Articles by Ryan Radia

Ryan is associate director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where his work focuses on adapting law and policy to the unique challenges of the information age. His research areas include privacy, IP telecommunications, competition policy, and media regulation.


A Bill of Rights to enshrine Net Neutrality?

by on April 23, 2008 · 3 comments

After changing its mind about throttling Bittorrent traffic last month, Comcast has pulled a 180° on network neutrality. Last week, Comcast announced plans to publish a consumers’ “bill of rights and responsibilities,” detailing what subscribers should expect from their ISP and laying out network management best practices.

Naturally, the “Save the Internet” crowd isn’t satisfied with Comcast’s declaration. Being protocol-agnostic wasn’t enough for them, and neither is a consumer bill of rights. Customers will only be safe from evil ISPs, they say, with aggressive neutrality mandates like Rep. Markey’s proposed legislation.

On one hand, Comcast’s declaration is good news for Bittorrent users, and illustrates the responsiveness of market forces. And as a Comcast subscriber, I’m all for non-discriminatory networks. (Though I seed torrents quite rarely, it’s nice to know the option exists.)

But declaring a consumer “Bill of Rights” is a risky approach. Comcast is ceding key ground to interventionists by implicitly admitting that consumers have some inherent right to unfiltered, unmanaged networks. They don’t—despite what lawmakers like Byron Dorgan have suggested.

Essentially, Comcast is saying “If we have to be neutral, then so should all the other guys. Otherwise, they’re violating consumer rights.”

Yet some ISPs are making just the opposite argument, identifying the benefits of curbing bandwidth-intensive applications.  In comments filed last week, Bell Canada contended that throttling is in the public interest, explaining that 95% of subscribers suffer on account of file sharing. GigaOM posted a story yesterday that lends further credence to claims that peer-to-peer traffic is a major culprit of network congestion.

Perhaps we shall see a competing bill of rights—one holding that customers have the right to affordable broadband access free from file sharing-induced slowdowns.

As bandwidth demand continues to grow, ISPs must make tough choices. Between price increases, bandwidth caps, and protocol discrimination, it is far from clear what’s best for the average user. If AT&T’s prediction is correct that in three years time, 20 typical households will consume as much bandwidth as the entire Internet does today, then carriers will need to invest billions upgrading both the backbone and last-mile. Discouraging investment through regulation poses a far greater threat to the Internet’s future than hypothetical neutrality violations.

If neutrality truly is as virtuous as its proponents suggest (and I suspect it is) then it will ultimately triumph on its own merits, without the need for government intervention. Still, exclusionary, proprietary networks may yet play an invaluable role in propelling connectivity, despite closed systems’ shortcomings.  Who knows what will work out best in the long run? Market experimentation is the only way to find out.

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More on regulatory relief for telcos

by on April 15, 2008 · 14 comments

As Hance discussed last Thursday, the FCC will soon rule on AT&T’s petition for regulatory forbearance. Over at Openmarket.org I blog about why the FCC should grant phone companies relief from costly reporting requirements:

America’s two largest phone companies, AT&T and Verizon, recently filed forbearance petitions asking the FCC for relief from various regulations. Verizon is asking for the freedom to set prices on wholesale connections to competitive local carriers, and AT&T has requested exemption from certain FCC audit requirements and service quality reporting mandates.  

The real question is, why should Verizon have to ask permission from bureaucrats to decide how much to charge for its products? And why must AT&T spend millions of dollars to fill out intricate paperwork just to prove to the FCC its product is good enough for customers? 

Interventionists say this is because phone companies won’t ensure service quality unless they are subject to government oversight. But this claim ignores market conditions. With competition intensifying between phone providers and new wireless networks on the verge of completion, the market will discipline any communications company that skimps on service or price. Sprint and Comcast have learned this lesson the hard way.  

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Should White Spaces be Unlicensed?

by on April 2, 2008 · 16 comments

The white space debate has been the subject of much attention lately, with Microsoft, Dell, and Google pitted against the CTIA on the question of how to allocate white spaces between UHF channels. The two competing proposals are 1) auction off white spaces, similar to the 700mhz auction, or 2) leave them unlicensed and managed (like 2.4Ghz) but allow devices which don’t cause interference.

This controversy again raises the issue of the desirability of unlicensed spectrum. I’ve been reading about the merits of unlicensed spectrum, inspired by a 2006 exchange between Jerry Brito and Mike Masnick on TLF and TechDirt. Jerry makes a compelling argument that command-and-control commons rules might hinder the emergence of superior networks operating with devices emitting greater than 4w EIRP.

