Telecom & Technology: All Articles and Books

Is There "Hope" for Shepard Fairey?

Erin Drankoski — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:03:00 -0400

Shepard Fairey may have hoped to teach something new about art and copyright with his iconic "Hope" poster of Barack Obama. Instead, he is accused of lyring about which Associated Press photo he used. (He says he made a mistake.) But if Fairey's lying has probably made a hash of his case and lost him a lawyer, it has also raised that pesky question yet again: Just what is fair use? Was it legal for Fairey to take an AP photo and turn it into this piece of artwork?

Save the Google Book Search Deal!

Erin Drankoski — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:00:00 -0400

There is a movement afoot to kill the Google Book Search deal. That's the settlement between Google, American publishers, and the Authors Guild to relaunch Google's book search, which would allow for new digital access to out-of-print books, free of legal problems. Microsoft warns that Google and America's publishers are "misusing the judicial system" to create a "monopoly in digital books." It is joined

Subsidizing Creativity through Network Design: Zero-Pricing and Net Neutrality

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:58:00 -0400

Code Red

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:00:00 -0400

The central contention of Barack Obama's vision for health care reform is straightforward: that our health care system today is so wasteful and poorly organized that it is possible to lower costs, expand access, and raise quality all at the same time--and even have money left over at the end to help pay for other major programs, from bank bailouts to high-speed rail.

And Data for All

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:35:00 -0400

The Obama administration's most radical idea may also be its geekiest: Make nearly every hidden government spreadsheet and buried statistic available online, all in one place. For anyone to see. Are you searching for a Food and Drug Administration report that used to be obtainable only through the Freedom of Information Act? Just a mouseclick away. Need National Institutes of Health studies and school testing scores? Click. Census data, nonclassified Defense Department specs, obscure Securities and Exchange Commission files, prison statistics? Click click. Click. Click.

Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:57:00 -0400

As though we don't have enough to be afraid of already, what with armed lunatics mowing down military recruiters and doctors, the H1N1 flu virus, the collapse of bee populations, rising sea levels, failed and flailing states, North Korea being North Korea, al-Qaeda wannabes in New York State with terrorist aspirations, and who knows what else -- now cyberjihadis are evidently poised to steal our online identities, hack into our banks, take over our Flickr and Facebook accounts, and create havoc on the World Wide Web.

The Need for Speed

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:41:00 -0400

The World Wide Webbed: The Obama Campaign’s Masterful Use of the Internet

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:55:00 -0400

Future Tense: Radical Revolution

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:57:00 -0400

In 1913, the U.S. Government prosecuted Lee De Forest for telling investors that his company, RCA, would soon be able to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic. This claim was so preposterous, prosecutors asserted, that he was obviously swindling potential investors. He was ultimately released, but not before being lectured by the judge to stop making any more fraudulent claims.

Smithsonian Click-n-Drags Itself Forward

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:36:00 -0500

The Smithsonian has decided this whole online contraption may not be a fad after all.

Over the weekend it invited 31 luminaries of the digital age to talk with what the institution hopes are its most energetic thought leaders. The subject: dragging the world's greatest museum complex into the current century.

No small task.

The Plot to Kill Google

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:04:00 -0500

When Google's lawyers entered the smooth marble hallways of the Department of Justice on the morning of October 17, they had reason to feel confident. Sure, they were about to face the antitrust division--an experience most companies dread--to defend a proposed deal with Yahoo. But they had to like their chances. In the previous seven years, only one of the mergers that had been brought here had been opposed. And Google wasn't even requesting a full merger. It just wanted the go-ahead to pursue a small deal that it was convinced would benefit consumers, the two companies, and the

An Agenda for Obama's CTO

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:50:00 -0500

President-elect Barack Obama has promised to appoint the world's first governmental Chief Technology Officer (CTO). On its transition Web site, www.change.gov, the incoming Administration has published a list of goals for the soon-to-be anointed CTO: broadband expansion, boosting science/tech education, health-care computerization, patent reform, and e-government.

iGov

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:29:00 -0500

Barack Obama has said we need a "Google for government." It's a nice line, but what does it mean? Federal agencies have been online since the mid-'90s. Obama's first crack at a Google-for-government law led to USAspending.gov, a budget tracker that looked like everything else the feds had put up on the Web--until I saw one geek-speak phrase on the home page, so small I almost missed it: API Documentation. To understand its significance, let me tell you how I got subway schedules on my iPhone.

