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Given the prices we paid in the fully-regulated days before the Ma Bell breakup, I'm not sure that regulation would do much to lower prices. Making all companies operate on the same spectrum would help, though.

I recall some pretty high per-minute long distance charges back in the 1970s that's for sure.

However I recall a bit of info from Consumer Reports back in the late 1990s that was interesting. It was a graph of the cost of phone service and airline travel and one some other industry I cannot recall, plotted against time. For each industry, there was a fairly linear drop in pricing up until the date when the industry was "deregulated", and at that date, there was a deflection point followed by a new linear decrease in pricing. The interesting thing was that the rate of price decrease before the deregulation date was greater than after deregulation. From this data at least, it is not clear that deregulation actually acted to decrease pricing.

A bit of web sleuthing by me at least does not turn up much data one way or another to support this position. I find lots of articles comparing prices before and after deregulation in the phone and airline industries, but no data about the rate of price change.

Oh, maybe this is useful:

Data listed at http://transition.fcc.gov/wcb/iatd/lec.html such as the 2008 book report on pricing at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-284934A1.pdf does show on pg 36, table 2.2 that the US average household expenditure on phone service rose each year from 1980 ($325) through 2006 ($1,087) (from 1.94% of total household expenses to 2.25%). So at least from 1980, telephone costs have been higher. There is also data for consumer price indexes from before 1980 and price for 10 minute calls of various distances (local, medium, coastal, etc.) in some of the earlier publications, such as that for 1997 ( http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/ref97.pdf ).

Thus, while there were undoubtedly many many great benefits from deregulation of various industries, it is not absolutely clear that pricing is significantly lower than it would have been without deregulation in all cases. It is also not completely clear that similar results could not be achieved while maintaining tighter control over business practices that are undesirable for society at large.

Given the prices we paid in the fully-regulated days before the Ma Bell breakup, I'm not sure that regulation would do much to lower prices. Making all companies operate on the same spectrum would help, though.

I recall some pretty high per-minute long distance charges back in the 1970s that's for sure.

However I recall a bit of info from Consumer Reports back in the late 1990s that was interesting. It was a graph of the cost of phone service and airline travel and one some other industry I cannot recall, plotted against time. For each industry, there was a fairly linear drop in pricing up until the date when the industry was "deregulated", and at that date, there was a deflection point followed by a new linear decrease in pricing. The interesting thing was that the rate of price decrease before the deregulation date was greater than after deregulation. From this data at least, it is not clear that deregulation actually acted to decrease pricing.

A bit of web sleuthing by me at least does not turn up much data one way or another to support this position. I find lots of articles comparing prices before and after deregulation in the phone and airline industries, but no data about the rate of price change.

Oh, maybe this is useful:

Data listed at http://transition.fcc.gov/wcb/iatd/lec.html such as the 2008 book report on pricing at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-284934A1.pdf does show on pg 36, table 2.2 that the US average household expenditure on phone service rose each year from 1980 ($325) through 2006 ($1,087) (from 1.94% of total household expenses to 2.25%). So at least from 1980, telephone costs have been higher. There is also data for consumer price indexes from before 1980 and price for 10 minute calls of various distances (local, medium, coastal, etc.) in some of the earlier publications, such as that for 1997 ( http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/ref97.pdf ).

Thus, while there were undoubtedly many many great benefits from deregulation of various industries, it is not absolutely clear that pricing is significantly lower than it would have been without deregulation in all cases. It is also not completely clear that similar results could not be achieved while maintaining tighter control over business practices that are undesirable for society at large.

Given the prices we paid in the fully-regulated days before the Ma Bell breakup, I'm not sure that regulation would do much to lower prices. Making all companies operate on the same spectrum would help, though.

I recall some pretty high per-minute long distance charges back in the 1970s that's for sure.

However I recall a bit of info from Consumer Reports back in the late 1990s that was interesting. It was a graph of the cost of phone service and airline travel and one some other industry I cannot recall, plotted against time. For each industry, there was a fairly linear drop in pricing up until the date when the industry was "deregulated", and at that date, there was a deflection point followed by a new linear decrease in pricing. The interesting thing was that the rate of price decrease before the deregulation date was greater than after deregulation. From this data at least, it is not clear that deregulation actually acted to decrease pricing.

A bit of web sleuthing by me at least does not turn up much data one way or another to support this position. I find lots of articles comparing prices before and after deregulation in the phone and airline industries, but no data about the rate of price change.

Oh, maybe this is useful:

Data listed at http://transition.fcc.gov/wcb/iatd/lec.html such as the 2008 book report on pricing at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-284934A1.pdf does show on pg 36, table 2.2 that the US average household expenditure on phone service rose each year from 1980 ($325) through 2006 ($1,087) (from 1.94% of total household expenses to 2.25%). So at least from 1980, telephone costs have been higher. There is also data for consumer price indexes from before 1980 and price for 10 minute calls of various distances (local, medium, coastal, etc.) in some of the earlier publications, such as that for 1997 ( http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/ref97.pdf ).

Thus, while there were undoubtedly many many great benefits from deregulation of various industries, it is not absolutely clear that pricing is significantly lower than it would have been without deregulation in all cases. It is also not completely clear that similar results could not be achieved while maintaining tighter control over business practices that are undesirable for society at large.

What precisely they are allowed to do is tightly regulated by the Cable and Telecommunications act, specifically the sections governing "Personally Identifiable Information". A brief summer of the act can be found here. Note the following section:

Cable operators generally are prohibited from using their cable systems to collect personally identifiable information concerning any subscriber without the prior written or electronic consent of the subscriber. ... Notice to the subscriber must be in the form of a separate, written statement and must be clear and conspicuous. Notice must also be given at least once every year that the agreed upon service is provided. "Personally identifiable information" does not include any record of aggregate data which does not identify particular persons.

