The FCC votes today.
UPDATE 3: Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge writes: "It voted to require just two of the four open access conditions; open devices and open applications."
UPDATE 2: FCC voted FOR "Open Networks" and enforcement of Carterfone on the C-block part of the spectrum. YES to "Open Applications" (any software) and "Open Devices" (any gadget). NO to "Open Services" (wholesaling of bandwidth). YES on Public Safety provisions.
I've avoided writing about the Google wireless-net-neutrality and Skype Carterfone FCC issues. So much is at stake, today's vote shaping America's wireless communication environment, our civil liberties, public safety, and the competitiveness or our economy. I'm also reluctant since he language of telecom regulation is new to me.
Fact is, it scares my pants off. AT&T and its kin want to control access to Internet content the way cable companies choose what stations you see.
For all you global Skype Journal readers, this is an American story. Our strange politics are never more complicated, intricate or involved than at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The FCC regulates U.S. broadcast television and telecommunication.
So let's put this into two parts:
- a recap of recent events (Skype and Google advocating for consumer freedoms) and
- what we can do (short term support, longer term 'delamination').
The short version of the story so far:
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The Big Bundle. Nearly all US mobile phone service comes bundled with a phone and a multi-year contract.
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Because of this the average American must wait for two years to upgrade, unlike Japan and parts of China where many people buy new phones a few times every year.
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The phones provided are often crippled, removing features.
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Mobile phone companies don't compete on service and price, but on the bundle of service, price, and subsidized hardware.
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February 2007 - Skype Carterfone. Skype's Chris Libertelli filed the five page "Carterfone Petition" 20 February 2007. ("Petition to Confirm a Consumer’s Right to Use Internet Communications Software and Attach Devices to Wireless Networks, RM-11361" pdf).
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It asked the FCC to adopt a policy that anyone could attach anything to any mobile/wireless network so long as that thing does not hurt the network. So you can buy your phone and your service separately. So you may keep your phone when you switched services.
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"Carterfone" was a similar ruling from the 1960s. It allows you to plug any phone into a landline, so long as you do not hurt the network. It worked well, created new technologies, new markets and didn't hurt the phone companies at all.
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The FCC promptly posted Skype's petition for public comment.
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Comment came.
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Lots. I killed my inkjet printing out hundreds of pages pro and con. I still haven't read all the reams. You could tell the citizen comments (a few sentences or paragraphs, often with typos) from the lobbyists for Skype-Carterfone and the Google-Four-Conditions (a few, succinct pages) from the lobbyists representing the status quo (between white paper to novella length, with tables, charts, footnotes, citations of precedent, and a unique blend of FCCish, managementspeak, and dogma).
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Love it, Hated it.
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Citizens who want unlocked phones: Freedom to shop, please.
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Companies that stand to gain: This will be a boon to our free market system, a thousand innovations will bloom, make us competitive in the world, the consumer can only gain.
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Companies that stand to lose: Don't mess with the cash flow that builds our national telecom infrastructure. Wireless Carterfone will cut spectrum value, costing taxpayers. Some of these were extraordinarily detailed and long, serious money spent on consultants. Many appealed to laissez faire doctrine, essentially telling the FCC that it was incapable of regulating without hurting consumers or industry.
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Lobbyists too. Complete with astroturf and distortions.
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You can "vote" for or against Skype's FCC petition. Reference proceeding number RM-11361 here and show your support with your comment. Be sure to sign your comments.
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Friends showed up to fight the wireless walled garden. Google. Some phone makers. Civil rights, consumer groups, and Net Neutrality groups. The fight moves from D.C. to mainstream media.
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On a recent Forum, a public radio talk show, Skype's Chris Libertelli and Craig Aaron, communications director for Free Press, took on Declan McCullagh, senior writer for news.com on CNET, and Joe Farren, assistant vice president for public affairs at CTIA, The Wireless Association. 
Download (MP3)
"Farren contended that the upcoming spectrum auction is being rigged to favor Google, calling it "Silicon Valley welfare." Phone calls from listeners to the show uniformly favored upholding net neutrality." - John Dorsey
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Google calls for Four Conditions (reminding me of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms). Eric Schmidt pledges Google to meet the auction's $4.6 billion reserve price if the FCC orders:
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Open applications: Consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content, or services they desire;
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Open devices: Consumers should be able to utilize a handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer;
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Open services: Third parties (resellers) should be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms; and
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Open networks: Third parties (like internet service providers) should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee’s wireless network.
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Wholesale wireless Internet, please. Google asked for one more thing: compel whoever gets this new spectrum to become a common carrier, letting others buy bandwidth and resell it.
