Information Technology Industry Council Reaches Common Ground on Net Neutrality

The "network neutrality" debate is becoming more nuanced, with possibly greater understanding by many participants that it is important to find common ground that does not jeopartdize the Internet's future in a misguided attempt to preserve its past.

The Information Technology Industry Council, which includes Microsoft, Ebay, Intel, Apple, Qualcom, Adobe and Cisco, seems to be threading a needle, for example.

Everybody seems to agree that "certainty" is needed or innovation will be impeded. Everybody also seems to agree that innovation "at the edge of the network" likewise should not be impeded.

One way of getting there is by avoiding the temptation to write overly-detailed rules in advance of issues that could arise. That means the ITIC prefers that issues be settled on a case-by-case basis, as needed, rather than by creating new rules in advance of any conceivable set of issues that could arise.

"The FCC cannot posibly anticipate all future circumstances, and it is entirely possible that conduct that may appear to be harmful today will in fact be beneficial to consumers in light of future circumstances," the ITIC now says.

Managed services, for example, should be allowed unless it is proven that the services are "anticompetitive or harmful to consumers." That suggests a new openness to the possibility of enhanced services that take advantage of user-defined and user-requested packet prioritization features.

Quality of experience, especially during periods of congestion, almost requires that such mechanisms be available for users and applications that want to make use of such features.

Cbeyond Asks FCC for Mandatory Wholesale Optical Access

Cbeyond has the Federal Communications Commission to reverse its rules on wholesale obligations for fiber-to-customer networks. On copper access networks, competitors have rights to buy wholesale access. The FCC has ruled that on new fiber-to-customer networks, competitors have no similar rights.

Predictably, incumbents say the current rules should remain in place, which allow any voluntary wholesale deals, but do not require incumbents to offer wholesale access. The rules are consistent with rules that apply to U.S. cable companies, which likewise have no obligation to sell wholesale access to competitors.

The Telecommunications Industry Association  and the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council have filed comments opposing the change.

The debate is an old one. Incumbents argue that the business case for FTTH is troublesome, and that they need the ability to profit from FTTH investments without being required to make those faciltities available to competitors who do not have to build expensive facilities of their own when they can simply lease capacity from others.

Though it is difficult to prove, one way or the other, the FCC has faced a dilemma. It can seek to spur competition by mandating robust wholesale access, or it can spur deployment of new optical access facilities, but might not be able to achieve both goals.

The reason is that incumbents can simply refust to upgrade their networks when they do not feel they will get an adequate financial return. There is some important evidence that incumbents are right about the ability to raise investment capital for FTTH.

Investors punished Verizon Communications for pushing ahead with its FTTH program, preferring AT&T's less-costly FTTN approach, for example. Calle and telco executives point out that all competitors are free to build their own facilities if they want, and most observers would note that in markets where there are three ubiquitous FTTH or FTTN networks, it has proven difficult to sustain business models allowing all three competitors to remain in business.

The calls for mandatory wholesale come at a time when everybody acknowledges that the business case for traditional cable TV and voice services is becoming more difficult, and that neither cable companies nor telcos can rely on their mainstay businesses (video and voice) for future growth. In fact, both types of companies are seeing steady shrinkage of those legacy businesses.

Under such circumstances, and given the shift to Internet-based applications, it might not make lots of sense to weakent he business case for robust optical access investments at a time when the financial returns for doing so are under pressure in any case.

Supporters of mandatory optical access obviously would benefit from a rule change, as they could offer optical access without incurring the expense of building new facilities. So the dilemma the FCC faces is an emphasis either on innovation or competition, in some clear sense.

Since virtually all applications now can be delivered over IP-based connections, it no longer makes as much sense as it once did to directly link "access" and "competitive" services. With or without broadband access, companies now can deliver virtually any service over the top, on any broadband connection.

Under such circumstances, robust competition occurs at the application level, not the access level. In fact, that is precisely the problem telcos face with VoIP, and that cable companies face with online video.

