Transcript 2012-ALUx - Computer Science, Columbia University

Cheaper, Faster, Safer: Research
and Public Policy for the Internet
Henning Schulzrinne
FCC & Columbia University
Any opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies
of Columbia University or the FCC.
with slides by Julie Knapp, Walter Johnston, Karen Peltz-Strauss, and others
Overview
• Telecom regulation (in the US)
• Regulation as technology enabler
• Case studies:
–
–
–
–
–
Open Internet
Spectrum
Network measurements
Access for people with disabilities
PSTN transition
• Challenges for research
2
Laws & regulation as technology
enabler
• Classical regulatory goals
– market failures
– consumer protection (e.g., bill shock, robocalls)
– safety (e.g., RF limits)
– universal availability (geography, income,
disability)
• Spreading technology
– make mandatory  scale, ecosystems
– new uses
Examples
• Part 15 (“unlicensed”)
– since 1938
– major revision 1989
• higher frequencies
• unintentional, incidental, intentional
• authorized devices
–  WiFi
• GPS in cell phones
– E911 rules
–  location-based services
Examples
• Closed captioning
– initially, for Deaf and Hard
of Hearing
– migrated to
• airports
• doctor’s offices
• sports bars
– enables text-based
retrieval
The US hierarchy of laws
Constitution
• Commerce
clause
Law
Section 8: To regulate Commerce
with foreign Nations, and among
the several States, and with the
Indian Tribes (1787)
• Telecom
Act 1934
& 1996
47 CFR
SEC. 706. ADVANCED
TELECOMMUNICATIONS INCENTIVES.
(a) IN GENERAL- The Commission …
shall encourage the deployment on a
reasonable and timely basis of
advanced telecommunications
capability to all Americans (including,
in particular, elementary and
secondary schools and classrooms) by
utilizing, in a manner consistent with
the public interest, convenience, and
necessity, …, or other regulating
methods that remove barriers to
infrastructure investment.
Narrative
• reasonable
network
management
Example: CFR 47
§ 15.5 General conditions of operation.
(a) Persons operating intentional or unintentional
radiators shall not be deemed to have any vested or
recognizable right to continued use of any given
frequency by virtue of prior registration or certification
of equipment, or, for power line carrier systems, on the
basis of prior notification of use pursuant to §90.35(g) of
this chapter.
(b) Operation of an intentional, unintentional, or
incidental radiator is subject to the conditions that no
harmful interference is caused and that interference
must be accepted that may be caused by the operation
of an authorized radio station, by another intentional or
unintentional radiator, by industrial, scientific and
medical (ISM) equipment, or by an incidental radiator.
Selected 47 CFR
Part
Content
4
Disruptions to Communications
5
Experimental Radio Service
6
Access to Telecommunications Service, Telecommunications Equipment and
Customer Premises Equipment by Persons with Disabilities
9
15
Interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol Services
Radio Frequency Devices
20
68
79
Commercial Mobile Radio Services (= cellular)
Connection of Terminal Equipment to the Telephone Network
Closed Captioning and Video Description of Video Programming
97
Amateur Radio Services
Telecom regulation
• Local, state and federal
– local: CATV franchise agreements
– state: Public Utility Commission
• responsible for all utilities – gas, water, electricity, telephone
– federal: FCC, FTC (privacy), DOJ (monopoly)
• Elsewhere: gov’t PTT  competition
– vs. US: regulated private monopolies
• Based on 1934 Telecommunications Act
• Amended in 1996
• Divides the world into
–
–
–
–
Title I: Telecommunications Services
Title II: Broadcast Services
Title III: Cable Services
Title V: Obscenity and Violence
9
Process
NOI
• Notice of Inquiry
NPRM
• Notice of Proposed Rule
Making
R&O
• Report & Order
comments & ex
parte
FCC
Chairman (D)
4 Commissioners (2 D, 2 R)
International
Consumer and
Governmental Affairs
Media
Enforcement
• Independent federal agency
• About 2,000 employees
Public Safety &
Homeland
Security
Wireless
Telecommunications
Wireline
Competition
11
OPEN INTERNET
Two views
Open Internet advocates
Free market advocates
• no prioritization
• flat rates
• all networks
•
•
•
•
no real problem
allow any business arrangement
“it’s my network”
use anti-monopoly laws if needed
Why?
