Here’s something that may appeal to transparency enthusiasts, as well as to environmental skeptics…

WASHINGTON, November 9, 2009 – BroadbandCensus.com has been investigating broadband stimulus projects and focusing on the preferred projects from the states. We still lack letters to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration – or notices that states are demanding confidentiality for their letters – from 13 states and territories.

The first person to send any letters from the following states will get a complimentary seat at the November 10 Broadband Breakfast Club at Clyde’s of Gallery Place at 707 7th Street NW, Washington, DC. The breakfast runs from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., and the topic is “Setting the Table for the National Broadband Plan: The Environment.” Information about the event, and registration, is available at http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com.

BroadbandCensus.com has not recieved either a notice of confidentiality or a copy of the letter from the state to the NTIA from:

• American Samoa
• Arkansas
• Delaware
• District of Columbia
• Guam
• Iowa
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• North Dakota
• Puerto Rico
• Rhode Island

Please send letters to MacRae@BroadbandCensus.com.

Here is an up-to-date list of where the other states stand:

Confidential or not Public at this time: Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota Northern Mariana Islands, and South Dakota.

We have letters from: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington State, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

For information on the project, please visit: http://broadbandcensus.com/2009/11/request-for-assistance-state-preferred-broadband-stimulus-projects-to-the-ntia/

Blogger’s Note: I posted this blog entry over at BroadbandCensus.com earlier in the day. It’s the first of series this week — One Web Week — in which I’m taking a step back to look at the issue of broadband data and broadband transparency from a bit of a longer time frame. And today couldn’t be a more timely day to do so, with Genachowski’s speech highlighting a new sixth principle of Network Neutrality: broadband transparency! -Drew Clark

WASHINGTON, September 21, 2009 – Broadband data is important for the future of our country – and public and transparent broadband data is even more important.

Today, at this moment, new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is making a speech in which he is highlighting the vital principle of public and transparent broadband data.

For three years now, this principle has been the core belief animating my efforts as a journalist, and as the entrepreneur founding BroadbandCensus.com. Now, as we enter the fourth year since this saga began, it’s time to take stock and reflect on what BroadbandCensus.com has accomplished.

And with One Web Week having arrived, I’d like to lay out this history from a personal perspective. In this series of blog posts, I’m going to speak about what we’ve been through, who we have worked with to advance the principles of public and transparent broadband data, and what we ultimately aim to achieve at BroadbandCensus.com.

• Today’s topic: The debate begins, with the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2006.
• Tomorrow’s topic, on One Web Day: The founding of BroadbandCensus.com in the fall of 2007.
• Wednesday topic: The Broadband Census for America Conference in September 2008, and our work with the academic community to foster public and transparent broadband data-collection efforts.
• Thursday’s topic, in advance of the U.S. Broadband Coalition’s report to the Federal Communications Commission: BroadbandCensus.com’s involvement with the National Broadband Plan in 2009.
• The concluding topic, on Friday morning: The role BroadbandCensus.com and broadband users have to play in the creation of a robust and reliable National Broadband Data Warehouse.

The Beginnings: Why I Sued Kevin Martin’s Federal Communications Commission

BroadbandCensus.com was founded in October 2007 after I spent nearly a year and a half with the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit investigative journalism organization based here in Washington. But the quest for public and transparent broadband data goes back further.

For more than 15 years, I have covered the politics of telecom, media and technology. Most of that was spent at the National Journal Group in Washington, a key source of inside information about policy and lobbying. My aim there, as it is now, was to ensure that all the facts are brought to the table, that divergent viewpoints are fairly represented, and that questions asked go to the center of the debate.

When it came to broadband, the looming questions were and still are: where do we have broadband in the United States, and who is offering it? What kind of service is promised, and are carriers delivering on those promises?

In 2006, issues of broadband policy lurked in the background of many major political and media controversies: Net neutrality, online piracy, media ownership and control, the build out of high-speed networks, both wired and wireless, and the role of Web 2.0 in government and society. Whatever the ultimate resolutions for each of these controversies, the first step was better broadband data.

At this time, I headed the Center for Public Integrity’s media and telecommunications project, “Well Connected.” We were expanding its focus on media ownership to the new source of media control: the nation’s broadband infrastructure.

The Federal Communications Commission had a database about the carriers that offer broadband by ZIP code. This database is created from the carriers filing the Form 477 with the FCC. The FCC publishes other databases of the locations of radio and television broadcasters, and of cable companies. We asked for a copy of the Form 477 database in August 2006. At that time, we cited the Freedom of Information Act.

An FCC staff member called me to discuss arrangements for getting our electronic copy. When I called the FCC staffer back, less than 45 minutes later, he told me that he had been instructed not to talk to me further. From that point on, only Kevin Martin’s lawyers would do the talking.

The FCC missed their 20-day deadline to timely respond to our FOIA letter. On September 25, 2006, the Center for Public Integrity filed suit in federal district court , seeking to enforce our FOIA request. We asked the district court to grant us access to the Form 477 database, with information about subscriber numbers redacted (if necessary). The end result would be a database with the names of the carriers that offer broadband on a ZIP code basis.

Even though the FCC has been collecting the Form 477 since 2000, and already has a database of all of this information, they have only ever released the number of providers within a ZIP code, and not the names of the providers. Even then, the agency only released the number if the number was four or more – out of an excessive concern for identifying carrier information.

That’s like saying that the government will restrict the release of information it has about how many gas stations there are in your town if there are not four or more gas stations in town. In any case, the government won’t tell you the names of the gas stations, or where you can find them, so that you can buy gas. And most definitely, they won’t share the prices at which the gas stations sell gas.

“We filed suit against the FCC to obtain the data that the public and policy-makers need in order to get a complete and accurate picture of the current state of broadband,” I said at the time.

Broadband Providers Seek to Forestall Publication of Carrier-Level Broadband Data

I’ve recounted the story of the FOIA litigation at great length, in June 2007, in a story, “Center Spearheads Efforts to Disclose Broadband Data,” and in February 2009 in Ars Technica, “US broadband infrastructure investments need transparency.”

We were seeking something quite straightforward: the identities of broadband carriers that offer service within a particular geographic location. At the time, we were seeking ZIP code information, because that was the best information that the FCC had. I and many others have long recognized that ZIP codes are extremely problematic and coarse unit of measurement. And that is why it is extremely positive that, in July 2009, the NTIA declared that it needed broadband information by Census block.

But in 2006 and 2007, getting carrier-level broadband data by ZIP would have been a good first step. Then-Chairman Kevin Martin, of course, was never a fan of public disclosure. After his agency nixed any sort of collaboration or compromise in approaching our FOIA request, Martin sought to shore up support from industry. On December 15, 2006, the agency issued a “Public Notice to Service Providers Who Filed FCC Form 477s With The Commission And Sought Confidential Treatment Of The Information Submitted.”

AT&T and Verizon Communications, along with the Wireless Communications Association International, intervened in the lawsuit. Others filed as “friends of the court,” on the side of the FCC. The public notice and the interventions forced Judge Rosemary Collyer to recuse herself from the case, as she owned stock in AT&T. The case went to Judge Ellen Huvelle.

“As a non-profit publisher of investigative journalism committed to transparent and comprehensive reporting both in the U.S. and around the world, the Center for Public Integrity believes that making data about the names of the broadband provider on a ZIP code-by-ZIP code basis would allow consumers to ‘truth-check’ the FCC data,” I wrote at the time. “Adding citizen-provided information about the speed, quality and price of such connections would, in turn, create a robust collection of information further informing telecommunications-related public policy debates.”

In their defense, the carriers said that disclosure would cause them competitive harm – the legal standard for denying the disclosure of data under the Freedom of Information Act.

In our legal briefings, the Center noted “that all of the major communications companies – including cable, wireless and telecom players – already provide ZIP code lookup of service availability on their Web sites.” If the information was not available on web site, the information was readily available by calling up the carrier and asking if service was available at that address. Because such information was already readily-discoverable, aggregating the data on a single web site would not cause competitive harm, either.

Among those who intervened in the suit, some sincerely believed that disclosure would have caused them harm. Others litigated merely because of the possibility of a negative FOIA precedent. Whatever the case, Kevin Martin’s FCC certainly went all-out to defend restrictions on data.

In its legal briefings, the FCC argued that releasing the data would lead to competition in communications. “Disclosure could allow competitors to free ride on the efforts of the first new entrant to identify areas where competition is more likely to be successful,” the agency told the federal district court in Washington.

It was supremely ironic that that the FCC and the communications industry were fighting our efforts to obtain public and transparent broadband data at the same time that Congress and the FCC began to clamor for precisely that which we were seeking: better broadband data to address a range of policy concerns.

