Blog: Tim Wu

Maybe it's the criticism Verizon has been getting on blogs, in the press, from academics, and in Congress for its anticompetitive behavior. Maybe it's pressure from activist groups like Save the Internet. Maybe it's the upcoming spectrum auction, where the FCC implemented some (but not enough) rules to encourage mobile competition, and Verizon sees the writing on the wall. Maybe it's because they refused to launch the iPhone on their network, and instead Apple ended up with an exclusive with AT&T. Maybe it's Google's recent announcement of their open Android platform.

Whatever the reason, yesterday Verizon—the most control-freak-ish of mobile carriers, the one that cripples phones to disable WiFi or Bluetooth or anything that might compete with their high-priced service add-ons, the one that refused to give NARAL SMS access, whose BREW system locks out all but the deepest-pocketed developers—that same Verizon Wireless yesterday announced that it will open up its network to any phone, the "cellular Carterfone" Tim Wu has been advocating.

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Columbia Law professor Tim Wu has a great series of articles in Slate about laws that go unenforced in America, like drug abuse laws for legal prescription drugs, or immigration laws against those who employ illegal immigrants. In these and the other cases Wu identifies, one common thread unites them all: repealing the law would be politically infeasible, but enforcing the law would harm or inconvenience large numbers of upper middle class Americans who, in aggregate, are politically powerful.

For those times when we look with displeasure on unfair or inconsistently applied laws, Wu makes a simple point: the arbitrary enforcement of these laws is society's solution to the complex problems underlying them, an equilibrium state in itself. It's still extremely unfair—the dichotomy between illegal drugs and abused legal drugs penalizes poor and minority people disproportionately, and some religious groups win exceptions under the First Amendment for their activities while others do not. But it is an unfortunate reality that the politically influential groups get what they want, and when explicitly codifying that in a law would be too controversial, they get what they want anyway by toleration.

It's not a great system; besides the economic injustices, one big flaw is the way prosecutors can find a crime for almost anyone if they try (Wu relates a game Southern District of New York prosecutors played where they would figure out what they could charge Mother Theresa or John Lennon with). But it's the system we've got, and it's hard to see how to change it. In the live chat that followed the series Wu goes into some alternatives that have been proposed, like automatically sunsetting laws, but subsequent chat questions also make clear the flaws or controversies inherent in any of the proposals.

Recently, much of the debate in telecom policy has revolved around network neutrality on broadband networks. But Tim Wu has a great new paper about how the wireless companies are far worse. Not only do they practice traffic discrimination in violation of net neutrality principles, but they go to great additional lengths to deprive consumers of useful features and innovative products.

None of these are new, but Wu assembles them into a convenient, detailed list, including:

• Preventing consumers from using phones other than those approved by the carriers
  
• Crippling phone features such as photo sharing, WiFi, Internet browsers, and even simple call timers so consumers can see how much time they are spending on the phone
  
• In the case of Verizon's BREW system, forcing application developers to go through an extensive screening process to even begin writing applications, and then another complex approval process to get the application launched
  
• Making it nearly impossible for applications to use the features the phone already possesses, especially GPS location information

Simple policy solutions could open up the wireless market to innovation without needlessly regulating the industry. Wu lists a set of good ideas. Even just the first one - ending the stranglehold carriers have to restrict which phones they allow on their networks - would go a long way. Without the ability to keep phones out of the U.S. market carriers would lose the ability to mandate that the manufacturers cripple phone features, or to impose burdensome approvals on the applications.

The FCC recently required a similar opening up of cable networks with its CableCard standard, which allowed electronics makers to build new cable set-top boxes with new features and required cable companies to let consumers connect these devices to the cable network without approval from the cable company. I'm actually somewhat surprised that the FCC, so often in thrall to the companies that made big campaign contributions to the Republicans, would

The openness created by CableCard (if it works - the cable companies are fighting it) is a perfect example of fostering competition and making markets work. There's no reason liberals and conservatives alike shouldn't embrace this kind of policy - it's only telecom industry money standing in the way.