Verizon, AT&T: Net neutrality not OK for wireless
The wireless industry is gearing up to fight new Net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission is formulating to keep the Internet open.
On Monday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gave a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., outlining plans to turn the agency's principles for open Internet access into official regulation.
In addition to making sure that network operators cannot prevent users from accessing lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, or attaching unharmful devices to the network, Genachowski wants to add two more rules.
The first would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement.
Broadband providers such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon Communications have opposed regulation or new laws that would dictate how they could run their networks. Up until this point, the Internet has been free of any regulation. And these companies would like to keep it that way.
That said, the nation's two biggest phone companies, AT&T and Verizon, have accepted the principles outlined by the FCC, when it comes to their wired broadband networks. Even though they don't think additional regulation is needed, they have agreed in principle with keeping their broadband networks open.
But the regulation that Genachowski is proposing will not apply to just wireline broadband networks, such as DSL and cable modem service. It will also apply to wireless services. And this is where the major phone companies will likely focus their opposition to the FCC's plans for new regulation.
Julius Genachowski
(Credit: LaunchBox Digital)Verizon and AT&T, which operate the nation's largest and second-largest cell phone networks, respectively, say the rules should not apply to wireless Internet access.
"AT&T has long supported the principle of an open Internet and has conducted its business accordingly," Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior vice president of external and legislative affairs, said in a statement. "We were also early supporters of the FCC's current four broadband principles and their case-by-case application to wired networks."
But Cicconi went on to say that the principles and new legislation should not apply to the wireless market.
"We are concerned, however, that the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of Net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America: wireless services," he said.
He argues that wireless networks differ from wireline broadband networks because bandwidth is more limited on a wireless network. And he said that imposing new rules on how carriers operate their wireless networks would stifle investment.
This is a sentiment echoed by the CTIA, the wireless industry's trade association. The group argues that the open network provision in the 700 MHz spectrum auction caused many operators to stay away from the auction. In the end, only two companies bid for the C Block licenses: Google and Verizon. And the group notes that these licenses "sold for significantly less" than other licenses in the auction.
Verizon, which ended up winning the C Block auction in that auction, also believes that regulation is unnecessary. The company's vice president of regulatory affairs, David Young, said in a panel after Genachowski's speech that these rules will be difficult to implement in the wireless market because of the capacity constraints on wireless networks.
"On a wireline broadband network, you know where your customer is," he said. "So you can build capacity to handle the peak demands. But on a wireless network, you have a crowd converge on a site that suddenly has 10 times or 100 times the users competing for the same resources. "
Young said Verizon is committed to providing open access on its wireline broadband network, as well as its wireless network. He pointed to the fact that Verizon is now building a new 4G wireless network using the C Block spectrum it acquired in the 700 MHz auction. And as required by the FCC, it will allow users to attach any device and access any application on this new network. In effort to show Verizon's commitment to open access, Young also highlighted Verizon's efforts to open its 3G cellular network through its open development initiative.
"Our customers want an open experience," he said. "They want more choices, which is why we allow third-party developers and are providing developers complete access to our network. But our concern is that these new regulations, which apply regulation to the Internet for the first time, could have unintended consequences."
During his speech, Genachowski addressed this issue.
"I recognize that if we were to create unduly detailed rules that attempted to address every possible assault on openness, such rules would become outdated quickly," he said. "But saying nothing--and doing nothing--would impose its own form of unacceptable cost."
While it is true that Verizon has made its 3G network more open, it still requires device manufacturers to "certify" their products for the network, which means that Verizon still has the ability to accept or deny devices that run on its network. As for new applications, Verizon is still in the practice of disabling some features, such as Wi-Fi, on certain phones that operate on its nonopen traditional 3G wireless network.
Still, consumer advocates applaud Verizon's attempts at openness. But they point out that other wireless providers have not taken similar steps.
" I'd like to give credit to Verizon," Ben Scott, policy director for the consumer group Free Press, said during the panel discussion at the Brookings Institute event. "They have made a lot of positive steps toward openness. But that is not universally true of all carriers. Skype (and other applications) are still blocked on other carrier networks."
Indeed, services such as Skype, which allows users to make free and low-cost phone calls over an Internet connection, and Google Voice, which allows users to use to a single phone that follows them, regardless of which voice network they use, have been blocked by certain carriers. The FCC is already investigating why Google's voice service was rejected by Apple for the popular iPhone.
