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FCC small cell rules: "We don't believe we're going to see a material change in deployment."
Pai, O'Reilly, and the telco lobbyists proclaim the new FCC rules will result in far more 5G small cells deployed. They are wrong, as any conscientious reporter could have discovered. The new rules by some estimates will move US$2 billion from the cities to the telco bottom lines. (I think that's a high estimate but haven't looked closely.)
Some cities have ridiculous rules that should be changed, but the industry has long proven they can almost always be dealt with. The primary result will be lower charges to the telcos. Most of the savings will go to shareholders rather than increased investment, per Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg.
I knew the promised construction boom was hogwash because the companies were telling Wall Street they would keep capital spending roughly flat. They won't be spending much on more small cells. This was confirmed by CEO Jay Brown of Crown Castle, with the largest deployment of small cells in the U.S.
I wouldn't look at that and assume that we're going to see a material change in our 18 to 24 month deployment cycle. In fact, we don't believe that will result.
Brown has 30,000 small cell sites deployed and 30,000 more contracted for. They are designed to serve two or three customers, but he's having a hard time finding more than one in many places. Verizon and the other telcos have been cutting drastically the number of small cells they will need.
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg unlikely to go to jail despite US$B in Ericsson fine
Ericsson is negotiating how much to pay for corruption while Vestberg was CFO (2007-2009) and CEO (2010-2016) of the Swedish company. The company said the fines were likely "material," which for a US$24 billion (sales) company sounds like billions. 50 people have been fired.
Vestberg so far is doing an excellent job at Verizon so the Board will probably not fire him. The payoffs while he was at Ericsson made international news in 2015, so the Verizon board knew this was coming when they hired him. The stock market also is ignoring the news of the likely fine; Ericsson is up 5% today.
It is highly unlikely that Vestberg, a highly involved manager, didn't know what was going on.
Deutsche Telekom: No to giving any Gov access to anything in EU
Likely soon to pass, the new "European disclosure order" and "European confiscation order" will allow any EU government to request any data from any ISP or data store anywhere in the EU. The right-wing Hungarian government could demand everything ever sent by the local opposition. Russia could obtain almost anything with the help of friendly clients. Sweden could request every email and data stored by two dozen contributors to Wikileaks and hand them over to the United States.
Axel Petri of Deutsche Telekom has now spoken up, asking to be paid for the work and require approval from their own government. DT is not a natural opponent of government control. The cynical might say DT is afraid of its own government getting information on corporate executives hiding income in Cyprus bank accounts. In any case, they are on target.
I recently connected on Linkedin to a slew of telecom engineers in Iran. I'm sure that raised flags with the security people in many countries. An Iranian connected and Linkedin recommendations took it from there. I noticed many employees from the European vendors and wrote Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung ban could cripple U.S. 5G (Satire) http://bit.ly/NFsatire
India's remarkable PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION BILL
Because this is proposed by the government, passage is likely. Yet again, the developing world is pulling ahead on important policies. India also has advanced net neutrality.
The Hindu summarizes: "The proposed Data Protection Bill 2018 essentially makes individual consent central to data sharing. The report notes that the right to privacy is a fundamental right. Unless you have given your explicit consent, your personal data cannot be shared or processed. Of course, this also means that the onus lies on you to make an informed choice.
Next, the draft bill also states that any person processing your personal data is obligated to do so in a fair and reasonable manner. In other words, your data should be processed only for the purposes it was intended for in the first place. Failing to meet these provisions can cost companies dear, with the bill laying down penalties that can go up to ₹15 crore or 4 per cent of a company's total worldwide turnover.
Dave on the Internet Society and action for the poor (For the record)
​​The Internet Society has a $30M/year subsidy from .org registrations. It can and should be the world's leading advocate for a great Internet for everyone. I'm on the ISOC-NY Board and sent this note.
I- and I believe many of you - believe bringing down the cost of access is crucial to bringing the Internet to everyone. As things change in the Internet Society, I think we should look at how we can influence decisions that directly affect the cost of access.
In the U.S., Trump's FCC wants to severely cut back on Lifeline, the program to connect the poor. Commissioners Copps & Tristani will lead a
Speakout to Save Lifeline Wed., Sept. 26, at 10 a.m. EDT at FCC headquarters, 445 12th St. SW, Washington, D.C. I hope Andrew encourages Internet Society employees to attend, making up their work later on.
