‘Trust but verify’ open mobile network pledges

Major mobile voice and data carriers in the United States have pledged to open their networks to outside handsets and applications, but regulators and customers need to be vigilant to make sure those promises are fulfilled, one member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said.

Carriers including AT&T and Verizon Wireless have promised to open up their networks, but the FCC will need to watch the prices that carriers charge customers who bring their own devices to the networks, said the FCC’s Michael Copps, speaking Tuesday at a New America Foundation forum. The FCC will also need to monitor the complexity of certification for new devices and applications, he said.

Mobile carriers still dictate what features can be used on most phones, with Wi-Fi features unavailable on most U.S. mobile phones because of carrier opposition, Copps said. The FCC needs “trust but verify” the open network promises from the carriers, Copps said.

“I hope it is as good as it sounds,” he added. The FCC should step in if the carriers don’t live up to their promises, Copps added.

Carriers have in recent months taken steps to block text messages and some types of applications, Copps added. They need to pledge to “no blocking, no locking, and no discriminatory degradation of service,” he said.

Copps, a Democrat, seemed to disagree with the FCC’s Republican chairman Kevin Martin, who was quoted in The New York Times as saying the issue of open networks has “melted away” as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and other carriers have moved to open their networks.

Advocates have been pushing for customers to be able to take their mobile devices from carrier to carrier for about a year. Weeks after Google announced its Open Handset Alliance in November, Verizon Wireless announced it would open its network to outside devices and applications by the end of this year.

About a week after the Verizon announcement, AT&T announced that it’s long been its policy to allow outside devices and applications onto its mobile network.

But Copps and critics of the carriers said Tuesday it’s too early to tell if the carriers are serious about open networks. For example, mobile carriers could discourage customers from bringing their own devices by charging higher prices, Copps said.

Carriers have often argued that they need to sign up customers using lengthy contracts because they’re subsidizing the cost of a mobile phone. But if customers bring their own phones, there’s no carrier subsidy, so the plan should cost less, said Robert Frieden, a professor of telecommunications and law at Penn State University.

Right now, “you don’t get a discount for bringing your own phone,” said Frieden, author of a New America Foundation paper calling on the FCC to regulate open network access.

Some of the same companies pledged to offer stand-alone DSL service more than three years ago, and in many cases, customers have to fight through layers of customer service to get DSL without accompanying wireline phone service, added Christopher Libertelli, senior director for regulatory and government affairs at Skype.

A Skype handset that allows calls to be made over Wi-Fi or a mobile network is available in parts of Europe and in Hong Kong but not the United States because carriers have opposed it, he said.

“Sitting here, we can’t predict how these press release will turn into real consumer rights,” Libertelli said.

But representatives of Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile said they were serious about offering customers choices of devices and applications.

Verizon Wireless wants to encourage new types of devices and work with developers and handset makers to create innovation, said Anthony Lewis, vice president of the company’s Open Development Initiative. “This will not work if I dictate to my customers,” he said.

AT&T will monitor devices for bandwidth hogging and security, but otherwise, the company is open to outside devices, said Robert Quinn Jr., AT&T’s senior vice president for federal regulatory affairs. AT&T customers want to be able to use more devices on the network, he said.

Asked, however, if AT&T would unlock Apple’s iPhone to use on other networks, Quinn said the company couldn’t do that.