We've all heard too much about NN, which I've been reporting for 20 years. I support it because I don't want Randall Stephenson of AT&T deciding what I should watch on TV. The long-run effect is negative. 

The claims from some people who agree with me are ridiculous.  "According to former FCC commissioner Michael Copps, ending net neutrality will end the Internet as we know it." http://bit.ly/2it1FkY Michael knows I respect him, but this is ridiculous. Equally unlikely in Pai's belief this will significantly raise investment. His evidence assumes that AT&T has a time machine. They had told Wall Street they were going to cut well before anyone thought NN was be killed. ("We pretty much finished the LTE build so we will reduce spending.")

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ISOC has a $30M annual subsidy and should be the most effective advocate for Internet users. Kathy Brown has just resigned and I wrote the note here to ISOC. Folks

Kathy has long been one of the most skilled advocates in D.C., at the FCC, Verizon, and the Internet Society. She is also a decent and generous person. She always worked hard and well. There will soon be many eloquent words about her abilities and personality. They are well-deserved.

I'm putting out a call for other members to speak up on this list to "frame the question."

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Repeat the same mistaken data enough times and people start believing it. If you're active in policy or a reporter and think any of these are accurate, please email me for primary sources. I'm writing this quick note because two respected groups just sent to me stuff I know is wrong.

There is a large, measurable cost to Internet shutdowns. If you can send your birthday gift a few days later or catch up two days of missed lessons, the Brookings report falls apart.

Connecting more people to the Internet has large economic benefits. Senior economists, including one now at Harvard, debunked this in 2009 in D.C. 

The Internet has no economic downsides. Tell that to the store owner who went broke because he couldn't compete with giant Amazon. About a third of the world's newspaper reporters lost their jobs. Almost all claims about "economic benefits" leave out the negative.

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Steve Mollenkopf Angela Merkel 230Steve Mollenkopf's creative engineers produce many of the world's best chips. It's time for him to stop promoting a bogus claim "5G Expected to Create 22 Million Jobs, Produce Up to $12.3 Trillion of Goods and Services by 2035." They offer no evidence or logic that leads to that conclusion. They hired IHS Markit to do a "study" and Berkeley Professor David Teece to sign off on it. The substance of the study is a laundry list of future services, from drones to telemedicine to IoT to VR to Smart Grid. (They provide no source for their estimates of the values of each, but added together they do come to enormous figures.)

Problem: Nearly none of this requires 5G and the report gives no reason to believe their value-add should be attributed to 5G. Nearly all of them work just fine on LTE or Wi-Fi and do not require 5G. Nowhere in the report do they provide a breakdown of how much of the total value of the drones, remote medical consults, or meter reading need 5G. Without that, the conclusions are hogwash. In addition, anyone who has worked with economic forecasts knows how hard it is to look five years ahead, let alone 20.

I've researched the requirements of AR, VR, telemedicine, and IoT. Experts in each field tell me 5G isn't needed for what they are doing. Even most of the connected car stuff doesn't need lower latency than LTE can deliver.  Thousands of Qualcomm engineers every day tell customers, accurately, that Qualcomm products today meet these needs and will be even better in the future. 

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narendra modi brics 2017 china 650x400 81504495237Moving the big decisions to where they have power. At the BRICS conference in Xiamen, the global South and China/Russia proclaimed, "All states should participate on an equal footing in the evolution and functioning of the Internet and its governance, bearing in mind the need to involve relevant stakeholders in their respective roles and responsibilities. The structures that manage and regulate the critical Internet resources need to be made more representative and inclusive."With the U.S. effectively blocking any 

With the U.S. effectively blocking anything of substance at the ITU, that organization is paralyzed on many major issues. Anything about security is stopped dead at the ITU by the U.S. and friends, starting with Hamadoun Touré's move in 2007 towards a treaty on cybersecurity. I laugh when U.S. politicians demand action on security; we're the ones that have been blocking it for a decade. 

Everyone in Internet Governance knows the primary goal of the U.S. is to protect freedom - the freedom of the NSA to do what the NSA does.   

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Man of La Mancha

Randall Stephenson, AT&T CEO, did not proclaim, “AT&T will spend $5B building one of the world’s best networks for Texas and Louisiana. That’s our contribution to the recovery after Harvey.” He should.

AT&T is a world leader in testing 5G mmWave small cells. They are adding three million lines of fiber home every year. There’s no reason they couldn’t focus both efforts in South Texas, performing a civic service without spending an additional dollar in capex.

