Tech Policy

I'm wearing my Bell Labs t-shirt today. That—and some recent press articles—have me thinking about telco innovation.

First, a June 7 article in the New York Times reports that the original Bell Labs facility in Holmdel, New Jersey is being sold to a real estate developer to be demolished. This great industrial lab has given us amazing discoveries from the the first (bipolar junction) transistor to theories of the origin of the universe. Today's open source software movement has its basis in the Unix Operating System, developed at the labs. Engadget (taking a break from their usual gizmo-porn) published a great retrospective that expresses the enormity of the loss.

Maybe we should just write off the loss as a vestige of the old Bell System. For today's vital research and innovation, maybe we should look not towards the remains of the old Western Electric, but rather to the vibrant and vigorous Baby Bells.

Last week, Business Week published an article that suggests the phone companies don't do much innovation at all. Sometimes it seems like phone company innovation is limited to creating the business processes that assemble blocks of technology invented by others. The article suggests that if you want to see who is doing exciting work in industrial research you should be looking at Google, not SBC (now renamed AT&T). Maybe that's why Vint Cerf and Rob Pike jumped from telcos to Google.

I think innovation is an important element of the net neutrality debate. The telcos claim that laissez faire regulation of Internet will foster innovation. I disagree. That policy almost certainly will lead to replacing the open, neutral Internet with a tiered network.

One of the most important benefits of net neutrality is that an open Internet allows thousands of organizations to innovate. As you start imposing tiering barriers, you have fewer and fewer organization able to participate, thus fewer able to innovate. Eventually you reach the point of a closed network (like cell phones) where the only organization that can deploy innovation is the network provider.

I don't like the idea of a non-neutral network where the phone companies can control who is allowed to innovate. After reading the Business Week article, I wonder if there would be much innovation at all on a tiered Internet. After all, how many innovations like transistors or Unix have you seen come out of SBC or Verizon?

Tonight, I sat down with Ruth Epstein of the local ACLU to record an interview on threats to public access television. The topic of the session was "Endangered Access TV." The program will air later this month on (appropriately enough) public access television.

She previously interviewed PACT Austin Executive Director Linda Litowsky and outreach coordinator Stefan Wray, and I'll be very interested to hear what they had to say. I'll post when I found out when it will air.

She was looking for direction on what the state ACLU could do on this issue, and I fear that she wasn't satisfied with my answer of "wait and see." There certainly are issues with the state telecom reform legislation (SB 5) passed last year, but that could be preempted by federal legislation. I think we need to wait until the end of the session in Washington and then decide where to go.

One of the most disheatening things about all the astroturf groups that lobby for telecom legislation is their effectiveness in controlling the media story. So, I was delighted to see an article from telecom industry analyst (and activist) Bruce Kushnick come in over the wire:

Bruce Kushnick writes that both telecom bills before Congress would be huge giveaways to the very same telecommunications giants that have in the past pocketed massive government subsidies while shafting consumers and knee-capping American competitiveness. But they've taken very good care of members of Congress.

Read the full article over at Harvard University's Neiman foundation.

Important: if you think more people should see Bruce's article, then go here and Digg it.

As I mentioned yesterday, Sen. Ron Wyden is putting a hold on telecom legislation over the lack of net neutrality protections. If you are from Oregon, please consider contacting Sen. Wyden to express your support in this matter.

On Wednesday, the Stevens telecom bill moved out of committee and on to the full U.S. Senate. There is much not to like about this bill, from allowing build-out discrimination to mandating copy-protection technology. The most discussed, most controversial aspect, by far, is net neutrality protections.

The current Internet is content and provider neutral. The large providers like AT&T have indicated a desire to move to a tiered access model, which allows them to "double dip": charging both ends of the connection for the same content. Not to get all chicken little about it, but tiered access really does mean the end of the Internet as we know it.

Sen. Olympia Snow offered an amendment to the legislation to protect net neutrality. The amendment failed on an 11-11 tie vote.

This is a particularly sad day for Texans, because Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison sat on this committee. Her vote could have assured an open and neutral Internet. Instead, she voted the telco position to permit tiered access.

Here is another Texas take on the issue.

