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The Evolution Of Internet Service Providers From Partners To Adversaries: Tracking Shifts In Interconnection Goals And Strategies In The Internet’S Fifth Generation, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
This paper will examine new models for the carriage of Internet traffic with an eye toward providing insights on how the interconnection process has changed and what positive and negative consequences have resulted. Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) interconnection used to constitute a cooperative undertaking, but now it increasingly requires difficult and protracted negotiations between ventures that consider themselves adversaries in a winner take all transaction. The paper concludes that new commercial arrangements, such as paid peering, can achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. However, the paper also identifies instances where migration from traditional interconnection arrangements can harm consumers by reducing some of …
The Rise Of Quasi-Common Carriers And Conduit Convergence, Rob Frieden
The Rise Of Quasi-Common Carriers And Conduit Convergence, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
The technologies that deliver content to consumers have begun to converge into a single Internet-driven conduit. Such convergence supports a consolidation of previously stand alone markets as evidenced by the ability of ventures to offer a “triple-play” bundle of Internet-delivered video, data and telephone service. Converging technologies and markets eliminate a sharp and identifiable distinction between the service classifications created by Congress and applied by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”). The Commission faces a regulatory quandary in maintaining a clear regulatory dichotomy between carriers operating as private conduits versus carriers subject to government oversight. The former can deliver content, software …
The Mixed Blessing Of A Deregulatory Endpoint For The Public Switched Telephone Network, Rob Frieden
The Mixed Blessing Of A Deregulatory Endpoint For The Public Switched Telephone Network, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
Receiving authority to dismantle the wireline public switched telephone network (“PSTN”) will deliver a mixture of financial benefits and costs to incumbent carriers. Even if these carriers continue to provide basic telephone services via wireless facilities, they will benefit from substantial relaxation of common carriage duties, no longer having to serve as the carrier of last resort and having the opportunity to decide whether and where to provide service. On the other hand, incumbent carriers may have underestimated the substantial financial and marketplace advantages they also will likely lose in the deregulatory process. This paper will identify the potential problems …
Hold The Phone: Assessing The Rights Of Wireless Handset Owners And Carriers, Rob M. Frieden
Hold The Phone: Assessing The Rights Of Wireless Handset Owners And Carriers, Rob M. Frieden
Rob Frieden
Most subscribers in the United States acquire a subsidized handset when they activate or renew wireless telephone service. In exchange for purchasing a handset below cost, these customers must commit to a two year service term, with substantial financial penalties for early termination, and they must accept carrier-imposed limitations on the use of their handsets. Wireless carriers typically lock subscriber access to one carrier and lock out or thwart unaffiliated providers from providing content, software and applications to wireless handsets. Limitations on the use of wireless handsets juxtaposes with the Carterfone policy established by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) forty …