Wireless Future Program: Recent and Upcoming Events

January 2004 is the 20th Anniversary of the Divestiture Order in January 1984 that broke up AT&T into many competing companies. The question today is what the future of communications will look like -- and whether the nation which was well served by breaking up a huge monopoly twenty years ago is still facing serious competition problems in the telecommunications/IT policy arena.

We have asked AT&T's CEO, David W. Dorman, to reflect on this anniversary; to comment on… more

For more than a decade U.S. telecommunications policy has been guided by a vision of facilities-based competition in the last-mile. But considering the prohibitive economics of the last mile and the speeds that will be demanded for next-generation broadband service, should public policy play in role in making universal broadband Internet access an essential public amenity? Many believe that the 21st Century Broadband goal should be an optical fiber infrastructure, with virtually limitless communications capacity, that… more

The FCC will decide soon whether to grant broadcasters "must-carry" rights on cable systems for the five or more channels of digital programming they will soon be able to transmit over the air. Rights to such cable carriage are worth tens of billions of dollars. Why should the broadcasting industry get something for free that every other cable/satellite channel must pay for? Should the broadcasters give something in return? Will digital must-carry rights really speed… more

Other Speakers Include:

Kevin KahnIntel Fellow; Director, Intel Communications Technology LabKevin Werbach,Supernova Group; Former FCC Counsel for New Technology PolicyAndrew Moss,Director of Technical Policy, Windows, Microsoft CorporationSandra Aistars,Counsel for Intellectual Property, AOL Time WarnerCory DoctorowElectronic Frontier Foundation Anthony Townsend, Co-Founder & Executive Director, NYCwireless.netEd Felten, Princeton UniversityMike Godwin, Senior Technology Counsel, Public KnowledgeGigi B. Sohn, President and Co-Founder, Public Knowledge more

Because the FCC has been slow to provide adequate spectrum for unlicensed broadband applications like Wi-Fi, growing numbers of software-savvy citizens are poised to adapt off-the-shelf Wi-Fi equipment to operate on the largely vacant, licensed bands adjacent to the crowded unlicensed frequencies. According to Scott Rafer, author of the provocative FCCster.com web site, unless the FCC acts quickly to provide more unlicensed spectrum for citizen access, the coming era of software defined radios will subvert the paradigm by which… more

All Americans are joint owners of a trove of hidden assets. These assets - natural gifts like air and water, and social creations like culture and the Internet - constitute our shared inheritance. They're vital to our lives and make our economy run. Though it's impossible to put a precise value on them, it's safe to say they're worth trillions of dollars.

Recently, Peter Barnes, David Bollier and Michael Calabrese served on an

We all see the Internet as a place of freedom, where new technologies, business innovation and competition flourish. This freedom has always been at the heart of what the Internet community and its original innovators celebrated.

Commissioner Michael J. Copps, of the Federal Communications Commission, contends that this openness is at risk. He will discuss the threat posed by a regulatory movement to replace open networks with closed systems and the impact this will have on… more

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) NeXt Generation (XG) Communications program is developing technology to allow multiple users to share spectrum in ways previously unimaginable or at least thought impractical. The policy implications of XG are vast. The technology implies that there is vast "white space" in frequency bands frequently thought to be fully occupied. Incumbent licensees who have argued that there is no underutilized spectrum within their frequency bands will now have to face stark… more

In recent years, the sluggish telecommunications industry has been buzzed by the wild-fire success of "Wi-Fi" -- a technology that uses license-exempt spectrum to allow many users to share a single high-speed Internet connection on a wireless basis. Hotels and coffee shops are turning into "hot spots" - and campuses and public spaces into wireless "hot zones." Now, this low-power, inexpensive technology has advanced beyond Starbucks to connect thousands of rural and suburban consumers - farms, small businesses, home-schooling… more

On June 2 the FCC is expected to issue rules on media ownership with long-term and fundamental consequences for our culture, economy, and democracy. These rules cover the ownership of local radio and television broadcasters, national broadcast networks, and newspapers. The senators, FCC commissioners, and panelists discussed their various concerns about the media consolidation that would ensue following release of the FCC's expected rules.

The traditional approach to bridging the broadband "last mile" requires huge investments by incumbent carriers. Laying fiber lines to millions of homes - and upgrading proprietary cellular networks to provide wireless Internet access, so-called 3G - are enormously capital intensive and time consuming at a time when the telecom industry is flat on its back. A viable alternative is WiFi, a wireless LAN technology that shares broadband Internet access among devices using unlicensed spectrum. The market for WiFi… more

In March the FCC classified cable modem Internet service as an "interstate information service," thereby exempting cable broadband from the common carrier obligations of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, as well as from local regulation. The FCC's decision -- together with a pending rule that would likewise exempt high-speed telephone modems (DSL) -- has the potential to undermine the Internet as an open and unfettered medium of communication and innovation. By allowing cable and regional Bell companies to close… more

Senator John McCain will outline a new bill that would provide vouchers for political candidates to buy time on the nation's broadcast media, funded by a small fee on broadcasters who currently pay nothing to use the public airwaves. Broadcasters were given licenses -- at no cost -- to use spectrum now valued at $250 billion in return for in-kind "public interest obligations," such as educational and civic programming. However, the industry has increasingly shirked these obligations… more

In The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media's Effect on Our Children, James Steyer explains that as media companies have become dominated by merger mania and quarterly profits, kids and families have been unwittingly left as the big losers. The Federal Communications Commission requires broadcasters to offer educational children's programming as one of the "public interest obligations" that justify free use of precious public airwaves. Unfortunately, there has been little enforcement of these obligations. Steyer… more

Sweeping changes triggered by digital technologies have raised questions about how to understand the public interest in copyright law and digital infrastructure. Join us for a one-day conference, Protecting the Information Commons, which will include the release of several major reports and explore some key questions: How is the public domain being threatened by new technologies and copyright law? What are the implications of current patent policies and digital innovations for science and the public domain? … more

In Silent Theft -- a new book by New America's Public Assets Program -- David Bollier describes America's vast "common wealth" and the increasing threat of commercial enclosure that is denying a fair return to taxpayers and eroding shared cultural values. The American Commons encompasses both tangible assets and resources that are neither private nor public property in a conventional sense including natural systems, such as the atmosphere, the airwaves and the human genome, but also resource management regimes,… more

Because the airwaves are owned equally by all Americans, revenue from spectrum auctions and fees could be earmarked for reinvestment in new public assets for the digital era-including quality children's programming, educational innovation, digitizing our cultural inheritance, and expanded civic discourse. A spectrum trust could help to fulfill the public interest obligations of broadcasters and other commercial spectrum users. One such proposal, the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust (DOIT), follows in the footsteps of such historic reinvestments as the… more

On September 11th, the nation discovered that our current cellular communications infrastructure is incapable of managing high volumes of both public safety and consumer phone traffic. In response, the National Communications System, a federal agency, has suggested a "priority access" system to wireless cellular networks in the event of an emergency -- a system that could block civilian calls during a crisis.

Reed Hundt, former Chairman of the FCC, proposes another option: a separate emergency wireless network that… more

TechNet and CSPP, two coalitions of high-tech CEOs, recently asked the government to set an ambitious goal - a National Broadband Policy - to connect 100 million homes and businesses to a next generation Internet 50 to 100 times faster than today?s broadband connections. President Bush is expected to preview his broadband initiative in Tuesday?s State of the Union. Since Internet connections at these faster rates cannot be delivered on the current infrastructure that carries DSL and cable… more