it assures us it will keep a watchful eye out for anti-consumer packages. In general, the FCC will scrutinize discrimination that harms end users, harms a competitive service to one an ISP provides or stifles free expression, such as slowing traffic from a website the ISP doesn’t agree with.
• It also calls out paid prioritization, by which a content provider pays an ISP more money in order to deliver its content faster as problematic.

Higginbotham says this rule is not great for consumers or web service and device providers, because they will have to go to the FCC and prove the ISP is being unreasonable when problems occur. Not every consumer or company has the resources for such a fight.

I’ve read all 194 pages (more than once!) and found the document to be unclear, confusing and at times contradictory. I’m not an attorney but it looks like I’m not the only one having problems understanding it. Consumers, providers, and ISPs are all claiming victory which likely means they are almost as confused as me. They all appear to be interpreting to their advantage. This kind of confusion typically leads to legal issues and that is the last thing we need when we’re trying to catch up with the rest of the world.

There’s also 85 new Republicans (along with 9 new Democrats) coming to take control of Congress in a couple of days on January 5. In a December 21 press conference, incoming House Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich) said that his committee is planning multiple hearings to beat back regulations the FCC approved. Other Republicans are backing him up including chairman of the Communications subcommittee Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and incoming vice chairwoman of the trade subcommittee Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) who has also said she will reintroduce legislation to block the rules.

It's not looking like this is going to happen.

FCC Net Neutrality Order Rules - Transparency

I've held back writing about the new FCC order because I wanted some time to digest what it all means. With the holidays I have not had a lot of time to take a real good look. This post is my first attempt at explaining how the order will impact people like myself - the average consumer.

The 194 page Report and Order document approved by the FCC on 12/21/10 was released on 12/23/10. The Report and Order lays out three basic rules that, according to the FCC, are grounded in broadly accepted Internet norms, as well as FCC prior decisions. Here they are:

1. Transparency. Fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose the network management practices, performance characteristics, and terms and conditions of their broadband services;
2. No blocking. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices; mobile broadband providers may not block lawful websites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services; and
   
3. No unreasonable discrimination. Fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic.
   

I've written in the past about the FCC net neutrality -this new order is a compromise of a 2009 FCC proposal that was countered with a proposal from Google and Verizon. Technically it actually dates back to February 2004 when then FCC Chairman Michael Powell gave a speech titled Preserving Internet Freedom: Guiding Principles for the Industry where he laid out his vision of the broadband Internet and what he called the four Internet Freedoms in response to calls for some type of network neutrality.

In this post I'll look at just the transparency rule. Here's a quote pulled frowm page 88 of the Report and Order.

A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service shall publicly disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of its broadband Internet access services sufficient for consumers to make informed choices regarding use of such services and for content, application, service, and device providers to develop, market, and maintain Internet offerings.

Sounds good right? Not so quick. Stacey Higginbotham over at Gigaom.com has put together a nice review titled Who Wins and Loses Under the FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules. Here's a piece from her post:

• The FCC doesn’t go as far as to establish a so-called Schumer Box for broadband which would disclose speeds or details in some type of consumer-friendly standardized language, but it does say an ISP must disclose on their websites and at the point of sale how it manages congestion on its network, the speeds it offers and what types of applications would work over those speed packages.
  
• The FCC needs to explain how a user might trigger security restrictions, how the ISP inspects its traffic generally and how an aggrieved end user might address issues with the ISP.
  
• An ISP must also show how its own VoIP or IPTV services affect how it delivers broader Internet traffic.
• The FCC outsources the tracking of violations of these rules to consumers and engineers. It provides the enforcement, but isn’t going to hunt down the problems, it seems.
  
• Since transparency is the foundation of this whole order, the lack of a standard framework that’s easily understood by end users is bad for consumers.
  
• Outside applications and watchdog groups can fill in the gap and may find the task easier with these rules.

Overall Higginbotham says the transparency rule is good for carriers, because it’s minimally invasive in terms of how they market their services, yet poor for consumers, because it won’t help the average user much, and good for tech-savvy edge service providers who will have the information needed to build apps for certain networks.

I'll review the no blocking rule in my next post.

Happy Holidays!

Verizon, Google, the FCC and Real Net Neutrality?

So far Internet policy has stuck to something called net neutrality where no Internet content is favored over any other Internet content. This may be changing though. Last week a number of sources, including the New York Times, reported Verizon and Google were nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege. Here’s more from the same New York Times piece:

The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.

Many (including myself) believe big companies paying providers to give their traffic priority would stifle innovative small companies...... the kind of company Google was not that long ago. Others argued (also including myself) that - if carriers can start charging companies to prioritize their traffic - how long will it be before residential customers end up billed in similar ways?

You may ask - as a regulating agency - where has the FCC, with it’s commitment to “transparency” been? Well..... it turns out the FCC has been meeting behind closed doors for the past few months with the big carriers on network neutrality.

Much of last week seemed to be damage control for Verizon, Google and the FCC. The FCC announced they were canceling their closed door carrier meetings and we saw postings like this from Verizon Policy blogger David Fish:

The NYT article regarding conversations between Google and Verizon is mistaken. It fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect.

Yesterday, Google and Verizon held a press conference announcing a Verizon-Google Legislative Framework Proposal. Here’s a piece from the Consumer Protections part of the proposal:

A broadband Internet access service provider would be prohibited from preventing users of its broadband Internet access service from--

(1) sending and receiving lawful content of their choice;

(2) running lawful applications and using lawful services of their choice; and

(3) connecting their choice of legal devices that do not harm the service, facilitate theft of service, or harm other users of the service.

The Wireless Broadband piece of yesterdays Verizon-Google proposal is also interesting:

Because of the unique technical and operational characteristics of wireless networks, and the competitive and still-developing nature of wireless broadband services, only the transparency principle would apply to wireless broadband at this time. The U.S. Government Accountability Office would report to Congress annually on the continued development and robustness of wireless broadband Internet access services.

The backlash continues. Here’s commentary after the Verizon-Google press conference from Karl Bode at DSL Reports:

Nothing said today (Monday) changes the fact that this policy framework is very much focused on creating a weak, self-regulatory policy system filled with loopholes instead of real neutrality consumer protections.

As the regulating agency, the FCC needs to step it up and get control of this.