Mortal Wombat

The general purpose computer has been really important in fostering the huge amount of innovation that has accompanied the growth of the Internet. Many (most?) exciting new Internet applications have come about not because big companies invented them, but because ordinary people or small “niche” companies decided to experiment with something new. This experimentation has been made possible by the existence of two circumstances:

• general purpose personal computers that can run any applications

• a “neutral” (Internet) network that carries data from any application

There is no guarantee that these conditions will remain in place, and in fact we must constantly be on the lookout for efforts to change these conditions.

The prevalence of mobile phones, PDAs, iPods, Internet TVs, and a million other consumer devices threatens the “general purpose” PC model. People are increasingly accessing the Internet directly or indirectly through these proprietary “appliances”. These devices for the most part only run applications allowed by the device manufacturer / distributor. If a company such as Skype wants to have their application on one of these devices, they usually must negotiate with the device maker. They may have to pay that company a fee. This not only prevents people from writing their own applications for the devices, but it limits peoples’ ability to run innovative third-party applications. Jonathan Zittrain warns in a Harvard Business Review article of the dangers accompanying this shift from general purpose PCs to proprietary devices.

The importance of network neutrality has been discussed at length elsewhere, but the basic argument is that it would put a damper on innovation if the broadband providers (the telco & cable companies) are able to pick winners in the Internet service and application market. If Time Warner decides to limit the bandwidth alloted to VoIP from any company not paying Time Warner a bribe, for example, then only companies able to pay Time Warner that bribe will be able to gain traction in the VoIP market. (Time Warner customers would be unable to access innovative new VoIP services at competitive speeds.) Time Warner and other cable / telco providers have in fact been making noises about their desire to implement such policies.

I’ll start this blog out by posting something I actually wrote up a few days ago.

So I went ahead and joined the “I want national wireless Internet” Facebook group the other day. I had been sitting on it for a bit, but it seems like it could be turning into a real movement of sorts. I was hesitant to join because neither the group nor the linked MoveOn petition contain information about exactly what they’re asking. [ed: MoveOn has since posted a letter to the FCC with details and lots of important endorsements!] Anyways, the idea is good. And I think I know what the actual Save Our Spectrum movement is about, even if I’m unclear as to what the Facebook and MoveOn groups are about. It’s about applying the following rules to the major upcoming spectrum auction. (This is the auction for the spectrum that will be released when traditional analog TV goes off the air.)

• establish a service rule for broadband services operating in the 700 MHz band that protects the consumer’s right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider.

• allow third-party access to spectrum owned by other companies. This “open access” plan to include wholesale access to networks would enable more competitors to offer services
• institute anonymous bidding in auctions to lessen the possibility of bid signalling and bid rigging that studies found to have taken place in prior auctions.

So I’m curious what any Libertarian readers have to say to this. You must admit that the current broadband market could hardly be considered a “free market”. It is built on government giveaways and government protection. I really hesitate to see a few large cell phone companies controlling all of the potential wireless broadband spectrum. (Sprint already controls most of it, iirc.) Of course I don’t think the government should be its own ISP either, because that’s just asking for trouble. I wouldn’t mind the government providing the spectrum if it is able to somehow apply a fair policy allowing companies access to it. (This would work great if open (shared) spectrum really works, which I don’t know enough about yet.) But anyways, since the government has already announced that they are auctioning off the PUBLIC spectrum, is it really too much to ask that they require the highest-bid purchasers to follow certain rules that protect the PUBLIC interest. If there are no regulations, Sprint & co. will simply sit on it (blocking competition) or add it to their proprietary 3G / 4G networks.

Tangentially, and more generally, what do Libertarians have to say about the current tradition of treating wireless spectrum, ideas and creativity (so-called “IP”) as property? What about when these could operate as a commons, thus allowing more freedom and individual autonomy? Got to go or I’d write more now.

Apparently 1.4 blogs are created every second. So says Technorati.

This one will be dedicated to the rants and ramblings of a graduate student (that’s me) studying the Internet, policy, and society. I’m just beginning my graduate studies, so I figured that this was as good a time as any to join the cool kids (aka bloggers).
I’m creating this blog mainly so that I don’t have to subject my Real Life friends to quite as many rants. This is a place for me to babble about the state of the tubesInternet. Or, really, anything else. If you, Dear Reader, happen to find my rambling interesting, so much the better.