Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. - Henry David Thoreau, WaldenOn July 8th, Eric Eldred and the Internet Bookmobile went to Walden Pond to help celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Thoreau's Walden (Free Walden). The reception wasn't at all what one might expect:
After an hour of having readers print and take away free copies of "Walden," I was asked by the Walden Pond Reservation police to pack up and leave and threatened with arrest. I left.I cannot say how sad and disappointed this makes me nor can I imagine the response Thoreau would have had to this expression of the general police power. This is beyond any irony.The park supervisor (Denise Morrissey, 978-369-3254) told me I could not pass out free literature without a permit. And she would not give me a permit because, as she explained, the state park gets money from a concession by the Thoreau Society, which operates a store that sells "Walden"--and I was competing with them by giving away free copies.
On the other hand, the Internet Bookmobile contines to do great work. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think every school and library ought to have this publishing technology and access to thousands of great and important books freely available (Book Publishing in Every School and Library).
Of course, one of the wonderful things about the current moment is that we now have a growing number of really good books that are not out of copyright, but are copyleft. Not only can the Internet Bookmobile print Walden, but you can get a copy of such Creative Commons-licensed works as Lessig's Free Culture (though Eldred tells me it takes awhile to print the whole thing - he's given away chapters), Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and coming (very) soon, Dan Gillmor's We the Media.
via Boing Boing
One hundred years ago today, the Oil City Public Library opened thanks to a $50,000 donation from Andrew Carnegie (Building of library was controversial issue back in 1904). Yet, as the title of the article indicates, building the library was not universally applauded. Reading the article, which includes many quotes from the debates of the era, shows many parallels with the arguments surrounding many of the copyright, library filtering and open access debates of today:
The placing of a large collection of books within the reach of school children, without money and without price, will place all children on an equality. The child who has access to many books at home will not have so great an advantage as now over the child who cannot afford to own costly books of reference.via LISNews If Oil City should have an institution of that kind, it would prove the ruination of hundreds of young persons, who would waste their time and corrupt their minds by reading cheap sensational novels.
People who claim that the reading of (dime) books will injure the young should investigate carefully what these young ones are reading now.
The argument that reading works of fiction is injurious to the minds of working men is often advanced by men who themselves enjoy perusing such books.
The final (election) tally: 466 against the library, 982 for the library.
The Shifted Librarian, an RSS maven if ever there was one, has a short post on the use of broadcatching for library archives (RSS Feeds for Internet Archive Collections). This reminded me of a concept that I worked on several years ago ... a distributed database of legal information, decisions, journals, etc.
The basic idea was that every law library in the country would have locally stashed copies of every court decision. Court decisions would have been published into a network of massively redundant distributed databases with nodes at every law library. The system was actually a bit complex (but cool, using Jini and stuff). The Shifted Librarian's post reminded me of this concept and I thought, "why not use broadcatching to send full decisions (or articles) to everyone who wanted copies of court decisions (or law journals)?"
RSS is already used by some of the smarter courts to keep lawyers, clerks and assorted legal professionals current on court decisions, rules changes and related matters. The highly innovative Rory Perry, Clerk of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, was the first to recognize this potential and has been providing RSS feeds for his court since May 2002 (Syndication and Weblogs: Publish and Distribute Your Court Information to the Web).
The feeds that Rory provides are great, but they don't include the full decisions - only summaries. You could use RSS enclosures, but providing full decisions to hundreds or thousands of recipients might tax bandwidth. BitTorrent to the rescue, of course. Why shouldn't every law library, law firm or other interested party broadcatch copies of every court decision published?
Of course, this only solves the problem of distribution. For law to truly be free, you'll need open standards for court decisions and nearly complete databases among other things, but this could be a major step forward. The potential uses for this technology continue to grow.
For more information on Broadcatching, see also:
BitTorrent + RSS = The New Broadcast
Broadcatching - Not Broadcasting
Broadcatching - The Early Days
RSS + BitTorrent Announcement Soon?
BitTorrent, RSS and Broadcatching, Catching On
First Broadcatching App Available! (And Related News)
Broadcatching Roundup
The Street has an article on what is becoming an increasingly common occurence: disputes between content creators and cable/satellite distributors that result in loss of signal for consumers (EchoStar Tiff Tarnishes Content's Crown). In this case, content provider Viacom (home of CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and others) is facing off with satellite distributor EchoStar. The issue isn't so much about price apparently, as about whether EchoStar will be forced to carry Viacom's less popular channels in order to distribute Viacom's more popular channels.
