telecom policy

FORD: The Universal Access Fund: Change we can live with

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:44:03 -0500

By Carl Ford

Gordon Cook's message board has been very interesting this week. One of the members on the list near the Obama strategy team (which could one be of half a dozen friends based on their activity) has asked about the Universal Service Fund as a method of enabling a new broadband policy.

When the USF was created, its primary purpose was to support dial tone for the people who were too far away. It was assumed that phone service was the primary goal. The E-Rate portion was to subsidize underprivileged schools, and it has become the lion's share of the monies used in USF.

For those who don't know Gordon Cook, he is one of the first trackers of the Internet community, and his message board includes notables from around the world. It's a great list with much brighter minds than mine on it.

However, not having the wisdom associated with valor, I post when they touch my nerves, and, like Achilles, I reveal my weakness.

In the last few weeks, I have come to understand that the Obama regime has a great many former Clinton administration types around it. Since the USF was passed in the Clinton era, they are inclined to see it as a positive thing that needs revamping.

While many would want to push incentives toward municipalities again, I cannot make a case for that extreme view (As long as my town continues to operate a bus from the 1950s for the senior citizens in town, I will consider municipal strategies a legacy waiting to happen).

On the other hand, a national commitment to converting the backbones to IPV6 would be a great move toward progressing the Internet. Right now the delay in converting from IPV4 enables more problems in the future.

With the E-Rate portion of the USF connecting to the IPV6 backbone, I think an elegant strategy might be to allow remote connectivity to the students, so they can access applications associated with their schools and other educational resources. Right now, as you correctly pointed out, the system is designed to subsidize the schools with direct checks to integrators and service providers.

The school could in theory provide a RADIUS access solution for the neighbors to approve their neighbors to access the network. We could see the poor man's mesh start to occur. Access for the end users could be a direct subsidy based on participation.

While this is in theory neutral to access, it does a number of things to promote more service offerings that promote true broadband access.

And in a web 2.0 world, this would enable a lot of creativity, and get away from the dial tone aspect of the system. This would also enable better collaborative work.

Long term, the system needs to be rethought at its core. But this is a spot where lessons can be learned, progress can be made and success is identifiable.

This is change we can live with, universally ;<)

The red elephant soft touch robo-caller of Ohio

Doug Mohney — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:25:46 -0400

Created in Cleveland, Victory VOIP is currently making automated phone calls for Republican presidential John McCain and dozens of other campaigns in 16 states.

The automated phone system combines automatic dialing, automated bookkeeping, and a message-drop feature for a volunteer to deliver a personalized message that can be left on an answering machine if nobody picks up the phone.

Volunteers don't have to deal with paper and pencil to keep track of who they have called and who they need to call; a VoIP system handles it all automatically. In case of an answer machine pickup, the system leaves the pre-recorded message while dialing up another line. If a real person does pick up, the volunteer can go through his/her pitch.

According to CEO Shannon Burns, using the hybrid automated system "nearly triples" the call output of a traditional volunteer phone bank. The technology is being used for House Minority Leader John Boehner's re-election campaign and was applied in several campaigns across Ohio.

VoIP is being increasingly incorporated into elections and political lobbying. Google tapped into Cause Caller to lobby on behalf of Google's White Spaces push. On the blue donkey side of the aisle, David Troy's Popvox has been working with various Democratic political causes since 2005. During the 2006 election cycle, Popvox logged over a million voter-to-voter phone calls for 25 Democratic campaigns

For more:
- Akron Beacon Journal/ohio.com covers Red Elephant Robo Calling. Article

SPOTLIGHT: McCain gets (an ex-) FCC Chairman

Doug Mohney — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:57:14 -0400

Senator John McCain had trailed Senator Barack Obama in the number of former Federal Communication Commission (FCC) chairs supporting his campaign by a count of two to zero. This week, his re-energized campaign has managed to garner the support of former FCC Chairman and professed Best Buy lover Michael K. Powell.

Powell represented McCain on Monday in an online discussion conducted over Skype entitled "The Next President, the Internet, and the Disconnected City"; he faced off against Obama surrogate Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge. Powell, son of General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, likely gets extra brownie points in McCain circles for his Army service.

After departing the FCC, Powell has kept a low public profile. During his time as chairman, Powell outlined principles for what has become known as Net Neutrality and was a geek favorite for his love of TiVo, VoIP and whatever other cool gizmos he found.

However, McCain has an uphill battle in the telecommunications adviser count. Obama counts a (very embittered) Bill Kinnard and Reed Hundt among his former FCC chair head count; both have contributed cash and advice to the Democratic candidate's campaign.

McCain Issues Tech Policy

Doug Mohney — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:24:41 -0400

While the world focuses on the Olympics and Georgia, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain issued a 3,000 word technology policy statement with a right turn on net neutrality.

McCain describes network neutrality as "prescriptive regulation" and instead believes an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the "best deterrent" against unfair practices. McCain says that his administration would focus on open networks that would allow consumers to attach devices and use services of their choice, so long as the twain do no harm to the network. (So the difference between net neutrality and open networks is...?)

McCain is promoting his "People Connect Program," which would give tax write-offs to companies that offer broadband Internet access services to low-income customers. McCain's policy also is heavy on tax credits and more H1B skilled worker visas.

Way back in October 2007, Democratic candidate Barack Obama pledged to impose network neutrality mandates on broadband providers if he made it into the White House. He also said he would appoint a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman who supported network neutrality, as well as a CTO for his administration.

More recently, McCain came under fire by former FCC Chairman Bill Kennard for not having a telecom policy.

For more
- eWeek dissects McCain's technology policy

Related articles
Obama vs. McCain: Who is telecom's favorite?
Ex-FCC Chairman: McCain has no Telecom Policy

Telecom Doesn't Matter

Doug Mohney — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:36:53 -0400

There are three main issues to this year's Presidential elections: national security; the economy; and energy--the rising price of oil and the rising concerns over carbon. Telecom policy only matters when it touches one of these three issues.

Otherwise, nobody cares.

If you don't believe me, last week's face-off discussing telecom and media policy between McCain and Obama surrogates in Washington D.C. didn't draw a peep from the mainstream press or the blogosphere. This despite ex-FCC chairman Bill Kennard slamming McCain for having no telecom policy and "bullying" government agencies to get his way. Nobody from the McCain office has called to "clarify" anything in the piece, so I suspect they haven't even seen it.

When Obama changes course on wiretapping immunity for phone companies; it is a national security issue, so it is front page news. Retired General Wesley Clark snipes at McCain's qualifications to run for president and it is front page news (Are we sure this just isn't an Army/Navy thing?). An FCC Chairman who sat across from McCain during his tenure on the Senate Commerce Committee calls him out and nobody cares.

Let's face facts: When people go to the polls in November, they're not going to vote for the candidate with the best Net Neutrality policy or the one most committed to the Universal Service Fund. Should they?

- Doug