DSL Reports says that Frontline Wireless is not a big fan of FCC Chairman Martin’s proposed plan for so-called “open access”. As GigOm’s Paul Kapustka explains:
Though Martin’s draft version of the 700 MHz rules haven’t yet been officially revealed, Frontline co-founder Reed Hundt has seen and heard enough of what Martin proposes, to call it
a “dreadful plan” that favors incumbent telcos over new entrants, while paying lip service to the word “open.”“What the chairman has presented is a Trojan Horse, filled not with Greeks but with Verizon lobbyists,” Hundt said in a phone conversation Tuesday morning. “What America needs is a new national network that really works. If you let Verizon buy it [the spectrum] and put it in the bottom left drawer, you’ve done nothing.”
“You can’t just say ‘Carterphone’ and ‘no locking of devices’ and claim you have an open network,” said Hundt, who didn’t have time to get into specifics. However, it was clear to Hundt that Martin’s definition of “open” contains enough loopholes to keep the incumbent telcos happy, which means a tougher road for new entrants. “Unless you have no blocking, no locking and no competing retail services, it’s not open,” Hundt said.
“Those who believe in America should hope that [Martin’s proposed draft] is not what the FCC adopts,” said Hundt.
Many have forgotten that it was during Martin’s incumbent-accommodating tenure that line sharing or “international” style competition was sent the way of the dodo in the US. Many will point that the Telecom Act of 1996 was crap to begin with, and they would be right but it can’t distract from the fact that it was over-zealous regulators, lobbyists and dim-wits in Washington DC who mucked it up in the first place.
We had a mess then, and we have a mess now. Anyway if the competiton-enforcing policies were put in place to begin with, we wouldn’t be going through the current head-spins. It would have actually forced change, like it has in rest of the planet.
France, UK, Germany and several other countries have seen broadband progress (higher speeds, lower prices and increased adoption) mostly because of competition that forced the incumbents to get off their butt.
The public-safety community appears to be gathering behind the 700 MHz plan floated by Martin, reports RCR News.
“It sounds like it addresses most of our concerns,” said Robert Gurss, director of government affairs for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International (pdf). “It sounds positive.”