Together with my friend Scott Wallsten, then of the Progress and Freedom Foundation (later with Technology Policy Institute, and now at the FCC), the Center for Public Integrity organized a Conference on Broadband Statistics on June 28, 2007, at the National Academy of Science.

Scott and I gathered an assemblage of many people, including officials from Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, ConnectKentucky, plus leading academics and policy practitioners in the field, including experts from Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Pew Internet and American Life Project, and the University of Texas at Austin, to consider precisely these questions. Audio from the June 2007 conference is available here; a transcript of the proceeding is available here.

More recently, Wallsten’s appointment as the economics director of the FCC’s broadband task force has prompted some controversy. But Wallsten has always been supportive of my efforts – and those of others in the field – to push for greater disclosure of broadband data. See “What Disconnect?,” and “Hiding the Broadband Map.”

The Aftermath: Kevin Martin and Me

Unfortunately, the Center lost the lawsuit when Judge Huvelle ruled against the Center in August 2007, and again in October 2007 after a motion for reconsideration. I’ll talk briefly in Tuesday’s blog post about the founding of BroadbandCensus.com in the aftermath of this defeat, and on Wednesday about BroadbandCensus.com’s efforts, in 2008, to advance public and transparent broadband.

But it’s worth fast-forwarding to get to the end of the Kevin Martin story.

Martin’s tenure at the FCC was marked by his repeated jokes about how he led the FCC like the KGB. That would seem to be of a piece with denying Freedom of Information Act requests like the one I initiated.

Yet I never anticipated just how pointed his criticism of public and transparent broadband data could be. I had been invited to speak at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ and the FCC’s joint conference on broadband deployment and data at the FCC, in San Jose, on November 6, 2008 – two days after the presidential election.

In my presentation, on the background to and requirements of the Broadband Data Improvement Act, I referred to the Center’s FOIA lawsuit, quoted in the section above, about how the FCC didn’t want disclosure of carrier data to lead to greater competition. Kevin Martin interrupted my presentation seven times! He disagreed with my characterization of the FCC’s position on broadband data.

“It was actually also because the carriers do not want it to be disclosed, and so it was not provided in a public way,” Martin first interjected. I disagreed with him, saying that “The FCC chose through its discretion over a period of time not to release information about carrier by carrier level.”

To which Martin replied, “I am not going to have an argument with you over it. I think we should move on…. This is not about FOIA litigation. No one is interested in that.”

I came back with, “I am just pointing out that the law does not need to be changed for the FCC to release this data.”

And that still isn’t the end of the story.

Two weeks later, on November 18, 2008, Kevin Martin was back in Washington for what appeared to be his final swan song: accepting an award at the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies at the National Press Club. Martin gave his remarks, and was praised by the Phoenix Center. After chatting with journalists for a few minutes, we all went our separate ways.

Later, as I was walking over to the elevator to depart, I saw the elevator door closing on Kevin Martin and his long-time chief of staff, Dan Gonzalez.

Martin opened the doors by pushing the open button, and I walked in. Martin asked me what I had in my hands. It was a box with flyers, so I handed him a flyer from BroadbandCensus.com, and told him a bit about our next upcoming activity as the elevator went to the ground floor.

As we stepped into the lobby, I asked Martin if he had a nice trip back from the broadband data conference in San Jose.

He chuckled somewhat under his breath, and then said: “You may not believe this, but I think what you are doing is a good thing. I just can’t end up giving it to you.”

About BroadbandCensus.com

The next several days feature a variety of upcoming events, both on broadband stimulus legislation, and on some of the broader issues associated with the Internet and its architecture.

On Friday, January 30, the Technology Policy Institute features a debate, “Broadband, Economic Growth, and the Financial Crisis: Informing the Stimulus Package,”  from 12 noon – 2 p.m., at the Rayburn House Office Building, Room B369.

Moderated by my friend Scott Wallsten, senior fellow and vice president for research at the Technology Policy Institute, the event features James Assey, Executive Vice President for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association; Robert Crandall, Senior Fellow in Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution; Chris King, Principal/Senior Telecom Services Analyst, Stifel Nicolaus Telecom Equity Research; and Shane Greenstein, Elinor and Wendell Hobbs Professor of Management and Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

The language promoting the event notes, “How best to include broadband in an economic stimulus package depends, in part, on understanding two critical issues: how broadband affects economic growth, and how the credit crisis has affected broadband investment.  In particular, one might favor aggressive government intervention if broadband stimulates growth and investment is now lagging.  Alternatively, money might be better spent elsewhere if the effects on growth are smaller than commonly believed or private investment is continuing despite the crisis.”

And then, on Tuesday,  MIT Professor David Clark, one of the pioneers of the Internet and a distinguished scientist whose work on “end-to-end” connectivity is widely cited as the architectural blueprint of the Internet, looks to the future.  Focusing on the dynamics of advanced communications – the role of social networking, problems security and broadband access, and the industrial implications of network virtualization and overlays – Clark here tackles new forces shifting regulation and market structure.

David Clark is Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In the forefront of Internet development since the early 1970s, Dr. Clark was Chief Protocol Architect in 1981-1989, and then chaired the Internet Activities Board. A past chairman of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies, Dr. Clark is co-director of the MIT Communications Futures Program.

I’m no longer affiliated with the Information Economy Project at George Mason University, but I urge all interested in the architecture of the Internet to register and attend More information about the lecture, and about the Information Economy Project, is available at http://iep.gmu.edu/davidclark.

It will take place at the George Mason University School of Law, Room 120, 3301 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201 (Orange Line: Virginia Square-GMU Metro), on Tuesday, February 3, from 4 – 5:30 p.m., with a reception to follow. The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested. To reserve a spot, please e-mail iep.gmu@gmail.com

I just posted information about David Clark’s pending lecture on “The Internet Today and Tomorrow” on my blog, DrewClark.com, and further information is also available at the Information Economy Project web site at George Mason University School of Law.  (I’m the Assistant Director at the Information Economy Project, which aims to bri ng the rigor of law & economics to issues of telecommunications and technology policy.)

The lecture, by Computer Science Professor David Clark, is the latest in the Information Economy Project’s “Big Ideas About Information” lecture series.

The Internet is now sufficiently embedded in society that it is regularly triggering social, economic and regulatory issues. The hot topics of today are network neutrality, network management, and the question of imposing regulatory limits on Internet service providers. However, those are just today’s hot topics. What will happen tomorrow? Can we speculate and perhaps get a bit ahead of the curve?

In this talk, Professor Clark will start with a perspective on today’s issue of network neutrality and the role of the Internet service provider, and will then look further into the future to look at some emerging issues, such as the role of the social network as a platform, the problems of building a more secure and available Internet, the emerging requirement for identity mechanisms, and the industrial implications of network virtualization and overlays. This talk will describe some new ideas from the technical community that might shift the landscape of regulation and industrial structure.

Resources:

• David Clark’s MIT web page
• Written statement at FCC public hearing on network management, Cambridge, Mass., February 25, 2008
• “Complexity of Internet Interconnections: Technology, Incentives and Implications for Policy” (with P. Faratin, P. Gilmore, S. Bauer, A. Berger and W. Lehr), Paper at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, 2007
• “Addressing Reality: An Architectural Response to Real-World Demands on the Evolving Internet” (with Karin Sollins, John Wroclawski and Ted Faber), Paper at ACM SIGCOMM 2003 Workshops.
• “Tussle in Cyberspace: Defining Tomorrow’s Internet” (with Karen R. Sollins, John Wroclawski and Robert Braden), Paper at SIGCOMM 2002.

David Clark is a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where he has worked since receiving his Ph.D. there in 1973. Since the mid 70s, Dr. Clark has been leading the development of the Internet; from 1981-1989 he acted as Chief Protocol Architect in this development, and chaired the Internet Activities Board. His current research looks at re-definition of the architectural underpinnings of the Internet, and the relation of technology and architecture to economic, societal and policy considerations. He is helping the U.S. National Science foundation organize their Future Internet Design program. Dr. Clark is past chairman of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies, and has contributed to a number of studies on the societal and policy impact of computer communications. He is co-director of the MIT Communications Futures Program, a project for industry collaboration and coordination along the communications value chain.

My piece about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce event last Friday on U.S. intellectual property attachés giving a report, and taking a hard line, on the enforcement of U.S. intellectual property, overseas, is now live on ip-watch.org.

Here’s the first couple of paragraphs:

WASHINGTON, DC – Nations ranging from Brazil to Brunei to Russia are failing to properly protect the intellectual property assets of US companies and others, and international organisations are not doing enough to stop it, seven IP attachés to the US Foreign and Commercial Service lamented recently.

Meanwhile, an industry group issued detailed recommendations for the incoming Obama administration’s changes to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The problems in other nations extend from Brazil’s failure to issue patents for commercially significant inventions by US inventors, to an almost-complete piracy-based economy in Brunei, to an only-modest drop in the rate of Russian piracy from 65 percent to 58 percent.

