NEW YORK--Federal Communications Commission commissioner Jonathan Adelstein joined tech policy pundits, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists Tuesday to launch a new initiative aimed at making broadband a priority in the U.S.
The group, which calls itself InternetforEveryone.org, officially launched at Free Press' Personal Democracy Forum here. The main purpose of the new initiative is to help organize public support for a national broadband policy.
Vint Cerf, Google chief Internet evangelist; Tim Wu, Columbia University professor; and Jonathan Adelstein, FCC Commissioner, at the launch of InternetforEveryone.org.
(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET News.com)Prominent figures in the tech world, including Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, as well as law professors Larry Lessig of Stanford and Tim Wu of Columbia were on hand with Brad Burnham of the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures and Robin Chase, founder of Zipcar, to join Adelstein in becoming members of the group.
Adelstein, one of two Democratic commissioners on the FCC, has been a big proponent of a national broadband policy for some time. During his introduction, he admitted has been frustrated with the current administration's lack of focus on broadband. But he said he hopes this initiative will help provide a forum to allow the public's voice to be heard in Washington.
"We need to mobilize the public to make broadband an issue in D.C., so that broadband penetration and pricing rises to the top of the agenda," Adelstein said in an interview following the press conference. "It's important for us to make sure that the public's interests are served. We've already heard a lot from the cable and phone companies."
Broadband advocates have long complained that the U.S. is falling behind other countries in its ability to offer high-speed Internet service at affordable prices to all of its citizens.
Josh Silver of Free Press said during the press conference that the U.S. has slipped from 4th to 15th in the world in terms of broadband penetration. And he said that half the country doesn't subscribe to high-speed Internet. He and others in the group said it was time for a national policy framework to be established to ensure that government helps make broadband more accessible to people throughout the country.
But not everyone agrees that the U.S. is lagging in broadband or that a comprehensive national policy is even necessary. Verizon COO Denny Strigl said at the NxtComm trade show in Las Vegas said last week that it was a "myth" that the U.S. lagged behind other nations in high-speed Internet.
"It's time to put this myth to rest," Strigl said during a keynote speech. "What the communications industry has achieved in deploying broadband and mobile services is tremendous. And we've done this not through industrial policy, but through private investment delivering innovation. The benefits have rippled through the entire economy creating millions of high-tech jobs and billions of dollars in value."
Indeed, comparing the U.S. with other countries with much smaller geographies and populations is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. In much of the U.S., people have access to not just one broadband provider but two. And as Verizon deploys fiber directly to consumers' homes and AT&T upgrades its network to offer faster broadband and TV service to its customers, those companies have forced their cable competitors in those areas to increase speeds and in some places even lower prices.
So in many parts of the country, broadband competition is working. But the problem is that the competitive forces aren't working uniformly throughout the country. There are still pockets of the U.S., especially in rural areas, where broadband is only offered by one provider or by none at all. And prices per bit are still much higher than they are in other parts of the world.
"People have just accepted that bandwidth is something that American families will spend hundreds of dollars on per month," Columbia professor Tim Wu said. "People don't realize how much we pay for how little bandwidth we actually get."
Wu likened the broadband market to the energy market, saying bandwidth is a commodity controlled by a tiny cartel of phone companies and cable operators. He said that prices have been inflated and kept high, which has kept many people out of the broadband revolution.
"I agree that for most of the country, access to broadband is not the issue," he said in an interview. "But I'd say beyond that, the market has stalled. We need to make America a leader in broadband pricing and speeds. The attitude that it's just 'OK' to have access to DSL isn't good enough."
Members of the new "Internet for Everyone" initiative believe that a national broadband policy can help. That said, the group didn't announce support for any particular legislation nor is it backing a specific broadband policy proposal. But members of the group seem to agree that the reallocation of wireless spectrum should be a major component to any national policy.
Broadband advocates had hoped that the recent 700MHz spectrum auction, which reallocated spectrum that has been used for analog TV signals, would lay the foundation for a third national broadband provider. But at the conclusion of the FCC auction, it was incumbents, such as Verizon Communications, that came out the big winners in the auction, gobbling up key national licenses for spectrum.
"I think the commission missed a golden opportunity in the 700MHz spectrum auction to ensure there would be a third pipe into the home for broadband," Adelstein said in an interview.
The FCC is currently looking at freeing up more spectrum that could be used by new entrants to create new wireless broadband services, he added. One proposal on the table from a company called M2Z proposes that the FCC open up 25MHz of spectrum that could be used to build a free wireless network. Under the plan, the FCC would give the company access to spectrum for free. The company would build the network and fund the service through advertising. As part of the proposal, M2Z planned to give the FCC 5 percent of its gross revenue from the service.
