All Things Digital

Comcast is apparently too busy drafting its “P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” to bother attending the daylong hearing into its dubious “network management” practices. An odd decision for a company so intent on “clarifying” the practices ISPs should use to manage P2P applications running on their networks. But according to a company spokesperson, Comcast (CMCSA) “felt the issues specific to us were well covered at the first hearing, and the focus of this event should be broader than any individual company’s issues.”

Broader issues? Like reasonable network-management practices? The responsibility to deliver traffic fairly? Service disclosures? The sort of issues that might figure prominently in a “P2P Bill of Rights?”

Guess not.

Anyway, Comcast has already scrapped its policy of deliberately slowing some traffic flowing over BitTorrent and other P2P networks, so there’s really no need for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to bust its chops anymore. As Mitch Bowling, Comcast’s senior vice president and general manger of its Internet service, told the New York Times, Comcast’s new policy is to slow traffic based on usage pattern, not application. “[Our new technique] will be based purely on individual consumption by consumers,” Bowling said. “Anything in addition to that is outside the scope of what our network management goal is.”

So the company plans to throttle traffic to the customers that use the most bandwidth. Hmmm. I wonder who those might be? The folks who use the Internet for email and Web browsing or those who use it for downloading digital media?

It’s a Comcastic day for BitTorrent. This morning the cable provider, under fire for degrading the performance of the peer-to-peer file-sharing service on its broadband network, announced plans to develop better ways to manage peer-to-peer traffic. To that end, Comcast (CMCSA) will work with BitTorrent to develop a network capacity-management technique that is protocol agnostic.

Said Tony Werner, Comcast’s chief technology officer, “This new architecture would enable many new and emerging applications and will be based upon an open, nondiscriminatory framework that could interface with or support multiple technologies. We believe that P2P technology has matured as an enabler for legal content distribution, so we need to have an architecture that can support it with techniques that work over all networks.”

Of course you do. You just didn’t realize it until FCC Chairman Kevin Martin pointed it out, right?

Anyway, like most such corporately altruistic pledges, this one has the potential to do more good than bad–or more bad than good. “… We must recognize that these are two commercial entities whose goals are, in the end, to make sure that their networks and technologies are as profitable as possible,” writes Public Knowledge’s Jef Pearlman. “One can conceive of a world where an ISP and an application developer band together to make a proprietary system in which sanctioned application data gets preferred treatment, the ISP gets greater control of the application running on your computer, and both companies are happy in the exact situation we want to prevent. Time will tell what this partnership actually means.”

The Federal Communications Commission isn’t buying Comcast’s (CMCSA) argument that throttling or degrading the performance of the peer-to-peer file-sharing service BitTorrent on its broadband network is a necessary traffic-management technique.

Speaking at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he’s considering taking action against the cable operator for violating the agency’s network-neutrality principles. Seems Martin was troubled by Comcast’s dissembling around the BitTorrent issue, not to mention its efforts to pack an FCC hearing on Net neutrality with its own employees.

“A hallmark of what should be seen as a reasonable business practice is certainly whether or not the people engaging in that practice are willing to describe it publicly,” said Martin, adding that the incident offered the commission a good opportunity to establish a precedent for future cases of this kind. “I have said in the past the commission is ready, willing and able to take action on individual complaints,” he said. “I think that is what we are going to end up doing, and I think that will end up setting an important precedent going forward: that we are willing to address individual complaints when they come in.”

A bid of $4.7 billion in the Federal Communications Commission’s 700-MHz auction pushed the nationwide C block over its $4.6 billion reserve price this morning, triggering the spectrum’s open-access provision.

Great news for Google, which sought the provision that requires the winning bidder to open the C block spectrum to all devices and software applications. Great news, too, for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who has promised a $10 billion contribution to the federal budget from the auction.

Who placed that $4.7 billion bid? We don’t yet know, as the FCC’s auction rules require bidders to remain anonymous. It’s worth noting, however, that bidding for the C block stalled yesterday at $4.3 billion, just short of the $4.6 billion needed to trigger the open-access provision. Could that $4.3 billion bid have been Google forcing the hand of an incumbent telecom?

Looks like there are a few more years of life left in those old rabbit-eared TV sets yet. The Federal Communications Commission this week unanimously adopted rules designed to prevent analog-only cable subscribers from losing their local TV stations’ signals for three years after the switch to digital TV occurs.

“This item, at its core, is about the consumer,” FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in remarks before the vote. “It is about ensuring that all Americans with cable–regardless of whether they are analog or digital subscribers–are able to watch the same broadcast stations the day after the digital transition that they were watching the day before the transition. If the cable companies had their way, you, your mother and father, or your next-door neighbor could go to sleep one night after watching their favorite channel and wake up the next morning to a dark fuzzy screen. This is because the cable operators believe that it is appropriate for them to choose which stations analog cable customers should be able to watch. It is not acceptable as a policy matter or as a legal matter. The 1992 Cable Act is very clear. Cable operators must ensure that all local broadcast stations carried pursuant to this act are “viewable” by all cable subscribers. Thus, they may not simply cut off the signals of these must-carry broadcast stations after the digital transition. The order we adopt today prevents the cable operators from doing just that.”