David Weinberger writes that we must take a much bigger step: Delaminate the Bastards! Net Neutrality is necessary but not sufficient.
Peel apart the layers like a piece of rotting plywood.
The first layer will be for companies that want to provide access to the Internet. We'll pay them to let us attach a computer, cell phone or any other device — even a Princess Phone, once we get it all VoIPed up — to the Internet and begin to send and receive bits. As many bits as we want. All bits treated equally. The companies can compete over price, bandwidth, uptime, and other properties of the network.
The upper layer will be for companies that want to provide content and services using the Internet.
The health of these two layers is reciprocal: Customers will use more bits because there are more services and content available to them in the next layer. There will be more services and content because the market now has lots of bandwidth, enough to handle new types of applications.
This is exactly the business architecture our economy, democracy and culture are thirsting for. We want to have companies competing to sell us more, better, faster access to the connected world. We want the services and the content — the things we can do, the ideas we can discuss — to grow like a crazy, bottom-up Renaissance.
This is the business architecture we'd have come up with if we had implemented the Internet from scratch. It mirrors the Internet's own architecture. It is the only one that removes the temptations to turn the Internet into cable TV.
David vs. Goliath? or Henry Ford vs. Buggy Makers?
Skype's news release and Skype's latest filing to Chairman Martin follow.
PRESS STATEMENT:
SKYPE REITERATES SUPPORT FOR “OPENNESS” PRINCIPLES FOR WIRELESS INTERNET
WASHINGTON, July 10, 2007 – In a letter filed with the FCC today, Skype reiterated its support for ‘open wireless internet services’ based on the Federal Communication Commission’s landmark 1968 Carterfone decision. The filing takes place just one day prior to a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on the subject of ‘Wireless Innovation and Consumer Protection.’
“Skype is encouraged by various reports suggesting that the Chairman of the FCC is seriously considering ‘openness’ principles for wireless services in the context of the upcoming spectrum auction,” said Christopher Libertelli, Skype’s senior director of Government and Regulatory Affairs. “We look forward to working with the Chairman, the other Commissioners and the Commission's staff to ensure that Carterfone principles identified in our Petition become part of the Commission’s final rules.”
In February of this year, Skype filed a petition with the FCC to confirm a consumer’s right to use Internet communications software and attach devices to wireless networks. This petition sought to unlock the benefits of wireless price competition and innovation, while ensuring that consumers would retain a right to run the applications of their choosing and attach all non-harmful devices to any wireless network. The petition has subsequently gained support from consumer groups, high-tech industry trade associations, entrepreneurs and more than 4,000 individual consumers.
About Skype
Skype sets conversations free by providing new and easy ways to stay in touch over the internet. Millions of people every day make free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls and send instant messages using our software. Some pay a little per minute for long-distance and international calls to phones and mobiles and for SMS, voicemail and call forwarding, or they buy subscriptions that give unlimited calls nationwide.
We certify and sell hundreds of hardware products from more than 50 partners and work with third-party developers to create software to extend Skype’s functionality. Skype has been downloaded more than half a billion times and over 196 million people from almost every corner of the globe have registered. Skype is an eBay company (NASDAQ: EBAY), and you can learn more and get Skype at www.skype.com.
Access to a broadband Internet connection is required for Skype and all Skype Certified devices and accessories. Skype is not a replacement for your traditional telephone service and cannot be used for emergency calling.
Skype, SkypeIn, SkypeOut, Skype Me, Skype Certified, Skypecasts, associated logos and the “S” symbol are trademarks of Skype Limited.
Skype Communications Sarl
15 rue Notre Dame,
L-2240 Luxembourg
www.skype.com
July 10, 2007
ELECTRONIC FILING
Chairman Kevin J. Martin
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
Re: Service Rules for the 690-746, 747-762, and 777-792 MHz Bands, WC Docket No. 06-150, WC Docket No. 06-129; PS Docket No. 06-229; WT Docket No. 96-86
Ex Parte
Dear Chairman Martin:
The promise of an open, mobile Internet stirs up the entrepreneurial spirit. Skype Communications Sarl (“Skype”), on behalf of its users, believes that this entrepreneurship lies in the hands of a community of developers, consumers and technologists; it is not the exclusive preserve of the network operators. This community is ready to deliver an explosion of new mobile products if the Commission sets its policy correctly. In our view, the best course for the Commission is to adopt 700 MHz auction rules that balance the interests of network operators and innovative software developers like Skype. Such a policy will maximize the value of the 700 MHz spectrum and is in the best interest of consumers. To that end, Skype appreciates the Commission’s willingness to consider issues related to device competition and Internet openness in the context of its upcoming 700 MHz auction – a policy discussion in which Skype has been an active participant.1
This letter follows up on that discussion and further explains Skype’s interest in this proceeding.