Life, Liberty and Connectivity for All

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:05:00 -0500

We live in a civil society - a place where primary education is freely available to all, where anyone can enjoy a walk through our public parks or down our sidewalks and freely drive through the streets. Libraries across the country loan out books for free - literature that you can read on a spring day in our parks or beneath the streetlights on main street on a warm summer's evening. You don't have to tip the firemen who show up at your house or pay for police protection - in a civil society, public safety is freely available to everyone.

The New New Media

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:44:00 -0500

The first time Jonathan Zittrain gave a speech on the future of computing, he greatly surprised his audience. The year was 1985, and Zittrain was a magazine columnist and the "system operator" of an online forum for users of Texas Instruments computers. As a leading figure in the community, Zittrain was invited to speak at a big convention in Chicago. The surprise was that Zittrain had recently turned fifteen. No one had ever met him in person: when he was appointed system operator, sight unseen, he was thirteen.

A Glimmer In The Global Gloom?

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:18:00 -0500

Over a long and satisfying string of holiday parties, I've been gauging the mood of friends and acquaintances in New York regarding the economic climate we've only half-jokingly come to call "The Depression." Because an unusually large number of my friends are in the arts, media, academia, the law and finance, I'm fully confident that I'm getting a badly distorted view of the coming crunch. These are, after all, the hardest hit sectors. One wag joked that we all belong to the "parasite class," and that the

FCC Approves White Space Devices

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:42:00 -0500

Yesterday will go down in history as a bellwether moment. Few among us will soon forget the excitement of Obama's election. But there was an equally historic vote yesterday that for geeks, policy analysts, and technologists represents an entirely new trajectory in telecommunications. In essence, the FCC has begun the transition from command-and-control, single-user spectrum licensure to a more distributed system that holds the potential to eliminate the artificial scarcity that prevented widespread access to the public airwaves since 1927.

Yesterday, the FCC ruled that unlicensed white space devices would be allowed to operate on unused television channels--allowing an entirely new generation of technological innovation to begin. While the official order has not been release, here's the information that's been gleaned thus far (please note that this is tentative information and until the official Report and Order is issued by the FCC, while unlikely, is subject to change):

Both fixed and personal portable devices will be allowed. So look for base stations on cell towers as well as next generation PDAs and multi-media devices.
Personal portable devices will be allowed to operate at power levels up to 40mW.
On non-adjacent channels (i.e., where you have three unoccupied TV channels in a row, this would be the middle channel), higher power levels will be allowed (up to 100mW).
Unlicensed wireless microphones will not receive priority status except, potentially, on channels 2-4. On all other channels (through to channel 51), all devices will share secondary status to primary broadcasters (e.g., television stations and licensed microphones).
A geolocational database will back up spectrum sensing capabilities to ensure WSDs do not operate in restricted areas. Left unclear is whether licensed wireless microphone users will be allowed to exempt their venue from WSD use and whether this would also allow for unlicensed wireless microphone users to do likewise.
A Notice of Inquiry will be launched by the FCC to investigate higher-powered use as an additional service in areas with few digital TV stations. This would facilitate backhaul capabilities for Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) and other service providers.

I first started working on this proceeding back in 2004. After years of work, and an ever-increasing amount of time and energy spent on this battle, I can honestly say that I'm amazed by how successful this work has proven. At the same time, much like the presidential election, this win provides only the opportunity for amazing new innovations and services and much work remains. We need to work with performing arts groups to ensure that they have access to the technologies they need to carry out their work. And we need to work with wireless ISPs and allied organizations to ensure that they have the resources they need to continue spreading connectivity to underserved communities across the country. Finally, though the foundation has been set, the most important battle is yet to come--opening up all underutilized bands for opportunistic spectrum reuse.

