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September 15, 2005
The FCC's Failure to Recognize the Role of the Internet in Times of Public Crisis and as a Powerful Tool for Social Good:
I can't really criticize others if I don't see the bigger picture myself.
My blog from last night challenging the FCC for its failure to include the IP-based communications industry was a somewhat short-sighted and limited. This is probably because, although I have lately tried to deny it and have tried to move into other compelling IP-based applications, I am still too voice-centric in my view of IP-based communications. The truth is that it really is the larger Internet and the multitude of applications that IP technology allows that could revolutionize the ways in which government and citizens respond to public catastrophes. It wasn't just the VoIP service that helped bridge the communications divide during Hurricane Katrina. Frankly, text messaging, email, Web-obtained information, video blogs and other streaming media, and other IP-based applications were instrumental in keeping people connected and informed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. These applications only hint at what is possible through more ubiquitous, robust usage of the Internet. All these applications have been slighted today by the FCC's focus on carriers and traditional modes of communication.
By way of example, my friend Peggy Miles, who is from New Orleans and had family there, started to create Web pages to consolidate all of the local radio and news coming from the area. She has been working non-stop on these efforts and there are many people who rely on the news from the Internet to keep in touch with what was going on when the national broadcasters didn't get the full story. So, VoIP aside, why isn't there anyone at the FCC Open Meeting representing IP broadcasting and the value it has added and could add going forward? And what about all the people who got updates on IM and email when the switches serving the traditional wireline and wireless networks went down?
So, perhaps I was somewhat myopic when I was critical of the FCC's failure to include members of the IP-based communications (read VoIP) industry at today's Open Meeting to consider communications efforts and Hurricane Katrina. The, bottom line, however, is that the FCC Open Meeting was a slight, not just to VoIP providers, but to the Internet and the entire, current and evolving IP-based communications industry.
But, if I missed this point, I guess I really cannot blame the FCC for missing the point. But if we do not shine a spotlight more brightly on the power of the Internet and the host of emerging and evolving applications that the Internet will spawn, we cannot expect the public to ever understand what could be. In the absence of public awareness, regulators will never feel any compulsion beyond caving to the will of the traditional communications companies, reluctant to experiment with the power of IP.
By the way, it is not just the Internet community that was excluded from the FCC's Open Meeting. As one commenter to my blog noted, where is the witness from the Amateur Radio Relay League, even though Amateur Radio has been doing emergency and disaster communication for decades, and as the motto says "when all else fails, there is amateur radio."
I grew up on Ham Radio. Every year I participated in Field Day, an effort to test the power of amateur radio to help in times of public crises. I humbly propose that the Internet innovators along with the amateur radio community and government embark on a similar "Field Day" like project to promote the use of the Internet in times of public crises. Many of the most generous compassionate members of the Internet community were frankly caught by surprise in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, frustrated by the fact that they wanted to help, had the resources and technology to help, but did not know quite how to proceed to help. A "dry run" of the emergency response and support capabilities of the Internet in times of public catastrophes, akin to the Field Day model, might go a long way in allow us to harness the power, energy, resources and desire of the Internet community to aid in crises.
I think the FCC has been searching around for communications failures to highlight what went wrong in the wake of Katrina. The IP-based communications story does not fit that story - the Internet and IP story is a story about what went right and what could go even more right with greater public awareness of the enabling power of IP technology and the Internet.
A final thought: Now, I might say, thank goodness that the FCC has not recognized the role of the Internet in times of public emergencies. If the FCC recognized the Internet as a bona fide communications network, it might be inclined to regulate it. Oh, wait, the FCC has already begun to do so. Ironically, the FCC's first foray into regulating the Internet came in its effort to impose cookie-cutter E-911 obligations on VoIP. As I have previously noted, had the FCC rule been in place during Hurricane Katrina, VoIP services would have been shut off if the provider could not offer the cookie-cutter E-911 offering of the PSTN. Who would have benefited from such a backward-looking decision during a public crisis? Certainly not the Mayor who needed a Vonage phone to speak with President Bush.
If one lesson should have been learned by those who regulate communications, it should be that one-size-fits-all regulation destroys resiliency and the power afforded by promoting a multiplicity of communications options and capabilities. The Internet should be recognized as a means to improve lives and promote the public good, both during crises and otherwise. Government should work not to restrain the capabilities of the Internet but to encourage the Internet innovators to go forth, to differentiate, and to offer a multitude of products and services that will allow for as many communications alternatives as possible. Such alternatives will make communications more survivable and resilient during times of public catastrophes. But this is a message that the FCC and the public will not hear today.
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Posted by jeff on September 15, 2005 12:54 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Excellent Jeff. Big difference is that you recognize your slight, while the FCC is blinded to their neglect of IP/Voip.
Be glad IP didn't get included in these Open Mtgs. Most likely, it would be pushed under an umbrella of beaurocracy, rather than being given the opportunity of cooperatively holding the umbrella.
Time will force them to accept the work of the commercial development and progress. Until then, we're left standing in the rain.
How can God bless America when we don't bless God?
Posted by: Rick at September 15, 2005 01:52 PM
Jeff, now that the June Supreme Court decision has come down, what do you think will be the final "classification" of Internet Service Providers by the FCC?
Do you think ISPs will remain classified as mere "information services" or do you think that they will be reclassified as "common carriers" and why?
Posted by: John at September 15, 2005 01:10 PM