Wireless Future Program: Latest Articles

iGov

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:29:00 -0500

Barack Obama has said we need a "Google for government." It's a nice line, but what does it mean? Federal agencies have been online since the mid-'90s. Obama's first crack at a Google-for-government law led to USAspending.gov, a budget tracker that looked like everything else the feds had put up on the Web--until I saw one geek-speak phrase on the home page, so small I almost missed it: API Documentation. To understand its significance, let me tell you how I got subway schedules on my iPhone.

Life, Liberty and Connectivity for All

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:05:00 -0500

We live in a civil society - a place where primary education is freely available to all, where anyone can enjoy a walk through our public parks or down our sidewalks and freely drive through the streets. Libraries across the country loan out books for free - literature that you can read on a spring day in our parks or beneath the streetlights on main street on a warm summer's evening. You don't have to tip the firemen who show up at your house or pay for police protection - in a civil society, public safety is freely available to everyone.

FCC Approves White Space Devices

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:42:00 -0500

Yesterday will go down in history as a bellwether moment. Few among us will soon forget the excitement of Obama's election. But there was an equally historic vote yesterday that for geeks, policy analysts, and technologists represents an entirely new trajectory in telecommunications. In essence, the FCC has begun the transition from command-and-control, single-user spectrum licensure to a more distributed system that holds the potential to eliminate the artificial scarcity that prevented widespread access to the public airwaves since 1927.

Yesterday, the FCC ruled that unlicensed white space devices would be allowed to operate on unused television channels--allowing an entirely new generation of technological innovation to begin. While the official order has not been release, here's the information that's been gleaned thus far (please note that this is tentative information and until the official Report and Order is issued by the FCC, while unlikely, is subject to change):

Both fixed and personal portable devices will be allowed. So look for base stations on cell towers as well as next generation PDAs and multi-media devices.
Personal portable devices will be allowed to operate at power levels up to 40mW.
On non-adjacent channels (i.e., where you have three unoccupied TV channels in a row, this would be the middle channel), higher power levels will be allowed (up to 100mW).
Unlicensed wireless microphones will not receive priority status except, potentially, on channels 2-4. On all other channels (through to channel 51), all devices will share secondary status to primary broadcasters (e.g., television stations and licensed microphones).
A geolocational database will back up spectrum sensing capabilities to ensure WSDs do not operate in restricted areas. Left unclear is whether licensed wireless microphone users will be allowed to exempt their venue from WSD use and whether this would also allow for unlicensed wireless microphone users to do likewise.
A Notice of Inquiry will be launched by the FCC to investigate higher-powered use as an additional service in areas with few digital TV stations. This would facilitate backhaul capabilities for Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) and other service providers.

I first started working on this proceeding back in 2004. After years of work, and an ever-increasing amount of time and energy spent on this battle, I can honestly say that I'm amazed by how successful this work has proven. At the same time, much like the presidential election, this win provides only the opportunity for amazing new innovations and services and much work remains. We need to work with performing arts groups to ensure that they have access to the technologies they need to carry out their work. And we need to work with wireless ISPs and allied organizations to ensure that they have the resources they need to continue spreading connectivity to underserved communities across the country. Finally, though the foundation has been set, the most important battle is yet to come--opening up all underutilized bands for opportunistic spectrum reuse.

I expect a multi-pronged approach to what lies ahead. I've already begun talks with WISP allies to follow up on the FCC's announced NOI. Likewise, I'm hopeful that folks I've been talking with for months within the performing arts community will see the FCC's decision as a good reason to collaborate on future joint efforts. In the interim, I am working with my colleague, Victor Pickard, on opening up debate on opportunistic spectrum reuse--starting with government spectrum. Our revamped working paper should be out in the near future, laying out a policy agenda for what needs to be done at the down of the age of opportunistic spectrum reuse.

Here's the FCC's press release as well as Commissioners' statements: Martin Statement; Copps Statement;Adelstein Statement; Tate Statement; McDowell Statement

Broadband Data Improvement Act Passes Senate, House, A.K.A. Find Why U.S. is on Continuous Decline

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:34:00 -0400

In a major win for the public interest, the Broadband Data Improvement Act passed the Senate (on September 26th) and the House (on September 29th). Due to amendments, it now goes back to the Senate for final approval (should be pro-forma) before it lands on George Bush's desk.

With the United States falling further and further behind a host of other countries, the question on many people's minds (including the folks over at Point-Topic who created this graphic) is, "Why is this happening?"

Yes, that's the United States, chugging along ever closer to the bottom of the pack.

Senator Inouye and Congressman Markey have been pushing for the passage of this bill for quite some time--resurrecting the idea from congress to congress. The Act, with its explicit purpose "To improve the quality of Federal and State data regarding the availability and quality of broadband services and to promote the deployment of affordable broadband services to all parts of the Nation." has drawn widespread opposition from telcos who've claimed that our current data collection efforts are "good enough." Full text of the Act can be found here.