As the Commission knows, Skype is a software company, not a telecommunications carrier. Skype does not own or control any telecommunications facilities. Instead, Skype relies upon network partners who themselves are telecommunications carriers, to enable Skype users to communicate over the Internet, share ‘presence’ information online, make video calls, transfer money between users or call ordinary phones.2
Like many other Internet companies, Skype collaborates with an ecosystem of software and hardware partners to maximize the capabilities of our software. At the access layer, for example, Skype has joined forces with wireless operators in Europe and Asia who extend Skype into a mobile environment.3
I. Competition Among Wireless Networks
Consistent with this business model, Skype does not intend to transform itself into a telecommunications carrier by bidding for spectrum in the 700 MHz auction. In our view, consumer benefits are advanced when each ecosystem partner performs a function it does best. Our European and Asian wireless carrier partners specialize in building and operating networks, enabling Skype to focus on what it does best: innovating and building software that enables the world’s conversations. Skype is therefore participating in this proceeding on behalf of our users, who might subscribe to the Internet access services provided in the 700 MHz band.
New technologies enable new applications, and in our experience, new entrants are more likely to deploy new technologies. Skype is a member of the Coalition for 4G in America because we believe that new entry is a necessary but not sufficient precondition to promote innovation and lower prices for consumers.4
We urge the Commission to avoid defining the objectives of the 700 MHz proceeding too narrowly.
Multiple providers of facilities-based wireless services, at least in theory, increase the possibility that competition will spur carriers to innovate with new business models.
However, at present the wireless market is dominated by a few large players, and competition between incumbent network providers — all of whom have mixed incentives to encourage VoIP-based competition — is insufficient to maximize consumer benefits in the mobile market. The Commission’s goal for the 700 MHz proceeding should not be simply to introduce additional competitors who have the same incentives to thwart device and application competition. Seen in this light, an increased number of intermodal competitors is a necessary but not sufficient condition to maximize consumer welfare in wireless.5
A better, more balanced policy outcome is one that encourages a cycle of investment in networks and in applications that consumers use on those networks. This is best achieved through Carterfone principles — permitting consumers to use wireless devices and applications of their choice — and wholesale alternatives throughout the wireless industry. To achieve this qualitative shift in the wireless marketplace, the Commission should design its 700 MHz auction to better balance the interests of carriers, their subscribers and the myriad of device and application enterprises that hold the promise of offering new products and content.
Specifically, the record demonstrates that large license blocks, such as a 22 MHz REAG Block in the Upper 700 MHz band proposed by the Coalition for 4G in America, can facilitate new entry without denying smaller carriers spectrum — if those large spectrum blocks carry appropriate conditions to facilitate competitive bidders. In Skype’s view, the surest way to promote wireless competition would be to ensure that all of the 700 MHz spectrum — or, at minimum, the 22 MHz REAG block — is auctioned under both “open access” rules and the “openness” principles described in the following section. There are also a number of additional steps the Commission can take to prevent the largest incumbents from winning the REAG licenses, thereby promoting network-level competition. These include adoption of anonymous bidding and the application of spectrum caps to the largest licenses. Should the Commission not adopt a spectrum cap, the Commission should opt for a band plan that maximizes the number of potential new-entrant bidders — or face the risk of losing any chance at robust competition resulting from this auction.
II. Competition Among Devices and Applications
Skype recently filed a petition — commonly known as the “Carterfone” Petition — seeking application of the Commission’s Broadband Policy principles to wireless broadband operators in order to bring the full benefit of competition and innovation to consumers of wireless broadband devices and software applications. As we made clear in our Petition, there is a growing list of discriminatory and anticompetitive practices occurring in the wireless world, whereby users are denied the opportunity to use desired applications.6
These carrier practices are stifling innovation by depriving entrepreneurs of incentives to build creative new applications and content. With regard to the 700 MHz auction, however, the Commission has a unique opportunity to inject some needed competition into the wireless market.
That is why Skype has urged the Commission to apply its time-honored Carterfone principles to all wireless networks operating in the CMRS bands.7
Doing so will maximize consumer benefits and unlock new sources of innovation and price competition. A number of parties in this proceeding have submitted comments arguing for various device and application layer “openness” principles. In our view, the Carterfone “openness” principle is captured by the Commission’s Broadband Policy Statement. If the Commission decides to diverge from that Policy Statement, we urge the FCC to adopt an “openness” principle that protects both a consumer’s right to attach unlocked devices and run applications of their choosing.8
An enforceable Broadband Policy Statement applied to wireless networks is a necessary pre-requisite to a wireless Internet ecosystem that maximizes the value of the 700 MHz bands and CMRS services in general.
