Joshua Breitbart
Policy Director
People's Production House
April 30, 2007
Good afternoon. My name is Joshua Breitbart. I am the Policy Director for People’s Production House (PPH). PPH trains middle and high school students in public schools and low-wage and immigrant workers from across the city to be radio journalists. That includes analyzing how the media works and learning how to change it.
Thank you for addressing this issue of critical importance to New Yorkers, the online world, and the soon-to-be-online world. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute my thoughts on the matter. I don’t need to tell anyone in this room that the country looks to us in New York City for leadership in media and telecommunications. It is a role comparable to the one California has in regulating the auto industry.
I wanted to bring to your attention a net neutrality issue that has mostly fallen through the cracks, but it affects New Yorkers in very real ways. And that is the application of net neutrality principles to broadband over cell phones. There is in fact a proceeding currently before the FCC on this matter, with comments due today. This proceeding is in response to a “Petition to Confirm a Consumer’s Right to Use Internet Communications Software and Attach Devices to Wireless Networks” filed by Skype Communications.
Professor Tim Wu from the Columbia University School of Law has produced an excellent working paper on the topic with the compelling title, “Wireless Net Neutrality: Cellular Carterfone and Consumer Choice in Mobile Broadband” (February 15, 2007. See http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/wireless_net_neutrality). He paints a damning picture of an oligopoly using its vertically integrated control over the device, applications, and connectivity to stifle innovation and extract high fees from users.
This is not merely an academic issue. I spoke with members of the New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN) recently. They have found that desktop computers are not sufficient for their communication needs, in large part because many members and staff members do not have computers at home. So they use cellular devices. Despite their limitations in functionality and screen size, not to mention the monthly fees, those devices have succeeded in getting more people communicating, checking their email, and engaging in the community organizing work of NYCAHN.
The people I spoke with appreciate having a device of their own that they could get to know and could customize. This is much more like the one-computer-per-person ratio we tend to see in wealthy homes and larger companies than like the shared computer experience in the NYCAHN office, at the public library, or at NYCAHN members’ homes, if there is any computer at home, or even a home.
In addition, the people I spoke with were more likely to have extensive experience using a cell phone than a computer. They described a cell phone as a much more common possession among people they knew than computers, except perhaps for households with school age children.
People’s Production House is currently conducting research on Internet use in New York and engaging in further discussions with NYCAHN members and other groups throughout the city. Through this process, we hope to shed more light on the role of cellular networks in providing New Yorkers with meaningful access to the Internet.
If Internet-equipped cell phones are currently or potentially a significant source of Internet access for New Yorkers, especially if it is for those without other means of access, then we need to make sure that the cellular Internet experience is as open and potentially enriching as Internet access over phone, cable, or fiber optic lines.
Professor Wu makes four major recommendations for how to do this with mobile phones:
1. Cellphone Carterfone – The basic and highly successful Carterfone rules in the wired world allow any consumer to attach any safe device to his or her phone line through a standardized jack. The same rule for wireless networks would liberate device innovation in the wireless world, stimulate the development of new applications and free equipment designers to make the best phones possible.
2. Basic Network Neutrality Rules – Wireless carriers should be subject to the same core network neutrality principles under which the cable and DSL industries currently operate. Consumers have the basic right to use the applications of their choice and view the content of their choice. Wireless carriers who offer broadband services should respect the same basic freedoms. Carriers can tier or meter pricing for bandwidth without blocking or degrading consumer choice.
3. Disclosure – Consumer disclosure is a major problem in the wireless world. In addition to the disclosure of areas lacking coverage and rate-plan information, carriers should disclose—fully, prominently, and in plain English—any limits placed on devices, limits on bandwidth usage, or if devices are locked to a single network.
4. Standardize Application Platforms – The industry should re-evaluate its “walled garden” approach to application development, and work together to create clear and unified standards for developers. Application development for mobile devices is stalled, and it is in the carriers’ own interest to try and improve the development environment.
These policy recommendations should be considered in the deliberations over Resolution Number 712 as well as in future considerations of net neutrality or the digital divide, in the development of new broadband infrastructure, and in any contract negotiations with cell phone service providers.
If we want to promote competition, innovation, and deployment, then the device, content or applications, and connectivity should all be separate and should interact based on open standards. That kind of marketplace would give New Yorkers the widest range of opportunities to get online and it would spur innovation, especially at the end user level. That’s the way people get to design their own communications future.
In an information-driven economy, every person who is plugged in is like a power plant, building our collective capacity. Any obstacle you put between them and others – slow service, blocked websites, restricted applications – limits their ability to contribute to that economy. The only person who wins is the one responsible for creating the obstacles.
We are talking about workers and citizens trying to contribute to society and being frustrated by inadequate technology. And New York City suffers an economic loss of productivity as a result of these conditions. The MTA has its problems, but if they provided a service as slow and unreliable as cell phone companies do, everyone would get fired from their jobs for missing work or they would just quit in frustration.
In conclusion, I just wanted to thank you again for taking leadership on this issue of net neutrality. And I want to encourage you to take every possible measure not simply to ensure that an open Internet awaits those who log on, but to extend that open Internet to meet New Yorkers where they now are. That includes those who currently use cellular devices as their primary source of Internet access.