The balance of power in this case is probably with Viacom, according to analysts. Viacom has enough power through its collection of popular channels that it can essentially force EchoStar to take the unpopular channels, otherwise Viacom will withhold the popular channels and viewers will be upset with EchoStar.
The logic of this situation for content creators is to merge, merge and merge, so that they have similar negotiating power with regard to distributors. The logic of this situation for distributors is to buy content creators so that they have the power over other content creators. In other words, both sides are put under pressure to achieve more media consolidation.
One way out of this vicious circle is to structure telecomm regulation so that distributors such as cable companies, satellite and broadcast are regulated as common carriers. Viacom would not be able to force unpopular channels on the distributor, rather, bandwidth would be allocated based on neutral, transparent rules. This would certainly decrease the content creators' incentives to consolidate and remove the distributor's incentives entirely.
The problem isn't an irrational desire for consolidation, the problem is a regulatory scheme that encourages consolidation.
via Techdirt
John Palfrey uses his blog to summarize what sounds like an extremely interesting lecture by a visiting scholar to the Berkman Center (Prof. Jean Nicolas Druey: "Information Cannot be Owned"). The post is somewhat unclear, but it seems to be an attack on the "property" concept of information and that what is important is not regulations of the substance of the communication, but rather, regulation of the channel of communication.
Hmmm ... I would definitely like to know more. Seems very similar to what I've been saying for a few years now, such as:
It's Freedom of the Press, Stupid
It's All About the Distribution, Stupid
I'm talking to you, FCC Commissioner Kevin J. Martin.
According to a Reuters wirestory posted on Infoshop, Martin wants the FCC to consider regulating indecency on satellite and cable (FCC's Martin ponders indecency on pay TV, radio).
Let me think about that ... um, no.
"Cable companies need some way to empower parents and families to have more choice," Martin said. "I think that it has the potential to be a problem when they are receiving things they object to and have to pay for that."
It's called stop paying for cable, Martin. It's called a lockbox, Martin. Its called the First Amendment, Martin.
What a maroon.
C|Net News reports that Major League Baseball is having difficulty getting a premium for internet "broadcast" rights (MLB throws high heat at Web portals). I put the term "broadcast" in quotes, because the internet doesn't really support broadcast. As Dana Blankenhorn writes on Corante blog Moore's Lore, MLB wrongly expects the internet to recapitulate television broadcast (Prove It).
The problem for MLB is not simply that broadband adoption rates aren't great and streaming video is pretty weak, but that the internet reduces (though it has not yet eliminated) distribution bottlenecks. Under today's regime, each of the television networks is a government telecomm regulations created portal. Because there is such a limited number of these television portals, they receive more traffic than they would in a more open distribution system. Consequently, the networks are willing to pay MLB more than they would otherwise be willing to pay under an efficient, open system.
On the internet there are portals, of course, but there are many fewer limitations on distribution. Thus, there aren't "networks" and most attempts to create them have pretty much failed. Remember go.com? Sure, MSN and AOL still have network-like elements, but as tools that help people aggregrate their preferred content (such as RSS) develop, the idea of a network of content determined from the top down begins to look a bit silly. MLB will be able to charge for their content (how much I'm not sure), but they won't be able to get subsidies from a top down network. If MLB is smart they will work on ways to ease the aggregation of their content with other content their audience will like.
However, I'm not really all that interested in how the MLB can thrive on the internet. What strikes me in this story is how inefficient broadcast television is. The lesson here is not that MLB doesn't get it. The lesson is that we have massive ineffiencies in our telecommunication regulation policies when it comes to broadcast television. The strange (though not unexpected) thing is, the FCC seems blind to them. In a recent speech, FCC Chairman Michael Powell came out strongly against regulating the internet and protecting the open nature of the network (Preserving Internet Freedom: Guiding Principles for the Industry [PDF]).
There is much to praise in these principles. Too bad there is no mention of applying them to broadcast television.
Here are some of the principles:
The broadband providers argue that without the ability to control access as well as determine what applications and personal devices may be used, they will be unable to make sufficient profit to continue rolling out broadband. Indeed, they won't roll it out. However, these arguments are bogus, and Powell is right to reject them. Of course, these are the same arguments used by the broadcasting industry with regard to HDTV. There, apparently, these arguments make sense. Of course, it would have been nice to call the bluff of the existing broadcast networks. If they didn't want to use the HDTV frequencies (afeard o' piracy), the FCC should have offered to transfer the frequencies to someone who would use them without forcing additional ineffiencies on the market.