We will not repeat the importance of this proceeding to the Commission’s broadband policy and to the interests of innovators such as Skype. We understand that you share this view with us. For our part, we are committed to developing new software applications that delight our users. It is our hope that when the 700 MHz auction concludes and these networks are built, Skype users with have an additional choice for their Internet access services and the applications that run atop increasingly powerful mobile computing devices.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions or if Skype can be of any further assistance in this proceeding.
Christopher Libertelli
Senior Director
Government and Regulatory Affairs
Skype Communications Sarl
1. Skype is a member of the Coalition for 4G in America. See Comments of the Coalition for 4G in America, WT Docket No. 06-150 (May 23, 2007). See also Skype Communications S.A.R.L., Petition to Confirm a Consumer’s Right to Use Internet Communications Software and Attach Devices to Wireless Networks, RM-11361 (filed Feb. 20, 2007) (“Skype Petition”); Reply Comments of Skype Communications S.A.R.L., RM-11361 (May 15, 2007) (“Skype Reply Comments”).
2. When a Skype user purchases paid services, these carrier partners allow a communication that might remain completely online to terminate to an ordinary mobile or fixed-line telephone.
3. For a description of the mobile collaboration between Skype and Hutchinson “3”, see http://xseries.three.com/index.shtml.
4. Skype Petition at 24-25.
5. See Barbara van Schewick, Toward and Economic Framework for Network Neutrality Regulation, 5 J. on Telecomm. & High Tech. L. 329, 368-78 (2007).
6. Skype Petition at 17-20.
7. Skype Reply Comments at 11-15.
8. Id.
Towards the end of June, 
I'll be iBold enough to say that, applying physics terminology so much appreciated by RIM's co-CEO, Blackberry Bold will reduce the half-life of the iPhone in the business and prosumer market by an order of magnitude.
The Canadian wireless market provides a unique situation in that Rogers is the only GSM wireless service provider. From the smartphone side there are four potential suppliers:
In a simplistic world, it is easy to view the mobile smartphone as the PC in your pocket when the truth is the mobile smartphone is not the PC in your pocket. The path to low cost or free mobile calling to our friends and business colleagues worldwide is not necessarily through a replication of what works on an PC.
To repeat: Skype Pro for North America consolidates Skype Unlimited North America and other services - same cost, extra benefits
Josh is an eBay veteran, having served, prior to his Shopping.com role, as General Manager for Marketplaats.nl and been involved with building eBay's classifieds business in Europe. Prior to joining eBay in 2003, he was a co-Founder and CEO of Evite, a social event planning service that I have used several times successfully, most recently for my high school's 50th anniversary reunion.
At one point I had to challenge the contention that Skype usage is falling off. During the past week, concurrent online users has approached (but not crossed) 12 million around noon hour EST (GMT-5) - a long way from the sub-10 million numbers prior to Christmas. (And 
Rising like a phoenix out of the ashes of eTel, Lee Dryburgh has taken the leadership in establishing a new conference that covers the bleeding edge of emerging communications. To be held at the Computer Museum in Mountain View, CA March 12-14, 2008, 
applications has always been vital; it gives you the freedom to switch services. 
This past Tuesday evening I had the opportunity to participate in 
... former WebDialogs CEO, now Lotus SameTime Director of Operations and Strategy, Lou Guercia leads a web seminar positioning the WebDialogs offerings, including Skype Extra Unyte Plus (to be renamed Unyte Share), within the overall SameTime product offering. Is IBM about to license Skype for real time communications technology?
While returning to the home office from my workout yesterday morning, before I started driving, I pulled out my Blackberry 8820, selected the iSkoot icon to open 
If this sounds similar to the 3 Skypephone experience, it is; 
When you take out the hardware and, concurrently, you take the complexity out of call center operation 
Earlier today, as confirmed to me by a couple of Contacts, and more recently by Skype PR, Skype, for the first time passed 10 million users concurrently online. That's about seven (7) Estonias or almost the combined population of Estonia and Sweden.
What has been also noticeable the past couple of weeks is that this number remains above 9 million well into the North American Eastern time zone afternoon. The count on the right was captured at 1408h EDT (1808 GMT) today.
It does it brilliantly, letting people trigger calls from phones and web pages. 
but at the programming level, launching conference calls for groups of people in social networks. (Congratulations on the launch, Lypp) 
voice (traditional voice calls, conference calls)
Just over a month ago 
skype
with portal partners around the world to show Skype 
writes of 
Skype hedges their dialtone promise with 
Despite doing bunches of things right, Skype's core value is dying.