New technology is great — but adopting new technology often means moving on from older generations of technology. Take, for instance, 3G cellular networks. Cellular providers are in the process of turning off their 3G networks over the next several months, so that the spectrum currently used to offer 3G service can be repurposed for higher-speed 5G services. To look at some of the challenges that go with these transitions, the show welcomes Harold Feld, Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge, and Richard Shockey, Principal of Shockey Consulting LLC, a consulting firm specializing in strategic advice and action plans for Internet protocol communications technology.
New technology is great — but adopting new technology often means moving on from older generations of technology. Take, for instance, 3G cellular networks. Cellular providers are in the process of turning off their 3G networks over the next several months, so that the spectrum currently used to offer 3G service can be repurposed for higher-speed 5G services. To look at some of the challenges that go with these transitions, the show welcomes Harold Feld, Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge, and Richard Shockey, Principal of Shockey Consulting LLC, a consulting firm specializing in strategic advice and action plans for Internet protocol communications technology.
Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and has not been thoroughly reviewed for completeness or accuracy.
[00:00:00] Gus Herwitz: This is Tech Refactored. I'm your host, Gus Herwitz, the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the University of Nebraska. New technology is great, but adopting new technology often means moving on from older generations of that technology, and sometimes this means turning off technologies that are still used by or valuable too to some consumers or businesses.
Take for instance 3G networks. Cellular providers are currently in [00:01:00] the process of turning off to their 3G networks over the next several months, so that the spectrum currently used to offer 3G service can be repurposed for higher speed 5G services. To look at some of the challenges that go with these technology transitions, I'm joined today by Harold Feld, Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge, and Richard Shockey, Principal of Shockey Consulting, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in strategic advice and action plans for internet protocol communications.
Perfect. Richard, Harold, uh, thanks, uh, for joining us.
[00:01:31] Richard Shockey: Nice to be here.
[00:01:32] Gus Herwitz: Harold, I'm actually gonna turn things over to you initially to just tell us what's going on with this 3G transition. But if you could also start by telling us a bit about public knowledge and, uh, your role there.
[00:01:44] Harold Feld: Thank you. Well, Public Knowledge is a, uh, 20 year old, uh, digital advocacy organization in Washington dc.
We are, uh, uh, about trying to, uh, ensure to all people affordable, uh, access [00:02:00] to, uh, brought. Broadband and new, uh, technologies in ways that allow them to use them to their maximum potential. I specialize in communications, the technology, uh, law, and have been, uh, working in the, uh, field of media and telecommunications policy, uh, for uh, about 25 years.
[00:02:25] Gus Herwitz: So, uh, but between the two of you, I think it's fair to say we have a legitimately encyclopedic knowledge of all things telecommunication, um, related. Harold, can you, uh, start by just telling us a bit about the 3g uh, transition?
[00:02:40] Harold Feld: Certainly we've had multiple generations or GEs of wireless technology.
People are now, uh, were living through the deployment of 5G back 10 years ago. We had the deployment of 4G 10 years before that it. [00:03:00] 3g. Now, what does all of that mean? Each new generation, uh, of wireless technology provides a different set of standards and an enhanced technical capabilities. So if the first generation of wireless was just, "Hey, I can make a phone call while I'm, uh, uh, outside my house." Then 2G graduated us to, Hey, I can make phone calls and send text messages, and I can even use it with digital technology rather than with just an analog call. 3G actually added some limited internet access, mostly email, but some basic mobile web browsing.
4G, which is what most of us have been living with for some time involved. Broadband access, 5G, I won't get into cuz that's a whole separate, uh, show. But suffice it to say that's another round of enhancement. Now the trick is that these layers [00:04:00] don't. Switch from one to the other. It's not like when we roll out 4g, we turn off the 3G for a long time, these things coexist.
You have at the start of, uh, the 4G deployment to 2010, we had a lot of people who were on 3G still and some still on 2G. Uh, and then you had a whole bunch of people, early adopters at first buying. The new phones getting on the 4G network and over time most and now almost all of the users have moved from the 3G technology to the 4G technology.
Some are starting to move to 5G, so there are very few people who are left on this 3G network. But it's still tying up the same amount of spectrum capacity. You still have these 3G radios occupying the real estate on the towers. You still have the expense to the providers [00:05:00] of operating these, uh, older, uh, networks.