Whether this constitues usage of PII is dubious at best. Indeed you may see other major telcos step in and sue seeing as incorrect usage of this data gives Verizon an unfair market advantage.

The libertarian side of me disagrees with this. Why should the people in the city be subsidizing the lifestyles of the people in the country?

Hmmm, maybe because it might be the right thing to do ? seeing as how the interwebs actually provide a lot of educational content (as well as p0rn, don't ya' know) and that education is to put it mildly, somewhat important to not only the US, but humanity, in general? But what do I know, I AM older than dirt.

It also seems that an old saw might be proven right, as in "A new broom sweeps clean" One can only hope!

It's all public information, should be easy to find out. Namely, FCC antenna registrations for example. Unless it's a nearby ham, but then it should be easy to see in google earth overhead views or from street view if it covers the area.

Three years ago, the FCC defined broadband as 768 kbps down. Two years later, it was changed to at least 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up, which would imply 400 to 500 kB/s downloads.

Actually, the burden of proof here is on you to prove that the FCC can't regulate the ISPs.

As for the subsidies the system was designed by the US government in the beginning and it still gets subsidized by tax dollars. Here's one example. http://wireless.fcc.gov/outreach/index.htm?job=funding

Nothing on broadcast TV is guaranteed a revenue stream.

Broadcast stations are guaranteed carriage on Cable TV systems by law. They get either of a) free carriage or b) paid for carriage. They don't have to pay for carriage or earn subscribers like other stations on Cable TV.

If the advertisers don't think enough people are seeing their ads, they don't advertise. Poof goes the revenue stream. Sometimes in as little as half an hour. One show.

Agreed. But the shows only have to be good enough to earn a marginal profit. They can appeal to the least common denominator and still be guaranteed an audience because nobody has to opt-in to getting the stations. The costs of carriage are either zero or negative, so that doesn't have to figure into the shows' budgets. Put another way, the low-quality shows are subsidized by government mandate.

HBO series are not broadcast TV and fall squarely into the niche cable-package marketing paradigm.

Right. The long-tail is where real variety of programming can exist. It may not be cheaper, but it's better.

I think summary need to be clarified.

The FCC is beginning a test Monday that will give public access to a database to be used to identify frequency bands available. This database will be used to determine what frequencies are available when the 'white spaces' go public.

It's a public test of the database system which white-space equipment must use to determine what channels (current but locally available tv channels, not the former ones above 51, or frequencies between tv/radio channels) are available for use without causing problems.

It's a bit strange that viewing the maps requires Silverlight. Something new shouldn't be using dying tech.

trial site:
http://whitespaces.spectrumbridge.com/Trial.aspx

The F.C.C. blog posting:
http://www.fcc.gov/blog/fcc-announces-public-testing-first-television-white-spaces-database

On 8/8/11 the new FCC rules on cable cards went into effect.

See http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cablecard-know-your-rights for more information

Open cable cards will hopefully set us free. If not, sic the bureaucrats on your cable company.

Miraculously, the cost to rent a card suddenly increased to the price they used to charge for the entire box.

Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but as far as I can tell the new rules say nothing about what the cable companies may charge for the cards; I wouldn't expect to see any reduction on monthly bills for someone renting a card instead of a box.

On 8/8/11 the new FCC rules on cable cards went into effect.

See http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cablecard-know-your-rights for more information

Open cable cards will hopefully set us free. If not, sic the bureaucrats on your cable company.

The FCC already has a ruling on this:
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/digital-cable-compatibility-cablecard-ready-devices

It's kinda like the way it was with telephones. People could own their own but it took literally over a decade before it really caught on. I know you could buy your own phone back in the late 1970's. However, the telcos were making pretty good money off rentals until at least the early 1990's. Lots of people just kept renting.

On the other hand, those old phones were very well engineered and were meant to last decades. You could bludgeon someone with an old bell telephone and then use it to call an ambulance.

"There is NOTHING in the Constitution about freedom of speech that says that you have to assist demonstrators in shutting down your system."

Actually, it's the FCC that has full legal authority regarding cell phone service (and pretty much all wireless communication methods), and its intentional disruption or jamming, and how NO ONE is supposed to be legally allowed to do it. You know why movie theaters can't install cell phone jammers to keep phones in the audience from ringing? The FCC makes it illegal to do so. Remember when the vendors of paid WiFi services in Logan airport wanted to shut down a competing free WiFi service in the terminal, but weren't allowed to do so? That pesky FCC again.

Basically, only the FCC has the legal authority to suspend/disrupt/jam common carrier services. And in fact, the FCC is inviting users who had their services disrupted to register a complaint at http://www.fcc.gov/complaints or call 1-888-CALL-FCC.

So no, it's not the Constitution that protects the protesters' rights to use cell phones, but the FCC prohibits anyone else from interfering with the signals, regardless of the intention.

The Report mentions that data was made available also, so everyone should be able to make their own charts. All I could find so far were a couple of xls files which are not very helpful: http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america/charts

TIC: A couple years ago the Verizon CEO said they don't care about land lines anymore. Perhaps it could be that they are essentially an unregulated monopoly when it comes to cell service where we live. Profit... and how might they make more money, perhaps do away with the POTS lines.
TAC or FCC TECHNOLOGICAL ADVISORY COUNCIL: and get a bunch of other business people with conflicts of interest http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1025/DOC-302376A1.txt who will profit from increased business to tell the govt what is best for them.
TOE: We will hear about this one later. Does anyone remember how Verizon promised to put fiber every where in exchange for being able to get back into the long distance business? And how the delivery of that so called promise doesn't exist, at least not in our county, or any of the surrounding counties. A phase out will be announced with some promises about how great cell and broadband will be, and we will probably just see higher monthly bills...