• Civic considerations
– freedom to read (passive)
– freedom to discuss & create (active)
• Economic opportunity
– edge economy >> telecom economy
• Telecom revenue (US): $330B
• Content, etc. not that large, however
– Google: $8.44B
• others that depend on ability to provide services
– content, application, service providers
• Technical motivation
– avoid network fragmentation
– reduce work-around complexity
How to be non-neutral
application
deep packet inspection
block Skype
transport
block transport protocol
block ports
insert RST
network
April 30, 2007
block IP addresses
QoS discrimination
NYC network neutrality hearing
Some high-profile cases
• Madison River (2005)
– DSL provider blocked SIP ports
– fined $15,000 by FCC
• Comcast (late 2007)
– insert TCP RST into BitTorrent traffic
– later overturned on appeal in DC Circuit Court
• RCN (2009): P2P
• Various mobile operators
• Comcast vs. Level 3 (2010, in dispute)
– Level-3
Which Internet are you connected to?
port 80 + 25
IPv4
NAT
multi
QoS
cast
IPv6
IPv4
PIA
IPv4
DHCP
Cisco’s traffic prediction
Ambient video = nannycams,
petcams, home security cams,
and other persistent video
streams
NID 2010 - Portsmouth, NH
Bandwidth costs
• Amazon EC2
– $50 - $120/TB out, $0/TB in
• CDN (Internet radio)
– $600/TB (2007)
– $10-30/TB (Q1 2012 – CDNpricing.com)
• NetFlix (7 GB DVD)
– postage $0.70 round-trip  $100/TB
• FedEx – 2 lb disk
– 5 business days: $6.55
– Standard overnight: $43.68
– Barracuda disk: $91 - $116/TB
19
The value of bits
• Technologist: A bit is a bit is a bit
• Economist: Some bits are more valuable than
other bits
– e.g., $(email) >> $(video)
Application
Volume
Cost per
unit
Cost / MB
Cost / TB
Voice (13 kb/s GSM)
97.5 kB/minute
10c
$1.02
$1M
Mobile data
5 GB
$40
$0.008
$8,000
MMS (pictures)
< 300 KB, avg. 50
kB
25c
$5.00
$5M
SMS
160 B
10c
$625
$625M
20
Principles
Transparency. Fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose
the network management practices, performance characteristics,
and terms and conditions of their broadband services;
No blocking. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content,
applications, services, or non-harmful devices; mobile broadband
providers may not block lawful websites, or block applications that
compete with their voice or video telephony services
No unreasonable discrimination. Fixed broadband providers may
not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network
traffic.
21
SPECTRUM
Overview
• What’s the problem?
• How much data & spectrum is there?
• Can we make better use of it?
– Better technology
– General-purpose technology
– Better sharing in time and space
23
You’ve heard the statistics…
•
Mobile phone subscriptions now top the number of
people - - 328 million subscriptions
•
90% of us keep our mobile device within arms
length 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
•
Smartphone sales have eclipsed PC sales
•
Mobile broadband is being adopted faster than any
computing platform in history
•
A typical smartphone places 24 times as much
demand on spectrum as an old feature phone
•
Tablets demand 120 times as much
•
Multiple experts expect that mobile demand for
spectrum will increase more than 35x in the next
few years (3,500%)
24/7
24X
120X
Monthly fixed consumption
North
America
Mean
Upstream
Median
Mean :
Median
4.5 GB
600 MB
7.33
Downstream
18.6 GB
6.0 GB
3.06
Aggregate
23.0 GB
7.0 GB
3.28
• top 1% 
– 49.7% of upstream traffic
– 25% of downstream traffic
Europe
Upstream
Mean
Median
Mean :
Median
8.2 GB
1.2 GB
6.87
Downstream
31.3 GB
12.7 GB
2.47
Aggregate
39.6 GB
14.7 GB
2.69
Spectral efficiency
• b/s/Hz: modulation, FEC,
MIMO, …
• but also total spectral
efficiency
– guard bands
– restrictions on adjacent
channel usage
– “high power, high tower” 
small cells  higher b/s/Hz
• data efficiency
• distribution efficiency
– unicast vs. multicast
• protocol efficiency
– avoid polling  need server
mode
• mode efficiency
– caching
– side loading
– pre-loading
– e.g., H.264 is twice as good as
MPEG-2/ATSC
– and maybe H.265 twice as
good as H.264
26
A 2016 thought experiment
• 2016: 71% of (consumer) bandwidth is video
• Average monthly TV consumption (US): 154 hours
• Netflix: 1 GB/hour (SD) … 2.3 GB/hour (HD)
–  300 GB/month/person
– more if people in household watch different content
•  0.9 Mb/s (averaged over 24 hours)
• Cisco VINI: 150 MB/month  2.7 GB/month
• LTE: need 600 kHz/user (typical 1.5 b/s/Hz)
–  500 MHz per cell sector  about 800 users/cell sector
27
What can we do?