And so at some point the operators say, Well, we need to start shutting off these older networks. Now the problem with that is, Because these networks have hundreds of millions of users, and because we keep finding new uses, uh, for these networks, we plug a lot of devices into them. So when it comes time, uh, to shut them off, you have.
Relatively small percentage, but still several millions of people who generally just don't wanna shift for whatever reason. Sometimes it's because you don't have a better network in your area. Sometimes it's because you're, uh, older, you don't want a new phone. Sometimes it's because you have, uh, hearing aids or things that you're used to working with the, uh, old system and you're worried about what'll happen, uh, if you have to upgrade.
So, [00:06:00] You have the question of how do you deal with all of these millions of people, some of whom depend on these uh, devices, How do you get them to move from one network to the other so that we can repurpose. , the network capacity, the real estate on those towers, which we need to swap out the 3G radios for the 5G radios, the spectrum that's being used for this 3G network that we could use better for these 5G networks.
That's the complicated problem. Added by the fact that none of the carriers really knows for sure what kind of devices are necessarily plugged into the network. And it always turns out when you go to shut these things off, people have thought of really great ways to use your network that you weren't aware of.
And it turns out, for example, that you have lots of these home, uh, drunk driver locks that are used on [00:07:00] cars turn. A lot of them are plugged into the 3G network. So if you just turn off the 3G network, all of these people who are under house arrest or have, you can't drive your car without breathing into the breathalyzer.
Their car's not gonna work or the alarm's not gonna work. So that's the problem we gotta deal with in real time.
[00:07:20] Gus Herwitz: Yeah. And there, there are a lot of these technologies, um, you give a great example there. And, uh, consumer electronics, things like Kindles with 3G connectivity, a lot of, uh, other devices, home monitoring systems.
And to some level, this was a new-ish problem with 3g. As, uh, you mentioned Herald 3G was the first really data capable of these, uh, wireless cellular networks. So we started to see lots of early internet of things style devices. Getting, uh, Jerry rigged into them. I, I want to talk more about the, uh, social and human side, but, uh, before we turn to that, uh, uh, Richard, curious your thoughts [00:08:00] on the technical and engineering side and challenges that the carriers face with these.
[00:08:05] Richard Shockey: Well, you know, first of all, let me, you know, I, I think Harold. Frame the basic issue correctly, which is every time we go through a technology transitions, there are going to be impacts on vulnerable populations. And, and, you know, I, I deeply understand this, but there are other impacts as well, which is, you know, the problems for service providers is, and you know, I'll, I'll bring this up later in a different context.
You can't get parts for this stuff any longer. I mean, trying to actually maintain, you know, the radio access points in towers, the switching gear, they don't manufacture this sort of stuff any longer. And you know, there are greater impacts. in, in my judgment, [00:09:00] not transitioning than there are in the transition itself.
And we see, you know, the, the 3G problem is manifesting itself across the entire communication spectrum. And one thing, Gus, you know, you and I have talked about it, Harold is deeply aware of, is we have a problem with the pstn. Okay? Which is, We need to retire signaling system seven in time division multiplexing because A, you can't get parts of this stuffing longer and it is becoming, the lack of transition is becoming anti-competitive in several marketplaces.
So, This what I call the persistence of protocol, and it's not just 3g, it's not just the pst, but trying to get people to do things like DNS sac, trying to get our PKI into the networks to [00:10:00] try and get. You know, things that mitigate the, the problems with internet access, such as, you know, for instance, well, we other, these are showing up relatively all the time and represents significant problems both on the engineering side and specifically for the policy side of the industry here, which is at some particular point in time, I, I tend to believe you've gotta draw the line in the sand or basically say Enough is enough.
Do a date specific, you know, No, we're gonna turn this stuff off and we need to turn it off sooner rather than later. And. Is though, you know, you, you're, you know, the policy makers need to do any number of things to mitigate the impacts on vulnerable populations, but you, you know, you at some particular point, you just simply cannot delay progress.
[00:10:56] Gus Herwitz: So, uh, a whole lot in there. First for, uh, uh, [00:11:00] listeners, just generally, um, the, the idea that Richard is talking about, and we'll delve into this, uh, a bit more after our break. The, the PSTN and Signaling system seven, that refers basically to the, the telephone network and architecture that was. Developed in the analog era, in the early digitalization era of the telephone network in the 1980s really, and is still used for much of the telephone network today.
And, uh, Richard and I have previously discussed this in the context of robocalls and the upgrade, uh, uh, in process to, uh, a more robust and secure, um, authentication system for phone calls. And Richard also mentioned some of the, the protocols that deal with the internet and how networks interconnect there.
