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FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski recently discussed a variety of issues, including Google favoritism, the iPhone, national broadband, and net neutrality.  (Source: AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)
The leader of our country's communications regulators sounds off on a variety of topics

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski holds great influence over the consumer electronics industry as chief of the organization that sets rules for the internet both in wired and wireless forms.  The FCC is looking to aggressively push net neutrality and recently made waves when an inquiry over Apple's applications rejections was opened.

In a recent interview with BusinessWeek, Chairman Genachowski sounded off on a variety of topics.  On the topic of wireless communication, he expressed concerns that internet smart phones like the iPhone or Palm Pre may be overloading current wireless spectrum capabilities.

He describes, "We've been spending time on long-term spectrum policy because the data suggest we face a spectrum gap. The demands that are being created by the [Apple] iPhone and other mobile broadband technologies threaten to outstrip the amount of spectrum available for commercial mobile, and it's important for the country that we get long-term planning right because it takes time to identify spectrum and put it on the market. We're looking at potential innovations in spectrum policy, such as secondary licensing for spectrum, and other, more creative ideas for unlicensed spectrum."

When the interview turned to Google's friendly relationship with the Obama administration and privacy concerns about the internet search giant, Mr. Genachowski denied favoritism and said that privacy wasn't an FCC issue.  He states, "I don't see any policies that are being made on the basis of any particular company. There are many privacy issues that have been raised about different companies that collect information from people who use the Internet. Those are legitimate issues, and they should be addressed. Privacy is not an issue where the FCC has much jurisdiction."

As to why one of the FCC's major goals -- providing cheap, national broadband only has received $7B USD ($150M USD per state), Mr. Genachowski remarks, "It is completely fair to say that. There is no question that it will take a lot of private investment to do what's necessary. And we're looking at what are the ways we can [provide incentives for] private investment. We've tried to lay out some cost estimates for what it would take to achieve different goals for the country. But how that investment gets made, over what time period, toward what end, and by whom is something we haven't tackled yet."

Finally, looking at net neutrality, he said that the FCC isn't looking to police the internet.  Rather, they're looking to safeguard free access, he indicates -- though there may be some exceptions to who gets this access (e.g. filesharers).  He states, "First of all, we are not regulating the Internet. What we did yesterday was launch a rule-making process where over the months ahead, we will be getting a lot of public input on what are fair, common-sense rules of the road to ensure that any small business, any entrepreneur, any speaker engaging in a lawful activity can have access to the Internet and the ability to reach an audience."

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Hmm...
By bradmshannon on 10/26/09, Rating: 0
RE: Hmm...
By amanojaku on 10/26/2009 11:24:55 AM , Rating: 3
The stated purpose of Net Neutrality is to ensure fair access for all without price discrimination. Left to their own devices ISPs would raise our fees while sticking us with fast and slow lanes. You can bet that the majority of us (i.e. people and organizations without money) would be in the slow lanes, which can only mean worse service considering "there's no money to invest in the infrastructure due to a few heavy users". The whole "fast-lane/slow-lane" thing would likely result in the "poor" sharing more and getting less bandwidth, while the "wealthy" share less and get more bandwidth. That means your line rate will have less meaning than it does today. You could buy a 10Mbit/sec connection at $50/month or a 50Mbit/sec connection at $100/month and there may not be a difference in speed unless you buy into the "high-speed tier" for heavy users, as well.

I think it's amusing that you're afraid of the government getting involved. Considering the rise in unexplained fees, not to mention the base price of services going up or switching to metering, we should expect that pricing and availability couldn’t get much worse in the government's hands. At the very least there would be one regulating entity to keep on top of: the government, instead of thousands of ISPs that are ignoring us, anyway.

I'm not usually a fan of govenment intervention, but sometimes the alternatives are much worse. I'm no idealistic fool, either: it's ALWAYS possible for things to get worse.


