F2C, part 3

Open Wireless

Rich Miner, Google: Talking about Android, an open development platform for mobile application. "There is a stifling on innovation in the mobile space... because the ecosystem is a closed one. If you're trying to invent... applications... openness by just publishing APIs is not very open.... The level of control that these platforms maintain prevents [actors] from innovating."

More back channel chatter:

Frank P.	herrding cats is one thing, controlling the speed is something else
Russ N.	When is the next squeaker?
Brett G.	We're gonna need a litterbox.
Iz W.	shameless client promotion: electric sheep on android http://draves.org/blog/archives/000549.html
Frank P.	every android's dream
Russ N.	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
alex i.	this is all cool stuff but I feel I know most of it already

Back to Rich: They expect to ship phones by the second half of this year, after which they will release the code under a license. Since announcing Android, the message of openness is resonating through the industry, and, to a certain degree, other players are trying to compete on openness. "Google feels comforted that the message of openness... is going to take root, and it will be difficult to dislodge it.

Michael Calabrese, New America Foundation: NAF has been working on a concept of wireless Carterphone.

About the 700 MHz auction:

- AT&T & Verizon won 90% of the spectrum. In a consolidating, oligopoly, auctions can actually hinder new entrants.
- Verizon started up it's open network rhetoric, qualifying them to be a big winner in the auction.

"In the early 1920s, hundreds of organizations attempted to share the airwaves... but obviously the technology was not ready... [Now] what's scarce is government licenses, not spectrum. 90% of spectrum is not being used most of the time." What we need are "smart radios and a light-touch licensing regime.

This article looks like a good read on the new model NAF is proposing. Also, these:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4892
http://www.radioscape.com/
http://meraki.com/

Tim Wu couldn't be here (bummer), so David is inviting a few "lightning talks" from innovators in attendance.

Rochard Wright, Google: "I can't say anything about whether Google is happy about the auction results until Thursday at 6:01 pm... However, someone has called Google a 'happy loser...' Michael did a great job giving the overview, [but I can add] That Chairman Martin, to his credit, have been supporting this effort... to create some momentum for these unlicensed spectrum band."

I always thought Republicans should get into this, because it is less "Big Government" regulation. Too bad they (and many Dems) are such sellouts to the NAB.

Brent Glass, Lariat.net: www.brettglass.com/F2C.

F2C, part 2

Open Fiber

Dirk van der Woude, John St. Julien, Adam Peake, Tim Nulty, moderated by Jim Baller

Dirk, Amsterdam Broadband: "Yes, we can." Amsterdam's telecoms are owned 40% US, 30% UK, other non-Dutch firms 16%.

Look out for Fraudband.

In France, the law says that cities are explicitly allowed to roll out fiber networks. Cologne has 2 parallel fiber networks.

Taking a break from the very techy, accented presentation that is overly reliant on a slide show that nobody can read, I'd like to mention that the back channel here is really juvenile. I'm probably one of the youngest 5 people in the room, but to read this thing, you'd think it was packed with 19 year old boys with a chemical dependency on Red Bull. For example:

alex i.	dirk dirk
Frank P.	farms in berkeley?
Mike W.	But wait Dirk, TomTom is impossible. Only Garmin produces GPS
Brad T.	Moooooo
Tree S.	i think i have this genetic thing going on where i can't really hear anything he's saying and i'm looking over my shoulders for the dogs
Richard B.	I want my MTV.
Gregory M.	who let the dogs out?
Tree S.	sorry. just thinking outloud.

Such a weird contradcition between a hardy comprehensible presentation and a painfully comprehensible back channel. Just saying. Not to mention, Dirk went on way too long.

Adam on the Japanese broadband "miracle."

1) Traced back to the 1996 Telecoms Act.
2) Incumbent who bought into the idea the IP networks were good.
3) The open network model can work, if the conditions are right.

What are the conditions?

1) We don't have a cable industry
2) The legal system is not litigious, NTT didn't spend it's resources and time in court fighting
3) Regulator stuck to its policy
4) There was a national policy of ubiquitous information or network society
5) Japan doesn't have a good broadcasting industry; programming is poor; limited pay-per-view market. Opportunities for people who want to invest, in IP video distribution (I guess), is great.

What is the Japanese view of network neutrality?

1) IP networks should be accessible with ready access to applications and content
2) Support E2E
3) Users should have access equality


Tim on Burlington, VT fiber network: Broke grown in '05, first customer '06, being profitable in '09, four years after initial funding was received with 5000 customers. Muni telecom can be profitable for cities.

1) Universal - it's like water. The economics work much better if you do it that way from the beginning.
2) Open Access: The government should offer retail, but be prepared to make the resource available on a non-discriminatory basis.
3) Financially self-sufficient
4) Future-proofing: forget DSL, cable modems. Build something that will last for a long time, at the fundamental investment, but also upgradeable.