So the, these challenges. Us in a number of contexts. And Richard, you finished there with a, an important concept, the role of the regulators. So in all of these cases and in particular, uh, with, uh, the 3G transition right now, the Federal Communications Commission, [00:12:00] Has some role in overseeing how the carriers are doing these transitions and making sure that all these issues are balanced and taken into consideration.
I, I wonder, Richard, I'll start with you and then turn to, uh, Harold, what's your understanding of the FCC's approach to thinking about how to manage these transitions and balance these concern?
[00:12:22] Richard Shockey: So, well- for several, for some of us, and you know, I, I'm on the FCC, Nancy, and some other tactical advisory committees.
You, you know, and I agree with Harold, this is what regulators are supposed to do and you know, the role that the regulator has. Is to first of all understand the various tactical challenges that these various transitions have and balance again, you know, the, the, the consumer needs. And by the way, enterprise needs as well, cuz they've got their own issues here in terms of what we had discussed.
[00:13:00] Earlier in terms of robocall, they have the primary role in doing this, and they have the statutory authority to do this, and I've occasionally talked to clients of mine one way or the other when we're trying to deal with the technology transitions is sometimes the regulator is your frat. Now, most of.
The carriers, you know, sort of laugh at me and are relatively incredulous that an engineer would go, What do you mean there our friend? And I'm going, Well, sometimes. When they basically say Enough is enough, that actually helps everybody out. And there's two contexts here. One is we went through the digital television transition and which was a extremely well managed process by the fcc, where we turned off analog television and freed up that, uh, spectrum [00:14:00] for 4G lte.
And other purposes, and we basically said, we're gonna turn it off and you, you need to do it by such and such, and then go through the process of repacking that spectrum so it could be made usable. So sometimes the magic wand works, and this is where both the regulation is important to understand the context, but certainly in terms of three.
Um, and certainly in terms of the pstn, there's ample ev, there's, this is not gonna be litigated, is what it boils down to. I mean, their authority to act is frankly unquestionable here, and at least in robocall, as we talked about before. If you look at the statutory authority granted to the FCC under the trade stack, It's a very, very broad grant of [00:15:00] authority, which is if, if the new reconstituted commission wants to potentially turn off the pstn because it's gonna help with robocalls, I defy a.
Appeals court anywhere in the United States is going to prohibit them from doing that. Uh, so, and, and you know, we could argue about is there sufficient engineering talent that the SCC to manage this sort of stuff. Uh, as Harold and I have both understood, I mean, the SCC has been pretty darn good about this in general, and there's gonna be more coming, but you know, it's not.
United States jurisdiction that's involved, Say for instance, on the PSTN issue and on three, they've got a much more complicated problem in the United Kingdom on 3G than we have because they use 3G in the UK for extensive roaming. Okay. And they're not really in the [00:16:00] position to do what we're doing because of the roaming issue.
However, off come, the national regulator in the United Kingdom has come up with a plan to turn off the pstn, turn off tdn, turn off SS seven by 2025, which I actually think. Pretty good model for me works for me.
[00:16:25] Harold Feld: Yep. I mean, I mean, I agree a lot with. Richard is saying, although I do wanna point out the roaming issue is a problem here in the United States because roaming for voice on 3G is cheap and easy.
So you actually have a lot of small rural carriers that right now rely on. This 3G voice roaming where part of the transition is getting everybody to line up, and this is where the regulator has a couple of different roles. The first is the [00:17:00] bully pulpit, and also recognizing the unique challenges, not just.
From the technology, but also cause we're in a time of, we're coming outta the Covid pandemic, which has put a lot of the work behind. We have the, the transistor slash um, you know, uh, chip shortage, which is. A very real problem. You know, I, uh, just swapped my, my family, we just swapped over our phones from Sprint to T-Mobile last week, which meant upgrading all of our phones, which, you know, was fine, but it took them, you know, About a week to find iPhones to get from my wife and, uh, son to replace the older iPhones that they didn't support.
And you know, that's a real issue where you have, uh, this access to equipment problems. So one of the things, and the other issue, which, which Richard brought up is [00:18:00] it's hard to get everybody to move in sync with each other. There's always gonna be. The last bunch of carriers or the last bunch of customers that don't think this applies to them or can't manage to get their act together or whatever it is.
