Transcript slides

Local Broadband
and Open Access
Context
• Asymetric regulation: cable and telcos
• Broadband deployment:
xDSL v. Cable modems
• Mergers cause policy review
– AT&T / TCI / MediaOne
– AOL / Time Warner
• Test case for convergence policy
Main themes
• Stakes: approach adopted will have major
implications on Internet evolution
• Competition alone won't force openness
• The problem with closed access
• Conclusion: examine what might be done
This is a Big Deal
• 3rd phase of internet
– Broadband and always on
– Widely deployed
end 2000: 3.6m cable, 2m DSL (7.1m total)
end 2001: 7.1m cable, 3.9m DSL (12.8m total)
• Network openness was key to internet success in phase
1 and 2
– Policy intervention was critical (unbundling, open access to
telephone network)
– "Unregulation" myth
• What mechanisms should shape 3rd phase deployment?
– Innovation - what kinds of uses will be explored?
– Participants - who gets to play?
Competition won't open networks
• What is the relevant market?
• The extent of competition
– Different target markets
• DSL - business
• Cable - residential
– Still many areas remain unreachable by DSL
– Cable still has substantial (though narrowing) lead.
• FCC data end 2001 (extracted from FCC July02 report)
• Not quite 2-to-1
• 56 million homes passed by cable-modem ready plant vs 6m
for DSL (2001)
Competition (cont'd)
• Switching is complicated (either way)
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Substantial hardware cost (install, wiring)
Software
Moving activity (email, servers,…)
Bundling (cable w/ video, AOL with IM)
Awareness of what you are missing is elusive
• Closed cable strengthens the hand of CLECs
– Decreases incentives to deal fairly with ISPs
• Is there a problem justifying investment by cable?
– Substantial investment already directed at DTV + telephony over
cable
– Open cable in Canada
Excite@Home's closed access
• Constraints on end-user activities
– Limits
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Limits on downstream video
Limits on upstream traffic
Prohibition on servers
Prohibition on work-related use (->@Work)
Privacy (enforcement)
– OVERALL: extension of Broadcast model
"programming the internet".
– Curtails experimentation with alternative patterns of
use (key to innovation in the past)
Comcast AUPs:
"You may not run a server in connection with
the Service, nor may you provide network
services to others via the Service unless
you are subject to a Service plan that
permits otherwise. Examples of prohibited
uses include, but are not limited to,
running servers for mail, http, ftp, irc, wifi,
and dhcp, and multi-user interactive
forums."
Closed access (cont'd)
• Shaping the architecture of network
marketplace
– Caching and replication - tied to content
partnership deals
– Steer usage and transactions, unknown to
users
– Who can enter such deals?
Policy decisions
• 2000: AT&T / TCI / MediaOne: wait and see
• 2000: AOL / Time Warner
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ISP choice
First screen
Billing
Technical performance
Contract disclosure
IM interoperability
• 2001: Broadband bills submitted --a sample:
HR 1542 "Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001"
HR 1698 "American Broadband Competition Act of 2001,"
HR 1697 "Broadband Competition and Incentives Act of 2001"
Policy (cont'd)
• 2002: FCC declaratory ruling:Cable Modem service is an
"interstate information service, not a cable service, and
there is no separate offering of telecommunications
service." (FCC NPRM DA/FCC Number: 02-77, sec. 7, p. 5, 3/14/02)
• 2002: "The Jumpstart Broadband Act" introduced.
• "Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators"
sends Letter to FCC November 18, 2002
– consumer groups: the Alliance for Community Media and Media Access
Project
– Companies: Amazon.com, Apple Computer, eBay, Microsoft, RadioShack
Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, and Yahoo!
– Trade associations: AeA, Association for Competitive Technology,
Association for Independent Video and Filmmakers, Association for Local
Telecommunications Services, Competitive Telecommunications
Association, CompTIA, Consumer Electronics Association, Information
Technology Association of America, and National Association of
Manufacturers.
Policy convergence?
• Moving beyond "technology-based" regulation.
• Generic problem: Leverage network control into emarketplace control
– Other cable carriers
– Other technologies: e.g wireless (Noam, 2001)
• What is the right balance? open, but light-touch
• OFTEL approach
– Disclosure of underlying architecture
– Mandatory mediation.
– Ex-ante (v. antitrust)
• What is the harm in waiting?
CONCLUSION
A discontinuous transformation
• technology
• user pressures
• a network of network
• politics and policy
Technology
• it’s all bits, cheap logic and plentiful
bandwidth
• interchangeable media
• the end of scarcity
• “the network is the computer ”
(...and inversely)
• network control separable from network
ownership
User pressures
• explosive growth of data traffic
• new kinds of applications
• networks have become key to reorganization and competitiveness
• strategic networking requires control
users increasingly drive network evolution
A network of networks
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multiple technologies
multiple users
multiple owners
overlapping services
Politics and policy
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deregulation trend
conflicting regulatory regimes
...but interchangeable providers
What should be the common
framework?
– common carriage?
– first amendment?
– licensing?
– other?