We lost power for almost two weeks after Hurricane Isabel and cell service was mostly down, cable TV was down and the POTS line worked intermittently. My brother bought a cheap generator and we could use our dialup service while the landline worked. Although only one very old computer and the laptop could take the non standard voltages of our cheap generator... It was about 3 weeks without cabletv, which also is our current ISP. A couple of months ago I tried to call 911 with our cell phone when I saw (likely a drunk driver) a truck driving slowly down a dark road with no lights, and guess what 911 didn't work! My parents are elderly and I have argued with my father for a couple of years now not to get rid of the land line because it is more reliable in an emergency. This is all I need, now he will get rid of the land line and need it for an emergency call...
 

Citation please?

FCC Report and Order 10-201, Adopted Dec. 21, 2010.

Because there are many articles here on /. about how cable and mobile carriers are finding various ways to throttle or discriminate among data and in general act in a non-common-carrier-like fashion, and how they have challenged and opposed attempts at net neutrality rules.

Those actions, for the most part, are the background that motivated the current Report and Order. The rules are adopted but not yet effective because required approval of information collection components associated with the enforcement process has not yet occurred (the public comment period ends August 8, 2011.)

It is true that a previous net neutrality-related order adopted on the basis of different statutory authority was struck down as unauthorized by the authority on which it relied.

Obviously, were this order -- the existence of which is part of the premise of other subsequent FCC broadband actions and proposals, including the one related to PSTN under discussion here -- to be repealed (as some in Congress have already attempted, though they've failed to line up sufficient support) or struck down by the courts (as both Verizon and MetroPCS, and maybe others, have already sought to have done before it went into effect), that would change the landscape with regard to other broadband efforts that build on the framework of broadband access with limits on broadband operators power to constrain legal uses of the network that the Open Internet order sets up.

Rather than parsing a sparse recitation of a press release, people wanting more information could always read the actual document justifying and implementing the new rules:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-11-100A1.pdf

yep, lots of tp-link routers from a major geek-from-an-egg online retailer that have fcc codes that don't match the fcc licensing database. They work more reliably in my experience than the "cisco" home wireless routers do though. I guess the regulatory body labels don't mean much whether they are fake or real anymore. *shrug*

Those fees aren't the mystery fees being described here. Those fees are legal and described in advance.

If you don't get charged the 911 fee, you've got lucky somehow.

These are fees for services you didn't even want or sign up for.

As a slightly different example here, our corporate cell phone bills frequently have charges for calls to our my-5 numbers. We read through the bills every month and call to complain about those. Almost every month they try to bill us for calls that their own service claims are free, which they apologize for on the phone profusely of course.

I might add, I don't understand people who pay their bills without reading them.

I filed an FCC complaint last month regarding AT&T charging for tethering -- basically the same complaint. As expected, the FCC didn't do anything except give my contact information to AT&T so that AT&T could contact me to tell me that my contract basically allows them to impose whatever restrictions they want.

Obviously I realize the contract sucks, which is why I filed the complaint. If I have a 2GB plan, I should be able to do whatever I damn well please with those 2GB of data.

Hopefully this group (and the voices of others) will have more success. You can file a consumer complaint online here: http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints_tcpa.html if you're so inclined, though be aware that the FCC will give out your contact information to your carrier. Also false/anonymous, complaints probably won't help.

FCC says SAR not appropriate to compare.

The reason is that the frequencies cell phones use are below the spectrum of ultraviolet light. It is near the spectrum of ultraviolet light where the first ionizing radiation occurs, which is required to be able to cause cancer. Ionizing means that the energy level of the individual photons of the transmission have enough energy to disturb the molecular structure of live cells. Microwave "radiation" (which has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear radiation) is far within the level of the non-ionizing radiation spectrum, so there is no possibility of it having the energy required to cause cancer.

Cell phones use frequencies around 800 MHz to around 2 GHz or so. 3 GHz has an energy level of about 12.4 ueV; ultraviolet light where the first ionizing radiation is possible is around 124ev -- that's a 10,000,000:1 difference in energy level. Have a look at the energy level chart on the right hand side of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum

or even better, see page 3 of FCC OET Bulletin 56, which is a Q&A on Biological Effects and Potential Hazards of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields:

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet56/oet56e4.pdf

People are also afraid of the cell base stations, because they don't know how safe they actually are. The transmitters for these typically send 20 - 40 watts -- that's all. This is then sent through directional "sectored" antennas that typically have 120 degrees of horizontal beam width and only 6 to 15 degrees of vertical beam width; so the three-dimensional antenna pattern is like a 120 degree slice of a pancake, yielding gain of about 13 dBi. This focusing is where the "gain" of antennas comes from -- by focusing where the energy is transmitted.

In the U.S., the standard for specifically what frequencies and power levels are considered safe is the IEEE C95.1 standard, which is unfortunately not freely available, however there's a an overview here: http://www.interferencetechnology.com/uploads/media/AG_07.pdf

This standard is incredibly long to read, but boils down to this: the only proven effect of microwave radiation in 60 years of research is the effect of microwave heating. No cancer. Further than that, the standard narrows down to the power levels that are safe for various frequency regions concerning microwave heating.

But if you really want something to "bite your teeth on", have a look at the international ICNIRP guidelines: http://www.icnirp.de/documents/emfgdl.pdf

Now, if you go through the MATH of how close you have to be to the antennas of a cell tower for it to be "unsafe", the result is pretty interesting:

Spec limit for human-absorbed power per IEEE C95-1 at 900 MHz: 50 Watts/m^2
13 dBi gain = gain of 20
EIRP = 20 W transmitted power * gain of 20 = 400 W
400 W / 4*pi*R^2 = 50 W/m^2
R = 0.636 meters
0.636 meters = 2.09 feet

So at 900 MHz and with a typical transmit power of 20 Watts and a sectored antenna with 13 dBi gain, you need to be 2 feet in front of the antenna while it's transmitting for it to be considered unsafe. This means the only way it's unsafe for a human being is if they're not only on the tower, but right in front of the antenna while it's operating at full power.