And we saw this with DTV where we actually had to extend out the shift by six months, and that one had been in the works for years. And then went into high gear in 2005 to get us to where we could try to switch in 2008. And we had to push it out, uh, another, uh, six months into, uh, June, uh, 2009, you know, to it, to the credit.
Everybody managed to do it. But you still had people the week before the transition who were going, What? My television isn't going to work next week, You know, what do I do? And fortunately, we had, you know, Federal agencies with 800 [00:19:00] numbers and were there to get the information out. You had the broadcasters, uh, who were doing the transition doing these public service announcements on this so far.
Unfortunately, from my opinion, the fcc, for whatever reason, and I can speculate about the reasons, but has taken a very hands off attitude and. They've started to do a little more. The first thing, which is most important, is validating that this is a thing. Cause I can tell you as somebody who talks to consumers a lot, the biggest problem is persuading consumers that this isn't some kind of scam that.
You know, it's not their carriers just trying to get them to buy a more expensive plan. It's not some robo text that you have to come and trade your phone in right away and, you know, reply. No, that's actually real. So there, there's a lot of. Handholding and coordination that needs to happen here, which, [00:20:00] uh, unfortunately is not happening yet at the level that, uh, we need for a smooth transition.
That, that's
[00:20:07] Gus Herwitz: a, a fascinating point. We need to turn to a break, but I, I hope that we can take up this basic idea. Consumers need to be able to trust the system if they're going to upgrade and support the system. And as Richard has framed, framed it, overcome this coordination problem. And there's just a lot of real richness in there.
But, uh, we will return to that after this brief, uh, break. Uh, we are discussing with, uh, Harold Feld and Richard Shockey, the challenges of upgrading to new generations of technology and the role of the FCC as a government regulator. In mediating the upgrade from, uh, 3G to four and 5G, uh, networks.
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[00:21:40] Gus Herwitz: Okay, so we are back with, uh, Harold Feld and Richard Shockey. I, I want to. Start by asking about something that I think is somewhat unique to wireless technologies. We've gone from one G to two G to 3G to 4g, for to 4G LTE to 5g, and we're, I'm already hearing carriers [00:22:00] talking. It might be vaporware about six g planning really over the course of a very short period of time.
So, uh, I'm, I'm curious. When we're deploying new generations of wireless technology, I'll ask that with a question mark in my inflection, Should we be building, incorporating a transition plan to the next future generation of the technology into our current deployments? And is this something unique? To wireless technologies.
Is this a more general problem? How would should we think about, uh, lessons, uh, that might translate to the wireline networks and other technology settings?
[00:22:39] Harold Feld: Well, I think it's easiest in wireless because we expect this to happen, and it's helped by the fact that both the carriers and the handset manufacturers all have incentive to.
upping the ante on, on the mobile, uh, [00:23:00] network. So, uh, you know, every year Apple comes out with a new iPhone, they have to have reasons why you should wanna buy this model, iPhone or Samsung for this model, Samsung. So they keep wanting to put in these new capacities. The wireless networks are looking at how they can do new things.
So there's a constant demand for a new cycle in wireless. People- I think are, want to slow down a little bit. You have populations that are not happy about having to to change constantly or people who, uh, you know, have embedded technologies, which are more, which they don't tend to think about that much, but at least there's kind of a general, uh, idea in wireless like, oh.
You know, I really should be getting a new phone. We will be getting a new network. By contrast, I mean, and it's also helped by, one other thing I should should add, which is Spectrum [00:24:00] Auctions. The government makes money by auctioning off, uh, spectrum. So there is always an incentive on the part of the federal government when it comes to wireless to want to see the wireless companies expand.
Uh, wireless networks and wireless capacity because that way they will be able to get more revenue. And if you look at the, the bipartisan infrastructure, uh, bill that passed, you will see that there is part of the, the way that we're supposed to pay for that is with more spectrum auctions. So wireless moves along somewhat more easily, Wire.
People, especially when they think about it as the phone. The phone part of your, from the consumer perspective, the phone part of your network. On the wireline side is the thing that changes least and the thing you want to be the most dependable. Now the consumer does not see behind the wall where we have been having this upgrade [00:25:00] to voice over IP and how network management has, uh, uh, changed and how you no longer need one network to provide you your phone service from beginning to end, we can break up all the pieces.
