Right Direction, Wrong Speed

By IIA

Late last week, the FCC’s Technology Transitions Policy Task Force announced it was issuing Public Notice seeking comment on proposed “beta” trials to transition America’s networks to all-IP. Below are reactions to the announcement from IIA leadership.

From Honorary Chairman and former Congressman Rick Boucher:

”The FCC’s recognition of the importance of the move from TDM to all-IP networks is a welcome building block, but it’s disappointing that comprehensive IP transition trials have not been authorized.  Only through a comprehensive examination can potential issues be identified and addressed and consumers be protected.”

From Co-Chairman Bruce Mehlman:

“The Commission is steering in the right direction, but traveling at the wrong speed. Fully committing to all-IP networks would bring the greatest benefits to consumers and best-equip America to compete on a global scale. Baby steps won’t keep pace with technology.”

From Co-Chairman Jamal Simmons:

“The three areas on which the FCC seeks comment are all important pieces of the puzzle, but instead of a piecemeal approach to figuring out challenges with the IP Transition, the Commission should quickly adopt a holistic strategy, including well-defined trials in designated wire centers, to bring broadband-enabled benefits in health care, education and entrepreneurship to all Americans.”

For further reading, check out FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai’s statement on the FCC’s Public Notice.

Blocking B-block

By Bruce Mehlman

A recent agreement between Verizon and AT&T over spectrum holdings has inspired complaints from the usual suspects.

In the agreement, AT&T will pay close to $2 billion to acquire 39 of Verizon’s lower 700 MHz B-block licenses. While that sounds complicated, all it really means is two innovators in a highly competitive industry have found a neat way to solve mutual problems… You know, the free market in action. And as with any free market solution to a problem—especially in the wireless industry—there are other competitors and interest groups aiming to block the deal from going forward.

It’s no secret the wireless industry is scrambling to keep up with consumer demand. To the delight of chiropractors everywhere, we are now a nation of slouchers, spending our days hunched over tiny screens. All this activity on our devices creates data, and all that data needs spectrum to travel from point A to point B. As a result, the airwaves are getting more and more crowded—a problem outgoing FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski accurately labeled the “spectrum crunch.”

The Commission’s upcoming spectrum incentive auctions will hopefully go a long way toward easing this crunch. But let’s face it, government is about as nimble as an iceberg, which means wireless providers need more than years-away government action to meet the needs of their customers. Since it’s impossible for the regulatory grind to keep up with consumer habits, it will take free market solutions to keep wireless customers satisfied.

Few technologies have been as quickly adopted as mobile broadband, and as a result, the wireless industry is a victim of its own success. With government assistance in freeing up airwaves a minefield of red tape, blocking deals between providers for spectrum drags the entire industry down. Companies like Verizon and AT&T are motivated by the need to please their customers. The question is, what motivates those trying to block them from doing so?

Moving Telecom Policy Forward

By Brad

Our own Bruce Mehlman has an opinion piece in The Street today examining the current state of telecom policy and how outdated regulations are holding a vibrant industry back. Here’s a taste:

As with government, the ability of businesses to invest is not unlimited. When demanding investment in redundant copper networks to preserve the status quo for an ever-shrinking minority of consumers, policy makers directly rob investment from faster broadband networks that serve the ever-growing majority of consumers. That’s the wrong choice.

Today’s broadband marketplace is hyper-competitive, rapidly innovating and most enabled by less regulation and a lighter regulatory approach to advance the public interest and best serve consumers. It’s clear that outmoded telecommunications regulations designed in the pre-broadband, pre-smart phone era no longer advance America’s future.

You can read the full op-ed at The Street.

Reactions to Changes at the FCC

By IIA

With the news that Chairman Julius Genachowski will reportedly join Commissioner Robert McDowell and leave the FCC, our leaders reflect on the departures.