Google Voice Extension for Chrome Browser Now Live

Google Voice now is available as an extension for the Chrome browser. Adding the extension
adds click-to-ccall functionality to Web pages. If there is a phone number on a Web page, or your online address book, it will now have a hyperlink. Click it and Google will open a pop-up window asking which phone you want to use to set up the call, and does.

Google Voice, you will recall, is not an IP telephony or VoIP application n the sense that Skype or Vonage are. Basically, Google uses the Web to set up and complete calls using your existing mobile or fixed connections, adding some interesting call management features.

The extension also adds a small icon in the upper right of the browser. You can type in a name or phone number and call or send a text message from the browser, and read recent text messages and transcribed voicemails (Google automatically transcribes voicemails, usually not all that well).

Many observers think Google ultimately will add softphone functionality, allowing Google Voice to function as an VoIP client.

Geolocation's Downside

Don't get me wrong. Location services will be really useful. But as with everything else connected with the Internet, there are downsides. This is one of them. UYou may want to use location services. But you probably don't want to allow "broadcasting" of that location.

The Secret Service knows the location of POTUS on the second or third floor of the White House. The rest of us should not.

fring Upgraded for Android and Symbian Mobile Devices

Mobile VoIP provider fring has just released two new versions for Symbian and Android mobile device users, adding user-requested features.

The Symbian version, for Nokia users, lets users notify their friends know if they are online, offline, busy, or just stay invisible if they don’t want to be disturbed; all in the click of a button.

DTMF dialing now is supported as well. Now dialing “#” (“pound”) and “*” sign (“star”) is possible to use within a call through the new fring dialer.

Android users will find increased app stability as well as the ability to hide or show offline buddy presence, hide or show the address book, and manage privacy settings for IM signatures and "mood" messages.

The company also fixed some audio issues formerly experienced on Motorola Droid or Milestone devices and added better support for Google’s Nexus One device.

Improved battery consumption also is new.

The new apps can be downloaded at http://www.fring.com/default.asp.

U.S. is Key Android Market at the Moment

Worldwide mobile advertising requests from Android devices increased 97 percent from October to December 2009 and the big change since October is that Motorola devices have shown the greatest growth, undoubtedly because of Verizon's Droid launch late in the year.

AdMob says that in October, 98 percent of requests came from HTC devices.  In December, just 56 percent of requests were from HTC devices, 39 percent from Motorola devices, and five percent from Samsung units.

Increased device diversity: In December, seven devices generated more than three percent of requests each: the Motorola Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid Eris, and the Samsung Moment.

This is up from only three devices in October (HTC Dream, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero).

 The Motorola Droid is already the leading Android handset in the AdMob network and generated 30 percent of requests in December.

The U.S. market also, at least for the moment, the most-important global Android market. About 90 percent of Android traffic was generated in the United States in December, up from 84 percent  in October. The United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Canada were the other countries with some significant traffic.

Coopetition Model for Cloud App Providers and Telcos?

Discussing the future of apps in the cloud, IBM enterprise initiatives VP Mike Hill and Salesforce.com director platform research Peter Coffee said the line between competing and cooperating was becoming blurred, with "coopetition" the likely result.

“The only place we tend to have some level of friction with service providers is when you’re up in to the largest organisations,” says Hill. “We see service providers as a huge platform opportunity for us here, because we’re going to take the platforms that we build in IBM to deliver these services, and we’re going to pitch and sell it to service providers so they have the opportunity to white label services from us; or even white label to start with so they don’t have to invest capital up front.

Coffee says the Salesforce.com model provides one example of how application providers and Internet service providers can cooperate for mutual benefit.

“We have our services being re-sold by telecom providers who want to take advantage of the fact they already have more than their foot in the door, they’re already completely inside the door as a small business service-suite provider.”

"British Telecom packages and sells our CRM application as a service as part of BT’s small enterprise suite, and there’s absolutely no reason why we wouldn’t want to foster that because that means their skills, their knowledge of the local marketplace, local business customs, local regulations, becomes a leveraging factor for us to do what we do, which is to provide enterprise functionality, and then they make it relevant to the local market," Coffee says.