That's all invisible from the consumer perspective. . What we want is I have a phone. It plugs into my wall. I want it to do the things. It's always done because at this point, if you're hanging on to a telephone, that plug, that's a wireline telephone. You're doing that for some reason. Either you. Are, you know, you have a, uh, fax machine or something else that might be dependent on the, uh, legacy, uh, technology or you, you know, wanna make sure that you have a, a separate line for personal or that you share only with, uh, a couple of people, whatever the reason is you're making that choice.
Cause you want that phone to be a phone and that makes changes [00:26:00] like the current shift. The big thing is we're moving from self-powered. Landlines to where it's not self powered. And for a lot of people that's a huge, So for,
[00:26:09] Gus Herwitz: for, uh, listeners, uh, the, the idea there, uh, traditionally copper based phone lines, the phone company would provide the power for the phone.
Uh, with fiber optics, you can't rely on that. So the consumer needs to be providing the phone, the power to run the phone.
[00:26:24] Harold Feld: Right. So I guess my, my upshot is, on the one hand, from an engineering perspective, yeah, it's- it's all one network where the pieces fit together and the wireless and the wire line and the broadband, and they all have to be coherent with one another and work with one another at this point. But at the same time, from the consumer perspective, the wire line transition is a much bigger deal than, uh, getting a new, uh, wireless.
[00:26:50] Richard Shockey: And- and Harold, I would agree with that. And, and there's, uh, something that would be, again, particular to Nebraska, by the way, in rural areas [00:27:00] in two points, there is some, not necessarily empirical, but anecdotal evidence that especially rural consumers trust landline devices more than wireless devices for 911, and the public safety issues here because if you do have SIP based VOIP, you're, it's considered more reliable transmitting location. Then you know the, the occasionally sparse. Location data that has plagued many rural areas of the United States, Nebraska, Kansas, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho.
One way or the other, there's, There's one other thing in terms of the transition here, and guess this is actually quite relevant for Nebraska, which is we're now about to see about $45 billion worth. Public investment in fiber optic [00:28:00] across underserved areas. And a lot of those are frankly in Nebraska, Kansas, The Dakotas, one way or the other, which I think is going to hasen the transition from copper based networks to fiber optic networks.
And, and for Harold and myself living in the northeast, we've actually gone through this, which is. I'm sure Harold's on Fios just like I am-
[00:28:26] Harold Feld: rcn, but yeah.
[00:28:28] Richard Shockey: but we're, we're pretty much on, you know, one way or the other. And you know, here in Northern Virginia in particular, we, several years ago, we went through a flurry of what's called the two 14 issues, two 14 disconnect notices from Verizon basically saying, We're gonna turn off copper.
The FCC rules allow them to do that if there is a suitable alternative available. And so rural carriers, and I've talked to a lot of them by the way, they're [00:29:00] anticipating that if we can finally get the fiber optic cable, that's another issue. That's a parts problem. I've heard. 18 to 24 months on an outbound build for a brand new fiber optic network.
But beyond that, there's gonna be a flurry of two 14. That not only the federal regulators, but state regulators are gonna have to, you know, try and build into the system because that's gonna spur, I think, again, PSDN transition as much, or not more than anything else. So that A, the reliability of 911,
and these transitions, both wireline and wireless, have to keep in mind that there there could be no degradation or demolition of the public safety networks. And of course there's another transition going on. Among PSAP, [00:30:00] which is as we we, Can you explain what PSAP are? Public safety answering points. It's where the nine one one call actually terminates and you know, part of the stimulus bill is transitioning.
Nine on one from traditional analog piece apps to ESI nets and, and they're gonna go all voice over IP as well. And I've talked to some of 'em, they've got identity issues. Is this really the sort of person that it's, they say, they say they are? et cetera, et cetera. So, you know. The impacts of these particular transitions, wireless or wireless, in, in, in rural America is going to be rather profound.
And, you know, we, we've gone through some of this in the major urban areas, but it's gonna accelerate. It's definitely gonna
[00:30:54] Harold Feld: accelerate. And this is a great place for me to. Because Richard's Tube modest [00:31:00] to say it's something that I quote often called Shocky's Law. , which is money is the answer. What was the question?
And it's absolutely the case that, uh, a lot of the issues that we've been. Struggling with because this, this, this issue of the transition has been under discussion for over a decade now, the planning cycles on these things are very long, but it's, it's a very hard and expensive process to do, particularly in rural America, whereas a matter of.
