If you are interested in learning great "pearls of wisdom" based on expansive experience and clarity-of-thought on the question of wireless innovation, and proposed Internet regulation of wireless innovation, please read the Farber-Faulhaber white paper; at a minimum, please read the many wonderful highlights that I have pulled out of the paper for you below.

Professor Dave Farber, a widely respected Internet pioneer who has been called the "grandfather of the Internet" for his contributions to computer science, and a former Chief Technologist for the FCC, co-authored an important white paper with Professor Faulhaber for the FCC's Wireless innovation Notice of Inquiry.

Highlights from this outstanding paper:

Sascha Meinrath, a research director at the New America Foundation and former policy analyst at FreePress, accused National Public Radio of taking illegal "payola" because they fairly offered my anti-net neutrality-regulation op-ed, in addition to the pro-net-neutrality regulation op-ed NPR Online had posted the same day of FCC Chairman Genachowski's net neutrality speech. 

The leading justification offered by FCC Chairman Genachowski in his "Open Internet" speech announcing his intention to pursue formal net neutrality regulations was that "limited competition" was "simply a fact."

A fair review of the facts shows that broadband competition is anything but limited, it is actually robust, dynamic, and increasing in intensity.

• The problem comes from a choice to assume a static and pessimistic view the competition glass as half empty, because it is not perfect.
• This is not a fair representation of the broadband competitive situation because the core markets involved were originally price regulated monopolies but now are increasingly-dynamic, fiercely competitive markets where literally many tens of millions of Americans have taken advantage of available competitive choices.

I would like to highlight some important and illuminating competitive facts presented in an outstanding post by Link Hoewing over at Verizon's Policyblog:  

Americans expect dramatically more privacy online than they currently have; that is the essence of the findings of an outstanding new independent study led by Professor Joseph Turow of the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania entitled: "Americans Reject Tailored Advertising." The study/poll found:

• 86% of young adults say they don’t want tailored advertising if it is the result of following their behavior on websites other than one they are visiting, and 90% of them reject it if it is the result of following what they do offline.
• 69% of American adults feel there should be a law that gives people the right to know everything that a website knows about them.
• 92% agree there should be a law that requires “websites and advertising companies to delete all stored information about an individual, if requested to do so.”

My NPR Online op-ed: "Net Neutrality Regulations Compromise Freedoms" makes the case why the FCC Chairman's proposed net neutrality regulations are likely unconstitutional in multiple dimensions. 

If you like the op-ed please click on the "Recommend" check button above the title or at the end of the piece, that is in the link below, because that will keep the op-ed posted longer than otherwise.

• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113297709

My proposed title, which was supplanted for space concerns, was: "Taking Freedom From Some Takes Freedom From All."

• Below is the text of my NPR Online op-ed.

"Net Neutrality Regulations Compromise Freedoms

September 29, 2009

Just a year ago, Public Knowledge wrote a letter to the FCC in strong opposition to long distance carriers blocking phone calls from "traffic pumping" sites that the carriers alleged were fraudulently gaming/arbitraging the access charge subsidy system. 

• ("Traffic pumping" is a regulatory arbitrage scheme where some rural carriers offer specialty-websites in order to bring basically one-way traffic to an access charge financial system designed for two-way offsetting traffic. The effect is that the rural carrier/specialty-site effectively turns the carriers into a one-way ATM machine where they can take money out of the system without having to put any in.)  

Now that Google is alleged to be doing the same thing that the FCC and Public Knowledge said carriers could not do, i.e. blocking calls to these same sites, where is Public Knowledge in objecting?

• If Public Knowledge's views are principled and truly based on forwarding the public interest, it should be only a matter of time that Public Knowledge formally and strongly objects to the FCC in writing -- for Google doing the same thing that Public Knowledge strongly objected to when carriers did it.
• Principle is principle.      

   

   

   

The FCC Chairman's proposed preemptive net neutrality/open Internet regulations are unjustified.

• That's the thrust of an excellent Washington Post lead editorial today entitled: "The FCC's Heavy Hand: Federal regulators should not be telling Internet service providers how to run their businesses."

Kudos to the Post for great clarity of thought in getting right to the crux of the problem with the proposed regulations in asking the simple bottom line question: "Is this intervention necessary?"

• The editorial put a bright spotlight on an embarassing vulnerability of these proposed regulations -- that they obviously are unjustified on their face.

The Post is also dead on in exposing the severity and intrusiveness of the intervention that the FCC Chairman is proposing, despite assurances to the contrary.

• "In short, ISPs, which have poured billions of dollars into building infrastructure, would have little control -- if any -- over the kinds of information and technology flowing through their pipes."

Lastly, the editorial belies the FCC Chairman's claim that the FCC won't overreach, by accurately calling the proposed regs for what they truly are: "attempts to micromanage what has been a vibrant and well-functioning marketplace."

Simply, the old adage is true here: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

What an "Open Internet" does not mean is as important as what it does mean.

• Surely an "Open Internet" is not intended to mean what it certainly can mean: un-protected, unguarded, or vulnerable to attack. 


• Thus, it is essential for the FCC to be explicit in defining what the terms -- "Open Internet," "net neutrality," and Internet non-discrimination -- don't mean, as well as what they do mean.

The word "open" has 88 different definitions per Dictionary.com and the word "open" has even more different connotations depending on the context. While the term "open" generally has a positive connotation to mean un-restricted, accessible and available, it can also have a negative or problematic connotation if it means unprotected, unguarded or vulnerable to attack.  

For those trying to better understand some obvious, important and necessary reasons why networks need to engage in "reasonable network management" and prioritize Internet traffic to ensure quality of service for all -- please read a great post by George Ou over at Digital Society. 

Traffic prioritization is not anti-competitive or anti-openness -- its simple common sense network management.  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 21, 2009

Contact:  Scott Cleland                                                                                                  

703-217-2407

NetCompetition.org Comments on Proposed FCC Preemptive Regulation of the Internet