Internet Luminaries Praise FCC Action

The open Internet's leading lights spoke out in support of today's FCC order against Comcast:

Professor Larry Lessig, Stanford Law

In all of my experience reviewing government decisions affecting the Internet, I have read none that are more subtle and sophisticated in their understanding of the Internet, and few that are as important for setting the conditions under which innovation and competition on the Internet will flourish.

As the Order makes clear, the Commission has clearly recognized the importance of the Internet as a platform for technological growth and innovation. It is also an extraordinarily important platform for free speech. Innovation and technological growth are essential components to economic prosperity. Free speech is the single most important element in a democracy.

… By secretly adding a layer of secret sauce into the Internet that interferes with legitimate applications and network services, Comcast has injured the value of the Internet to other innovators. By denying that it has done this, it has added insult to that injury. The Commission has done us all a great service by stating clearly that it will assure that the platform for innovation that the Internet is will not be compromised by such behavior.

Professor David Reed, MIT's Media Lab and one of the Internet's founding architects

The Internet is a world-wide system that does not belong to any one operator, whether providing access lines or backbone transport. This is the essence of internetworking. The Internet is not just "another network" owned and operated by a private concern for a set of customers. The Commission order clearly comprehends that special quality that transcends the interests of Comcast or any other access provider.

The strongest part of the order, for me personally, is that it navigates the tough path between heavy-handed regulation and disciplining misbehavior. To me, this is the challenge that separates government by "sound bite" and the difficult work of making our country work.

Professor Jack Balkin, Yale Law and Professor Barbara van Schewick, Stanford Law

By securing end users' unimpeded access to applications and content, the FCC's order protects fair competition and economic innovation.

It preserves the Internet's decentralized structure, which has permitted the Internet to tap the genius of people around the world and create new content and powerful new applications that few could have dreamed of.

… [The order] is the beginning of a sound public policy for the digital age. It is welcome news for consumers, innovators, citizens, and everyone who has come to rely on unimpeded access to the content and applications available on an open Internet.

We commend the Commission for taking this important first step.

Harold Feld, Media Access Project

[The order] states clearly that protecting the open and vibrant character of the internet by prohibiting blocking or degrading of applications does not raise First Amendment issues. To the contrary such action furthers First Amendment values. (In my opinion, this finding alone makes this Order a huge win.)

… We don't walk away from this, or stop fighting for the rules we need. Tomorrow, we go right back to work — starting with defending this Order from the inevitable appeal. But tonight, we can celebrate another critical win that keeps an open internet possible.

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A Major Milestone in the Fight for Internet Rights

It's official. The Federal Communications Commission published its order today lowering the hammer on Comcast for derailing Internet users' Web access and then pretending that the cable giant was doing nothing wrong.

The order, approved by a bipartisan FCC majority at the beginning of the month, demands that Comcast "must stop" its ongoing practice of blocking Internet content by year's end.

As we have written before, this action carries considerable weight.

It's the first time the FCC has gone to such lengths to assert users' right to an open Internet. And it sends a warning shot across the bow of other major ISPs that are flirting with the idea of blocking, filtering or degrading content, or favoring certain Web sites and services over others.

The FCC Delivers

"This order marks a major milestone in Internet policy," says Ben Scott, Free Press policy director. "For years, the FCC declared that it would take action against any Internet service provider caught violating the online rights guaranteed by the agency. Today, the commission has delivered on that promise."

The order concludes the FCC's months-long investigation, which included two public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities — and more than 25,000 public comments.

"This clear legal precedent signals that the future of the Net Neutrality debate will be over how, not whether, to protect users' right to an open Internet," Scott says.

Comcast's Smokescreen

Comcast and its Astroturf allies flooded the FCC with filings that challenged the FCC authority and outright denied any wrongdoing. But the smackdown of Comcast's claims issued today makes clear that the agency is on solid legal footing.

"The Communications Act has long established the federal agency's authority to promote the competition, consumer choice, and diverse information across all communications platforms," explains Marvin Ammori, Free Press' legal counsel, who authored the 2007 complaint against the cable giant.

In 2005, the agency unanimously adopted an Internet policy statement that "extended these rights to Internet users – including the right to access the lawful content, applications and services of their choice."

That statement served the basis for the Free Press complaint, which set the wheels of the FCC churning towards today's welcome result.

A Scathing Rebuke

The FCC was unconvinced by Comcast's attempts to evade accountability. The order finds that Comcast's repeated "verbal gymnastics" and attempts to muddy the issue of blocking were "unpersuasive and beside the point."

The commissioners were especially outraged by Comcast's lies and deception. When it first got caught blocking the Internet, the cable giant "misleadingly disclaimed any responsibility for its customers' problems," according to the FCC order, followed by "at best misdirection and obfuscation."