I expect a multi-pronged approach to what lies ahead. I've already begun talks with WISP allies to follow up on the FCC's announced NOI. Likewise, I'm hopeful that folks I've been talking with for months within the performing arts community will see the FCC's decision as a good reason to collaborate on future joint efforts. In the interim, I am working with my colleague, Victor Pickard, on opening up debate on opportunistic spectrum reuse--starting with government spectrum. Our revamped working paper should be out in the near future, laying out a policy agenda for what needs to be done at the down of the age of opportunistic spectrum reuse.

Here's the FCC's press release as well as Commissioners' statements: Martin Statement; Copps Statement;Adelstein Statement; Tate Statement; McDowell Statement

Broadband Data Improvement Act Passes Senate, House, A.K.A. Find Why U.S. is on Continuous Decline

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:34:00 -0400

In a major win for the public interest, the Broadband Data Improvement Act passed the Senate (on September 26th) and the House (on September 29th). Due to amendments, it now goes back to the Senate for final approval (should be pro-forma) before it lands on George Bush's desk.

With the United States falling further and further behind a host of other countries, the question on many people's minds (including the folks over at Point-Topic who created this graphic) is, "Why is this happening?"

Yes, that's the United States, chugging along ever closer to the bottom of the pack.

Senator Inouye and Congressman Markey have been pushing for the passage of this bill for quite some time--resurrecting the idea from congress to congress. The Act, with its explicit purpose "To improve the quality of Federal and State data regarding the availability and quality of broadband services and to promote the deployment of affordable broadband services to all parts of the Nation." has drawn widespread opposition from telcos who've claimed that our current data collection efforts are "good enough." Full text of the Act can be found here.

Among its mandates, the Broadband Data Improvement Act requires that:

Demographic Information for Unserved Areas- As part of the inquiry required by subsection (b), the Commission shall compile a list of geographical areas that are not served by any provider of advanced telecommunications capability (as defined by section 706(c)(1) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (47 U.S.C. 157nt note)) and to the extent that data from the Census Bureau is available, determine, for each such unserved area

(1) the population;
(2) the population density; and
(3) the average per capita income.

For those of us studying the digital divide, these data will provide much-needed information about the nature of underserved communities. Of course, they could also paint a damning picture of systematic, institutionalized redlining of poor and rural constituencies.

The Act also calls for an in-depth international comparison of broadband service levels, speeds, and pricing. 75 communities in 25 countries, matched "to the extent possible [by] population size, population density, topography, and demographic profile...comparable to the population size, population density, topography, and demographic profile of various communities within the United States" will be assessed.

Even more importantly, the Act requires a "Consumer Survey of Broadband Service Capability"--in other words, it requires collection of real-world information on what's happening with broadband services in the United states. According to the Act:

For the purpose of evaluating, on a statistically significant basis, the national characteristics of the use of broadband service capability, the Commission shall conduct and make public periodic surveys of consumers in urban, suburban, and rural areas in the large business, small business, and residential consumer markets to determine

(A) the types of technology used to provide the broadband service capability to which consumers subscribe;
(B) the amounts consumers pay per month for such capability;
(C) the actual data transmission speeds of such capability;
(D) the types of applications and services consumers most frequently use in conjunction with such capability;
(E) for consumers who have declined to subscribe to broadband service capability, the reasons given by such consumers for declining such capability;
(F) other sources of broadband service capability which consumers regularly use or on which they rely; and
(G) any other information the Commission deems appropriate for such purpose.

Along with requirements to investigate how best to collect a host of different metrics and a mandate for states to likewise engage in broadband data collection efforts, the Broadband Data Improvement Act represents an important step forward in addressing the broadband market failure gripping the United States. Though the Act's loopholes may yet allow for further obfuscation of critically important data, overall, this Act adds a great deal of momentum to efforts to increase digital inclusion and foster universal, affordable broadband access.