The attachés, speaking at an event organised by the US Chamber of Commerce and its recently beefed-up Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC), blasted the record of familiar intellectual property trouble zones like Brunei, Thailand and Russia.

But the problems extend to the attitudes and omissions of major trading partners like Brazil, India and even well-developed European nations, said the attachés.

[more at http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1387….]

I attended the Federal Trade Commission hearing about the state of intellectual property on Friday, and wrote a piece about the event, “With US Patent Overhaul Dead, Agencies Ponder Changes As Industry Debates Role Of ‘Trolls’.”

The piece appeared in ip-watch.org, the excellent Geneva-based publication run by my friend and former colleague William New. Those of you who aren’t familiar yet with ip-watch.org should definitely begin following it: it’s a must-read for practitioners, advocates and activists concerned about all forms of intellectual property.

What’s the right way to allocate the airwaves? For years and years and years, the governing policy of federal communications was that the electro-magnetic spectrum was too “scarce” to be left to the devices of the marketplace. This kind of reasoning has always lacked substance. As I wrote in a piece occoccasioned by the rise of indecency enforcement:

Congress began regulating broadcasters in 1927 on the grounds of scarcity. In return for free and exclusive use of a given wavelength, broadcasters agreed to serve the “public interest, convenience, and necessity” — or at least to do what Congress and the FCC ordered. One element of this agreement was a ban on obscene, indecent and profane language. This scarcity theory has always lacked substance. Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase’s reputation is based, in part, on a notable paper he wrote in 1959 that criticized the rationale behind the FCC’s command and control regime of licensing broadcasters. “It is a commonplace of economics that almost all resources in the economic system (and not simply radio and television frequencies) are limited in amount and scarce, in that people would like to use more than exists,” Coase argued in his seminal essay. From Shouldn’t FCC Rules Over Indecency Just Grow Up? Reflections on Free Speech and Converging Media

The FCC eventually came to realize that it could endow electromagnetic frequencies with property rights-like characteristics. In 1993, under Bill Clinton and a Democratic congress, the United States finally moved to such a system — at least in those frequencies used by cell-phone operators. As in so many other ways, broadcasters have remained immune from historical trends.

This backdrop is important to understand our current moment in wireless policy. Tomorrow, on Wednesday, November 12, at 4 p.m., those near Washington will be able to gain insight into how other nations have approached radio frequency regulation. The Information Economy Project at the George Mason University School of Law ( Disclosure: I’m the Assistant Director at the Information Economy Project, a part-time position that I currently hold) will host its next “Big Ideas About Information Lecture” featuring an address by Dr. William Webb, a top policy maker at OFCOM, the U.K. telecommunications regulator.

OFCOM’s ambitious liberalization strategy, announced in 2004, permits the large majority of valuable frequencies to be used freely by competitive licensees, offering an exciting and informative experiment in public policy.  Dr. Webb’s lecture, “Spectrum Reform: A U.K. Regulator’s Perspective,” will offer a timely progress report for the American audience.

Returning to my piece about the oddity of broadcast regulation for a moment:

But now technology has created new electromagnetic spectrum. Higher wavelengths than those used by traditional radio and television systems have been pressed into service for digital cellular telephones, wireless data connections, and satellite television and radios. The XM and Sirius satellite radio companies each offer hundreds of channels with less spectrum than all FM radio broadcasters combined. And cellular carriers now pack thousands of conversations on a channel that once served a single voice conversation. Nonetheless, “scarcity” remains the foundation of a bifurcated jurisprudence. Newspapers, magazines, books and the Internet enjoy expansive First Amendment protections. Radio and broadcast television, defined as “public” properties, do not. The Supreme Court accepted the scarcity theory in a 1943 case, when it upheld the FCC’s power to grant or deny privileges to electronic speakers. In 1969, the court went further, ruling in Red Lion v. FCC that scarcity required a Pennsylvania radio station to give free reply time to an author whose book was criticized over the air. Thus, the “Fairness Doctrine” was affirmed. From Shouldn’t FCC Rules Over Indecency Just Grow Up? Reflections on Free Speech and Converging Media

Although “Fairness Doctrine” is dead, the legal rationale for regulating broadcasting differently from newspapers, magazines, books and the internet lives on.

Most people involved in this debate see that the “scarcity doctrine” was always a fallacy. But should something else take its place? Are there other reasons that government should refuse to license airwaves as private property — such as, for example, a perceived need to devote them to “white spaces” for wireless communications devices? This important debate is by no means settled, and I hope that all who are interested in the subject will RSVP and attend tomorrow’s event.

More information about the lecture, and about the Information Economy Project, is available at http://iep.gmu.edu

Event Details:

Where: George Mason University School of Law, Room 121, 3301 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201 (Orange Line: Virginia Square-GMU Metro). When: Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 4 – 5:30 p.m., reception to follow. Admission is free, but seating is limited. Because of construction, parking is tight. See http://www.law.gmu.edu/geninfo/parking.

The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested. To reserve a spot, please e-mail Drew Clark at iep.gmu@gmail.com

About the Information Economy Project:

The Information Economy Project at George Mason University sits at the intersection of academic research and public policy, producing peer-reviewed scholarly research, as well as hosting conferences and lectures with prominent thinkers in the Information Economy. The project brings the discipline of law and economics to telecommunications policy. More information about the project is available at http://iep.gmu.edu

SAN JOSE, Nov. 7 – This morning I’ve posted two articles on BroadbandCensus.com about the Wireless Communications Association’s conference here.

With the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to allow “white spaces” devices at its open meeting on Election Day, it may make sense to ask: how are other nations approaching the issue of “white spaces”? Do other countries that make use of flexible and transferable spectrum licensing find that taking the approach that the FCC took on Tuesday — allowing unlicensed wireless devices to share vacant television frequencies — helps or hinders in getting more spectrum available for the “highest and best use”?

As readers of this blog are probably aware, I work part-time at the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law, which sits at the intersection of academic research and telecommunications policy.

IEP is pleased to sponsor one of its “Big Ideas About Information” Lecture next Wednesday, November 12, at the law school in Arlington. The school is conveniently located at the Virginia Square/GMU Metro station, and is a short ride away from downtown Washington.

At 4 p.m. on November 12, William Webb, the head of research and development and the senior technologist at OFCOM, the British telecommunications regulator, will be speaking about this and other subjects. The title of his remarks is: “The Theory, Practice, Politics and Problems of Spectrum Reform: A U.K. Regulator’s Perspective,” and you can learn more about it here, or by clicking on the badge below.

Admission is free, but seating is limited. To reserve your spot, please email me, Drew Clark, at this address: iep.gmu@gmail.com

WASHINGTON, November 4 – When I heard yesterday that the Supreme Court had declined C-SPAN’s request for immediate release of the audio tapes from today’s oral argument in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, I thought I would have to wait for months.

I will have to wait months for the audio-tape, of course, but the other part of the story is the Supreme Court now releases the transcript of oral arguments on the same day. It has already done so on the SCOTUS site. And (surprise-of-surprises), the transcript identifies the individual justices who are asking questions!

This is probably old hat to those who follow the high court on a day-in-and-day-out basis. It’s been a few years (I think Brand X was the last case) since I’ve heard one live. But this is a true revolution in transparency, and very helpful for those who want to follow what goes on at the Supreme Court.

I’ve just posted two new entries over at BroadbandCensus.com (in addtion to the one about FCC v. Fox Televisions Stations) below. Now, I’ve got to go and vote.

The pieces at BroadbandCensus.com include a blog post about the real issue in white spaces: not broadcasters versus techies, but keeping the current Swiss-cheese arrangement in the airwaves versus clearing the broadcasters out of their radio frequencies entirely.

Also, in a special election day news report, myself and Drew Bennett have written about the delay in the vote over the universal service fund and intercarrier compensation overhauls.

Four-and-a-half years ago, I wrote this piece about how a converging media undermines the FCC’s rationalle for indecency enforcement. The piece, “TV Has Grown Up. Shouldn’t FCC Rules?” first appeared in the Washington Post Outlook section on Sunday, May 16, 2004, and it remains more relevant today than ever: the Supreme Court is today considering Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Station, a case about whether the FCC acted properly in sanctioning Fox over the use of the words “fuck” and “shit” on broadcast television.

WASHINGTON, October 30 – At the National Press Club, Larry Irving and Grover Norquist are debating technology and the presidential candidates. Check out the side of the page on DrewClark.com, or at http://twitter.com/drewclark, for my live Twitters!

William Webb, Head of Research and Development at OFCOM, to speak about ‘The Theory, Practice, Politics and Problems of Spectrum Reform’ on November 12

ARLINGTON, VA., October 23 – With the transition to digital television in the United States less than four months away, disputes about the airwaves used by broadcasters are raging here and around the globe.  A world-class expert will soon weigh in on how one country, the United Kingdom, views the challenges of bringing radio spectrum allocation into the 21st Century.

