The US Department of Justice has filed a submission with the FCC calling for improved utilization and freeing up wireless spectrum as the priority for promoting broadband competition:

Reallocating spectrum that is being underutilized would encourage the deployment of wireless services and could help to make such services more competitive with wireline offerings.

First, an increase in the amount of spectrum that firms could devote to broadband would lower the cost of providing wireless broadband services and encourage entry. Second, more spectrum would allow providers to increase the capacity and reliability of their offerings, thereby bringing them closer to cable modem and fiber-based broadband. Third, the increased capacity in the systems would help support new applications.

The DOJ submission is written from a perspective similar to Canada’s Competition Bureau: improving customer benefits through increased choice of suppliers. The filing discusses the nature of competition in the broadband marketplace and highlights the role of making additional spectrum available for broadband service delivery.

In a session looking at “Building Digital Canada,” The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit will examine issues associated with advancing Canada’s national digital strategy.

DOJ Broadband Submission to FCC http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=25103464&access_key=key-21ig5q5ijvy4c4ttatip&page=1&version=1&viewMode=list

Alec Saunders observed on his blog that Canadians should avoid Google’s new Nexus One device, for now. While Google has chosen not to even offer the phone for direct sale in Canada, sites like Mobile Syrup offer step-by-step instructions on how Canadians can get the device.

But as Alec points out, Google did more than restrict its distribution channels. For some reason, Google chose to not enable 3G on the most popular radio frequencies used in North America – 850 and 1900 MHz.

In other words, Google has effectively optimized the device for T-Mobile in the US and perhaps the nascent AWS spectrum winners in Canada. In a well publicized blog posting last December, Google’s SVP of Product Management, Jonathan Rosenberg wrote about “The meaning of open.”

At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. …

So if you are trying to grow an entire industry as broadly as possible, open systems trump closed. And that is exactly what we are trying to do with the Internet. Our commitment to open systems is not altruistic.

By choosing not to enable 3G on the most widely used bands, it sure looks like Google has artificially created an effectively exclusive network distribution for T-Mobile, while maintaining the appearance of support for open, and unlocked technologies.

Perhaps Google is simply trying to work out bugs in its supply chain, fulfillment and customer support networks by limiting the device’s operational functionality to fewer networks. There are no shortage of complaints about customer service for the Nexus One (The search terms “Nexus One complaints” produces 1.1M hits on Google).

However, when customers are paying more than $500 for a supposedly unlocked and open device, don’t they expect to be able to use it on other networks?

Nearly two years ago, I wrote that governments need to find a way to increase the penetration of households with computers.

Maybe Canada needs to look at targeting broadband subsidies based on income, regardless of where people live. There is a gap in the level of connectedness among lower income Canadians in urban markets as well. Maybe it is time to consider making PCs and broadband part of our social welfare system.

A tweet from Catherine Middleton pointed me to an article talking about a plan in the UK to provide laptop computers and broadband internet to 270,000 low-income households in the UK. Yesterday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

We want every family to become a broadband family, and we want every home linked to a school. For those finding it difficult to afford this, today I can announce the nationwide rollout of our home access programme to get laptops and broadband at home for 270,000 families.

Dr. Middleton will be part of the program at The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit, participating on a panel looking at International Perspectives on ICT Strategies.

What can Canada learn from other countries as we begin to examine the development of a national digital strategy?

There were two pieces that were released last week that caught my eye while I was travelling south of the border.

One was the support that the Liberal Party gave to the SaveOurNet crowd. Appearing on the Liberal Party blog, the support appears to rely on the flawed OECD statistics that we have talked about many times [such as here]. Our study, not mentioned at all by the Liberals, showed numerous studies that contradict the oft cited OECD report.

Here is what the Liberals said:

We agree with the position put forward by the Obama administration in the US. ISPs should not be able to discriminate and block or interfere in legitimate sites, users or applications. The Liberal Party, supports the principle of net neutrality and an open and competitive internet environment. We have called on the Conservatives to set clear principles and regulations with regards to net neutrality consistent with what is being proposed in the U.S.:

• ISPs cannot prevent access of users to lawful content, applications and devices
• ISPs must treat all lawful content, applications and services in a non-discriminatory manner; and
• ISPs must disclose all information with regards to network management.

These net neutrality principles must apply to all Internet networks, including wireless networks. [formatting corrected]

The Liberals may not be closely following what is actually happening in the US.

As Larry Downes of the Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society reported on CNet last week (and as we observed on Twitter in December), it appears that the Obama administration is moving away from a more ‘militant’ vision of government intervention set out by the FCC Chair last September.

The FCC is in the midst of gathering information from all sides of the issue before coming out with a final set of rules and policies. Hopefully, the Liberals will consult with other viewpoints in order to develop a more reasoned view. As we noted in December, the Obama administration’s FCC observed that “Policy changes require consideration of unintended consequences.”

AT&T; was one of the main sponsors of Thursday night’s US college football championships held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. If you were watching the game, I was the guy wearing a Texas Longhorns baseball cap and T-shirt.

Throughout the game, commercials for its 3G network coverage appeared on the scoreboard video screen. Unfortunately, there was no coverage in the Rose Bowl stadium area. The best any of us could receive was EDGE.