The cell phones themselves have a limit on how much power they are allowed to transmit. There are different power limits in various countries; in the U.S. the limit is 1.6 W/kg SAR, in Canada I believe the limit is 10 W/kg SAR. SAR stands for "Specific Absorption Rate". What you really want to know is "what SAR power level is unsafe?", and the answer is that in lab t

Cell phones cannot cause cancer.

The reason is that the frequencies cell phones use are below the spectrum of ultraviolet light. It is near the spectrum of ultraviolet light where the first ionizing radiation occurs, which is required to be able to cause cancer. Ionizing means that the energy level of the individual photons of the transmission have enough energy to disturb the molecular structure of live cells. Microwave "radiation" (which has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear radiation) is far within the level of the non-ionizing radiation spectrum, so there is no possibility of it having the energy required to cause cancer.

Cell phones use frequencies around 800 MHz to around 2 GHz or so. 3 GHz has an energy level of about 12.4 ueV; ultraviolet light where the first ionizing radiation is possible is around 124ev -- that's a 10 million to one difference in energy level. Have a look at the energy level chart on the right hand side of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum

or even better, see page 3 of FCC OET Bulletin 56, which is a Q&A on Biological Effects and Potential Hazards of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields:

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet56/oet56e4.pdf

People are also afraid of the cell base stations, because they don't know how safe they actually are. The transmitters for these typically send 20 - 40 watts -- that's all. This is then sent through directional "sectored" antennas that typically have 120 degrees of horizontal beam width and only 6 to 15 degrees of vertical beam width; so the three-dimensional antenna pattern is like a 120 degree slice of a pancake, yielding gain of about 13 dBi. This focusing is where the "gain" of antennas comes from -- by focusing where the energy is transmitted.

In the U.S., the standard for specifically what frequencies and power levels are considered safe is the IEEE C95.1 standard, which is unfortunately not freely available, however there's a an overview here: http://www.interferencetechnology.com/uploads/media/AG_07.pdf

This standard is incredibly long to read, but boils down to this: the only proven effect of microwave radiation in 60 years of research is the effect of microwave heating. No cancer. Further than that, the standard narrows down to the power levels that are safe for various frequency regions concerning microwave heating.

But if you really want something to "bite your teeth on", have a look at the international ICNIRP guidelines: http://www.icnirp.de/documents/emfgdl.pdf

Now, if you go through the MATH of how close you have to be to the antennas of a cell tower for it to be "unsafe", the result is pretty interesting:

Spec limit for human-absorbed power per IEEE C95-1 at 900 MHz: 50 Watts/m^2
13 dBi gain = gain of 20
EIRP = 20 W transmitted power * gain of 20 = 400 W
400 W / 4*pi*R^2 = 50 W/m^2
R = 0.636 meters
0.636 meters = 2.09 feet

So at 900 MHz and with a typical transmit power of 20 Watts and a sectored antenna with 13 dBi gain, you need to be 2 feet in front of the antenna while it's transmitting for it to be considered unsafe. This means the only way it's unsafe for a human being is if they're not only on the tower, but right in front of the antenna while it's operating at full power.

The cell phones themselves have a limit on how much power they are allowed to transmit. There are different power limits in various countries; in the U.S. the limit is 1.6 W/kg SAR, in Canada I believe t

One thing about the HOA. By federal law they cannot prevent you from putting up an antnenna except in special circumstances. Here is a link http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html

...shouldn't the government step in and make sure you get what they feel you REALLY need to see.?

They're working on it

The FCC is an independent government agency which is not part of the executive branch and is largely independent of presidential control.

Actually all broadcast stations MUST transmit on-air required weekly test and must re-broadcast on-air required monthly EAS tests they receive from upstream.

Weekly tests can be audio-only though, but the required monthly test must include video information about the test message.

Your radio station was breaking the law. For example, here is a station that was not re-transmitting the required monthly tests: http://www.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/2003/DOC-305160A1.html

It you want to say TV isn't a failure, then cut off CAFR funding for it. Cut off Obama's giveaway to the networks. Let's have the FCC panel made up of engineers who the public votes in, not the one's the POTUS appoints. Today you have to get your daily dose of propaganda BS along with your local news (which could possibly warn if a tsunami is on the way) what a nasty trade off, listening to how jobs are so good, and the economy is recovering, and OBL shot and dumped at sea, just to try to know if the rain might have nuclear fallout or if some earthquake has a 100' wave headed your way. Let us not forget the switch to DTV which sucks more money people don't have. Plus when it's really windy from the haarp technology mucking with the weather, the DTV packets break up. Where in analog, it was just snow and noise, now it's BSOD (black screen of death)

Ya want to talk about the telcos? Start with NSA fios splitters, move on to wiretaps, spying, and all the rest of the crap. You couldn't GIVE me a mobile phone.

You want to talk about the internet and law? Miserable failure. *.AA , DMCA, streaming stations, copyright/patent trolls, SEO blackhats, the intelligence community spying, Chamber of Commerce, facebook. You can't look me in the eye and tell me that's not a failure for the US Constitution which is now intermittent.

When the monetary system financial terrorism come to fruition and mark to market is realized and the funding sources are added up, and the financial terrorists are prosecuted, these technologies will be a failure. It's just that it isn't measured this way currently because of the corruption and payola.

Watch: sock puppet / trolls will vote this message off the radar they don't like the truth.

Not a single mention of the National Association of Broadcasters, who represent the people who own the broadcast television stations throughout the US? Do you really think CBS is going to abandon its hundreds of affiliate stations, not to mention its owned-and-operated stations in major markets, to funnel TV programming to XBox users? The broadcasters have fought many battles with cable television operators over, first, the "must-carry" rules, then later "retransmission consent."

