Hello World, I'm Josh King, Network Engineer at Acorn Active Media Foundation (http://www.acornactivemedia.com) and the Champaign-Urbana Wireless Internet Foundation (http://www.cuwin.net). Sascha asked me to contribute to this blog, so here goes with my first post.

I doubt it will be surprising to anyone used to dealing with big telecom companies, but Verizon is doing its level best to screw consumers when it comes to the 700 MHz spectrum auction. If you're following the auction, then you probably know that the process of deciding what to do with this precious section of radio spectrum is very contentious. Google, that organization I always hold a cautious liking for, has successfully introduced what they term an "open network" requirement into the terms of the auction. As Sascha detailed in an earlier post, this introduces an obligation to make sure that any devices utilizing this spectrum will be able to roam freely across networks without vendor lock-in. Of course Verizon can't be having with that, so on September 10th they filed suit against the FCC. From the request for judicial review:

"Verizon Wireless seeks judicial review on the grounds that the [700 MHz spectrum auction requirements] exceeds the Commission's authority under the Communications Act of 1934 [...] violates the United States Constitution, violates the Administrative Procedure Act [...] and is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law."

I am not a telecommunications lawyer, so I couldn't speak to whether the FCC's actions could be construed as a violation of the Communications Act of 1934. Legal basis or no, I think we can obviously see where Verizon's interests lie vis-a-vis the consumers (i.e. bilking them). I know I would better respect a company or individual doing something procedurally incorrect for morally right reasons than doing something legally justifiable for motivations of greed.

Senator Durbin has launched a 4-day online discussion with everyone who's interested. This is an incredibly rare opportunity to help directly impact national telecommunications legislation -- your ideas and feedback will be used to help draft legislation to provide ubiquitous, affordable broadband. You can listen to Durbin's 2-minute intro below:

I will be one of the featured experts on Thursday evening and will be following the conversation over the next four days. If you're interested in having your voice heard -- this is definitely a great opportunity to do so.

I am only just now getting a chance to make a first read of this amended 128-page document. AT&T's goal is to pass it by tomorrow -- with almost zero debate, due diligence, or public input. From what little I've garnered thus far, this amendment is an utter disaster for Illinois residents. It's being crammed through in a late-night legislative coup because it would never pass if legislators actually had time to read and analyze this massive document -- first I'll begin with most of the "old" language from SB678.

As I first reported yesterday evening, AT&T is attempting to pass an incredibly bad piece of legislation by amending it to a popular bill in the dead of night. Amendment number 3 leads off with a number of great ideas -- the creation of a "Broadband Access on Passenger Rail Plan" and the "High Speed Internet Services and Information Technology Law."

But then the real purposes of this amendment, to limit consumer choice, empowerment, and control over Illinois telecommunications, begins to shine through. A great example is on Page 3-4, Section 10-15:

19 (a) Notwithstanding any other statute, the Lieutenant
20 Governor, with the advice of the Broadband Deployment Council,
21 shall authorize the creation of a nonprofit corporation called
22 Connect IL to implement a comprehensive, statewide high speed
23 Internet deployment strategy and demand creation initiative

Yet a closer look at this non-profit demonstrates demonstrates that its very structure ensures that the private sector (and not consumers, government officials, and/or non-profit organizations) will control the entity (on Page 4):

13 (b) Connect IL's governing board shall be appointed by the
14 Lieutenant Governor, with the advice of the Broadband
15 Deployment Council, and shall not exceed 11 members, with a
16 maximum of 6 representing the private sector and a maximum of 5
17 representing the government and nonprofit sectors. Four of the
18 private sector members shall be from the largest incumbent
19 local exchange carriers, one shall be from the cable television
20 industry, and one shall be from the Internet Service Provider
21 (ISP) industry. Members representing the public sector shall
22 include one member from a public Illinois university, one
23 member that represents Community Technology Centers, one
24 member from the Department of Commerce and Economic
25 Opportunity, one member from the Lieutenant Governor's office,
26 and one member from the Department of Central Management.

As someone who serves on the Broadband Deployment Council, I have watched as incumbent representatives have systematically undermined the very innovations that this group is supposed to foster. The position that Connect IL would be any different is incredibly naive. Right from the get-go, Connect IL is an industry-controlled front group whose purpose is to obfuscate systematic, structural failings of the market sector to deploy affordable high-speed broadband to many Illinois residents and communities.