On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, the Information Economy Project at the George Mason University School of Law will host its next Big Ideas About Information Lecture, featuring an address by Dr. William Webb, a top policy maker at OFCOM, the U.K. telecommunications regulator.

OFCOM’s ambitious liberalization strategy, announced in 2004, permits the large majority of valuable frequencies to be used freely by competitive licensees, offering an exciting and informative experiment in public policy.  Dr. Webb’s lecture, “The Theory, Practice, Politics and Problems of Spectrum Reform,” will offer a timely progress report for the American audience.

Webb’s lecture will be the sixth in a prestigious series that has included Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith and noted economist David Porter on how FCC license auctions have worked; Martin Cooper, the “father of the cellphone,” on spectrum allocation; Brian Lamb, founder and CEO of C-SPAN, on the policies that enabled the cable network to launch;  former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Dennis Patrick, on the decision to abolish the “Fairness Doctrine” in 1987; and University of Minnesota Professor Andrew Odlyzko, on financial bubbles in high-technology industries.

Dr. Webb’s Lecture will review the century-long history of radio spectrum regulation. For almost all of that century, the policy-maker has micro-managed spectrum use, defining services, technologies and business models deployed by wireless operators. The inefficiencies embedded in this approach have triggered calls for liberalization since the pioneering work of economist Ronald Coase in the 1950s.

While efforts to relax administrative control have generally met great political resistance, some substantial progress has been made with the emergence of mobile telephone networks over the past two decades.  Policy makers in some nations are now seeking to achieve bolder changes. The regulator in the United Kingdom, OFCOM, has emerged as a leader in this campaign.

After the Labour Government commissioned a landmark 2002 study authored by economist Martin Cave, OFCOM moved aggressively to assist the emergence of property rights in frequencies, the institutional switch enabling market allocation of radio spectrum.

This lecture, delivered by a key OFCOM policy official and a noted spectrum technology expert in his own right, dissects the liberalization process in Great Britain and offers lessons learned. This experience promises great insight for the U.S. and other countries struggling to enact pro-consumer policy reforms.

More information about the lecture, and about the Information Economy Project, is available at http://iep.gmu.edu

Event Details:

Where: George Mason University School of Law, Room 120, 3301 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201 (Orange Line: Virginia Square-GMU Metro). When: Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 4 – 5:30 p.m., reception to follow. Admission is free, but seating is limited. Because of construction, parking is tight. See http://www.law.gmu.edu/geninfo/parking.

The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested. To reserve a spot, please e-mail Drew Clark at iep.gmu@gmail.com

About the Information Economy Project:

The Information Economy Project at George Mason University sits at the intersection of academic research and public policy, producing peer-reviewed scholarly research, as well as hosting conferences and lectures with prominent thinkers in the Information Economy. The project brings the discipline of law and economics to telecommunications policy. More information about the project is available at http://iep.gmu.edu

Over at DrewClark.com, earlier today I reported today that television networks – which in recent years have had a strained relationship with local broadcasters on a variety of fronts – joined with the National Association of Broadcasters in calling for a time out on the politically simmering issue of “white spaces.” Here’s the start of the story, and you can read the full post at DrewClark.com

WASHINGTON, October 23 – The top executives of the four major broadcast networks on Thursday urged the head of the Federal Communications Commission to delay a vote on a politically simmering issue that pits broadcasters against Google and high-tech executives.

In the letter, the CEOs of CBS Corp., NBC Universal and Walt Disney, and the chief operating officer of News Corp., urge that the FCC exercise caution before taking irreparable action with regard to the vacant television channels known as “white spaces.”

Google and the other technology executives, including Microsoft, Motorola, Philips and others, want the FCC to authorize electronic devices that capable of transmitting internet signals over vacant television bands.

The network executives – CBS’s Leslie Moonves, Disney’s Robert Iger, NBC’s Jeffrey Zucker and Peter Chernin of News Corp. – want a time out.

They join their local broadcasting colleagues, as well as manufacturers and users of wireless microphones, like the National Football League and Boadway theater owners, who have been actively lobbying the issue.

[…]

Read the rest of the story at my blog, DrewClark.com – The Politics of Telecom, Media and Technology

Readers of Tech Liberation Front may be interested in a new breakfast series that BroadbandCensus.com has recently begun.

The next event in this series, “Should Government Funding Be Part of a National Broadband Plan?” will be held on Tuesday, November 18, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., and will include Stan Fendley, the director of legislative and regulatory policy for Corning, Inc., Kyle McSlarrow, CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), and John Windhausen, Jr., president of Telepoly Consulting. I will moderate the discussion.

Two weeks after Election Day, this Broadband Breakfast Club meeting will consider one of the hottest topics in telecom: can and should funding for broadband work its way into a pending fiscal stimulus package?

Future meetings of the breakfast club (December 2008 through March 2009) will consider the role of broadband applications in harnessing demand, how the universal service fund will be changed by high-speed internet, the role of wireless in universal broadband, and the extent of competition in the marketplace.

The Broadband Breakfast Club meets monthly at the Old Ebbitt Grill, at 675 15th Street, NW, in Washington. (It’s right across the street from the Department of the Treasury.)

Beginning at 8 a.m., an American plus Continental breakfast is available downstairs in the Cabinet Room. This is followed by a discussion about the question at hand, which ends at 10 a.m. Except for holidays (like Veteran’s Day), we’ll meet on the second Tuesday of each month, until March 2009. The registration page for the event is http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com.

Because of the limited size of the venue, seated attendance will be reserved the first 45 individuals to register. There are no restrictions on who may register to attend. With the exception of speakers, there is a $45.00 charge (plus a modest Eventbrite fee) to attend. The events are on the record.

We kicked off this series earlier this month with a well-attended breakfast on “10 Years Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Success or Failure?”

I started the Broadband Breakfast Club for the same reason that I started BroadbandCensus.com earlier this year: I believe that American consumers, policy-makers and broadband providers need better information about the issues surrounding high-speed internet access.

Today, broadband is (or could) the driver of citizen engagement, commerce, democratic participation, education, entertainment, health care and potential environmental gains through wider telecommuting. And yet basic information about where particular broadband company offers service – and at what price and at what speed – is not conveniently available in a single, public source. The free web service BroadbandCensus.com aims to change that by going directly to individual internet users for their feedback.

Our Broadband Breakfast Club series is directed more at Washington policy-makers and influencers. But again, we are seeking to broaden the discussion by allowing all to participate. The goal of this breakfast series is to bring an informed consensus – or, failing that, an informed disagreement – around key broadband policy questions.

With the dawn of a new administration – and the prospect of a systematic approach to high-speed internet issues for the first time in nearly a decade – now is the time to undertake these discussions.

Further, the breakfast events that we’re hosting now will lead up to our Spring 2009 conference, “Broadband Census for America: The New Administration.” The Spring 2009 conference – bringing together federal, state and local officials, academic researchers and other interested parties around the issue of broadband data – is tentatively scheduled for Friday, March 27, 2009, here in Washington.

If you have questions or thoughts about upcoming events in the Broadband Breakfast Club series, or about the Spring 2009 conference, “Broadband Census for America: The New Administration,” or about BroadbandCensus.com in general, feel free to contact me: drew at broadbandcensus.com, or at 202-580-8196.

As with everything on BroadbandCensus.com, this blog post is under our Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License. That means you can copy, send, repost and redistribute it. Please do so! The URL for this post is http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=923, and the URL for the registration page is http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com.

It’s nearing Halloween, so it must mean the anniversary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is just around the corner. In fact, it was 10 years ago, on Sunday, that Congress passed the DMCA, on October 12, 1998. The law was signed by President Clinton on October 28, 1998.

The information and news service that I have launched, BroadbandCensus.com, is “celebrating” the passage of the law with the inaugural event of the Broadband Breakfast Club. The breakfast event will take place on Tuesday, October 14, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., at the Old Ebbitt Grill at 675 15th Street NW, Washington, DC.

This event will bring together several key stakeholders together to share perspectives on this topic:

• Drew Clark, Executive Director, BroadbandCensus.com (Moderator)
• Mitch Glazier, Senior Vice President, Government Relations, Recording Industry Association of America
• Michael Petricone, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, Consumer Electronics Association
• Wendy Seltzer, Practitioner in Residence, Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, American University Washington College of Law
• Emery Simon, Counselor, Business Software Alliance

Breakfast for registrants will be available beginning at 8:00 a.m., and the forum itself will begin at around 8:30 a.m., and conclude promptly at 10 a.m. The event is open to the public. The charge for the breakfast is $45.00, plus an Eventbrite registration fee. Seated attendance is limited to the first 45 individuals to register for the event.