Policy. We want to make sure that everybody is connected and stays connected and that this is an upgrade for everyone, not just an upgrade in the urban areas and the economics, which already made it difficult to get the wires out into rural areas and. Uh, the answer quite frankly is money. And this is a case where happily public policy for broadband and for the telephone system have come [00:32:00] together.
The stars have finally aligned properly, and I think that we may see more progress in the next five years on this than we have had in the previous 10.
[00:32:13] Richard Shockey: And I totally agree with that, Harold. And you know, the other problem in terms of in investment, Gus is voice in and of itself. Okay. And you know, the SMS service is a very low margin business for the carriers as essential it is.
To society and public safety. You know, there's just not a lot of money in it one way or other. So the, the, the carriers have the major carriers, by the way, and this includes, You know, carriers like Frontier Windstream Consolidated one way or the other, had a disincentive to invest in the key voice communications, realtime communications service, cuz they can't make a [00:33:00] money out of it, at least not for a while.
So, you know, I think Harold and I, even though we, we were occasionally on different sides of the aisle, we're an absolute agreement about. So I, I'd
[00:33:12] Gus Herwitz: like to ask, this is perhaps a, a diversion. I'm not sure. It might actually be right on point. What's the more important. Basic service nowadays. Voice communications or data communications that might offer voice as a bolt on voice over IP on top.
From a, a consumer perspective, from a public safety perspective, a social regulatory perspective, which is the more important one to make sure consumers have
[00:33:40] Richard Shockey: access. I'll tell you, I'll, I'll give you a little insight. Okay. If you look at the Federal Communications wireline competition reports, okay? The total number of minutes.
Being reported used in the network, and I think, I think 2020 was the last [00:34:00] sample period of the S sec. It hasn't changed at all. Okay. We're communicating more by different kinds of, of methodologies. People say, Oh, we're all doing all this video conferencing. I looked at Zoom's stock price this morning, and boy, it's hit the sewer.
What, what Zoom and GoToMeeting and teams have done is it's killed the commercial audio conferencing market. Okay? Look at us right now. It's just like we would never do this on a, on an audio conference bridge. We're doing it. You know, via, uh, collaborative, real time communications platform. And that's a competitive marketplace by the way, enabled in large measure by the Pulver order.
And of course, you know, some of us were, you know, were reminded this week. Von, which was started by Jeff Pulver, who sold to Ericsson for 6.3 [00:35:00] billion. And if you look at the stock price of Twilio and five nine, I mean, that's where a lot of this stuff has been going. But the core service, Yeah. Voice and you know, Oh, and, and I have a joke with lawyers like Harold from time to time, which is the reason voice has not gone away, is you never wanna send an email that could be read by a federal pro.
Okay. And so there are a lot of conversations from time to time that will not use sms. They will not use email, they will not use any kind of text messaging service on any social media platform because they're afraid it will use to be used against them in a court of law, or somebody is going to. Say what they really think and then, you know, do start at star or click all, you know, it's like [00:36:00] voice is, oddly enough, made a bit of a comeback, and one of the reasons for that is for those of us who are using the more advanced SIP networks, vti, it's, et cetera, et cetera.
It just sounds better. It really does. Why? I,
[00:36:19] Harold Feld: I just wanna say, getting, kind of getting back to your question. You know, kind of building on a little what Richard's said, I mean, first of all, one of the most important things is access to 9 1 1. Yeah. Uh, and that's a voice service, uh, right. We keep talking about doing text to, uh, to 911.
It'll be useful when we manage it, but you know, the fact is that for most people it's gonna be 911. Um, is gonna be a voice service, and you're gonna wanna be talking to an actual human being during an emergency. Uh, you know, people are very much about. Talking to each other and you know, where, uh, yes, we [00:37:00] supplement.
We also use the communications differently, you know? My son, who is supposed to not care about voice at all, he spends a lot of time talking to people. In fact, he talks to people in four or five different ways at the same time, he'll be texting, on the one hand, he'll be actually talking, um, you know, uh, through, uh, the cell phone while he's, uh, using a Messenger app.
And, you know, so he is not throwing away the voice at all. And when we look at the. Diversity of populations that need to be served in the country. Different languages, different ages, different levels of technical proficiency, different demands on whether you're calling international, whether you want to talk, communicate internationally or locally or long distance.
Um, to the extent that that's still a separate market, you know, all of these [00:38:00] things. It's critically important. Voice remains. The critically important service. In a way, it kind of reminds me of the fact that, um, most people don't think about ports and ships and how important those are. You know, that's old technology.