It is great the Powell wants to preserve freedom on the internet. Too bad he is not consistent when it comes to broadcast television.
I missed this news earlier in the week, but it is extremely interesting. According to LISNews, which cites a couple of New York Times articles, Google and Stanford have embarked on "Project Ocean" which will digitize all of Stanford's library collections from before 1923, thus avoiding copyright but catching many of the great books (Project Ocean: Stanford University And Google). Great news! What an incredible resource! This will really begin to change how we interact with information. Unfortunately, also according to the NY Times (reg. req.), (The Coming Search Wars): "The project could add millions of digitized books that would be available exclusively via Google." [emphasis added]
Now, Google has every right to maintain its database of digitized books as an exclusive. However, how much does mechanical scanning really cost, especially as divided over the myriad institutions of higher learning/public libraries in the US? Why can't they coordinate an allocation from their budgets to create a truly public domain of millions of digital books? Google is great, but let other search engines (and the public) have a shot at the data.
Terra Nova has an interesting little article on so-called "rogue servers" that host MMORPGs (Free Rogue Server Achieves Significant Population). Most, if not all (any P2P MMORPGs out there?), MMORPG are based on the client/server model, where each user has a client that talks to a centralized server. The client programs are either sold for a one-time fee or given away. The business model is based on charging subscriptions for the client programs to have access to the server. The issue of rouge servers arises when hackers reverse-engineer or obtain by other means the server software and begin running their own servers.
From a free speech and copyright overreach point of view there are serious legal and policy issues in any attempt to thwart many of these "rogue servers." See, EFF's work on the Blizzard v. BNETD case for some details on some of them.
The discussion on Terra Nova is quite interesting and there is the suggestion of franchising the running of servers. But why not go farther? Compete with these rogue servers by creating server subscriptions. That is, you can have a client and subscribe to the main server farms, or you can run your own server (for you and your friends/clan, perhaps). As a server manager, you subscribe to a service that keeps your server up-to-date with patches and new content (which you use to keep your friends happy).
C|Net News has published an unsigned commentary lamenting the lack of encryption defaults on WiFi gear (A fate worse than lack of access). According to the opinon piece, the Wi-Fi Alliance does not request WiFi manufacturers to turn on Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) as a default.
Of course, consumers can easily enable WEP if they so desire (it has been part of the basic instructions for every WAP I've set up). But C|Net is concerned that consumers aren't using WEP because, "Consumers may disregard the risk [of not using WEP] for two reasons: They don't value the resources or data on their network, and WEP is not completely effective against break-ins." Well, number two is certainly a consideration. If I was worried about security, I wouldn't use WEP, I would stick with a physical LAN. However, there is a third option ... not that people don't value their resources, but rather that they do find them so valuable that they would want to share them with others. I value my data and resources, but I also am willing to share those resources through means that require little effort on my part.
C|Net has an answer for those who like to share: bad people might take advantage:
What consumers may not be considering is that open access leaves their networks vulnerable to hijackers who may want to launch an anonymous virus from their broadband connection or download child pornography.
If the virus is anonymous, what does it matter where it is launched from, as long as it can be launched? There is plenty of child porn to be had without going through the trouble of using WAPs. But to the extent that WAPs are useful for downloading child porn, WEP will be a mere inconvenience. In other words, you can make access impossible for the vast majority of good citizens in order to inconvenience technically sophisticated hackers and similar bad actors.
I'm not sure why C|Net is against open access, but the arguments leave much to be desired.
O'Reilly Network writer Andy Oram, inspired by Dave Winer's piece on candidates taking stands on internet regulation, makes a plea for a global approach towards information law (Time for a data transmission summit). I couldn't agree more with Oram that we should view many of the issues involved with regard to cyberlaw as an interconnected whole. It is interesting that Oram frames this issue as one of "data transmission." This echoes my viewpoint. As I am wont to say, "It's all about the distribution."
For example, when we discuss copyright reform, it is almost always in the context of existing telecommunications regulation. However, what if existing telecom regulations are part of the copyright problem? If, for example, there is a near monopoly on the primary means of music distribution, such as radio, won't that seriously distort the market that copyright is supposed to create?
Really, isn't telecom about the distribution of information (subject to the First Amendment, as I note here: It's Freedom of the Press, Stupid). Isn't copyright really about how copyrighted information is distributed? An argument that I make here: Taking the Copy Out of Copyright [PDF].