Future events in the Broadband Breakfast Club monthly series will feature other key topics involved in broadband technology and internet policy. In fact, you can mark your calendar for the next event on Tuesday, November 18, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., also at the Old Ebbitt Grill.

For more information about BroadbandCensus.com, or about the Broadband Breakfast Club at Old Ebbitt Grill – on the second Tuesday of each month – please visit http://broadbandcensus.com, or call me at 202-580-8196.

Note: Here’s a second post I just put live at DrewClark.com. It refers to an upcoming conference, on Friday, October 3, sponsored by the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law. It will be held at 8:30 a.m. at the National Press Club. Registration details are below.

In the United States, the regulation of broadcast radio and television has always been done under a different standard than the regulation of the print medium.

As Secretary of Commerce in the administration of President Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover declared: “The ether is a public medium, and its use must be for a public benefit,” he said at the Fourth National Radio Conference, in 1925. “The dominant element for consideration in the radio field is, and always will be, the great body of the listening public, millions in number, country-wide in distribution.”

When Congress created the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, it decreed that broadcasting was to serve the “public interest, convenience and necessity,” and this standard was re-affirmed in the Communications Act of 1934. Several Supreme Court decisions — albeit decisions that have been much criticized — affirmed that broadcasting could and should be treated differently than the traditional “press.”

This differential treatment for broadcasting — versus the print medium, and also cable television — was underscored by the decisions in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969), which upheld the “Fairness Doctrine,” and also FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978), which upheld indecency rules for over-the-air broadcast television. The Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to grant reply time to those who said their views were criticized.

The Fairness Doctrine upheld in Red Lion was premised on the notion that electromagnetic frequencies, being “scarce,” needed to be rationed through a government-granted license. (It took economist Ronald Coase to note that airwaves are no more scarce than pulp and printing presses.) Station owners were thus periodically licensed as “public trustees” and obligated to either air different points of view, or return their spectrum.

Hence the nascent broadcasting medium was never allowed to develop with the full panoply of First Amendment protections for opinion, commentary, and outright partisanship, as were newspapers. The Pacifica decision underscored this result, holding that George Carlin’s “Filthy Words” monologue, even though not obscene, could be banned by the Federal Communications Commission.

President Ronald Reagan took a dim view of broadcasting’s “specialness.” In the memorable words of his FCC Chairman, Mark Fowler, television is “just another appliance — it’s a toaster with pictures.” Fowler and his successor, Dennis Patrick, worked together with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and finally killed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. They argued that it chilled free speech, and the appeals court agreed that the agency was entitled to drop the doctrine. Notwithstanding two congressional pushes to overturn the FCC — vetoed by Presidents Reagan and the first President Bush — the Fairness Doctrine was never re-instituted.

But the issue of what else, specifically, broadcasters were required to do to fulfill their public interest obligations came to a head under President Clinton and FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. Hundt pushed for the imposition of a mandatory three hours a week of children’s television – a requirement contemplated by the Children’s Television Act of 1990.

The rise of digital television also complicated this inquiry. As I discussed in my blog post earlier today, “Do TV Broadcasters Have Obligations to the Public,” Congress chartered an advisory committee to consider this question. As part of the Telecom Act of 1996, Congress paved the way for a new allocation of radio-frequencies so that broadcasters could also transmit their signals digitally. But it also specifically inserted language in the act, stating:

Nothing in this section shall be construed as relieving a television broadcasting station from its obligation to serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity. In the [FCC’s] review of any application for renewal of a broadcast license for a television station that provides ancillary or supplementary services, the television licensee shall establish that all of its program services on the existing or advanced television spectrum are in the public interest.

But it would take a commission — specifically, the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters (“Gore Commission”) — to sort through and analyze those specific obligations.

Next post: What Were the Gore Commission’s Findings, and How Do they Apply to the Video Future?

Resources:

• “Charting the Digital Broadcasting Future,” the final report of the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters” [PDF]
• “Citizen’s Guide to the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters“, Benton Foundation.

Conference Program:

A mini-conference • Friday, October 3, 2008, 8:30 a.m.The Gore Commission, 10 Years Later: Th e Public Interest Obligations of Digital TV Broadcasters in Perfect Hindsight

A mini-conference • Friday, October 3, 2008, 8:30 a.m. National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC

Note: Here’s a post I just put live at DrewClark.com. It refers to an upcoming conference that might be of interest to Tech Liberation readers. Make sure to follow the link to the bottom of the post for registration information for this FREE conference, to be held tomorrow, Friday, October 3, at 8:30 a.m.

If all goes according to plan, on February 17, 2009, television broadcasters will power down their analog transmitters. They will be broadcasting their signal only digitally.

After more than 20 years in the long transition to digital television, this might be considered progress. Now, millions of Americans are collecting vouchers from the Commerce Department to subsidize their purchase of converter boxes. These are the electronic devices that take the digital signals — and convert them back to analog — so that viewers without high-definition televisions can watch broadcast TV on their old sets.

What about the bigger questions? Is there any benefit to the public, or to consumers, from the transition to digital television? What about the vaunted visions of hundreds of broadcast channels, through multi-casting? What would be the new public-interest obligations, if any, of broadcasters? This question has definitely not been resolved.

It may come back to this question: what was the point of making this move to digital and high-definition television? I recounted some of this history in “Spectrum Wars,” a 2005 article in National Journal magazine:

[The National Association of Broadcasters] seized upon a new technology out of Japan called high-definition TV. Compared with the 45-year-old U.S. standard, the sharper, high-resolution images used twice as many lines on a television screen, and broadcasting a program required two television channels instead of one. For broadcasters, that was just the point: High-definition gave them a way to fend off the FCC’s effort to grab frequencies back and turn them over to other uses. The broadcasters lobbied the agency to postpone the spectrum reallocation [currently being considered for cellular telephones] and to study the new technology. The NAB worked its magic on Capitol Hill, inviting Japanese broadcaster NHK to Washington and rolling big-screen Sony TVs into a hearing in the Senate Caucus Room. Fear of Japanese competition was at fever pitch in Washington. Congress was stunned by the picture quality and frenzied at the prospect that the Japanese would outflank American manufacturers of televisions, just as they had done to the makers of videocassette recorders. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., then-chairman of the House Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee, took up their cause, and Congress pressured the FCC to leave the spectrum assignments alone on the condition that broadcasters develop HDTV. […] But there was still a problem. Existing TV broadcasting equipment could not send digital signals, and existing analog television sets couldn’t receive digital signals. Broadcasters would have to invest in new television cameras and towers for digital signals, and consumers would have to spend thousands of dollars apiece on new sets. During the transitional period, each broadcaster would need two channels, one for analog and one for digital. Broadcasters turned to Congress, now in Republican hands, and lobbied for a new compact: We’ll give you HDTV if you give us a second channel, for free, until Americans have made the switch. “It was understood that the channels would be loaned for a period of years to prevent consumers from losing television,” said Robert Seidel, vice president of engineering for CBS Broadcasting.

Congress initially approved a transition to digital in 1997, setting year-end 2006 as the target transition date. But a loophole rendered the 2006 irrelevant until congress revisited the issue and, on February 1, 2006, fixed February 2009 as the end-date for the transition.

In the intervening decade, the question of broadcasters’ public interest obligations has been intermittently revived. Most significantly, as a result of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, an Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters was created. It became popularly known as the “Gore Commission.”

Unlike other modes of communications, broadcasters are regulated as a “public trustee.” This means that they must meet certain obligations — by airing children’s television, or by including coverage of civic and political events, for example — that are not required of their counterparts on cable or the print medium.

At the time of the Gore Commission, one voice in the debate was Henry Geller, a former FCC general counsel who has continued to work on broadband matters as a private citizen. He was an FCC attorney before rising to general counsel in 1964-1970, later serving as an assistant to FCC Chairman Dean Burch, from 1970-1974, and then becoming the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration under President Carter, from 1978-1981.

In a 2000 hearing on the subject before Congress, Geller suggested the following (reprinted in Current magazine):

I urge you to consider the following: Scrap the public trustee content scheme, and treat broadcasting like its main rival, cable, which pays up to 5 percent of gross revenues for use of the public streets for cable rights-of-way (significantly, the public makes little or no distinction between cable and broadcast channels). By taking some modest fee from commercial broadcasters for their use of the public spectrum in lieu of the public trustee obligation, noncommercial television could be adequately funded to deliver high-quality public service programming. The objective is to obtain such programming, but since the government soundly cannot review for quality, we are dependent upon the broadcaster to present the high-quality public service programs. The noncommercial system has demonstrated that it will strive to do so; the commercial system, under fierce and growing competition, has no such history or incentive.