Section 10-20 (Pages 5-6) further exemplifies just how utterly impotent Connect IL will be:

In Section 10-20(a)(1), Connect IL is empowered to:

13 (1) Create a geographic statewide inventory of high
14 speed Internet service and other relevant broadband and
15 information technology services.
16 (A) identify geographic gaps in high speed
17 Internet service through a method of GIS mapping of
18 service availability and GIS analysis at the census
19 block level; and
20 (B) provide a baseline assessment of statewide
21 high speed Internet deployment in terms of percentage
22 of Illinois households with high speed Internet
23 availability.

Section 10-20(a)(2-5) (Pages 5-6) states that Connect IL will:

24 (2) Track and identify, through customer interviews
25 and surveys and other publicly available sources,
1 statewide residential and business adoption of high speed
2 Internet, computers, and related information technology
3 and any barriers to adoption.
.
.
.
16 (4) Collaborate with high speed Internet providers and
17 technology companies to encourage deployment and use,
18 especially in underserved areas, by aggregating local
19 demand, mapping analysis, and creating market intelligence
20 to improve the business case for providers to deploy.
21 (5) Establish a program to increase computer ownership
22 and Internet access for disenfranchised populations across
23 the State.

This all looks great -- in fact, I'm all for it, and I suspect that most consumer advocates would be happy to hear that these ideas were included in this amendment... and they might even have stopped reading right there, but there's a poison pill. In the very last paragraph of Section 10-20, in subsection "f" there's this clause:

14 ...any information that is designated
15 confidential or proprietary by an entity providing the
16 information to the nonprofit organization or any other entity
17 to accomplish the objectives of this Article shall be deemed
18 confidential, proprietary, and a trade secret and treated by
19 the nonprofit organization, Connect IL's governing board, or
20 anyone else possessing the information as such and shall not be
21 disclosed.

We already know from telecom incumbents' own FCC proceedings that all of the information that Connect IL is supposedly going to measure is considered proprietary. In essence, this entire section is a lark -- there's no intention to ever collect this information, provide it to the public, or otherwise meaningfully aid the general public or decision-makers with useful data.

And just to make the impotence of Connect IL entirely explicit, there's Section 10-25 on pages 7-8:

22 ...Nothing in this Article
23 shall be construed as giving the Lieutenant Governor, the
24 Broadband Deployment Council, the nonprofit organization, or
25 other entities any additional authority, regulatory or
1 otherwise, over providers of telecommunications, broadband,
2 and information technology.

Section 10-30 transfers all money from the "Digital Divide Elimination Infrastructure Fund" under the control of the Connect IL industry front group by creating the " High Speed Internet Services and Information Technology Fund."

And the thing is, this amendment just gets worse from here.

Included in this amendment are provisions that radically change Section 13-505.4 of the "The Public Utilities Act" -- the apply named "Provision of noncompetitive services." The introduced section of law (Paragraph c on pages 10-11) would create both bundling of services and the precedent for service providers (through bundling) to leverage state-wide franchise in one service (for example, the state wide video franchise that AT&T is demanding) into completely new media (for example, Internet service provision). Parsing through the jargon, legalese, and purposeful complexity of this paragraph, it would appear that AT&T is attempting to undermine local control of almost every media but enabling a lowest common denominator approach to franchising.

As an example, if AT&T gets a state-wide video franchise, they can then declare video to be bundled with Internet service provision, and thus ignore local authorities, mandates, consumer protections, etc. by declaring that Internet provision is now covered by the state-wide video franchise. More importantly, it would allow a telecom incumbent to undermine local buildout of telecom services by basically legalizing predatory pricing. If this amendment passes, municipal entities will lose the power to control any "service, service element, feature, or functionality or bundled offering" and have little recourse against telecom incumbents who artificially lower pricing to prevent local authorities from being able to build out publicly-owned infrastructure.

[UPDATE 1]

Sec. 21-101 on Page 14 states:

15 (g) Providing an incumbent cable or video service provider
16 with the option to secure a State-issued authorization through
17 the termination of existing cable franchises between incumbent
18 cable and video service providers and any local franchising
19 authority, is part of the new regulatory framework established
20 by this Article.

In essence, combined with the power to engage in anticompetitive pricing, the intent of this amendment is to legally protect telecom incumbents (or "video service providers") that break their contracts with local municipalities. So, if you received a 5-year franchise in say, 2003, and you've utterly failed to meet your build-out requirements, this law would enable you to break your agreement without compensation or recompense for the communities who these incumbents took advantage of.

