- Email: [email protected]
The internet upheaval. raising questions, seeking answers in communications policy
Telecommunications Policy 25 (2001) 453–456
Book reviews The internet upheaval. raising questions, seeking answers in communications policy Ingo Vogelsang and Benjamin M. Compaine (Eds.); MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, a London, UK. 2000, 426 pp., price d30.95, ISBN 0-262-02063-6
This contains a selection of 16 of over 90 papers presented at the 1999 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, drawn together by a sizeable introduction from the editors, and concluded with a detailed index. The three subject headings listed are: Telecommunications PolicyFUnited States; Internet (computer network)FGovernment PolicyFUnited States; Internet Service ProvidersFGovernment PolicyFUnited States. So, on first sight, there is not much here for anyone beyond the States or disinterested in these topics. All contributors, except two, are affiliated to US universities. Certainly, the papers presume knowledge of US culture, law and business practices, and this might put off many potential readers. This would be a pity as, for the most part, it is readable, providing useful insights into why things are the way they are (and will be). The opening paper won the prize for best graduate student research paper at the conference for its author (Irina Dmitrieva, University of Florida), and typifies both the value and the limitations of this book. Reading it, and the rest of the book, it raised both ideas and questions. Dmitrieva investigates the legal basis for free speech on the Internet, in the context of US federal and state law. She reveals the practices adopted by companies to keep within these legal frameworks while still meeting the expectations of consumers. I was surprised that free speech is not guaranteed in the US. The perceived notion in many countries is that the US constitution guarantees freedom for practically anything, no matter how undesirable. In fact it protects only against the state infringing freedom of speech. Although individual state constitutions vary, there is generally nothing to prevent a private company censoring, for example, e-mail, newsgroup contributions or web-sites hosted on its server. Since many of the companies that host these facilities for the world (AOL/Netscape/ Compuserve, Microsoft, etc.) are US-based, their policies affect all of us even in our different legal frameworks. One interesting conclusion is that free speech for groups that many would like to see censored (racists, paedophiles and so on), could only be guaranteed under the law, if the federal or state government attempts to encourage or coerce this censorship. As policy makers in other countries attempt to come up with a coherent framework to, say, ban Nazi memorabilia auctions, a failure to appreciate such aspects of US law, in combination with the global nature of the internet, might lead to unenforceable, or even counter productive legislation. This first paper is one of three under the topic of Policy Issues. The other two (concerning taxation of on-line sales and privacy issues) likewise tell the story from a US perspective. Europe has a typical sales tax of 20%, whereas the US rarely sees more than 8%. Yet, as Austan Goulsby
454
Book reviews / Telecommunications Policy 25 (2001) 453–456
(University of Chicago) shows, US citizens do not like to pay tax on their purchases. Currently web purchases attract no tax. Research shows that 24% would not shop online if they had to pay sales taxes. The statistical basis for this seems solid enough. Buyers in higher tax areas are more likely to shop online than others, even allowing for a raft of other factors. Although this contributor thinks in terms of a world without borders, it’s plain that this is mainly a world within a tri-state area. (Big metropolitan areas like Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, and many more all inhabit a never–never land where the canny can shop in one state, work in another and live in a third, optimising the tax paid and benefits received in each.) Nowhere is there a hint of the philosophy that ‘‘taxes are the price we pay for civilisation’’, or that the application of these models to sales patterns in other countries might prove false. Similarly the chapter on online privacy reflects a very different agenda from the data protection legislation of the European union. The second major section ‘‘The Internet Changes Paradigms’’ opens with Jed Kolko (Harvard University) revisiting the old idea that we will all buy a patch of land (in Montana?) as telecommuting kills off cities. He finds the death of cities much exaggerated, and that geographically remote cities can prosper. Honolulu seems a safe bet, Seattle too, but seven of the ten remotest cities to have benefited most from the internet, appear to be in California. This I found dubious. In other fields I would suspect bipolar data! We often hear how California would feature in the top 20 national economies; perhaps we should better conclude that the ‘‘death of distance’’ can also benefit other countries. But in tracking the shift from supply-side to demand-side factors, he draws imaginatively on Griliches’ 1957 treatise on hybrid corn. Perhaps more who seek to understand the new economy would benefit from older research into technology adoption. Kolko suggests that provision of fibre-optic telephone cable initially benefits ‘‘.com’’ domain name registration (his measure of commercial Internet activity) but then becomes a negative factor. But his calculation for this is simply the ratio of fibre to copper miles. I wondered what would be the effect if referenced against the average length of the local loop. I would expect that fibre is not commonly used here, and so more geographically dispersed states might reveal different results. The interim section, The Internet, Competition, and Market Power is most notable for a chapter by one of the editors, Compaine. He examines media agglomerations across multiple channels, and pleads an effective case for a changed view of anti-trust activity, using the Herfindahl– Hisrchman index which uses the sum of squares to analyse percentage ownership of markets, with a view to defining whether power is concentrated amongst too few companies. The chapters in the final section (on Universal Access) gave me all the leads I would need to follow this up. However, this final section is the one that felt most dated. In the two years since these papers would have been submitted, the mobile market in most parts of the world has changed the picture completely. The debate of how best to use cross-subsidies to socially engineer 95% access to a telephone, seems arid. However, those in Europe who whine about the cost of their local service, will doubtless be surprised to find that the much vaunted ‘‘free local calls’’ in America come with a hefty monthly subscription (and inflated long-distance rates for calls to neighbouring parishes to subsidise both). A few other chapters will drown the novice in complex mathematics, Perhaps only the brightest undergraduates would gain much from it. My own Masters students would probably need some contextualisation, but it would be useful for those studying disciplines such as e-commerce and Information Systems, and it would also benefit researchers in other countries looking for answers to questions in their own backyards. Whether an entrepreneur would benefit significantly is
Book reviews / Telecommunications Policy 25 (2001) 453–456
455
doubtful, although the wide range of material should stimulate many readers, especially its target audience: policy makers. T. McEwan School of Computing, Napier University 219 Colinton Road, Edinburgh EH14 1DJ Scotland, UK (http://www.scotlandis.com/). E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S 0 3 0 8 - 5 9 6 1 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 7 - 9
Deregulating telecommunicationsFUS and Canadian telecommunications 1840–1997 Kevin Wilson (Ed.); Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD, Oxford, England, 309 pp., price d18.95, ISBN 0-8476-9825-4 The latest in a critical media studies series, edited by Andrew Calabrese, ‘Deregulating Telecommunications’ analyses key historical shifts in North American communications policies and institutions since the inception of telecoms in the 1840s, to the landmark legislative reforms of the 1993 Canadian and 1996 US Telecommunications Acts. The book contrasts policy developments in Canada with those of America, which although geographically and economically inter-connected, continue to exhibit marked cultural differences in their respective policy responses to the problems posed when dismantling powerful telecom monopolies. Professor Wilson combines Canadian academic expertise at the distance learning tele-university of Quebec, where he has written about media policy, privacy and the social implications of new communications technologies (all of which he modestly declines to cite in this book’s index), with a personal American-derived perspective: the author reveals that his parents both worked at New Jersey Bell for over 50 years. Yet it would be incorrect to assume this book is an indulgent trawl of telecoms nostalgia. The first part traces the political biography and technological evolution of once disparate telegraph networks from inception into the integrated ‘Ma Bell’ telephone system, up to its centenary in 1946. By exploring the motivations and personalities behind the rise to prominence of what had hitherto been assumed were ‘natural’ monopoly networks, it quickly becomes apparent how the industry structure came to be dominated by ATaT and Bell Canada respectively. Consideration of social and historical developments in the nascent communications sector allows Professor Wilson to analyse the contemporary rationale for the imposition of economic regulation in the 1930s, these principles being so often overlooked by modern commentators and those currently charged with regulation of the communications industries. The second part of the book charts the beginning of the end of these entrenched monopolies. Despite the Bell companies’ economically significant role as employers, scientific innovators and guardians of national security, Wilson, like others (viz. Posner before him), believes that the ‘deregulation’ movement emerged largely in response to the twin forces of supply and demand. First, the clamouring by corporate users, such as the American Newspaper Association, which lobbied the FCC for a more liberal allocation of private microwave frequencies and improved choice in equipment and network provision to reduce their communications costs. Second, the by-product of industry funded think-tanks anxious to apply the newfangled neo-classical mantras expounded by economists who had risen to prominence over the policy scientists in traditionally independent institutes. These pressures culminated in MCI’s successful attempt to unlock ATaT’s