Slashdot commentators continue their tradition of ignoring the decades of industrial relationships that govern the television and other entertainment industries and focus only on the, often irrelevant, technological details.

First of all, love your sig line, and it's likely prophetic. Also, fair point on the Canadian regulation being from an extra-governmental authority.

My point isn't that net neutrality == the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine is just one example of what you get when Washington starts seeing itself as being in charge of "communications." Besides, it's not like you can't find people advocating for some sort of mechanism to "balance" or "improve" (by fiat) the political discourse on the `net. The more real threat, though, is that we'll see policing over IP infringement and obscenity (especially regarding its availability to minors).

When it comes to regulating any industry, once you let that camel's nose into the tent, it tends to work its way further in. "Preserving competition" turns into subtle (or not-so-subtle) price controls, and propping up failing competitors. Hell, the FCC is already considering a price control scheme in the wireless sector (not that it's clear it has the authority to impose this). An item on the linked meeting agenda is:

TITLE: Reexamination of Roaming Obligations of Commercial Mobile Radio Service Providers and Other Providers of Mobile Data Services (WT Docket No. 05-265) SUMMARY: The Commission will consider a Second Report and Order that adopts a rule requiring facilities-based providers of commercial mobile data services to offer data roaming arrangements to other such providers on commercially reasonable terms and conditions, subject to certain limitations.

Price controls have repeatedly been shown to create scarcity and raise entry barriers for would-be competitors. You mentioned airline regulation earlier, and that's a great example: We used to treat airline routes as a commons, and the Civil Aeronautics Board actually controlled routes, airfares, and even entry into the marketplace by new airlines. Since deregulation, airfare prices have fallen over 40% in real terms. Safety and convenience have increased dramatically as well (ok, except for all the TSA BS on the convenience score). Death risk during air travel has dropped dramatically since 1978, partially because the increased market has caused airlines to turn their fleets over faster, resulting in newer average aircraft ages.

In short, past experience suggests that a rich, unrestrained market with low entry barriers is the best way to foster rising quality and falling prices. If the government really wants to ensure quality service, it could invest in large, common, shared wiring routes (shielded digital pipelines) that could be leased by anyone with no discrimination whatsoever in price or access. Municipalities could connect to them on the condition that there was no grant of monopoly or preferential access to any service provider. Our power grid needs expansion (especially if we expect electric cars to gain market share), the backbones could sure use it, and if sufficiently built out it could do a lot to break up the oligopoly that would let ISPs get away with consumer-hostile forms of throttling in the first place.

Searching for the FCC's charter turns up no apparent hits. Searching more specifically turns up what seem to be charters produced by various committees within the FCC, as opposed to something covering the FCC as a whole. This page seems to be the most relevant listing of charters and regulations, but again nothing seems to cover the whole FCC, aside possibly from the extremely dense FCC Rules and Regulations links list.

There are a few pages on the FCC site that touch on the internet and the FCC's regulatory role, which mostly just say the FCC doesn't regulate the internet or ISPs, with no explanation for why. Other pages like this one describe future goals of the FCC with regard to specific sub-areas of internet policy.

In the admittedly brief bit of searching I've done so far, though, I can find nothing that either resembles an overall charter for the FCC as a whole, or that lays out the FCC's regulatory scope with explanations for why things are or are not included therein.

According to the About the Federal Communications Commission page on the FCC's site:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.

... and the Internet Policy Working Group intro page:

The Working Group will assist the Commission in identifying, evaluating and addressing policy issues that will arise as telecommunications services move to Internet-based platforms.

From these, I find myself still puzzled as to why the FCC can and does regulate telecom companies, preventing them from engaging in any traffic-slowing, redirecting, filtering, throttling, or other technical hobbling of competing services, and yet this same FCC is not allowed to similarly regulate ISPs.

I do find an explanation in the sleight-of-hand committed in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which classified ISPs as providing "information services" instead of "telecommunications services" (some background here), apparently formalizing some of the FCC's policies to protect little-guy ISPs from big-guy telecoms (more here). This Act seems to have been based on 1) the understanding of the internet at the time, given the early date and the non-technical backgrounds of pretty much anyone in Congress then, and 2) business interests that were very keen to not have to play by the stricter rules applied to telecoms.

While this may have had the intended effect of protecting the little guy and incentivizing innovation in internet services, the rise of media conglomerates that have been allowed to buy up everything from content production through to online delivery services despite the clear and present conflicts of interest, and that have since begun to see what kinds of anti-competitive behavior they can get away with, strongly suggests that this distinction between "telecommunication service" and "information service" might need revisiting -- or at the very least that the FCC (or some other entity) should rework the ways in which these "information services" are regulated.

Cheers,

Searching for the FCC's charter turns up no apparent hits. Searching more specifically turns up what seem to be charters produced by various committees within the FCC, as opposed to something covering the FCC as a whole. This page seems to be the most relevant listing of charters and regulations, but again nothing seems to cover the whole FCC, aside possibly from the extremely dense FCC Rules and Regulations links list.

There are a few pages on the FCC site that touch on the internet and the FCC's regulatory role, which mostly just say the FCC doesn't regulate the internet or ISPs, with no explanation for why. Other pages like this one describe future goals of the FCC with regard to specific sub-areas of internet policy.

In the admittedly brief bit of searching I've done so far, though, I can find nothing that either resembles an overall charter for the FCC as a whole, or that lays out the FCC's regulatory scope with explanations for why things are or are not included therein.

According to the About the Federal Communications Commission page on the FCC's site:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.

... and the Internet Policy Working Group intro page:

The Working Group will assist the Commission in identifying, evaluating and addressing policy issues that will arise as telecommunications services move to Internet-based platforms.