end system caching
better audio & video codecs
efficient apps
IP multicast
WiFi offload
spectral efficiency (LTE-A)
directional antennas
general purpose spectrum
dense cells
white spaces & sharing
small cells =
better spectral
efficiency + more
re-use
LTE: 1.5 b/s/Hz
GSM: 0.1 b/s/Hz
28
From beachfront spectrum to
brownfield spectrum
29
From empty back yard to time share
condo
30
cellular = about 500 MHz in total
U.S. Spectrum Allocation of Key Bands
58
Lower 700 MHz Band
TV
New
Allocation
A
B
C
D
E
A
B
59
752
764
61 62
60
63
776
64
794
788
65
66
849
806
817 824
800
68
67
C
D Public
Public
Safety/
B/ILT
D Public
C
Safety
935
940
941
932
929
928
IEEE Standard Band Designators
HF
VHF
UHF
L band
S band
C band
X band
Ku band
K band
Ka band
V band
W band
mm wave
862 869
69
TV Channels
Upper 700 MHz Band
C
901
902
896
894
851
Cellular
Public
Safety/
AB B/ILT
A
Safety
B
Cellular
A
B
AB
ISM/
Unlicensed/
US Govt/
Amateur Radio/
Location &
Monitoring
Commercial Aviation
Air-Ground
1 MHz Guard Bands
Fixed
Microwave
57
782
900 SMR/B/ILT
740
728
56
770
Paging
Fixed Microwave
700 - 1000 MHz
54 55
53
758
900 SMR/B/ILT
716
704
52
746
734
722
Sprint
710
698
Sprint
Old
Allocation
July 14, 2011
Fixed Microwave
A: 757-758/787-788 MHz
B: 775-776/805-806 MHz
PS: 763-775/793-805 MHz
Narrowband
PCS
1500 - 1800 MHz
3-30 MHz
30-300 MHz
300-1000 MHz
1-2 GHz
2-4 GHz
4-8 GHz
8-12 GHz
12-18 GHz
18-27 GHZ
27-40 GHz
40-75 GHz
75-110 GHz
110-300 GHz
1670
1626.5
MSS
Big LEO
LightSquared,
Inmarsat
ATC
ATC
ATC
1710
Legend
1755
Uplink Band
AWS-1
OP Corp
Global
Positioning
Satellite (GPS)
LightSquared,
Inmarsat
1675
1660.5
Mobile Satellite
(MSS) L-Band
Iridium
Mobile Satellite
(MSS) L-Band
Globalstar
Aeronautical
Telemetry
1610
Radio Astronomy/
Space Research/
Meteorological Aids
National Fixed/Mob
1559
1525
Meteorological Aids/
MeteorologicalSatellite
Downlink Band
US Govt
TDD Band
A
B
C
D
E
1720 1730
F
1745
1800 - 2200 MHz
F
C
Sprint
A
D
B
E
F
C
2 GHz MSS
TerreStar, DBSD
(DISH)
2110
2200
AWS-1
TV Aux Broadcast (BAS)
Government Satellite
And Others
AWS-3
A
Advanced Wireless
B
C D E
F
Services (AWS I)
2 GHz MSS
US Govt
TerreStar, DBSD
(DISH)
ATC
Source: FCC, Sprint and Stifel Nicolaus Research
2524
2535
2546
2557
2568
2578
2507.5 2518.5 2529.5 2540.5 2551.5 2562.5 2572
2590
2584
2602
2596
2614
2608 2618
2646
2657
2674
2668
MMDS H3
2680
EBS G1
Old
Allocation
2686
EBS G2 ITFS G4
BRS H2
MMDS H2
2668
BRS H3 ITFS G3
MMDS H1
BRS H1 ITFS G2
BRS F3
BRS F1
MMDS F4
2635
2175
2662
2656
ITFS G1
2644
BRS E3
MMDS F3
2624
2650
BRS F2
2632
MMDS E4
2620
2145 2155
2638
BRS E2
2608
MMDS E3
2596
BRS 2
2584
2626
BRS E1
2572
2614
K Guard MMDS F2
2560
2602
MMDS E2
ITFS A1
2487.5 2496
2513
2548
2590
MMDS F1
ATC
2483.5 2495 2502
2536
2578
BRS E4