The FCC originally dismissed the proposal, mostly because it asked the commission to allocate spectrum for free. But now the commission seems to be reconsidering it.
"Right now we are contemplating opening up about 20MHz of spectrum for free wireless broadband," Adelstein said in an interview. "There is a business plan on the table, so we will have to see what happens."
Another option for the FCC is to open up "white spaces", or the spectrum bands left vacant between broadcast TV channels.
Several companies, including Google and Microsoft, have been working on prototype devices that demonstrate that wireless devices can work within these bands without causing interference. But the broadcast TV industry has been opposed to any use of "white spaces." Still, broadband proponents see it as an important asset to be used in expanding the broadband market.
"Spectrum liberation in our time needs to be a priority for any national broadband policy," Wu said. "And the 'white space' spectrum is a good way to do that. It offers a ton of bandwidth."
The rules that limit Web sites and marketers from collecting data on kids under 13 may spread to teens as old as 18 if a group of child advocates has its way.
The group--which includes the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children Now, and the Center for Digital Democracy--plans to ask the Federal Trade Commission on Friday to establish rules that will help protect teens from data collection and targeted marketing while they socialize on sites like MySpace and Facebook.
If heeded, the proposal could put a crimp in social networks' plans to tailor online advertisements to teen behaviors. Facebook, for example, may use data on its members to send a targeted ad, according to the company's privacy policy.
"We ask that the FTC...recommend adoption of voluntary industry guidelines that define 'sensitive data' to include the online activities of all persons under the age of eighteen and prohibit the collection of sensitive information for behavioral advertising purposes," according to a copy of the letter seen by CNET News.com.
Sensitive data refers to contact information for a person, such as an e-mail address or home number, as well as the Web surfing habits of that person.
The letter will be delivered to the FTC on Friday to meet a deadline for comments on the Commission's proposed privacy standards for interactive marketing. The FTC has suggested that the industry regulate itself by disclosing to consumers any intention to collect information about them for the purpose of targeting ads, and obtaining their consent to do so, among other rules.
But the CDD and others want the FTC to go further by expanding the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act to cover teens between 13 and 18 years old. COPPA, which went into effect in 1999, requires that Web sites ask for parental permission before they can collect any personal data about a child, among other stipulations.
"Although adolescents are more sophisticated consumers than young children are, they face their own age-related vulnerabilities regarding privacy. Adolescents face enormous pressures to socially interact online--providing personal information in the process--and are less able to understand the potential long-term consequences from having their information available to advertisers, other individuals, and third-parties," according to the letter.
For its part, Facebook addresses some of this concern in its privacy policy. It states that teens between the ages of 13 and 18 should ask their parents before using the social network, and that it does not knowingly collect data on kids under the age of 13. But as with most social networks, adults are free game.
"Facebook may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties. We do this for purposes such as aggregating how many people in a network like a band or movie and personalizing advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you Facebook," according to its privacy policy.
The CDD also wants the FTC to clarify COPPA so that it prevents Web sites from collecting data on the surfing habits of kids to target ads to them.
Specifically, the letter asks that the FTC "revisit and clarify its COPPA rule to require affirmative express consent from parents when advertisers collect information used to send individualized ads to children as part of behavioral advertising."
Jeff Chester, executive director of the CDD, said that his group and others are trying to bring the FTC up with the times.
"The commission still has a late 1990's understanding of online marketing," said Chester, who helped lead the campaign to create COPPA in 1998. "This filing is to help the FTC recognize they must ensure children and adolescents' privacy is protected in the age of Facebook and MySpace."
Rep. Howard Berman, the Democrat who represents the area near Hollywood, Calif., slams 'people who want to steal intellectual property' and their 'lobby.'
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News.com)HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--Rep. Howard Berman, who heads a congressional panel in charge of writing copyright legislation, lashed out at Internet pirates this week and defended his effort to add stiffer anticopying penalties to federal law.
Berman, a Democrat who represents the congressional district near Hollywood, said at a technology policy conference here that he was on track to enact the so-called Pro-IP Act by the end of 2008. The bill ratchets up civil penalties for copyright infringement and creates a new federal agency charged with bringing about a national and international copyright crackdown.
"I don't think there's a lot of controversy," Berman said on Wednesday. "This one is not like the patent bill."
Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have opposed the Pro-IP Act, saying it makes little sense to seize a family computer allegedly used to download music on a peer-to-peer network and that the legislation amounts to protecting the entertainment industry's business model at the expense of technology.
"There are people who want to steal intellectual property," Berman said in an apparent criticism of EFF and Public Knowledge. "Their lobby is distributed, diffuse, but unfortunately very popular."