Book reviews The internet upheaval. raising questions, seeking answers in communications policy Ingo Vogelsang and Benjamin M. Compaine (Eds.); MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, a London, UK. 2000, 426 pp., price d30.95, ISBN 0-262-02063-6
This contains a selection of 16 of over 90 papers presented at the 1999 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, drawn together by a sizeable introduction from the editors, and concluded with a detailed index. The three subject headings listed are: Telecommunications PolicyFUnited States; Internet (computer network)FGovernment PolicyFUnited States; Internet Service ProvidersFGovernment PolicyFUnited States. So, on first sight, there is not much here for anyone beyond the States or disinterested in these topics. All contributors, except two, are affiliated to US universities. Certainly, the papers presume knowledge of US culture, law and business practices, and this might put off many potential readers. This would be a pity as, for the most part, it is readable, providing useful insights into why things are the way they are (and will be). The opening paper won the prize for best graduate student research paper at the conference for its author (Irina Dmitrieva, University of Florida), and typifies both the value and the limitations of this book. Reading it, and the rest of the book, it raised both ideas and questions. Dmitrieva investigates the legal basis for free speech on the Internet, in the context of US federal and state law. She reveals the practices adopted by companies to keep within these legal frameworks while still meeting the expectations of consumers. I was surprised that free speech is not guaranteed in the US. The perceived notion in many countries is that the US constitution guarantees freedom for practically anything, no matter how undesirable. In fact it protects only against the state infringing freedom of speech. Although individual state constitutions vary, there is generally nothing to prevent a private company censoring, for example, e-mail, newsgroup contributions or web-sites hosted on its server. Since many of the companies that host these facilities for the world (AOL/Netscape/ Compuserve, Microsoft, etc.) are US-based, their policies affect all of us even in our different legal frameworks. One interesting conclusion is that free speech for groups that many would like to see censored (racists, paedophiles and so on), could only be guaranteed under the law, if the federal or state government attempts to encourage or coerce this censorship. As policy makers in other countries attempt to come up with a coherent framework to, say, ban Nazi memorabilia auctions, a failure to appreciate such aspects of US law, in combination with the global nature of the internet, might lead to unenforceable, or even counter productive legislation. This first paper is one of three under the topic of Policy Issues. The other two (concerning taxation of on-line sales and privacy issues) likewise tell the story from a US perspective. Europe has a typical sales tax of 20%, whereas the US rarely sees more than 8%. Yet, as Austan Goulsby
454
Book reviews / Telecommunications Policy 25 (2001) 453–456
(University of Chicago) shows, US citizens do not like to pay tax on their purchases. Currently web purchases attract no tax. Research shows that 24% would not shop online if they had to pay sales taxes. The statistical basis for this seems solid enough. Buyers in higher tax areas are more likely to shop online than others, even allowing for a raft of other factors. Although this contributor thinks in terms of a world without borders, it’s plain that this is mainly a world within a tri-state area. (Big metropolitan areas like Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, and many more all inhabit a never–never land where the canny can shop in one state, work in another and live in a third, optimising the tax paid and benefits received in each.) Nowhere is there a hint of the philosophy that ‘‘taxes are the price we pay for civilisation’’, or that the application of these models to sales patterns in other countries might prove false. Similarly the chapter on online privacy reflects a very different agenda from the data protection legislation of the European union. The second major section ‘‘The Internet Changes Paradigms’’ opens with Jed Kolko (Harvard University) revisiting the old idea that we will all buy a patch of land (in Montana?) as telecommuting kills off cities. He finds the death of cities much exaggerated, and that geographically remote cities can prosper. Honolulu seems a safe bet, Seattle too, but seven of the ten remotest cities to have benefited most from the internet, appear to be in California. This I found dubious. In other fields I would suspect bipolar data! We often hear how California would feature in the top 20 national economies; perhaps we should better conclude that the ‘‘death of distance’’ can also benefit other countries. But in tracking the shift from supply-side to demand-side factors, he draws imaginatively on Griliches’ 1957 treatise on hybrid corn. Perhaps more who seek to understand the new economy would benefit from older research into technology adoption. Kolko suggests that provision of fibre-optic telephone cable initially benefits ‘‘.com’’ domain name registration (his measure of commercial Internet activity) but