Lawmakers: New wireless rules needed
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(InfoWorld) - U.S. consumers should be allowed to take phones along with them when they switch wireless carriers, and spectrum to be auctioned through the U.S. Federal Communications Commission should include rules requiring the winning bidders to sell access to competitors at wholesale rates, some U.S. lawmakers said Wednesday. Some members of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet also questioned what they called huge early termination fees on wireless telephone contracts. But other lawmakers and executives with wireless carriers questioned the need for new wireless regulations, saying an already competitive market protects customers. The U.S. wireless industry is "vigorously competitive," with four national and several regional carriers, said Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican. New net neutrality and open access rules that would require carriers to open up their networks to new devices and applications could slow wireless innovations, he said. "We should take care to not adopt policies that would set back the highly competitive wireless market," he added. "No matter how you slice it, forced network neutrality smothers investment in a competitive market and in the end will leave consumers worse off with probably fewer choices." But other members of the subcommittee, mostly Democrats, questioned why phones can't switch between wireless networks. U.S. customers should also be able to run any applications they want on wireless networks instead of having limited choices approved by the carrier, said Representative Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat. "It's time for consumers to become the deciders of what they want their phones to do," Doyle said. Apple's recent launch of its iPhone demonstrates the "promise and problems" of the U.S. wireless industry, added Representative Ed Markey, the subcommittee chairman and a Massachusetts Democrat. While the iPhone has innovative new technologies, U.S. customers can use it with only one wireless carrier, AT&T, he said. Other lawmakers called on the FCC to go farther than requiring device portability and application choices when it sets the rules for the use of spectrum to be auctioned in the 700MHz band. Part of the 60MHz of spectrum to be auctioned by early next year should include requirements for the winner to offer the spectrum at wholesale rates to other wireless and broadband providers, said Representative Chip Pickering, a Mississippi Republican. A wholesale rule would allow new wireless broadband providers to spring up all over the country, Pickering said. The 700MHz spectrum, now used by U.S. television stations for over-the-air broadcasts, would allow for long-range wireless broadband services, many experts say. The wholesale rule wouldn't put new regulations on existing wireless services, Pickering said. "What's wrong with that?" he asked. There's nothing wrong with a carrier voluntarily deciding to wholesale its spectrum, said Steven Zipperstein, general counsel for Verizon Wireless. "We don't think a business model should be hardwired into the auction by regulatory fiat," he said. Ed Evans, CEO of startup carrier Stelera Wireless, questioned whether a wholesale business model would succeed in the new spectrum. "You're going to give up a scarce resource ... that you're not going to be able to recoup the value on," he said. "You're going to prohibit other people from deploying proven technologies in that same area." But Jason Devitt, cofounder and former CEO of Vindigo, a company that distributes local guides on mobile phones, said the U.S. needs a more open wireless system where application providers don't have to work out deals with wireless carriers. "We have a regulatory system that doesn't work," said Devitt, now CEO of Skydeck, a wireless startup. "I'm mad as hell that I require permission to innovate in the wireless market." While wireless customers usually have to switch devices when they switch carriers, U.S. television subscribers don't have to buy a new TV set when they switch from cable TV service to satellite, added Timothy Wu, a professor at the Columbia Law School and supporter of open access rules. "There's something strange about this industry," he said. "Even the rules of personal property ... seem to be suppressed."
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WASHINGTON - Representatives of wireless telephone carriers planning a telephone directory service told a U.S. Senate committee Tuesday that legislation to protect their customers' privacy isn't needed, because their plan already does.