On Genachowski:

“Chairman Genachowski has provided a valuable service as FCC chairman. He oversaw the adoption of a comprehensive reform of the federal universal service fund. He has set the stage for the FCC’s consideration of the transition to all Internet Protocol networks. I commend him on his success and wish him well in his future endeavors.” — Honorary Chairman Rick Boucher

“Chairman Genachowski has shown remarkable composure and resilience as FCC chairman while facing cross-pressures to ensure competition while encouraging the innovation necessary to achieve the President’s goal of 98% broadband coverage for Americans. Under his leadership the commission has moved toward freeing up more spectrum and giving fair consideration to the IP transition.
“On a personal note I wish Julius and his wife Rachel well in their future endeavors.”— IIA Co-Chairman Jamal Simmons

On McDowell:

“Rob exemplified the very best traditions in his years on the Commission, serving with honor, intelligence, humor and grace. He had a hand in shaping a great number of policies that improved American competitiveness and helped lay the groundwork for future innovation and tech-led growth. He will be missed.” — Co-Chairman Bruce Mehlman

Original Internet

By Bruce Mehlman

By every measure, the Internet is one of the most important creations in human history. Key to the Internet’s success has been restraint when it comes to government control, both in the way that content is distributed and the content itself. But some fail to connect these dots and are calling for increased government regulation of the networks that power the Internet — including turning them into a national public utility. Susan Crawford, visiting professor at Harvard Law School, for example, has released a new book Captive Audience. As explained by Fred Campbell of CLIP in an op-ed for RedState, “the book declares the United States is suffering from broadband inequality because no ‘privately provided wired Internet access product . . . can compete with cable.’ Its proposed solution to this alleged monopoly is government ownership and control of Internet infrastructure as a public utility.”

While I remain a fan of Susan’s intelligence and passion, one need only look at the struggling European telco market to see how aggressive government interventions have backfired, with outdated networks and ailing market players. In his op-ed, Campbell draws a parallel between the Internet and the printing press, which so revolutionized communication that it brought down tyranny and upended entire governments. In 1662, the Parliament of England passed the Licensing of the Press Act, which was aimed at “preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses.” Under the Act, people were required to hold a license to own a printing press, and all published work needed approval by the Church or government authorities before it was printed, among other limitations.

The printing press was the Internet of its age, a true revolution in communication democratizing speech and expression. This is what made it so dangerous to authority and why the Press Act of 1662 lasted for eleven long years. It’s also why our founding fathers explicitly kept new forms of communications technology free from government control.  Though his analogy is a bit of a stretch, given Crawford’s steadfast support for free speech and opposition to censorship of any kind, Campbell has a point when declaring “…history shows there is something to fear in Captive Audience, but it is not the cable monopoly bogeyman. It is the captive audience we would become if the modern means of mass communications were owned and controlled by the government.”

The easiest way to stifle free expression is to put government in charge of how that speech gets transmitted.  And while free expression is an absolute public right, it is not a public utility. Gate keepers can close the gates they control just as easily as they open them, and utilities are just a switch away from being shut off.

Swanson on Spectrum

By Brad

At his blog Maximum Entropy, Bret Swanson (who is one of our Broadband Ambassadors) writes about a recent op-ed from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in the Wall Street Journal:

Chairman Genachowski is right to herald the incentive auctions that could unleash hundreds of megahertz of un- and under-used spectrum from the old TV broadcasters. Yet wrangling over the rules of the auctions could stretch on, delaying the the process. Worse, the rules themselves could restrict who can bid on or buy new spectrum, effectively allowing the FCC to favor certain firms, technologies, or friends at the expense of the best spectrum allocation. We’ve seen before that centrally planned spectrum allocations don’t work. The fact that the FCC is contemplating such an approach is worrisome. It runs counter to the policies that led to today’s mobile success.

Swanson’s full post is worth checking out, as is a recent post from our own Bruce Mehlman on Genachowski’s spectrum vision..

Genachowski on Spectrum Auctions

By Bruce Mehlman

In today’s Wall Street Journal, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski goes over the many steps the Commission is taking to free up more spectrum from wireless use. Calling broadband the “engine for economic growth,” he starts out his op-ed by backing up that statement:

To sustain long-term economic health, America needs growth engines, areas of the economy that hold real promise of major expansion. Few sectors have more job-creating innovation potential than broadband, particularly mobile broadband.

Genachowski then highlights how the U.S. now leads the world in 4G LTE deployment (along with the fact that private investment in mobile infrastructure is “more than 50% higher than in Europe”), but warns that in order to keep both deployment and investment happening, more airwaves are critical. As he writes:

Spectrum is finite, and the demand for airwaves being created by data-hungry, Internet-connected devices is on pace to exceed supply. How significant is the spike in demand? Today’s smartphones generate 50 times more mobile traffic than a traditional cellphone. For tablets, it’s 120 times more traffic. As a result, American wireless networks are running at the highest utilization rate of any in the world.

