Verizon is suing the FCC about the watered down rules the FCC passed
recently.
Now Google has filed a complaint with the FCC about that.
And apparently Verizon has been having private meetings
with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.
Could this be one source of the
illegal leaks the GAO finds the FCC providing to lobbyists?
While Verizon’s court case proceeds through the legal system, the
company’s competitors have grown unhappy with the way that Verizon has
handled its FCC lobbying. Frontline Wireless has gone so far as to ask
the FCC to bar Verizon from the auction because Verizon has allegedly
not disclosed some of its lobbying contacts with the agency quickly
enough or in enough detail.
Despite Verizon’s reticence to spell out exactly what it has been talking
about with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in private meetings, Google believes
that it has pieced the conversation together. Google’s understanding is
that Verizon wants the FCC to impose the open access requirements only
on the network, not on the devices. That is, Verizon could still sell
handsets that are locked and controlled by the company, but its network
would have to be open to unlocked handsets from any operator.
According to Google’s new public statement on the issue, “From our
perspective, this view ignores the realities of the U.S. wireless market,
where some 95 percent of handsets are sold in retail stores run by the
large carriers. More to the point, it is simply contrary to what the
FCC’s new rules actually say.” Those rules focus on customer freedom to
access content and applications from any device.
In a filing with the FCC, Google asks the agency to stick to its original
plan. The company points out that while the open access rules might
make the spectrum less attractive to Verizon (and thus might bring in
less money at auction), the rules actually make it “more attractive,
not less” to Google.
As Congress and the FCC put universal service reform at the top of its telecom policy agenda, the Benton Foundation is supporting a series of papers advancing a new vision for Universal Service — for making broadband as universal as telephone service is today and a pathway for retaking the lead as a broadband leader. This project outlines the policy rationale, the pathway forward, and the 12 key steps for advancing universal broadband and modernizing the universal service program for the information age.
Many of the authors of the papers are on a panel this afternoon at TPRC,
including topicssuch as
The social contract implicit in telephony universal service versus the social contract implicit in broadband universal service.
Here’s what happens when you have a telco thinking the Internet
is subject to its internal policies and political predilictions:
Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text
messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral
Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile
network available for a text-message program.
But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.
“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though
sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the
process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company
spokesman, said in a statement.
“It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,”
Mr. Nelson said. “That policy, developed before text messaging
protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from
unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as
anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.”
Mr. Nelson noted that text messaging is “harnessed by organizations
and individuals communicating their diverse opinions about issues and
topics” and said Verizon has “great respect for this free flow
of ideas.”
Is the Internet a public network, or isn’t it?
If it is, I don’t see why any ISP should be blocking
messages based on content.
(Spam is a different matter: spam is unsolicited.)
There are various opinions as to what laws, if any,
cover text messages.
But the main point isn’t even legal.
If the telco-provided network isn’t a public network,
it’s not the Internet.
Verizon Wireless seeks judicial review on the grounds that the
Report and Order exceeds the Commission’s
authority under the Communications Act of 1934,
as amended, 47 U.S.C. §§ 151, eg. seq.,
violates the United States Constitution,
violates the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et. seq.,
and is arbitrary capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence
and otherwise contrary to law.
Curious how the burden of proof always seems to be on anybody
but the telcos and cablecos.
I mean, didn’t the FCC get the memo that it was only supposed
to do anything if somebody proved
market failure?
House telecom subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) repeated his
call for the Federal Communications Commission to investigate widespread
allegations of telecom privacy law violations by intelligence agencies
that received cooperation from telecom carriers in anti-terrorist
surveillance efforts.
That would be about as likely as Gonzales starting such an investigation.
Oh, wait:
After Markey wrote Martin in March to ask him to launch an investigation
into whether telecom privacy laws have been broken, the FCC chairman
wrote Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to verify that the agency
could not conduct such a probe because it would violate federal laws
governing disclosure of state secrets. Gonzales, who recently announced
his resignation, has yet to respond to Martin.
Ed Shakin, a lawyer for Verizon, said network-sharing requirements are
no longer needed in certain cities now that cable companies and other
competitors have rolled out Internet and phone service. “What competitors
want are artificially low prices,” he said. “It comes down to a fight
about price, not availability.”
So Verizon is reducing the number of competitors, but as long
as there is at least one, that’s enough, they say.
Apparently Verizon thinks its competition is the Highlander:
There Can Be Only One.
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration wants the power to grant legal
immunity to telecommunications companies that are slapped with privacy
suits for cooperating with the White House’s controversial warrantless
eavesdropping program.
The authority would effectively shut down dozens of lawsuits filed against
telecommunications companies accused of helping set up the program.
The vaguely worded proposal would shield any person who allegedly
provided information, infrastructure or “any other form of assistance”
to the intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. It
covers any classified communications activity intended to protect the
country from terrorism.
Jeff Pulver has an interesting point that
orty years later it’s an Internet company that delivers what a telco long ago promised:
During the past couple of weeks I have come to appreciate just how
simple and easy it has become to send Video Messages to friends on
Facebook. While the concept of a video phone dates back to the work of
AT&T and their demonstrations at the 1964 World’s Fair, it has taken
the advent of the Video application on Facebook and it’s general ease of
use to get me to take the time and use it as part of my daily (Internet)
life. While I have discovered how the Facebook video application can be
used in various ways, my favorite is to send a personal video message
to a friend.
While a telco did invent or at least publicize the videophone,
forty years later it’s an Internet application that delivers something
like it on a mass scale.
And maybe one reason the Facebook version of it is popular is
that it isn’t quite like what AT&T predicted:
it isn’t interactive television.
Experience indicates
people don’t necessarily want to be seen live any old time
regardless of their state of dress or coffee.
And more obviously, there’s no fancy equipment to buy,
so the worldwide clientele is already there on the Internet.
It’s the difference between distributed participation
and being sold a centralized service.
Well, I had been waiting to post something about the telcos and domestic
wiretapping until more news came out, since much of it was still hearsay.
But now National Intelligence Director and former National Security Agency
Director Mike McConnell has confirmed it:
Now the second part of the issue was under the president’s program,
the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted
us. Because if you’re going to get access you’ve got to have a partner
and they were being sued. Now if you play out the suits at the value
they’re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So my position was
we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities.
Verizon is suing the FCC about the watered down rules the FCC passed
recently.
Now Google has filed a complaint with the FCC about that.
And apparently Verizon has been having private meetings
with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.
Could this be one source of the
illegal leaks the GAO finds the FCC providing to lobbyists?