Contrary to the spin of Comcast's lawyers, the FCC can protect the rights of Internet users, and promote openness, free speech and competition on the Web.

"The decision shows that the agency understands the importance of the technological principles of the Internet's design," wrote David Reed, a pioneer in the design of the Internet's fundamental architecture.

"The Internet is a world-wide system that does not belong to any one operator," Reed wrote. "The design of the Internet Protocols specifies clear limits on what operators can and cannot do… Happily, the FCC recognized and exposed Comcast's transgressions of those limits."

Internet users must remain vigilant in defending an open Internet. Cable and phone companies would now be wise to obey the order. But the FCC needs the public to continue to remind them to punish all violations.

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Bipartisan FCC Majority Condemns Comcast’s Illegal Blocking

WASHINGTON -- Today, the Federal Communications Commission published an enforcement order punishing Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, for blocking Internet users' access to legal online content and services. The order, approved by a bipartisan majority on Aug. 1, requires Comcast to stop its ongoing practice of blocking Internet content by the end of the year and disclose all "network management" practices.

The Communications Act has long established the FCC's legal authority to promote the broad goals of competition, consumer choice and diverse information across all communications platforms. In 2005, the FCC unanimously adopted an "Internet Policy Statement" explicitly guaranteeing Internet users the right to access the lawful content, applications and services of their choice.

Last fall, the Associated Press caught Comcast secretly blocking users' legal peer-to-peer traffic, calling the company's practice the "most drastic example yet of data discrimination." In response, Free Press and Public Knowledge filed a complaint, triggering the first test case of the FCC's policy statement. This order concludes the FCC's months-long investigation, which included two public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities and more than 50,000 public comments.

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, issued the following statement:

"This order marks a major milestone in Internet policy. For years, the FCC declared that it would take action against any Internet service provider caught violating the online rights guaranteed by the agency. Today, the commission has delivered on that promise.

"The FCC's action confirms that it is illegal for Internet service providers to block or impede access to lawful online content. This clear legal precedent signals that the future of the Net Neutrality debate will be over how, not whether, to protect users' right to unfettered Internet access.

"Contrary to the claims made by Comcast and others, the FCC is well within its authority to protect the open Internet, either by adopting rules or acting on complaints. It is the FCC's responsibility to promote openness, free speech and competition -- the bedrock goals of the Communications Act.

"Standing on the solid legal foundation established today by the FCC, Internet users must remain vigilant in defending an open Internet. Cable and phone companies would now be wise to obey the law. They can trust that the FCC is ready to punish any violations."

Read the Comcast Order: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-183A1.pdf

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The Great Firewall of China

The Beijing Olympics are underway with the spotlight on China. Unfortunately, our TV announcers are so awed by the grandeur of the spectacle that they are overlooking the country's authoritarian regime and its stranglehold on free speech.

China now has the world's largest number of Internet users, having recently surpassed the United States. This number, however, doesn't account for whether the Chinese government allows for a free and open Internet. So while a record number of Chinese people are logging online, they certainly can't read or watch anything they choose.

While China had promised to increase Internet freedom during the Olympics, many of those promises have not been kept. The government vowed to relax Internet restrictions for foreign journalists, and finally complied only after intense international pressure, making some previously blocked sites available. Chinese Internet users, however, still face the same firewalls.

China maintains control over Internet users by blocking access to a wide range of Web sites and online activities it believes are a threat to the security of the state. To accomplish this monumental task, the government has created an elaborate system of filters, commonly referred to as "the Great Firewall of China," using technology called deep packet inspection or DPI.

When an Internet provider installs DPI equipment, it allows them (or a third party) to see everything you do on the Internet. DPI technology has been in the U.S. news recently, as ISPs have begun using it to track customer activities for targeted advertising. But two U.S. broadband providers were using this technology for purposes that mirror China's to block online content. Which American providers do such a thing? None other than Comcast and Cox, two Net Neutrality violators.

The companies have installed DPI equipment to block Internet communications they don't like using reset packets (as China does). As the Electronic Frontier Foundation explained, their use of reset packets is akin to "a telephone operator that interrupts a phone conversation, impersonating the voice of each party to tell the other that 'this call is over, I'm hanging up.'" While legitimate purposes exist for the reset command, only these two companies and malicious hackers use it as a third party to interrupt people's communication.

Comcast and Cox purchased the equipment from the corporation Sandvine, which hit the "on" switch to let the companies start violating Net Neutrality. Since Free Press filed a complaint with the FCC against Comcast for its illegal blocking, Sandvine has had a tough time. Their stock price has tanked and their biggest customer, Comcast, has had second thoughts.

