Free iPhone Campaign Launches, Open Access Battle Gears Up

Martin's proposal does not prohibit competition on the networks.

"The chairman's proposal to create an open platform where consumers can attach any device or run any application on a portion of the spectrum will address concerns about stifling innovation and ensure the protection of consumers' interests," Tamara Lipper, a spokesperson for the FCC, said during an interview Monday. "The proposal strikes the right balance between encouraging innovation and ensuring consumer interests while not creating disincentives for investment and underlying broadband wireless network."

Michael Balmoris, an AT&T spokesperson, said that about 90% of the public has a choice of at least four carriers.

"One of the ways that carriers compete is by offering new and better devices," he said during an e-mail interview Monday. "Unique content and innovative handsets -- such as the iPhone -- are ways that carriers compete to win customers."

Balmoris also pointed to AT&T's FCC filings, which defend the existing system on the grounds that it protects consumers. In those filings, the company echoes the arguments of many in the telecommunications industry by explaining that wireless communications must occur on specific frequencies within assigned spectrum bands with physical limits, and sharing networks can create congestion as well as other constraints.

"Although advances in digital technologies allow carriers to increase the efficiency of wireless networks and to provide capacity for simultaneous uses, there are limits to the spectrum which take on added significance with rising demand for wireless broadband services," AT&T explained in opposition to a Skype petition to apply Carterfone attachment regulations to the wireless industry.

AT&T also defended the widespread practice of limiting the devices that can be used on wireless networks. AT&T says phones on its networks must be certified for spectral efficiency so resources aren't strained.

Jeffrey Nelson, of Verizon, said he is flattered by calls to move the iPhone to Verizon's networks, but it's not technologically possible.

"We run on a different technology than AT&T does," he said during an interview Monday. "We understand everyone would like to do whatever they want wirelessly, and they would like to do it for free, by the way, but there's a certain naivete in some of the arguments. We use different fundamental technologies on our wireless networks. You can't just close your eyes, count to three, and have it work on different technology."

He added that the push for "open access" is a misnomer intended to hide profit motives of large companies and pointed out that taxpayer groups oppose the open access proponents.

"They want encumbrances on the spectrum, rules on how it can be used, because it fits their business model," he said. "Phrases like 'open access' sound so nice and innocuous, but they are putting hamstrings on an auction so only certain companies like Google would find the highest value on it."

As Free Press and others push their new "Free the iPhone" campaign, policy-makers and regulators are weighing in on open access in the mobile technology arena, and all sides appear to be gearing up for battle.

Free Press announced a Free the iPhone campaign Friday. The group, which lobbies against media consolidation, wants Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to say it wants the device and others like it to work on any wireless network.

"Bad policies have created an unhealthy wireless industry where companies like AT&T and Verizon are gatekeepers over the mobile Internet with the power to block competition and chain devices to their slow-speed networks," Free Press explained in a prepared statement.

In addition to requiring that mobile devices work with any carrier, the group wants to ensure that consumers can access any content or services through their devices and to require competition among providers.

"This issue goes well beyond the iPhone," Timothy Karr, Free Press campaign director, said in a prepared statement. "It's about a dysfunctional wireless system that stifles innovation and competition across the country. We need real open access, which opens networks for innovation and wholesale markets for competition. Until we have this, the iPhone -- and other innovative gadgets like it -- will never reach full potential."

The new campaign features a logo with the iPhone shackled to a ball (that looks like AT&T's logo) and chain. Organizers are urging the public to donate and write to Congress, the FCC, and others who will support the effort.

Apple has said it chose AT&T to provide iPhone service because it is the best and most popular wireless network in the United States and because GSM is the "overwhelming" global standard.

Free Press -- which claims a nonpartisan mission and open donor funding but is backed by many who lean left -- announced the "Free the iPhone" campaign just after the House Committee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing on wireless technology. Chairman Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the iPhone embodies both the strengths and weaknesses in wireless technology.

The FCC's plans to auction off wireless spectrum also have drawn recent attention to wireless interoperability and openness. Last week, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin floated his ideas for auction rules. His proposal, which has not been publicly released, calls for public airwaves to be open for all devices.

Free Press, some other public interest groups, and even a few technology companies have criticized Martin's proposal, which opens access to a portion of the spectrum. Critics say it does not open the network to wholesale competition.

"What Chairman Martin is proposing isn't true open access, and it won't create the broadband competition we need," S. Derek Turner, research director at Free Press, said in a prepared statement. "Martin's plan to unlock devices still leaves us with the same few companies that are trying to undercut competition, and whose broken promises on broadband deployment and innovation have left us with a slow, expensive network and a vast digital divide."