One solution to this problem, Genachowski tells readers of the Journal, is the Commission’s upcoming spectrum incentive auctions, which have the potential to both free up airwaves and deliver much needed revenue to the Federal Government. That’s potentially a win-win, as they say. But as our own Rick Boucher wrote this past February, the key to making the FCC’s initiative successful for consumers and the economy is ensuring spectrum auctions are open to all bidders. Boucher:

History has shown that when the FCC has tried to pick winners and losers in the wireless market, American consumers have lost. Past attempts by the Commission to favor certain bidders and/or impose rigid regulations on auction winners have drastically diminished auction proceeds, left major blocks of spectrum unused, and led to what FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski himself has labeled “America’s looming spectrum crisis.”

The simple truth is America’s wireless industry continues to be fiercely competitive… Allowing the FCC to impose conditions on spectrum auctions will not make the industry more competitive. And the spectrum critically needed by all providers to keep up with increasing demand will not be put to its full use, leading to spectrum shortages, reduced investment and innovation, and higher prices for consumers.

Only through truly competitive, open spectrum auctions will America’s wireless industry continue to thrive. After all, the best way to ensure competition is to encourage everyone to compete.

Genachowski and the entire FCC deserve praise for their tireless work to keep this critically important issue on the front burner. But given mobile broadband’s benefits — not just to consumers and the economy, but to communities, education, and the health care industry — ensuring spectrum incentive auctions are open to all those willing to make the substantial private investment to keep rapid deployment going should be at the top of the list. As Genachowski himself wrote in his op-ed:

Private-sector innovation in mobile broadband has been extraordinary. But maintaining the creative momentum in wireless networks, devices and apps will need an equally innovative wireless policy, or jobs and growth will be left on the table.

Everything Connected

By Bruce Mehlman

Reporting from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the AP’s Peter Svensson looks at the coming machine-to-machine revolution:

Companies are promising that machine-to-machine, or M2M, technology will deliver all manner of services, from the prosaic to the world-changing. At U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.‘s booth here at the show, there’s a coffeepot that can be ordered to start brewing from a tablet computer, or an Internet-connected alarm clock. A former president of Costa Rica is also at the show, talking about how M2M can save massive amounts of greenhouse gases by making energy use more efficient — enough to bring mankind halfway to the goal of halting global warming.

The M2M phenomenon is part of the larger drive to create an “Internet of Things” — a global network that not only links computers, tablets and phones but that connects everything from bikes to washing machines to thermostats. Machina Research, a British firm, believes there will be 12.5 billion “smart” connected devices, excluding phones, PCs and tablets, in the world in 2020, up from 1.3 billion today.

Driving the M2M movement will be advanced networks — both wired and wireless — able to power the constant flow of data. To get there will take investment. As my fellow Chair Jamal Simmons recently wrote in Fierce Telecom:

[F]or consumers, businesses and our nation as a whole to benefit from the opportunities enabled by a high-speed, all IP-based broadband network, the entire ecosystem must invest.

Mehlman at State of the Net

By Brad

Last week, our Co-Chairman Bruce Mehlman appeared on a panel as part of the State of the Net in Washington, D.C. The discussion, “The Internet Leadership Challenge: Restoring America to Economic Greatness Through Sound Internet Policy,” was moderated by Joe Waz, Senior Strategic Adviser to the Comcast Corporation. Also on the panel were Blair Levin, Communications & Society Fellow, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.

Here’s video of the discussion, which touches on President Obama’s legacy, taxation of the Internet, and the transition from legacy networks to all-IP.

In Support of the IP Transition

By Brad

Last Friday, IIA submitted comments to the FCC on AT&T’s recent petition regarding the transition from copper wire networks to networks that are all Internet Protocol (IP) based. From those comments:

While the era of the telecom monopoly is long over, monopoly-era regulations persist. In some ways this is predictable, since markets move faster than government, and entrepreneurs innovate more rapidly than policy makers.  By way of example, one of the most counter-productive, monopoly-era regulations still on-the-books is the requirement for legacy carriers to continue maintaining redundant legacy copper (nonIP) networks even when they are no longer needed for the carrier to serve its customers. While these rules made sense at the dawn of the Internet era when little, if any, competition existed, voice remained the essential product and telephone networks had been built via government-guaranteed-rate-of-return exclusivity, they have longbeen overtaken by events. For example, in many regions incumbent telephone companies have retained less than 30 percent of the customers, yet they are still required to cover 100 percent with their pre-IP, voice-grade networks. Voice is today just another application delivered over multiple IP platforms.