Cable companies must now either ensure that all subscribers have the equipment necessary to view a digital signal, or convert it to analog format for those who cannot. And so the era of analog television broadcasts will officially end on Feb. 17, 2012, and not the same day in 2009, when U.S. broadcasters make the switch to digital TV.

Not satisfied with a compromise proposal from Chairman Martin that meets most of its conditions, Google has now delivered an all-or-nothing ultimatum to the U.S. government, insisting that every single one of their conditions ‘must’ be met or they will not participate in the spectrum auction. Google is demanding the government stack the deck in its favor, limit competing bids and effectively force wireless carriers to alter their business models to Google’s liking. We would repeat that Google should put up or shut up–they can bid and enter the wireless market with any business model they prefer, then let consumers decide which model they like best.”

–Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs

Oh, it’s on now. Google yesterday dismissed AT&T’s criticism of its conditional pledge to drop at least $4.6 billion on the Federal Communications Commission’s upcoming 700-megahertz spectrum auction, characterizing it as the rhetoric of an oligopolist more interested in monopoly profits than openness and innovation.

In a post to the Google Policy Blog, Richard Whitt–Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel–gutted AT&T’s argument that the search sovereign’s spectrum bid “is an attempt to pressure the U.S. government to turn the auction process on its head by ensuring only a few, if any, bidders will compete with Google.” Google isn’t out to skew the spectrum auction in its favor, said Whitt, it’s out to un-skew it, rejiggering it so it no longer favors incumbent carriers like AT&T who would like nothing more than to continue to operate in a “less than fully competitive” environment.

“Our position is simple enough,” Whitt explained. “FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and the other commissioners have argued persuasively that we need a real third-pipe broadband competitor in this country. They also believe that the upcoming 700 MHz auction is the best way to get there. All we are saying is that, based on what we know, new broadband competition will emerge from the upcoming auction only if the FCC’s rules allow it to happen. For Google, and other potential new entrants, the prevailing imbalance can be corrected most effectively by introducing license conditions based on open platforms. … While Google embraces the kinds of openness and innovation that are the hallmark of the Internet, the incumbents apparently prefer their existing business models. That of course is their prerogative. However, open platforms–specifically, open applications, open devices, open wholesale services and open network access–together make the spectrum more valuable to Google, or any other potential bidder seeking to create innovative, higher-speed, lower-priced offerings.”

Clearly, Google does not intend to “shut up,” as Cicconi suggested it should. But it will “put up” a wireless business given the chance. Perhaps even one created with the help of the smaller carriers being squeezed out of the market by the AT&Ts and Verizons of the world. “We see a lot of companies in this space who we would love to collaborate with,” Google’s Chris Sacca told Bloomberg. “There are a lot of folks who would love to compete.”

Come fall, Google’s lobbying and legislative operations in the nation’s capital will move from Pennsylvania Avenue to quarters much closer to the traditional K Street corridor of lobbying outfits. Not that they really need to–their presence is being felt in a big way even at a distance. To wit, the draft rules for an upcoming auction of wireless radio spectrum currently being circulated by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, which could hand Google its first significant victory in a battle to wrest some control over wireless broadband communications from incumbent telecoms.

It seems Martin is keen on the idea of setting aside some of the auction spectrum for an open wireless platform, something Google’s been pushing for–hard–inside the Beltway. “Whoever wins this spectrum has to provide … truly open broadband network–one that will open the door to a lot of innovative services for consumers,” Martin told USA Today. In practice, he said, “You can use any wireless device and download any mobile broadband application, with no restrictions.”

As you might imagine, Google was more than a little bit pleased to learn that Martin’s considering setting aside a portion of the available spectrum for an “open” network. “There is now potentially positive news coming out of the FCC,” Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel, wrote in a post to the company’s policy blog. “Chairman Kevin Martin apparently is about to circulate proposed auction rules to his fellow commissioners, and we’re hearing through the proverbial grapevine that his proposal includes several of the open-platform conditions we have recommended. If these reports are accurate, we are most encouraged by this favorable development. Obviously we’ll need to see the fine print, but such a proposal would represent a step forward for new, innovative entrants to the broadband market.”

It may well do just that–assuming it’s not strangled in the crib by incumbent telecom carriers first. Which is a distinct possibility given their clout in Washington. “FCC Chairman Martin’s net-neutrality regulation conditions amount to a multibillion corporate-welfare subsidy grant to Google, because the proposed rules apparently are specifically rigged to benefit Google’s Open Internet Coalition,” said Scott Cleland, chairman of Net Competition, a group that represents the telecommunications and cable industries. “If Google or any market player wanted to offer net neutrality/open access over this prime 700 MHz spectrum, Google could compete in the free-market auction, bid the most and offer a net neutrality/open access service. … It is outrageous that the FCC chairman fell for Google’s poverty plea for a de facto auction subsidy and price break that will shortchange the American taxpayer the billions of dollars that a free and open competitive auction would raise.”