Martin Open-Minded on Carterfone Rule for Wireless
Chmn. Martin indicated Fri. he’s considering proposing Carterfone-style rules for wireless networks, indicating to reporters after the FCC meeting in Harrisburg, Pa. that he hasn’t reached any conclusions. The FCC must strike an “appropriate balance” between innovation by equipment makers and investment by carriers in their networks, Martin said. He drew parallels to cable telephony, where the FCC is also considering imposing Carterfone requirements: “We're now in the process of making sure we can do that on the cable side… With wireless it depends to some degree on competition among the wireless networks.”
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Skype last week asked the FCC to impose Carterfone requirements on wireless carriers, giving subscribers the right to attach any device of their choosing to a wireless network. Wireless net neutrality has been getting increasing attention in recent weeks. Tim Wu of Columbia U. Law School proposed Carterfone requirements for wireless in a paper released at an FTC summit on broadband competition policy (CD Feb 15 p3). In 1968, the FCC decided that a subscriber should be allowed to attach a Carterfone, a 2-way mobile radio system, or other device to the PSTN, if it can’t damage the network.
“We are pleased the chairman is open to considering this issue. Innovation is the cornerstone of the Commission’s Carterfone policy,” said Chris Libertelli, Skype senior dir.-govt. & regulatory affairs: “It has been wildly successful in the wireline context and we are confident that it will maximize consumer choice in wireless, and on cable networks. The tech industry is united around this basic connectivity principle.”
But Michael Altschul, gen. counsel at CTIA, stressed the differences between the 1968 wireline landscape and today’s wireless world. “At so many levels Carterfone is just not appropriate,” he said: “Carterfone was adopted in an environment where you had a single monopoly provider that was vertically integrated both in the manufacture and provision of handsets and services… Now you have 4 national carriers, another 100 carriers, a robust handset market, new providers coming into the handset business.”