Articles by Drew Clark

Drew Clark is Editor/Executive Director of BroadbandCensus.com, a FREE web service with news and information about competition, speeds and prices offered by high-speed internet providers. He also hosts DrewClark.com -- The Politics of Telecom, Media and Technology. Previously, he was Senior Writer with National Journal Group, reporting on free speech, intellectual property, privacy, telecommunications and media for Technology Daily, a leading publication on information technology and public policy. He also ran the Center for Public Integrity's telecom and media project, and was Assistant Director of the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law from January 2008 to January 2009. More detailed bio. He has been blogging on TLF since December 2006.


Google, the NAB, and a Third Way in ‘White Spaces’ Debate

by on May 28, 2008 · 23 comments

Google co-founder Larry Page came to Washington last week to take on the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the lobbying group that represents over-the-air television stations. It’s a whole new adversary for the beleaguered broadcasters, who have been fighting cable and satellite television for years.

The Federal Communications Commission is currently considering a proposal, by Google and other tech players. It would allow tech companies to build electronic devices that transmit wireless internet signals over the “white spaces,” or the vacant holes in the broadcast television band.

“We have an ambitious goal called pervasive connectivity through ubiquitous broadband networks,” said Page, who is currently co-president of Web search giant Google, and the world’s 43rd richest man, according to Forbes. “To realize that vision, we need to change the way we allocate and manage the nation’s airwaves.”

Basically, Google wants the right to broadcast where the broadcasters aren’t doing so right now. And there are a lot of vacant channels to take advantage of, potentially offering a boon to the broadband-hungry technology industry.
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The Genesis of Unlicensed Wireless Policy

by on April 3, 2008 · 0 comments

There’s been quite a bit of discussion on this forum recently about whether vacant television channels — also called “white spaces” — should be licensed or unlicensed. Currently, of course, most of us experience Wi-Fi as a form of unlicensed wireless, as in the 2.4 Gigahertz bands.

Last year, I wrote about the issue of white spaces, mainly in the context of the National Association of Broadcasters:

…[B]roadcasters lost the spectrum wars – or at least the first spectrum war of the 21st Century. In early 2006, Congress said enough: broadcasters weren’t effectively using channels 52 to 69, and certainly wouldn’t need them after the transition to digital television (DTV) was completed. Television stations will be forced off those channels, corresponding to 698-806 MHz, on February 17, 2009.

That’s 700 MHz. But what about 500 MHz and 600 MHz? All told, there are 294 MHz of frequencies that broadcasters will continue to occupy ever after the DTV switchover. If more than 85 percent of Americans receive television from cable or satellite, as they do, what sense does it make to reserve these choice frequencies for broadcasters’ exclusive use?

Not very much. [more…]

Now, the broadcasters are basically out of the picture, and the battle is shaping up more pointedly: the wireless carriers in the wireless association formerly known as Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, and the high-tech titans like Dell, Google, Microsoft, Philips, etc.

Let’s take a step back from the current debate, though.

All of these unlicensed wireless devices in common use today were largely illegal until significant changes were enacted by the Federal Communications Commission the mid-1980s.

While these policy measures unleashing unlicensed have remained largely in the shadows, they’ll be the subject of a half-day conference at the Information Economy Project, at George Mason University School of Law, on Friday, April 4. More information is available at http://iep.gmu.edu.

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Supreme Court Will Hear Indecency Case

by on March 18, 2008 · 2 comments

By Drew Clark

Here’s a maxim for Supreme Court watchers: the high court likes to be entertained.

The justices’ decision to take the Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations case means that the court will finally hear a case pitting broadcast-style indecency regulation against the more recent rulings that the First Amendment forbids restrictions on the Internet and cable television.

The tension between the rules governing broadcasting and the rules governing cable television and the Internet has become extreme. The FCC has been vigorously enforcing broadcast indecency over the past five years — at the very time in which technological developments are making the broadcast versus Internet distinction meaningless.

