FCC commissioners agreed an open Internet has been key to promoting free speech but voiced sharp divisions on possible consequences of federal network neutrality rules, in an FCC net neutrality workshop Tuesday. Meanwhile, AT&T sent Chairman Julius Genachowski a letter highlighting areas of consensus it sees between advocates and opponents of new rules. Officials from CTIA and Public Knowledge also cited some conditional agreement.
A fight over call routing services that reduce the cost of prisoner phone calls but are allegedly unsafe flared this week and last in industry communications with the FCC. In meetings last week, VoIP provider Millicorp told the FCC its service ConsCallHome poses no security risk to jails, and prison telcos’ blocking of the service violates federal law. Prison telco Securus disputed the statements in an ex-parte letter to the FCC late Monday. Securus and many prisons back a federal ban (CD Sept 14 p8) of call routing services like ConsCallHome, while Millicorp wants an Enforcement Bureau investigation of ongoing call blocking by Securus and others.
Using the Internet for elections raises serious security and privacy concerns, said technologists and others in comments at the FCC on a National Broadband Plan public notice on digital democracy. While many supported webcasting of government meetings, some warned that putting any government process on the Web risks disenfranchising people without broadband access. And counties said they opposed national mandates.
Governments of all sizes must come together to bridge the digital divide, said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at an FCC workshop Wednesday on spurring broadband use among minorities and other underserved communities. Federal, state and local governments each do certain things right, Clyburn said. “If we recognize where our strengths are, where our abilities are, and recognize that no man is an island [and] it’s going to take all of us to uplift all of us, then indeed we have an opportunity to get it right,” she said.
The FCC broadband task force is considering some cuts for the Universal Service Fund that it will recommend in the National Broadband Plan due in February, a commission official said Wednesday. The FCC wants to change the focus of USF to broadband, but realizes simply adding broadband as a supported service would raise the already exorbitant contribution factor that carriers use to pay into the fund, the official said. Commissioners haven’t seen the proposals, but some industry players are already sounding alarm bells. FCC eighth floor staff were briefed on several aspects of the broadband plan as it is evolving late Wednesday, but were asked not to share the details.
Network management will be critical for dealing with network congestion for the foreseeable future, broadband industry officials told the FCC at an all-day workshop Tuesday. The forum was the commission’s first for its network neutrality rulemaking. Academics said the FCC may need to watch how ISPs use management tools. The FCC should avoid “heavy-handed regulation,” but it shouldn’t encourage anti-competitive technologies and business practices, said K.C. Claffy, a professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Free Press and big broadband providers drew different conclusions about future broadband investment and competition from a broadband report requested by the FCC for its National Broadband Plan, written by the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI). In comments Friday, companies said the study highlighted significant industry investment, while Free Press said it showed consumers “are faced with slow speeds, high prices and few choices.” Meanwhile, the Satellite Industry Association objected to the report’s assessment of the quality of satellite broadband.
Health care providers and the telecom industry urged changes to universal service rules, as the FCC collected comment Friday on how broadband helps health care delivery. Some urged more spectrum allocation and renewed calls for a national public safety wireless network. All said broadband is key to providing better health care.
Increasing the number of telecom competitors has historically reduced consumer complaints, Georgetown University professor John Mayo said at a forum at the school. A 10 percent increase in the number of entrants reduces complaints 8 percent on average, he said. Research about customer satisfaction in telecom should take into account that not all consumers respond to poor service the same way, Mayo said. Some complain, some switch providers, and some “suffer in silence,” he said. The rise of the iPhone and other smartphones has created envy among users of more basic devices, said CTIA Research Vice President Robert Roche. People who get basic handsets at no extra charge with service contracts tend to be more dissatisfied with their phone’s features than customers who pay for basic phones, he said. Roche said a common complaint by smartphone owners relates to how quickly providers release new applications. Many carriers roll out apps slowly to reduce the risk of capacity crunches, he said. “It’s almost a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ phenomenon.” Consumer complaints about iPhone exclusivity “seem to be a case of an embarrassment of riches,” Mayo said. “If the iPhone were less successful, we would have had less complaining about this.” AT&T’s exclusive for the device has prompted imitation by Verizon and other carriers “that has created a leapfrogging of innovation that winds up being a bit of a blessing,” he said. “The complaint process in that case may have less informative value about the need to take corrective action than it would be a compliment to the success of the marketplace.”
FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker wants a spectrum policy plan that’s not just a “subset” of the National Broadband Plan, she said at a Phoenix Center event Thursday. The “cross-governmental long-term strategic framework” on spectrum “should be one of our major efforts of 2010 and should chart the government’s course well into the decade,” she said. The plan would include a spectrum inventory and a review of secondary market rules, she said. “By taking full stock of our spectrum resources and how they are being used, and adapting secondary market and service rules to the changed conditions and technologies we have today, I think we can make great strides to help ensure that the U.S. consumers are the beneficiaries of a world-class mobile broadband infrastructure.”