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A coalition of technology vendors, consumer groups, and think tanks has launched a campaign to persuade the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve wireless devices that would operate in unused television spectrum.The Wireless Innovation Alliance, which launched a Web site Wednesday, is an expansion of the tech-centric White Spaces Coalition that has been pushing so-called white-space spectrum as a possible new broadband network. At Wednesday&#39;s alliance launch, several other groups, including Free Press, the Media Access Project, TechNet, the Computing Technology Industry Association, and Educause, joined the tech companies pushing for the FCC to approve broadcast white spaces for broadband use.U.S. Representatives Jay Inslee, a Washington state Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, also lent their support.Inslee called white space one of the &quot;greatest untapped&quot; sources for innovation in the U.S. &quot;We&#39;re just waiting for government to do its job, to set the rules of the road, so the geniuses in America can really use this tremendous resource,&quot; he said.The white spaces can help bring broadband to areas of the U.S. that have limited or no choices right now, Inslee added. The lack of broadband in many areas is &quot;really a sad comment on our failure to move ahead as a nation,&quot; he said. &quot;This is one of my continuing frustrations -- that we have not made adequate progress -- and the availability of white spaces is one tool to attack that.&quot;Inslee and Blackburn were among six lawmakers who signed a letter, dated Tuesday, to the FCC, calling on the agency to wrap up its ongoing inquiry into white spaces.Advocates of white-space technology have run into significant opposition and some technical problems this year.The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), representing U.S. television stations, has raised concerns that white-space devices will interfere with TV signals. And more than 55 U.S. lawmakers have raised their own concerns about interference. &quot;Placing these devices in the television band is believed to cause unacceptable interference to television reception for all Americans and impair coverage of news and sporting events by interfering with wireless microphones,&quot; wrote Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, in an Oct. 9 letter to the FCC.In addition,&#160;the FCC rejected a device built by Microsoft and other members of the White Spaces Coalition in July, saying it interfered with TV signals. Microsoft later said the device was damaged and &quot;operated at a severely degraded level.&quot;In September,&#160;Microsoft and Philips Electronics North America submitted new tests from a functioning device to the FCC. The group is awaiting FCC action on the new device.NAB still has concerns, said Dennis Wharton, the group&#39;s executive vice president for media relations. White spaces supporters are &quot;playing Russian Roulette&quot; with TV signals, he said. &quot;It is unfortunate that Microsoft and Google continue to try to muscle their way through Washington in support of a technology that simply does not work.&quot;Blackburn urged the FCC not to &quot;pick winners and losers,&quot; but to base its decision on objective tests of the white spaces devices. A lot of areas in rural west Tennessee have no broadband, she said. &quot;It is essential for economic development,&quot; she said.Asked if any other countries are using white-space spectrum for broadband devices, alliance members said they aren&#39;t aware of any formal projects.Other countries are looking to the U.S., said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. &quot;The United States has led the world on unlicensed technologies from the get-go, and if we don&#39;t want to lose that leadership, we need to keep moving forward,&quot; he said.
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Warning labels may soon appear on wireless Internet hardware after the California legislature passed a law that would require makers of Wi-Fi cards and routers to warn users of the dangers of unsecured wireless networks.
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Philadelphia will be able to go ahead with plans to set up a city-wide wireless, high-speed Internet network, but other Pennsylvania cities might not get that chance under a new state law.
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(InfoWorld) - The working group for the emerging IEEE 802.20 mobile broadband standard, which was suspended last year after a fight over members' real company affiliations, has changed its voting rules. In the IEEE 802.20 working group, each entity -- including vendors, university research groups, and other bodies -- will have one vote. Typically in IEEE networking standards groups, members vote as individuals regardless of whom they work for. The working group was suspended in June 2006 after allegations that Qualcomm was improperly trying to dominate the process and that its then-chairman, Jerry Upton, had identified himself as an independent consultant but was paid by Qualcomm. Upton has since disclosed his work as a consultant for Qualcomm. The latest move, made Tuesday during a meeting of several IEEE standards bodies in San Francisco, came amid continuing concerns about domination of the group, 802.20 Committee Chairman Paul Nikolich said in a written statement. The change will help deliver a standard in a timely way, he said. Worries about Qualcomm's influence over the standards process seem to have continued. At a meeting in Montreal in May, some members of the group expressed concern that the company had two votes on the working group's Editorial Group because both the chair and one member represented Qualcomm, according to the draft minutes of the meeting. The chair clarified that the chair was only to vote when needed to break a tie. IEEE 802.20 is intended as a multi-megabit mobile data and voice system. Some of the technology that has played a role in it was developed by Flarion Technologies, which Qualcomm acquired in 2005. With 3GÂ cellular networks now going after the 1MbpsÂ barrier, there is no shortage of potential rivals to IEEE 802.20. Another mobile broadband standard, IEEE 802.16e, is being adopted by many system vendors and service providers under the WiMax name. One advantage of 802.20, proponents have said, is that it can be used in faster moving vehicles than can WiMax. Sprint Nextel, having previously tested Flarion's system, last year chose WiMax for its nationwide 4G network for commercial launch that will be launched next year. The company said Thursday it plans to join with ClearWireÂ for broader coverage. Sprint Nextel chose WiMax because it already existed as a technology and a standard and was being embraced by a large number of equipment vendors, including Nokia, said Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at Sprint.
