I've finished reading through McCain's Technology Plan -- it's a quick read, about 50% as large as Obama's Technology Plan but with even less actual content. One telecommunications expert told me, "The fact that it's so thin and fluffy speaks for itself."

That said, there were some good points in McCain's plan (e.g., supporting research and development, increasing H1-B Visas, tax breaks for R&D, supporting national broadband buildout, increasing government transparency, reforming the patent system) -- of course they were all points that were already in Obama's plan, released last fall. In fact, the parallels are fairly substantial (to a point).

But it's in the discrepancies where the two candidates are thrown into stark relief...

Network Neutrality

Obama's says: "A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."

McCain's says: "John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like 'net-neutrality,' but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices."

Diversity of Media Ownership

Obama's says: "Barack Obama believes that providing opportunities for minority-owned businesses to own radio and television stations is fundamental to creating the diverse media environment that federal law requires and the country deserves and demands. As president, he will encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum."

McCain's says: [Nothing -- there's nothing about diversity or media ownership in his technology plan.]

Lowering the Corporate Tax Rate

Obama's says: [Specific tax breaks for R&D and broadband buildouts, but no cross the board tax cut for major corporations.]

McCain's says: "John McCain will lower the corporate tax rate to 25 percent."

General Worldview Towards Technology

Obama's says: "Obama is also opening up the campaign and giving average Americans a chance to offer opinions and information on important policy issues and Americans have responded: over 15,000 policy ideas have been submitted through the web site."

McCain's says: "Offering simple common sense solutions to real problems is at the core of the McCain’s innovation agenda."

A lot of McCain's plan looks good (a lot of it also looks identical to Obama's plan), but it's this last one -- this McCain worldview that scares the hell out of me. Technology is complicated -- and the solutions we need are fairly complex -- they require an in depth understanding of the problem if you're going to formulate a solution. And McCain clearly doesn't understand some of the core problems.

Take competition, for example. McCain's tech plan states, "Competition has been a great strength for America — offering opportunity, low prices, and increased choice for our citizens. Markets work best when there is robust competition. Competition means that any new devices invented cost less because there are more choices. This ensures more Americans can afford to be part of the digital economy." Yet, when it comes to things like broadband services, the US is paying more for services and has fewer service options than a growing host of other countries. If you can't identify the problem of lack of competition in the first place, how can you possibly solve the problem. Platitudes about competition aren't going to cut it.

A technology plan has to address the massive market conglomerization that's been happening in technology -- from Microsoft to Google, Apple to AT&T. McCain's plan completely sidesteps this issue -- Obama's plan addresses it head-on:

"An Obama administration will look carefully at key industries to ensure that the benefits of competition are fully realized by consumers. Obama will strengthen the antitrust authorities’ competition advocacy programs to ensure that special interests do not use regulation to insulate themselves from the competitive process. Obama will also strengthen competition advocacy in the international community as well as domestically. He will take steps to ensure that antitrust law is not used as a tool to interfere with robust competition or undermine efficiency to the detriment of U.S. consumers and businesses. He will do so by improving the administration of those laws in the U.S. and by working with foreign governments to change unsound competition laws and to avoid needless duplication and conflict in multinational enforcement of those laws. In short, an Obama administration will take seriously its responsibility to enforce the antitrust laws so that all Americans benefit from a growing and healthy competitive free-market economy."

However you come down on these issues, I'd love to hear more about your take on the McCain and Obama plans (either on blog or off). Personally, I'm still waiting for McCain to release a real technology plan -- one that helps consumers and addresses the problems we're facing instead of protecting corporations and ignoring technology market failings.

When McCain states, "

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.

We just launched the Wireless Innovation Alliance here at year's end to help counter the massive, multi-million dollar lobbying and PR blitz by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). At stake is access to the unused frequencies in-between TV broadcast channels. The NAB says that allowing unlicensed devices in these channels would destroy TV (and they have zillions of dollars and lobbyists on their side). We say that's bunk (and have research/physics/reality) on our side.

I recently drafted an in-depth white space device policy backgrounder on the issue that's both accessible and chock-full of useful information about white space devices.

Meanwhile, a number of congressional members weighed in this week supporting white space devices, and Ofcom (the British equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission) just announced their support for white space devices -- what they call "interleaved spectrum" (maybe physics works differently across the pond?).

If you're now asking yourself, "What are these white space devices of which you speak?" -- here's a quick synopsis of the current battle (from the white space device policy backgrounder):

White spaces devices use the unassigned frequencies between broadcast TV channels to offer a range of wireless services to the public. Access to the vacant TV channels in each market has been the subject of intense lobbying, yet far too many of the arguments against white space devices rely upon misinformation about the technologies and the FCC process that will ensure that harmful interference TV broadcasts and other incumbent services does not occur. Much of the analysis that underlies anti-white space device lobbying does not equip policymakers with the information they need to make decisions in the public interest. We believe that policymakers deserve better than the torrent of misinformation that has characterized the debate over white spaces devices. Therefore, this paper is an effort to help policymakers strike the appropriate balance between protecting existing services from interference while making the benefits of mobile broadband services available and affordable for all consumers. This policy backgrounder contains an analysis of the impact of white spaces devices from the New America Foundation, an independent think tank that has published numerous independent studies on this issue over the past five years. The paper contains links to primary sourcing to support its claims and aid in the critical analysis of the counterclaims currently being made about these new technologies. Our goal is to provide decision-makers and interested parties with: 1) a brief historical background to the current FCC proceedings; 2) a description of White Space Device (WSD) technologies; 3) a point-counterpoint “Myths vs. Facts” section on some of the key concerns raised about WSDs; 4) an overview of the public benefits of WSDs; and 5) a concise summary of where we are in the multi-phase process of adopting WSD technologies for consumer use.

Just when we'd hoped that the US administration might finally begin working on a national broadband strategy, it comes out against one of the key components that more successful countries have implemented. Preston Gralla hits the nail on the head -- from www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/6153:

U.S. Justice Dept. should stay out of net neutrality debate
By Preston Gralla on Fri, 09/07/2007 - 2:04pm

It's clear that the U.S. Department of Justice is far more interested in politics than it is in enforcing the law. What else to make of its recent bizarre criticism of network neutrality proposals?

In a press release, the department said that it had cautioned the FCC against any network neutrality proposals because, the proposals could "deter broadband Internet providers from upgrading and expanding their networks to reach more Americans."

First off, that's flatly wrong. The U.S. has among the worst broadband penetration rates and speeds in the developed world, because the government refuses to take actions to ensure we have adequate broadband coverage.

Secondly, net neutrality would increase competition, not harm it, and there would be better broadband services overall.

That's not the real point, though. The point is that the Department of Justice is supposed to enforce laws, not push specific political positions. Under Attorny General Alberto Gonzales, the department was all about politics, not law enforcement. But he's resigned, and so many people assumed the department would go back to its roots of enforcing laws.

It's clear, though, that the problem is deeper than Gonzales, as this latest statement proves. Whether you are for or against network neutrality, you should hope that our Department of Justice would stay away from politics. For the moment, though, it's as knee-deep in partisanship as ever.

This posting comes out of months of discussions with telecommunications lawyers and wireless developers, FCC and congressional staff, implementers and integrators, municipal representatives and community organizers -- people with a high degree of experience and expertise in the realm of wireless networking. Part of the reason for the posting stems from a recent resurgence of interest in the M2Z application on several important virtual groups I participate in, part of the reason is that this has been sitting on my to-do list for quite some time, and part is because the M2Z application is both innovative and problematic, which is a rare and intriguing combination.

From M2Z's September 1, 2006 (amended) "Application for License and Authority to Provide National Broadband Radio Service in the 2155-2175 MHz Band":

M2Z Networks, Inc. (“M2Z”) hereby submits its license application to construct and operate a nationwide broadband wireless network in the 2155-2175 MHz spectrum band (the “Application”). Expedited acceptance and grant of the Application will enable M2Z to rapidly make available free, high speed broadband access to nearly every consumer, business and non-profit and public safety entity in the United States without relying on the Universal Service Fund or other taxpayer dollars. Grant of this Application would promote broadband deployment; yield near ubiquitous broadband access within 10 years of license grant and commencement of operations; and serve the public interest, convenience and necessity

...M2Z will transform the broadband marketplace by creating a nationwide, free broadband alternative for most Americans within an exceptionally short time frame. M2Z, therefore, requests that the Commission act expeditiously on the instant Application so that current and would-be consumers of broadband services can benefit from the increased availability and competition that M2Z’s service will bring to the broadband marketplace.

On the face of things, this is a wonderfully exciting development. But delving deeper does raise a number of concerns, not only with the spectrum use proposed, but with the current state of wireless regulation and it's disregard for pending technological innovations that make most spectrum policy obsolete.

Read more...

Here's a great list from the Ramsay Report of all telecom bills introduced (thus far) in the new congress:

Read more...

The New Network Neutrality includes ten criteria laid out by Sascha Meinrath and Victor Pickard that help create a more participatory and democratic Internet:

• Requires Common Carriage.
• Is Open Architecture and Supports Open Source Driver Development.
• Is Open Protocol and Open Standard.
• Supports and End-to-End Architectures (i.e., is composed of a "dumb" network).
• Is Private (e.g., no back doors, deep packet inspection, etc.).
• Is Application-Neutral.
• Is Generally Low-Latency and First-In/First-Out (i.e., requires adequate capacity for both).
• Is Interoperable.
• Is Business Model Neutral.
• Is Run by its Users (i.e., is internationally representative and non-Amerocentric).

Download the full paper here.