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Rewriting Rules on Delivery of the Internet
mathin writes "A recent NYTimes (free reg required) article states that, 'The Federal Communications Commission began writing new rules today that officials and industry experts said would profoundly alter both the way the Internet is delivered and used in homes and businesses.' Things under consideration: broad band over electrical wires and VoIP. A little thin on details, but interesting none the less."
And don't forget Marc Majcher's nytview page. It works well if you RTFM.
-ted, waiting for the inevitable replies about "who cares if they require you to register!" and "big companies are evil!" and "who cares if it isn't goatse!"
let's translate this article into geek-speak:
The FCC's talking about powerline broadband. Yeah, we're nowhere close to a commercial rollout yet, but at least the regulators are certifying that the plans won't cause massive harm to any other communications tech, so they're about to sign off on it.
In totally unrelated hearings, Free World Dialup / Pulver.com (who we discussed yesterday seems likely to get the preemptive ruling they were asking for that they not be subject to the regulations that the Ma Bells wish the FCC would slap them with. That battle seems over for good.
FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps has made his usual objections to deregulation and sided with the Ma Bells on the FWD issue, but as has been the trend recently, he was outvoted.
Political types also gave typical quotes about the future of technology. None of which are very newsworthy, but the columnist still had a little space to fill even though he already combined two stories into one report.
Please do not freak out. For those of you who were mislead by the headline to think that the FCC was debating the merits of IPv6 or something of the like, you can use the back button on your browser to go looking for a more interesting story on the home page now.
FCC: Let's see... we haven't quite ruined everybody's fun yet. Let's fuck with the Internet.
When will people learn? The ONLY meaning of broadband is analog transmission (frequency division). The term "broadband" has nothing to do with speed.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
We always hear about delivering broadband over powerlines, and while it seems to be possible I thought the problem with wide scale adoption is the transformers that regulate the voltage delivered to your house. Personally I think wireless will be a much better solution. Just stick the access points in the existing cell phone towers, or is that too logical?
I saw Scottland was considering running broadband using sewers. Now that crap is fast. We're not talking peanuts either, but fiber rich high throughput with full traffic shaping and end to end tapering.
When I took my first networking class, they told us it was important the WE knew the difference, but that the general masses didn't make the distinction and that trying to correct the error of their ways was futile.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Sorry, when people use a wrong definition too much, then the wrong definition gets associated with the word in the dictionaries and then becomes an acceptable definition.
Bitrate and bandwidth have unfortunately become interchangable terms in common culture, even though us geeks know that there's a subtile difference.
Could someone please explain how a long (several kms) unshielded wire is different than an antenna?
It would seem to me that transmitting "broadband" data, which will span a wide range of frequencies if it is going to be high-speed (and immune to noise), isn't going to just cause broadband interference?
Cable modems get away because the cable itself is coaxial and thus shielded.
Even most telephone wire is buried in the ground...
But powerlines? I just don't see how it is going to work
er... what about hacking?
Can I just walk into an office somewhere, plug in my laptop (with BB over power adaptor) and wahey, I'm on the network?
Imagine that - having to put firewalls on all your power sockets. I mean, it's essentially like having RJ45s all over your house/office isn't it.
BB over power - hacking has never been so easy...
If you do VoIP around your own house, you're using a PBX which the FCC doesn't care about.
If you're doing person-to-person and computer-to-computer VoIP with people you've already met some other way to avoid phone calls, you're okay.
If you're doing VoIP that's connecting to the PTSN somehow in place of the "last mile", the FCC wants to have a talk with you.
I can't tell, but when I read just the headline at NYT.com
"F.C.C. Begins Rewriting Rules on Delivery of the Internet"
my gut reaction was "Oh, crap, this is going to be bad."
How many others had a similar thought?
It is a bit depressing that Mike Powell's FCC engenders that kind of response.
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson
I thought broad band was a group of chicks playing some tunes...
MoFscker
Broadband over power line (BPL)
Hmm where does this fall on the good idea scale? They are talking about running RF signals over miles of unshielded cable. NTIA filed comments strongly opposing it. This horse is dead before the starting gate even opens.
BPL is being touted as bringing broadband internet to rural areas not served by DSL or cable modem. However, if you read the fine print you'll find that the signal can be pushed less distance then either (DSL/cable) technology. This means infrastructure overbuild costs will prevent it being deployed in anything but densely populated areas. The whole rural service thing is just a smoke screen.
VOIP Regulation
Its not broken so why does the FCC need to "fix" it? I can't find too many examples of government utility regulation actually improving things. The CALEA (Communications Assistance to Law Enforement Act) points are moot as a wiretap order would permit them to tap the IP service just as easily as the phone line. The main issue is that the telcos see that "consumers" will now become their own providers and they (telcos) will be pushed to irrelavancy in the long term. Change and adaptation come slower to telcos than it does the music industry.