B
2524
2566
MMDS E1
A
2512
2554
BRS F4
D
Globalstar
2542
EBS B3 ITFS B3
C
ISM/
MSS
Big LEO
2530
EBS B1 ITFS B2
B
Sirius Radio
ISM/
Unlicensed
2518
EBS A2 ITFS B1
EBS A3 ITFS A2
A
DARS
2500
2360
WCS
EBS A1
2345
BRS 1
2320
WCS
Aeronautical
Telemetry
Amateur
Radio
2305
2506
2120 2130
EBS D4 ITFS D4
2300 - 2700 MHz
ATC
2020
EBS G4
2000
1995
EBS B4 ITFS D3
1965 1975
1970
EBS C4 ITFS C4
1945
1950
EBS A4 ITFS C3
1915
EBS C1 ITFS A4
EBS C2
ITFS B4
EBS C3
ITFS C1
EBS D1
ITFS D1
EBS D2
ITFS C2
EBS D3
J Guard ITFS D2
1885 1895
1890
EBS B2 ITFS A3
1865
1870
2679
2690
EBS G3 R Channel
E
Broadband PCS
2025
AWS-2 J Block
B
2008
AWS-2 H Block
D
A
Unlicensed
PCS
Sprint
Broadband PCS
1990
AWS-2 J Block
1910 1920 1930
AWS-2 H Block
US Govt
1850
Fixed - Satellite /
Radio Astronomy /
Space Research
2690
2629.5 2640.5 2651.5 2662.5 2673.5 2684.5
New Allocation
31
Stifel Nicolaus does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could
affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision.
Unlicensed & lightly-licensed bands
(US)
• UHF (476-700 MHz) – incentive auctions
(licensed) + some unlicensed
• 2.4 GHz (73 MHz) – 802.11b/g
• 3.6 GHz (100 MHz) – for backhaul & WISPs
• 4.9 GHz (50 MHz) – public safety
• 5.8 GHz (400 MHz) – 802.11 a/n
– much less crowded than 2.4 GHz
– supported by many laptops, few smartphones
32
2.4 vs. 5.8 GHz
5.8 GHz expansion: sharing with
incumbents
Device detects radar
and moves to an unoccupied channel
DFS
DFS
50 mW
250 mW
250 mW
1W
Indoor Use
Only
Existing
5150
Existing
5250
New
5350 5470
Frequency (MHz)
Existing
5725
5825
34
Freeing spectrum: incentive auctions
• Incentive auctions will
share auction proceeds
with the current occupant
to motivate voluntary
relocation of incumbents
– Otherwise, no
incentive for
current occupant to
give back spectrum
– Stations keep current
channel numbers
• via DTV map
Adjacent Channel
Interference
TV
BB
TV
BB
TV
TV
Without Realignment:
Reduced Broadband Bandwidth
Adjacent Channel
Interference
TV
TV
TV
TV
BB
With Realignment: Accommodates
Increased Broadband Bandwidth
35
Small cell alternatives
• Femto cells
– use existing spectrum
– need additional equipment
Cellular
• WiFi off-load
– use existing residential
equipment
– 5G networks =
heterogeneous networks?
• Distributed antenna
systems
Femto-cells
Distributed Antenna Systems
Signals are distributed throughout the
Building via amplifiers/antennas
36
TV white spaces
• TV channels are “allotted” to cities to serve the local area
• Other licensed and unlicensed services are also in TV bands
• “White Spaces” are the channels that are “unused” at any
given location by licensed devices
2
Low
Power TV
New York City
Full Power
TV Stations
5
White
Space
7
9
Wireless
Microphones
Etc.