Some First Amendment observers believe that the FCC v. Fox case could result in a decision overturning the entire framework of broadcast indecency.

Although the Supreme Court could rule more narrowly, the fact that it took the case may signal that the justices are finally ready to square what appears to be the single most glaring inconsistency in First Amendment jurisprudence.

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Internet Expert Andrew Odlyzko at George Mason Law

by on March 13, 2008 · 2 comments

Is increasing use of video likely to cause Internet delays? The New York Times today floats the theory that it might be.

But at least the article generously quotes a leading skeptic: Andrew Odlyzko, a Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Digital Technology Center and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute at the University of Minnesota.

[Odlyzko] estimates that digital traffic on the global network is growing about 50 percent a year, in line with a recent analysis by Cisco Systems, the big network equipment maker.

That sounds like a daunting rate of growth. Yet the technology for handling Internet traffic is advancing at an impressive pace as well. The router computers for relaying data get faster, fiber optic transmission gets better and software for juggling data packets gets smarter.

“The 50 percent growth is high. It’s huge, but it basically corresponds to the improvements that technology is giving us,” said Professor Odlyzko, a former AT&T Labs researcher. Demand is not likely to overwhelm the Internet, he said.

Odlyzko will be in Arlington, Va., next Tuesday, March 18, giving a “Big Ideas About Information” lecture at the Information Economy Project at the George Mason University School of Law.

Back in 1999, when everyone was saying that the Internet was doubling every three months, or 1500 percent annual growth, Odlyzko was the voice of reason: the Internet was only growing at 100 percent per year.

In his “Big Ideas about Information” lecture next Tuesday, Professor Odlyzko will compare the Internet bubble of the turn of the century with the British Railway Mania of the 1840s, the greatest technology mania in history – up until the Dot.com bubble. In both cases, clear evidence indicated that financial instruments would crash.

The event, at 4 p.m., is the latest in a series sponsored by IEP, which is directed by Professor Tom Hazlett. (I serve as Assistant Director of the project.) Can’t make it to Arlington, Va., for the “Big Ideas” lecture? Join us remotely, by Webcast, or over the phone, at TalkShoe.

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Building a Broadband Strategy and BroadbandCensus.com

by on March 3, 2008 · 0 comments

Tomorrow is the 2008 Politics Online Conference, and I’m prepping for the event by guest-blogging over at the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. The panel I’ll be moderating is called “Building a Broadband Strategy for America,” and you can read more about it at the Politics Online site.

I’ve blogged about this panel on this site previously, so I won’t recount that, other than to repeat that I’ll be joined by FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, by Professor Tim Wu, who coined the term “Net Neutrality,” and by Eric Werner, a senior official at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Commerce Department.

On the IPDI blog, I address how BroadbandCensus.com plays into the National Broadband Strategy debate:

As a technology reporter, I’ve been writing about the battles over broadband for nearly a decade here in Washington. There is one fact about which nearly everyone seems to be in agreement: if America wants better broadband, America need better broadband data. That’s why I’ve recently started a new venture to collect this broadband data, and to make the data available for all on the Web at BroadbandCensus.com.

Read the rest of Want Better Broadband in America? Take the BroadbandCensus.com!

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In Comcast vs. Verizon, Comcast is Down Two Counts

by on February 27, 2008 · 8 comments

Dominance in the broadband market is a battle of both technology and politics. Right now Comcast, America’s leading cable company, is losing on both counts.

Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen emerged from the Federal Communications Commission’s hearing on Internet practices in Cambridge, Mass., as unable to defend himself and his company against charges of blocking the peer-to-peer (P2P) Internet application BitTorrent.

Comcast also came out looking like the kind of bullying corporation that resorts to packing the auditorium with its own employees.

Besides, Comcast is not a very good FOK, or Friend of Kevin — as in Kevin Martin, the chairman of the agency. Martin has done nearly everything in his power to harm Comcast and the cable industry since he took over the FCC in March 2005.