From these, I find myself still puzzled as to why the FCC can and does regulate telecom companies, preventing them from engaging in any traffic-slowing, redirecting, filtering, throttling, or other technical hobbling of competing services, and yet this same FCC is not allowed to similarly regulate ISPs.

I do find an explanation in the sleight-of-hand committed in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which classified ISPs as providing "information services" instead of "telecommunications services" (some background here), apparently formalizing some of the FCC's policies to protect little-guy ISPs from big-guy telecoms (more here). This Act seems to have been based on 1) the understanding of the internet at the time, given the early date and the non-technical backgrounds of pretty much anyone in Congress then, and 2) business interests that were very keen to not have to play by the stricter rules applied to telecoms.

While this may have had the intended effect of protecting the little guy and incentivizing innovation in internet services, the rise of media conglomerates that have been allowed to buy up everything from content production through to online delivery services despite the clear and present conflicts of interest, and that have since begun to see what kinds of anti-competitive behavior they can get away with, strongly suggests that this distinction between "telecommunication service" and "information service" might need revisiting -- or at the very least that the FCC (or some other entity) should rework the ways in which these "information services" are regulated.

Cheers,

Searching for the FCC's charter turns up no apparent hits. Searching more specifically turns up what seem to be charters produced by various committees within the FCC, as opposed to something covering the FCC as a whole. This page seems to be the most relevant listing of charters and regulations, but again nothing seems to cover the whole FCC, aside possibly from the extremely dense FCC Rules and Regulations links list.

There are a few pages on the FCC site that touch on the internet and the FCC's regulatory role, which mostly just say the FCC doesn't regulate the internet or ISPs, with no explanation for why. Other pages like this one describe future goals of the FCC with regard to specific sub-areas of internet policy.

In the admittedly brief bit of searching I've done so far, though, I can find nothing that either resembles an overall charter for the FCC as a whole, or that lays out the FCC's regulatory scope with explanations for why things are or are not included therein.

According to the About the Federal Communications Commission page on the FCC's site:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.

... and the Internet Policy Working Group intro page:

The Working Group will assist the Commission in identifying, evaluating and addressing policy issues that will arise as telecommunications services move to Internet-based platforms.

From these, I find myself still puzzled as to why the FCC can and does regulate telecom companies, preventing them from engaging in any traffic-slowing, redirecting, filtering, throttling, or other technical hobbling of competing services, and yet this same FCC is not allowed to similarly regulate ISPs.

I do find an explanation in the sleight-of-hand committed in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which classified ISPs as providing "information services" instead of "telecommunications services" (some background here), apparently formalizing some of the FCC's policies to protect little-guy ISPs from big-guy telecoms (more here). This Act seems to have been based on 1) the understanding of the internet at the time, given the early date and the non-technical backgrounds of pretty much anyone in Congress then, and 2) business interests that were very keen to not have to play by the stricter rules applied to telecoms.

While this may have had the intended effect of protecting the little guy and incentivizing innovation in internet services, the rise of media conglomerates that have been allowed to buy up everything from content production through to online delivery services despite the clear and present conflicts of interest, and that have since begun to see what kinds of anti-competitive behavior they can get away with, strongly suggests that this distinction between "telecommunication service" and "information service" might need revisiting -- or at the very least that the FCC (or some other entity) should rework the ways in which these "information services" are regulated.

Cheers,

Searching for the FCC's charter turns up no apparent hits. Searching more specifically turns up what seem to be charters produced by various committees within the FCC, as opposed to something covering the FCC as a whole. This page seems to be the most relevant listing of charters and regulations, but again nothing seems to cover the whole FCC, aside possibly from the extremely dense FCC Rules and Regulations links list.

There are a few pages on the FCC site that touch on the internet and the FCC's regulatory role, which mostly just say the FCC doesn't regulate the internet or ISPs, with no explanation for why. Other pages like this one describe future goals of the FCC with regard to specific sub-areas of internet policy.

In the admittedly brief bit of searching I've done so far, though, I can find nothing that either resembles an overall charter for the FCC as a whole, or that lays out the FCC's regulatory scope with explanations for why things are or are not included therein.

According to the About the Federal Communications Commission page on the FCC's site:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.

... and the Internet Policy Working Group intro page:

The Working Group will assist the Commission in identifying, evaluating and addressing policy issues that will arise as telecommunications services move to Internet-based platforms.

From these, I find myself still puzzled as to why the FCC can and does regulate telecom companies, preventing them from engaging in any traffic-slowing, redirecting, filtering, throttling, or other technical hobbling of competing services, and yet this same FCC is not allowed to similarly regulate ISPs.

I do find an explanation in the sleight-of-hand committed in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which classified ISPs as providing "information services" instead of "telecommunications services" (some background here), apparently formalizing some of the FCC's policies to protect little-guy ISPs from big-guy telecoms (more here). This Act seems to have been based on 1) the understanding of the internet at the time, given the early date and the non-technical backgrounds of pretty much anyone in Congress then, and 2) business interests that were very keen to not have to play by the stricter rules applied to telecoms.

While this may have had the intended effect of protecting the little guy and incentivizing innovation in internet services, the rise of media conglomerates that have been allowed to buy up everything from content production through to online delivery services despite the clear and present conflicts of interest, and that have since begun to see what kinds of anti-competitive behavior they can get away with, strongly suggests that this distinction between "telecommunication service" and "information service" might need revisiting -- or at the very least that the FCC (or some other entity) should rework the ways in which these "information services" are regulated.

Cheers,

Searching for the FCC's charter turns up no apparent hits. Searching more specifically turns up what seem to be charters produced by various committees within the FCC, as opposed to something covering the FCC as a whole. This page seems to be the most relevant listing of charters and regulations, but again nothing seems to cover the whole FCC, aside possibly from the extremely dense FCC Rules and Regulations links list.

