The Single Best Policy-Strategy Paper on Open-Access Fiber Networks
February 18th, 2009 by Gordon Cook
A very critical issue in telecommunications is “open access” and what is meant by an open access network. Open access is sometimes confused with network neutrality. In my opinion it is far more important because it focus on basic ownership and operation of network infrastructure as opposed to network neutrality that takes on the issue of how an infrastructure owner treats the traffic that flows over its network.
Fiber networks should be open access. Namely infrastructure operated on a basis where service providers can light bandwidth and sell that bandwidth on a wholesale basis to companies wishing to provide services. Fiber networks being installed in Amsterdam and Singapore are the most significant basic examples on the globe today.
The United States does not have an open access network. In my opinion the new stimulus infrastructure must be open access. The reasons for this are difficult to articulate in a crisp and concise way that are not subject to incumbent monopolist attacks or astro-turf disinformation as published for example in the February 3rd New York times.
In late January I was a part of a spirited private discussion on this subject where the goal was to construct an open access strategy paper for use by those sharing our views on this extremely important topic. It was initiated and facilitated by Paul Budde and produced an excellent 11 page report called Big Think Strategies – Open Access.
But achieving the reality is another matter. As the paper says
At a high level, everyone understands what it means for a network to be open: (1) whatever else it might do, the network offers a pure “transmission” service, so that users can freely communicate with each other; (2) users can connect any devices they want, as long as they don’t harm the network; (3) the network connects to other networks; and (4) the network doesn’t discriminate among users or among the services, information, and applications users want to provide to each other.
None of these points should be controversial. The concept of open networks is at least 40 years old in the US. The FCC’s seminal 1968 Carterphone decision held that a network operator may not forbid the use of devices on the network that benefit the user and do not harm the network itself.
[snip]
Again, none of this should be controversial. But of course it is. It is an unfortunate fact that any for- profit network operator will have a natural incentive to identify those communications with the highest value and look for ways to impose excessive charges for them – whether by conditioning the very availability of such communications on paying a fee (that may far exceed the cost of providing the service), by preventing users from taking advantage of innovative alternative ways to bypass the network operator’s own proprietary services with something better or cheaper, or in other more subtle ways.
So there is the dichotomy. The remainder of the paper argues how to carry open access policy forward in the US and points to examples of Open Access in France Sweden, the Netherlands Singapore and Oceania.
Paul Budde did quite an amazing job on this. I know because I contributed a tiny bit here and there and watched the remainder flow by and the drafts returned. I’d like to see folk grab it, use it study it and disseminate it very widely. Our future depends on it.