Berman dismissed the Justice Department's criticism of Pro-IP--the agency believes the current arrangement for criminal enforcement works fine--as merely protecting political turf. "They don't like Congress telling them how to organize their branch, but that's our right," Berman said. "They take the notion of executive privilege very seriously."
He also:
* Defended the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has been the subject of protests from technologists for nearly a decade: "I know the DMCA is controversial--by and large I think it makes a lot of sense."
* Wondered whether Internet service providers should be required to pull the plug on customers engaged in piratical activities: "To what extent do we ask ISPs to (undertake) some affirmative actions?" The Motion Picture Association of America has called on ISPs to do precisely that, without saying it should be mandated by law; its international counterparts have not been as reticent.
* Joked that as the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (after Rep. Tom Lantos' death), he'd support using military force against countries that are piracy havens. Berman didn't say who would be the next chairman of the House copyright subcommittee and refused to speculate on whether Rick Boucher or Jerry Nadler would get the spot.
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office head Jon Dudas believes there's a place for software and business method patents, but he's as concerned as the next guy about keeping questionable patents out of the system.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News.com)HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--Open-source and free software fans who despise software patents shouldn't look for an ally in the head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Patent Commissioner Jon Dudas says his office is all about staying "technology neutral," so long as the invention meets certain standards.
"The system we've had has worked to promote technology for 200 years, and it can do that in the software industry, so long as you follow the principles that (a technology) is useful, new, and nonobvious," Dudas said during a wide-ranging interview with CNET News.com at a technology policy conference here this week.
Read on to hear more about what Dudas, who has also held the post of Commerce Department undersecretary since June 2004, had to say about things like business method patents (think Amazon.com's infamous one-click purchase patent and eBay's newly acquired patent covering its "Buy It Now" feature), so-called
On software patents: "Software, biotechnology, business methods--In the United States, the Supreme Court has consistently held that those are areas where there should be patents, and those industries have flourished.
"Specifically with open source, I think the two should coexist very well. If someone gets a patent, then that intellectual property has to be respected, but so long as that patent isn't used, open source can be as open as it needs to be. You can license some (patents) and not license others. There are some who feel by definition you should only have open source or only have a patented model. The administration's position has always been that...both open source and patents help innovation thrive."
On business method patents: "We essentially said, we shouldn't base whether or not something is patentable on what type of technology it is or even what kind of method it is...so long as it's new, useful, and nonobvious.
"Probably in the last three years, of all the (business method patent) applications that have come in the door, the office has said 85 percent of these are not allowable. The patent system, I believe, is working very well... We're starting to get a higher percentage of business method patents being approved, probably in the 20 percent range."
On "so-called" patent trolls and whether they're overhyped: "It depends on how someone defines a patent troll. 'Patent troll' is meant to be a pejorative term. Some have defined it as someone who doesn't develop a project commercially. Certainly, someone who comes up with a great idea and licenses it, that's a very efficient way to do it.
"I think the concern there is more a concern with the judicial system as a whole than it is with the patent system."
On gripes by large technology companies that patent infringement fines are too high: "The administration has said we do think judges could give better guidance to juries. We definitely feel that in the case of damages, it would be good if judges could give very specific guidance to juries. With the provisions in the existing bills right now, the administration has said, 'We oppose the entire bill based on that because they favor one type of damage model over another.'
"There are a variety of different factors you can apply to determine what the right compensation is, and you, as best as possible, want to mimic the market. But the bills direct you to a certain couple of factors that may or may not mimic the market. We're saying the judge should tell the jury; don't just say, 'Here's 15 factors; figure it out for yourself.' The judge should tell jury, 'Here are a number of factors. These 3 seem critical; look at factors 2, 5, and 6."
"When they talk about damages awards and things like that, people say there's a lot of bad patents. When you get to the point of a damages award, there's a judge and jury that already determined this is a valid patent... By the time you look at damages awards, you're talking about good patents and you're talking about actual infringement of intellectual property."
On weeding out "bad" patents from the get-go: "Making sure applicants can give good information up front...will lead to a much better patent system--more than anything else. (The Patent Office is proposing that applicants) do a basic search (for "prior art," which is previously published technology that relates to an invention) and short report about why their invention should be patented.
"In 27 percent of cases, nothing is submitted in terms of prior art. In another 17 or 18 percent of cases, people just give us a long list of references. There really is a responsibility for people to come in and say, 'Here's why I think I deserve a patent; here's some of the areas to look at.' The decision will always rest with the patent examiner. The patent examiner will always do the full search and review and analysis."
