Personal Democracy Forum 2008
Session: Profiles in Anti-Competition
Note by Thirsy Mind:
Breakout session: Profiles in anti-competition
Adam Green
Civic Communications Director, MoveOn.Org
Moderator
Why is wireless spectrum important? Right now there is a guy inventing a program that would allow to scan the barcodes of products and give you all kinds of consumer information. These kinds of applications haven’t come along because the phone companies have an iron grip on wireless, and only allow profitable applications. My goal here is to find more useful examples of this kind of innovation which is being held back.
Amol Sarva
Wireless Founders Coalition
It’s hard to think of an industry as uncompetitive as wireless. My spiel is about the 700mhz spectrum. Used to be tv spectrum, they decommissioned. The best spectra are the low ones, go through walls, etc.
So if this spectrum is open, why not make it do some good, not just focus on profit? Cell phones are not open. Widely-reported that Google bid on the spectrum. Super-exciting year, new open access restrictions, but sad ending. Google put in minimum bid, Verizon paid more (but still less than market value), it’s over. Now we have to hope Verizon follows these rules.
Christopher Libertelli
General Counsel, Skype
Skype allows people to talk on the internet for free. Runs on Windows, Windows Mobile, Mac, Linux. That platform-independent approach is what we’re trying to bring to mobile. The history of new technologies pushing out old is a long and sad one. Edison’s phonograph challenged player pianos, AM was threatened by FM. Right now, wireless is threatening revenue streams. Skype filed a petition known as Skype Carterfone petition. Carterfone decision opened up terminal equipment to competition. This is not true of wireless.
Digital controls and legal controls through terms of use. The 700mhz auction is a step forward, but only a first step. Consumer choice and competition are two issues. Also an FTC issue, but my company is 3.5 years old, but it would take as long to get through this complaint.
Mary Hodder
Napsterization / Dabble
A place where people can share and recommend videos. Spider the web, index it (like Google) – but videos are different. Video-hosting companies prevent this spiders. We made informal deals because they trust us. They haven’ given the data to Google, because they’re terrified of Google. Google announced it was starting video search. But I knew this wouldn’t work, no access to data. This announcement worked to freeze funding through, since no one believed Google couldn’t do it.
Marvin Ammori
General Counsel, Free press
Example: Comcast blocking p2p protocols. The wireless internet is closed, and now so is wired. Couple years ago, phone/cable companies announced that certain companies could pay a premium to get preferential treatment on bandwidth. Have to cut a deal. They could do this because of political influence and limited competiton – at my house, only 2 options. Companies are saying that we don’t need to worry about competition, since we have the ATC.
Problems: antitrust law has been abandoned by this administration. Even if it’s not anticompetitive, it’s discriminatory.
Comcast: Last year, a guy in Oregon name Rob was trying to share a public domain video over Gnutella, determind it was being blocked. AP confirmed this with tryin to share the KJV. Torrents are used for both legal and illegal purposes. These protocols compete with the cable companies online and offline services, so a competitive threat. NASA uses bittorrent to deliver HD photos of space. This does not compete, therefore doesn’t trigger antitrust.
Beyond competition and innovation, we have freedom of speech. Antitrust rules not concerned with this. PCF uses bittorrent for its 3500 Miro channels. These users are not interested in economics, it’s a non-profit. These creators and consumers would not be protected under anticompetition. Need a broad, open neutrality principle.
2 problems with Skype: contractal agreements, where ToS prohibits voip. Secondly, cripples handsets, just handset manufacturers and carriers collaborate.
Carterphone: allowed other companies to compete with ATT’s phones, brought us the modem, brought us the internet.
What is the policy solution? What should the FCC do?
-impose on all spectrum carterfone requirements
-impose it on new spectrum only
Wifi is an unlicensed band. As long as the manufacturer respects the rules, no license needed to create devices. Tons of spectrum in the TV space that could be used for unlicensed data.
Other things that have been blocked: slingbox. Verizon blocked them, MPAA sued them for forwarding your own tv to your phone.
Miro is competitive with a lot of small companies – this gets them access to GNU code, and allows “investors” to write off their donations. This angers startups, who want to complain to the IRS that Miro is competing with for-profits. This is another form of anti-competitve behaviour.
What rules are in the new Verizon spectrum?
They’re pretty vague. I should be able to create something and put it out there. We’re skeptical because of the death the local caller competiotn (CLIC) thing in the 90s. This is too easy to kill.
ODI is Verizon’s new “open” system. But it’s still permission-based. CLIC was hundreds of regulations, ODI is down to 50. But still a problem.
We need regulation. We can’t trust corporations to get religion. Need the threat of regulation.
USA is 15th in the world in terms of broadband adoption.
Why isn’t Silicon Valley stepping up to the political game?
