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Text File | 1994-05-29 | 25KB | 468 lines

The Electronic Frontier Foundation
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                  OPEN PLATFORM CAMPAIGN:
           Public Policy For The Information Age




I.    Realizing The Democratic Potential Of Information Infrastructure

    The proponents of the National Information Infrastructure--from
policymakers to public-policy groups to telecommunications executives--all
agree about the ways the infrastructure is vital for the civic good. They
cite its potential for connecting learners with learning resources,
promoting vigorous political discourse, and increasing economic
competitiveness.  The corporations that are building the infrastructure
suggest that by simply striking down existing regulatory barriers,
investment incentives will produce an infrastructure built to serve all.
Others suggest holding fast to traditional regulatory models and relying
on antitrust law alone to promote the new infrastructure.  Neither
allowing rampant mergers nor mere opposition to market concentration will
bring the benefits of the information age to the American public.

    To achieve the democratic potential of the growing information
superhighway we need a new social contract, updating the one cast in the
1934 Communications Act.  We must organize a broad-based, public-private
political coalition to revise the Communications Act according to the
following principles:

*    Diversity of Information Sources:  Promote a fully interactive
        infrastructure in which the First Amendment flourishes, allowing the
        greatest possible diversity of view points;

*    Universal Service:  Ensure a minimum level of affordable
    information and communication service for all Americans;

*    Free Speech and Common Carriage:  Guarantee infrastructure access
    regardless of the content of the message that the user is sending;

*    Privacy:  Protect the security and privacy of all communications
    carried over the infrastructure, and safeguard the Fourth and Fifth
    Amendment rights of all who use the information infrastructure;

*    Development of Public Interest Applications and Services:  Ensure
    that public interest applications and services which are not produced
    by the commercial market are widely available and affordable.

    EFF will work with a broad coalition that takes practical steps
toward a Communications Act of 1994, that ensures equitable access
to the information infrastructure for all.

    None of the interactive services promised, or the diversity hoped
for, will be possible with an eight lane data superhighway rushing one-way
into the home, and only a narrow footpath running out.  Electronic media,
from broadcast television to cable, have always been introduced to the
public with great fanfare.  But in spite of the promises of policymakers
and media owners, they've ultimately disappointed us.  The failures of
regulation and the limits of the technology itself have prevented
broadcast and cable television from becoming  the promised saviors of
education or political life.  We must act now to ensure that the
information highway is more than just 10,000 more channels of what we have
today--what Newton Minow might have called "a vaster wasteland."

    The clarion call to policymakers is to find a way to break the
cycle of promise and disappointment that has marred the broadcast and
cable media.  Regulatory changes should be made, and mergers approved or
barred based on specific, enforceable commitments that the electronic
superhighways will meet public goals and realize the potential of digital
technology.  That potential arises from the extraordinary spaciousness of
the broadband information highway, contrasted with the scarcity of
broadcast spectrum and the limited number of cable channels that defined
the mass media era.  Properly constructed and administered, the
information highway has enough capacity to permit passage not only for a
band of channels controlled by the network operator, but also for a common
carriage connection that is open to all who wish to speak, publish, and
communicate on the digital information highway.  For the first time,
electronic media can have the diversity of information we associate only
with the print media.


II.    Public Interest Communications Policy Goals For
    The Information Age: A Jeffersonian Vision

    The emerging information infrastructure will affect our
civilization as deeply as did Gutenberg's printing press.  Properly
implemented, this new printing press can offer as yet unimagined
opportunities for personal communications, for building and revitalizing
communities, and for the development of vast markets for tomorrow's
information entrepreneurs.  Workers will benefit by being able to match
their work demands to their lifestyle needs through telecommuting.  The
infrastructure can help business to work more efficiently, realizing
global competitive advantage.  And if the infrastructure is truly extended
to all parts of the country, rural businesses can compete in markets
previously closed to them.

    To achieve these and other benefits, we know that we need more
capacity than is currently available in today's analog voice telephone
system.  We also need more than merely 500 channels of one-way cable
television.  Today's telephone system does not have enough capacity to
enable us to exchange the multimedia information sources that will be the
staple of our information diet in the near future.

*    Beyond 500 Channels

    Five hundred channels can carry a lot of information, but they
allow only a one-way distribution of information from the network operator
down into each subscriber's home.  The interactivity that is critical for
educational services, for library access, for online medical assistance,
for telecommuting or rural business connections and for the next
generation of multimedia entertainment, cannot be accommodated in a
closed, one-way system.