They would probably actually come out ahead, as the $tens of billions in disaster relief would cover some of the cost.

Larry Babbio of Verizon responded that way to the World Trade Center. “Just watch us,” he replied to my suggestion Verizon bring fiber to lower Manhattan soon after 9/11. Verizon built Fios, which for more than a decade was the finest network in the Western World.  (Spain and France are now pulling ahead.)

Rajeev Suri of Nokia should support AT&T by offering to provide $5M in equipment for the build. He should also commit 50 of his best engineers and promise, “We will make sure AT&T has the equipment they need when they need it.” Both are already provided, of course, but it sounds good.

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papaRandall, with the $85B Time Warner merger pending, is unlikely to disavow his very visible friendship with Donald Trump although I'm pretty sure he despises much of what the President is saying. Brian Krzanich of Intel, Kenneth Frazier of Merck, Elon Musk of Tesla, Inge Thulin of 3M, and even Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup have resigned. 

Donald Trump called the merger, "a deal we will not approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few." However, WSJ reports the fix is in.  "An approval could underscore the administration's pro-business credentials at a time when Mr. Trump's ties with America's CEOs are under unprecedented stress," Flint and Fitzgerald point out. 

Steve Schwarzman, one of Trump's strongest and richest supporters, secured a $20B investment from the Saudis. It was "announced at the royal palace in Riyadh as Mr. Trump and Mr. Kushner looked on," NYT noted in a devastating article, The Benefits of Standing by the President. 

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Broadcom ban** Update: Broadcom did well on appeal October 10th see below** Tessera patent case pushes dozens of Broadcom chips out of the country. U.S. could be next.  The German court upheld a Tessera patent "for smoothing the planes of semiconductor chips." The court ruling resulted in this notice on the Broadcom website:

*Certain versions of this device are not available for sale in Germany or shipment to or from Germany, and these versions should not be used in any product destined for the German market."
It affected dozens of Broadcom chips. Broadcom asserted in court "It will suffer immense damages."Tessera has also won a patent decision at the U.S. ITC which could block Broadcom in the U.S. after the commission reviews it.
The ban includes versions of the BCM63138, which was probably used in the recent Deutsche Telekom G.fast 212 demonstration. DT is in the middle of upgrading ~15M DSL lines with vectoring, mostly using Broadcom chips.  
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More Articles ...

  1. Picking Winners & Losers Often Good Government Policy
  2. 4,000 Russian Villages Fibered
  3. Kenya: Average Internet speed up 335% to 11 meg
  4. Must IETF, ICANN stop meeting in the U.S.?
  5. Still True: "Rural Broadband: No Job Creation Machine"
  6. World Bank: "No, the Internet has not resulted in successful development."
  7. Trump's FCC choice
  8. The ICANN bit: U.S. and allies against the rest of the world.
  9. No, ICANN does not represent the "global Internet community"
  10. ICANN: Ted Cruz is a bleeping idiot, proponents aren't truthful, and Andrew Sullivan explains why it doesn't really matter
  11. $450M IEEE faces major rift over centralizing power
  12. Trump's blind Internet platform
  13. Susan Ness, Karen Kornbluh have inside track to Hillary's FCC
  14. Brazil's Serious Threat of Internet Censorship
  15. Verizon, AT&T: Privacy in America is Just Fine
  16. For the Record: Dave to Cisco on Mobile Growth
  17. Frontier agrees to ~$20M price cuts for not delivering on "up to 6 megabit" claims
  18. New York City: Altice-Cablevision Might be "Disapproved."
  19. Comcast $10 for the Poor Extending to Singles and Senior Citizens
  20. T-Mobile Claims All Video Can Go for Free? True?
  21. Incumbent Telcos Have a Huge Advantage in Millimeter Wave/High Frequencies (AO)
  22. Craig Moffett may have just killed the Altice-Cablevision Deal
  23. Vint Cerf & 200 Friends: Make All Network Equipment Open Source
  24. Oct 19 Columbia: State of Telecom Oct 20 Media Concentration Around the World
  25. In ~25% of Ohio, new homes won't get phone service.
  26. "Internet.org Is Not Neutral, Not Secure, and Not the Internet"
  27. Newsbreak: U.S. Gov, Vint Cerf believe 3GPP should be multistakeholder, participatory
  28. Robin Hood in reverse: Mark Zuckerberg's internet.org takes from the poor
  29. U.S. Supremes: ATIS & 3GPP antitrust vulnerability
  30. "Verizon intends to be out of the wireline business within the next ten years," FCC filing

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

Latest

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

 

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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