But Net neutrality supporters say it is critical for the new regulation to apply to wireless, as well as to wireline, services because in the future, most people will access the Internet via wireless devices. And as wireless operators launch new 4G networks that increase capacity and network download speeds, even more mobile devices will become Internet-enabled.
While incumbent wireless providers may oppose regulation on wireless Internet access, newer players support it. Clearwire, which is building a nationwide 4G wireless network, using spectrum from Sprint Nextel, and investment from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Google, and Intel, fully supports the FCC's efforts.
"Clearwire applauds the chairman's efforts to safeguard an open Internet and his desire to strike a balance between consumers' need for open, rich access to the Internet and appropriate network management practices," Mike Sievert, chief commercial officer for Clearwire, said in a statement. Clearwire's 4G WiMax technology, business model, and operations embody openness for access, applications and devices."
At the end of the day, Net neutrality supporters say regulation is needed to keep the Internet open because there is simply not enough competition in the market to ensure that service providers play fair.
"If consumers had a wide choice of broadband service providers, preserving an open Internet might not be such a critical issue," Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist, wrote in a blog post he published Monday. "Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans have few (if any) choices in selecting a provider. As a result, these providers are in a position to influence whether and how consumers and producers can use the on-ramps to the Internet--and we've already seen several examples of discriminatory actions or threats that impair openness."
While many would agree that more competition is needed in the wireline broadband market, where most consumers have access to at most two broadband service options, many would disagree that competition does not exist in the wireless industry.
"Unlike the other platforms that would be subject to the rules, the wireless industry is extremely competitive, extremely innovative, and extremely personal," Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA, the wireless industry's trade association, said in a statement.
But the FCC is already investigating the state of competition in the wireless market. Even though there are four major nationwide carriers--AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile USA--the majority of the market is controlled by two carriers. And their dominance is increasing.
In the second quarter of 2009, AT&T added 1.4 million new wireless subscribers, for a total of 79.6 million subscribers. Verizon Wireless also added 1.1 million new subscribers during the second quarter, for a total of 87.7 million subscribers. Meanwhile, smaller competitors such as Sprint Nextel lost subscribers.
"If your definition of a competitive market is based on what we see in the wireline market, where there are two competitors, then yes, wireless is a competitive market," Scott said. "But if you look at the wireless market comprehensively, and you aren't just counting providers, then you'll see the market power is very concentrated."
Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E-mail Maggie. 
Spur competition!
Better wireless interwebs will help bring the USA into the modern world.
That being said, this problem doesn't exist, but unless it becomes illegal, it will exist soon enough.
ATT needs to be regulated, these limits should not be allowed as I believe they violate existing FCC regulations. These limits are completely unacceptable considering the premium cost americans pay for cell phone service.
What the FCC really ought to focus on is not how QoS is implemented within private networks, but preventing the ISPs from monopolizing regions and preventing consumers from choosing a network with a management policy that competitively suits their needs. I don't see that this regulation will do this.
If everyone signed up for VOIP such as GV or Skype, people would consequently reduce their overall voice plans to the minimum minutes. That would be a devastating blow to their basic revenue model, and would probably see cell phone carriers raise their minimum voice plans that would be required for individuals to subscribe to, before one could get unlimited data plans.
Or, they could simply get into the business of selling their own VOIP phone service to undercut competitors - to wit, Comcast and Clearwire.
Google Voice isn't VoIP. It still requires you to go through a traditional phone provider. The only way it affects carriers is by making it easier for users to switch.
Unless you pair it with Gizmo5, that is. Then it's VoIP.
I don't think the FCC will wipe out Tiers, or capping, or a slew of other money making options for the phone companies.
I do believe the FCC will stop this business of CO's saying you cant run your own equipment on your connection like for instance "Windows Home Server" technically against most ISP's rules. Its a sever.
How about blocking many ports because they don't want you do this or that.
Or traffic shaping so your connection to their apps runs fine but to a competitors stuff SUX!
Or try to force you to purchase their high priced online TV app, when you have a perfectly free slingbox at home.
Or pay $100's for long distance when Skype works fine if they didn't block it.
This is where Net Nuetrality works and should be supported stopping big business gouging users for innovating to have access for free.