You know, when we can get on an airplane and fly, you know, who sales are, you know, So we don't think about it. But as we've seen with the supply chain disruption, All that stuff was going on under the surface. We rely as heavily on, you know, our carrier ships have gotten bigger and better and our ports are, are doing stuff, but it's still the same basic service of shipping stuff over the ocean from one place to another and unloading it and transporting it.
That goes back to the Roman. And it's the same thing here in communications. We've got a lot of things we do better. We've got a lot of new technologies, We've got a lot of [00:39:00] things that people like to focus on, but at the end of the day, the bedrock thing that people are depending on is voice.
[00:39:09] Gus Herwitz: So that's a, a nice, uh, queue up for one of my, uh, the last questions I want to bring up, I, is this a new problem?
Are there new elements to how we're using these networks that, uh, suggest that we should be or need to be thinking about technology transitions differently today than with the digital TV transition or any previous technology transit?
[00:39:32] Harold Feld: I think it's a much more complicated problem. Um, so the digital transition involved a lot of people, but at the end of the day, that was relatively simple because it was one set of closely regulated actors, broadcasters, and television.
Then non-regulated actors, but all kind of in the same field. Electric, uh, you know, electronic device manufacturers, uh, retailers. It was a, a, [00:40:00] it was a lot of folks to get marching in the same direction, but you pretty much knew who they all were. One of the things that has happened is our new networks, which have allowed us to break up various services so that you can have, whereas before you had one telephone network at and t that maintained the public.
Safety access points maintained the local, uh, voice network maintained all of these things. You can now break these up into a large number of competing services and markets, which is great, except that when it's time to get everybody to march together and move together. You don't know who was in the band at this point.
I mean, you're kind of half the, the struggle here. Just even the 3G transition, which is just wireless, the alarm indu. Just to take an example, the alarm industry filed a petition with the FCC [00:41:00] saying, fcc, please make at and t give us more time because we have been able to transition all of the home alarm systems.
C chip shortage, blah, blah, blah. You saw the auto industry show up, uh, you know, the consumer, uh, device, inter industries that people had not thought were at all gonna be affected by this showing up and saying what? There's a transition. You have to give us more time. Nobody would've thought cars were gonna be a big after the fact.
You say, Oh yeah, well sure. Now I under, you know, that makes sense. I mean, we've been putting, uh, wireless chips in cars for years now, and not surprising, a lot of them are designed for 3G because that was a cheap, available, uh, network and was good for the, the kind of stuff that they were doing. But when you first said, when at t was saying, Hey, we're gonna shut off our, uh, 3G network.
Most of us did not have the first reaction of, Have you talked to the [00:42:00] car manufacturers yet?
[00:42:04] Richard Shockey: They and, and, yeah. There's. And by the way, you know, the, you know, heroin idea with the commission all the time. One way other, And there was one other issue in terms of transition that is just, you know, in the robocall field that had just sparked massive controversy in terms of transition, which was in the fourth report, in order on, uh, robocalls, there was a mandate to use what's known as 6 0 8, 6 0 7 error code.
So that a calling party would know if the call had actually been blocked. Okay. And that's just turned into a gigantic, her fluffle that I've been involved with to a certain extent. But you know, in terms of emerging technology stuff, and I think Harold has started to. Began to, uh, you know, [00:43:00] look at this as well, is the, the, the big thing in terms of telecom and landline telecom that I deal with all the time, even in wireless is identity.
It is this whole identity business is greenfield. Running for a bunch of companies that we know of New Star and h a. TNS first Orion, this concept of branded calling and Harold, we'll need to talk about this privately. It's just, it's it's Wild West out there and. Wh how the regulators are going to deal with how identity is captured, organized, and display.
Uh, it'll keep us all busy for, you know, years to come. I mean, that's one thing guys, you and I talked about before. You know, the easiest way for job security in the next five years is become a rob call expert. I'll tell. [00:44:00]
[00:44:00] Gus Herwitz: A very sad statement, but I, I definitely agree. And, uh, echoing this echoes some of Harold's earlier comments.
I'm picking up and waving around my cell phone right now just thinking how much these things have changed. Talking to students in my telecom class the other day, um, parents and grandparents, uh, who now are dealing with phones that you need to turn on and that can be turned off. No, your, your phone, you don't turn it on or off.
