Tag: TXT/SMS

Remember how we filed a petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asking them to make sure that carriers are nondiscriminatory when it comes to text messages? While we haven’t posted about it much lately, work on the issue has been chugging quietly along behind the scenes. Today, all of the parties of the original petition filed a follow-up letter at the Commission dealing with some of the arguments which have been raised, primarily by Verizon Wireless and CTIA (the industry group for wireless carriers). The short version is that carriers claim they won’t be able to stop spam if they can’t also pick and choose who is allowed to text with you. Needless to say, we disagree.

Public Knowledge, joined by a prominent state legislator as well as consumer and public interest groups, today told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that extending consumer protections to text messaging will not harm wireless carriers’ ability to fight spam or other harms to their network.

“This filing further bolsters a compelling case that text messaging and short codes are vital forms of communications and deserve protection from discrimination imposed by wireless companies,” said Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge. “We hope the Commission will act quickly to prevent discrimination against millions of text messaging consumers,” she said. The original petition asking the Commission to make certain that text messages and the short codes used to dial them are protected from interference from telephone companies was filed Dec. 11, 2007.

Today’s NYT has this op ed on Obama’s use of text messaging to announce his VP pick. It provides a nice reminder about the importance of the pending Petition by PK and others on text messaging. Not that Verizon or any other provider would be so foolish as to deny the Obama or McCain campaigns short codes or block their messages. I’m not even worried about independent candidates like Barr and Nader. No, I’m worried about us ordinary schlubs or unpopular folks who can’t count on getting a front page story on the NYT if something happens.

To quickly review the NARAL flap that prompted the filing of the Petition.

Girl Talk a.k.a. Pittsburgh-based mashup artist Greg Gillis, has been making waves in both the electronic/dance and indie rock communities for a few years now. Specializing in sample-based DJ mixes, Gillis creates music that is dense, tirelessly referential and thoroughly postmodern. His breakthrough album, 2006's Night Ripper, proved that a well-executed mashup can have a life beyond the Internet and his latest release, the pay-what-you-want, Creative Commons licensed Feed the Animals, seems poised to push even further into the mainstream. Gillis has become quite the hot topic as of late and his name often pops up in the virtual pages of publications like Pitchfork and Stereogum, as DJs in clubs around the country shamelessly try to imitate his style. One place where you might not expect to hear Gillis mentioned, however, is in the corridors of power on Capitol Hill. Despite this fact, not only did Gillis' name pop up twice this week during Congressional and FCC hearings but on both occasions he was held up as exemplifying a new breed of creative professional. Welcome to yet another week in the increasingly scattershot world of D.C. tech policy.

Following the lead taken in Alex’s blog post yesterday, I’m going to address some FUD which is making the rounds about text messaging and spam. This weekend, the New York Times ran an article talking about cell phone spam. Spam – or rather, the threat of spam – is a key argument used by the carriers who oppose our petition asking the FCC to clarify that carriers may not discriminate in providing text messaging services. But don’t be fooled – the FUD thrown around in this article is irrelevant to the issues raised in the petition.

I have a nifty little service I buy from my telephone provider called “teleblock.” It blocks calls originiating from certain types of phone calls unless I affirmatively allow them. Thanks to this nifty service, I am once again able to sleep late on Sundays.

I bring this up because if there is a common carriage service left in the telecom world, it’s plain old telephone service (POTS). My POTS landline is absolutely regulated as a “Title II” common carrier telephone service. But despite being a common carrier Title II telecom service, my POTS provider can offer me a very useful tool for limiting annoying calls.

You may recall that last month we filed comments in the FCC’s proceeding on our text messaging petition. We were joined by numerous other parties, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Rebtel, Congressmen, and over 200 concerned individuals. On the other side of the debate, a number of the carriers weighed in as well. The carriers’ main arguments? That the problem is solved, and that consumers are actually better off when the carriers get to decide who speaks and who doesn’t over text messages. Yesterday, we filed reply comments addressing these arguments, and making it clear to the FCC that the problem has not been solved, and that it is unacceptable to have mobile carriers act as editors passing judgment on the content of text messages.

Public Knowledge, joined by a prominent state legislator as well as consumer and public interest groups, told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that regulators act to protect the rights of consumers to use text messaging without undue interference from wireless companies. The FCC should also protect some wireless carriers from the anticompetitive behavior of others, Public Knowledge and groups filing with it said.

In addition, groups representing advocacy organizations and the disability community agreed that their access to texting remains in jeopardy unless the FCC acts.

This Monday, April 14, is the deadline for submitting reply comments to the FCC on the issue of whether wireless phone companies should be able to block text messages based on their source or content. Several months ago, Public Knowledge, Free Press and a number of other organizations filed a petition asking the FCC to declare such practices to be illegal. The petition arose out of two incidents involving wireless companies: 1) Verizon refused to give a “short code” to the National Abortion Rights Action League to disseminate an action alert text message its members asked to receive, but which Verizon determined to be too controversial; and 2) Verizon, T-Mobile and Alltell refused to carry the text messages of competitive Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers.

The fight to keep speech free in text messaging continued last week, when Public Knowledge and all of the original parties filed comments with the FCC, repeating our message to the Commission that text messaging must be protected. In those comments, we drove home the point that because text messaging and short codes are offered to the public at large, they are common carrier services subject to nondiscrimination, and further developed the policy reasons that text messaging needs to remain a free communications medium.