MuniWireless

At the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose today, the Wall St. Journal’s Walt Mossberg interviewed James Cicconi, senior EVP for External and Legislative Affairs at AT&T. Mossberg pushed Cicconi on a variety of issues related to network openness, includingAt the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose today, the Wall St. Journal’s Walt Mossberg interviewed James Cicconi, senior EVP for External and Legislative Affairs at AT&T. Mossberg pushed Cicconi on a variety of issues related to network openness, including net neutrality and device independence. Mossberg felt especially strongly about the need for cellphone handsets to be independent of the network, echoing Carol Ellison’s thoughts about the need for flexible WiFi handsets. Cicconi’s response echoed many we’ve heard from incumbent carriers, both telco and cableco: Consumers aren’t saying they want it.

That’s true, but consumers didn’t say they wanted the PC, Google, or YouTube, either, until they saw them. Mossberg made the point that PCs can connect to the Internet without requiring certification, and neither should cellphones.

Om Malik later chaired a panel on “Innovative Strategies for Delivering Broadband,” including Michael Calabrese, VP at the New America Foundation; Tom Tauke, EVP Public Affairs, Policy & Communications, Verizon; and Cicconi, standing in for Joe Waz, VP External Affairs for Comcast. Calabrese began by disagreeing with Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, who had earlier told Mossberg that he didn’t think we need a national broadband policy. Calabrese maintained that the first thing the federal government needs to do is to open up both licensed and unlicensed spectrum for more wireless broadband, with 80-200 megahertz being wasted in the TV band ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ equal the total amount of bandwidth available to the cellphone industry in rural areas until last year’s spectrum sale. Calabrese also talked about the need to promote approaches like the National Lambda Rail, a consortium approach to building alternative backbones which we’ll talk about more in future posts.

Verizon’s Tauke said that we need to look at the glass as half full, because the FCC chose several yeas ago to avoid applying telephony or cable rules to the Internet. He maintained that there has been an explosion of investment in broadband, such as Verizon spending $15 billion a year on broadband rollout. He believes that it’s because we got rid of old federal policies that we’re seeing the investment that’s happening today. Finally, he made a plea to reduce taxes and subsidies in the current system, asking it to be overhauled in the new era of broadband. “Let’s not ask the federal government to come in and establish a federal broadband policy,” he said, “which will probably do more harm than good.”

Om countered on several points, including Tauke’s statement that innovation could only have come within the past two years. I heartily agree, it sounds like some re-writing of history. Remember TeleTV back in the mid 90’s, the effort by the eastern Telco troika to roll out fiber-to-the-curb replete with video services? TeleTV (headed by Howard Stringer, now CEO of Sony) promised 1 million fiber subscribers a year. But it wasn’t regulation that stopped the initiative; it was a resounding lack of understanding about the business model required to make it successful.

As for a national broadband policy, I’ve mentioned before that Jim Baller has put together an eloquent plea for such an initiative, along with sensible steps to accomplish it.
gB