then becomes a negative factor. But his calculation for this is simply the ratio of fibre to copper miles. I wondered what would be the effect if referenced against the average length of the local loop. I would expect that fibre is not commonly used here, and so more geographically dispersed states might reveal different results. The interim section, The Internet, Competition, and Market Power is most notable for a chapter by one of the editors, Compaine. He examines media agglomerations across multiple channels, and pleads an effective case for a changed view of anti-trust activity, using the Herfindahl– Hisrchman index which uses the sum of squares to analyse percentage ownership of markets, with a view to defining whether power is concentrated amongst too few companies. The chapters in the final section (on Universal Access) gave me all the leads I would need to follow this up. However, this final section is the one that felt most dated. In the two years since these papers would have been submitted, the mobile market in most parts of the world has changed the picture completely. The debate of how best to use cross-subsidies to socially engineer 95% access to a telephone, seems arid. However, those in Europe who whine about the cost of their local service, will doubtless be surprised to find that the much vaunted ‘‘free local calls’’ in America come with a hefty monthly subscription (and inflated long-distance rates for calls to neighbouring parishes to subsidise both). A few other chapters will drown the novice in complex mathematics, Perhaps only the brightest undergraduates would gain much from it. My own Masters students would probably need some contextualisation, but it would be useful for those studying disciplines such as e-commerce and Information Systems, and it would also benefit researchers in other countries looking for answers to questions in their own backyards. Whether an entrepreneur would benefit significantly is
Book reviews / Telecommunications Policy 25 (2001) 453–456
455
doubtful, although the wide range of material should stimulate many readers, especially its target audience: policy makers. T. McEwan School of Computing, Napier University 219 Colinton Road, Edinburgh EH14 1DJ Scotland, UK (http://www.scotlandis.com/). E-mail address: [email protected] PII: S 0 3 0 8 - 5 9 6 1 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 7 - 9
Deregulating telecommunicationsFUS and Canadian telecommunications 1840–1997 Kevin Wilson (Ed.); Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD, Oxford, England, 309 pp., price d18.95, ISBN 0-8476-9825-4 The latest in a critical media studies series, edited by Andrew Calabrese, ‘Deregulating Telecommunications’ analyses key historical shifts in North American communications policies and institutions since the inception of telecoms in the 1840s, to the landmark legislative reforms of the 1993 Canadian and 1996 US Telecommunications Acts. The book contrasts policy developments in Canada with those of America, which although geographically and economically inter-connected, continue to exhibit marked cultural differences in their respective policy responses to the problems posed when dismantling powerful telecom monopolies. Professor Wilson combines Canadian academic expertise at the distance learning tele-university of Quebec, where he has written about media policy, privacy and the social implications of new communications technologies (all of which he modestly declines to cite in this book’s index), with a personal American-derived perspective: the author reveals that his parents both worked at New Jersey Bell for over 50 years. Yet it would be incorrect to assume this book is an indulgent trawl of telecoms nostalgia. The first part traces the political biography and technological evolution of once disparate telegraph networks from inception into the integrated ‘Ma Bell’ telephone system, up to its centenary in 1946. By exploring the motivations and personalities behind the rise to prominence of what had hitherto been assumed were ‘natural’ monopoly networks, it quickly becomes apparent how the industry structure came to be dominated by ATaT and Bell Canada respectively. Consideration of social and historical developments in the nascent communications sector allows Professor Wilson to analyse the contemporary rationale for the imposition of economic regulation in the 1930s, these principles being so often overlooked by modern commentators and those currently charged with regulation of the communications industries. The second part of the book charts the beginning of the end of these entrenched monopolies. Despite the Bell companies’ economically significant role as employers, scientific innovators and guardians of national security, Wilson, like others (viz. Posner before him), believes that the ‘deregulation’ movement emerged largely in response to the twin forces of supply and demand. First, the clamouring by corporate users, such as the American Newspaper Association, which lobbied the FCC for a more liberal allocation of private microwave frequencies and improved choice in equipment and network provision to reduce their communications costs. Second, the by-product of industry funded think-tanks anxious to apply the newfangled neo-classical mantras expounded by economists who had risen to prominence over the policy scientists in traditionally independent institutes. These pressures culminated in MCI’s successful attempt to unlock ATaT’s