Google lobbies for 'open' wireless networks

[Brian Warkoczeski]

Google lobbies for 'open' wireless networks

By Anne Broache, CNET News.com, www.zdnet.com

June 14, 2007

Google and its allies may have lost key Capitol Hill votes on Net 
neutrality laws last year, but now they're mounting a counterattack: a 
lobbying effort to extend similar rules to forthcoming wireless 
broadband networks.

As part of a congressionally mandated switchover to digital television 
broadcasts, the federal government is preparing to auction off a 
generous chunk of the 700MHz broadcast TV band by early next year. 
Wireless companies are eager to bid on it because its signals can travel 
farther and easily penetrate walls--qualities that lend themselves to 
widespread, wireless broadband networks.

But a key question, set to be discussed at a Senate Commerce Committee 
hearing on Thursday morning, is whether open access rules--a close 
cousin of last year's legislative tussles over Net neutrality--should be 
levied on at least some of the companies that win licenses through the 
auction. In charge of deciding that point is the Federal Communications 
Commission, which is still finalizing its rules for the proceeding.

That has led to a renewal of old alliances. On one side are last year's 
Net neutrality proponents, including liberal advocacy groups, wireless 
technologists and companies like Google, which say that federal 
regulators must step in and impose "open access" rules. Otherwise, they 
claim, only a few powerful companies will control this prized chunk of 
spectrum.

On the other side are the telecommunications giants such as AT&T that 
blocked extensive Net neutrality rules in the House of Representatives 
and the Senate last year--and are invoking the same free-market 
arguments a second time. An AT&T filing with the FCC, for instance, says 
one Google proposal should be rejected because the market will determine 
how spectrum should be used.

Advocates affiliated with the pro-Net neutrality Save the Internet lobby 
group wrote in a recent letter to the FCC: "If the FCC simply gives the 
highest bidder exclusive rights over the new airwaves, phone and cable 
companies could become permanent gatekeepers of the airwaves--continuing 
their record of keeping new competition and innovation out of the 
marketplace."

Google has also been pressing the FCC to reserve a portion of that 
spectrum (the 722-728MHz band) to be used primarily or exclusively for 
broadband communications. Final comments on that proposal were due on 
Wednesday. (Google did not answer all questions posed by CNET News.com 
about its auction stance on Wednesday, but a representative did send a 
statement saying, "the FCC should be adopting flexible rules that 
encourage competitive entry by new and innovative broadband companies.")

Participants in the broader open access effort include the advocacy 
groups Public Knowledge, MoveOn.org and the Media Access Project, along 
with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Stanford Law School professor 
Lawrence Lessig. More than 250,000 people submitted comments to the FCC 
calling for an "open, accessible and affordable" Internet, the group says.

Also in the open access camp is Frontline Wireless, a start-up backed by 
major Silicon Valley venture capitalists that has proposed a 
controversial plan to build a public safety network on those airwaves.

Old alliances reunite

Although their individual positions differ on some points, they all 
generally want the FCC to guarantee that at least a portion of the new 
spectrum is made available at "fair-market" wholesale prices to anyone 
who wants to use it. They also want regulators to require that users 
have the freedom to connect the devices of their choosing to the 
network, so long as they abide by a "do no harm" mantra.

"This would be a way of getting people who might not be able to afford 
to bid on spectrum to get into the game," said Art Brodsky, a spokesman 
for Public Knowledge.

It would also prevent more powerful companies from "warehousing" 
valuable unused spectrum that could be used by competitors to provide 
additional services, his group and its allies have argued.

Some groups would like to take the open access idea even further. A 
group of 15 wireless industry entrepreneurs led by Virgin Mobile USA 
co-founder Amol Sarva is asking the FCC to set aside one sixth of 
commercial spectrum as an open "sandbox," where smaller entrepreneurs 
and inventors can play with new ideas without having to get permission 
from one of the "big four" network operators--AT&T, Verizon Wireless, 
Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile.

"Having to engage with the Big 4 at each cycle in the process can slow 
time to market and increase risks and costs for the entrepreneur," the 
group, Wireless Founders for Innovation Coalition, said in a letter to 
the FCC (PDF) last week.