You can read our full comments, penned by our Honorary Chairman Rick Boucher and Co-Chairs Bruce Mehlman and Jamal Simmons, here.

Renewed Focus on Spectrum

By Brad

Over at Bloomberg BNA, Paul Barbagallo highlights renewed focus from President Obama and Congress to make more spectrum available for the ever-growing wireless industry:

For much of the last four years, federal policymakers have worked aggressively to find swaths of frequencies that could be made available to wireless carriers to help meet the ever-increasing consumer demand for smartphones and tablet computers, which require more radio spectrum to carry their data transmissions—significantly more than what is needed to carry cellular telephone calls.

That work will continue this year, starting at the FCC.

Later in the piece, our own Co-Chairman Bruce Mehlman is quoted:

“I think we’re going to see bipartisan interest in both inventorying and transferring spectrum from federal government use to private-sector use,” Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, a coalition of nonprofits and corporations, including telecom carriers and equipment makers, told BNA.

Mehlman, former assistant secretary of commerce for technology policy under George W. Bush, noted that for the last four years, Congress has placed much of its attention on passing legislation to authorize the FCC to hold incentive auctions.

“A lot of focus is now going to turn to federal spectrum holdings that could be repurposed,” he said.

This is still an important topic. Barbagallo’s full article is definitely worth checking out.

Boucher & Mehlman in Politico

By Brad

Our Honorary Chairman Rick Boucher and Co-Chairman Bruce Mehlman have penned an op-ed for Politico on the need to free telecommunications companies from outdated regulations. Here’s a taste:

One of the most egregious monopoly-era regulations still on the books is the requirement that legacy carriers continue maintaining legacy copper networks and leasing them to their competitors at below-market rates. While these rules made sense at the dawn of the Internet era when little, if any, competition existed and telephone networks had been built via government-guaranteed rate-of-return exclusivity, they have long been overtaken by events. Today these regulations from the past century result in a misallocation of resources. And they perpetuate free-rider business models that diminish investment in networks and hinder innovation in telecom services.

You can read the full op-ed over at Politico.

The App Economy: Endless Possibilities That Start With More Spectrum and Investment

By IIA

On Tuesday, December 11, IIA will be hosting a webinar with Entropy Economics President Bret Swanson about his new report “Soft Power: Zero to 60 Billion in Four Years.”

The webinar will cover the new era of software, where apps are the new American software industry. The App Economy boom has hugely benefited consumers, as well as fields like health care and education. “Soft Power” has generated more than half a million jobs in the U.S., but the App Economy’s dependence on the cloud will require ever-increasing network coverage and speed, i.e. more spectrum and investment.

Members of the media will have the opportunity to present questions during the webinar, and questions may also be submitted beforehand to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). The discussion can be followed on Twitter using the hashtag #SoftPower.

Webinar Info:

When: Tuesday, December 11th at 11:30am ET/8:30am PT

Where: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/155959473

Presenters will include:

• Bret Swanson, president of Entropy Economics LLC, a strategic insight firm specializing in technology, innovation, and the global economy

• Bruce Mehlman, founding co-chair of the IIA and former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy (moderator)

Bruce Mehlman at Tech Change

By Brad

Our own Bruce Mehlman will be participating in ISI’s 2012 Tech Change Conference at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC. He’ll be taking part in the discussion “Tech Policy: Insiders’ View” along with John Kneuer from Fairfax Media Partners, and Jeff Lande, founder of the Lande Group.

The event happens at 2 pm ET in the Chandelier Room.

Rural Electrification Doesn’t Light a Path for Broadband

By Bruce Mehlman

On Wednesday at the Brookings Institution event “Fostering Internet Competition” in DC, my friend and Harvard Professor Susan Crawford suggested that we look at the spread of electricity throughout rural America to guide a path for the deployment of broadband. While this feel-good analogy stirs American pride in the ingenuity that colors our nation’s history, it doesn’t hold water.

Electricity shocked the world in 1882, when Edison’s Pearl Street Power Station started up its generator in New York City. Within just a few years, Americans living in big cities would be able to choose from among 20 to 30 different providers, such as the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York. But most Americans weren’t able to take advantage of electricity until half a century later, because there wasn’t a strong enough business-case for electricity providers to serve every town on the Oregon Trail. It was the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 that said “let there be light” (for all), providing federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve rural areas of the United States.