As long as Sandvine's business model is violating Net Neutrality, we consider this good news. A couple weeks ago, however, their stock price received a bump. How is this possible after the consumer win on Net Neutrality, with the FCC telling Comcast to stop blocking?

Sandvine simply looked to the Great Firewall of China. Feeling the heat in the U.S., Sandvine struck deals with China and two countries – Qatar and Kuwait – looking to follow China's lead and prevent their citizens' access to a free and open Internet.

As you're watching the Olympics, in the rare instance that an announcer actually brings up the current lack of online freedom in China, remember that Comcast and Cox utilize the same technology to impose their vision of what the Internet should be. Unless we continue to organize and fight for our online freedom, your Internet provider will assert an increasing level of control over what you say and do on the Internet, and Net Neutrality will no longer exist.

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The Promise of Municipal Broadband

When Mayor John Street announced plans to make Philadelphia the nation's first major "wireless city" back in the fall of 2004, the press couldn't get enough. "Forget cheese steaks, cream cheese, and brotherly love," declared The New York Times. "Philadelphia wants to be known as the city of laptops."

Philadelphia's goal to cover 135 square miles with a cloud of Internet connectivity was ambitious. But the need was undeniable. High-speed Internet access was fast becoming an economic, educational, and social necessity. Yet most of Philly's residents were stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide, unable to access or afford a broadband connection.

When Earthlink—a dial-up Internet company looking for a foothold in the broadband world—came forward promising to build a state-of-the-art wireless system without the city paying a dime, Philadelphia signed up. And soon, you couldn't go a week without another major metropolis—San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Portland, Oregon—jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon.
So what happened?

Three years later, many of the projects seem to be sputtering. The tens of thousands of new subscribers didn't materialize. Getting the equipment up on streetlights and buildings proved more expensive and technically challenging than expected. Chicago and St. Louis scrapped their plans last summer. In Tempe, Arizona, a company called Gobility shuttered the system there and unplugged its customer-service line. Earthlink abandoned projects in San Francisco and Houston, before announcing it was getting out of the municipal wireless business altogether.

With its flagship Philadelphia project still unfinished, new Earthlink CEO Rolla P. Huff announced last fall that "making significant further investments in this business could be inconsistent with our objective of maximizing shareholder value."

Then the press pounced, with stories appearing in the Associated Press, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and the Times, declaring municipal projects to be floundering, fading failures. One tech writer dismissed municipal wireless as "the monorail of the decade."

But all the obituaries are premature. A closer look at what's happening at projects across the country—public and private, wired and wireless, big and small—suggests that it's far too early to start the funeral arrangements. Much of the media are confusing the collapse of one company—or one model of broadband deployment—with the failure of the entire idea of municipalities providing high-speed Internet services.

"It's like someone striking out in a boat in 1490, it sinking, and people saying, 'You know what? This whole ocean travel thing isn't going to work out,' " says Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a Minneapolis-based research group that tracks municipal projects.

Even in Philadelphia, all is not lost. In June, a group of local investors announced they had arranged to take over Philadelphia's network and offer free Wi-Fi outdoor—but details are sketchy.

Many projects—especially in small towns and mid-sized cities—are thriving. From Hermiston, Oregon, to Scottsburg, Indiana, to St. Cloud, Florida, city-owned wireless systems are up and running, serving local residents and businesses or local police and emergency workers. Places like Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and Kutztown, Pennsylvania, are building their own fiber-optic networks that offer high-speed Internet and cable TV.

In total, more than 400 cities and towns already have launched, or are developing, municipal broadband systems. Spending on municipal networks increased last year and is expected to keep rising. MuniWireless.com projects that annual spending on equipment and services will exceed $900 million by 2010.

Municipal broadband is caught up in a classic "hype cycle"—a term coined by the Gartner Research Group to chart technology trends. It works like this: First, new technology triggers a wave of excitement that builds to a "peak of inflated expectations." For municipal broadband this was 2005's heady days of "free Internet for everyone everywhere."

After the peak, there's a rapid slide toward what Gartner calls "the trough of disillusionment"—a.k.a. rock bottom or, in this case, the headline in the March 22 edition of The New York Times: "Hopes for Wireless Cities Are Fading."

Vermont's Tim Nulty isn't mourning the troubles some cities are having with municipal wireless. To him, it was never the right technology for the job at hand. "Think about 747s and helicopters," he says. "Helicopters are marvelous when they're used for what they're good at. But you don't use them to fly thousands of people between Boston and Chicago. For that you need 747s."

Wireless systems may offer mobility, but a fiber-optic network connected directly to homes boasts nearly unlimited capacity. Fiber is the jumbo jet of municipal broadband. Though conventional wisdom says fiber is too expensive or complicated for cities to handle, Nulty—who spent more than ten years in the '70s and '80s on Capitol Hill as the chief economist for the key Senate and House committees that make telecom policy—was recruited out of retirement to help the city of Burlington get a municipal fiber network off the ground.