    Our Jeffersonian vision of the information infrastructure takes
the best features of both worlds: the high capacity of cable, plus the
multi-directional capabilities of the switched telephone network. Only
this kind of information infrastructure can give us this rich diversity of
information sources and new applications accessible to all, with everyone
able to contribute. Only this kind of infrastructure can truly create the
range of new entrepreneurial opportunities that we've been promised. Only
this kind of infrastructure will prove resistant to the monopolization of
information distribution systems; its very design will promote the free
flow of ideas.


    A.    Diversity of Information Sources:
        The Potential of a Switched Network

    We stand at a critical moment in the history of the First
Amendment and free expression.  Aside from the universal service
guarantee, the driving communications policy value for the last fifty
years has been promotion of the maximum diversity of information sources,
with the greatest variety of view points.  As we move into the multimedia
information age, we have a new opportunity to shape a communication policy
that promotes diversity in ways not possible in earlier mass media such as
broadcast and cable television.

    Historically, the print medium has been the most successful at
promoting a diversity of information sources.  It is easy to become an
information provider and easy to access information as a consumer (a
reader).  Compared to both the broadcast and cable television arenas,
print is the vehicle for the greatest diversity of viewpoints and has the
lowest publication and distribution costs.  Despite the regulatory steps
taken to promote diversity in the traditional mass media, the vexing
problems of spectrum scarcity and limited channel capacity have always
restricted the variety of opinion and information.

*    Switched, Interactive Networks --
    The Key To Information Diversity

    The switched nature of advanced digital network technology could
end the spectrum and channel scarcity problem altogether.  Broadcast and
current cable media have a built in distribution bottleneck because of the
limited number of channels and the hierarchical nature of the distribution
system.  An independent content producer must always negotiate with the
channel owner for the ability to communicate with others.  In a switched,
digital network, of the kind that phone companies and cable companies both
speak of deploying in the near future, any user can communicate with any
other user.  The distribution bottleneck caused by having a small number
of channel-holders is eliminated.  Thus, anyone with content to distribute
-- whether to one, one hundred, or one hundred thousand users -- can do so
without the permission or advance approval of the carrier.

    *If new network services are deployed with adequate up-stream
capacity, and allow peer-to-peer communication, then each user of the
network can be both an information consumer _and_ publisher.*  Network
architecture which is truly peer-to-peer can help produce in digital media
the kind of information diversity that only exists today only in the print
media.

    In the long run, it will not be hundreds of channels or lines of
video servers that promote diversity.  It will be the ability for all
participants in the national and international information infrastructure
to be content producers as well as content consumers.  Prior to digital
network technology, the only way to bring more diversity was to build more
channels or increase the regulatory control of video distribution
networks.  Today, because of the advent of high speed, switched digital
services, content consumers could select from a nearly infinite array of
programming available from various sites on the network, and content
providers can all users from all over the network to request information
directly from them.  The Internet, with its non-hierarchical, peer-to-peer
network architecture stands as a shining example of how to increase the
diversity of information sources.

    Numerous technology options exist to realize this goal
cost-effectively and in the near term.  In the telephone company networks,
ISDN, ADSL, and HDSL are all able to provide interactive, two-way network
access with carriage of medium to high quality video.  In cable networks,
several protocols have already been developed to provide very high-speed
Internet access over the existing cable infrastructure.  These same links
could be used for video and multimedia transport, in addition to the
text-based services that now comprise much of the Internet environment.

*    Policy Priority:
    Deploy Open Platform Services

    To achieve the full potential of new digital media, we need to
make available what we call Open Platform services, which reach all
American homes, businesses, schools, libraries, and government
institutions.  Open Platform service will enable children at home to tie
into their school library (or libraries all around the world) to do their
homework.  It will make it possible for a parent who makes a video of the
local elementary school soccer game to share it with parents and students
throughout the community.  Open Platform will make it as easy to be an
information provider as it is to be an information consumer.

    Open Platform services provide basic information access
connections, just as today's telephone line allows one to connect to an
information service or the coaxial cable running into your home connects
you to cable television programming.   This is not a replacement for
current online services such as America Online or Compuserve, but rather
is the basic transport capacity that one needs to access the multimedia
versions of these information services.

    Specifically, Open Platform service must meet the following criteria:

*    widely available, switched digital connections;
*    affordable prices;
*    open access to all without discrimination as the content of
    the message;
*    sufficient "up-stream" capacity to enable users to originate, as
    well as receive, good quality video, multimedia services.

Open Platform service itself will be provided by a variety of providers
over interconnected networks, using a variety of wires, fiber optics, coax
cable, and wireless transmission services.  But however it is provided, if
it is affordable and widely available, it will be the on-ramp for the
nation's growing data superhighway.