How Fast You Can Read This Essay Online

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:58:00 -0400

John McCain is an AT&T guy; Barack Obama is a Google guy. And that's one of the most important policy differences between the two.

Think of the Internet as working at different layers. There are all the pipes that go into your home, and then there's all the stuff on your screen--from e-mail to eMule. The telecom companies like AT&T control the pipes; the software companies, like Google, create the stuff.

In an ideal world, both these layers would be sites of great innovation and creativity. But in the United States, that isn't so. The software industry may seem like a team of Gandalfs, constantly producing magic. But the average telecom company resembles Jabba the Hut: it moves slowly and slobbers a lot.

The United States created the Internet, but it's the rest of the world that can really use it. People in Japan are twice as likely as Americans to have broadband connections, and their pipes are ten times as fast. Compared to France, U.S. Internet access is twice as expensive and one-fourth as quick. Since 2000, the United States has gone from fifth in the world to twenty-second in broadband penetration. We have become a nation of buffering YouTube videos.

What went wrong? It's not that telecommunications companies are inherently lazy. Such companies innovate, after all, in East Asia. And it's not just that the United States is a big rural country. That explains some of our lag, but not all. Canada and Australia are thumping us too.

The real reason things went wrong is that we haven't regulated our telecom markets properly. And that's where John McCain comes in.

The problem is primarily the lack of competition among Internet providers. In most places, you have, at best, two choices--the local cable company or the local phone company. And these behemoths know that they don't have to worry about new competitors. With the government's help, they spent decades digging up roads and building lines into everyone's home, creating an infrastructure that no start-up can replicate. Now they sit, fat and happy, neglecting customer service and innovating about as much each year as Google does each Tuesday.

John McCain's culpability is both specific and philosophical. For much of the Clinton and Bush administrations, he chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, overseeing the Federal Communications Commission and the telecom industry. Just before taking the post, he voted against the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the one big effort to solve the problem of anemic competition in the telecom sector. When the act nevertheless passed, he helped to make sure that its main provision for opening the market--mandating that phone companies lease their local lines to competitors--wasn't enforced. Eventually, he, and the people he put on the FCC, helped to roll that law back. France, by contrast, implemented and enforced just the kind of law that McCain opposed. And now the country mocked here for its thirty-five-hour workweek is far more wired than the United States.

As committee chair, McCain also oversaw, and often encouraged, the incredible competition-stifling consolidation in the telecom industry. The country is now served almost entirely by three local phone, four cellular, and four cable companies. In his tenure as chairman, McCain supported nearly every merger. In 1999, he coauthored a bill that would strip the FCC of its ability to veto telecom mergers.

McCain's mistakes derive partly from a lack of technological curiosity (he doesn't use e-mail) and the presence of all sorts of Bell guys around him. His campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, Senate chief of staff, and chief political adviser have all worked as lobbyists for Verizon or AT&T.

But more blame lies with his philosophy. McCain espouses what he calls a deep belief in free markets and in keeping government off the backs of business. That's all well and good, except for when a market--like telecommunications--requires intervention in order to create competition. Unrestricted freedom for the big guy often means death to the little guy.

Given McCain's poor record on the issue, Obama could ignore the topic and still come out ahead. But the forty-seven-year-old, it turns out, is something of a geek. He presented a sweeping technology plan early in the campaign that is full of good ideas. He suggested that the government create the post of national "chief technical officer." He proposed taking the money that is now used to subsidize rural telephone use, and spending it on subsidizing rural broadband instead. Not only would people and businesses get Internet access; they'd be able to switch to vastly cheaper Internet phones. Not surprisingly, Obama has won over Silicon Valley. According to opensecrets.org, 555 employees of Google have donated to his campaign, compared to just twenty-six for McCain. When the author of McCain's technology plan, Michael Powell, was pressed to name supporters from the tech world, he came up with the name of one person who's actually written code--and then it turned out that guy didn't even support McCain.