That project became Burlington Telecom—a city department that now provides high-speed Internet, phone, and cable TV service to some 3,000 residential customers. While revenue from subscribers goes into the public coffers, at Nulty's insistence the network itself was financed by private investors without any taxpayer money. Not only is the system up and running, but it already has a positive cash flow.

Nulty recently left Burlington Telecom to spearhead a project to bring fiber to smaller towns across Vermont. Twenty-five towns voted—many of them unanimously—to join a venture called the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network. As in Burlington, the networks will be built without taxpayer funds.

"I'm convinced this is the only way we in Vermont are going to get access to this high-speed stuff," Jerry Drugonis of Pittsfield, Vermont, told the Rutland Herald after the vote. "We've been at the tail end of the dog for a long time."

It doesn't necessarily take a city department to bring high-speed Internet access to local residents. Some of the most innovative projects are small-scale, community-based efforts.

"We're finally coming back around to ideas that were around before the corporate franchise was shown to be a failure," says Sascha Meinrath, research director of the New America Foundation's Wireless Future Program, who launched one of the nation's first community wireless projects while he was a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "So much money was being spent to push the corporate model that it was all cities heard about. There was no PR or marketing for community wireless groups. But unlike the corporations, their focus has always been maximizing the public good."

In Asheville, North Carolina, the Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN) has been operating as a nonprofit Internet service provider since 1996, first with dial-up and now with wireless broadband. It uses "mesh network" technology created by a company called Meraki to serve hundreds of citizens in nine Asheville neighborhoods.

The network—the same type that Meraki is using to offer free wireless in San Francisco—allows many people in the same area to share one Internet connection. This type of neighbor-to-neighbor sharing is discouraged by the big phone and cable companies, but MAIN has its own connection to the Internet backbone.

MAIN is far from a traditional Internet Service Provider: It's committed to closing the digital divide and recycles computers for use by local residents who otherwise couldn't afford them; its website is a community media hub; and the group also runs a local low power FM radio station. Wally Bowen, MAIN's executive director, sees the future of community media.

"I firmly believe that every public access TV operation, every community radio station, every nonprofit community technology center can be doing this," he says. "It's not rocket science. All of those technology-based nonprofits are strapped for revenue. We've got to figure out a way to capture some of those digital dollars that are falling out of our communities, and this is it."

Small-town success stories are encouraging but they don't answer whether municipal broadband can work in the big city. The recent completion of a citywide wireless network in Minneapolis suggests that cities may be learning from Philadelphia's mistakes.

Minneapolis has already signed up 8,000 users, and its Wi-Fi network was used by emergency responders after the I-35W bridge collapse. Unlike Philadelphia, Minneapolis agreed to be the network's "anchor tenant," committing $1.25 million per year for the next decade.

"Having the city itself as the anchor tenant gives the provider an incentive to set up a good network," says Esme Vos of MuniWireless.com. "From the get-go, there's a set amount of money. Philadelphia never had that deal. San Francisco never had that deal."

However, some in the Twin Cities are disappointed that Minneapolis opted to support a private network rather than constructing its own public one. "If a private company decides they just aren't going to do it anymore, the community is stuck because it's privately owned," Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance explains. "If it's publicly owned and the network is not going exactly as planned, they can decide if it's still worth it for their police officers to have access; if it's still worth it to have inspectors and social workers be able to enter their data remotely; if it's still worth it for citizens to be able to connect anywhere. They can ask those questions and decide whether it's good for the community or not."

However, unlike Philadelphia, Minneapolis did choose a local company, U.S. Internet, to build the network. "That's key," Vos says. "U.S. Internet is not investing in a mobile handset project and trying to still provide DSL service and outsourcing their customer service to India. This is their main project."

Local control—and with it, jobs and revenues staying in the community—appears to be one of the elements of success for municipal broadband projects large and small. The money stays in the community, jobs are being created, and everyone from firefighters to meter readers benefits.

"If you're not sending money out to shareholders across the country and expecting a huge return on investment," Mitchell says, "you can already have an advantage in terms of pricing it more reasonably to make sure your businesses and your people can afford to have fast connectivity that's going to keep the city competitive regionally and globally."

While municipal broadband projects can't succeed without buy-in from local stakeholders, ubiquitous high-speed Internet access won't be achieved via local governments or groups alone. We need a national broadband policy.

Back in March 2004, President Bush called for "universal affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007." Yet in 2008, we're nowhere close. And the United States is falling further behind the rest of the world. Much of Asia and Europe enjoys broadband speeds that are twenty to fifty times faster than what we get here—and they pay less for it.