In short stop making us pay for something we can do for ourselves for free and regulation would not be necesarry.
Net neutrality is a scheme by which moderate and slight Internet users subsidize heavy users. It's a form of wealth transfer to people who don't want to pay their own way."
Sorry; I can't let this comment fester. People who don't want to use the Internet much pay less for a cheaper plan that is slower. People who want to do more pay more for a faster plan. "Net Neutrality" has nothing to do with this. If my plan calls for 6Mbps, what I do with that 6Mbps is my business. eMail, Web, whatever content I can legally transmit or receive. The ISP's who cry about "other content providers using up our bandwidth" conveniently ignore the fact that those content providers are paying major dollars to get big pipes to the Internet and not "freeloading" on the backs of the ISPs. As an example: If I decided to make available some (legal) content in the form of a movie, how many downloaders could I possibly serve with my 6Mbps connection? Not many. So if I want to sell my "content", I'd need to have (and pay for) major-league broadband. Ergo, I'm paying my way.
That a company is betting that most users won't use the bandwidth they are promissed is nothing more than an internal decision that relates to price and bandwidth.
I think the term you were looking for was ISP, not operator. But, as an elite penetration tester, I'm sure you already knew that. ;)
There are normal, semi-predictable shifts such as a downtown business district during working hours having a huge amount of users and during non-working hours having a low amount of users. They would probably build out the infrastructure to support this. Pro sports events could be predicted and temporary equipment used for the day. Many big events could be taken care of this way.
There are other things that they can't be carting that equipment around for though. The high school football teams homecoming game with a few thousand people descending on an otherwise low usage area on a Friday night. The local mall that holds a children's costume contest, a major haunted house attraction in an empty chain store and the opening night of Halloween 24 at the in mall cinema all at the same time. The carriers can't be running around moving equipment into places for every little thing that pops up.
Also, it seems to me that people do not understand the fundamental differences between wireless connections and wired connections. Say you have DSL service. It works fine for you when playing your online games, watching some netflix movies and downloading songs from iTunes. Life is good. Now share that DSL line with all the houses on your street. Not so fun anymore and you can't even watch a Netflix movie. So you tell all your neighbors to get their own lines and all is good in the word again. Now take a 3G connection. You have a 3G card in your computer and life is good. Take that 3G card and stick it in a N speed hub and hook up some wireless bridge/access points and let your neighborhood connect to it. Life is really, really sucking at this point. So you tell all your neighbors to get their own 3G cards. You life never goes back to being good. There is only so much bandwidth you are going to see in a given area without installing equipment to move it to wired lines.
The example where "a site suddenly has 10 times or 100 times the users competing for the same resources" can be handled by the "appropriate network management practices" provision.
The key is not to allow the operators to block ANY type of service. If they are allow to block one, they will be allowed to block anything they want and their decisions could ultimately be based on their own personal business agenda, versus the consumer.
Classic!
Either cap the bandwidth evenly for all users and all services, so each user can use the system,
or increase the price of all users' plans evenly, so you can afford to upgrade the system.
Is this not basic supply vs. demand? Am I missing something? If there's not enough bandwidth to go around, I pay more. Sure.
However, what's not ok is for the dumb pipe to tell me I can only use (100-N)% of the bandwidth I paid M dollars for because I'm downloading a file, or what have you, while my neighbor can use 100% of the bandwidth he paid M dollars for because he's accessing a web site, or what have you.
Now, what does this exactly mean? A problem would be as follows - If a wireless tower serves out X Mb/s, and Y people connect, then each person is capped to X/Y Mb/s. However generally someone would only use a fraction of X/Y, and each time they do, there's some unused bandwidth, (1/P)(X/Y) per person where P is the percentage of bandwidth they're using, that's not being allocated to a service.
There would be a total-
Y
? (X/PiY)
i=1
-wasted bandwidth. Let's call this S for now.
To keep this bandwidth from being wasted, you would allocate it among the users who are currently capped at their max (X Mb/s). If there are Q users capped, then their total cap would now be X+(S/Q) Mb/s. You could keep doing this until only one user is capped at a very high speed, or more than one user are using the same amount of network, capped at the same speed.
