Location: London, UK
A few weeks ago I spent a day in Washington, DC with a wide range of regulators and government officials. My purpose was to discuss the Net Neutrality issue in addition to just spending quality time with some of the people who shape telecom policy in the U.S. This blog entry isn’t about either of those topics, but instead about an interesting observation that was made by one of the top regulators I met with. In our dialogue, the statement was made that the number of major telecom transformational activities underway right now is probably more numerous than any of us has seen in quite a while and, even more interesting, because the regulatory activity going on has the potential to change the telecom landscape in so many significant ways that the sheer volume is starting to become a bit overwhelming to keep up with.
This statement struck me as both true and also strange because telecom in general is viewed as slow moving and somewhat unexciting by most of the population. Since that day, I have been thinking about just how much really is going on and thought it might be of use to identify some of the many activities and to share my views on how they might change the telecom landscape.
First is Net Neutrality…This dialog is as political and as sensitive as any I have seen since telecom deregulation a decade or so ago. The camps are divided. One group wants the Internet to be an open pipe through which any application, device and user can operate without the explicit permission or control of the provider of that pipe. The other group believes the Internet is an intelligent revenue-producing system that is the essence of their business and, as such, they have a right to introduce controls and services to shape how it is used or, as a minimum, how it behaves.
I clearly don’t want to get into this too deeply in this entry – even uttering the term seems to cause some people to become emotional and even a bit irrational – but what is interesting to note is that this debate has changed the telecom landscape by bringing new views and participants into the regulatory framework.
Companies like Google and Yahoo, along with eBay, Microsoft and others, are now deeply involved in telecom policy dialog that has historically been the province of the more traditional operators and vendors. What does this mean for telecom policy? Well, at its most basic level it means that all future telecom policy will include a broader set of participants and a more divergent set of views on how telecom and IT are regulated, and that that dialog will become both more complex and more significant than ever before. At the same time, the risk that complex compromises between such a diverse group could result in bad policy is likely to grow, so we must be vigilant that we don’t compromise the very essence of telecom away by trying to satisfy every view and opinion. I have great sympathy for the policy makers tasked with this new reality because it will not be simple.
Second, is the already completed advanced wireless services spectrum auctions… Over the last year or so, a pretty massive amount of new spectrum has been auctioned off by the U.S. government. Auction 66 [or AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) auction] is a good example. In this auction, a large quantity of 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz spectrum was acquired by various parties. What was interesting is that some of the largest purchasers of spectrum were wireline and cable operators. What are they planning to do with spectrum that is highly suitable for technologies such as WiMAX and LTE? I can’t speak for them, but it is clear that there are going to be some new players in the mobile Internet space in the coming years. That increase in participants, coupled with new technologies such as 4G wireless systems, could make for not just new providers of existing mobile services but very likely new mobile services.
Third, is the Digital TV (DTV) Transition… This activity involves the decommissioning of analog television in the U.S. and other countries. What makes this interesting is that as digital TV comes on line in the next few years (February 2009 in the U.S.), a large amount of spectrum in the sub 1 GHz bands becomes free to be reallocated. For those who understand the value of spectrum in these lower frequencies, the key elements are that the signal will travel further and penetrate obstacles such as buildings much better than the higher frequency signals. That makes this spectrum extremely valuable for long-range or large-coverage broadband wireless services.
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