Skype asks FCC to open up cellular networks

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: February 22, 2007 3:08:22 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Skype asks FCC to open up cellular networks
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

[Note:  This item comes from reader Robert Berger.  DLH]

From: Robert J.Berger <rberger () ibd com>
Date: February 21, 2007 9:16:29 PM PST
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, David Farber  
<dave () farber net>
Subject: Skype asks FCC to open up cellular networks

Skype asks FCC to open up cellular networks
2/21/2007 1:19:49 PM, by Nate Anderson

<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070221-8895.html>

Skype yesterday petitioned the FCC to lay the smack down on wireless  
phone carriers who "limit subscribers' right to run software  
communications applications of their choosing" (read: Skype  
software). Skype wants the agency to more stringently apply the  
famous 1968 Carterfone decision that allowed consumers to hook any  
device up to the phone network, so long as it did not harm the  
network. In Skype's eyes, that means allowing any software or  
applications to run on any devices that access the network.

The reason for Skype's interest in the issue is obvious: they want to  
force network operators to allow Skype-enabled calling across their  
networks, something currently prohibited on wireless data plans. In  
its filing, Skype argues that this capability would offer "tremendous  
new sources of price competition provided by entities such as Skype,"  
and that's exactly why wireless operators will fight the plan tooth  
and nail.

Something similar has happened before. In the early days of the wired  
telephone network, the phone company provided not only network  
service, but also the equipment, and routinely took firms to court if  
they sold products meant to be attached to consumer telephones (which  
were still owned by the phone company). In 1956, a court ruled that a  
device called the Hush-a-Phone was allowed to be fitted onto the  
telephone so long as it was "privately beneficial without being  
publicly detrimental."

In 1968, the FCC endorsed this principle in the Carterfone case. The  
Carterfone was an early attempt at building a wireless phone. It used  
a two-way radio and an acoustic coupler to patch a person's voice  
into the telephone network, and the FCC again ruled that this was  
allowed so long as the network itself was not harmed. The principle  
is still in place today, and wired phone networks now stop at a small  
termination box usually located on the outside of homes; anything  
past that point is the homeowner's responsibility, but phones,  
modems, and faxes can all be hooked up to the network without  
requiring phone company permission.

<snip>



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