Ask FCC Chief Technologist David J. Farber

Professor David J. Farber, a true Internet pioneer, has been featured on many of the "100 most important people online" and "visionaries to watch" lists that trendwatchers like to put out, started the famous Interesting-People e-mail list, and was an expert witness in the Microsoft antitrust trial. In real life, he's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, but since January 2000 he has served as the FCC's Chief Technologist, a position that usually carries a one-year tenure, which means he may be leaving (literally) at any moment. What to ask? Up to you. Take a look at the linked pages first, then post questions below (one per post, please). We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated ones tomorrow, and publish Prof. Farber's answers as soon as he gets them back to us.

Comments

FCC approval of AOL-TW

[AntiNorm]

Being that you are with one of the government agencies that oversees this sort of thing (the communication aspect of it, anyway), what is your position on the merger of America Online and Time Warner? Do you think it will be too powerful? Too large? And also, what will be done if it uses its quasi-monopolistic position in what is deemed to be an unfair manner?

---
Check in...OK! Check out...OK!

Low power community radio...when?

[ktakki]

Over the last few years the broadcast spectrum has been a battleground, between low-power FM broadcasters trying to serve the community and commercial broadcasters who are beholden to their advertisers. Invariably, the FCC comes down hard on the "pirates", making me wonder if the public trust has been misplaced and if the public interest is being served.

My question is this: what steps is the FCC taking to resolve this situation? Or is it a moot point now that the Republicans control all three branches of government? Will the broadcast spectrum be exploited for maximum commercial gain like drilling for oil in a wildlife preserve? Or is there indeed a legal niche that can be carved for low-power broadcasters serving communities that the commercial broadcasters ignore?

k., trying hard not to be too dogmatic.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank

The future of communications in the US.

[war2k1]

In the past, the FCC has regulated what constitutes a relatively minor part of the American Experience (tm). When I say minor I am comparing telephone, telegraph and radio transmissions to things like National Security, Defense, Education, the Envrionment, Housing, etc. All of these things have a 'Secretary of' and the FCC, as yet, does not. The arenas (namely the internet) in which the FCC operates are becoming more central to American life every day. The internet will (or does) need an advocate in government, to shepard (for lack of a better word) its growth throughout this century. Also, the net faces unique challanges since it does not fall under the jurisdiction of any one country, and as such, is an internation resource. Given all this, do you think it is likely that a president in the near future will create a Department of Information, or rather a department whose job it is to regulate, safeguard, and develop the resources of our national communications medium?

FCC and Copy Protection

[sterno]

It seems that the FCC's requirement that broadcasters move to the new digital standard may have an unintended consquence. The consequence is that digital formats offer greater possibility to control/eliminate the ability to copy and time shift materials produced by broadcasters (abilities that have overall lead to the creation of new services and increased consumer choice).

Being that the FCC is a government agency, deriving it's mandate from the citizens, what do you see as the FCC's role in preserving the rights of consumers to copy and time shift broadcasted materials? How do you envision the interaction between the media, the broadcasters, and the viewers in a future where analog is no longer an option?

---

Copyright & Big Money

[PureFiction]

I want to know what your view on the copyright wars of late might be.

Specifically, the FCC passed a law prohibiting the recording of HDTV digital content. Do you feel that this is a violation of the home audio recording act/betamax decision?

Does the FCC have any interest in large media corporations planning systems to prohibit time shifting of broadcast context? (unrecordable music / tv / etc)

Thanks...

If HDTV is the answer, what is the question?

[Jay Maynard]

In a few short years, trillions of dollars of equipment - and at least that much in prerecorded viewing materials already in place - will be obsoleted by what seems to be a totally arbitrary decision to replace it all with incompatible HDTV systems. My question is simple: Why? What do I get out of the deal? Why should I spend thousands of dollars for what will be at best a limited return?

