WiFi Municipal Services Blog Entries

One of the many panels at CES on Tuesday, January 8 featured a tricontinental group of communications policymakers: David Gross, United States Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy; Viviane Reding, European Commission Commissioner for Information Society and Media; and Tsutomu Sato, Senior Vice Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan.

We’ve decided to get aggressive about social platforms here at PK. For a while, we’ve had a facebook group, and now we’ve started a Ning Public Knowledge group. Each offers something a little different. At facebook, you’ve got the large communities of people who are already invested in the platform. I’m hoping that they allow for group administrators to embed applications into group pages (until they do, we’ll keep manually inputting our content). That’s actually what I think the Ning group offers more of, is the ability to syndicate content.

• Last week Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Daniel Inouye (D-HI) introduced the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, which would require schools to offer education on social networking, chat rooms, and ‘cyberbullying.’ Senator Stevens introduced a bill by the same name earlier this year which would have blocked social networking sites from school computers.

• Susan Crawford has a very nice wrap-up of the issues surrounding the 700 MHz auction rule-making:

Buried deep on the cheery financial results for Verizon earlier today was one figure of which the FCC should take note: The company had $844 million in wholesale revenue in the second quarter of this year.

The company already has a modest number of wholesale wireless customers, although the revenues aren’t broken out separately as they are on the wireline side. Those figures alone, shown in Verizon’s financial news release and accompanying materials should be further proof that the FCC is being somewhat timid in backing away from a wholesale concept for the 700 MHz auction. Requiring open access, including wholesale, isn’t a venture into the unknown. It’s a validation of the known.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) gave the opening keynote at the Broadband Policy Summit today in Arlington.

He noted that America is the home of the Internet and remains its technological and economic leader, and that in terms of raw numbers, America is the world leader in broadband. But he is concerned with America’s 15th-place ranking in the recent OECD study. He detailed a number of plans he thinks would help improve broadband penetration in America.

From Sascha Meinrath at MuniWireless, we learn that the Chicago Digital Access Alliance have developed a 10-point set of principles for every locale to consider when tackling the issue of municipal WiFi and digital inclusion in general.

Here’s a quick rundown (remember, drafted specifically for Chicago):

While my friends at PK get to enjoy the fun and toys at CES (someone pick me up a free Sling Box!), I am off to Memphis Tennessee for Free Press’ National Conference on Media Reform (although I expect some of my friends now at CES will likewise join me there).

NCMR will bring together a large number of folks (over 3000) who care about issues central to the information commons: how to prevent a few gatekeepers from controlling the flow of information. On the agenda will include spectrum reform, network neutrality, franchising and cable public access, and media ownership.

One of the things NCMR underscores is the width, depth and complexity of the fight to prevent monopolization and propertization of information. As most folks by now realize, information does not “want” to be free any more than it “wants” to be owned or scarce. It’s all about policy choices, and whether we as citizens chose to push for the right policy choices.

One of the great frustrations of riding on our Washington Metro subway system is that the cellular reception is so spotty. And don’t even think of bringing out your laptop to check mail.

But now it looks as if Metro is going to move into the 21st century. On Nov. 7, the transit agency issued a Request for Proposals to build a wireless system throughout the Metro system. The system would cover the station platforms and entries, underground pathways, tunnels, stairs, escalators and elevators.

The complete system would carry cellular voice and data, broadband data, WiFi and WiMax signals for Metro’s passengers, and also be used for internal Metro communications and as well for a public safety system for first responders.

The wording of the RFP is a bit confusing. Metro said the system will provide “the Authority (Metro) and its ridership a publicly accessible Wireless Internet Service Provider system that utilizes WiFi and/or WiMax.”

Today the FCC dismissed the Petition for Rulemaking filed by Cyren Call to give Cyren Call 30 MHz of spectrum for free.

Technically, of course, Cyren Call was promising a whole bunch of other stuff as well. You can see their official website here.

Briefly, as most folks reading this know, Congress finally set a hard date for broadcasters to finish the digital conversion. This will clear 60 MHz of broadcast spectrum. Congress ordered the FCC to set aside 24 MHz of this for a national public safety band, and auction the remaining 36 MHz. Because broadcast spectrum has very good propogation properties, everyone expects this 36 MHz of spectrum to produce even more money at auction than the recent AWs auction.

Cyren Call proposed that the FCC should reallocate 30 MHz of the 36 MHz set aside for commercial spectrum to a single licensee, to be called the “Public Safety Broadband Trust.” The PSBT will build a national wireless broadband network dedicated to public safety use.

Yesterday, the FCC issued long awaited decision resolving Continental Airline’s complaint that Massport cannot order it to shut down its free wifi access for Continental customers. But the decision does a lot more than that.

First, the decision discussed critical similarities and differences between unlicensed spectrum and licensed spectrum. It affirmed that unlicensed spectrum, like its licensed relative, has become an important vehicle for delivery of wireless services. The Commission has therefore extended the rules that protect a person’s freedom to chose licensed wireless services and equipment to unlicensed services.

The FCC first created these rules, called the “over the air receiver device” or OTARD rules, to protect the ability of people in rental housing or condo associations to get satellite TV dishes — even if landlords or condo associations said no. The FCC reasoned it needed to overide the rights of landlords to dictate terms to tenants to promote competition in video services. In 2000, the FCC extended the OTARD rules to transcievers for licensed wireless services. The Commission again reasoned that it needed to protect the rights of residents in rental housing, or businesses renting office space, to promote competition in the delivery of telecommunications and data services.