RE: Hmm...
By GeorgeOu on 10/26/09, Rating: -1
RE: Hmm...
By amorton20 on 10/26/2009 12:49:53 PM , Rating: 4
Hmmmm... You write for an organization funded by AT&T et al., and you take issue with net neutrality. Shocking.

http://www.digitalsociety.org/about/
http://www.artsandlabs.com/about_us/about_us.aspx


RE: Hmm...
By MadMan007 on 10/26/2009 2:49:22 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah I pushed him to -1 for that industry propaganda passing as reporting commentary. Hey Telcos, look on the bright side! With pending 'broadband rollout legislation' aka Telecom Act of 1996 part 2 you can once again rape the tax payers and do little to none of what you promised, all for the benefit of the bottom line!


RE: Hmm...
By Sivar on 10/26/2009 3:23:04 PM , Rating: 2
"Oh, he must be getting paid by ____ evil company" and avoid actually addressing the reasoning in the articles.

It's much easier than actually considering George's points.

After all, he must be wrong, because anyone that questions the gospel of Net Neutrality is a heretic and must not be listened to. That would be too scientific.

What a bandwagon.


RE: Hmm...
By GeorgeOu on 10/26/2009 5:13:53 PM , Rating: 1
I guess it's easier for you to try to silence me than trying to address all the issues that I raised. That's mighty big of you.


RE: Hmm...
By amorton20 on 10/29/2009 2:38:48 PM , Rating: 2
Whether or not you raise good points, the fact is that you are writing industry propaganda (they pay for it after all) without offering any kind of full disclosure and attempting to act as though your an independent "think tank." That's BS, plain and simple, and is certainly worth a call out.

No one is trying to silence you - your salary is paid for by some of the largest companies in the nation. You are not an independent voice going against the grain, let's not try to spin it for anything other than what it is.


RE: Hmm...
By Reclaimer77 on 10/26/2009 5:22:34 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I think it's amusing that you're afraid of the government getting involved. Considering the rise in unexplained fees, not to mention the base price of services going up or switching to metering, we should expect that pricing and availability couldn’t get much worse in the government's hands.


Not to play the chicken or the egg card, but you realize that condition only exists BECAUSE of government intervention decades ago, right ?

quote:
At the very least there would be one regulating entity to keep on top of: the government, instead of thousands of ISPs that are ignoring us, anyway.


Aren't you lucky !!! Thousands ? Thanks to the government "deregulating" i.e killing competition in the ISP market, I have ONE, yes ONE, ISP to choose from. I'm completely at their mercy. My only options are to move, or pay whatever they are charging.

Everytime the government get's involved with the free market, no matter how noble or well conceived the idea is, some unforseen setback or collapse happens. I expect Net Neutrality to be no different. It sounds great on paper.


RE: Hmm...
By NA1NSXR on 10/27/2009 2:44:17 AM , Rating: 2
Explain to me how the f you are entitled to as much bandwidth as someone with more money than you.


By Joe Tighe on 10/26/2009 12:17:41 PM , Rating: 2
Net Neutrality legislation is not needed. Consumers would have less choice and higher costs. Internet service providers would incur additional costs and compliance overhead. Taxpayers would pay higher taxes to create and support additional government oversight organizations.

What business and consumers need is effective interpretation, oversight and enforcement of existing laws and regulations.
The US government is proposing broad new regulations for telecommunications and cable internet service providers.

The new proposals appear to target specific providers for regulation and government oversight. Specifically, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has proposed the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, or the “Net Neutrality” bill, outlining government policies to impose new governance and restrictions targeting telecommunications and cable providers AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and Comcast.

The proposed is based on the unfounded fear that service providers will “control who can and cannot offer content, services and applications over the Internet utilizing such networks.”

The Markey bill indicates the vast majority of consumers receive services from only one or two dominant internet service providers. And, the bill says the national economy could be harmed “if” these providers interfered with access to internet applications.

The bill proposes regulations imposing equal treatment (eg price/performance) of all internet traffic and content, regardless of content type and delivery costs. Specifically, the legislation proposes internet service providers could not sell prioritized internet applications or services.