-libertarianism
-benefits spread over millions of people, low per capita benefit
-new companies “don’t want to act like incumbents”
-you need to form PACs and give money to get influence – this is repugnant
-VCs and the tech communities think that “we can route around” regulation
Adam Green
Civic Communications Director, MoveOn.Org
Moderator
Why is wireless spectrum important? Right now there is a guy inventing a program that would allow to scan the barcodes of products and give you all kinds of consumer information. These kinds of applications haven’t come along because the phone companies have an iron grip on wireless, and only allow profitable applications. My goal here is to find more useful examples of this kind of innovation which is being held back.
Amol Sarva
Wireless Founders Coalition
It’s hard to think of an industry as uncompetitive as wireless. My spiel is about the 700mhz spectrum. Used to be tv spectrum, they decommissioned. The best spectra are the low ones, go through walls, etc.
So if this spectrum is open, why not make it do some good, not just focus on profit? Cell phones are not open. Widely-reported that Google bid on the spectrum. Super-exciting year, new open access restrictions, but sad ending. Google put in minimum bid, Verizon paid more (but still less than market value), it’s over. Now we have to hope Verizon follows these rules.
Christopher Libertelli
General Counsel, Skype
Skype allows people to talk on the internet for free. Runs on Windows, Windows Mobile, Mac, Linux. That platform-independent approach is what we’re trying to bring to mobile. The history of new technologies pushing out old is a long and sad one. Edison’s phonograph challenged player pianos, AM was threatened by FM. Right now, wireless is threatening revenue streams. Skype filed a petition known as Skype Carterfone petition. Carterfone decision opened up terminal equipment to competition. This is not true of wireless.
Digital controls and legal controls through terms of use. The 700mhz auction is a step forward, but only a first step. Consumer choice and competition are two issues. Also an FTC issue, but my company is 3.5 years old, but it would take as long to get through this complaint.
Mary Hodder
Napsterization / Dabble
A place where people can share and recommend videos. Spider the web, index it (like Google) – but videos are different. Video-hosting companies prevent this spiders. We made informal deals because they trust us. They haven’ given the data to Google, because they’re terrified of Google. Google announced it was starting video search. But I knew this wouldn’t work, no access to data. This announcement worked to freeze funding through, since no one believed Google couldn’t do it.
Marvin Ammori
General Counsel, Free press
Example: Comcast blocking p2p protocols. The wireless internet is closed, and now so is wired. Couple years ago, phone/cable companies announced that certain companies could pay a premium to get preferential treatment on bandwidth. Have to cut a deal. They could do this because of political influence and limited competiton – at my house, only 2 options. Companies are saying that we don’t need to worry about competition, since we have the ATC.
Problems: antitrust law has been abandoned by this administration. Even if it’s not anticompetitive, it’s discriminatory.
Comcast: Last year, a guy in Oregon name Rob was trying to share a public domain video over Gnutella, determind it was being blocked. AP confirmed this with tryin to share the KJV. Torrents are used for both legal and illegal purposes. These protocols compete with the cable companies online and offline services, so a competitive threat. NASA uses bittorrent to deliver HD photos of space. This does not compete, therefore doesn’t trigger antitrust.
Beyond competition and innovation, we have freedom of speech. Antitrust rules not concerned with this. PCF uses bittorrent for its 3500 Miro channels. These users are not interested in economics, it’s a non-profit. These creators and consumers would not be protected under anticompetition. Need a broad, open neutrality principle.
2 problems with Skype: contractal agreements, where ToS prohibits voip. Secondly, cripples handsets, just handset manufacturers and carriers collaborate.
Carterphone: allowed other companies to compete with ATT’s phones, brought us the modem, brought us the internet.
What is the policy solution? What should the FCC do?
-impose on all spectrum carterfone requirements
-impose it on new spectrum only
Wifi is an unlicensed band. As long as the manufacturer respects the rules, no license needed to create devices. Tons of spectrum in the TV space that could be used for unlicensed data.
Other things that have been blocked: slingbox. Verizon blocked them, MPAA sued them for forwarding your own tv to your phone.
Miro is competitive with a lot of small companies – this gets them access to GNU code, and allows “investors” to write off their donations. This angers startups, who want to complain to the IRS that Miro is competing with for-profits. This is another form of anti-competitve behaviour.
What rules are in the new Verizon spectrum?
They’re pretty vague. I should be able to create something and put it out there. We’re skeptical because of the death the local caller competiotn (CLIC) thing in the 90s. This is too easy to kill.
ODI is Verizon’s new “open” system. But it’s still permission-based. CLIC was hundreds of regulations, ODI is down to 50. But still a problem.
We need regulation. We can’t trust corporations to get religion. Need the threat of regulation.
USA is 15th in the world in terms of broadband adoption.
Why isn’t Silicon Valley stepping up to the political game?
-libertarianism
-benefits spread over millions of people, low per capita benefit
-new companies “don’t want to act like incumbents”
-you need to form PACs and give money to get influence – this is repugnant
-VCs and the tech communities think that “we can route around” regulation
