Net Neutrality and the Cellular Networks
While senators in Washington mull over issues of net neutrality as they pertain to the terrestrial cable and telco networks, eBay VoIP provider Skype has asked the FCC to open up the cellular networks to outside applications and devices. While obviously self serving, the petition stirs up the debate on just what kind of role consumer choice should play on the public airwaves.
Specifically, Skype is asking the FCC to apply the Carterphone ruling of 1968 to the cellular communications industry of today. Prior to that decision, AT&T determined what type of device could be hooked up to their network, typically a phone device that was sold exclusively by them.
As a result of the Carterphone ruling, the phone company's control of the network stopped at the telephone jack. Consumers could choose from an onslaught of new devices and technologies entering the market. From answering machines, to fax machines, and eventually the modem - a major factor in the Internet boom of the nineties.
Since the FCC began auctioning off the public radio spectrum in the 1990s, the growth of the cell phone industry has mushroomed, changing the very face of telecommunications and the way people communicate worldwide. New technologies flourished, and today, the cellular networks not only carry voice, but are themselves an extension of the Internet.
Developers and device manufacturers have come up with mobile applications such as text messaging, email, full blown internet browsing, music and video down and uploading, mobile office applications, VoIP and more. The new generation of cell phones are now called smart phones, and can do just about anything your computer can do. Handsets are built with multiple radios that can access cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth frequencies, and can seamlessly switch a call from a cellular network to the much cheaper Internet via VoIP over a WiFi connection.