"We have a failure on the national level that's too important to ignore," says James Baller, an attorney who represents local governments and public utilities and closely follows municipal broadband issues. "Not to view broadband as a strategic asset is a significant shortcoming. The other leading countries of the world do view broadband in that light, and they are thinking about how to get more of it at much faster speeds and lower rates because it's a platform for so many other things that are important."

Policymakers could create incentives for local communities to build telecom networks, spurring new competition and growing the new market for entrepreneurs and innovators, especially in areas bypassed or underserved by the big phone and cable companies. Better yet, says Asheville's Bowen, these incentives could mandate that systems be locally controlled and nonprofit, ensuring that the investment stays in the community.

Yet, fourteen states currently have laws on the books—drafted by phone and cable company lobbyists—restricting municipalities from erecting their own broadband systems. The Community Broadband Act, bipartisan legislation that already passed the Senate Commerce Committee, would tear down the roadblocks. "The first thing we have to do," Mitchell says, "is make sure that communities that want to solve their own problems, that want to build the network they need, can do that."

Congress and the Federal Communications Commission also could improve municipal wireless by setting aside a greater portion of the airwaves for public use. Wi-Fi systems operate on narrow "junk bands" already cluttered with cordless phones, baby monitors, and the like, requiring more transmitters and higher costs to set up a network.

Meanwhile, vast portions of the broadcast TV spectrum—as much as 70 percent in some markets—are sitting unused because of outdated regulations and a misinformation campaign waged by the broadcasters' lobby. These "white spaces" would allow signals to go farther and travel through obstacles. "If we open up the unused spaces between the television channels, it suddenly becomes possible to deploy the network that we need at a quarter of the cost," says Harold Feld of the Media Access Project, a public interest communications law firm in Washington.

There is growing bipartisan support for many of these policies. And the nation's broadband policy—or lack thereof—is even becoming a presidential campaign issue. To his credit, John McCain is a lead sponsor of the Community Broadband Act, though he hasn't always backed public interest policies during his years on the influential Senate Commerce Committee and voted against restoring crucial "Net Neutrality" protections.

For his part, Barack Obama hasn't yet signed on to McCain's community broadband bill. But he supports Net Neutrality and has pledged to make Internet issues a top priority of his administration. In a June speech in Flint, Michigan, Obama declared: "As President, I will set a simple goal: Every American should have the highest speed broadband access—no matter where you live, or how much money you have. We'll connect schools, libraries, and hospitals. And we'll take on special interests to unleash the power of wireless spectrum for our safety and connectivity."

In the end, the biggest obstacles to universal, affordable Internet access aren't economic or technical. They're political. Broadband is too important to the economy, education, and, well, democracy to be at the mercy of Comcast, Verizon, or AT&T. It's time to rethink the approach to these problems and move the discussion past short-term technical fixes and next quarter's profits.

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McDowell Worries About Censorship While Supporting It

Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell increasingly sounds like a man stranded on a desert island, willing to say anything to get a ride back to shore.

Yesterday, Commissioner McDowell stooped to a new low in a talk with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. He was invited to discuss the FCC's recent decision to punish Comcast for blocking users from sharing legal content on the Internet.

Comcast was caught red-handed secretly discriminating against innovative technologies used for high-definition online TV, using the same censorship technology the Chinese government uses to block free speech. This discriminatory behavior represents the most blatant and outrageous violation of consumer choice in the history of the Internet.

Based on this clear-cut case against Comcast, a bipartisan majority of the FCC issued a guilty verdict. Commissioner McDowell, however, dissented, using almost every inaccurate argument made by Comcast to defend his decision.

Yesterday, the increasingly isolated McDowell decided once again to put the facts aside.

Law and Order

In both his speech and the interview that followed McDowell tried to tie the FCC's Comcast decision to the Fairness Doctrine (which at one time regulated equal airtime for diverse perspectives in broadcast media).

He suggested that any FCC decision that supports Net Neutrality — the idea that the Internet must be free and open — is somehow tantamount to government regulation of content.

But contrary to these misleading assertions, Net Neutrality has nothing to do with empowering the FCC to regulate content. Net Neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet, and has been part of the Web since its inception. It says that no one — government agency or corporate giant — should be able to tell consumers what legal content they can access and share online.

It is absurd to equate Net Neutrality — a principle that promotes and protects free speech on the Internet — with any effort to regulate speech.

In reality, the FCC's decision is not about regulation; it's about law and order. If someone is caught red-handed committing a crime, their punishment is not regulation. It's justice. Comcast was caught illegally blocking free speech and the free market on the Internet and now they are being punished for their crime. Punished not with a fine, but with a reasonable request. The FCC simply told Comcast to stop.