Now, Tim is taking the model across Vermont. Can you do fiber to the home in rural areas that meets the above stated goal? The biggest problem is that no rural town is big enough, so look to working together as an assembly of 20-30 township. It's an organizational problem, and a problem convincing financiers that this inter-organizational entities can handle it.

The measure to move forward are receiving 100% votes, in one township it dipped to 80%.

In the interim, there is a lively discussion about how we've reached our broadband capacity. Within minutes someone pipes up "I have IDed the perpetrators IP address!"

John, Lafayette Project : "I'm of 2 minds. The Geek/Wonk says there has got to be a way to get this machine to work. The Historian/Activist is more interested in the root of these things, expects contingent outcomes that are hard to maintain and require constant democratic work." We'll be hearing from the Historian/Activist.

"The real problem is that we are not being treated with respect... not like citizens of the Net." He says we're more like serfs, with the providers acting like the lord of the land. "Look at [your service aggreements] and this is roughly your condition... They can kick you off for any reason...They don't have to follow their own rules consistently." While, the Geeks and the Wonks want a technical solution, but we want to be citizens.

To solve the feudal system "We had the Enlightenment, then we had a Revolution."

"Lafayette is one of the most conservative cities in one of the most conservative states in thsi corporate-beholden country... and it happened there."

How did it happen? First, the geeks convinced the financial leadership to put in a fiber link, just for wholesale, government, big business use. The deepest malcontents were already saying they should provide retail to the home, and they lost, until a few people who remembered the argument but forgot who said it. The malcontents organized a grassroots campaign. The assumption was that the old boys club would run the show, but the opposition was so virulent, that they faded from the playing field and left it to the grassroots, and they won, 2-1.

"We are going to get a network that is going to be one huge intranet." Citizen-citizen speeds of 100 mb, offering the basic tier at a 20% discount to the incumbents, with a wi-fi network on top that won't have to be meshed. "We're exploring... the digital divide issue... The current plan is to put, in every cable box, internet access as well... The end result of that everyone on the system in a huge swath of the town who never had that kind of connectivity before."

Q&A:

Q: Japan is facing big problems with their system - pollution, viruses. Policy makers are proposing a closed fiber, next generation, IPv6 solution that might close out all the retailers.

Adam: We always move through phases of new problems and solutions.

Mary Beth, NATOA: "We in Portland are trying to build an open-access community network. How do we build the momentum in the "glassroots? How do you educate populace & electeds to make this happen?"

Tim: You have to address "Who's going to pay for it, and if you [can say] 'not you. It will be a financial investment that will be paid back from the services'" then you will win.

Other resources:

http://www.benkler.org/SharingNicely.html
http://gordoncook.net/wp/
http://www.carlotaperez.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_capital vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_capital

Freedom to Connect (F2C), part 1

I arrive in time to hear from Donna Edwards, formerly of the Arca Foundation and current candidate for the US House of Representatives from Maryland.

Where Donna lives in MD, she only has access to dial-up! Her talk is about access inequity. "When I think about public policy... we can't just hope that the... service providers will do right... we actually have to legislate and mandate this stuff. It's not efficient for some companies to reach out to some communities.... How do we develop technology policy that works for our most vulnerable communities? "

Q&A:

From David I: "There is a representative of the McCain technology policy team in the room, Jim Baller."

Jim: "I am not involved in any way with John McCain... What David's referring to is an article I wrote evaluating the candidate's positions on broadband policy." Jim ranks the candidates like this: Obama, Clinton, McCain. The paper is here.

Micah Sifry is talking about a dialog that Durbin held on a conservative blog. It sounds like overall, the conservatives on the blog understood broadband as a target for government investment. The ones who came on just to insult Durbin were routed to a separate thread."

Sifry: "We don't have good tools yet for mass deliberation... The process is broken. No one seems happy about it. What would do that would be different? The Obama platform talks about wikis and other tools? What would that look like in practice?

Alec Ross (Obama technology policy consultant): "Some of the Obama campaign's talk about how it would use... social networking tools.. etc. Technology tools are used to keep dialog in the pen... What's nice is that... within the Obama campaign... that's often where the policy people engage... people are actually dipping into the blogosphere... on myobama.com... [they're saying] last night I spend an hour [looking online] and these were good ideas. In terms of how this would work [in governance]... you have to turn to the people developing policy is to say "part of your ob is to get in there and see what people say. it is a qustion of attitude more than what's the best widget."

Donna 'I've been connected to technology for 30 years... Technology is just a tool. It's not a substitute for real engagement..."

Matt Stoller: "I come from a position of relative privilege and power... As we think about technology and deployment of technology through governance... I haven't seen much help from technologists in the political process... How are you going to devolve power to people who don't have it... Not just technology- it's about literacy; it's about nutrition."