Geller instead suggested a 1 percent spectrum fee on gross advertising revenues, netting about $250 million at the time, and going to fund educational programming on public television

Geller also argued, with respect to political content:

There is one other recommendation to Congress—affording free time to candidates as an important part of campaign finance reform. The details of such an effort are of course to be fashioned by Congress. Since it would obligate broadcasters to allocate a relatively large amount of air time every two years (or perhaps issue vouchers for purchase of that air time), the free time provision, along with the above 1 percent figure in the educational field, would constitute the full broadcaster contribution in lieu of its present public trustee obligation. This would be a meritorious conclusion, because an educated and informed electorate is so vital to the proper functioning of our democracy.

Geller, together with two officials involved in the Gore Commission — Norman Ornstein and Gigi Sohn — will present their reflections at a forum TOMORROW, on Friday, October 3: “The Gore Commission, 10 Years Later: The Public Interest Obligations of Digital TV Broadcasters in Perfect Hindsight.” The event, to be held beginning at 8:30 a.m. at the National Press Club, will feature is sponsored by the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law, of which I am the assistant director. The full program is available at http://iep.gmu.edu. Admission to the event is free and open to the public. To reserve your spot, please email Drew Clark at: iep.gmu@gmail.com.

Later today, I’ll be returning to this theme with two more blog entries in this spot:

• What Did the Gore Commission Accomplish?
• How Do the Gore Commission’s Finding Apply to Our Video Future?

Conference Program:

A mini-conference • Friday, October 3, 2008, 8:30 a.m.The Gore Commission, 10 Years Later: Th e Public Interest Obligations of Digital TV Broadcasters in Perfect Hindsight

A mini-conference • Friday, October 3, 2008, 8:30 a.m. National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC

Our conference, “Broadband Census for America,” is fast approaching…. The event is tomorrow. If you want to attend, follow the instructions in the press release below:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, September 25, 2008 – California Public Utilities Commissioner Rachelle Chong, a member of the Federal Communications Commission from 1994 to 1997, will kick off the Broadband Census for America Conference with a keynote speech on Friday, September 26, at 8:30 a.m.

Eamonn Confrey, the first secretary for information and communications policy at the Embassy of Ireland, will present the luncheon keynote at noon. Confrey will overview Ireland’s efforts to collect data on broadband service through a comprehensive web site with availability, pricing and speed data about carriers.

Following Chong’s keynote address, the Broadband Census for America Conference – the first of its kind to unite academics, state regulators, and entities collecting broadband data – will hear from two distinguished panels.

One panel, “Does America Need a Broadband Census?” will contrast competing approaches to broadband mapping. Art Brodsky, communication director of the advocacy group Public Knowledge, will appear at the first public forum with Mark McElroy, the chief operating officer of Connected Nation, a Bell- and cable-industry funded organization involved in broadband mapping.

Also participating on the panel will be Drew Clark, executive director of BroadbandCensus.com, a consumer-focused effort at broadband data collection; and Debbie Goldman, the coordinator of Speed Matters, which is run by the Communications Workers of America.

The second panel, “How Should America Conduct a Broadband Census?” will feature state experts, including Jane Smith Patterson, executive director of the e-NC authority; and Jeffrey Campbell, director of technology and communications policy for Cisco Systems. Campbell was actively involved in the California Broadband Task Force.

Others scheduled to speak include Professor Kenneth Flamm of the University of Texas at Austin; Dr. William Lehr of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner Larry Landis; and Jean Plymale of Virginia Tech’s eCorridors Program.

Keynote speaker Rachelle Chong has been engaged in broadband data collection as a federal regulator, as a telecommunications attorney, and since 2006 as a state official.

Chong was instrumental to the California Broadband Task Force, which mapped broadband availability in California. She will speak about broadband data collection from the mid-1990s to today.

The event will be held at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences’ headquarters at 12th and H Streets NW (near Metro Center) in Washington.

For more information: Drew Bennett, 202-580-8196 Bennett@broadbandcensus.com Conference web site: http://broadbandcensus.com/conference/ Registration: http://broadbandcensus.eventbrite.com/

WASHINGTON, August 19 – BroadbandCensus.com is pleased to support One Web Day, and I am very happy to be an Ambassador for this effort.

Most Americans who have high-speed internet can’t imagine life without broadband. How could you connect to the Internet of today without it? In today’s world, broadband is as basic as running water and electricity. And yet the U.S. is falling behind globally.

As a technology reporter, I’ve been writing about the battles over broadband and the Internet for more than a decade here in Washington. Yet there is one fact about which nearly everyone seems to be in agreement: if America wants better broadband, America needs better broadband data.

That’s why I’ve recently started a new venture to collect this broadband data, and to make this data freely available for all on the Web at http://BroadbandCensus.com.

One Web Day presents an opportunity for all of us to take stock with the true state of broadband in this country. BroadbandCensus.com wants to work with each of you to help us “crowdsource” the data we need to get a better handle on availability, competition, speeds, prices, and quality of service of local broadband.

What is BroadbandCensus.com?

When an Internet user goes to the BroadbandCensus.com web site, he or she types in a ZIP code. By doing so, the consumer will find out how many broadband providers the FCC says are available. The consumer can compare that number to his or her own sense of the competitive landscape, as well as the names of the carriers published by BroadbandCensus.com.

Continue reading BroadbandCensus.com Joins with One Web Day

A recent post to Dave Farber’s [IP] list:

WASHINGTON, August 8 – I’d like to take a moment to respond to some of the issues raised by the recent e-mail of Brett Glass.

With respect to the issue data confidentiality, it’s important to separate out several issues here:

(1) The names of carriers and the locations in which they offer services, by ZIP code.

(2) The number of subscribers that carriers have in a particular ZIP code.

The Form 477 of the Federal Communications Commission requires carriers to submit both types of information to the FCC.

I agree that category (2) may well be confidential information. I do not think that category (1) can be considered confidential.

The web site that I run, http://BroadbandCensus.com, is an attempt to combine information about broadband from various sources. In addition to “crowdsourcing” data from internet users, we are combining public information from the FCC’s Form 477, publicly available information about carriers and where they offer services, as well as from states and localities. Since we launched BroadbandCensus.com in January 2008, We have had thousands of internet users tell us the names of their providers, where those providers are offering service, and they’ve taken our beta speed test.

It is important to note that Form 477 data released by the FCC does not include the names of the carriers. The FCC recently ordered carriers to begin to provide information on the census tract level (a unit slightly smaller than a ZIP code). However, unless the FCC changes its policy, consumers will still not be able to obtain carrier information from the agency.

Hence, the data we have from the FCC is extremely limited.

Our data directly from carriers is a little bit better. Since the launch of BroadbandCensus.com, I have reached out to associations of small carriers, and dozens of them have voluntarily provided information about the ZIP codes in which they offer service. Several of the major cable companies also make this information publicly available, although other large providers do not.

Who would benefit more from public disclosure about the locations, technology types, promised speeds and prices: small carriers or big carriers? I don’t know.

Brett clearly feels that small carriers would suffer. I know of others who disagree with him.

With regard to the conference on September 26, 2008, that is being sponsored by BroadbandCensus.com, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Texas at Austin’s Robert S. Strauss Center, and the Virginia Tech eCorridors Program, we plan to make a list of our panel speakers available in the coming weeks. Although space on the program is tight, the program committee is open to including others.

The goal of the conference, as stated on http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=331, is to “invite government officials, academic researchers and other key stakeholders to a half-day conference on collecting and sharing public data about high-speed internet access.”

With regard to issue of the Freedom of Information Act that Brett raises:

It is correct that an organization for which I previously worked — the Center for Public Integrity — filed a lawsuit seeking the disclosure of the Form 477 database. As the suit proceeded, the Center dropped its request for data in category (2), and instead sought the data in category (1).

More information about the Center’s lawsuit is available at http://projects.publicintegrity.org/telecom/report.aspx?aid=886

All of the major telecommunications carriers’ associations intervened or filed amicus briefs on behalf of the FCC in this matter. Judge Ellen Huvelle ruled against the Center in August 2007, and again in October 2007.

Meanwhile, the momentum behind collecting and mapping better broadband data continues unabated. Indeed, the FCC is undergoing a proceeding on this very question. I blogged about this at http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=195, and BroadbandCensus.com filed comments in the FCC’s regulatory proceeding, at http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=119

The gist of the comments is that the FCC should change its policy and publicly disclose the data in category (1). BroadbandCensus.com has not filed any FOIA requests or lawsuits on this matter.

If you want to get involved with BroadbandCensus.com, or with the “Broadband Census for America” Conference, please feel free to e-mail me at drew@broadbandcensus.com.

We want to make this discussion and debate as open and transparent as possible.

URL: http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=352

WASHINGTON, August 1 – The Federal Communication Commission’s enforcement action against Comcast can be seen either as a limited response to a company’s deceptive practices, or a sweeping new venture by the agency into regulating internet policy.

