Since posting several concerns with the future of Meraki's pricing structure I've heard that Meraki is planning discontinue their Meraki Mini $49 mesh router on August 12, 2008. If true (I've now heard it from a few different sources), this means that Meraki users have only a few more days to buy hardware before the minimal price goes up by 300%.

[UPDATE01]From Meraki on the evening of the 12th:

Standard Edition Transition

We are also announcing the end of life of our Standard Edition (ad-supported) products, which will no longer be available to new customers after January 31, 2009. Over the past year we've seen rapidly increasing demand for the features and functionality of the Pro Edition line of products and have decided to simplify our offerings and focus our development efforts.

As an existing Standard Edition customer, your networks will continue to operate normally and Meraki will continue providing hosted services for the lifetime of the product. In addition, as part of our streamlined product offering, your networks will have certain features enabled in Dashboard which were previously only available in Pro Edition, including custom images on splash pages and unlimited device whitelisting. You may optionally upgrade to the complete Pro Edition for $100 per node by contacting sales@meraki.com.

Network operators planning to expand Standard Edition networks can continue purchasing the Meraki Mini for $49 and Meraki Outdoor for $99 through January 31, 2009 through the "Standard Edition Store" link under the "Support" tab in your Meraki Dashboard. The Meraki Indoor is available in the Pro Edition, but can be added to existing Standard networks.

As I reported earlier, Bell Canada has been caught throttling traffic from independent service providers. More data is now coming in and the extent of the bandwidth throttling has been remarkable. Here's a 24hr snapshot from one ISP:

Meanwhile, independent ISPs have set up a map of where they're being discriminated against -- as it turns out, Bell Canada has been doing this to scores and scores of competitors. Here's the map:

View Larger Map

Steven Mansour just pinged me about Bell Canada purposefully degrading traffic of independent internet service providers. This is a huge violation of network neutrality and exactly the kind of behavior by telco incumbents that must be made illegal. Michael Geist looks to have broken the story -- I'm sure it'll be coming out to the more mainstream media momentarily.

Last month, Comcast announced it was taking over control of Insight's networks in much of the Midwest. Last week, without any warning to its customers, Comcast cut off service as a part of a "network upgrade." For the past decade, the Chambana.net community webhosting project has provided low-cost services to our local community. For the past several years, we've utilized (and paid the premium for) enterprise class connectivity.

Since we're in the midst of upgrading and adding redundant backup uplinks, we were quite reliant upon Comcast. We've had to pay a huge mark-up for services that are supposedly better than the norm -- but Comcast completely disregarded the service level agreements that Insight had and, but cutting off service, caused the outage of service to scores of websites, hundreds of e-mail lists, and thousands of users.

The silver lining in all of this is that after two days of zero response from Comcast, Pete Collins was able to put us in contact with a Comcast employee (Jim) from the Chicago offices and Jim was able to get things cleared up fairly quickly. The total outage time was several days, and without Jim's help, would have been far longer.

But the real problem is that this sort of massive disruption to service was both completely unnecessary, entirely avoidable, and done in an environment where Comcast faces no negative repercussions for causing substantial harm to the communities that rely upon Internet connectivity for their livelihoods. This sort of business practice must be disallowed by the Public Utility Commissions and other bodies that are supposed to protect the general public from this sort of corporate malfeasance. Otherwise, it's only a question of time before it happens again.

Here in DC we've been busy getting a new paper out the door. Focusing on the legal and regulatory precedents for allowing foreign attachments on wireline networks (e.g., answering machines, computer modems, etc.) -- this analysis supports the notion that wireline and wireless phone systems should both be open. Currently, cell phone companies engage in all sorts of behaviors to limit what devices can be used on their networks.

We just hosted the Free My Phone event earlier this week in the Russell Senate Building -- alas, while the video looks great, the audio channel didn't work (so unless you're a fantastic lip reader, it's not of much use). Which is a shame since the event brought together some fairly interesting folks:

• Commissioner Michael Copps
  Federal Communications Commission

• Walt Mossberg
  Personal Technology Columnist, Wall Street Journal

• Stephen Wildstrom
  Personal Technology Columnist, Business Week

• Tony Lewis
  Vice President - Open Development Initiative, Verizon Wireless

• Blair Levin
  Managing Director, Stifel Nicolaus

• Christopher Libertelli
  Senior Director - Regulatory and Government Affairs, Skype

• Robert Frieden
  University of Pennsylvania Law School

• Michael Calabrese
  Director, Wireless Future Program, New America Foundation

And managed to garner some good press in places like Consumer Affairs, CNet News, and PC World.

Meanwhile, here's the official press release that we sent out today.

Dear Colleagues,

This week, the New America Foundation/Wireless Future Program released a new working paper, Wireless Carterfone: A Long Overdue Policy Promoting Consumer Choice and Competition, by Rob Frieden of Penn State University.