Only for illustrative purposes
White
Space
Philadelphia
Full Power
TV Stations
NonBroadcast
spectrum
4
3
Low
Power TV
NonBroadcast
spectrum
White
Space
6
White
Space
8
10
Wireless
Microphones
Etc.
TVWS Spectrum Availability
Available spectrum varies by location
In rural areas many channels are available
In big cities only a few channels may be available at some locations
Examples of availability in UHF channels 21 – 51 (Illustrative):
•
•
•
•
2
1
New York
2
2
2
3
2
4
2
5
2
6
2 2
7 8
2
9
3
0
3
1
3 3
2 3
3
4
3
5
3
6
3
7
3
8
3
9
4
0
4
1
4
2
4
3
4
4
4
5
4
6
4
7
4
8
4
9
5
0
5
1
4
0
4
1
4
2
4
3
4
4
4
5
4
6
4
7
4
8
4
9
5
0
5
1
Washington, DC
2
1
2
2
2
3
2
4
2
5
2
6
2
7
Full Service DTV
Station
2
8
2
9
3
0
3
1
3
2
3
3
3
4
Low Power TV
Station
3
5
3
6
3
7
3
8
3
9
Channel Open/
Adjacent to TV
Channel Open/ Not
Adjacent to TV
In less dense areas many channels are available.
For example: Wilmington, NC: 25 channels = 150 MHz
Harrisburg, PA: 19 channels = 114 MHz
38
TV White Spaces
• Final rules adopted Sept. 2010:
– New spectrum for unlicensed
– Based on geolocation & data base of protected services
– Also allows for spectrum sensing with rigorous review & authorization
process
• Services protected in the data base:
–
–
–
–
–
TV digital and analog Class A, low power, translator & booster stations
Broadcast auxiliary (wireless mikes)
Cable head-ends and TV translators
Land mobile
Sites with significant wireless microphone use
Data Base
Mode 1: Portable device obtains
location/channels from fixed device
Mode 2: Portable device uses its
own geolocation/data base access capability
39
Benefits of TV White Space
• Prime spectrum
– Great propagation & coverage
– High amounts in much of the USA
– Close to spectrum used by commercial wireless services 
potential synergy
• New IEEE 802.22™ standard:
– Broadband wireless access over a large area up to 100 km
– Up to 29 Mb/s per TV channel
– Can increase data rate through use of multiple channels
• WiFi & TVWS complementary:
– Wi-Fi has greater bandwidth but usage density is increasing
New options to reduce traffic
• Download video content
during off-hours
– or defer software updates until
WiFi is available
• Peer-to-peer distribution of
popular content
• IP multicast (1-to-many) of
live content
• Make apps less chatty
41
Spectrum Outlook
• No single solution:
– reduce spectrum usage
• caching & better modulation
– re-use spectrum
– re-cycle old spectrum
42
MEASUREMENTS
Measurement History
• FCC has an evolved schema in place to acquire and analyze
data on legacy PSTN
– Broadband networks and the Internet have not been general
focus of these study efforts
• More recent and evolving broadband interest
– Section 706 of Telecommunications Act, 1996, required annual
report on availability of advanced telecommunications services
to all Americans
• Resulted in information on deployment of broadband technology but
not its performance
– FCC’s National Broadband Plan – March 2010
• Proposed performance measurements of broadband services
delivered to consumer household
• Work plan evolved from recommendations of National Broadband
Plan
Broadband Measurement Study
• First effort for Commission
• Sought high level of voluntary participation
from stakeholders
– ISPs, academia, others
• Interactions shaped initial study
• Broadband measurement still work in progress
What Was Done
• Enlisted cooperation of 13 ISPs covering 86% of US
Population
• Enlisted cooperation of vendors, trade groups,
universities and consumer groups
• Agreement reached on what to measure and how to
measure it
• Enrolled 9,000 consumers as participants
– 6,800 (7,782) active during (2012) report period
– A total of 9,000 active over the data collection period
• Issued report August 2011 and July 2012
What Was Released
• Measuring Broadband America Report
– Main Section describing conclusions and major results
– Technical Appendix describing tests and survey methodology
• Spreadsheet providing standard statistical measures of all
tests for all ISPs and speed tiers measured
• March data set (report period) with 4B data elements from
over 100M tests
– Data set presented as used with anomalies removed
– Documentation provided on how data set was processed
• Data set from February thru June
– All data, as recorded
• Geocoded data on test points recently released