Of course, I'm completely onboard with a summit dealing with issues of "data transmission" taken from a broad point of view. However, I'm not sure if a summit is a good idea right now, since there isn't really a consensus yet that all these elements are actually related and what the nature of that relationship is. My concepts may be wrong, but I am convinced that there is a relationship among these issues. Perhaps the nature of that relationship is what a summit should address.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been one of the leaders in ensuring the web is accessible to everyone despite disability (Web Accessability Initiative). Now, C|Net News reports that the W3C is concerned about access for the visually impaired being hindered by so-called "robot tests" (W3C criticizes antirobot tests). These tests, which are frequently used by websites for registration purposes, require a visual verfication of text and numerals obscured in an image so that a computer cannot decipher the text, but a human (with our awesome text processing capabilities) can. If you've recently signed up for a Hotmail account or for eBay or something, you've run into one of these tests. The tests have been fairly successful at preventing spammers and other bad actors from accessing protected services. Problem is, the visually impaired are also prevented from accessing these services.
This is a tough problem and I sympathize with both sides. The W3C has put forth a working draft in an attempt to develop some solutions (Inaccessibility of Visually-Oriented Anti-Robot Tests: Problems and Alternatives).
I wrote about this earlier today (FCC to Regulate Routers - Critics of Broadcast Flag Get Mainstream Press) but it bears emphasis and should be very worrisome if true, as Ed Felten notes on Freedom to Tinker (Broadcast Flag Confusion). There is a downright scary quote in today's New York Times' (reg. req.) article on the Broadcast Flag (Critics Press Case on TV Piracy Rules):
An F.C.C. official said, for instance, that the broadcast flag could contain software code that was recognized by computer routers in a way that the program would self-destruct after passing through three routers while being e-mailed by a user.
Felten is right when he says,
Somebody is really confused here about how the Internet works. Maybe it's the reporter, or maybe it's the FCC source, or maybe (God forbid) both.If this statement bears any connection to reality, it's cause for serious worry. I can't think of any way of translating the statement into a technically coherent form that doesn't involve the FCC redesigning the basic workings of the Internet.
The New York Times (reg. req.) has a confusing report on the competing visions for the future of computing from Microsoft and IBM (Two Companies at Odds Over the Internet's Future). Not surprisingly, Microsoft denigrates IBM's vision:
"I.B.M. is talking about taking all the things we do now and outsourcing it," Mr. Gates said last week in an interview. "The utility model suggests that it is not about empowerment."
And Microsoft is about empowerment? Mr. Gates must be using a different dictionary then I do. Well, actually, Mr. Gates can afford to have the dictionary changed or at least he acts as if he can. Speaking of outsourcing ... what exactly do you call it when you buy your software on a subscription basis (the model Microsoft is trying to move the market towards)? If I don't actually own my software, but only have access so long as I pay the Microsoft tax subscription fee, isn't that outsourcing my software solution?
Microsoft executives compare the first stage of the Internet to the mainframe era, with the Web server computer the equivalent of the mainframe and the browser as the equivalent of the simple, "dumb" terminal of the mainframe days. The personal computer, they say, brought an explosion of creativity and opportunity as millions of people began using computers and programming themselves. Some were professionals, they note, but many others were ordinary people using the simple programming tools in a spreadsheet, for example, to simulate and test new ideas for a business.
Microsoft praising the "explosion of creativity and opportunity as millions of people began using computers and programming themselves?" Has the world gone mad? Did I somehow slip into the same parallel dimension where Spock has a goatee? Is Microsoft actually encouraging PC empowerment at the expense of centralized, chokepointed systems such as a privately owned monopolized operating system?
The next stage of computing, employing the Web services software standards, will do the same thing for the Internet, Microsoft executives say. "The Internet will be programmable," Microsoft's chief technical officer, Craig Mundie, said. "And there's no reason why the bulk of humanity won't be able to apply the tools we're talking about to this new world."
Ummm, isn't Microsoft's vision that the only tools you can use will be Microsoft's tools? Well, perhaps not the only tools, just the preferred tools:
But, of course, the Microsoft message is that the preferred technology for building and experiencing the next generation of the Internet is Windows.
Ah, turns out I am still in the right dimension.
The Washington Post publishes an article on a recent General Accounting Office report on competition in the cable industry (GAO Suggests Competition Good for Cable). The report can be found here (Telecommunications: Issues Related to Competition and Subscriber Rates in the Cable Television Industry [PDF]). Read the highlights [PDF].