Obama also clearly gets that government has an ongoing role to play in making sure markets work--a fact reflected in the debate over net neutrality. The question here is whether the telecom companies can discriminate over the kind of information that flows over their pipes. AT&T, the other telecom companies, and McCain argue that of course they should. They own the pipes, and in a free market they should be free to do whatever they want. Obama's position is: Hold on a minute. Do we really want the phone and cable companies deciding what kind of software people can use? Do we really want Comcast to, say, decide to start monkeying with your ability to access iTunes.com or Vonage?

Obama, in other words, understands that actual market freedom sometimes requires tough love from the feds. McCain still seems to believe in the chimera of naturally existing total freedom--the freedom for his country to fall further and further behind as AT&T and the other telecom leviathans sit back, ignoring your customer service calls and just watching the $90 monthly checks roll in.

It's Official: China Now Has More Broadband Lines than the United States

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:19:00 -0400

It was just last year that those of us raising alarms about the massive half-decade market failure in the United States to adequately provision broadband services were facing a misinformation campaign that raw numbers mattered more than percentage rankings. According to this argument, the U.S. broadband market was sound because we had more broadband lines than anyone else.

The misinformation brigade got so much attention (mainly due to incumbents funding a propaganda campaign that "everything is fine here, nothing to see"), that public interest groups had to issue reports systematically refuting the PR are marketing hype. In fact, Free Press issued a point-by-point rebuttal, "'Shooting the Messenger' Myth vs. Reality: U.S. Broadband Policy and International Broadband Rankings”--and myth #3 was:

The OECD's reporting is suspect because they don't emphasize the total number of connections. If they did, they'd see that the United States is No. 1 because we have more lines than any other country in the world.

As Derek Turner, the report's author, rightfully concluded:

The United States is the largest country in the OECD, and the third-largest country in the world. Reporting the total number of connections is meaningless without context. Lines per-capita or lines per household is the proper way to conduct comparisons.

Defenders of the broadband status quo often argue that the penetration data doesn't matter, because the United States is No. 1 in total number of connections. In his recent speech, Commissioner McDowell said, "The [OECD] study does not emphasize the fact that the United States is simply the largest broadband market in the world with over 58 million subscribers, according to the OECD report—more than twice the number of America's closest competitor."

This is true. But it is not a meaningful critique of the comparative performance of nations on a per capita basis. Using this logic, we could say the United States has more unemployed people than any other country in the OECD, including developing economies like Mexico, so therefore the U.S. economy must be in the tank. But when viewed through the sensible per capita lens, which accounts for country population, the United States has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the entire OECD.
The argument that relatively poor U.S. performance is excused by the total number of broadband lines irrespective of population is misleading. Looking from another angle, China now has almost as many broadband connections as the United States and will likely overtake us this year. But China has four times as many people as the United States. Our household adoption rate is nearly four-times higher than China's. When China overtakes us in the raw number of connections, we will rightly not point to the Chinese as the world leaders in broadband performance.

And here we are, one year later, and the headline last week was, "China Overtakes U.S. In Number Of Broadband Lines." The original critique certainly holds--raw numbers of broadband lines are not a good indicator of the health of a country's broadband market. But when free market institutes are still touting the health of the U.S. broadband market, I can't help but wonder, how bad does a market have to fail before certain people agree that it isn't doing so well? As with the all-too-obvious comparison with the U.S. financial market (which McCain was touting as fundamentally sound in mid-September), the U.S. broadband market is fundamentally and dangerously problematic.

The end result? Even with a major stimulus, it will take years for the United States to achieve parity (much less pull ahead) of our global competitors. The United States is currently at a competitive disadvantage in a digital economy--the best thing we can do is to launch a broadband bailout now. Otherwise, we'll be paying far more, and achieving far less, down the road.