The law also explicitly exempts "any person or entity that provides cable television services" (Sec. 21-101.1) -- clearly AT&T doesn't want it's competitors benefiting from this massive corporate welfare program. Sec. 21-201 also exempts satellite video and broadband providers through the defining of "access" to exclude them (very clever, though entirely anticompetitive).

"Broadband service" is defined on Page 16 as:

6 (c) "Broadband service" means a high speed service
7 connection to the public Internet capable of supporting, in at
8 least one direction, a speed in excess of 200 kilobits per
9 second (kbps) to the network demarcation point at the
10 subscriber's premises.

Thus locking the State of Illinois into an absolutely ridiculous legal definition for this service. More importantly, it adds a new twist -- that the speed is only to the "demarcation point." So an apartment building of 20 units would be considered to have "broadband service" if a single line were run into the building that had 200kbps of throughput (in a single direction). This means that the state of Illinois would legally define as "broadband service" speeds that are a tiny fraction of a dial-up modem. It's a remarkable leap backward for Illinois.

[UPDATE 2]

I've just learned that all of Section 10 -- the parts attempting to set up the Connect IL initiative -- have been cut from SB678.

[UPDATE 3]

AT&T's SB678 just passed the Illinois House 113-0.

[UPDATE 4]

Low-income buildout requirements for SB678 are still defined (on Page 18) using a household income of $35,000 -- which is far above the poverty level -- in fact, in much of rural Illinois, $35,000 is very close, and for some areas under the median income. This allows telecom providers to still ignore poor constituencies while still being able to claim that they serve legislatively-defined "low-income households."

Section 21.301(c) makes it possible for incumbents to break existing franchise agreements with local municipalities (and thus avoid current buildout requirement and their timelines). From Page 21:

5 (c)(1) An incumbent cable operator may elect to terminate
6 its agreement with the local franchising authority and obtain a
7 State-issued authorization by providing written notice to the
8 Commission and the affected local franchising authority and any
9 entity authorized by that franchising authority to manage
10 public, education, and government access at least 180 days
11 prior to its filing an application for a State-issued
12 authorization. The existing agreement shall be terminated on
13 the date that the Commission issues the State-issued
14 authorization.

Following paragraphs make explicit that local franchise rights will be usurped by state franchises -- thus formally eliminating local control over services, land use, agreement enforcement, and consumer protection.

[UPDATE 5]

I've finally made it through the PEG and related language of the bill. These sections are actually quite good and I can understand why many folks who've been working on these specific facets of the bill are quite happy with them. However, the elimination of local control over franchising, and the transferal of this control to the State Legislature, is going to cause massive problems down the line. On the one hand, I applaud folks who've worked to make the best out of a bad situation, on the other hand, let's not forget that this is a bad situation to begin with.

Buildout requirements are still a joke -- all but guaranteeing that broadband in Illinois will continue to stagnate. The speeds that incumbents need to deploy are inane all they need to do is (from Page 59):

1 ...provide
2 wireline broadband service, defined as wireline service
3 capable of supporting, in at least one direction, a speed in
4 excess of 200 kilobits per second (kbps), to the network
5 demarcation point at the subscriber's premises, to a number of
6 households equal to 90% of the households in the holder's
7 telecommunications service area by December 31, 2008, or shall
8 pay within 30 days of December 31, 2008 a sum of $15,000,000 to
9 the Digital Divide Elimination Infrastructure Fund

To make things even more ridiculous, there's a clause that would allow for the extension or exemption of buildout requirements if the incumbent claims (from Page 60):

9 (3) The inability to access developments or buildings
10 using reasonable technical solutions under commercially
11 reasonable terms and conditions.

Since "commercially reasonable terms and conditions" are left up to the incumbents to define, this creates a de-facto unenforceable buildout requirement. This is something that I'd pointed out in my original analysis of HB1500 at the beginning of March.

Sec. 21-1401 is fairly self-explanatory (from Page 68):

3 (a) The provisions of this Article are a limitation of home
4 rule powers under subsection (i) of Section 6 of Article VII of
5 the Illinois Constitution.

That's right -- this bill, introduced 24 hours ago (Thursday morning) and set to pass today (Friday), would limit powers granted by the Illinois Constitution. And these constitutional limitations will continue for over half a decade -- until October 1, 2013.