Over 75 years later, this commodity hasn’t changed all that much. The same type of electricity that powered the lamps of the 19th Century powers the light, appliances and devices of today. The Internet on the other hand is anything but static. It’s a rapidly-changing technology that has evolved many times in the past two decades alone, since the first commercial traffic crossed it in 1992. Thanks to a vibrant, competitive industry, relentless innovation and a rapacious consumer appetite, we’re seeing new “flavors” of broadband every year, including DSL, fiber-to-the-home, fixed wireless broadband, 3G, mobile LTE, and so on.

Much has changed since the government financed the spread of electricity across our nation. Unlike when taxpayers financed electrification, broadband is already widely available — more than 90% of consumers can choose among five or more providers, according to Federal Communication Commission data. Also unlike 1936, our national debt now exceeds $16,000,000,000,000, putting far greater pressure on how we spend our critical infrastructure dollars, especially as the FCC acknowledges that the cost of universal high-speed networks could reach $350 billion. Most importantly, we have private sector competitors eager to make those investments, to install, upgrade and maintain the broadband networks that make our economy so much more competitive. Rather than a Rural Electrification Act, we need a Regulatory Extraction Act, getting government out-of-the way of investment, starting with relinquishing more spectrum to commercial broadband usage.

So while Susan is right that extending next-generation broadband infrastructure to every corner of our country must be a priority, she and I differ on the means to that end. 2012 is not 1936, and modern broadband is not early electricity. Rural Electrification does not offer a viable roadmap.

Unleashing Mobile Capabilities and the Infrastructure That Supports It

By Bruce Mehlman

Everyone likes the beach, but unless you live right on it, you have to get there somehow, and that generally means driving—using the essential infrastructure that America built over decades to connect our country. Likewise, we all like and often need to use our smartphones to access information, social media, and other types of applications—but this, too, relies on an infrastructure that is often invisible but no less important. Without it, wireless technology would simply not work.The wireless infrastructure association—PCIA—gathered in Orlando earlier this week. Their meeting offered a good opportunity to take a hard look at the industry’s infrastructure, the businesses supporting it, where it is going, and what we need to do to ensure that wireless technology continues to improve and become more reliable.

We have become used to having all that wireless devices can offer in the palm of our hand. But just as most Americans don’t think about the structural integrity of the bridges and highways we travel, many don’t think about the infrastructure necessary to support mobile broadband and the wireless devices it enables. As Jonathan Adelstein, the newly named President and CEO of PCIA, notes, “once you are used to broadband, there is no going back.” But even as we expect better service, faster delivery, and continuing innovation, the underlying infrastructure that makes wireless work has to be expanded and upgraded to support our needs.

Demand for wireless data—voice, video, games, apps, etc.—is growing exponentially. Data traffic grew by 300 percent last year and is expected to rise 16-fold in the next four years, driven by the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets. That high demand can be met only by a modern wireless network that can handle ever higher levels of data traffic and provide the reliable service that consumers demand. The increasing demand for wireless technology creates capacity constraints on the wireless networks. And that’s an issue for everyone. As FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski noted at the conference, wireless dead zones are both quality of life and public safety issues. It’s critically important to address this problem now.

Not only do we need to make more spectrum available for wireless innovators and providers, but we need to continue encouraging broadband providers to upgrade and deploy additional physical infrastructure to support wireless.  Wireless infrastructure includes towers and new technologies such as small “femtocells” and distributed antenna networks that make more efficient use of the spectrum we already have. As was discussed in Orlando, spectrum auctions are also an important way to get spectrum into the hands of users quickly.

The wireless industry is currently upgrading to a technology called “4G LTE,” or fourth-generation. For mobile users, these networks also have the potential to expand mobile phone capability, offering faster connections, new mobile services and applications, and improved coverage.

These improvements, however, can only occur if networks are built, maintained and upgraded. Today the wireless industry is an investment juggernaut, deploying an estimated $27 billion in capital improvements in only the last year.  That investment sustains hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide. It means jobs for those who deploy and upgrade these new systems and who are hired to build network infrastructure across the country. It also means jobs for network operators and those who sell smartphones and associated technology. The tasks involved in these jobs include everything from digging foundations and building the towers to designing the fiber network that will sustain the wireless needs of the future. This “job count” does not include the many ancillary jobs that wireless indirectly supports.