Currently, wireless carriers can restrict the phones and other devices consumers can use on their network, what device features they can access, and what software applications and content they can download. Carriers lock subscribers into two-year service contracts, often bundling the service with carrier-subsidized handsets that include restrictive terms of service designed to limit access to web-based aps and content that compete with the carriers or their affiliates. This "locking and blocking" has been prohibited in relation to traditional wireline telephone service since the 1968 Carterfone decision by the FCC gave consumers the right to purchase their choice of equipment and to connect any telephone or safe device without carrier-imposed limitations.

The paper demonstrates that the FCC has ample statutory authority to apply Carterfone consumer choice regulation to wireless carriers -- and that the FCC has already extended Carterfone principles to other technologies and services. The Commission has undertaken several initiatives to protect consumers from similar mandatory bundling arrangements, including its 2005 order mandating alternatives to cable set-top box leasing. Similar unbundling arrangements have been applied to the wireless market, including requiring wireless carriers to provide consumers with local number portability and the establishment of an “Open Platform” requirement for a 22 MHz block of spectrum in the 700 MHz spectrum auction that begins this week. These examples underscore the importance of Carterfone as a universal precedent for promoting consumer choice and protecting the public interest.

The working paper can be found "here. More information on this issue is available free at www.spectrumpolicy.org. Also, please call Erin Drankoski at 202-997-8727 or email Drankoski@newamerica.net for more information about New America’s experts on this issue.

---

New America’s Wireless Future Program develops and advocates policy proposals aimed at achieving universal and affordable wireless broadband access, expanding public access to the airwaves and updating our nation’s communications infrastructure in the digital era. For more information, visit www.spectrumpolicy.org.

About the New America Foundation:

The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, post-partisan public policy institute whose purpose is to bring exceptionally promising new voices and new ideas to the fore of our nation's public discourse. Relying on a venture capital approach, the Foundation invests in outstanding individuals and policy solutions that transcend the conventional political spectrum. Headquartered in our nation's capital, New America also has offices in California and New York. More information is available at www.newamerica.net.

Here's a piece of PR masterwork from the folks at Verizon. For those who have been following the Open Platform debate (an initiative to require an open platform for interconnection of any devices/applications on a small piece of the upcoming 700MHz band that's going to be auctioned in January), you know that Verizon has been 100% against the idea. Verizon has been so entirely against the idea that they contacted the Chairman of the FCC asking that he kill it while, at the same time, they sued the FCC to prevent open platform requirements from going through.

Verizon, in a nutshell, hates the idea of an open platform for the interconnection of devices and applications -- to the point that the FCC Chairman called me and Harold Feld into his office to attempt to get the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition to back off on our open platform demands.

So what's this news really about? Basically, Verizon wants to be able to charge customers (at a price and rate still to be set) to access the services and applications they want on the devices they own. Verizon is, attempting to turn the applications you have bought and paid for (or downloaded for free if you're using free open source software) into commodity so that they can charge you a second time to access them via the Verizon network. In essence, Verizon is adding a corporate tax that goes straight into their coffers for the so-called "privilege" to run the services and applications you want, on the devices you've already bought and paid for. On a digital communications network, data is data is data -- the network doesn't care if the packet is voice, video, text, or any other media -- an open platform should require that data is treated the same way as it is on a DSL line. The idea that Verizon would be able to differentiate among services (and charge users a second time to access an "open platform") is ridiculous. Yet without some sort of rule to stop this form of corporate malfeasance, it's unlikely that we'll ever see cellular DSL-esque services from Verizon.

However this plays out, it's quite likely that Verizon will now be going after the C-band in the January 2008 spectrum auction. Between this and the Android announcement by Google, we could see a fairly interesting bidding war between the two.

From money.cnn.com

Verizon Wireless to Introduce 'Any Apps, Any Device' Option for Customers in 2008

New Open Development Initiative Will Accelerate Innovation and Growth

November 27, 2007: 07:30 AM EST

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Nov. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless today announced that it will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon Wireless plans to have this new choice available to customers throughout the country by the end of 2008.

Read more...

Verizon announced this month that, "Verizon Expands High-Speed Internet Access in Illinois: Company Upgrades Network to Make Super-Fast DSL Service More Available." I kid you not -- "super-fast."

I read the press release excitedly -- certainly this is very good news for the rural communities that have been systematically discriminated against in terms of broadband services. Then I read the rest of the press release -- not to sound too harsh, but what Verizon is offering is unbelievably slow and outdated service, it's crap:

Verizon will offer two high-speed DSL Internet service plans to qualifying consumers, one with maximum connection speeds of up to 768 Kbps (kilobits per second) downstream and 128 Kbps upstream and another with maximum connection speeds of up to 3.0 Mbps (megabits per second) downstream and 768 kbps upstream... NOTE: Actual (throughput) speeds will vary.