There are a few pages on the FCC site that touch on the internet and the FCC's regulatory role, which mostly just say the FCC doesn't regulate the internet or ISPs, with no explanation for why. Other pages like this one describe future goals of the FCC with regard to specific sub-areas of internet policy.

In the admittedly brief bit of searching I've done so far, though, I can find nothing that either resembles an overall charter for the FCC as a whole, or that lays out the FCC's regulatory scope with explanations for why things are or are not included therein.

According to the About the Federal Communications Commission page on the FCC's site:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.

... and the Internet Policy Working Group intro page:

The Working Group will assist the Commission in identifying, evaluating and addressing policy issues that will arise as telecommunications services move to Internet-based platforms.

From these, I find myself still puzzled as to why the FCC can and does regulate telecom companies, preventing them from engaging in any traffic-slowing, redirecting, filtering, throttling, or other technical hobbling of competing services, and yet this same FCC is not allowed to similarly regulate ISPs.

I do find an explanation in the sleight-of-hand committed in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which classified ISPs as providing "information services" instead of "telecommunications services" (some background here), apparently formalizing some of the FCC's policies to protect little-guy ISPs from big-guy telecoms (more here). This Act seems to have been based on 1) the understanding of the internet at the time, given the early date and the non-technical backgrounds of pretty much anyone in Congress then, and 2) business interests that were very keen to not have to play by the stricter rules applied to telecoms.

While this may have had the intended effect of protecting the little guy and incentivizing innovation in internet services, the rise of media conglomerates that have been allowed to buy up everything from content production through to online delivery services despite the clear and present conflicts of interest, and that have since begun to see what kinds of anti-competitive behavior they can get away with, strongly suggests that this distinction between "telecommunication service" and "information service" might need revisiting -- or at the very least that the FCC (or some other entity) should rework the ways in which these "information services" are regulated.

Cheers,

Searching for the FCC's charter turns up no apparent hits. Searching more specifically turns up what seem to be charters produced by various committees within the FCC, as opposed to something covering the FCC as a whole. This page seems to be the most relevant listing of charters and regulations, but again nothing seems to cover the whole FCC, aside possibly from the extremely dense FCC Rules and Regulations links list.

There are a few pages on the FCC site that touch on the internet and the FCC's regulatory role, which mostly just say the FCC doesn't regulate the internet or ISPs, with no explanation for why. Other pages like this one describe future goals of the FCC with regard to specific sub-areas of internet policy.

In the admittedly brief bit of searching I've done so far, though, I can find nothing that either resembles an overall charter for the FCC as a whole, or that lays out the FCC's regulatory scope with explanations for why things are or are not included therein.

According to the About the Federal Communications Commission page on the FCC's site:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.

... and the Internet Policy Working Group intro page:

The Working Group will assist the Commission in identifying, evaluating and addressing policy issues that will arise as telecommunications services move to Internet-based platforms.

From these, I find myself still puzzled as to why the FCC can and does regulate telecom companies, preventing them from engaging in any traffic-slowing, redirecting, filtering, throttling, or other technical hobbling of competing services, and yet this same FCC is not allowed to similarly regulate ISPs.

I do find an explanation in the sleight-of-hand committed in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which classified ISPs as providing "information services" instead of "telecommunications services" (some background here), apparently formalizing some of the FCC's policies to protect little-guy ISPs from big-guy telecoms (more here). This Act seems to have been based on 1) the understanding of the internet at the time, given the early date and the non-technical backgrounds of pretty much anyone in Congress then, and 2) business interests that were very keen to not have to play by the stricter rules applied to telecoms.

While this may have had the intended effect of protecting the little guy and incentivizing innovation in internet services, the rise of media conglomerates that have been allowed to buy up everything from content production through to online delivery services despite the clear and present conflicts of interest, and that have since begun to see what kinds of anti-competitive behavior they can get away with, strongly suggests that this distinction between "telecommunication service" and "information service" might need revisiting -- or at the very least that the FCC (or some other entity) should rework the ways in which these "information services" are regulated.

Cheers,

So this leaves me wondering what happened to the http://reboot.fcc.gov/ initiative announced back in January which was built using Liferay ( http://www.liferay.com/ )

Microsoft has been in this space for years. They, for example, contributed to the original FCC TV white space trials in 2008 (see the February and March entries).

So quit whining on ./ and send email to the FCC. Don't forget to include name address, and phone #.

Include hard numbers, quoting rate plans and service levels.

http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html

Not really... At least not on the part of Time Warner, or not intentionally anyway.

Once the broadcasters got word of what they were offering, they told TW to pull it as they do not believe that this is covered under their current carriage agreement (the contract that lets a cable operator show content from a broadcaster http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/cblbdcst.html).

FRS is closer to 460 MHz. Article is talking about 420-440 MHz.

On a completely different note, the 420-430 range can't be used near the Canadian boarder(By International Treaty) since it is apparently licensed to someone else up there. (How close is too close? Look at the Line A and Line C stuff on the FCC's site. The "canline.html" link near the bottom of that page has a little idea map)

The calls were dropped because the trunks (over which calls flow) were disabled in software. Nothing to do with "rain fade" or some abstract wireless issue.

Interesting. Completely unacceptable. Not at all clear from the Bloomsberg article. I wish posters would link to something which had a link back to the the original article. This was a big hassle to find.

Looking at it, something is deeply wrong here. Clearly the operations staff completely missed what should be a big bunch of serious alarms over a period of about five hours!!! Even more, Verizon's network people don't seem to be able to give a clear answer about what went wrong (though at a guess the measured BER on the trunks went up because they were properly in use for the first time - which shows incomplete testing, long term ignoring alarms and a switch system which measures BER badly). If this were in another country and the FCC wasn't so afraid of the operators then I guess that they would be at serious risk of losing their operator license. What's sad is that we used to hear of the US as the place where you couldn't have more than a five minute outage without a government investigation.