It's just on the wall. You don't need to worry about keeping. Up and now with robocalls, your phone's going to ring and not just ring, but it's going to tell you who the caller is with a message. Do I trust this? I don't know. This is a really weird new experience. The, the social meaning and identity of the telephone is completely changing and there's a basic functionality that the ships in ports, the being able to make a call and call nine one one. And we expect these things to support that basic [00:45:00] functionality at core, but that basic functionality is buried under so many layers of different technologies. It, it's a, a fascinating, um, problem.
Uh, unfortunately we need to start wrapping up. But, uh, Harold, Richard, I, uh, want to give each of you a chance for any, uh, final thoughts before it's time to say goodbye or hang up.
[00:45:21] Harold Feld: Yeah, so I'm just gonna say that the thing that's missing right now, in my opinion, is for the FCC to step up. And part of that has been a function of the way that everything in Washington DC has become politicized and these wild swings that we are having back and forth between, you know, a uh, regulation is evil.
Corporations are evil, you know, and traditionally the FCC had done a, uh, uh, a good job of being very pragmatic about it. We don't care who's evil, we don't care who's good. We [00:46:00] just care that the network works. I am. Very hopeful that with, uh, Jessica Rosen wel, uh, um, who is one of the wonkiest and most pragmatic, uh, people when it comes to this sort of thing out there that, you know, we will see the F fcc, uh, able to, uh, to focus on these things again.
Cause ultimately I do think that, Uh, you want a regulator to do two things. One is to set a deadline because without an actual deadline, you will always have people who just don't wanna make the change. But the other is to make sure that that deadline lets everybody who needs the time, have the time they need.
They don't get the time they want, but they should have the time. They need to make sure that things transition smooth.
[00:46:52] Gus Herwitz: So I have to ask Carol, if I were to get you a make the FCC boring again hat, would you wear
[00:46:58] Harold Feld: it? Oh hell yes. . [00:47:00] You could put that on a hat. You could put that on a t-shirt. I say this all the time, you know?
Well, and,
[00:47:07] Richard Shockey: and, you know, and, and to that is like hire more engineers down there. Yes. That would, you know, that would actually be relatively helpful. I don't even know who the modern CTO that the FCC is. Any, you know, anymore. I mean, after. Uh, Eric Berger left and things like that. But I, I just wanna echo, you know, again, Harold and I on this particular kind of issue, agree with each other completely.
Is that set a deadline? Let everybody know that they need, you know, to get busy here. Um, Because I think the economic impacts of not taking action can potentially outweigh the problems with vulnerable populations and consumers because I'll tell you what, on this identity issue, I mean the, the healthcare providers that I've spoken to, they, they think the identity issue [00:48:00] is though, is the greatest thing since sliced bread, because what they're trying to do, Is this is your doctor calling and they have your test result and they want you to answer the frigging phone.
And that has, you know, the call completion rate in the healthcare industry have been appalling. Okay? And yes, this is really. American Express, you think there's a fraudulent card, You know, maybe you're not looking at your text messages, you know, And the other thing is, it's Domino's Pizza, you know, go to the door, you know, you know, uh, your doorbell's not ringing.
There's something else like that. Well, we, there's, there's all of these. or you know, the other one that is utilities. You know, they're, they're desperate to make sure that they can make proper contact and identify themselves properly to consumers cuz they may be in a situation where they're forced to cut off your electricity.[00:49:00]
And that's been a, you know, relatively large issue for, for a long time. Okay. So, you know, the, the, you know, stay tuned. I mean, this is not going away. It's job security for all of us. That's for sure.
[00:49:14] Gus Herwitz: Well, on that note, I'll say to listeners, stay tuned. And Harold and Richard, thank you both. Harold, I don't remember the last time at this point.
I've been in dc, which means I don't remember, uh, the last time that I've had a chance to actually see you or talk with you. So this has been great. And Richard, uh, great talking with you again. I'm sure this said topic isn't going away, and listeners, I hope that you're not going away. I've been your host, Gus Herwitz.
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Tech Refactored. If you want to learn more about what we're doing here at the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center, or submit an idea for a future episode, you can do go- you can go to our website at ngtc.unl.edu, or you can follow us on Twitter at UNL underscore NGTC. If you'd enjoyed the show, please don't forget to leave us a [00:50:00] rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Our show was produced by Elsbeth Magilton and Lysandra Marquez and Colin McCarthy created and recorded our theme music. This podcast is part of the Menard Governance and Technology Program in series. Until next time, I'm planning for 6G. Are you?