*    Open Set-top Standards

    Today, the early adopters of the information infrastructure --
those who use the Internet, Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy, and the
over 50,000 computer bulletin board systems -- rely on personal computers
as their primary access tool.  Tomorrow, most who use the infrastructure
will depend on a consumer "information appliance," which is likely to be
an outgrowth of the current cable television set-top channel selection.
Instead of just selecting channels, it will control access to a wealth of
interactive services.  So that those services can develop to meet a
diversity of user needs, it is critical that these intelligent set top
boxes (which are really multimedia computers) are designed according to
open standards.  As in the personal computer industry, open standards will
lead to a flourishing of innovative applications.  Closed standards,
however, will give network operators the ability to stifle the development
of new applications, to the detriment of consumers.

*    Caveat: The Information Highway Will
    Not Be Built By the Government

    The government cannot afford to build an entire national
information infrastructure.  Moreover, ignoring the investments already
made by the communications industry would be a massive waste of resources.
Most importantly, the prospect of a government-run communications
infrastructure raises serious free speech concerns.  The new electronic
public forum will be the site of political, cultural, and personal
discourse.  Subjecting all electronic speech to government control would
be antithetical to all of our political traditions.  The recent U.S.
Supreme Court "gag rule" case (Rust v. Sullivan) confirms that the
government can use its resources to advance its own public policy ends.
Just as federally-funded health care facilities can be used to limit
access to and even knowledge of abortions, a federally funded information
highway could be used to control political discourse.  Though the First
Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press," it may control expression in its own facilities.

    The Administration and Congress can prompt the deployment of Open
Platform services by using the political leverage at its disposal.  Bell
Atlantic, TCI, Time Warner, US West and others involved in recent mergers
are all promising to build open platforms.  Telecommunications giants are
asking policymakers for permission to enter new markets or to form new,
merged entities.  Rather than per se opposition to current mergers, or
mere reliance on competition to build the data highways, make the mergers
and other accommodations conditional on providing affordable open platform
services.  The terms of this new social contract should be written into a
new Communications Act, revised for the information age.  With a real
"social contract" in hand, we just might realize the Jeffersonian
potential of the data superhighways.


    B.     Universal Service: From Plain Old Telephone Service to
        Plain Old Digital Service

    Just as Americans now depend on the telephone system for access to
economic, political, educational, and social discourse, we will come to
depend on the new information infrastructure to be fully enfranchised in
our democracy and economy.  To assure equal access to this new public
forum, policies that currently guarantee universal telephone service must
be updated.  From the early history of the telephone network, both
government and commercial actors have taken steps to ensure that access to
basic voice telephone services is affordable and accessible to all
segments of society.  Since the divestiture of AT&T, many of the funding
mechanisms that supported the "social contract" of universal service have
fallen away.  Re-creation of old patterns of subsidy may no longer be
possible nor necessarily desirable, but serious thought must be given to
sources of funds that will guarantee that users who are economically
disadvantaged will still have access to basic communications services.

*    Policy Priority: Redefine Universal Service and
    Ensure Necessary Funding

    The universal service guarantee in the Communications Act of 1934
has, until now, been interpreted to mean access to "plain old telephone
service" (POTS).   In the Information Age, we must extend this guarantee
to include "plain old digital service."  Extending this guarantee means
ensuring that new basic digital services are affordable and ubiquitously
available.  Equity and the democratic imperative also demand that these
services meet the needs of people with disabilities, the elderly, and
others with special needs.  Failure to do so is sure to create a society
of information "haves" and "have-nots."

    As the monopolies of local telephone companies are replaced by a
more competitive telecommunications environment, the cost of providing
universal service must be shared fairly among all telecommunications
providers.  Interconnection and universal service obligations should apply
to all entities that provide telecommunications service, regardless of the
traditional industry category with which they are associated.  So, a cable
television company that provides voice or data telecommunications service,
would have the same obligations as any other telecommunications provider,
such as a local phone company or a wireless service provider.  The scope
of these obligations should certainly be proportionate to the companies'
market presence, but otherwise, all who chose to provide
telecommunications services should be subject to the same requirements.


    C.    Common Carriage: The Cornerstone of Free Expression
        In the Information Age

    In a society which relies more and more on electronic
communications media as its primary conduit for expression, full support
for First Amendment values requires extension of the common carrier
non-discrimination principle to all of these new media.  Common carriage
platforms will be critical as the new electronic public fora for politics,
culture, and personal communications.  They are the soap box, the local
op-ed page, and the printing presses of the Information Age.  If all
carriers were to limit access to their networks based on the content of
messages sent, the opportunity for free expression in society would be
dramatically limited.

