In May 2011 journalists Betsy Rate & Rick Karr, as part of PBS’s Need to Know series, created High Fiber – a video report on the USA Fiber deficiency compared to other countries. Now, with support from the Center for Investigation and Information and the Ford Foundation, Rick and colleagues have released a longer piece: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government suggesting the road to fiber wealth is paved with open access to networks, by regulation if necessary. See it below. Also see his notes on the link above for responses from USA incumbents.
Rick further engaged with some of his editors at Engadget, who are streaming the video, over the issues raised in the clip. See below – fast forward to 22:15
Tim Wu’s new book “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires” is out now. In the book Wu extends his Net Neutrality arguments to their logical conclusion – that a “Separations Principle” is necessary to preserve communication freedoms.
His twitter/website lists the following NYC launch events:
Nov. 3: Columbia pizza party
Nov. 4: Launch Party
Nov. 7: Asian-American Writers Workshop PAGE TURNER
Nov. 11: New America Foundation event at the CORE Club
Nov. 30: Columbia Journalism School
- Excerpt
- Publishers Weekly review
- Ad Age Interview
- New America Foundation Oct 25 event “The Internet’s Mid-Life Crisis”:
The BBC reports that UK regulator Ofcom has ordered British telecom (BT) to give competitors access not only to its fiber network, but also its infrastructure such as poles and ducts.
However, BT will be able to set its own prices for access.
The story implies, but doesn’t specify, that the duct and pole access will only apply to areas where BT doesn’t already have fiber.
BT is quoted as saying it was “pleased” with Ofcom’s “regulatory clarity and certainty”.
Letting competitors lease lines into businesses may boost Internet adoption, help small businesses grow and aid job creation, said Colin Crowell, an aide to Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, in an interview. “That is certainly something that we’ll look very closely at, and has a lot of appeal as part of a national strategy,†said Crowell. The change may be proposed as part of the FCC’s national plan for increasing the use of high-speed Internet, or broadband, that is to be delivered to Congress in March, Crowell said.
via AT&T, Verizon May Have to Share Lines Under FCC Plan Update2 – Bloomberg.com.
Two interesting remarks by Vint in this interview:
Vint Cerf: we’ve only scratched internet’s surface
1) Straying from the Google NN hard line he endorses, if a little weakly, the Internet Society’s User-centric approach
The ultimate solution, he says, may be a combination of enforced transparency and user tools. If ISPs are required to disclose how they’re managing their networks, and if users are provided with the proper technology to see how their connections are faring at any given time, anti-competitive actions should be hard to conduct without being detected.
“I wouldn’t object out of hand that proposal,” he says. “It has been the means by which some abusive practices have been exposed here in the U.S.”
2) He thinks that unbundling is gaining favour at the FCC & Congress – this directly contradicts recent statements by Blair Levin, overseer of the National Broadband Plan.
Cerf is pleased with the direction the United States is taking in regards to providing internet access to its citizens. Government and regulators there are beginning to favour the sort of open-access rules, where big network-owning companies must rent their infrastructure to other competitors, that have been in place in Europe and parts of Asia for years. Cerf thinks open access is the wave of the future.
December 16, 2009
Background: This morning the staff of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) presented the policy outlines for the Congressionally mandated broadband plan, which is to be presented to Congress in 63 days.
The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:
“We are disappointed at what the FCC staff said were the most critical elements of the Commission’s broadband plan. At a time when U.S. standing in the world is rapidly falling in broadband penetration and adoption, and when bold plans are called for, the Commission appears to be satisfied with taking incremental steps.”
“As the staff and Chairman Genachowski said, competition is the key to increasing our broadband capacities, yet nothing in the outline presented this morning would increase competition. Reforming universal service and supporting municipal networks are worthwhile goals, but they would do nothing to reverse the slide caused by eight years of misbegotten telecommunications policies that have crippled most meaningful broadband competition for consumers.”
“There was no discussion of opening telecommunications networks to competitors. There was no discussion of structural separations of carriers into wholesale and retail components. These are the factors that Harvard’s Berkman Center told the FCC in a study a mere two months ago were the reasons other countries have surpassed ours – they are using policies we discarded.”
via Public Knowledge Disappointed with FCC Broadband Plan | Public Knowledge.