• Information available at http://www.fcc.gov/measuringbroadband-america
What Was Measured
Sustained Download
Burst Download
Sustained Upload
Burst Upload
Web Browsing Download
UDP Latency
UDP Packet Loss
Video Streaming Measure
VoIP Measure
DNS Resolution
DNS Failures
ICMP Latency
ICMP Packet Loss
Latency Under Load
Total Bytes Downloaded
Total Bytes Uploaded
MBA architecture
49
Advertised vs. actual
50
Latency by technology
51
Data usage
52
Cable/Telco Tussle
• Some Cable companies advertise burst speed
– Quota based technique providing temporary speed increase of < 15
seconds
• Also affected by other household activity
– Can’t be applied generally to DSL where sync rate often limiting factor
– Marginal value to fiber where each subscriber has potentially available
37 Mb/s to 75 Mb/s provisioned bandwidth
• Compromise to measure both burst and sustained speed
• Burst speed does have some potential to improve browsing,
gaming and like applications
Reliability
• Packet loss rate < 1%
• Correlation between peak periods and packet loss
– Higher loss during peak hours
• Most companies during peak experience < .4%
packet loss
• Worst case seen during March .8%
• Data from other periods may have numbers in excess
of 1% (Georgia Tech)
• 1% packet loss often cited as video threshold
Web Page Downloading
Canary in the Coal Mine?
• Performance seems to top out after 10 Mbps
• Many possible explanations
– Latency, server loading, household platform limitations, etc.
• However, discussions with Georgia Tech indicate that they
have seen similar performance issues
• Discussion with Ofcom and others suggest that globally, full
benefits of higher line rates not being realized AT PRESENT
• Higher ISP speed may challenge industry to examine
performance bottlenecks
• More data needed
Unknowns
• Report measured ISP performance and not
end to end
• In-home contributions unknown but being
looked at elsewhere (France)
• Contributions of other network elements not
correlated
Broadband adoption
Eighth Broadband Progress Report, August 2012
57
Access to broadband
Chart 1
Households With Access to the
Fixed Broadband Speed Benchmark by Technology
Any Fi xed
Cable
DSL
Fixed Wireless
Other Copper
Fi ber
0%
20%
40%
Eighth Broadband Progress Report, August 2012
60%
80%
100%
58
Competition (US)
• if lucky, incumbent LEC + cable company
– DSL: cheaper, but low speed
• mean: 2.5 – 3.5 Mb/s
– FTTH (FiOS): 21M households
• 10-100 Mb/s
– Cable: > $50/month, higher speeds
• 8-50 Mb/s
• often, high switching costs ($200 early termination fee)
– or tied to bundles (TV, mobile)
• can’t easily predict whether problem would be
different
FTTH
In Figure 3(b), we estimate the percentages of households in census tracts where providers reported
residential fixed-location connections of different speeds or operated a mobile wireless network capable
of sending or receiving data at the indicated speeds.
State of competition (US)
Figure 3(b)
Percentages of Households Located in Census Tracts Where Providers Report
Residential Fixed-Location Connections of Various Speeds or Operate a Mobile Wireless Network
Capable of Delivering Service of Various Speeds as of December 31, 2009
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
At least 3 mbps
downstream & over 200
kbps upstream
At least 3 mbps
downstream & 768
kbps upstream
At least 6 mbps
downstream & 1.5
mbps upstream
At least 10 mbps
downstream & 1.5
mbps upstream
3+ Providers
58
40
3
2
2 Providers
35
40
22
20
1 Provider
6
17
56
58
0 Providers
1
3
18
21
FCC: Internet
Figures mayAccess
not sum toServices
100% due toStatus
rounding.as of December 31, 2009
speed of 10.72 Mbps. The two lowest price countries are Slovakia and Italy with an average net price
of approximately $21. These countries report average download speed of 10 Mbps. The two highest
price countries are Mexico and Switzerland with net prices of $95.60 and $185 respectively. Appendix
Table 2b shows the breakdown by technology in this speed tier. The United States is 9th amid 24
countries having DSL plans, with an average net price of $40.80 per month. The lowest average price
is in Sweden ($25.30) and the highest is in Switzerland ($185). The United States cable and fiber plans
average $44.75 and $54.99 respectively. See Appendix Table 2b for prices in other countries.