With any luck the FCC will deliver the coup-de-grace to BPL and keeps its fingers out of VoIP other than to declare IP end-to-end calls as outside the scope of regulation and IP to PSTN as only in regulatory scope at the point of interconnection to the PSTN.
So this sounds good..
...ohhh that's right... the spammers ARE the advertising companies looking for a new place to spam in the best interests of the consumer.
"Consumers will be able to plug their modems directly into the wall sockets just as they do with any garden variety appliance"
ohhh yeah! Hackers thine evil bits shall meet the wrath of my toaster oven!!
Will my floor lamp blink when my imClone stocks fall to $60 a share??
Will I have to worry about a backdoor being installed covertly on my fridge and making my milk curdle?
Will my George Foreman Grill become an open spam relay peddling viagra to all the braun shaver users worldwide?
MY GOD MAN, HAVE WE NOT LEARNED ANYTHING FROM MICROSOFT PRODUCTS?????
So just how well should I trust the "secured" network interface of my BlendOmatic-2006XS 5-in-1 blender-oven?
As previously covered at Slashdot here... The Federal Emergency Management Agency submitted comments to the FCC stating their desire to not see BPL go into widespread implementation. Apparently it interferes with high frequency radio transmissions which are used by FEMA and others (think HAM radio operators). You can see FEMA's comments and a FAQ on the objections (slanted towards the HAM radio operators) here Forgot to add that in these post-9/11 times, it will be interesting to see who wins, Dept. of Homeland Security and their paranoia over infrastructure or the free-market wheelers and dealers at the FCC who think regulation is for the birds.
FCC rules that "Pure VoIP that NEVER connects to the PSTN is not subject to 'the telecommunications regulations'. "
One interesting implication of this ruling is that suddenly there's a significant benefit to VoIP providers to directly and transparently interconnect/interoperate their services.
Instead of
- Is it on My Network?
- Else dump it to the PSTN
style services, we could now see VoIP evolving to operate more like- Is it on My Network?
- Is it on the network of any of the VoIP services I 'peer' directly with?
- Else dump it to the PSTN
The industry already has (mostly?) functional standardised interfaces and interoperation between VoIP and PSTN, this ruling will strongly encourage true interoperability amongst VoIP providers, and transparent interoperability generally leads to competition on the basis of quality and services rather than purely on technology and customer-lock-ins.Now they just need to require that where the VoIP service interfaces with the PSTN they must fully support E911 and phone-number-mobility (ie like cell providers have recently been required) then you'd have a very fair and competitive environment encouraging strong growth in the both the Internet Service and Telecommunications industries.
I mean seriously! In what way is a VoIP call that connects to a PSTN/legacy telecoms phone different to one from a Mobile Phone to a PSTN number? The only real diference is the medium of transmission (irrespective of the direction-of-calling, even).
The "telecommunications regulations" really apply to the infrastructure. Many of the regulations specifically relate to "how can we ensure the infrastructure reaches ALL parts of the community in a fair and reasonable manner". If you *never* use that infrastructure, then many those regulations just plain make no sense, would imply double-billing (or even triple-billing) of fees or would be unreasonably burdensome.
For example - VoIP over an ADSL customer.
- telecoms fees apply to the physical line for the local phone company
- internet service fees aply to the ADSL/Internet connection via the ISP
- VoIP - so should the telecoms fees apply again?
Now if that VoIP call connected across to the PSTN, then fees apply (ie at the point of connecting to the PSTN, telecoms fees apply to the connecting line - like always; any per-call telecoms fees would also apply, naturally).Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Just like with the mass media ownership rule changes in which the FCC ignored the facts and the public, clueless Powell did the same with BPL.
The FCC cited adaptive technolgies as being able to mitigate interference. The truth is, adaptive technologies can't protect receive only stations because they don't transmit and can't assert their need for a clear frequency. It's likely that adaptive technologies will also be unable to recognize lower powered transmit stations.
It's rather ironic the FCC met with a BPL equipment vendor in late January to discuss adaptive technology.
One of the Commisioners stated that interference concerns were unproven. There has been models proving the interference potential and field measurements showing interference filed with the FCC. There's been no proof that adaptive technologies in BPL will mitigate interference.
So the FCC doesn't stop BPL due to proven interference issues, and justifies continued deployment on a technology that hasn't been proven to work in the field or using common sense engineering. They essentially ignored 5000 comments filed against BPL and showcased unproven "interference mitigation" technology hyped by an equipment vendor.
It's time that the boobs at the FCC are exposed, not at the Superbowl.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .