FCCs Role in Broadband Regulations - Assignment Example

The Role of FCC in Broadband Regulations March Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. The Role of FCC in Broadband Regulation A. The Creation of Federal Communications Commission 4 B. The Authority of FCC to Control Communication 5 C. The Move Towards Openness 6 D. The Downside of FCCs Initiative I. Possible Network Harm 8 II. The Effects in Citizens Privacy 9 III. Conclusion 10 IV. References 11 IV. Appendix 13 Introduction Over the years, there was a dramatic growth of broadband internet use which varies in different settings of American households. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce (2010), the internet had a revolutionary effect to the social and economic environment by providing alternative ways when communicating, informing, entertaining and even providing education. Internet became an integral part of the lives of the citizens in America for both their social and economic lives. The internet and information technology gave way to growth in economy and digital commerce, transformation of social and cultural bonds as well as development of civic participation ("Commercial in Data Privacy", n.d.). Reports showed that the differences in socio-economic, geographic and demographic characteristics of the surveyed households affected the significant difference in demands and use of broadband internet. It was between the years of 2007 and 2009 that the use of internet boomed and the result showed that it was in 2009 that highest broadband use was reported with Asian and Whites topping the users ("Exploring the Digital Nation, 2010). In 2010, the U.S. Department of Commerce specified that among the users were the youth, urban residents, well-educated, well-paid and married couples. With these developments, many of us wonder how internet use is controlled and who controls it. Do we have enough laws, rules and regulations governing the internet to ensure that every user is protected against any harm? There may be a lot of questions running through our heads as to what are the possible dangers we are going to face having been so deeply attached and dependent to internet use. This paper aims to recognize the effects of a more open internet use to the privacy of the United States citizens and the role of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to broadband regulations and the internet. The Role of FCC in Broadband Regulation A. The Creation of Federal Communications Commission Established in 1934 by the Communications Act, the Federal Communications Commission as a key agency, it is tasked to control the booming communications (FCC, n.d.). This independent agency of the United States is supervised by the Congress. According to the FCC (n.d.), the commission: is committed to being a responsive, efficient and effective agency capable of facing the technological and economic opportunities of the new millennium. In its work, the agency seeks to capitalize on its competencies in: Promoting competition, innovation, and investment in broadband services and facilities; Supporting the nation’s economy by ensuring an appropriate competitive framework for the unfolding of the communications revolution; Encouraging the highest and best use of spectrum domestically and internationally; Revising media regulations so that new technologies flourish alongside diversity and localism; Providing leadership in strengthening the defense of the nation’s communications infrastructure. FCC is governed by five commissioners appointed by the US President and concurred by the Senate. These commissioners must be of different political party with only three out of five are allowed to come from the same political party. Among the five commissioners, one will be chosen to act as chairman to govern the government agency. This independent agency will be subdivided into different bureaus responsible in: Developing and implementing regulatory programs; Processing applications for licenses and other filings; Encouraging the development of innovative services; Conducting investigations and analyzing complaints; Public safety and homeland security. (FCC, n.d.) B. The Authority of FCC to Control Communications Two provisions of the Communications Act embody the federal policy towards the internet. The Communications Act of 1934, Section 230(b), amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, states “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet” and “to promote the continued development of the Internet.” A clearer provision of the Congress gives FCC the authority to develop “the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans" as provided in Section 706 of the Communications Act. In 2005, the Federal Communications Commission announced a policy statement regarding the rights of the consumers in accessing the internet provided by consumer networks (Ruane, 2011). The commission was provided the authority to regulate and ensure that these broadband networks are extensively utilized and affordable. To ensure an open, affordable and accessible internet provision, the FCC used the following principles: consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers. (Ruane, 2011) The creation of these principles were subject to fair and appropriate network management as clearly stated by FCC. The FCC committed to provide policies which are consistent and parallel with the directions of the Congress. C. The Move towards Openness Nobody can deny that the internet has become an essential part of peoples lives. Reliance to the internet broadened from personal communication to business communication as well as for the critical infrastructure (Diffie & Landau, 2009). This shows how people depend in the network on which are not even proven to be secured and reliable. According to Diffie and Landau (2009), several efforts were developed to ensure that internet use will be secured such as the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), and implementation of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). These are all intended to protect the Internet commerce, IP Communication and domain systems (Diffie & Landau, 2009). According to George Lawton (2008), the United States wireless industry is in the midst of transforming from traditional "walled-garden" toward a future in which there will be more choices of the wireless devices and software for the consumers. Instead of carriers determining the phones and applications the customers can use, the service providers now do not have the control of the wireless experience, instead this will be transferred to the hands of the consumers (Lawton, 2008). Although this development was not easily accepted by the service providers, the US Federal Communications Commission now took a step to help the United States move toward openness. As reported by George Lawton (2008), a block of highly valued radio spectrum was auctioned by FCC to encourage the service providers to make their services more open to public. Few years ago, FCC wanted a big Broadband network that will provide the citizens both the high definition video and high quality voice at affordable prices which will also permit consumers to utilize their high speed access to the Internet (Hundt, 2003). According to Hundt (2003), this network that the country wanted is an efficient one that would encourage new innovative services and increase e-commerce and produce higher GDP. Thus, the FCCs role is to unwrite the existing rules and create new policies that would encourage existing service providers to build a big broadband network (Hundt, 2003). The government initiative to encourage openness to service providers started when FCC officially began the auction of five (5) blocks of the valued radio spectrum or 62 MHz in width last January 24, 2008 (Lawton, 2008). Lawton reported that it was Google who pressured FCC to require an open access as this will invite competition and encourage innovation in both wired and wireless internet (2008). Because of this initiative, big companies such as Sprint announced that they will spend billions to an open network to encourage more subscribers in the near future as there will be an open access to numerous applications and services for their subscribers. In 2011, the FCC published a list of companies granted with authority to provide a database for the "white space" spectrum which is considered unlicensed and the commission allowed LightSquared, a privately funded company, to lease spectrum to build a high-speed internet network from satellite feeds (Reardon, 2011). The commission foresee an impending spectrum crisis as reported by Reardon (2011) due to the increasing demand of rich services from consumers. Due to this growing demand, the commission opened an unlicensed spectrum controlled by private companies (Reardon, 2011). D. The Downside of FCCs Initiatives i. Possible Network Harm Lawton (2008) discussed that because of the call to a more open access, there is a big possibility that the applications as well as the open wireless devices will be hacked. This liberty can attract a lot of malware than can interfere with different services such as phones (Lawton, 2008). Although the internet providers today can prevent consumers or end users from doing harmful activities, the real question is how long can the carriers contain the activities of the internet users such as downloading applications or even spreading harmful internet virus. These concerns will eventually intercept to the consumers personal activities. This might cause widespread hacking of personal and even business accounts in the near future. There is a big risk whether or not the privacy of the citizens will be compromised because of the eagerness to develop an larger and more open network access. This is the risk that FCC has accepted in return of the transformation toward a big broadband network. ii. The Effects in Citizens Privacy What is privacy? Many of us mistakenly refer to "privacy" as "secrecy." However, Hirshleifer (1979) contented that "privacy" is not the same with secrecy, instead, he referred to it as "a concept that might be described as an autonomy within society and a way of organizing society." Coming from a Latin word "privus" which means single, "privacy" was later interpreted as particular, peculiar and ones own (Hirshleifer, 1979). The word "private" was later on developed so as to create a term "private property." The word "privacy" as Hirshleifer (1979) determined, is the line we draw to separate the private from the public. Hence, privacy would entail something personal that the public does not have any authority to tamper or intrude. Privacy is also identified by Noam (1996) and Samarajiva (1998) as the "ability to control access of ones information (in/out)" as cited in Acquisti, 2004. Acquisti also provided Scoglios (1994) definition of the term privacy as "the freedom to develop" and Warren and Brandeis (1890) popular definition as "the right to be left alone" (2004). The open access network can take away our right to be left alone when all our privately shared files will be seen by other people through creation of applications or hacking accounts without being noticed. Even with our current status with social media, there have been a lot of reports recently that there are Facebook accounts that were hacked and were used to create widespread spam emails and messages. How they do this is left unanswered. The question now lies as to whose interest must be protected, the private interest or the public interest promoting the use of a larger spectrum to increase government GDP. Conclusion Based on the principles guiding the commission, the initiatives taken were still constitutional. The main objective of the US government through FCC is to ensure that broadband networks will provide open access to consumers to run applications, connect their preferred legal device, use services of their choice at affordable price with an ultimate goal of encouraging more subscribers and increase GDP. However, the FCC as the designated and authorized agency to control and regulate the communication industry must be very keen to review the current status of the practices of wireless industry. Although they have been committed to ensure an open access to the public, the commission must be able to regulate and protect both the private and public interests. Today, there are millions of subscribers to the broadband networks, but reports stated that there are carriers that excessively controlling the type of devices to be used on the public s broadband spectrum and that FCC must be able to neutralize these broadband networks (Wu, 2007). References: Acquisti, A. (2004, February). The economics of privacy. Retrieved from http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~acquisti/papers/acquisti_privacy_economics.ppt Diffie, W., & Landau, S. (2009). Communications surveillance: Privacy and security at risk. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 42-47. Electronic Frontier Foundation. (2009). FOIA: Social networking monitoring. Retrieved from https://www.eff.org/foia/social-network-monitoring Hirshleifer, J. (1979). Privacy: Its origin, function, and future. Paper presented at the Economics of Law and Privacy Conference, Chicago, IL. Retrieved from http://www.econ.ucla.edu/workingpapers/wp166.pdf Hundt, R. (2003, December). Reforming telecom policy for the big broadband era. Retrieved from http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/reforming_telecom_policy_for_the_big_broadband_era  Lawton, G. (2008, February). U.S. cell phone industry faces an open future. Computer 41(2), 15-18. Reardon, M. (2011, January 27). FCC takes steps to free up wireless spectrum. C-NET. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20029841-266.html Schwartz, P. M. (2009). Warrantless wiretapping, FISA reform, and the lessons of public liberty: A comment on Holmess Jorde lecture. California Law Review, 97(2), 407-432. Retrieved from http://www.californialawreview.org/assets/pdfs/97-2/09Apr_Schwartz.pd Ruane, K. (2011, October 27). The FCCs Authority to Regulate Net Neutrality After Comcast vs FCC. Congressional Research Service. 7-5700. R-40234. Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40234.pdf United States. Department of Commerce. (2010, December 16). Commercial data privacy and innovation in the Internet economy:  A dynamic policy framework. Retrieved from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/iptf_privacy_greenpaper_12162010.pdf United States. Department of Commerce. Economics and Statistics Administration. (2010, November). Exploring the digital nation: Home broadband internet adoption in the United States. Retrieved from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/esa_ntia_us_broadband_adoption_report_11082010_1.pdf United States. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (2003, October). United States frequency allocations. Retrieved from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf Wu, T. (2007, February). Wireless net neutrality: Cellular Carterfone and consumer choice in mobile broadband.  Retrieved from http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/wireless_net_neutrality 47 U.S.C. Section 230 (b) (2) 47 U.S.C. Section 157 (incorporation with Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, P. L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56 (1996)) Appendix: Read More