In the end, this is a bill that looks good on the surface, but contains so many loopholes, caveats, and redefinitions that it fails in its primary mission to spur connectivity to Illinois residents.

Here's a great list from the Ramsay Report of all telecom bills introduced (thus far) in the new congress:

Read more...

Ed just e-mailed me on a public list that:

in some parts of the country (e.g. Michigan) where the laws have been written so that muni networks are almost always going to be operated in partnership with commercial firms.

Which reminded me of a great article by Cathy Swirbul summarizing current anti-competitive anti-muni state laws that I came across while conducting research for "The New Network Neutrality: Criteria for Internet Freedom."

While it's true that Michigan (and other states) have passed anti-muni laws -- there are often ways around this problem. For example, in Michigan one need only create a requirements document that no private entity would want to follow (for example, free service for everyone, perhaps) -- a public entity can move forward with their own network if they receive less than three bids. It's definitely worth reading the laws before assuming one's hands are (completely) tied.

While I disagree generally with laws that limit competition in this market sector, the solution is for local communities to think more creatively about how to provide critical broadband services to their local communities.

At the end of July I met with Senator Durbin's staff in DC to discuss the state of broadband, wireless communications, and the need for an Open Source, Open Architecture initiative of the type that brought us the Internet. Thus, I was extremely happy to see Durbin introduce the "Broadband for Rural America Act of 2006" -- while this isn't a silver bullet, it is a major step forward in how legislators are viewing the problem of relatively low broadband penetration rates in the US, underservicing of rural and/or low-income communities, and the increasing use of proprietary (and thus very costly) technologies instead of Open Tech.

Here's more on the bill:

Read more...

As has been reported, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Internet Freedom & Non-Discrimination Act" Thursday by a vote of 20 to 13. With over 750,000 people petitioning Congress to prevent broadband discrimination it's rather incredible that some representatives still voted against this bill. Given that this issue has huge bi-partisan support, and cuts across the political spectrum, forging, amazingly an incredibly strong left-right coalition of supporters, why did the Republican party organize many of its Judiciary committee members to vote against the bill? Interested in finding out how representatives voted? Here's the tally:

Judiciary Committee: HR 5417, the Internet Freedom & Non-Discrimination Act

Hon. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R) Wisconsin, 5th Aye
Hon. Hyde (R) Illinois, 6th --not voting--
Hon. Coble (R) North Carolina, 6th No
Hon. Smith (R) Texas, 21st No
Hon. Gallegly (R) California, 24th No
Hon. Goodlatte (R) Virginia, 6th Aye
Hon. Chabot (R) Ohio, 1st No
Hon. Lungren (R) California, 3rd Aye
Hon. Jenkins (R) Tennessee, 1st Aye
Hon. Cannon (R) Utah, 3rd Aye
Hon. Bachus (R) Alabama, 6th No
Hon. Inglis (R) South Carolina, 4th Aye
Hon. Hostettler (R) Indiana, 8th No
Hon. Green (R) Wisconsin, 8th No
Hon. Keller (R) Florida, 8th No
Hon. Issa (R) California, 49th No
Hon. Flake (R) Arizona, 6th --not voting--
Hon. Pence (R) Indiana, 6th --not voting--
Hon. Forbes (R) Virginia, 4th No
Hon. King (R) Iowa, 5th No
Hon. Feeney (R) Florida, 24th No
Hon. Franks (R) Arizona, 2nd No
Hon. Gohmert (R) Texas, 1st --not voting--
Hon. Conyers Jr. (D) Michigan, 14th Aye
Hon. Berman (D) California, 28th Aye
Hon. Boucher (D) Virginia, 9th Aye
Hon. Nadler (D) New York, 8th Aye
Hon. Scott (D) Virginia, 3rd Aye
Hon. Watt (D) North Carolina, 12th --not voting--
Hon. Lofgren (D) California, 16th Aye
Hon. Jackson Lee (D) Texas, 18th Aye
Hon. Waters (D) California, 35th Aye
Hon. Meehan (D) Massachusetts, 5th --not voting--
Hon. Delahunt (D) Massachusetts, 10th Present
Hon. Wexler (D) Florida, 19th Aye
Hon. Weiner (D) New York, 9th Aye
Hon. Schiff (D) California, 29th Aye
Hon. Sánchez (D) California, 39th Aye
Hon. Van Hollen (D) Maryland, 8th Aye
Hon. Wasserman Schultz (D) Florida, 20th Aye