The Grass is Always Bluer

Unsurprisingly, this dishonest effort to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt comes precisely at a time when bipartisan support for this important protection is growing.

Americans of all political stripes are tired of politicians saying the grass is blue and the sky is green. McDowell's blatant attempt to portray Net Neutrality as the exact opposite of what it is may go over well at industry-funded think tanks and in meetings with Comcast lobbyists, but everyday conservatives, liberals and independents can see through this fear mongering.

The bloggers over at TechRepublican said it best: "Without meaningful competition, consumers can't push for better service. I can get my high-speed Internet from Comcast, with all its attendant issues, or I can use dial-up. The FCC made the right decision […] mandated content neutrality protects the customer without hurting competition."

It is disappointing that McDowell is responding to the genuine concerns of a nation about our digital future with threats that have no basis in reality. As American people across the political spectrum fight for a robust Internet system that connects all people to a safe, secure, and neutral Internet, the only way McDowell can oppose this movement is by twisting the facts.

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Wireless to the People

I'm no football fan, but I paid close attention to Saturday's preseason showdown between the Washington Redskins and the Buffalo Bills – not for what was happening in the game, but was happening at the game.

The Federal Communications Commission used the stadium to test mobile wireless devices that harness vacant portions of the public airwaves. To me, the results of these tests — which could lead to high-speed Internet access for all Americans — is more thrilling than any quarterback sack.

In the early days of television, the government established empty spectrum areas (dubbed "white spaces") between TV channels to guard against broadcast interference. These white spaces are beachfront property for broadband spectrum, with signal strength so powerful it can penetrate buildings and travel long distances. Think Wi-Fi on steroids.

Nearly every market in the United States has empty broadcast channels currently sitting dormant. When the country transitions to digital television in February 2009, the number of these channels will only grow, freeing up even more white spaces.

In 2005, Free Press analyzed the amount of white space that will be available post-transition, and the results are stunning. In Juneau, Alaska, for example, as much as 74 percent of the broadcast spectrum will be empty. In the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, where airwaves are considerably more congested, 40 percent of the spectrum will be up for grabs.

Companies like Motorola, Phillips and Microsoft have been developing new wireless digital technologies for installation in computers and phones to avoid all interference with broadcast channels. With these advances, the unused spectrum could – and should — make universal, affordable high-speed Internet access a reality to millions of Americans now stuck using antiquated dial-up modems, or with no access at all.

A (Potential) Boon for the Countryside

Most exciting is the effect white spaces could have on rural communities where Internet service providers have refused to build out broadband services. According to a 2007 survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, less than one third of rural residents had access to broadband at home, compared to more than half of city dwellers.

With more airwaves dedicated to broadband service, rural communities previously frozen out of the digital era may finally enjoy the same social and economic benefits of high-speed Internet as millions of other Americans. And urban areas, too, which contain pockets of underserved communities, may finally find relief from long lines at library computers.

But there's an important caveat: not just any use of white spaces will do. It is crucial that white space airwaves remain "unlicensed" — just like the spectrum's existing Wi-Fi band — so anyone can use them.

The government has the option to license the airwaves, auctioning them off to the highest bidder, who will have an exclusive right to determine how they are used. This highest bidder – say, a major broadcasting company – might have an incentive to simply sit on the vacant white spaces, rather than using them for the public good. We can't take that chance.

Think of it this way: Devices like baby monitors and garage door openers don't need a license to use the airwaves; the same should be true for wireless devices using white spaces to access the Internet.

White space spectrum has the greatest potential to expand and improve wireless communications when paired with mobile devices, like laptops and cell phones. Imagine a farmer installing mobile devices on machinery or even livestock to ensure broadband coverage in remote areas, or a firefighter transmitting video from inside a burning building to his crew on the street with a handheld wireless camera. The possibilities are real, powerful and life-altering.

So what's stopping us?

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the powerful and deep-pocketed broadcasting lobby, wants to keep a stranglehold on publicly owned white spaces. NAB has been shelling Washington with misinformation and scare tactics designed to dissuade the FCC and Congress from giving the green light to new technologies and dedicating more spectrum to wireless broadband.

The lobby has been using a tired "static in my attic" routine to convince lawmakers and the public that white spaces will interfere with broadcast signals. The group has even created its own fear-mongering website, InterferenceZones.com, which says: "If these companies get their wish, you could be watching the big game, your favorite movie or breaking news when your pristine digital picture freezes, pixelates and the sound shuts off."

NAB needs to call the dogs off and let the FCC do its job. Already, the agency has shown that fixed wireless devices (on towers or buildings, for example) utilizing white space do not interfere with broadcast signals. It's only a matter of time before the NAB's interference house of cards comes crashing down.