This change seems to benefit nobody but the manufacturers of TV receivers and other consumer equipment. For the consumer, HDTV is an answer in search of a question.
--

Pressures on the FCC

[MillMan]

Where does the pressure come from? The "best interests" of society are typically different than what corporations want or need to stay profitable. Does it come from lobbyist groups, politicians who have large financial backing, or somewhere else? Since the stance of the EFF in my opinion is far different than what the FCC usually does (the "donation" of the HDTV frequency spectrum comes to mind), how do you deal with this? And do you have the power to push through policies that the EFF would favor?

DSL desperately needs to be regulated by the FCC.

[AFCArchvile]

Right now, Verizon, the largest local telephone company in the country (and therefore the largest owner and operator of the central offices which handle DSL traffic) is cheating DSL customers out of bandwidth. Right now, my Covad ADSL connection rated at 608kbps/128kbps performs at 108/109. Furthermore, as reported in this DSLReports article, Verizon is closing down its DSL Call Center on March 31. This center "employs over 500 people in DSL sales, customer care, and technical support," and yet Verizon still runs away from its disgruntled customers like a scared horse. CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers) which use Verizon's central offices to serve their customers, have reported that Verizon shuts off data pipelines and feigns equipment failures as an anti-competitive measure (one such "Denial of Service" attack was reported by 2600.com, whose website was effectively shut out by Verizon, whose technicians bumbled about like drunkards, leaving 2600.com in the dark for four days [in that time, they missed a debate with Jack Valenti at Harvard, and their Internet store experienced massive lost revenues]).

In closing, this is my question to David Farber: When will the FCC begin strict regulation of Digital Subscriber Lines? And when will Verizon be held accountable for their nefarious acts?
(Recently, a class action suit against Verizon was initiated on behalf of Verizon DSL customers)

Radio stations

[MetalHead]

The relaxed rules on how many radio stations a single entity may own in a given market have, in my opinion lead to a severe decline in the quality of programming available on radio. For example, take a look at this page to see the
radio stations owned by Clearchannel Communications:

http://www.clearchannel.com/corpoffices.htm#radi o

They own a terrifying number of radio stations, and the programming quality is suffering. The stations do not have to compete in many markets because Clearchannel has an effective monopoly in many markets.

The airwaves, a public resource, are being abused by this mega-corporation.

What are you going to do to fix this mess?

DLEC and DSL ISP meltdown

[Zigurd]

In theory, the Telecom Act of 1996 sets up a competitive multi-vendor environment. In theory, I should have my pick of DSL ISPs and wholesalers. In fact, the DLECs have been dropping like flies, soon to leave only the ILECs (Baby Bells) standing. Which would not be a problem if the big ILECs had better service. But service complaints against incumbents are still very high.

The Common Carrier Bureau's industry analysis reports show excellent growth in CLEC line count, but the recent bankruptcies among DLECs indicates a serious rupture in competitive markets. What should the new administration do to keep telecom markets open to choice among carriers that compete on the basis of excellent products and support?

Specifically, should telecom competition be separated from the ownership and maintenance of last-mile facilities? Should every carrier be a CLEC?

Are closed protocols a threat to our freedoms?

[small_dick]

There was a time when the FCC used the law to make sure there was a plurality of news and information sources available to the public, from a variety of platforms (paper, radio, TV) and a variety of vendors.

Presumably, this was to prevent any single entity from controlling the media (and therefore public opinion) the way Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini did before WWII.

Given the Microsoft proprietary strategies for information exchange (Exchange, .net), as well as the AOL/TW merger, does anyone care about the problems with concentrated media anymore, or has America just decided "it can't happen here"?

After all, the FCC regulated signalling and protocols between TVs, radios, and broadcasters for ages...it was all specified and open...yet the FCC appears to have turned its back entirely on enforcing cross platform protocols on the net.

Can you foresee a future where proprietary products and protocols could be used to concentrate information in such a way that our fundamental rights to speak and publish could be easily throttled by a single powerful entity? Or am I just paranoid? Personally, I am increasingly concerned with this possibility.

