This is good. Regarding my concern about asking for mandated FCC-centered
control - we need less of that. It establishes a bad precedent for the means of
"protecting the airwaves". (or reinforces a precedent that must be changed
soon - of establishing de-facto, anti-innovation monopolies that derive from
regulatory mandates). And it creates a problematic "us vs. them" debate where
there is none.
A vast majority of folks want interoperability of all kinds of communications,
and that includes sharability of the wireless medium. That means finding
approaches for coexistence and innovation, without mandates for the
technological solution based on a particular implementation of hardware or
systems architecture. An evolutionary approach.
So we don't have to specify alternative rules in detail. And by going into
detail too much, we only lose support.
What have to demonstrate is that there is *at least one* better approach, while
also pointing out what will be lost with the proposed approach in the NPRM.
Most of the letter focuses on these, quite correctly, but it might be useful to
clarify those two lines of argument by an editorial pass. The approach
suggested in the letter should be presented as open to further improvement that
achieves the shared goals.
This is why emphasizing "mandates" and punishments is probably
counterproductive. The goals that stand behind the proposed mandates should be
emphasized, the mandates left to be developed in detail based on those goals.
The battle here is part of a longer term, necessary reframing of regulatory
practice. Current regulation is based on means rather than ends, and doesn't
consider what is technologically possible. And it is centered on control of
what capabilities are delivered in fixed function devices, rather than in how
those devices are used or how they integrate into systems. As an absurd
example, we certainly would like to prevent people from being electrocuted.
But does that mean we must specify how an electric vehicle is built down to the
voltages of batteries used and what kind of switching transistors must be used
in the power supply? Or that the only battery charging that is allowed must be
done at stations owned by the vendor of the vehicle?
That longer term reframing must take into account the characteristics of the
trillions of wireless nodes that will be deployed in the next 25 years.
There's been no study of that by the FCC (though some of us have tried, as I
did at the TAC when I was on it) at all.
That can't be accomplished in this NPRM. The battle is to prevent this
regulation from being deployed, because it is a huge step backwards.
Fortunately, we *don't* need to rewrite the regulation, so quickly.
We need to argue that they need to go back to the drawing board with a new
perspective. The approach proposed should focus that effort, but it need not
be adopted now. It might turn out even worse... So the goal is to stop the
NPRM.
On Friday, October 2, 2015 10:22am, "Rich Brown" said:
> Folks,
>
> I have screwed up my nerve to take an editorial pass over the document. It
> has a
> lot of good information and many useful citations, but it needs focus to be
> effective.
>
> As I read through (yesterday's) draft of the document and the comments, I
> came up
> with observations to confirm and questions that I want to understand before
> charging ahead.
>
> Observations:
>
> 1) Unfortunately, we are coming to this very late: if I understand the
> timeline,
> the FCC proposed these rules a year ago, the comment period for the NPRM
> closed 2
> months ago, and we only got an extra month's extension of the deadline because
> their computer was going to be down on the original filing date. (Note - that
> doesn't challenge any of our points' validity, only that we need to be very
> specific in what we say/ask for.)
>
> 2) The FCC will view all this through the lens of "Licensed use has priority
> for
> spectrum over unlicensed." That's just the rules. Any effort to say they
> should
> change their fundamental process will cause our comments to be disregarded.
>
> 3) The *operator* (e.g., homeowner) is responsible for the proper operation
> of a
> radio. If the FCC discovers your home router is operating outside its allowed
> parameters *you* must (immediately?) remediate it or take it off the air.
>
> 4) We must clearly and vigorously address the FCC admonishment to "prevent
> installing DD-WRT"
>
> 5) [Opinion] I share dpreed's concern that the current draft overplays our
> hand,
> requesting more control/change than the FCC would be willing to allow. See
> Question 7 below for a possible alternative.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1) What is our request? What actions would we like the FCC to take?
>
> 2) How much of a deviation from their current rules (the ones we're
> commenting on)
> are we asking them to embrace?
>
> 3) How much dust could/should we kick up? For example