Fortunately, building high-speed networks is a top priority for both the private and public sector. If we do not repurpose additional spectrum or if we fail to build towers and other infrastructure investment will suffer, and the wireless ecosystem will be affected – including the quality of your wireless experience. Thus, policymakers should encourage investment and provide a regulatory environment that favors the digital revolution.

As I recently said in a statement that you can check out here, solving the wireless spectrum crunch is the great infrastructure challenge of our day. Investment in technology and the infrastructure that supports it can lead not only to jobs and to economic development across the nation but can also provide unforeseen technology and services that benefit consumers.

Meeting the Needs of American Businesses and Consumers

By Bruce Mehlman

The U.S. government is the single largest user of spectrum, and without its willingness to relinquish control over spectrum bands that are not being put to their highest and best use, our country will suffer from significant losses in economic gains and jobs.

Today the House Energy and Commerce Committee held the hearing “Creating Opportunities Through Improved Government Spectrum Efficiency.” Beyond the hearing’s focus on improving government spectrum efficiency, clearing spectrum for market use is the best strategy for creating new opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation. Commercial spectrum users need certainty in order to invest and reliably serve their customers.

Innovation to improve the efficiency of the government’s use of spectrum and moving inefficient users off of spectrum bands, as pointed out by Representative Greg Walden, will mean that more American consumers can take advantage of mobile broadband to enhance their quality of life and more businesses can create new technologies that depend on next-generation wireless networks.

Mehlman on Wireless and the Miltary

By Brad

Over the holiday weekend, FOX News published an op-ed from our Co-Chairman Bruce Mehlman on the important roll wireless technology is playing in the lives of America’s soliders at home and abroad. Here’s a taste:

As the Internet continues to transform military activities, wireless technology in particular is enabling better, real-time communications with members of our armed forces abroad. For example, the time difference between the United States and Afghanistan means that many communications take place during the morning and afternoon hours in the US, when many are at work. Being able to use a video or voice call app, such as Skype, e-mail, or a chat service, such as Google Talk, on a smartphone enables couples and families to connect in real-time.

Check out Mehlman’s full piece at FOX News.

Halting Deregulation of Special Access Will Slow Transition to Next-generation Networks

By Bruce Mehlman

Yesterday along a 3-2 party-line vote, the FCC opted to suspend a thirteen-year-old special access regulatory framework without an adequate evidentiary record or market analysis.

For would-be investors, innovators and entrepreneurs, government has once again injected uncertainty into the broadband marketplace, undermining a forward transition across the country to IP-based technologies that enable efficiency and better capabilities for consumers through high-speed broadband networks.

This is a mistake.

America’s special access market is competitive and has contributed to ongoing private-sector investment in upgraded networks. Take T-Mobile, for example, which is able to choose from over a dozen different backhaul providers — from local exchange carriers, to Ethernet wireless providers and cable companies — to keep its customers connected. And that’s just one company in a truly vibrant industry.

Instead of hitting the brakes on special access deregulation and increasing regulatory uncertainty that undermines economic activity, the FCC should encourage the private investment America needs to finally kick free of the technologies of the past, to the benefit of consumers.The future of communication is in bytes — IP-based wired and wireless networks — not the copper-based, networks that offered dial-up, for example.

As pointed out by Sprint, the advantages of Ethernet backhaul over special access are tremendous:

The company [Sprint] might pay $1,500 per month for T1 backhaul at a tower site. That T1 might deliver 4.5 MB of backhaul capacity. When Sprint switches to Ethernet…for the same price of $1,500 per month, Sprint will get almost 20 times the backhaul bandwidth at that location.

Everyone knows healthy competition leads to a healthy market. That’s why the FCC’s focus on the already healthy and competitive special access market is, frankly, a bit baffling and misguided. Technology is fast moving, and the Commission should take care to not bog down innovation with regulatory uncertainty.

Mehlman in Fierce Telecom

By Brad

Our Co-Chair Bruce Mehlman has an op-ed piece at Fierce Telecom today on the perils of increased government oversight of the Internet. Here’s a taste:

Just as President Clinton recognized that the Internet could only reach its highest potential in a private sector, multi-stakeholder regime, so, too, must the current Administration. The ITU does not need expanded authority over the Internet. The private sector model of Internet governance has worked well and we should foster its continued success.

Read the whole thing over at Fierce Telecom.