Open Networks

As broadband data communication moves into the mobile, wireless world, should basic concepts of “network neutrality” that exist in the wireline world be applied to the wireless industry? On February 21, Voice-over-IP provider Skype filed a petition requesting that the FCC affirm the right of consumers to attach any legal device (such as a VoIP-enabled cell phone) to cellular networks, as embodied in the Commission’s Carterfone rules that are currently observed in the wireline telephone world. more

(Tuesday, February 27) The network neutrality debate that has focused for the past two years on maintaining an open Internet is expanding to a new battlefield: wireless mobile services. In a newly released paper, Columbia University Law School Professor Tim Wu sounded the alarm about the ability of consumers to use devices of their choosing on cellular networks now limited to proprietary equipment. Wu emphasized that the FCC's "Carterfone" rules, which let consumers connect various gadgets… more

Issue Update (2-21-2007): VoIP provider Skype has filed a petition with the FCC to ensure that Carterfone rules apply to commercial wireless networks, citing Tim Wu's paper on Wireless Net Neutrality.  

Over the next decade, regulators will spend increasing time on the conflicts between the private interests of the wireless industry and the public’s interest in the best uses of its spectrum. This report examines the practices of the… more

updated January 10, 2007 

Low-cost, high-speed, community-based wireless broadband networks are cropping up across the country -- revolutionizing public communications, spurring economic development, and bridging the digital divide. They blanket entire towns, cities and counties in rural and urban areas and serve as mobile communications systems for public safety agencies in communities nationwide. While the vast majority of these broadband providers are small commercial Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs), a growing number are sponsored by local governments and nonprofit community groups.

There… more

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