Isn't this giving the heavy users priority over the lighter users? No. Why? Because, theoretically, you could say that *all* users now have a cap of X+(S/Q) Mb/s. This is because as lighter user increases his network utilization, P, then sum of wasted bandwidth, S, goes down, and so therefore the additional bandwidth granted to all capped users. As less network is used (usually because fewer people are using the network or less services are being run) then the network will be faster for all users, if all users are using more (let's say close to 100%) of their network speed, each user gets closer to that X/Y Mb/s.
If a network wanted to promise 16 Mb/s minimum, they would have to estimate the number of users and the bandwidth they would use, and then create an infrastructure that could handle that. If they mis-estimate, then they'll have to upgrade their infrastructure, and increase their price to cover it, or promise lower speeds.
Obviously this is all horribly oversimplified. The carrier doesn't want a lot of wasted bandwidth at night, for instance, but at the same time they don't want a slow useless network during peak times. There's a lot of very complex stuff here. Also, I don't know how fast a network would be able to switch weight from connected user to connected user, etc. That's why people go to college and get jobs learning this stuff.
What I'm trying to get at is this: It's not outside the realm of reason to say every user can have an equal amount of bandwidth. It's possible to do this without wasting bandwidth. If during peak times, bandwidth is too low, then advertise it as that low, or upgrade the system and charge a bit more. I don't mind good clean economics.
[From article]:
"On a wireline broadband network, you know where your customer is," he said. "So you can build capacity to handle the peak demands. But on a wireless network, you have a crowd converge on a site that suddenly has 10 times or 100 times the users competing for the same resources."
If I move into a crowded area, then there will be more users there. Of course I'm going to have a slowdown. Verizon/AT&T/Whoever can take averages, gauge usership, etc. in many areas, and upgrade the infrastructure there.
If there's a sudden influx of people anywhere, there will probably be a slowdown.
However, as I described above, we should all have equal slowdowns. Cap everyone equally. Guess what? The user who is downloading a movie or streaming video will hit a slowdown. The user who is accessing web pages or tweeting or chatting might still be under that X/Y cap.
Let's say the tower can handle 100 Mb/s and there are 1000 users. Each user's "cap" will be .1 Mb/s. Seems slow. Right now while I'm typing this, my network card is reading in at .9 KB/s. I'd expect most of those 1000 users to be idle at any given point in time. The unused network bandwidth is applied to whoever's streaming pandora or whathaveyou. When you send an IM, maybe there's a burst that needs a certain speed. You would reclaim some of the bandwidth some another user. All users would have the same cap at any given point in time. Slowdowns still happen, though. They are inevitable.
"Rather than let bandwidth be spread evenly across all users [as I have described probably inaccurately over too simply above] which would cause slowdowns since one would have to cap everyone evenly....
...instead, cap users who "we think" don't "deserve" to use the same network speed, as some other user."
Net neutrality is all about keeping providers (from the article-) "from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement."
I'd rather have a clear cut Max Bandwidth vs. Users vs. Network Utilization equation spelled right out to my face by my dump pipe ISP then for them to decide which services, at their discretion, deserve priority over others. We all pay the same price for the same bandwidth. If I'm using more bandwidth, that shouldn't detract from those using less, but at the same time, I should still expect to at least receive the maximum the tower can dish out as rationed to all users, and I should expect the ISPs to be as truthful as they can in advertising their coverage and the average speeds of various points where their service covers.
Again, if there's slowdowns happening a lot that don't meet what was advertised, they should be upgrading their system at that point or advertise lower speeds.
Y
? (X/PiY)
i=1
is
Y
[Sigma] (X/PiY)
i=1
The big question is, can an ISP have to deal with slowdowns by arbitrarily bottlenecking services at their discretion, or are they forced to upgrade their "pipes"/advertise slower pipes.
@Renegade Knight - I think I agree with you, but I obviously was all over the place in my posts, and wasn't clear about anything, if that's what you're responding to.
They shouldn't sell bandwidth they don't have to offer.
However, I do think an issue is - how do ISPs recoup the cost of upgrading infrastructure.
I don't know how relevant this is, though. By that I mean, given a 100% honest, transparent ISP, if I paid M for N bandwidth, and I wanted more bandwidth, they could fill that demand and I would not mind paying M+C.
However, in the case of an ISP, like we see here, who advertises a certain bandwidth, and suddenly cries out in objection to rules that I would have thought should have been the case all along (I pay M for N bandwidth), then for them to upgrade their infrastructure to handle something that I thought I was paying for all along, I would indeed mind paying M+C for my same N bandwidth. I would feel no sympathy.