The report found, unsurprisingly, that where there is a choice of two cable companies (only 2% of markets) consumers benefit with cable prices approximately 15% lower than those markets without competition. Where direct broadcast satellite providers can provide local channels cable companies respond by offering better service. Also, unsurprisingly, networks with a cable affiliation are more likely to be available than those networks without a cable affiliation.
ZDNet Australia has a great story on the birth of SAMBA, which is one of the most important programs to bridge the open source and closed source worlds (Special report: The birth of Samba). Fascinating stuff if you are interested in open source.
via Open Mind
Jeff Pulver provides a short update on the progress of broadband power line communications (PCL) (Current Technologies: Wi-Fi Coming soon to a Telephone Pole Near You). The news is that there has been progress in developing the technology that will permit broadband access via powerlines. Instead of connecting to the internet via DSL and your phone company or via the same cable that brings you the Sopranos, you'll get broadband via your powerlines. This would be a great way of producing additional competition for connectivity. I hope Jeff is right in his optimism.
Computer World has a great article on the many uses companies are putting free 802.11b access to (Free hot spots pay dividends). Guerilla marketing, conventional marketing, keeping customers around longer, saving money on ethernet installation, are all uses of free wifi. Favorite quote:
"What is the ROI on a bathroom?" asked Shaich, pointing out that the day of pay restrooms in restaurants has long since passed.
So far this week I've had a number of posts on various issues regarding VoIP regulation. Well, the news about this industry continues to move at an extraordinary pace. C|Net News is reporting that Georgia residents no longer have to pay for a telephone line if they only want DSL (Internet phones peachy in Georgia?). Usually, when you get DSL you have to pay for a phone line whether you want one or not. Now, presumably, many of those who get DSL and would be happy to get rid of their traditional phone service will be able to switch to VoIP entirely and save significantly on the phone bill. For many who haven't gotten broadband yet, this might be the incentive they need. Very cool. The decision from the Georgia Public Service Commission does not seem to be available on the internet yet, but I'll be looking.
Rep. Diana DeGette (D - CO), has penned an anti-open access commentary in C|Net News (The irony of 'network neutrality'). Her main complaint? Regulating access and regulating content and functionality are pretty much the same thing, they're both regulation and regulation is bad. Thus, we shouldn't regulate access. I had to double check that she was actually a Democrat. The commentary reads like talking points for a cable lobbyist. She even attacks the "stupid network" argument:
By effectively handcuffing broadband operators and restricting their rights to forge innovative relationships with other applications and content providers, the Microsoft crew is, in fact, seeking to dumb-down the heart of the network in order to strengthen the power of its own members.
The Broadcast Flag issue is incredibly important, see, among many others Copyfight (What's the Deal?). Then let your Reps, Senators and the FCC Commissioners know how you feel, either through EFF or DigitalConsumer.org.
However, the Broadcast Flag isn't the only issue that puts the future of unrestricted digital television in doubt. Case in point, the New York Times (reg. req.) reports on what may be the coming death of stand alone personal media recorders, such as TiVo (Can Cable Fast-Forward Past TiVo?). A couple of quotes to consider:
"This really is the last stand for the stand-alone boxes; this is a dying product," Aditya Kishore, an analyst for the Yankee Group, a technology consulting research firm in Boston, said in a telephone interview. "This is the last Christmas for the stand-alone TiVo box, or any stand-alone DVR box. By next year, the DVR functionality will be widely available in a wide range of other devices, including the set-top boxes."
"We believe that over time, DVR technology is going to be the standard," said Mark W. Jackson, an EchoStar senior vice president. "Everyone is going to have it. It's just a question of when - and who they get it from, of course."
I certainly hope that the Yankee Group analyst is wrong, because otherwise the question asked by Mr. Jackson becomes much more important. What the NY Times is reporting is that the cable and satellite companies are bundling personal media recorder capabilities with their services and this will eliminate the market for independent devices. The problem with this is that it also gives the cable and satellite companies control over the function of such devices. Skipping commercials, recording anything you want, and networking the device with other devices will almost certainly be restricted. Sounds an awful lot like the broadcast flag.
Berkman Center Senior Fellow Andrew McLaughlin has a new blog and one of his first posts is an interesting look at the recent Vonage v. Minnesota Public Utilities Commission [PDF] decision (Judge Davis Gets It: The Internet is Not a Telephone). I think that Andrew and I actually agree quite a bit, but merely differ as to emphasis.
