Slashdot Mirror
Google Nervous About Verizon's Open Access
Ian Lamont writes "Google is so worried about Verizon Wireless's commitment to open access using the 700Mhz spectrum that it has asked the FCC to get a pledge from Verizon that the carrier will honor the FCC's open-access conditions before the FCC sells it the band. Verizon won the auction for the nationwide C block of the 700MHz spectrum, but Google points to Verizon's alleged attempts to abandon the conditions, including a filing with the FCC which said the commission 'could not force the C block winner to allow all applications on the network.' Could this be another expanding front in the Net Neutrality battle, or is it time for the carriers to accept the fact that Net Neutrality is essentially a done deal, and carriers need to prepare for the next battle — developing software and services to run on open networks?" The IP Democracy blog has Google's filing (PDF) and the following comment from Verizon: "Google's filing has no legal standing."
Does anything involving the FCC have legal standing?
I don't understand what is happening here. I remember google doing something back when the auction was going on to keep the spectrum open. I guess I didn't understand what that meant. Does google now want to control what verizon does on the network? Is the spectrum open or not?
I'm lost.
How can they have no intention of buying if they bid above the minimum? Is it their fault that Verizon outbid them?
Oh... those sneaky bastards...
Regardless of your stance on Google, I for one am very happy they are on this case. I find it improbable that any other company would put up as much of a fight as they do.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I for one hope that net neutrality isn't a done deal. I think that today, we have it backwards. Airwaves are almost completely closed, but landlines are forced open. Airwaves should be considered more or less public property (especially the stuff that was given out before the auctions started), but there's plenty of room in the ground for folks to lay down more fiber.
there is a nice lot on a lake, and if it sells for above certain amount, the buyer would have to provide right of way across his property.
There's this stuff called "spectrum" and it is not really "owned" by anyone. The government, acting on behalf of the people collectively, sells the rights to proscribed use of that spectrum in the interests of maximizing competition and creating the most benefit to citizens.
So, someone that has absolutely no intention of buying this property, but wants to get to walk across to the lake anytime (which he could not currently do as the property is not developed) bids it up until the price is right.
One of the many interested parties who wants to make use of that spectrum lobbies for certain restrictions to be put into place on the use of the spectrum. These restrictions work to the advantage of that interested party, but many other parties see this as broadly advantageous to competition. So this interested party's enlightened self-interest results in meaningful changes being injected into the bidding process.
You like the place and buy it anyway, but now you presumably have to let the other guy visit and hang around on your private beach whenever he likes. Wouldn't you try to either remove or limit such right of way from your property?
Knowing that these restrictions have been accepted as serving larger policy goals by the auctioning party, you bid for use of that portion of the spectrum. Again, you bid for it knowing that there would be restrictions on its use, because those restrictions had been placed there by the seller of the spectrum.
Because you won a bid for *use* of that portion of the spectrum, you do not own it. You have limited rights to use that portion of the spectrum to do particular things. In trying to renege on the terms under which you engaged in bidding, you are merely trying to assert more rights than you have purchased.
If you didn't want that other party to benefit, you shouldn't have bid, because you already knew they had the potential to benefit under the terms that governed the auction.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Your analogy is much like property law in Maine. The public is entitled to access to the public parts of beaches - the part between low tide and high tide. And they are entitled to have a right-of-way to get to those beaches without undue burden or unreasonable conditions, like having to walk 3 miles or step only on stones 7 feet apart.
So, in the Wells Beach area, the public tramps down to the beach through properties they couldn't possibly afford, even if the owners were interested in selling.
The owner's complaints? Minimal. Mountains (literally) of trash during the summer months, dumped by the public. People peeing on their lawns, gardens, porch siding rather than walk up to the porta-potties. Let's not consider the behavior of the public on the beach. For many property owners, it's an insult.
I can see Verizon wanting to modify the rules, and make the C-Block into their playground, and I can see the 'public' (really Google looking for a way to preserve their access to income) wanting to keep 'access' to a precious resource. No doubt it will be strewn with trash, from spam and every sort of malware imaginable to MySpace or worse devised just to take advantage of the wireless market. And Google isn't at all altruistic about this.
But those people in Wells Beach who dearly love their oceanfront homes know that the price is putting up with the 'public'. They whine, and go to court or the Town Council from time to time, but in the end they dare not move. It's too beautiful. It's worth it.
Let's hold Verizon to the deal they signed. In the end, I bet they find it's worth it.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Why should Verizon care where you get your phone? Charging you the same amount for access and not subsidizing your phone has to be more profitable for them then whatever they make on ringtones and wallpaper. A report cited here says the total US ringtone market is $500M, carrier cost for subsidizing phones has to be an order of magnitude more than that.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It seems to be like those genie stories -- if you don't spell out your wish in such minute details as to make "misunderstanding" impossible, you won't get what you want. So Google forced FCC to spell out its wish but didn't provide enough details.
Frankly it's understandable -- if device that Verizon sells under its own brand can't do email from the beginning and is not available as a "standalone" product from phone manufacturer, you can't accuse Verizon of disabling the feature (not without defining a superset of all features that have to be available on all phones by default).
Thus "any application" rule automatically does not apply. It's the same as demanding Nokia to include in all its handsets special software for google mail (versus some limited pop3/imap reader).
After that, Verizon is also free to charge different rates based on if user has Verizon device or not. Buying device + plan = "discount". Buying third party "open" device + plan = quadrupled bill with less features.
Rules didn't state that certain features have to be available on all plans for the same price, did they? The [incredibly overpriced] choice will be there.
In the end, Google either had to make FCC to spell out more restrictions, or throw a heap of cash at the auction to actually win it, then spend years learning and building its own network. For now, bad genie may win.
Hyperom.com
You know, the really reputable company, they would never cripple their products. I wonder what all the conflict is about this time. Surely theyd never back out of opening the spectrum.