If the FCC and Congress listen to the broadcast lobby, we will miss one of this country's greatest opportunities to close the digital divide and democratize our media.

2:43 PM - 5 Comments - 11 Kudos - Add Comment

Blocking or Metering: A False Choice

Today, Free Press released Blocking or Metering: A False Choice, a policy brief that illustrates why the Federal Communications Commission's decision to prohibit blocking by Internet service providers is unlikely to lead to a radical, industry-wide switch to metering.

"Consumers should not have to choose between secret and arbitrary blocking and the very unreasonable practice of metering," said S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press and author of the policy brief. "That is a false choice, one most providers don't even consider necessary or practical. These scare tactics shouldn't deter anyone from pursuing the policies we need to preserve a free and open Internet."

Read Blocking or Metering: A False Choice http://www.freepress.net/files/Blocking_or_Metering_A_False_Choice.pdf

Among the conclusions of the brief:

• It is a false choice to suggest that since Internet service providers cannot arbitrarily block online content, they will be forced to meter. There are a whole host of other non-discriminatory options available to providers that are more effective at managing congestion.

• Talk of metering is not new and has nothing to do with the FCC's laudable decision to prohibit providers from blocking applications. Cox has had bandwidth caps in place since 2003 but was still caught blocking applications. Time Warner floated plans to meter as early as 2002.

• Metering is the wrong solution for Internet users. History shows that consumers strongly prefer simple, flat-rate pricing to metering. They do not want to look over their shoulder and face surprise higher monthly bills. This is likely to encourage all subscribers – not just high-bandwidth users -- to curb their Internet use.

• Metering is bad business for Internet service providers. Not only does it decrease Internet use, it discourages the development of and demand for new and innovative applications that give the Internet its value. ISPs that meter are likely to see a subscription drop that hurts their bottom line.

• There are strong financial incentives at play that actually make it very unlikely that ISPs will make the drastic switch to metering. Congestion should be treated as a short-term problem, while continued investments are made to keep pace with demand. Offering simplicity and abundance is the best outcome for users, providers and the future of the Internet.

3:27 PM - 2 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Don’t Scare Me with Metering

Thousands of people heralded the FCC's decision to punish Comcast for blocking Internet traffic last week, and for setting an important precedent for Net Neutrality. A small group of skeptical observers, however, are worried about the ruling's unintended consequences.

These skeptics fear that Internet Service Providers, no longer allowed to manage their networks through blocking, will turn instead to a radical, industry-wide switch to "metering" — imposing steep fees for exceeding tight caps on bandwidth usage.

Hello even larger Internet bill, and goodbye to watching a movie online when it strikes your fancy.

This scaremongering has people worried that we've exchanged one corrupt practice for another. Luckily, as S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press points out in his new policy brief, this "be careful what you wish for" rhetoric is unfounded. Turns out, we don't have to choose between secret and arbitrary blocking and the unreasonable practice of metering.

If you find yourself in a back alley — or message board — arguing about metering, here are a few arguments you can use to defend yourself:

• It is a false choice to suggest that since Internet service providers cannot arbitrarily block online content, they will be forced to meter. There are a whole host of other non-discriminatory options available to providers that are more effective at managing congestion.

• Talk of metering is not new and has nothing to do with the FCC's laudable decision to prohibit providers from blocking applications. Time Warner floated plans to meter as early as 2002..

• Metering is the wrong solution for Internet users. History shows that consumers strongly prefer simple, flat-rate pricing to metering. They do not want to look over their shoulder and face surprise higher monthly bills. This is likely to encourage all subscribers – not just high-bandwidth users — to curb their Internet use.

• Metering is bad business for Internet service providers. Not only does it decrease Internet use, it discourages the development of and demand for new and innovative applications that give the Internet its value. ISPs that meter are likely to see a subscription drop that hurts their bottom line.

• There are strong financial incentives at play that actually make it very unlikely that ISPs will make the drastic switch to metering. Congestion should be treated as a short-term problem, while continued investments are made to keep pace with demand. Offering simplicity and abundance is the best outcome for users, providers and the future of the Internet.

Don't listen to the Chicken Littles: The sky isn't falling. For those of us who believe in a truly open Internet, the sun is starting to break through the clouds.

6:09 PM - 1 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Who Shouldn’t Solve This Internet Crisis

Last week in the Washington Post, Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell published an op-ed asking, "Who Should Solve This Internet Crisis?"

Based on that article and his lengthy, flawed dissenting statement at last week's FCC meeting, this much is clear: It shouldn't be McDowell.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, secretly blocked Internet users from accessing legal content. It got caught. Last Friday, a bipartisan majority at the FCC moved to hold it accountable.

That's the FCC's job. But McDowell, the commission's newest member, mounted a spirited defense on the company's actions that conveniently leaves out many facts of the case.

The Case Against Comcast

Comcast clandestinely cut off transmissions by impersonating their customers. When it was first caught blocking, its spokespeople denied it. Then Comcast claimed it was just "delaying" traffic in the name of "reasonable network management." When the FCC investigated and held public hearings, Comcast paid people to pack the rooms, applaud on cue, and keep the public out. When all else failed, it launched a last-minute smear campaign against FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Independent tests conducted by the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Germany's Max Planck Institute clearly demonstrated that Comcast wasn't just targeting a few high-bandwidth users at busy times; it was blocking peer-to-peer protocols all day and night regardless of the size of files being transferred. The AP couldn't even upload a copy of the King James Bible.

This strong evidence is the basis of the complaint filed at the agency by Free Press, Public Knowledge and a group of esteemed legal scholars. They were supported by tens of thousands of public comments asking the FCC to stop Internet blocking.

McDowell was strangely unruffled by any of this.

What's Causing the Traffic Jam?

Instead, McDowell tries to excuse Comcast's illegal behavior by stoking fears about traffic jams and "clogged arteries" on the Internet. But he fails to recognize that with the growing thirst for audio and video on the Web, today's "bandwidth hog" is tomorrow's everyday user. Instead of reinvesting in the capacity we'll need, Comcast is pocketing its sizable profits while trying to exploit its control of the pipes to undercut the competition for Internet content.

McDowell cites statistics peddled by the cable companies that only "5 percent of Internet consumers are using 90 percent of the bandwidth due to P2P." Numerous other traffic studies suggest this isn't accurate. Think about it: Are we really to believe that all those YouTube videos, phone calls, and emails are only 10 percent of traffic?

And while McDowell says "some estimate that 75 percent of the world's Internet traffic is P2P," he cherry-picks one of the more outlandish estimates. Even Sandvine – the Canadian company that provided Comcast's Internet blocking tools – guesses that just 44 percent of North American traffic is P2P. Other estimates are even lower.

One thing consumer advocates and Comcast can agree on, however, is that that Internet traffic has grown consistently year to year by about 40 to 50 percent. According to "Moore's law," computer technology should get cheaper and faster at about the same rate.

Yet rather than upgrading their bandwidth rate to meet demand, Comcast blames its customers for wanting to use more of its product. Instead of secret blocking, how about some more capacity?

An Engineering Problem?

McDowell suggests that the issues here are too complex for the average policymaker. He insists the Internet is best left to engineers instead of "unelected bureaucrats."

But apparently he wasn't listening when engineers like David Reed and David Clark – two of the original architects of basic Internet protocols – harshly criticized Comcast's actions in testimony before the FCC.

The fact is that rather than addressing "network management" in an open manner, Comcast chose to secretly block file-sharing in a way that violates every accepted Internet standard.

McDowell is fond of comparing Comcast's malfeasance to a moment in 1987 when engineers came together to solve Internet congestion issues without the government getting involved.

But unlike Comcast, those engineers two decades ago agreed to standards to address congestion without blocking or targeting particular content or applications. Unlike Comcast, those engineers were not working for one company secretly interfering with the Internet experience. Unlike Comcast, they openly collaborated in the light of day.

Side Deals and Settlements

McDowell also touts a last-minute "settlement" between Comcast and the company named BitTorrent as evidence that there's no need for "government intervention." But BitTorrent wasn't even part of the complaint against the cable giant. And the that deal never would have happened without public and government scrutiny.

Furthermore, the vague arrangement was worked out with just one company — the countless other firms using the same technology weren't consulted. And those innovators, such as Vuze and Miro, celebrated the FCC's move against Comcast.

Moreover, press releases issued by Comcast won't prevent other cable and phone companies from blocking or trying to stifle the next big thing.

That's why we need a clear policy against discrimination – a.k.a. Net Neutrality — that applies to everyone.

The Rules of the Road

McDowell suggests a false choice when he urges us to choose "collaboration over regulation" when it comes to Internet governance.

We've always had rules, and we always will. The only important question is whom those rules will benefit. Will it be the small handful of phone and cable companies who have showed time and again that they can't be trusted? Or will it be the innovative entrepreneurs and cacophonous voices that make the Internet so great?

Largely absent from McDowell's arguments is mention of the public — the FCC's actual constituents — who have made clear that they want the Internet to remain free from secret meddling and corporate gatekeepers of any kind.

McDowell, unlike his current Republican colleagues, is likely to stay at the FCC in the next administration. This makes his disconnect from the popular will even more disconcerting.

Fortunately, a bipartisan majority at the FCC is listening to the public and has now established a clear precedent that blocking will not be tolerated. That's the kind of collaboration everyone should support.

1:30 PM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment