Author Archives: John S. Quarterman

Qwest Case and National Competitiveness

20qwest.190.jpg This case will forever be murky if retroactive telecom immunity for participating in illegal wiretapping passes, yet it has already thrown some light on some of the murkiest areas of government-corporate interaction.

Former Qwest CEO Joseph P. Nacchio, who has been convicted of insider trading for selling stock while Qwest’s stock price was tanking, claims he had reason to believe Qwest would get lucrative government contracts, and that Qwest was denied them because he refused to participate in an illegal program. When this happened is very interesting:

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the former head of the company contends in newly unsealed court filings.

— Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11, By Scott Shane, October 14, 2007

So if Nacchio is right, massive wiretapping by the current U.S. administration didn’t start as part of the “War on Terror”; it must have started for some other reason.

The best the prosecution has been able to come up with is: Continue reading →

Christian Coalition Joins Naral Against Telco Censorship

cc.jpg
hp_naral_logo.gif
Verizon’s blocking of NARAL has led to some strange bedfellows:
Today, the presidents of NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Christian Coalition co-authored a Washington Post op-ed calling on Congress to address the censorship policies of phone companies like Verizon and AT&T. Last month, Verizon arbitrarily banned text messages from NARAL, deeming the lawful political speech too “controversial and unsavory” to send.

“We are on opposite sides of almost every issue,” wrote NARAL President Nancy Keenan and Christian Coalition President Roberta Combs. “But when it comes to the fundamental right of citizens to participate in the political process, we’re united — and very worried. Whatever your political views — conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, pro-choice or pro-life — it shouldn’t be up to Verizon to determine whether you receive the information you requested.”

— Groups Fight Cell Censorship, Unstrung, 17 October 2007

Most of the U.S. political spectrum seems to be against censorship by telcos and cablecos. The next question is whether this opposition will have any effect, or will the telcos get the FCC to lay off anyway, or will telco and cableco political contributions and lobbying convince Congress to turn a blind eye.

-jsq

Comcast v. CxOs: Blocking Lotus Notes, Too

lotus7.png Comcast stifling isn’t just for BitTorrent anymore:
The EFF found that not just Gnutella—another file sharing app—was being blocked, but Lotus Notes, an app businesses use to share calendars, emails and files over the net had its traffic interfered with as well. It’s fine to piss off a bunch of file sharers, but when Comcast starts making sure that a CTO can’t get the files off his work machine, that’s a different story altogether. Net Neutrality, we need you!

— Comcast Blocking Gnutella and Lotus Notes Traffic? Gizmodo, 22 October 2007

Nevermind the CTO. Think of the CFO and CEO:
Lotus Notes! As in, corporate enterpriseware that suits use to synchronize their projects.

—Comcast also screwing with Gnutella and Lotus Notes (!?!) by Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, October 22, 2007 1:43 PM

Meanwhile, over in Japan, everybody from the national and local governments to broadband providers to application writers to Internet participants are concentrating on fast speeds, ubiquitous use, and new applications, not to mention international competitiveness.

Japanese Broadband Growth: FTTH Pulls Up

jpgrowth.gif Japanese broadband uptake as of March 2007:
14.013 millionaDSL
8.803 millionFTTH
3.609 millionCable
11 thousandWireless
More impressive than raw numbers is the graph, which shows aDSL growing rapidly from 2001 to 2003, after which FTTH suddenly becomes the new growth broadband connection.

As of March 2007, merely 95% of all Japanese households had broadband, and 84% had ultra-highspeed broadband. Japanese government goals for 2010 are 100% and 90%, respectively. Ultra-highspeed seems to be defined as both up and down over 30Mbps.

Until now, FTTH has been the mainstream in terms of ultra-highspeed broadband, with upload and download speeds of over 30Mbps, but other wired and wireless technologies are aiming for technologies that will match if not overtake FTTH, and there will be a need for ongoing developments in broadband technology in terms of higher speed and larger volume to meet user needs.

