Lynne Kiesling's post on network reliability as a public good should be required reading about the limits of standard neoclassical prescriptions for public goods.

Much has been made this week about the arrival at the Democratic Convention of a cohort of bloggers. They even were credentialed. Not only were there items in blogs about the bloggers, but there were stories in all the mainstream press. See the NYT here and the Washington Post here.

Well, it just so happens that at the Aspen Summit program, we have two of nation's best-known bloggers and authorities on how the web is changing our politics and our political dialogue. The Tuesday program: "Closing Address: The Future, How Politicians, Policy Wonks, and Ordinary People Use the Web". The highly impactful bloggers with real world experience: James Taranto, Editor, OpinionJournal from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page and Co-Author, Presidential Leadership, and Dan Gillmor, Columnist, San Jose Mercury News; blogger; author, We the Media : Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People.

I'd be surprised if James and Dan didn't have some interesting observations concerning the invasion of the bloggers at this year's political conventions--and much else about how the web is impacting the way politics is conducted and policy made.

"White House Sees Regulation As Must in Promoting Broadband". That's the headline in a lead story [subscription required] yesterday in Communications Daily.

The story reported on a briefing by Bush Administration officials on broadband.  According to the report, Commerce Department Undersecretary-Technology Phil Bond reiterated President Bush's goal of universal broadband access by 2007, stating the existence of multiple technologies would help achieve the goal.

The officials, who also included John Marburger, Director of the White House's Office of Science & Technology Policy, and Richard Russell, OSTP's Associate Director, reportedly declined repeated opportunities to comment on how VoIP should be regulated.

The support for regulation to which the story refers appears to relate more to spectrum management and standards-setting, rather than common-carrier-type regulation of broadband. And Marburger is quoted as saying: "Over-regulating is a serious problem."

 So the headline writer may have taken a bit of unwarranted liberty, at least as I read the Comm Daily report. But perhaps the headline is just the "you've got it coming" visited on an Administration that never really articulated--and promoted--a consistent deregulatory communications policy agenda.  (Query: Along these lines, shouldn't the Administration now have a policy on how VoIP should be [de]regulated?)

In today's edition of "Cubicle Culture," a Wall Street Journal columnist ties together fly-fishing and the office.  (Subscription required.)  Of course, if you are looking for your own retreat from "communications cubicle culture," you should join us in Colorado next month when we tackle The Future of the Internet.  From what I hear, casting a fly on the Roaring Fork is not unheard of among visitors to Aspen.

I am contemplating taking the plunge with VoIP, particularly for when I am in Colorado but calling frequently to D.C. For that, I want a "202" area code, which is available from some providers but not others.

Just what VoIP does to the North American Numbering Plan, or NANP, will be interesting. The NANP is premised on geographical divisions of North America into different codes. Wireless eroded this premise somewhat. VoIP will continue that trend. What will be interesting to watch is if number shortages appear. One can imagine that "desirable" area codes like "202," "212," "312" will gain numbers, while other codes lose them. Of course, in a world of no long distance this doesn't matter for toll purposes. But, it can certainly have an effect for status and as a signaling device. For instance, if I am a securities broker, I might want a "212" to convey the impression that I am in New York. If I am a big shot think tank-er, I might want a "202" to convey that I am in Washington, instead of my back porch in Denver. [Secondary markets for cool area codes anyone?]

Area codes are a product of a specific time, a specific legal regime and a specific technology. A PhD thesis in 2020 will explain sociologically, legally and technologically how we dealt with the current paradigm shift that is going on.

And I didn't even mention SIP--the signaling system that will supplant the current numbering system, at least according to some.

While the U.S. Senate turned Senator Sununu's VoIP bill from unregulatory to regulatory, see below, the regulation-free market forged ahead.

Verizon debuted VoiceWing, coming roughly a month after AT&T brought its VoIP product, CallVantage to market. Meanwhile, Skype appears to be headed to the public switched telephone network, hooking up with Level 3 for a new product, SkypeOut. For all things VoIP, of course, check out Pulver.

CNet reviews of most of these products are here.

