November 2013

In its heyday, cigarettes were one of the biggest advertising categories. That's just what a growing number of policymakers fear will happen with electronic cigarettes.

Hoping to convince the Food and Drug Administration to regulate e- cigarettes, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Diana DeGette (D-CO), and Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) put together a presentation to make the case that e-cigarette companies are targeting young smokers the same way traditional cigarette companies did before they were banned from the airwaves in 1971. The FDA could make a decision about classifying e-cigarettes soon. Some states have already gone ahead and passed regulations. Utah, ND, Arkansas, NJ, and Washington, DC banned e-cigarettes indoors, and many other states are considering regulations. California bans e-cigarette ads online. Because e-cigarettes are not defined as a tobacco product, they are exempt from the regulations established under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Act.

[Commentary] A number of folks here in Washington were surprised by just how supportive Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn was of Tom Wheeler’s nomination to head the Federal Communications Commission.

Wheeler is a former head of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and what’s now known as CTIA – The Wireless Association, to telecommunications interest groups that Sohn often clashed with as head of one of the leading industry watchdogs. But Sohn had nothing but nice things to say about Wheeler’s appointment. Wheeler returned the favor by naming Sohn as special counsel for external affairs for the agency, a new and presumably bespoke position created just for her. The appointment of Sohn should soothe, at least for now, the concerns of those in telecommunications policy circles who were worried about having a former telecommunications lobbyist at the head of the agency in charge of policing the industry. But among those unlikely to be thrilled with the idea that Sohn has the ear of the new chairman are the Motion Picture Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America, and other media industry groups who take a very dim view of Public Knowledge’s pro-consumer views on copyright.

With more and more mobile data usage moving to Wi-Fi networks, policy makers should free up additional spectrum for unlicensed use, Time Warner Cable argues in a new report. The Wi-Fi offload trend will be driven in part by consumers’ desire to save on the cost of using cellular networks for data communications, but also as a result of network operator initiatives to conserve scarce spectrum holdings, the report argues. Accordingly, policy-makers should ensure that when new spectrum does become available a portion is set aside for unlicensed use, the cable company argues.

The report makes three specific policy recommendations, including:

1. When the FCC conducts the voluntary auction of TV broadcast spectrum, at least 30 to 40 MHz of the freed up spectrum should be reserved for unlicensed use. The unlicensed spectrum should be made available in every market nationwide.
2. The FCC should expand unlicensed spectrum access in the 5 GHz band. Noting that most of the 5 GHz band is already shared with military and radar on an unlicensed basis using spectrum sensing technology, the FCC has proposed a 195 MHz expansion of that spectrum band. The Time Warner Cable report supports that proposal, noting that this move “will permit channels several times wider than today’s Wi-Fi at 2.4 GHz. “These wide channels enable very high-capacity wireless throughput over short distances and will be capable of speeds up to 1 gigabit per second using the newest 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard,” the report states. The authors note that this spectrum is likely to be used initially for video routing and outdoor point-to-point backhaul. But longer term, network operators may offload cellular traffic to this band, just as they are doing with traditional Wi-Fi today.
3. The commission also should increase open access to shared spectrum. The report supports the FCC’s proposal for a Citizens Broadband Service in the under-utilized 3550-3700 MHz band. That band is currently used by the military for offshore naval radar and satellite earth stations and could potentially be shared with civilian users. Plans for this band specifically reference “small cell” use and should include licensed and unlicensed spectrum, the authors argue.

[Commentary] When it comes to your online privacy -- or what little is left of it -- businesses and governments act in some pretty similar ways.

They track your credit card purchases. They mine your e-mail for information about you. They may even monitor your movements in the real world. Corporate and government surveillance also diverge in important ways. Companies are looking to make money off of you, while the government aims to prevent attacks that would halt that commercial activity (along with some other things). But the biggest difference between the two has almost no relation to who's doing the surveillance and everything to do with your options in response. Readers were asked whether they had changed their online behavior as a result of the extended national conversation about privacy -- and if so, which form of snooping annoyed you more. Looking through the responses so far, this one caught my eye: “The government because I can't *choose* not to be spied on by them. The government also has the power to kill or imprison me which no private company has.” Putting aside the government's power to capture or kill, your inability to refuse the government is what distinguishes the National Security Agency from even the nosiest companies on Earth.

In a functioning marketplace, boycotting a company that you dislike -- for whatever reason -- is fairly easy. Diners who object to eating fake meat can stop frequenting Taco Bell. Internet users that don't like Google collecting their search terms can try duckduckgo, an anonymous search engine.