Alec: Clinton pulled the Connect America plan after Art Brodsky took it apart and Mat Stoller blogged about it.

Q&A

A different David Isenberg: What can Congress do to incorporate or at least solicit the stuff that is available outside of the government, since NGOs are doing a better job creating transparency?

Alec: The candidate is not talking about the government directly empowering the grassroots. "...third parties are likely the folks who are going to get the information and do something with it. Part of what a President Obama would do is put data and information out there..." for these actors to work with. "By giving the information to the grassroots, they will have the means to use their power more effectively."

Micah: The OMB contacted OMB Watch, usually its adversary, about licensing fedspending.org for $600, saving the taxpayers something like $13 million.

Charles Benton: "Donna is the godmother of the Media and Democracy Coalition... That was a great contribution... We are most thankful for making that happen... Alec, I read this weekend Obama's technology platform. A major section of this paper says, 'employing technology and innovation to solve the nation's most pressing problems' This is the heart of this document... What can we do between now and the next administration to really develop the case studies, the facts, to make this connection between the technology and the needs it can meet to serve the values of equality and excellence, and to save us money?"

Alec: "What's been interesting to me is to learn what makes campaigns care about things.... It's remarkably simple. There is a lot of blogging and communications power in this room, and it gets noticed... When [sombody} digs into something and the community shares it, it gets noticed... [Campaigners] need good information, distilled down. If there's good research, sharing it with the campaign matters."

Donna: "Candidates care about things people say in their communities. [When I was campaigning and walking the neighborhoods] I remember only one person at one door who asked me about Net Neutrality, but people asked me why there kids don't have better access to technology, business people asked me about how to jump start their business into the 21st century." The way we talk about technology isn't necessarily how people experience it.

Matt: "Be precise about how you talk about power. For instance, it wasn't Congress who gutted the Office of Technology Assessment, it was Newt Gingrich. Don't grant presumptions of goodwill to political actors who don't deserve it."

Tom Mandle, entrepreneur: "What the hell is the matter with the word 'entitlement." The kids in that school are entitled to that technology. That said, governments are not founded on trust."

In the back channel, people decided that the Strange Bedfellows Coalition would be a great organization name. Apparently, www.strangebedfellows.org is available.

Some other resources that came up:

punchclockmap.sunlightprojects.org
http://www.customizegoogle.com/

LMDJ, part 4

Internet Equality

Christina Gagnier is talking about Net Neutrality.

"Net neutrality advocates haven't done a good job framing the debate" in terms of digital inclusion.

Christina works with Mobilize.org.

"Comcast has decided to stop its traffic shaping practices with BitTorrent" in the past 3 days. "I met with Richard Clark of AT&T.... his argument was that net neutrality will hamper innovation and crush the provider industry."

Christina mentioned the Save the Internet Coalition, and how net neutrality brings together pro-choice groups and the Christian Coalition.

A participant told us that her provider, I think she said it was Charter, has been offering her faster bit rates for $5/month. Of course, Time Warner has already moved in the direction of tiered internet access.


Tracy Rosenberg, Media Alliance: There is a FCC hearing on Internet equality coming up soon at Stanford, and we have 900 seats to fill. Information about the Stanford hearing is available here.

"When we are talking about the word 'equal,'" we have to talk about access and the digital divide. "Digital inclusion" is how we talk about what we are doing about the digital divide.

2 models to consider:

1) Content creation/empowerment programs/citizen media/DIY media. Unfortunately, we have a distribution problem.

2) Neighborhood technology centers: "Are these programs meeting a need for social justice."

"How do we in sure a neutral playing field... how do we get to a sustainable Internet reality that sustains social justice?"

Some possibilities:

• Getting high speed Internet access into more people hands: "We should have a conversation where this is a public infrastructure."
• Muni wi-fi: but we have problems with the model of relying on companies. There's not much money to be made, as in public utilities. We have seen some successes. Check out One East Palo Alto, but it has been funded by Hewlett Packard.

Also (my note), look at this map of muni wifi projects. Be warned- it's flawed, but helpful.

"Part of what we have to do is.. take on the responsibility to create little pockets of infrastructure... If there's a little armada of community tech infrastructure projects, then maybe we really do have an alternative media movement that can compete for hearts and minds."

"Sometimes the reality on the ground gets ahead of public policy stuff." For example, pirate radio created the opportunities that led to Low Power FM radio.

Q&A:

Christina mentioned the flawed Broadband for All? report issued by the Public Policy Institute of California.

There's a lively discussion about the rising (I'd say rhetorical) tension between Net Neutrality and intellectual property. On this subject I'd submit David Byrne's recent Wired article for emerging musicians navigating these new complications. Other resources: Larry Lessig, Creative Commons, the Future of Music Coalition, and the Independent Online Distribution Alliance.