FCC reporting requirements for Internet providers

[apostle]

I understand that the FCC requires that telephony service providers report all outages lasting 30 minutes or more and affecting 30,000 customers or more. As far as I know, no such reporting requirements exist for Internet providers. Why not? Are there any discussions underway within the FCC to help make the Internet as reliable as the telephony network?

Regards,
apostle
kwalsh@ucsd.edu

Will we ever get the TV spectrum back?

[jjo]

Right now, there is a crying need for spectrum to support novel (digital) wireless applications. Five years from now, the spectrum shortage will be far worse.

In spite of this, each US TV station now has been given, free of charge, a lock on 12 MHz of prime spectrum (6 MHz analog and 6 MHz digital). This is despite the fact that all they would need for a crystal-clear standard-definition digital TV signal would be 1-2 MHz of spectrum. The 'digital TV transition' seems to be dead in the water, especially with the FCC's recent refusal to impose digital must-carry rules on cable operators.

Will the broadcasters ever be made to give up this spectrum grab? Will the only solution be to let them sell this spectrum (that they got for free) to the highest bidder?

Accountability?

[Sloppy]

Some of FCC's decisions are controversial, but the people who make those decisions are not elected by voters. In what way (if any) is the FCC held accountable to the public for their decisions?

---

The Good and the Bad, in short

[plastickiwi]

In your opinion, what is the one thing the FCC could be doing to better serve the people, but isn't?

What is the one thing the FCC shouldn't be doing, but is?

Television Spectrum

[def]

A few years ago, the FCC gave away a large amount of spectrum that would have been ideal for 3g wireless or any other application involing medium-distance transmission intended to penetrate into the home. Instead of this, they gave it away to existing broadcasters for use in ATV (aka DTV/HDTV). By 2006, or when 80% of homes had ATV access, the original VHF TV spectrum was to be vacated.

The transition, however, is going much slower than originally planned, and it would be a miracle if 80% of homes had digital televisions. There are several problems as I see it. For one, broadcasters are not taking advantage of the benefits they could get from HDTV, like datacasting or multicasting. For two, HDTV's are very expensive and those likely to buy one will almost certainly have cable or sattelite TV.

What steps, if any, are being considered to free up one of the television spectrums for use? Are any incentives being considered to get broadcasters to make better use of their ATV spectrum?

Do you see any remedies for abuse of copy-control?

[Degrees]

I know that the FCC, through license renewals, can make life hard on broadcasters that 'inflict' unwanted (inappropriate or obscene) material on unsuspecting listeners / viewers. Similarly, content that people pay for (movies and music) often are voluntarily rated by the producer. However, you have seen that a disorganized free market usually loses to an organized monopoly or cartel (the Microsoft case). The movie and entertainment industries have gotten DCMA passed, and the FCC is being asked to facilitate the movement to HDTV and (copy-controlled) digital formats and protocols.

My question relates to copy control in the current environment. The latest scheme in DVD encoding is to force-run commercials when the DVD is inserted into the player.

I just learned this; the DVD of High Fidelity by Touchstone Home Video forced the playback of commercials on me of several other movies. When I tried to fast-forward past this involuntarily-inflicted-upon-me tripe, the DVD player responded with "Operation prohibited now."

This galls me.

(It actually ruined my whole movie watching experience this evening. I did not pay the rental fee to be subjected their dirt. At least with VHS, fast-forward works.) Now that I know that the movie producers are willing to use copy control to force upon me unwanted material, I would like the option to boycott these types of DVDs. Obviously, the producers won't warn me about this type of content. So I have two questions: 1) What remedies do I have available to keep me free from the abuse of copy-control? (other than to bend over and grab my ankles) and 2) What do you think the FCC's role is in copy-control? Advocate? Enforcer? And which aspects for which sides? People grumble about mandatory labeling on products, but for me, this type of 'government interference' is a good thing.

Feel free to comment on where you see the future going with soon-to-be online movie rental and real-time video delivery.

Thanks in advance for your time and insight.