The public interest is to allocate the spectrum in the most economically efficient manner, so if unlicensed spectrum uses do not make the best use of scarce airwaves, unlicensed bands should be auctioned off. Tim envisions privately managed commons that would provide for much the same openness now offered by unlicensed spectrum, but without a monolithic regulator imposing centralized rules.

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The New War on MP3s: EMI’s Push to Ban Remote Music Storage

by on March 26, 2008 · 4 comments

In the latest C:Spin over at CEI’s website, I examine the record industry’s latest Internet copyright battle and the shortcomings it reveals about U.S. intellectual property laws:

The next potential casualty of America’s deficient copyright regime is MP3Tunes, a San Diego startup founded by Web entrepreneur Michael Robertson, which lets users store digital music files in a secure, Web-based locker they can access from anywhere. MP3Tunes lets listeners access only music they have uploaded themselves. Like a handheld MP3 player, MP3Tunes frees music lovers from dragging around massive album collections on physical discs.

But now Robertson’s service has run into a major obstacle. EMI, a major British record label, has sued MP3Tunes for copyright infringement. EMI contends that since users are transferring their music to a third party without getting permission from the record label, MP3Tunes is violating EMI’s exclusive right to distribute its music. MP3Tunes faces tough odds given past rulings in copyright infringement cases.

EMI’s argument seems tenuous. MP3Tunes doesn’t “share” files with anybody but the original owner, and paying a third party to act as a custodian does not imply a transfer of ownership. Individuals can already store digital files online using myriad services from Flickr to Mozy. We increasingly back up our entire lives to online repositories, and the individual, not the website, remains the owner.

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Kentucky Bill Targets Online Anonymity

by on March 10, 2008 · 9 comments

The latest attack on anonymous online speech comes from Kentucky Representative Tim Couch, who proposed legislation last week that would ban posting anonymous messages online. The bill requires users to register their true name and address before contributing to any discussion forum, with the stated goal of cutting down on “online bullying.”

The right to speak anonymously is protected by the First Amendment, and the Kentucky proposal raises serious Constitutional questions. In Talley v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Los Angeles ban on the distribution of anonymous handbills on First Amendment grounds. However, the Court has yet to directly address the question of anonymous speech on the Internet, as few existing laws target online anonymity.

The Kentucky bill comes on the heels of controversy over the growing popularity of JuicyCampus.com, a “Web 2.0 website focusing on gossip” where college students post lurid—and often fabricated—tales of fellow students’ sexual encounters. The website bills itself as a home for “anonymous free speech on college campuses,” and uses anonymous IP cloaking techniques to shield users’ identities. Backlash against the site has emerged, with Pepperdine’s student government recently voting to ban the site on campus.

Under current law, websites like Juicy Campus cannot be sued for user-posted messages. As Adam Thierer mentions in a recent post, Daniel J. Solove of George Washington Law School has offered some insightful analysis on anonymity in the digital age. Solove points out that under the Safe Harbor provision found in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, providers are immunized from liability if they unknowingly distribute libelous messages so long as they remove libelous postings upon receiving a takedown request. This issue was further clarified in 2006 in Barrett v. Rosenthal, in which the Court found that website operators are immune from liability when distributing defamatory communications.

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Debunking Rural Broadband Myths

by on March 7, 2008 · 12 comments

The rural broadband debate has been in the news a lot lately. Yesterday, DSL Reports ran a story sharply criticizing a report released by the US Internet Industry Association (an ISP lobbyist firm). But as Ars pointed out, the report actually offers some facts revealing that broadband availability in the U.S. isn’t nearly as bad some have suggested.

79 % of homes with a phone line can now get DSL, and 96 % of homes with cable can get broadband. Considering just about every home has a phone line, and most people have cable, these numbers suggest the main reason for the lack of rural broadband users isn’t the lack of availability, but the lack of adoption. Of course, rural areas have slower speeds and higher prices than urban areas. This makes sense, because building out a network in low-density areas costs more per subscriber versus urban areas, where a single apartment complex can house hundreds of users.

Still, groups argue that massive government subsidies are needed to promote broadband deployment in rural areas. ConnectedNation (a Washington-based non-profit) released a report a couple weeks ago, “The Economic Impact of Stimulating Broadband Nationally”, which concluded that accelerating broadband could pump $134 billion into the U.S. economy.

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