On reducing in-court patent litigation: "The administration proposed post-grant review (a process within the Patent Office where people would be able to challenge patents just after they're issued). It has to be a true alternative to litigation. We don't think the idea is to have another way to question a patent, and then you can go to court and you can go to post-grant. The standard we've held is that there should be a threshold in order to get a post-grant review, an actual threat of litigation.
"The second thing--this is the critical point--if you choose to go to post-grant review, any issue you raise or could've raised, you have to raise there, or you can't raise it again. You don't want an innovator to have hurdle after hurdle after hurdle after they've gotten a patent."
On whether Congress and the Bush administration can reach an accord on new patent system rules: "We feel like senators and members are cognizant and care about concerns of the administration. Ideally we'll have a bill with a letter from the administration saying we support this bill as it is. That's our goal."
On handling a flood of patent applications: "We've hired more examiners in terms of raw numbers and percentages in the history of the office. We've said very clearly, hiring more examiners in and of itself won't be the solution. Even hiring 1,200 examiners, even increasing a lot of different flexibility initiatives that increase productivity...we still get more applications in the door than we're able to examine.
"What we really need to do is get higher quality applications. The allowance rate, those applications that are approved, used to hover between 62 and 72 percent, back 35 to 40 years ago. In the last 6 years, it went up to 72 percent in 2000, then dropped steadily down to a 43 percent allowance rate. So what we see is 57 percent of what comes in the door doesn't lead to a patent. "
On the long line to get a patent--and how some may game the system: "Most of the time when people say it takes me 33 months to get a patent, people think, "What's taking so long?" The examiner only takes a few weeks. That time is all waiting in line. That line is getting longer and longer and longer--filled with applications that never get approved. What's, in lots of ways, more disturbing is in over half the cases where we say this isn't patentable, people just file again and get back in line.
"We put out a rule (that was supposed to take effect last November) saying that you can only do that three times. But we were sued. (A judge issued a temporary injunction against the rule.) Right now, the way the law has been interpreted is people have unlimited opportunities to refile their application. You have more opportunities to have us look at your patent application than you do to appeal your death sentence.
"We want to make certain that people can't apply with a very broad patent application, which they know will get rejected. And then they get back in line, and meanwhile, they're looking out and seeing what's happening in the market. Sometimes they see that if they focused that broad claim, it could cover an existing technology... Then, (going by) the date of first filing, they can then say, 'I own that technology'... That's a very real concern. That gets more in line with concerns of troll behavior--someone who is literally watching the technology...so they can rise up out of the bridge and sue people."
Jim Williams, the MPAA's chief technology officer and senior vice president, says broadband providers need to filter out pirated material.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/News.com)HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--The Motion Picture Association of America is calling on broadband providers to pull the plug on copyright-infringing users.
Jim Williams, the MPAA's chief technology officer and senior vice president, said on Thursday that it's in the best interests of Internet providers to sift through data traveling across their networks and interrupt transmissions that violate copyright law.
"Much of the Internet is being clogged up with stolen goods," Williams said at a technology policy conference here. "Basically you have a bunch of free riders who are hogging the bandwidth (and taking) it away from legitimate consumers."
For years, of course, copyright holders have been pressing Internet providers to block access to offshore piracy havens or inspect the traffic to block transfers that are unlawful. As long ago as 2001, the major record labels called on Internet providers to block access to Napster clones, and a number of U.S. senators followed suit two years later.
So far, nothing much has changed for broadband users. But as the amount of pirated material has continued to balloon, as Congress has grown more concerned, and as filtering technology has become more sophisticated, the MPAA's call to arms stands a better chance of succeeding. So might worries about the terrific amount of bandwidth that protocols like BitTorrent consume--which led to Comcast saying Thursday it would find new ways to limit traffic on its network by the end of the year.
"I believe they will find the incentive to make their networks more efficient for all of their paying customers," Williams said. "If they can reduce some of the infringing content, then there will be more capacity for their paying customers."
Another milestone in the copyright lobby's push for filtering came in January, when AT&T said it was voluntarily experimenting with copyright-filtering technologies and was working with the MPAA and the Recording Industry Association of America. AT&T said it was testing a range of filtering technologies including from Vobile, a start-up in which AT&T has invested.
There's a big difference, of course, between copyright filtering that's done voluntarily by broadband providers and filtering done because it's mandated by law. The MPAA made it clear on Thursday that it's not calling for new legislation--"we don't need additional laws"--at least right now. The RIAA has said the same thing, recently too.
On one hand, that reticence could simply be a sign of political pragmatism on the part of the MPAA and RIAA: they'd likely be outgunned on Capitol Hill by the hundreds of lobbyists that broadband providers could (and would) dispatch to shoot down any such proposal.
But on the other hand, major copyright holders are mounting an international push for filtering. Canada's copyright lobby has pushed for legally-mandated filtering. A Belgian court has said that Internet service providers can be forced to block copyrighted material, a ruling that copyright holders applauded. A European Union committee has rejected the idea, at least temporarily. U2's manager loves filtering.
And some U.S. politicians have shown interest in laws requiring filtering--a recent bill in the Tennessee legislature would make it mandatory for state universities. Rep. Mary Bono, a copyright-friendly Republican, likes filtering too, but stopped short of saying it should be mandatory.
If AT&T begins to voluntarily filter copyrighted content on a widescale basis, that could weaken any argument from other broadband providers saying that such a move is technologically infeasible, too expensive, or overly intrusive. Filtering of child pornography is another possible opening.
When contacted with complaints by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Verizon routinely deletes from its servers material posted by customers that it reviews and concludes will violate child pornography laws. If Verizon already polices its users for child pornography reasons, the MPAA argues, it should be able to do the same for copyrighted material too.
Verizon strongly disagrees. Richard Lynch, Verizon's executive vice president and chief technology officer, said here on Thursday:
Our philosophy, a well-considered philosophy I might add, is that we are not the enforcers of the Internet. Our job is to deliver the bitstreams that our customers either ask for or send. We feel pretty strong about that...Can I even realistically assume that I could do those kinds of things? I'm not sure I could if I wanted to, but I don't think that's our job.
It's worth noting, by the way, that Verizon has a long history of taking a strong position on behalf of its customers interests--it did this in the RIAA subpoena case over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and was validated when a federal appeals court agreed.
If the MPAA can find other network providers to take it up on its suggestion, there are still a large number of unanswered questions--including ones about customers' privacy and how filtering will work in practice. Will piratical transfers be automatically interrupted? Or just slowed? Will MPAA and RIAA lawyers be automatically alerted? How to detect whether content is licensed, or protected by fair use rights, which vary based on the details of every situation?
MovieLabs did conduct tests last year of about a dozen "digital fingerprinting" technologies from companies such as Gracenote, Vobile, and Audible Magic. Certain products worked well in some environments, like on user-generated Web sites and on university networks, MovieLabs' chief executive told News.com in January. But that's not the same as saying it'll work well for tens of millions of Comcast and Verizon subscribers.
BitTorrent president and co-founder Ashwin Navin talks up the Comcast detente, even though BitTorrent will still be filtered on a 'protocol-agnostic' basis.
(Credit: Anne Broache/News.com)HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--Public pronouncements of the thaw in Comcast-BitTorrent relations continued on Thursday, with BitTorrent's president calling their newly hatched agreement a "win" for anyone who develops bandwidth-intensive applications.
Earlier on Thursday, the companies announced plans to forge a "collaborative effort" in which the cable operator would devise a method to manage its traffic on a "protocol agnostic" basis, while the file-sharing application firm would work on making the process of transferring large files work more smoothly on that network.
The agreement doesn't mean that Comcast will stop doing traffic management deemed necessary to keep its pipes unclogged at peak congestion hours, but BitTorrent President and co-founder Ashwin Navin said he's OK with that.
"Internet service providers will need the ability to shape the traffic in order to provide service," Navin told CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh during an onstage discussion at a technology policy conference here. "The win here for BitTorrent and for all peer-to-peer applications is that we will not be treated differently from other forms of Internet traffic."
The pact between the two companies arrives as the Federal Communications Commission investigates whether Comcast's admitted disruption of file-sharing uploads was a "reasonable" episode of network management or something more sinister.
Navin said he feels good about BitTorrent's relationship with Comcast, but he didn't rule out the possibility of the FCC decreeing more specific rules by which all Internet service providers should abide.
"The FCC still has other ISPs in this country it obviously needs to be vigilant over," he said, although he didn't name any specific companies.
But right now, the 55-member company based in San Francisco has no plans to develop a presence in the nation's capital, and views its role in affecting policy-making as limited.
"We're not going to be the ones who hire lobbyists, we'll leave that to the ones at Google and Microsoft," Navin said.
On copyright
Shortly after the Comcast-BitTorrent news broke, a seemingly unlikely suspect released a press release praising the deal: the Motion Picture Association of America.
MPAA President Dan Glickman called the agreement "exactly the kind of industry cooperation that is urgently needed to address the problem of online piracy," even though the joint BitTorrent-Comcast press release made no mention of copyright infringement matters.
Navin, for his part, said he wasn't "quite sure" where the MPAA got that impression. He did, however, say that he received a call from the organization Thursday morning, and it appears to be on board with "making sure whatever we do...does take into account the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and whatever interest the copyright holders have."