This has everything to do with Verizon.

This is only tangentially related to wireless, as it has nothing to do with the actual cell network. The problem was the trunk lines (which handle ALL wireless traffic, from every carrier, not just Verizon wireless) which handled wireless traffic (they have separate sets of trunks for wireless and landline) to the Montgomery County Public Safety Answering Point (The centre that handles all 911 calls for that area) all went down in some kind of cascade failure (One went down at 5:15pm, then by 8:45pm, all 14 were down) and Verizon was unaware of the outage until employees at the centre there clued in and alerted Verizon at 11:00pm, then they got them working again by 11:15pm.

This same problem could have just as easily knocked over the trunk lines handling landline calls.

You can get all the info here (1.1MB PDF warning)

Inactive telephones

In the U.S., FCC rules require every telephone that can access the network to be able to dial 9-1-1, regardless of any reason that normal service may have been disconnected (including non-payment) (This only applies to states with a Do Not Disconnect policy in place. Those states must provide a "soft" dial tone service, details can be found at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/pntris99.pdf)

if you read the PDF you see that the states without Do Not Disconnect policies outnumber the ones with them 32 to 18.

http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0218/DA-11-328A1.pdf

Kathleen M. Grub
Senior Vice President
Public Affairs, Policy & Communications
Verizon Communications
1300 I St. NW, Room 400W
Washington, DC USA 20005

Re: Failed 9-1-1 Calls During January 26, 2011 Snowstorm

Dear Ms. Grub,
The FCC has received reports that during the snowstorm that hit the Washington D.C. region on January 26, 2011, approximately 8,300 wireless
9-1-1 calls to the Montgomery County Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), routed over the Verizon network, were not connected, and an additional 1,700
wireless calls to the Prince George's County PSAP were not connected. I know that you will agree that any 9-1-1 call which is not connected can have serious
consequences, but the large number of missed 9-1-1 calls on January 26 is truly alarming. I therefore request that Verizon provide an explanation of the causes
of this and similar failures, provide Verizon's assessment of the possibility of occurrence in other locations and describe what actions Verizon is taking to
prevent recurrence of these problems.

Here is a synopsis of what we understand so far. Through our initial discussions with various parties, including representatives of Verizon, we have
learned that the Montgomery County PSAP has fourteen trunks that handle wireless calls, seven each from the Rockville and Hyattsville Selective Routers.
The trunks from these Selective Routers to the PSAPs are maintained by Verizon (not Verizon Wireless), and there are separate trunks for wireline, wireless and
VoIP calls. At approximately 5:15 p.m. on January 26, Verizon's system automatically took one of the wireless 9-1-1 trunks out of service. It is our
understanding that this was not an overload. We understand that it is normal in large-scale emergencies for the call volume to exceed the trunk capacity, in
which case calls will be blocked until another trunk opens up. In this instance, however, the Verizon system took each of the fourteen trunks handling wireless
calls out of service sequentially so that they could not receive any more calls. By 8:45 p.m., the problem had cascaded to the other thirteen 9-1-1 trunks handling
wireless calls, so that all of the trunks handling wireless 9-1-1 traffic in Montgomery County were taken out of service by the system.

These trunks have working alarms, but Verizon did not notify the PSAPs of the failure after the alarms went off. The Montgomery County PSAP
recognized the problem just prior to 11:00 p.m. and notified Verizon. By 11:15 p.m., Verizon had placed all the trunks back into service.

Similarly, eight of the ten trunks that serve wireless calls for the Prince George's County PSAP were taken out of service automatically by Verizon on
January 26 by approximately 8:30 p.m. A ninth trunk was taken out shortly thereafter. Four were restored by 10:30 p.m.; all trunks were finally restored by
approximately 11:00 p.m.

It is not clear what caused these individual trunks to be taken out of service. Your experts have postulated that the increased call volume resulting
from the snowstorm created a timing problem on the trunks which caused them to be automatically taken out of service. However, the Private Branch Exchange
(PBX) in the Montgomery County PSAP is a relatively new CS1000E, which has the speed and capacity to handle the number of calls that were being routed.
The Prince George's County PSAP's PBX is older, but since the PBX has fewer trunks connected to it, the PBX should be able handle the call volume. The slow
response of the PBX's does not appear to be the cause of the failures.

I would note that the events of January 26 are not unique and that other similar 9-1-1 outages have occurred recently in the region. On December 17th,
2010, the Prince George's County PSAP and on July 25, 2010, the Montgomery County PSAP exper

Try it.

Lines without service in the USA by law have tone and will dial 911 or let you order service. If you dial any other number it tells you that you do not have service and asks if you would like to get it.

The wikipedia article covers it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-1-1

The FCC rule can be found
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/pntris99.pdf

Well, since most ISPs also use FCC rules in order to convey their Internet services over public and private rights of way (riding along with services which are indisputably covered by FCC regulation, such as cable TV and telephone) without cost, the ISPs are caught in a dilemma - if the FCC can't regulate the Internet, then the ISPs will have to negotiate with a million different local government and private entities in order to carry Internet services over those rights of way. Somehow, I think they would like that even less.

Rule 1: Transparency
A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service shall publicly disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of its broadband Internet access services sufficient for consumers to make informed choices regarding use of such services and for content, application, service, and device providers to develop, market, and maintain Internet offerings.
Rule 2: No Blocking
A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.
A person engaged in the provision of mobile broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block consumers from accessing lawful websites, subject to reasonable network management; nor shall such person block applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services, subject to reasonable network management. Rule 3: No Unreasonable Discrimination
A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access service. Reasonable network management shall not constitute unreasonable discrimination.

He just wants to make sure we're all connected. You'll actually get to pay to hear from him.