Among the opportunities for this new market are the endless neologies invented by marketing departments: VoicePulse, Vonage, BroadVox, Packet 8, CallVantage, VoiceWing, OneFlex, VoiceGlo. Clearly "voice" or its latin antecendent "vox" have some resonance, while Vonage gets a twofer both having an acronym, "voice on net," and the latin overtones to its name. The pure VoIP plays, Free World Dialup and Skype still stand apart from the herd by not using the genius of marketing departments to name their products.

Regarding the Telecom Policy Report affair, I have received the following message below from Tim Wu in further clarification. See my last two posts below for the context:
  
Randy,
I had a chance to read the article and speak with Chris, and I think things are better. While I do disagree with Yoo, these views were expressed in an inflammatory fashion in that article, and did not reflect the tenor of my remarks. The point about not coming because of an imbalance was clear error. I am very sorry that any of this happened. See you, Tim
 
This message, along with the earlier one from Professor Wu copied in my post below, are pretty much sufficient to close the book on the TPR report. Whatever the "newsletter's" motives, and assuming that Professor Wu's version of events is accurate, it is now crystal clear that the TPR "reporting" on Christopher Yoo's excellent paper bore little relationship to reality.  You might expect that anyone who now reads TRP will take what is written with a grain of salt.

With regard to the Telecom Policy Report affair (see below), I have just received the following e-mail message from Tim Wu:

Randy,
Thanks for your email. I'm afraid I didn't see the Telecom Policy report. I didn't say I wouldn't come to the PFF forum because it was unbalanced --if that's what was reported, that's not right. I would have loved to have been there! So please accept my apologies. I did say, roughly, that I didn't agree with Yoo, particularly his economic reasoning -- indeed I said mostly what I would have said at the panel!
Tim
 
It looks like the TPR "newsletter" report, certainly the part stating that Professor Wu declined the invitation to particiapte in the program because he thought it was unbalanced, was made entirely out of whole cloth.  Flat out wrong.

I suspect that the same may be true with regard to some of the statements attributed to Professor Wu regarding Professor Yoo's paper. In any event, I was pleased to receive Tim Wu's above apology.

Let's hope Professor Tim Wu was misquoted in the July 21 edition of the newsletter called the "Telecom Policy Report" [Lexis subscription required]. For there he is quoted as making some very intemperate and unbecoming remarks about Professor Christopher Yoo's paper on Net Neutrality released by PFF last Friday, and the program at which Professor Yoo and a distinguished panel discussed his paper.
 
It is one thing to debate important issues in a serious, yet civil way. Here at PFF we pride ourselves on doing that, and we have a well-deserved--and hard-earned--reputation for doing so. We are not used to having others, and certainly not other academics, make statements to the effect that the authors of our papers are "opportunistic" or that the papers lack "any serious intellectual basis." And we don't take kindly to it.
 
Again, we are happy to provide a forum for serious debate on important communications policy issues, and, in that spirit, here is a link to Professor Wu's paper on broadband regulation. Readers can judge for themselves the merits of Professor Wu's position versus Professor Yoo's.
 
Let's make one other matter perfectly clear. In the spirit of ensuring a diversity of views at our program, as Professor Wu acknowledges in the Telecom Policy Report piece, I invited him to participate. He is quoted (or misquoted, I hope) as saying he "declined the invitation, because the PFF agenda was decidedly one-sided. The whole thing seemed a bit unbalanced to me." This is quite remarkable. Because when I tracked him down, he personally told me in a phone conversation that he very much would have liked to participate, but could not make it work because of a travel conflict. Then he sent me an e-mail that in its entirety reads: "Randy--I'm grateful for the invitation, but I think the logistics are ultimately too complicated for me. Hopefully there will be another time. Yours, Tim."
 
I'm pretty doubtful there will be another time. And, I think that, if quoted correctly, Professor Wu owes some apologies.
 
Finally, as anyone knows who was at the program, after Professor Wu declined the invitation to participate, we found others that espoused views similar to his to ensure balance.

The Sununu VoIP bill has been transformed into protecting state prerogatives to tax VoIP and assess access charges. Declan McCullagh has the unfortunate turn of events.

I eagerly await states' efforts to bill Skype for access and universal service.