The good news is that the telco-funded initiative may be faltering. They won by a landslide in the House. This week, their margin was cut to a whisker. Sen. Ron Wyden has threatened to put a hold on the telecom legislation over this issue. So there is increasing hope the big telco grab can be stopped.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation is scheduled to vote tomorrow on the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. (The "Phone Company Welfare Act of 2006" would be more truthful.) Senator Hutchison sits on this committee.

Dear Senator Hutchison,

Re: problems with S. 2686, the Communications, Consumers Choice and Broadband Deployment Act.

There are significant problems with S. 2686 that I hope can be remedied in committee. Your consideration of these matters would be greatly appreciated.

1. Net Neutrality - the providers of broadband access should not be allowed to utilize their duopoly position to discriminate on the basis of content or services. Innovative services such as Google, Ebay, and blogging occur because of the open nature of the platform. Don't allow the Internet to be like cellular phone service, where the access providers leverage their control to limit third party innovation.

2. Broadcast Flag - copy and content protection should be implemented through innovation, not legislation. And it certainly doesn't belong in a telecommunications bill. The broadcast and audio flag provisions are anti-consumer and anti-innovation and should not be snuck through the back door.

3. USF - we need a strong Universal Service Fund, but proposed expansions threaten to turn it into the worst form of corporate welfare. Please ensure that USF is administered fairly, and the intended purpose of basic access for all.

4. Local Provisions - there are a number of proposed amendments that would be greatly harmful to local communities. Please oppose provisions that would rollback franchise fees and PEG funding. Please support strengthened build-out and anti-redlining requirements.

Earlier this week I posted a blog entry about the strength of lobbyists in the Texas capital. I also implied a connection to the Telecom Deregulation bill that passed during last year's "school finance" special session.

Turns out the San Antonio Express News followed up the next day with the explicit point that SBC more or less bought their way into telecom reform. The article discusses how SBC (now AT&T) swarmed the capitol and got their way.

During the 2005 session, AT&T spent more than any other San Antonio-based entity to lobby state lawmakers. It dished out between $3.4 million and $7 million on contracts with 112 lobbyists, according to Texas Ethics Commission records.

There are 31 members of the Texas Senate and 150 of the House of Representatives, meaning lobbyists for AT&T and other SB 5 supporters — among them, fellow telecom Verizon Communications — nearly had a one-to-one ratio with legislators.

The thing is, it doesn't stop in Texas. AT&T is now going to the other statehouses and the federal government saying, "Look what Texas has done." That's a heck of a lot of bang for their lobbying investement.

The full article is here.

Last year, the Governor called legislators into special session to deal with school finance. Instead, we wound up with telecom deregulation. Wonder how that happened?

The San Antonio Express-New just posted an excellent article the power of monied lobying interests here in Texas. The saddest thing: while lobbyist influence is coming under the microscope in Washington, it's biddness as usual here in Texas.

The potential for abuse is enormous, and the state agency in charge of monitoring lobbyists has received 1,500 sworn complaints since its founding in 1992. However, the Texas Ethics Commission has never conducted a complete audit or subpoenaed a single document, or subpoenaed and met with a witness in person.

Since 1992, the commission has initiated only one sworn complaint, has conducted one formal hearing and has not forwarded a single case to a law enforcement agency for criminal prosecution, the commission acknowledged.

Jack Abramoff may have made Washington lobbying a bad word, but that hasn't put a dent in the lobby's influence in Texas.

The full article is here.

Update: There are people trying to do something about it.

I serve on the City of Austin Telecommunications Commission. We are trying to change our name to "Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission" and reorient our charter away from regulated services (which are becoming less a local issue) to broader information and communications technology issues.

Here is a statement I gave yesterday on the matter, to the City Council Subcommittee on Emerging Technologies and Telecommunications.

If you are a Texan, you probably can't forget the dueling ad campaigns between the phone companies and cable companies during the last legislative session. In the end, a telecom reform bill was passed (during the special session that was supposed to be for school finance) that pretty much gave the phone companies what they wanted.

Whups! It irritates me when people portray the issue as cable versus phone companies, and I just did it myself. Although they were the ones throwing money into TV commercials, there was a surprinsing range of grass roots and industry groups interested in this legislation—all opposed. Nobody supported it but the phone companies and the "think tanks" they fund. But it passed. Grass roots groups are unhappy. Municipalities are suing. It was a very bad, widely reviled bill.