In India, the telcos are trying to undermine the local efforts to connect to the remarkable BharatNet. BharatNet has brought fiber to literally hundreds of thousands of villages and hundreds of millions of people. This is by far the most important effort in the world to bring the Internet to the rural poor. ISOC, especially our Indian chapters, should be leading the effort to make sure BharatNet delivers robust Internet affordable to all. (Details on both below.)
After 70,000 member loss, can Andrew Sullivan revive the Internet Society?
In my opinion, The Internet Society can and should be the most important advocate for a better Internet. It hasn't been during the seven years I've been active. With US$30 million in annual subsidy from ICANN's delegation of .org registrations, we have far more resources than any other independent organization.
Instead, ISOC policies have been so uninspiring membership has fallen from 110,000 to the 40,000's. The Internet in this period has more than doubled in size and ISOC has been spending US$millions each year on membership development, communication, etc. (The 110,000 figure is from the ISOC home page early in the year. It probably was inflated, which would be an even bigger problem.)
Sullivan is a respected technologist with experience at the IETF & in ICANN issues. I've had some back and forth over the years; he's well informed on those topics. I'm sure he believes "The Internet is for everyone," the old slogan of the Internet Society.
Former CEO Kathy Brown said ISOC must be, "Global, Independent, Democratic, Open, & Transparent." and a "Bottom-up multistakeholder organization." Kathy is extremely capable and a friend, but couldn't find a way to deliver on her promises. We need strong, independent chapters. On policy, we need concrete proposals that will make a difference and inspire people to join. Here are some ways.
No economic impact of faster broadband
In a retrospective look, George Ford of the Phoenix Center finds, "no economic payoff from the 15 Mbps speed difference." He's comparing 10 Mbps versus 25 Mbps broadband speeds in 2013-2015 in the U.S. Better broadband is great, but economic claims range from well-paid gibberish to essentially unproven. (My gut is there is an effect, but it's too small to prove. Those "1.3% of GDP" type figures are absolutely unsupportable and embarrassing when quoted.)
Anyone with common sense can see this is on target. Few websites run over a megabit or three. 10 megabits is enough for 2 HD videos, plenty of surfing/homework, and five music channels. Higher speeds are great for pirating music, playing games, watching 3-5 HD TV (or sharp 4K TV,) and folks like Jennie, who does video professionally. But Jennie's business wouldn't suffer greatly if occasionally her uploads run overnight.
Russian Solution: "Remove from search all links to pages with contentious works."
Yandex, Russia's search engine, was hours from being completely shutdown by order of the Moscow Court. They had no choice but to block alleged piracy sites. The suit was filed by Gazprom Media, controlled by Gazprom, which is controlled by the Russian state, which is controlled by Vladimir Putin.
Google and Facebook would almost certainly be vulnerable if the decision is upheld. So could any site that disregards Russian law, which certainly would find much of the Western press criminally liable for "libelous" reporting about Russia. In a case heard in a Russian court, I doubt The New York Times would have much hope, especially after the American President's attacks on the press.
Ironically, the best reason for Russia to shut down Google is to protect Yandex and Vkontakte. Economists speak of "infant industries." Tencent, Alibaba, and perhaps Baidu have been able to compete with Google and Facebook. None of the European are within half a trillion of the scale of the U.S. giants. Only those protected - the Chinese - have cracked the top ten.
Even Vladimir Putin's massive popularity would suffer if he blocked Google and Facebook. He has to lay the groundwork for legitimacy.
Opinion: Universities need more company research money, not less
Apple & 100 mobile phone factories supporting Made in India
Bitcoin finds a use: Helping Iran avoid U.S. sanctions
India's TRAI: All your data are belong to you
Newsbreak: CTO Steve Unger leaving OFCOM
FOIA T-Mobile-Sprint filing
China: We Lead 3GPP Wireless Standards
Breaking: AT&T, Verizon, Google & Others Are Selling Your Location to Hedge Funds and Others
"If Net Neutrality Is Repealed, the Internet Will Die!" Factcheck.
