Many, many devils in the details: 700 MHz rules

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: August 14, 2007 11:37:33 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Many, many devils in the details: 700 MHz rules

Many, many devils in the details: 700 MHz rules
by Susan Crawford on Mon 13 Aug 2007 06:32 PM EDT

The enormous PDF of the rules <http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/ 
attachmatch/FCC-07-132A1.pdf> came out on Friday evening last week.   
There is a lot here to chew through, but some highlights leap out:

1.  Those Carterfone protections don't mean too much.  The no- 
locking, no-blocking requirements are hedged in by substantial  
limitations:  the winning licensee will be able to lock and block  
devices and applications as long as they can show that their actions  
are related to "reasonable network management and protection," or  
"compliance with applicable regulatory requirements."   In other  
words, as long as the discrimination can be shown to be connected  
(however indirectly) to some vision of "network management," it will  
be permitted.  (Discrimination "solely" for discrimination's sake is  
prohibited, but that's not too difficult to avoid.)

Among other limitations, the license winner will be allowed to  
continue to use its own (non-standardized) certification standards  
and processes to approve uses of devices and applications on their  
networks, will be allowed to protect the "safety and integrity" of  
their networks against non-carrier applications and devices, and will  
be permitted to restrict use of its network to devices "compatible  
with [the carrier’s] network control features." Additionally,  
carriers will have the ability to deny interconnection to handsets  
and applications that are unable to provide location-information via  
the carrier’s E911 system (a system that is controlled by the carrier  
itself).

All of these elements will provide any incumbent carrier that wins  
this auction with ample slow-roll capability.  It will be very  
difficult for non-carrier application providers and device  
manufacturers to work through the incumbent’s certification processes.

2.  The "reserve price" gambit is quite astounding.  Martin's  
arrangement for very limited open access is accompanied by a novel  
escape clause:  if the license block that had been conditioned on  
limited no-locking, no-blocking requirements fails to sell for at  
least $4.6 billion, it will be re-auctioned in smaller chunks without  
any conditions applied.

[snip]


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