It would be completely possible for Internet service providers and copyright holders to collaborate and essentially "sit" on BitTorrent streams, looking for pirated content, although such a practice could raise privacy concerns, Navin acknowledged. He suggested rights holders could benefit from embracing content delivery methods like peer-to-peer file sharing, and BitTorrent has already struck scores of those deals itself.
"I'm actually a strong believer that in the future, the whole idea of digital piracy will be not nearly as pronounced as it is today," Navin said, "because we will have innovated business models and actually found ways to monetize free flow of video."
Joe Waz, Comcast's senior vice president for external affairs and the company's public policy counsel, speaks about the BitTorrent detente.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News.com)HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--BitTorrent and Comcast have declared a detente in a Net neutrality cold war that has drawn a slew of angry protests and already ended up before the Federal Communications Commission.
But details are still unclear. Comcast will adopt a "capacity management technique that is protocol agnostic," and BitTorrent plans to work with Internet service providers, other technology companies, and the Internet Engineering Task Force to develop ways to optimize file swapping on networks like Comcast's.
To try to figure out what exactly Comcast is planning to do later this year as its part of this detente, I sat down with Comcast's Joe Waz, who is the senior vice president for external affairs and the company's public policy counsel. (Both of us happened to be here at a technology policy conference; I'm scheduled to do an onstage interview of Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent's president and co-founder, as part of the conference on Thursday afternoon.)
Q: What brought on this detente?
Waz: We and BitTorrent, we and a lot of players in the application and technology space, have been talking for years about issues of mutual interest. I think the thing that prompted this latest conversation and the announcement is that since last fall, when the Internet community expressed concerns about the form of network management that we had selected, we wanted to find out why. We did a ton of outreach: "Explain to us what the concerns were, help us to address the fact that...P2P traffic can account for such a large percentage of traffic." We learned a lot, frankly. We learned that there are a large number of points of view out there.
We also took the approach that making networks and applications work well together is a two-way street. What's terrific about this announcement is that it says a leading network provider and a leading application provider are stepping up and finding ways (to make this work).
Your announcement says you're working on "a capacity management technique that is protocol agnostic." What does that mean, exactly?
Waz: The method we had chosen to try to be minimally intrusive in our network management was, as we had described it to the FCC, (a focus on) P2P apps that accounted for the bulk of bandwidth consumption.
Which P2P applications beyond BitTorrent?
Waz: We've never stated what they are. It's not more than a handful. Since we're moving past it, the point's moot anyway.
We limited our involvement to unidirectional uploads. If you were simultaneously uploading and downloading, your transfers weren't affected. VoIP users were benefiting (for instance). That was not consistent with the sense of the broader Internet community about how network management should be conducted.
Look at the announcement this morning. I think you'll see the BitTorrent folks saying (we understand what had to be done) given the state of the technology two years ago when Comcast had to deal with this.
You said you'd plan to throttle based on the individual consumption of individual users during period of peak usage. Does this mean bandwidth caps?
Waz: No. A very high-volume bandwidth user during a peak network period will see their service reduced for a short period of time. It will be based on what you are doing during a period of peak congestion, not what protocol you're using.
This is the right answer right now. You can never build your way out of this problem. There are use peaks on the electrical grid. There are use peaks on Mother's Day on the phone system. You do your way to build (out of the peak) based on what's economically rational.
How often do you see these peak periods occurring?
Waz: It's reasonable to assume that evenings are often peak periods. The variations among nodes are dramatic. If you're at a college it can be different times of day. If you're in a business district it can happen at different times of day.
When you say that service will be reduced for a "short period" of time, do you mean milliseconds, seconds, or minutes?
Waz: Minutes. And again, we'll implement that in a way that's minimally intrusive. No single user will bear a disproportionate share of the management. We'll spread it around.
Does this mean behavioral profiling, and by that I mean tracking what a customer does over many months and if they're a high-bandwidth user in the past, you'll throttle them first during the next peak period?
Waz: It won't be personally identifiable type of information. We'll have more to say about that. When we implement, we'll provide a thorough (disclosure).
So there will be nothing that says, "If you used a lot of bandwidth before, you get targeted more quickly next time based on previous bandwidth usage."
Waz: There should be nothing that goes in that direction.
Bandwidth caps are not part of this at all?
Waz: The techniques we announced now do not involve bandwidth caps or differential pricing. Everyone in the industry is looking at all the alternatives.
Some competitors, like Verizon, for instance, weren't as willing to take on BitTorrent publicly. Did that affect your decision?
Waz: I think I'd put it this way: The major phone companies and the major network providers have said that networks must be managed. Again, different network providers have chosen different techniques, whether they're pricing, technological, or other. I think we're all unified in the view that the right approach here has been for the industry players to work this all out.