128Kbps upstream speed is their standard package, with premium service at just half-a-meg (768Kbps) upload speed. And that's the maximum speed, which means that actual rates may be substantially less. What Verizon is doing is offering just about the most limited service possible that would still be considered "broadband" by the inane definition utilized by the FCC -- which would, in essence obfuscate the fact that most of rural Illinois is actually receiving extremely bad broadband connectivity or none at all.

Long-term, this will lead to the continuing digital divide and undermine efforts to eliminate the substantial discrimination faced by rural populations across the United States. I see Verizon's initiative as the crumbs thrown to hush an increasingly displeased public.

What is perhaps the most dispicable part of the press release is the actual headline and the fact that the actual service speeds are in the second-to-last paragraph of the 3-page press release (the version I received). As all reporters know, you lead with information that informs the headline -- this press release was purposefully constructed to place connectivity speed as far away from their claim of "super-fast DSL service" as possible.

Read the full press release here.

Verizon's at it again, like clockwork. It was almost exactly a year ago that Verizon offered it's so-called broadband "deal" which, in actuality, simply cut service in half for roughly half the price. Here it is, a year later, and Verizon is once again misleading its customers with deceptive business practices that obfuscate the fact that they are about to start charging their customers roughly 10% more for their service. Due to changing interpretations of national telecommunications regulations, Verizon has replaced their public service obligation to help support the Universal Service Fund (basically the funding that helps pay for services to the rural, underserved, etc.) with a direct subsidy to the corporation itself. In other words, take money from the poor and pay it directly to Verizon to boost their profit margin.

Here's how it works (thanks to Bruce Kushnick for passing this along):

Read more...

As reported by www.broadcastingcable.com, Verizon is now suing Montgomery County in Maryland. Many surmise that it is an attempt to push through more incumbent-friendly federal legislation:

Council VP Marilyn Praisner said in a statement: “I am stunned to have these false accusations by Verizon leveled against Montgomery County. Repeatedly I have urged Verizon to submit a cable franchise and yet they have refused while posturing publicly before the Management and Fiscal Policy (MFP) Committee that they were committed to working with us....Verizon just doesn't want to play by the same rules as everyone else. The County has been more than patient with Verizon. We facilitated the deployment of their fiber optic technology even though it created construction problems in our neighborhoods and caused disruption of service for [incumbent cable operator] Comcast and others. This lawsuit is not really about Montgomery County. It is Verizon’s attempt to influence federal legislation. It is about eradicating the role of local government, the government closest to the people, and our efforts to protect consumers and our local rights-of-way.”

In 2005, when hearings about the AT&T/SBC merger were taking place. Many consumer groups stated that the merger would all but guarantee higher prices for end users. Time and again, we stated that telecommunications history is rife with examples of mergers lead directly to higher prices for basic services as competition lessens. Thus, it was amazing to me that politicians bought the inane arguments of paid telecom lobbyists that this wasn't the case and allowed the AT&T/SBC merger to go through. The merger happened less than a year ago (seven month, in fact) and now AT&T has announced that it's raising basic phone rates for their customers -- fulfilling exactly what opponents of the merger warned against and showing just how misleading pro-merger representatives were. More info below:

AT&T GETS MORE FOR LESS
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: David Lazarus]

In March 2005, then-SBC's chief exec, Ed Whitacre, testified in Congress that his company's then-pending $16 billion acquisition of AT&T would have no adverse effect on consumers. He was asked by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) if he would pledge not to raise residential phone rates once the merger goes through. According to reports of the hearing, Whitacre assured the congressman that the deal would "have no impact on the consumer marketplace." Rep Markey persisted. If that's the case, he said, would Whitacre publicly pledge that rates won't go up? "I can't pledge that forever, but don't see anything that would impact that in the foreseeable future," Whitacre replied. "How long is the foreseeable future?" Rep Markey asked. "can't make a pledge for any specific length of time," Whitacre answered. "I can't give you a specific number of days or years. I really don't foresee it." Less than seven months after the SBC-AT&T merger was finalized in November, rates are now going up in the form of higher minimum usage fees. If you're an AT&T long-distance customer and you don't make a lot of calls, there's a good chance your monthly bill will be going up as a result of these new "minimum usage" fees. AT&T says on its Web site that long-distance customers "enjoy great rates usually with a small or no monthly plan fee." It says it needs to charge (or in some cases increase) monthly minimum usage fees "in order to keep these rates low and still recover our costs of providing basic service." Industry analysts and consumer advocates say this just doesn't ring true. "Carrier costs are not going up to provide long-distance service," said Lisa Pierce, a vice president at Forrester Research who specializes in telecom issues. "If anything, the cost has been coming down."

See also: AT&T/Bell South to Public: We Don't Have to Pay Attention to the Public Interest, Just the Corporate Bottom Line