While I sympathize with the outcome (who thinks that the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission should be regulating VoIP?), I don't find the reasoning of the decision particularly compelling and I don't think the decision inherently important. The problem isn't the judge's, but the entire regulatory scheme. The judge is simply making due with a confusing morass of regulation built through decades of industry-driven lobbying. His decision is important only to the extent that it highlights some of the internal contradictions of existing regulation; it doesn't provide a compelling alternative or solution (though that isn't the judge's job).
As Andrew points out, there are two important aspects of the decision but, really, only one is all that important.
Whether, under federal law, VOIP services are "information services" (not subject to state regulation) or "telecommunications services" (subject to state regulation).
This seems to me the crux of the issue. Why are "telecommunications services" subject to state regulation at all? This is the real problem. We can parse definitions of "information services" and "telecommunications services" all day long but, given that bits are cheap to produce and distribute, as long as some bits are subject to state and federal regulation and other bits are subject to federal regulation only, we are going to have issues.
As the judge noted in the decision, "Traditional telephone companies use circuit-switched technology." Emphasis on the word "traditional." How many circuit-switched phone calls did you make today? Vanishingly few, I imagine. How far does your traditional phone call go before it becomes packet-switched? Not far for most nowadays; most likely you're circuit-switched the last mile only - as Andrew notes.
Strangely, the basis of the decision is premised on this distinction between the last mile technology used. In statutory language, the distinction looks like this:
The term âtelecommunicationsâ means the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the userâs choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received. 47 U.S.C. § 153(43).
âTelecommunications serviceâ is âthe offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public, or to such classes of users as to be effectively available directly to the public, regardless of the facilities used.â 47 U.S.C. § 153(46).
âInformation serviceâ is defined as âthe offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service.â 47 U.S.C. § 153(20).
Yeah, I know it says nothing about the last mile, but that turns out to be what the distinction is, according to Judge Davis. You see:
The process of transmitting customer calls over the Internet requires Vonage to âact onâ the format and protocol of the information. 47 C.F.R. § 64.702(a). For calls originating with one of Vonageâs customers, calls in the VoIP format must be transformed into the format of the PSTN before a POTS user can receive the call. For calls originating from a POTS user, the process of acting on the format and protocol is reversed.
The problem, of course, is that precisely the same thing happens with most "traditional" calls, the only difference being where the change takes place (your home or one mile from your home). Judge Davis emphasizes this strange distinction when he claims that Vonage phone calls create a "net change in form and content" that "traditional" calls do not. The only "net change" is between whether the packet-switched transformation occurs in the home or at the local telephone switch. Is that really all that significant?
What Happens Next?
Assume that Judge Davis' decision and reasoning is widely adopted. What happens next? Very simple. The decision amounts to a huge (HUGE) subsidy for VoIP as opposed to "traditional" phone service. The response is obvious. Traditional phone companies begin a major rollout of VoIP technology. By simply having technicians emplace a VoIP router box on the customer's premises instead of the local switch, major telecommunications companies can easily shed tons of state and federal regulations. The telephone companies will have to split into VoIP and traditional. The traditional phone companies will be stuck providing service to the poorer neighborhoods where DSL isn't cost effective and still provide basic services (such as 911) to everyone (without many of the usual cross subsidies, however). The new VoIP telephone companies will cherry pick better neighborhoods and will be able to profit at the expensive of the traditional companies because they no longer bear a heavy burden of regulation and taxes. Rollout won't be that expensive, since the cost of the routers and installation, especially given mass production, will almost certainly be cheaper than the taxes thereby avoided over the period of a year or so. Additionally, VoIP companies avoid all that nasty "common carrier" regulation.
Is this the result we want?
Judge Davis summarily dismisses Minnesota's "quack like a duck" argument. But Minnesota has a point. Vonage is acting like a phone company. If we think that phone companies should be held to some regulatory standards (such as common carrier), then ultimately we will have to have some definitions of what can be regulated that includes Vonage.
Andrew states that,
Finally, the decision bolsters the notion that Internet services should not be forcibly shoehorned into decades-old telecommunications regulations. If VOIP is to be regulated, it should be approached in ways that respect the comprehensively different nature of packet-switched networks.
I disagree, but only to the extent that most of our existing telecommunications services should not be forcibly shoehorned into decades-old regulations either. We don't need more needle-threading judicial decisions. We need serious telecommunication reform.
via John Palfrey