The Smoking Gun on 5G Speeds
AT&T's Silly Work Confuses the Effect of Sprint-Tmo
Will Times Reporting "Implausible Promises" Kill T-Mobile-Sprint?
Factcheck T-Mobile/Sprint
Ich bin ein ZTE - China's Response
The Color Of The Net Has Changed
New York's Truthtelling CTO Miguel Gamiño: "No Choice" But To Quit FCC Broadband
Today's Internet: More BRICS Than Westerners
Trump And Putin Want To Control Internet Governance
ICANN's BIg Decision: WHOIS Anonymity For Everyone Or Just Those Who Pay
AT&T's "Riverboat Gambler" Whitacre Up for Trump's Man in Mexico
BT Ordered to Unbundle
WTF! China Hawks Want 5G Gov Net. Ain't Gonna Happen
Newark Could Be the Largest U.S. Muni Broadband Network
Historic: Facebook Will Pay Taxes and Internet Tolls in Korea
Rosston's Nightmare: Broadband Prices Go Up, Up, Up
Pai, Speaking of Immigration, Put His Career on the Line
How To Preserve The Internet Beyond ICANN: Robust Interconnection (Part 1: The question)
ICANN CEO's Promise to China of a Seat At The Table
Kathy Brown's Leaving; Can the Internet Society Now Become Global, Independent, Democratic & Transparent?
Times of London: "YouTube a shop window for child abuse videos"
The world needs a good news source on Internet and telecom policy. I hope to create one. Catch a mistake? Email me please. Dave Burstein
Professor Noam's "Many Internets" http://bit.ly/ManyNets
Until about 2010, everyone agreed the Net was a "network of networks," not a monolithic entity. There was a central authority, ICANN, keeping track of domain names, but that was a minor administrative function.
Columbia Professor Noam suggests we might be better off accepting that some nations or groups might want to organize their networks differently. It's easy to see demand for an Internet with much more effective filters against material some think harmful to children. (Any 10 year old can easily find porn today. Many do.)
Internet translation is getting better very quickly. You might want an "Internet" that translates everything into your language. Google Chrome translation isn't perfect but I was able to research most of this story on Russian language sites. With a few more years progress, I might welcome an alternate that brings me everything in English, including caching for better performance.
De facto, Internet news is already split, as hundreds of millions only get their news from Facebook. Google AMP pages, including for news, also favor selected parts of the net
Centralizing the DNS doesn't prevent censorship, as the Chinese have demonstrated. There are many Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists who want to block what they consider blasphemy and limit free speech. See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/nyregion/ultra-orthodox-jews-hold-rally-on-internet-at-citi-field.html . More from Noam http://bit.ly/ManyNets
Russia Orders Alternate Root Internet System http://bit.ly/RussiaDNS
It's actually practical and not necessarily a problem.The Security Council of the Russian Federation, headed by Vladimir Putin, has ordered the "government to develop an independent internet infrastructure for BRICS nations, which would continue to work in the event of global internet malfunctions ... This system would be used by countries of the BRICS bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa." RT
Columbia University Professor Eli Noam and then ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé have both said such a system is perfectly practical as long as there is robust interconnection.
Actually, the battle over ICANN and domain names is essentially symbolic. Managing the DNS is a relatively insignificant task, more clerical than governing. ICANN Chair Steve Crocker pointed out they had very little to do with policy.
Some will claim this is about blocking free speech but that's rhetoric. Russia doesn't need to fiddle with the DNS for censorship, as the Chinese have demonstrated. The wonders of the Internet will continue so long as the resulting nets" are robustly connected. The ICANN and U.S. policy goal should be to help create that system for interconnection.
I expect contentions that "The Russians are taking over our Internet" and "They are splitting the Internet." The Internet is a "Network of Networks." It is not a monolith so what would "splitting" it mean or do?
After the WCIT, China realized that ICANN and the DNS are side issues not worth bothering about. They have been building alternate institutions including the World Internet Summit in Wuzhan and the BRICs conferences. The Chinese have put their main work where decisions that matter are made. Wireless standards are set by 3GPP, where nothing can be approved without China's consent.
The American battle at ITU is proving to be a historic mistake.
Why does Russia want an independent Internet?