The first problem with the proposed legislation is the lack of recognition of costs to provide internet services. Some applications, such as video are bandwidth hogs and require significantly greater network infrastructure and associated costs to deliver when compared to the network infrastructure costs to deliver email access. Under the proposed legislation, services providers would have to charge the low bandwidth users (casual browsers and email readers) more to offset the higher costs of the video users. One result of the proposed legislation would be less consumer choice and a hidden “bandwidth hog tax”. Today, most service providers offer tiered products and pricing to consumers and businesses to account for the additional costs to deliver bandwidth intensive applications. You pay more if you use more under the tiered pricing model. These are not “discriminatory” practices. Rather, tiered pricing and application prioritization are sound business models delivering reliable, profitable product choices and unburdened internet ecommerce. Consumers and businesses currently have choices. The proposed legislation takes away choice and increases costs to consumers and businesses.

The second problem is, certain applications such as voice and video over the internet require prioritization and special treatment to work properly. The proposed legislation makes existing application prioritization products and networking practices illegal. Internet service providers would have to dismantle these services to make all internet applications “equal” with no prioritization schema. The new legislation would kill off reliable voice and video over the internet as we know it.

The third problem with the Net Neutrality legislation is anti-trust and federal trade regulations are already in place to protect consumers and business from monopolistic practices and unfair trade. For example, when AT&T disconnected MCI customers in 1974, MCI filed and won a successful anti-trust lawsuit resulting in breakup of the AT&T monopoly. Another example is, the Federal Trade Commission recently investigated possible antitrust violations caused by the Apple and Google sharing two board directors. Arthur Levinson has since stepped down from both Apple and Google boards.

The US government would better use taxpayer dollars and valuable legislation time by asking two questions:

Which companies are hiring lobbyists and launching advertising campaigns promoting Net Neutrality legislation?

What is their agenda?

Disclosure – Joe Tighe has no paid relationships, products or endorsements from any company, political or government organization cited in this article.




By inperfectdarkness on 10/26/2009 2:24:40 PM , Rating: 1
The first "problem is bogus". tiered pricing would remain in place. "light use" internet subscribers can easily select lower speed tiers which are almost invariably based on older technology/infrastructure. it is not the subscribers that take the hit--it's the companies that do business via internet. lack of net neutrality will result in mega-corporations running every start-up into the ground--simply based on access speed.

The second problem is also bogus. that prioritization happens on the end-user level. if there isn't enough bandwidth to stream effectively--that's not the same as being prioritized. video streams could be MUCH more effectively cached than they are currently. real-time audio/video doesn't take up a large amount of bandwidth on low-resolution, low-quality settings. this argument is really just smoke & mirrors tossed about by ISP's to scare people into opposing net neutrality.

The third argument you made is so blatently wrong--i'm having trouble deciding where to begin debunking it. there is a DE-FACTO monopoloy on internet service in the vast majority of the continential united states. if you wish to argue that dial-up is a viable alternative to broadband--i invite you to castrate yourself. NOW.

the problem with this last argument is that anti-trust doesn't fly in this case. for what reason that is--i'm not entirely sure. ISP's somehow manage to cry foul and put the kibosh on municipal internet services; yet they don't ever successfully get slapped with anti-trust/anti-competitive practice lawsuits. to me, it smells of legislators and bureaucrats being in the back pockets of ISP's.


By BigPeen on 10/26/2009 4:17:36 PM , Rating: 2
Less choice? Seriously? Everywhere I've lived in the past 5 years I've only had 1 choice for broadband or cable service providers. How can I have less than one? (Don't tell me none for god's sake I'll punch through the screen)


Braindead
By Reclaimer77 on 10/26/2009 5:29:22 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
There is no question that it will take a lot of private investment to do what's necessary. And we're looking at what are the ways we can [provide incentives for] private investment. We've tried to lay out some cost estimates for what it would take to achieve different goals for the country. But how that investment gets made, over what time period, toward what end, and by whom is something we haven't tackled yet."


God these people are just braindead. I feel like I'm surrounded by such hopeless incompetence on a daily basis.

The only "incentive" that matters for private investments is whether or not something will provide a return on their investment idiot. So ask yourself, why has nobody in the private sector done this already ? Especially under an Administration that seems to make an enemy out of anyone who makes a profit. I'll give you a hint, they aren't sitting there waiting for you to "provide incentives". They are waiting for you to get the hell out of the way so we can get back to business and running this country in the manner that actually WORKS.

If it makes money, they tax it. If it keeps making money, they regulate it. If it stops making money, they subsidize it.




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