Does this mean an end to the FCC proceeding that is seeking to impose Net neutrality-esque rules on Comcast?
Waz: You heard what Commissioner McDowell said this morning. He shared his views.
I cannot speak for the commission. It is our hope that...the agreement...(will) persuade the agency and persuade Congress that the more than decade-old policy of leaving the Internet in the hands of the various providers to work out issues is the way to go. By various providers, I mean networking applications and so on.
Will Comcast file something asking to terminate the proceeding as a result of today's announcement?
Waz: The commission has asked the question, "Do we have the authority to act?" We answered (that in our recent filing). It is our hope that the commission does not proceed with either specific complaints before it, or intrusive rulemaking.
If the FCC gets a Democratic majority next year as a result of the presidential election, any predictions?
Waz: I think that the fact that there's been a bipartisan consensus for over a decade that the marketplace is still the (better choice) for a competitive Internet will still be valid.
BitTorrent the company isn't the same as BitTorrent the protocol. A detente with the company may not mean much to open-source users and developers.
Waz: I think the fact that a leading applications provider like BitTorrent (is saying), "We understand the shared responsibility here, let's find ways to make networks and applications friendly to each other," is exactly the (outcome) we're trying to establish.
Your current throttling system restricts only uploads. Will your new one throttle downloads?
Waz: I don't want to preempt our development and discussion of what we'll do. So I'll defer comment on that for now. But I'll stress again that we've demonstrated our commitment to transparency in this area.
Will this be phased in different geographical regions of the U.S. first?
Waz: It's reasonable to assume it won't happen all on one day. We'll be phasing it in.
When?
Waz: We're planning to phase this in by year-end 2008.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--The politically explosive debate over millions of undocumented U.S. workers appears to be smothering high-tech companies' attempts to obtain higher allotments of H-1B temporary visas and green cards, Oracle's head lobbyist suggested Wednesday.
Any "rational" politician understands those longstanding pleas to bring in more skilled foreigners for gaps where no qualified Americans fit, said Robert Hoffman, who also serves as co-chairman of a coalition of high-tech companies called Compete America that lobbies for heightened visa caps. By his estimation, if that issue were severed from the rest of the immigration debate, it would "easily" sail through Congress and become law.
"As long as Congress holds us hostage to the broader question of comprehensive immigration reform, we're toast," Hoffman said during a panel discussion at the Tech Policy Summit here.
Last year, of course, a proposed H-1B cap increase found itself a casualty of a far more sweeping immigration bill that died amid myriad political clashes. In recent weeks, a number of standalone H-1B proposals have surfaced, proposing anywhere from doubling to tripling the annual cap, but Hoffman seemed pessimistic about the prospects of any such changes, even on a short-term basis, while the broader divisions persist.
The frustrating result of that political skirmish, Hoffman added, is that this year's class of foreign graduates from American universities most likely won't even have a shot at jobs with technology companies in the United States.
That's because the high-tech industry predicts that, when the petition window for next year's crop of visas opens next week, the number of applications will rapidly exceed the cap, just as it did last year, potentially months before the new graduates even have their requisite degrees in hand. The H-1B program allows foreigners with at least a bachelor's degree in their area of specialty to work for a company in the United States for up to six years. The annual cap is currently 65,000 new visas--not including renewals and an additional 20,000 for foreigners with advanced degrees from U.S. universities.
The H-1B set-up, of course, is not without controversy. A group of American computer programmers called the Programmer's Guild has for years advanced a platform that H-1Bs devalue and displace American workers and that the "shortage" of qualified personnel claimed by technology companies isn't real. Some politicians, including Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), have raised concerns about abuse and proposed requiring U.S. employersto do more to certify that they're giving Americans first dibs on openings before hiring foreigners.
Hoffman, for his part, said his impression is that the idea of allowing more skilled, potentially American university-educated foreigners to work in the United States is really not so contentious, either among politicians or among citizens more broadly.
"If you ask the general public, what's your position on skilled immigration, they'll say, 'Yeah, sure, why not?'" he said. "As opposed to (when you ask) shall we give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship? And (you hear), 'No, heavens no.'"
In what appears to be a first, the US House of Representatives now has a Congressman who can code...in assembly. That's right, a Congressman with geek skills.
Democratic Representative Bill Foster won a special election this past Saturday in the 14th Congressional District of Illinois. This was the district that former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert held from 1986-2007. Hastert stepped down in November of 2007.
Congressman Bill Foster
Foster, a physicist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, surprised many when he won the district. After all, it had been a Republican stronghold for more than twenty years. After being sworn in on Tuesday, Foster has already made his mark, by providing the single vote needed to pass a significant ethics reform bill.