In ruling against Comcast on Friday, the agency ordered the company to “disclose the details of its discriminatory network management practices,” “submit a compliance plan” to end those practices by year-end, and “disclose to customers and the [FCC] the network management practices that will replace current practices.”

At issue in the decision was whether Comcast had engaged in “reasonable network management” practices when it delayed and effetively blocked access to users of BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer software program.

Although BitTorrent had already settled its complaints with Comcast, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said that FCC action was necessary because the complaint had been brought by Free Press and Public Knowledge, two non-profit groups. The FCC did not impose a fine.

Martin said that he viewed the agency’s decision to punish the cable operator as a quasi-judicial matter: a “fact-intensive inquiry” against a specific company that it found to have “selectively block[ed]” peer-to-peer traffic.

[Continue reading “FCC Hammers Comcast For Deception and Unreasonable Internet Management“]

…to cover the hearing at which Comcast is expected to be punished for violations of Network Neutrality. Fortunately, the Federal Communications Commission did not start on time. The great thing about the Kevin Martin FCC is that you never have to worry about being late. For example, we’re live at the FCC for the 9:30 a.m. meeting:

The FCC, 9:49 a.m.

The FCC, 9:49 a.m.

I’ll be live-Twittering the event, so check back on DrewClark.com (look at the column on the right – or just go to Twitter and “follow” me) for the latest updates. Later in the day, I’ll be posting a story about the event at BroadbandCensus.com.

WASHINGTON, July 28 – By combining better public information, market mechanisms and smarter systems of subsidization, the government can play a positive role in funding infrastructure investments in telecommunications, according to three reports released Friday by the Brookings Institution.

The papers, released on Friday at an event that also featured an address by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, are part of a Brookings Institution initiative promoting investments in infrastructure – both physical, transportation investments, as well as new ways to spur improvements in the telecommunications infrastructure.

“No economy improves with a declining infrastructure,” said Kaine, a Democrat. “Unless you make that high-tech investment easy by telecom access, you won’t get” improvements in your state’s economic condition, he said.

Brookings, a liberal-leaning think tank, released the reports as part of an initiative dubbed the “Hamilton Project.” The project seeks to put forward policy ideas that “embrac[e] a role for effective government in making needed public investments,” according to the think tank.

Read the complete story at BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, July 17 – Communications Workers of America this past week teamed up with a group of telecommunications companies, cable operators and non-profit groups to push for Congress to pass broadband data legislation.

In a Friday letter and a Monday press release, the groups wrote “to express [their] strong support for Congressional action to promote greater availability and adoption of broadband high-speed Internet services.”

They want “a national policy” to encourage more broadband deployment, and they cite economic statistics about broadband’s potential.

And, as a first step, these companies and CWA want Congress to pass the Broadband Census of America Act, H.R. 3919, or the Broadband Data Improvement Act, S. 1492.

Curiously, last month another large coalition announced a similar campaign. They call themselves Internet for Everyone.

Continue reading “CWA Wants Better Broadband Data, As Does Internet for Everyone“

The following commentary appears in the current issue of Opastco Advocate, a monthly newsletter published by the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. Reprinted by permission.

Most Americans who have high-speed Internet can’t imagine life without broadband. How could you connect to the Internet of today without it? In today’s world, broadband is as basic as running water and electricity. And yet the U.S. is falling behind globally. As a technology reporter, I’ve been writing about the battles over broadband and the Internet for nearly a decade in Washington. Yet there is one fact about which nearly everyone seems to be in agreement: if America wants better broadband, America needs better broadband data.

That’s why I’ve recently started a new venture to collect this broadband data, and to make this data freely available for all on the Web, at http://BroadbandCensus.com.

The information and news that is available for free at BroadbandCensus.com is more important now than ever before. The FCC has just made important changes to how it will collect data from carriers. The agency may make even more significant changes in the near future. Public and private sector groups of all stripes are demanding, ever more loudly, that government take steps toward a national broadband policy. That cannot be done without solid information about broadband. Finally, many large carriers are beginning to implement plans to meter out bandwidth in tiers and with usage caps. This marketplace development makes the mission of an independent monitoring Website like BroadbandCensus.com even more critical.

BroadbandCensus.com Serves Consumers, Policymakers, and Carriers

BroadbandCensus.com is designed to help three constituencies: Internet consumers, policymakers, and broadband carriers focused on customer satisfaction. In the long term, we believe that the interests of carriers are aligned with those of their customers and their potential customers.

Internet users benefit by being able to measure and understand information about the availability, competition, speeds and prices of broadband within their areas. When an Internet user goes to the BroadbandCensus.com Website, he or she types in a ZIP code. By doing so, the consumer will find out how many broadband providers the FCC says are available. The consumer can compare that number to his or her own sense of the competitive landscape, as well as the names of the carriers published by BroadbandCensus.com.

The site then invites visitors to Take the Broadband Census! This is a short questionnaire, and it is followed by a free Internet speed test. Each consumer that takes the census puts in their ZIP code, or their ZIP+4 code, selects their broadband carrier from a drop-down menu, and rates that company’s performance on a scale of one to five stars.

The consumer then has the opportunity to add their own comments about the carrier. They may then take a bandwidth speed test. Each of these steps adds data into BroadbandCensus.com. That means that the next visitor to the Website will be better informed about the availability, competition, speeds and customer service of their local broadband options. It also produces a free database of consumer data about more than 1,600 broadband carriers in the U.S.

BroadbandCensus.com also aims to aid policymakers crafting sensible broadband policies based on solid research. We have a contract with the Pew Internet and American Life Project to contribute our information and research to their annual broadband report, and we are working with other broadband researchers around the country.

Consider just three hot-button broadband issues: the Universal Service Fund; whether carriers are engaged in blocking or degrading Internet traffic; and ensuring that all sections of the country – rural as well as inner-city – are digitally included in our broadband world. Better data about competition, speeds and prices are necessary to craft each of these policies. This is what we aim to provide, free of charge, to policymakers on the federal, state and local level, as well as to the public at large.

BroadbandCensus.com is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License. That means that the contents of the site are available, for free, for all to view, copy, redistribute and reuse provided that attribution is made to BroadbandCensus.com, and that such use is done for non-commercial purposes. This is more than just legalese. It means that government agencies and university researchers can benefit from our platform showcasing the best and most accurate broadband data publicly available. State, county and regional development agencies, for example, may republish our data through their own Websites so long as they attribute it to BroadbandCensus.com.

Putting Carrier-Level Information Into BroadbandCensus.com

BroadbandCensus.com aims to collect information from the bottom up. This helps to keep the Internet consumer at the center of the broadband experience. But carriers are obviously integral to this process. We seek to build upon the relationships that we have with dozens of carriers. We also want to form new relationships with hundreds more carriers, such as yourselves. Rural carriers and other special providers of broadband are natural candidates to work with BroadbandCensus.com. We want to build constructive ties with all of you.

The data within BroadbandCensus.com is aggregated from at least four sources: (1) “bottom-up” data from consumers; (2) publicly available information about which providers offer broadband service within each ZIP code; (3) FCC data about the number of broadband providers in each ZIP code; and (4) local broadband information collected and published by state and county regulators.

We also seek information about the availability, prices and speeds that are offered by OPASTCO’s member carriers. Only individuals can make service ratings and measure actual Internet speeds, of course. But carriers are far more likely to have the most up-to-date information about the ZIP codes, and the ZIP+4 codes, in which they offer service. Carriers are also better suited to provide pricing data and information about the speed tiers that they offer to their consumers.

Would each of you be willing to provide us with information about the areas that you serve, the speeds at which you offer services, and the prices at which you sell those services?

Some carriers may resist the notion that they should provide information about where they offer service, let alone the prices at which they do so, on a public Website. Doing so, they believe, would simply aid their competitors. This kind of thinking isn’t uncommon in the business world today. But it is at odds with the notion of radical transparency being followed by many of the most successful technology and communications companies.

The April 2007 issue of Wired magazine cast a spotlight on this development. “You can’t hide anything anymore,” said Don Tapscott, co-author of The Naked Corporation, about corporate openness, as well as Wikinomics, in the piece. “Trying to hide something illicit – trying to hide anything, really – is an unwise gamble,” said Clive Thompson, author of the article entitled “The See-Through CEO.” “Transparency is a judo move,” Thompson continued. “Your customers are going to poke around in your business anyway…so why not make it work for you by turning everyone into a partner in the process and inviting them to do so?”

BroadbandCensus.com agrees. Consumers are going to find out where you offer service. Indeed, they must know in order to get service! They will also find out whether or not you deliver on your promised speeds, and whether or not other customers out there are satisfied or dissatisfied. The Internet simply provides all of these individuals with the wherewithall – the virtual gathering space, if you will – to come together and talk about you. Transparency about broadband availability, competition, speeds and prices is the raison d’être for BroadbandCensus.com. But it doesn’t benefit anyone to close the doors of communication with you, the telecom carriers.