    Re-shaping common carriage responsibilities for new media
environments will be necessary as mass media and telecommunications
services converge and recombine in new forms.  Telephone companies, the
traditional providers of common carriage communications services, are
moving closer and closer to providing video and other content-based
services.  By the same token, cable television companies, which have
functioned as program providers, are showing great interest in offering
telecommunications services.  The desire of these industries to cross over
into new businesses can be a source of great opportunity to consumers, if
proper regulatory safeguards are put into place.

*    Policy Priority: Create a New Common Carriage Regime
    That Ensures Open Access to Interconnected Networks and
    Enables Network Providers to Act as Programmers

    Any carrier that is willing to offer Open Platform services on a
non-discriminatory basis should be allowed to offer video programming as
well.  EFF believes that it will be possible to structure a regulatory
regime in which infrastructure providers can provide both video
programming, and common carrier-like telecommunications services on the
same network.  By allowing any infrastructure provider to co-exist in both
regulatory categories, the provider will be encouraged to invest in both
expanded entertainment services and, at the same time, make real
contributions to the development of the national information infrastructure.

    The information infrastructure will be built by a variety of
network carriers, many of whom will be in direct competition with each
other.  Competition will benefit the consumer, but to ensure that the
resulting network of networks has a truly national (and international)
reach, carriers must agree to interconnect with competitors on reasonable
terms.  Open interconnection will help foster competition by enabling new
carriers to enter the market, and will ensure that user of the
infrastructure can reach all parts of the country.

    A venerable regulatory tradition exists which argues that content
and conduit providers must be separated in order to guard against
anti-competitive behavior which could stifle, not enhance, diversity.
Recent judicial action does cast some doubt on the constitutionality of
such absolute cross-ownership bars.  However, strong statutory safeguards
are certainly required where content and conduit services are provided by
a single network owner.  We support safeguards in the tradition of
antitrust law, that allow victims of discrimination to seek remedies
directly from carriers.

    The very existence of affordable Open Platform services will be
the most important step toward promoting diversity of information in the
new multimedia environment.  Shaping the architecture of the new
infrastructure in a way that promotes easy access for all programmers is
the most important safeguard of all, if the goal is diversity and fair access.


    D.     Privacy

    With dramatic increases in reliance on digital media for
communications, the need for comprehensive protection of privacy in these
media grows.  The scope of the emerging digital communications revolution
poses major new challenges for those concerned about protecting
communications privacy.

    Communication which is carried on paper through the mail system,
or over the wire-based public telephone network is relatively secure from
random intrusion by others.  But the same communication carried, for
example, over a cellular or other wireless communication system, is
vulnerable to being intercepted by anyone who has very inexpensive,
easy-to-obtain scanning technology.  Cryptography -- technology which
allows encoding and decoding of messages -- is an absolutely essential
part of the solution to information security and privacy needs in the
Information Age.

*    Policy Priority: Remove Restrictions on
    Use of Strong Cryptography

Without strong cryptography, no one will have the confidence to use
networks to conduct business, to engage in commercial transactions
electronically, or to transmit sensitive personal information.  New
technologies do pose new challenges to law enforcement and national
security efforts.  Government controls on encryption systems, however,
whether for law enforcement or national security reasons, threaten to
stall the development of the National Information Infrastructure and raise
grave Constitutional issues.


III.    Conclusion --
    The Advocacy Agenda

    Together with a coalition of public interest groups and private
industry, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is working to establish Open
Platform objectives in concrete legislation.  Open Platform provisions,
which would cause near term deployment of Open Platform services, are
present in both the recent Senate infrastructure bill and the latest draft
of House telecommunications legislation, soon to be introduced.  We are
also working with the Administration to have Open Platform policies
included in the recommendations of the Information Infrastructure Task
Force.  In addition to federal policy, critical decisions about the shape
of the information infrastructure will be made at state and local levels.
Since 1991, EFF has been working with a number state legislatures and
public utility commissions to have affordable, digital services provided
at a local level.  As cable and telephone infrastructures converge, we
will also work with local cable television franchising authorities.  We
invite all who are concerned about these issues to join with us in these
public policy efforts.

************************************************************************


For more information on the Open Platform Campaign contact:

Jerry Berman, Executive Director, [e-mail]
Daniel J. Weitzner, Senior Staff Counsel, [e-mail]


Membership:
Sarah Simpson, Membership Coordinator, [e-mail]

Online Resources and Information:
Stanton McCandlish, Online Activist, [e-mail]