International comparison: fixed
Monthly Net Price ($ PPP)
Figure 2c
Average Monthly Net Price ($ PPP) of Residental (Fixed) Standalone
Broadband 2011
15-25 Mbps of Download Speed
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Note: The monthly net price reflects the price per month, including rebates, installation charges, equipment
charges such as modem rentals and other fees. So this is different from the simple monthly advertised price. The
rd
average priceBroadband
is obtained by
a simple
average
over
all technologies,
excluding satellite, in the 15-25 Mbps peed
3 International
Data
Report
(IBDR),
August
2012
62
Federal Communications Commission
DA 12-1334
International comparison: mobile
Figures 7a-10a shows the net price per gigabyte of data for plans with usage limits, and Figures 7b-10b
reports the average monthly net price for unlimited data plans.
Price per GB of Data ($PPP/GB)
100
90
Figure 7a
Average Monthly Net Price per GB of Data 2011
Smartphone Data Plans with Usage Limits
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Note: Belgium does not have any limited data plans in the sample. Japan charges by the amount of
packets sent, so we assumed 1 packet = 128 bytes according to the advertised plan. These prices are for
rd
the data
plan onlyData
and do
not include
theAugust
price of
the phone plan or deviceeram
charge.
3 International
Broadband
Report
(IBDR),
2012
63
ACCESSIBILITY
Access to Telecommunications and
Technology Means:

Jobs

Education

Information

Recreation

Marketplace

Transportation

Independence

Privacy
Improved Relay Services
• Video Relay (2000) – first E.164 IP-based
multimedia system
– initially H.323, transitioning to SIP
•
•
•
•
•
•
Speech-to-Speech (2000)
Spanish Relay (2000)
Internet Relay (2001)
Access to audiotext (IVR) systems
Typing speed – 60 wpm
Captioned Telephone (2003)
Turn of Century: Many Gaps in Laws
• No coverage of Internet-based
communication services or video
programming
• No mandates for video description
• Limited captioning capability on television
devices (screens up to 13 inches)
• No specific protections for deaf-blind
population
• No guarantee of emergency access or
accessible user interfaces on video devices
for people who are blind or visually impaired
Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act
Public Law 111-260; Public Law 111-25
• Need for the Legislation: Disability
protections enacted by Congress and
implemented by the FCC had not kept up with
emerging technologies
• Prior focus was on telecommunications
• Prior laws applied to legacy technologies
• CVAA addresses accessibility challenges of
21st century technologies
Market Forces: Past failures to
Achieve access
– Each disability market is too small
– Lower incomes mean less purchasing power
– Need for adaptive equipment discourages purchases
• Government steps in where market has failed
• Addresses accessibility needs to promote
innovation and not overly burden industry: Goal
is to incorporate access at design stages
• Accessibility achieves access for all – goes beyond
disability community
Title II – Video Description
• Required for:
– 4 national broadcast networks in top 25 markets
– Top 5 cable channels
• Amount of programming: 4 hours of prime
time or children’s programming per week
• FCC must conduct additional inquires on
availability, benefits, uses, and costs: 1
year after rule phase-in
• CVAA authorizes expansion to 7 hours of
video description per week and eventually
all market areas
FCC Implementation of CVAA
• Creation of Advisory Committees (directed
by CVAA to achieve consumer-industry
balance)
Emergency Access Advisory Committee
Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee
• Adoption of Rules
• Creation of Accessibility Clearinghouse:
http://apps.fcc.gov/accessibilityclearinghouse/
• Biennial Reports to Congress
• Handling of Complaints
RESEARCH
How can researchers participate?
• Write relevant papers
– what’s technologically possible?
– what are real-world problems?
– economic + technology analysis
• Submit filings for the record
– during comment periods
• Ex-parte visits
• Presentations to educate FCC staff
Conclusion
• Regulator as critical part of technology eco
system
–
–
–
–
–
technology enabler
manager of the “common”
consumer protection
maintain or enhance competition
deal with market failures
• Challenges
– outdated laws
– technology transition: waiting for last one to turn off
lights…
77