Google and Verizon filed a joint letter to the FCC last week, finding some common ground “on a number of important matters that are crucial to the formulation of an enlightened, sustainable Internet policy for the United States.”

Among highlights are:

1. Preserving Openness. It is essential that the Internet remains an unrestricted and open platform, where people can access the lawful content, services, and applications of their choice. … where anyone, including network providers, are able to innovate without permission and provide any applications or services of their choosing, either on their own or in collaboration with others.
2. Encouraging Investment and Innovation in Broadband Networks. …continued private investment is essential to increase the reach and capabilities of advanced intelligent networks, which will in turn support the development of ever more sophisticated applications.
3. Providing Users with Control. No entity from either the government or the private sector should wrest control from consumers over how they choose to use the Internet, and the government should not implement policies that would limit consumers’ ability to choose for themselves.
4. Providing Users with Information. Transparency will ensure an environment of informed user choice.
5. Maintaining Balanced Intellectual Property Policy. We both recognize the importance of protecting intellectual property in the digital environment and each of us engages in efforts to assist content owners in enforcing their rights and deterring online copyright infringements.
6. Keeping Internet Applications, Content, and Services Free from Communications Regulation. There is … no sound reason to impose communications laws or regulations on the robust marketplace of Internet content, applications, and services.
7. Providing a Leadership Role for Expert Technical Bodies. [A] model of self-governance and collaboration, with minimal government involvement, will continue to serve the Internet well into the future.

The companies go on to promote self-governance as the hallmark of the success of the Internet; that any government intervention needed to address harm to users or to competition, should be surgical, swift and based on a finding of specific facts that establish harm.

The companies appear to agree in rejecting the reduction of broadband carriers to commodity dumb pipes:

Google and Verizon acknowledge that broadband network providers, in addition to offering traditional Internet access services, should have the ability to offer consumers additional service options over their broadband facilities. Clearly, broadband infrastructure has multiple uses, and network operators should continue to have the ability to offer users the choice of service options in addition to traditional Internet access services.

Google and Verizon seem to endorse a Canadian style nondiscrimination rule, stating that the focus should be to prevent harm to users or to competition. They agree that differential treatment of Internet traffic by network operators can be beneficial or harmful to users and therefore need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

The companies have a number of areas of divergence on such issues as the FCC’s authority to regulate and wireless network applicability, so they also filed separate submissions on those matters.

The joint letter is notable in demonstrating an evolution of the debate on net neutrality in the US, contrasted with a more static perspective often expressed on our side of the border.

Bell and Bell Aliant have sought approval to use Deferral Account funds to help pay for its HSPA rollout in some rural markets [zip, 215KB].

Specifically, they plan to offer wireless broadband services with up to 2 Mbps download, 800 Kbps upload, with a 2 GB usage cap, for $31.95 per month for retail and $22.00 wholesale. These rates are said to be comparable to existing DSL rates.

TELUS and MTS Allstream also filed plans with the CRTC, but neither of those companies have proposed new technology solutions. Details pertaining to Bell’s roll-out plan, including cost and deferral account drawdown estimates will be provided on February 26.

The Bell proposal to subsidize its HSPA rollout is certain to keep the controversy on deferral account alive.

Having spent a few summers working in epidemiology, my son has an appreciation for statistical research studies related to public health care.

A controversy over the location of a wireless communications tower in South Africa caught his eye. To start with, the tower is apparently located in a cemetery, the Fourways Memorial Park, which might have been expected to minimize complaints, since it is hard to imagine any possible deleterious impact on the permanent residents.

Nonetheless, a tower erected by iBurst was said to cause a variety of health problems.

The company attended a meeting in mid-November and its CEO agreed to turn off the tower to assess whether the health problems subsided.

At the meeting on the 16th of November 2009 a number of residents and their staff confirmed that they were still experiencing symptoms such as rashes, headaches and the like and that these symptoms disappear when they leave the vicinity of the tower.

However, according to a news story last week, iBurst had already shut off the tower a month earlier. Whatever was causing the symptoms, it wasn’t the operation of the communications equipment.

There is a balance to be managed between the needs to have more towers to meet the needs of the public to communicate and the objections of neighbours to the sight lines and architectural characteristics of most towers. There is a body of good and bad science that often clouds the issue when public consultations are conducted as we wrote two years ago.

This case out of South Africa is a classic.

You would think that service providers would want to work at least as hard retaining existing customers as they do acquiring new customers off the street.

But many times, mobile wireless subscribers get frustrated when they find out that the upgrade price for a new phone is much higher than the offers available to new customers. It has often seemed as though service providers weren’t looking after their loyal customers as well as they took care of potential customers who have already proven that they are willing to switch.

I am sure many of you have seen offers for Blackberries or other smartphones available to new customers for free or low prices, but when you call to upgrade your old equipment you learn that the prices for existing customers are much higher.

No more for Rogers. A note I received describes the new policy:

Rogers customers will now be eligible for the same pricing as new customers on all devices at 24 months since initial activation or last upgrade.

Customers with a higher average monthly spend may be eligible for smartphones even sooner. After 12 months, there is some form of discount available.

Customers who want to determine their device eligibility can visit a retail location, go to MyAccount on Rogers.com or call the contact centre.

A paper out of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) examines answers to “Does Broadband Boost Local Economic Development?”

Many might flame PPIC for daring to ask such a question, but with billions of dollars in public funds being spent by governments around the world, it seems appropriate for some science to be applied to study the benefits.

The federal government and the state of California, as well as other states throughout the nation, have made universal access to broadband service a public policy goal, assuming that multiple economic and social benefits will accrue from increasing broadband access.

The study found a positive relationship between broadband expansion and employment growth, but the benefits for local residents are ambiguous.

The positive relationship between broadband expansion and economic growth is stronger in industries that rely more on information technology and in areas with lower population densities. Although there is evidence leaning in the direction of a causal relationship, the study could not determine that broadband caused this economic growth.

In respect of personal benefits, average wage and the employment rate were seen to be unaffected by broadband expansion. The economic benefits to households are thus more ambiguous than they would be if employment growth also led to an increase in wages or the employment rate.

The 30 page report is very readable and it should contribute to the discussion beyond the borders of California.