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Martin: Greater Transparency by Broadband Providers

by on February 25, 2008 · 2 comments

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said today that broadband providers need to “provide transparency” about the speeds, service and prices that they are offering to consumers.

Martin, speaking after Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., headlined the FCC’s monthly meeting here today at Harvard Law School, said the FCC’s four principles on Net Neutrality — promulgated in 2005 — will not permit broadband providers to block applications from lawful Internet services.

Speaking at a hearing on the “network management” practices of broadband carriers, Martin said the agency’s neutrality principles were all subject to “reasonable network management.”

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Is John McCain Uncomfortably Close to Lowell ‘Bud’ Paxson?

by on February 21, 2008 · 0 comments

By Drew Clark

Sen. John McCain’s close relationship with media and telecom company lobbyist Vicki Iseman poses a challenge for his presidential campaign – if it can be demonstrated that he took specific actions on behalf of one of the companies she represented.

Today’s story in The New Times Times about McCain’s interactions with Iseman reports on legislative actions that he took on behalf of television broadcaster Paxson Communications from 1998 to 1999. That was the period of time in which Iseman’s relationship with McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, was of concern to members of McCain’s staff, according to The Times.

A spokesman for the Arizona Republican said that The Times story was “gutter politics,” and that there was nothing in the article “to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career.” The Page provides additional reactions from McCain.

The Times does not report about a more recent – and potentially more dramatic – action by McCain on behalf of Paxson.

After a brief period of Democratic dominance, McCain returned to become chairman of the committee in 2003 and 2004. During that period, he took crucial legislative action that saved Paxson Communications from a bill that would have, in the words of CEO Lowell “Bud” Paxson, finally ruined his company.

Even more ironically, McCain took this action for Paxson in spite of his long-standing position that television broadcasters had inappropriately used the transition to digital television (DTV) to benefit themselves financially at the expense of the American public.

McCain initially supported legislation that would have forced Paxson and handful of broadcasters – but not the great bulk of television stations – off the air by December 31, 2006. Bud Paxson himself personally testified about this bill with “fear and trepidation” at a hearing on September 8, 2004.

Two weeks later, McCain had reversed himself. He now supported legislation that would grant two-year reprieve for Paxson – and instead force all broadcasters to stop transmitting analog television by December 31, 2008. Paxson and his lobbyists, including Iseman, were working at this time for just such a change.

The Times reports none of this more recent history of McCain’s actions benefitting Paxson Communications, which renamed itself Ion Media Networks.

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“Building a Broadband Strategy for America”

by on February 19, 2008 · 12 comments

It’s on the tip of nearly everyone’s tounge: America needs a National Broadband Strategy. With Capital Letters. Now. Or at least by January 20, 2009.

Seriously, it is amazing how much consensus there seems to have developed on this simple point. From the Bell carriers to Googlers, from public interest groups to local legislators, from Democratic activists critical of anything and everything done by the Bush administration to rural Republicans who finally want the Universal Service Fund to cover high-speed Internet services: they all want a National Broadband Strategy.

The only remaining question is: What sort of Broadband Strategy? The debate will begin at the 2008 Politics Online Conference.

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1,527 Carriers in BroadbandCensus; New Posts

by on February 11, 2008 · 2 comments

Today, the BroadbandCensus.com has added a collection of the 1,527 carriers that the Federal Communications Commission says are providing broadband in the United States. If you don’t see your carrier when you Take the Broadband Census, please use the e-mail link to tell us who is missing!

I’ve been really heartened by the incredible response from so many people to this still-new Web site. We realize that our database is limited by broadband carriers’ reluctance, thus far, to provide the BroadbandCensus.com with information about where they offer services. With your help, the Broadband Census can go around them and get individual users, and others, to provide the information necessary to understand the true state of broadband availability, competition, speeds and prices.

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