Among its mandates, the Broadband Data Improvement Act requires that:

Demographic Information for Unserved Areas- As part of the inquiry required by subsection (b), the Commission shall compile a list of geographical areas that are not served by any provider of advanced telecommunications capability (as defined by section 706(c)(1) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (47 U.S.C. 157nt note)) and to the extent that data from the Census Bureau is available, determine, for each such unserved area

(1) the population;
(2) the population density; and
(3) the average per capita income.

For those of us studying the digital divide, these data will provide much-needed information about the nature of underserved communities. Of course, they could also paint a damning picture of systematic, institutionalized redlining of poor and rural constituencies.

The Act also calls for an in-depth international comparison of broadband service levels, speeds, and pricing. 75 communities in 25 countries, matched "to the extent possible [by] population size, population density, topography, and demographic profile...comparable to the population size, population density, topography, and demographic profile of various communities within the United States" will be assessed.

Even more importantly, the Act requires a "Consumer Survey of Broadband Service Capability"--in other words, it requires collection of real-world information on what's happening with broadband services in the United states. According to the Act:

For the purpose of evaluating, on a statistically significant basis, the national characteristics of the use of broadband service capability, the Commission shall conduct and make public periodic surveys of consumers in urban, suburban, and rural areas in the large business, small business, and residential consumer markets to determine

(A) the types of technology used to provide the broadband service capability to which consumers subscribe;
(B) the amounts consumers pay per month for such capability;
(C) the actual data transmission speeds of such capability;
(D) the types of applications and services consumers most frequently use in conjunction with such capability;
(E) for consumers who have declined to subscribe to broadband service capability, the reasons given by such consumers for declining such capability;
(F) other sources of broadband service capability which consumers regularly use or on which they rely; and
(G) any other information the Commission deems appropriate for such purpose.

Along with requirements to investigate how best to collect a host of different metrics and a mandate for states to likewise engage in broadband data collection efforts, the Broadband Data Improvement Act represents an important step forward in addressing the broadband market failure gripping the United States. Though the Act's loopholes may yet allow for further obfuscation of critically important data, overall, this Act adds a great deal of momentum to efforts to increase digital inclusion and foster universal, affordable broadband access.

It's Official: China Now Has More Broadband Lines than the United States

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:19:00 -0400

It was just last year that those of us raising alarms about the massive half-decade market failure in the United States to adequately provision broadband services were facing a misinformation campaign that raw numbers mattered more than percentage rankings. According to this argument, the U.S. broadband market was sound because we had more broadband lines than anyone else.

The misinformation brigade got so much attention (mainly due to incumbents funding a propaganda campaign that "everything is fine here, nothing to see"), that public interest groups had to issue reports systematically refuting the PR are marketing hype. In fact, Free Press issued a point-by-point rebuttal, "'Shooting the Messenger' Myth vs. Reality: U.S. Broadband Policy and International Broadband Rankings”--and myth #3 was:

The OECD's reporting is suspect because they don't emphasize the total number of connections. If they did, they'd see that the United States is No. 1 because we have more lines than any other country in the world.

As Derek Turner, the report's author, rightfully concluded:

The United States is the largest country in the OECD, and the third-largest country in the world. Reporting the total number of connections is meaningless without context. Lines per-capita or lines per household is the proper way to conduct comparisons.

Defenders of the broadband status quo often argue that the penetration data doesn't matter, because the United States is No. 1 in total number of connections. In his recent speech, Commissioner McDowell said, "The [OECD] study does not emphasize the fact that the United States is simply the largest broadband market in the world with over 58 million subscribers, according to the OECD report—more than twice the number of America's closest competitor."

This is true. But it is not a meaningful critique of the comparative performance of nations on a per capita basis. Using this logic, we could say the United States has more unemployed people than any other country in the OECD, including developing economies like Mexico, so therefore the U.S. economy must be in the tank. But when viewed through the sensible per capita lens, which accounts for country population, the United States has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the entire OECD.
The argument that relatively poor U.S. performance is excused by the total number of broadband lines irrespective of population is misleading. Looking from another angle, China now has almost as many broadband connections as the United States and will likely overtake us this year. But China has four times as many people as the United States. Our household adoption rate is nearly four-times higher than China's. When China overtakes us in the raw number of connections, we will rightly not point to the Chinese as the world leaders in broadband performance.

And here we are, one year later, and the headline last week was, "China Overtakes U.S. In Number Of Broadband Lines." The original critique certainly holds--raw numbers of broadband lines are not a good indicator of the health of a country's broadband market. But when free market institutes are still touting the health of the U.S. broadband market, I can't help but wonder, how bad does a market have to fail before certain people agree that it isn't doing so well? As with the all-too-obvious comparison with the U.S. financial market (which McCain was touting as fundamentally sound in mid-September), the U.S. broadband market is fundamentally and dangerously problematic.

The end result? Even with a major stimulus, it will take years for the United States to achieve parity (much less pull ahead) of our global competitors. The United States is currently at a competitive disadvantage in a digital economy--the best thing we can do is to launch a broadband bailout now. Otherwise, we'll be paying far more, and achieving far less, down the road.