More surprising than the fact that Foster won in a heavily Republican district, more than his public position against telecom immunity, is the fact that Bill Foster is a computer geek.
According to a February article in the Chicago Tribune, Bill Foster has got coding skills:
The Democrat, Bill Foster of Geneva, is a get-out-the-vote geek. He's a knock-on-doors nerd who wrote the software program credited with propelling Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy to a narrow victory in 2006 ... "It was pretty remarkable," said Nat Binns, a spokesman for Murphy's campaign. "He dropped in from nowhere and approached the get-out-the-vote effort as a scientific puzzle.
"He helped us crack the code and figure out where we needed to go and how to do it really efficiently," Binns said. "It was brilliant. We were able to knock on 140,000 doors on Election Day, which was a big part of why we won (by just 1,518 votes)."
Foster's unofficial title was "campaign physicist."
Foster worked as a researcher at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) for 22 years. One of his main projects involved the design of equipment and data analysis software for the lab's high energy particle collision detector.
Given Foster's background, his experience in software development, and the research environment in which he worked, it's almost certain that he worked on Unix systems at some point, too.
I spoke with Tom Bowen, Congressman Foster's campaign manager, who confirmed that the Representative does indeed have programming skills. He told me that Congressman Foster has written code in assembly, Fortran, and Visual Basic. Mr. Bowen also added that during one project, Foster designed integrated circuits that were later used in Fermilab's particle accelerator.
As for the Congressman's laptop? He owns a Dell that runs Windows. Oh, well. He can't be perfect.
What this actually means to tech policy remains unclear. Computer programming skills do not automatically lead to sound logic or wise positions on important issues. A quick read through Slashdot user comments easily demonstrates this. However, it's likely that someone who has actually used a computer for scientific research will better understand the complex issues at play. At the very least, we're not likely to see a Ted Stevens style "Series of Tubes" moment from Congressman Foster.
With any luck, Foster will be assigned to tech and science relevant committees. Top picks would include the the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, as well as the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet which is chaired by Net Neutrality cheerleader Edward Markey.
We at Surveillance State predict Foster can expect massive love from the Digg/Slashdot crowd. Furthermore, while many politicians get invited to talk at Google, it's likely that Foster could actually correctly answer a few of the company's notoriously difficult interview questions.
Hat tip: Adam B at DailyKos for first pointing out Foster's tech credentials.
BOSTON--The United States needs to take a cue from Finland and Singapore to revive a flagging innovation economy, says author John Kao.
Kao spoke here at the MIT Enterprise Forum conference titled "Power, Drugs, and Money" on Thursday. Kao used his speech to make the case that the U.S. has a problem when it comes to generating technical innovation. This is the same theme he asserts in his book Innovation Nation, which was published in October. Though it's an admittedly over-used term, innovation is what leads to new technologies that drive economic growth and power, the former Harvard Business School professor said.
John Kao
The U.S. public education system, however, does not adequately prepare students, and many scientists-in-training are discouraged by what they see as a federal grant system that has inconsistent priorities and lacks funding, he said.
Meanwhile, there are more opportunities for students and scientists in places outside the United States. Singapore, for example, hired the head of the National Cancer Institute as part of its Biopolis program to expand its biotechnology industry.
Finland, which has twice as many Ph.D.s per capita as the U.S., has merged three of its universities to more effectively train students in its priority areas of education, science, innovation, and design.
Different countries have different models, ranging from heavy government direction like Finland, to the U.S. style "let 'er rip" system that relies on bottoms-up innovation. For the U.S. to better compete, Kao said, it needs a strategy that makes innovation more of a priority.
"A lot of other people are innovating when it comes to innovation because they have the stewardship, the strategy, and the will...because innovation serves a national ideal," he said. "Innovation may be about making new stuff, but it's very much about the complex and subtle interactions that have to be nurtured."
Rather than emulate France's technocrat-led "Grands Projets" approach, he said a better model is a hybrid that involves many parties, including government, academia, businesses, and entrepreneurs.
"I want to government to oversee the best platform possible, like the national highway system, but I want total freedom for entrepreneurs," he said.
In 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik spacecraft, the U.S. made math and science a priority, but right now, there is no overt threat. Prioritizing innovation for societal goals now is more like preventive medicine, he said.
The problem with current U.S. government efforts to drive technology innovation is that people are stuck in "incrementalism," rather than taking on a national innovation agenda. And many government leaders are indifferent to the innovation problem, he said.
Kao has spoken to some presidential candidates about his call for a national innovation strategy, but would not endorse a specific candidate.
He did note that Barack Obama, perceived as a youthful candidate able to inspire people, should be talking more about innovation and that Hillary Clinton has made three major speeches so far on science and innovation.