Take the issue of broadband pricing. Many different broadband service providers offer different bundles and pricing plans for different speeds and service options. This creates a myriad of choices involving voice and video (with many different channel options and prices), as well as additional services, such as wireless data, home security and maintenance services, etc. This complicated patchwork of options is one reason that BroadbandCensus.com has held off, for now, with systematically collecting “bottom up” data about broadband prices. Consumers are the best gauge of customer service – but they may not remember all of the services they take. They also may not accurately report the prices for the packages that they buy.

It would be better to get this pricing and bundle options information directly from carriers. We have built a back-end interface on BroadbandCensus.com that allows carriers who wish to participate the ability to upload information about locations, prices and offered speeds. We are still working on the best way to display prices within a particular ZIP code or ZIP+4 code. We are more than open to your suggestions on this matter.

Participation in the Broadband Census is completely optional. Carriers that choose not to participate are identified, on our Website, as “[Particular carrier] does not provide the Broadband Census with local Internet information.” When carriers do participate, that label does not appear.

Understanding the Speed Test

BroadbandCensus.com was officially launched on Jan. 31, 2008, and we launched the beta version of our speed test on Feb. 21, 2008. For our beta speed test, we use NDT, or the Network Diagnostic Tool, an open-source speed test under active development by the research consortium Internet2. We have assembled thousands of speed tests, census entries and comments from everyday Internet uses – all of which are freely accessible at BroadbandCensus.com. We are well aware of the great diversity of results obtained through our beta speed test. We understand that many variables, including network configuration, Internet congestion, and customer equipment, affect the actual speed test results. We strive to be as transparent as possible about the technology that we are using to conduct our speed tests, and to help publicize the methodology employed by our version of the NDT speed test.

Policy Agenda for a Broadband Census

BroadbandCensus.com builds on the momentum behind federal, state and local efforts to collect more detailed information about broadband. Consider that Rep. Ed Markey, (D-Mass.), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, has introduced legislation that would provide the public with better broadband information. Markey’s Broadband Census of America Act, H.R. 3919, has passed the House of Representatives and is still before the Senate.

In addition to providing money for state initiatives to map out broadband, the Broadband Census of America Act calls for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to create a publicly available map of broadband deployment. The map would feature not only broadband availability, but also “each commercial provider or public provider of broadband service capability.”

Sen. Richard Durbin, (D-Ill.) has introduced S. 1190, the “Connect the Nation Act.” Durbin’s bill would authorize $40 million a year, for five years, for state efforts to map out broadband inventory on the census block level. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, (D-Hawaii) has introduced S. 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which takes a similar approach. The goal, stated in the identical language of both bills, is to “identify and track the availability and adoption of broadband services within each state.” Neither of these bills has cleared the chamber.

Additionally, the broadband data bills have been inspired by a growing movement in the states to map out broadband availability within their territories. This effort began with Connect Kentucky, a non-profit initiative designed to compile statistics about regional broadband deployment. In partnership with the regional Bell operating companies and cable operators, Connect Kentucky identified gaps in coverage and underserved areas. It is now replicating its efforts in Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and South Carolina. Other groups unconnected to Connect Kentucky are engaged in similar mapping efforts, including the California Broadband Task Force and Massachusetts Broadband Initiative.

Now the FCC will be drilling into broadband availability information in greater detail. On June 12, the agency released an order requiring broadband providers to report the number of subscribers they have, not only in each ZIP code (as has been required since 2000), but also in each Census tract.

This is a welcome development. We applaud those who have pushed the FCC to collect more granular data. As soon as the agency collects, and then releases, information about broadband availability within a particular Census tract, we will immediately include this additional information in BroadbandCensus.com. ZIP codes are larger than Census tracts, and Census tracts are larger than ZIP+4 codes. While BroadbandCensus.com currently displays data at the ZIP code level, in the future we will display data at the ZIP+4 code level – and that will also include the Census tract level. Knowing where broadband is and is not available is indeed the first step toward making sure that broadband truly is accessible to all Americans.

But availability alone doesn’t go far enough. The next steps include understanding broadband competition, broadband speeds and broadband prices. On this score, BroadbandCensus.com has criticized the FCC’s order as inadequate to help consumers know and understand their broadband options. Because the agency continues to exclude carrier information from the public data that it releases, Internet consumers are not likely to benefit from the more granular information collection. The FCC appears to acknowledge this limitation. The order included a “further notice” section in which the agency seeks comments on whether, and how, it should conduct information about delivered speeds and prices.

Conclusion

Fleshing out this complete picture – broadband availability, competition, speeds, prices and customer service – is the long-term goal of BroadbandCensus.com. By including the names of carriers, and by allowing consumers to rate their service quality, BroadbandCensus.com will enable Internet users to make true headto- head comparisons. We believe that these types of comparisons are an essential part of understanding connectedness, fostering a competitive Internet, and in building a national broadband strategy for America. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at drew at broadbandcensus.com.

URL: http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=80

Articles Referenced in this Article:

• FCC Releases Broadband Data Order For Census-Tract Data (BroadbandCensus.com, June 15, 2008)
• BroadbandCensus.com Issues Statement Criticizing FCC Ruling on Broadband Data (BroadbandCensus.com, June 16, 2008)

WASHINGTON, July 2 – Broadband growth in the United States has effectively stalled over the past five months, a possible victim of the economic slowdown, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Some 55 percent of all adult Americans now have a high-speed internet connection, or a broadband connection, in their home, according to the report, “Home Broadband Adoption 2008.”

That number compares with 47 percent of adult Americans with broadband in early 2007, and 54 percent in December 2007. Hence broadband growth over the previous 12 or 13 months has dramatically tapered off.

The growth rate in broadband adoption from 2007 to 2008 was 17 percent. That compares favorably to the 12 percent growth recorded in the 2006 to 2007 timeframe, according to Pew’s annual studies in 2007 and 2008.

Yet for poor Americans, as well as African Americans, broadband adoption was slow or negative.

Among adults living in households with annual incomes of less than $20,000 annually, broadband adoption has actually regressed: the percentage dropped from 28 percent in March 2007 to 25 percent in April/May 2008, said the report.

Among African Americans, home broadband adoption stood at 43 percent in May 2008, versus 40 percent the previous year.

“The flat growth in home high-speed adoption for low-income Americans suggests that tightening household budges may be affecting people’s choice of connection speed at home,” said John Horrigan, associate director of research at the Pew Internet & American Life Project and author of the report.

“Broadband is more costly on a monthly basis than dial-up, and some lower income Americans may be unwilling to take on another expense,” said Horrigan.

Pew’s annual report has become the respected benchmark for understanding broadband adoption within the United States.

Looking over the past year, three groups did experience relatively strong growth in broadband adoption from 2007 to 2008:

• Older Americans: Those aged 50 and above experienced a 26 percent growth rate in broadband from 2007 to 2008.
• Lower-middle income Americans: Those with household incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 annually saw broadband penetration grow by 24 percent over the same period.
• Rural Americans: Among those who live in rural areas, 38 percent have broadband at home now, versus 31 percent a year ago, or a growth rate of 23 percent over the same period.

The Pew report identifies a number of other trends: including the fact that broadband prices have only dropped four percent over the past two-and-a-half years, that affordability (or the lack thereof) is having an impact on broadband adoption, and that wireless technologies may be poised to play a larger role in making broadband more widely available in the home.

Broadband users reported paying $34.50 a month for high-speed internet services in April 2008, versus $36 a month in December 2005 — a four percent decline. Cable modem users reported paying an average of $37 a month (versus $41 in 2005), while Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) users reported paying $31.50 a month (versus $32 in 2005).

Dial-up users, who now constitute just 10 percent of American adults who go online, now cite price as the key reason for why they do not subscribe to broadband.

Asked, “What would it take to get you to switch to broadband?”, dial-up users said:

35% The prices has to come down/be more affordable/cheaper 19% Nothing will convince me to get broadband 16% Don’t know 11% Other 10% It would have to become available where I live 4% When my cable/telephone company offers it where I live 4% Refused 2% Someone else will pay for it 2% If it was free 0% When my children get older

Over at BroadbandCensus.com, my friend Drew Bennett, who has graciously agreed to be a special correspondent for the publication while he is in New York covering the  Personal Democracy Forum, has been pumping out the blog entries.

Here are some of his latest… just from today:

Day Two at Personal Democracy Forum: What Happens After ‘Reboot’?

NEW YORK, June 24 – “What happens next?” is the question Andrew Rasiej used to start off the Tuesday morning panel discussion at the Personal Democracy Forum here. read more

The complete index page of articles, blog posts, and press releases on BroadbandCensus.com is available here.