That's just me as a consumer, though, looking from the outside in. I don't know what kind of bottlenecking might have gone on, or what kinds of speeds are achievable in many areas given the current infrastructure.
I suppose this is also why I support the 6th guideline:
"Broadband providers must be transparent about the service they are providing and how they are running their networks."
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What they really mean is that THEY want to regulate the internet without public oversight.
Left to their own devices, these companies will not only degrade the internet, they will destroy their own market. What a bunch of lizard brains!
Our current crop of corporate leaders are giving capitalism a bad name.
I'm willing to pay for the bandwidth I use - as it is I pay for a faster connection to the internet than the "basic" one my provider offers. I'm paying for the pipe and how I choose to use it is a freedom of speech issue. I don't want corporate censorship or government censorship. As long as I'm not breaking any laws (like copyright), I expect to be able to go to any site and view content. As a hypothetical example, I'd be very annoyed if I could view video from Hulu because Hulu had a contract with my service provider, but not Netflix because they didn't. Or what if I could video chat with my son, because he had the same provider, but not my parents, because they have a different provider?
That could be stopped by BANNING performance based bonuses to upper management, or in fact any bonuses AT ALL and just giving them a flat rate per year.
Ideally, today's news would prompt Congress to take up the matter too. For a long time we've said that FCC activity on Internet neutrality would benefit from clear congressional guidance, authorization, and limits, so that the FCC's task and regulatory authority are not open-ended. You can read more about our thoughts on this by looking the more inclusive comments we submitted to the FCC on its overall Broadband Plan. http://www.cdt.org/speech/20090608_broadband_comments.pdf
This is a backward statement if I ever saw one. "These companies" are trying to make the internet LESS free and the "regulation" is intended to KEEP internet access free instead of restricted.
"At the end of the day, Net neutrality supporters say regulation is needed to keep the Internet open because there is simply not enough competition in the market to ensure that service providers play fair."
Well said.
@frozenjello
A fair example. The private plan was bankrupsy. Some decided it was too big to fail. The only government failure I see what the the US Government didn't break AIG into smaller parts and turn loose the pieces each of whihc woudl be "small enough to fail if they are stupid like daddy". Also if they did that they would be a lot more likely to get their money back.
Oh bye the way the government owns the air waves not the providers. You might want to get on board wireless telcos. You won a license not the airwaves. Play along or get along wireless telcos. Charge what you want but don't limit services or add caps.
When you have a school that instead of training their teachers they lower the passing grades, then you gonna have this problem. Companies know how dump we are. We dont protest anymore. We wanna let govt take care of things that we should take care of.
Long life to our nice capitalism. Long life to the bailouts and the freedom we dont have.
- by skellener September 21, 2009 6:41 PM PDT
- Wireless needs net neutrality even MORE than wired! Not only that, they need DEVICE neutrality! You should be able to use any device you want on the network. At home you can have everything from a desktop, a laptop, a game console, a DVR, an audio streaming device - pretty much anything you want. You pay for the connection and use the device of your choice. That is where wireless needs to be. The Verizon MyFi is a step in the right direction. You can connect any wifi device you want. That is the future of wireless. The carriers can either embrace it, or go kicking and screaming, but it IS the way it will be.
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- by Vrmithrax September 22, 2009 12:05 PM PDT
- Device neutrality is fairly common in Europe... You buy the device you want (at full price), then shop around at the various wireless providers for the best deal and service. They don't lock you into massive, restricted contracts. But they DO have to actually give a crap about the customer, and provide a great service, or their customers will abandon them for a better plan down the street.
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (94 Comments)Net neutrality for content and device neutrality for hardware!
Of course, that would never fly over here in the US, for 2 reasons... First, the big companies would never agree to a model that would actually make them have to be fully competent and work at customer satisfaction (to retain business, rather than just doing the bare minimum to keep their contracted sheep content with what they have to live with anyhow). And second, there would be quite a rebellion if people actually had to pay hundreds of dollars for their phones up front - the big companies have done a great job of placating people with free (or dirt cheap) phones when they sign the dotted lines. If there was device neutrality here, I can guarantee you that you wouldn't be getting that free phone when you signed on with AT&T, or a new phone every 2 years with Verizon...