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Federal regulators have proposed allowing cell phones to be used on airplanes, and took steps toward bringing high-speed wireless Internet connections to passengers&#39; seats.
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The Senate Commerce Committee voted yesterday to require cell phone companies to get the approval of individual customers before listing their wireless phone numbers in public directories.
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Democrat says he'll take wait-and-see approach to pursuing new rules requiring wireless carriers to let consumers use whatever applications and devices they desire.
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A new bill in Congress would give cell phone subscribers greater freedom to leave their contracts.
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Net neutrality rules for broadband died last year, but now Google and its old allies are pushing for similar rules on wireless networks.
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The debate over post-9/11 communications, network neutrality, and high-speed wireless is now centered around a struggle over the 700-MHz band going on in Washington, D.C. On Thursday, a hearing by Senate Commerce Committee over the upcoming 700-MHz auction raised several key issues.
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Key lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday supported the idea that regulators should give consumers greater control over how they use their cellphones.
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Congress wants to reform telecommunications and cable rules, but each branch has its own approach and neither covers all the needed bases.
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Philadelphia officials have laid the groundwork to provide wireless, high-speed Internet access anywhere in the city, but their plan could be scotched under a state bill that could be signed into law on Tuesday.
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Blog: A wireless company executive warns Congress against new laws that would control the way wireless companies handle their subscribers' personal information, saying they'd be out of date "as soon as the ink is dry."
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(InfoWorld) - Several lawmakers protested a spectrum auction proposal from the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), saying his plan could limit the number of bidders and raise costs to consumers. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's plan would require winners of part of theÂ 700MHz band of spectrum, to be auctioned by early next year, to accept any wireless devices, including phone handsets, allowing customers to transfer devices between mobile providers. Martin's plan would also include net neutrality-like rules, prohibiting auction winners from blocking or slowing Web content from other providers. But several members of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, many of them Republicans, questioned Martin's proposed rules, which have support of the majority of the FCC. Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said he was "very disappointed" that fellow Republican Martin was proposing regulations for part of the 60MHz of spectrum to be auctioned. Some proposals byÂ consumer groups and Frontline WirelessÂ would also require auction winners to provide wholesale access to competitors, and Barton praised Martin for not including that provision. "It's not quite as bad as the Frontline plan, but I don't think it's as good as absolute no-condition auction," Barton said. Many Republicans suggested that auction conditions would decrease the value of the spectrum. Congress has budgeted the auction to raise $10 billion with about half of that going toward reducing the U.S. government budget deficit. "Congress has already spent that money," said Representative Charles Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat. Questions about Martin's proposal came from a handful of Democrats. Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, asked FCC commissioners whether the device-portability rules would increase the cost of wireless phone plans. Customers want to be able to take their mobile phones with them when they switch carriers, but carriers generally haven't offered that option, Martin said. "I think the benefits outweigh the costs and concerns," he said. Barton suggested that winning bidders could implement the device-portability and net neutrality proposals without FCC mandate. Google has indicatedÂ it could bid billions of dollars, Barton noted. "Why shouldn't we just let Google bid?" Barton said. "If they've got a better idea, why don't they go into the marketplace and bid their four or five billion dollars?" There's customer demand for device portability, but carriers haven't acted on it, Martin said. Wireless carriers didn't offer phone number portability until the FCC forced them to in late 2003, then millions of U.S. residents took advantage of it, he said. Asked whether they supported Martin's proposals, the FCC's two Democrats said they did, while the two other Republicans said they hadn't made their minds up yet. "Please let me keep my phone and let me take it wherever I want," said subcommittee chairman Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. The so-called open-access rules are necessary for new broadband competition to challenge cable and telecom providers, said FCC commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat. The 700MHz auction is the last major spectrum auction on the horizon, many participants said. "This is one proceeding where we cannot fail," Copps said. Some lawmakers suggested Martin's proposal doesn't go far enough. Representative Charles "Chip" Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, called on the FCC to require wholesale access rules as well. Wholesale access would allow new and innovative services to flourish on the networks using the spectrum, he said. Martin's plan would "enhance markets and competition," he added.