— Study Group Report: Moving towards Establishing a Usage Environment for Next-Generation Broadband Technology, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), MIC Communications News, Vol. 18, No.13, 12 October 2007

Higher speed services in testing now include speeds faster than 1 Gbps, which would be around 300 times faster than what passes for broadband in the U.S. Continue reading →

Who’s the Second Largest Contributor to U.S. Congress Members?

Jay_Rockefeller.jpg
harry_reid_rotunda.jpg
AT&T. Time Warner, Bellsouth, and MCI all show up in the same list.

Major AT&T recipients include Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV who is a big supporter of retroactive immunity for telco spying, and who recently (spring 2007, just as the telcos started pushing for that immunity) got a big spike in Verizon employee contributions, as well.

Also Sen. Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, gets significant AT&T contributions. This is the same Harry Reid who won’t honor Sen. Chris Dodd’s hold on the bill containing that amnesty.

-jsq

Comcast Stifling BitTorrent

pipe_2.GIF This was expected (cablecos, like telcos, want “freedom to degrade”), but is now confirmed:
Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.

The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.

— Comcast blocks some Internet traffic, Tests confirm data discrimination by number 2 U.S. service provider, by Jeff Chiu, AP, 19 Oct 2007

Comcast was denying blocking or throttling as recently as August (and as near as I can tell they still do deny it). Numerous users reported it, and the AP has now confirmed it. However, what Comcast is doing isn’t precisely throttling. Continue reading →

SCO, Unix, and Net Neutrality

unix-live-free-lg.jpg What does this have to do with net neutrality?
The Lindon-based SCO Group Inc. says it is planning to lay off 16 of its 123 employees and has asked a federal bankruptcy court to keep their identities secret because it fears they could be harassed.

SCO also is facing an effort to push ahead with a trial in federal court in Utah that could determine that SCO owes Novell as much as $35 million in licensing fees because of a ruling in a dispute over ownership of the Unix software program.

SCO filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 14, the result of a long court battle with Novell and IBM over ownership and use of the Unix computer operating system program. SCO claimed it, and not Novell, owned the copyright to Unix and that IBM had used parts of that code in developing the Linux operating system, whose code is open to the public and can be used or altered by individuals or companies for their own uses.

— Stricken SCO to lay off 16 workers, Lindon-based firm asks court to keep ex-employees ID secret, By Tom Harvey, The Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated: 10/15/2007 11:45:43 PM MDT

Unix was actually invented by a couple of researchers at AT&T Bell Labs, in an attic, in their spare time. AT&T never knew what to do with Unix, and eventually shuffled it off to Western Electric, whence it finally percolated over to SCO (I’ve probably omitted a few owners in between).

Meanwhile, Microsoft made billions out of an operating system (and clever legal ploys such as boot loader contracts). And Unix and its offshoots such as Linux underly everything from Apple’s OS-X to mobile phones to Google.

This seems to me the archetypical example of why we shouldn’t expect telephone companies to innovate, no matter how much of a monopoly they have. If we want innovation, we want net neutrality and competition.

-jsq

Fitch: More RLEC Consolidation

fitch_logo.gif Likely consolidation in Rural Local Exchange Carriers:
RLECs are experiencing relatively little organic growth, the company says, because the increased revenues from such growing services as high-speed data “have not materially offset declining voice revenues. The erosion of the traditional wireline voice business of the RLECs, mainly by competition from cable multiple-system operators (MSOs) and wireless operators, has already led to some industry consolidation over the past year.”

Over the longer term, RLECs also face the uncertain effects of increased competition on service revenues for the rural operators as well as uncertainties on the regulatory side.

“In the absence of meaningful organic growth, acquisitions become a means for rural carriers to increase revenues, cash flow and diversity,” says John Culver, senior director at Fitch Ratings.

— Lack Of Growth Could Spell RLEC Demise, TelecomeWeb, 12 Oct 2007

The RCCC acquisition may be one of these.

-jsq