They fear that Western sanctions on Russia could cripple the Russian Net. Communications minister, Nikolay Nikiforov, worries about, "a scenario where our esteemed partners would suddenly decide to disconnect us from the internet." I think that's highly unlikely but Nikiforov points out, "Recently, Russia is being addressed in a language of unilateral sanctions: first, our credit cards are being cut off; then the European Parliament says that they'll disconnect us from SWIFT."
It makes sense for the Russians to be prepared for such a contingency as the Cold War has been warming up on both sides. "Britain's top military chief Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach just made headlines warning Russian subs "could CRIPPLE Britain by cutting undefended undersea internet cables." Much more http://bit.ly/RussiaDNS
ICANN Continues Excluding Russia & China From the Board http://bit.ly/CEOPromises
No wonder Russia wants an alternate root. Three years ago, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé promised "a seat at the table" to Chinese Premier Li. ICANN welched and this year added two more Americans.
Almost all the ICANN board is from the U.S. and close allies; only about 4 of the 18 board members are from countries on the other side of the North/South divide in Internet policy. Claiming ICANN represents the Global Internet is inappropriate. China is 1/3rd of the Internet but has no representation on the board.
I know many of the board members. They are all basically honorable but generally share a strong opinion on North-South issues.
Larry Strickling of the U.S. government knew just what he was doing with the IANA transition. He handed over to a board with similar positions as the U.S. government.
"The system is unsustainable while it excludes half the world," I have been saying since 2012. More, including the transcript of Fadi's statements,http://bit.ly/CEOPromises
Sorry, Ajit Pai: Smaller Telcos Did Not Reduce Investment After NN Ruling http://bit.ly/SorryPai
Pai justifies his NN choice with the claim, "The impact has been particularly serious for smaller Internet service providers." #wrong (Actually, NN has minimal effects on investment, up or down, I'm convinced. Competition, new technology, customer demand and similar are far more important.)
The two largest suppliers to "smaller ISPs" saw sales go up. Adtran's sales the most recent nine months were $540M, up from $473M the year before. 2016 was $636M, 2015 $600M. Calix the last nine months sold $372M, up from $327M. The full year 2016 was $459M, up from $407M in 2015. Clearfield, a supplier of fiber optic gear, was up 8% in sales in the smaller ISPs.
There is nothing in the data from others that suggests an alternate trend. Anyone could have found this data in a few minutes from the company quarterly reports.
The results in larger companies are ambiguous. I can "prove" capex went up or went down by selecting the right data. The four largest companies' capex - two/thirds of the total - went up from $52.7B in 2015 to $55.7B in 2016. The result remains positive after making sensible adjustments for mergers and acquisitions. That's as close to "proving" that NN led to increased spending as the facts chosen to prove the opposite.
Actually, whether capex went up or down in 2016 tells us almost nothing about the choice on neutrality. Everyone knows a single datapoint could be random or due to other causes. Much more, including the source of the errors http://bit.ly/SorryPai
Elders Bearing Witness: Vint, Timbl, & Many More http://bit.ly/VintTim
Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Wozniak and more than a dozen true Internet pioneers wrote Congress to protect Neutrality. The best Congress money can buy didn't listen but I wanted to reproduce their letter.
I hope they are wrong believing "is an imminent threat to the Internet we worked so hard to create." My take is the impact will be moderate in the short run.
From the letter:
We are the pioneers and technologists who created and now operate the Internet, and some of the innovators and business people who, like many others, depend on it for our livelihood. ... The FCC's proposed Order is based on a flawed and factually inaccurate understanding of Internet technology. These flaws and inaccuracies were documented in detail in a 43-page-long joint comment signed by over 200 of the most prominent Internet pioneers and engineers and submitted to the FCC on July 17, 2017.
Despite this comment, the FCC did not correct its misunderstandings, but instead premised the proposed Order on the very technical flaws the comment explained. The technically-incorrect proposed Order ... More, including the full list, http://bit.ly/VintTim
Author's favorites
Debunking the "Broadband pays off big" myth
A Modest Proposal to Open ITU to All Civil Society
5G mmWave might kill competition
U.S. Gov, Vint Cerf, want 3GPP standards open
Vint, Bob and the early Internet Society