2015 Review: Our Year in policy Papers

In 2015, OTI experts wrote multiple policy papers and provided suggested solutions to a diverse selection of issues, spanning encryption, Internet governance, broadband labeling and more. If you missed any, don’t worry, we’ve recapped all ten of OTI’s in-depth policy papers of 2015 below:

February

Telecommunications Policy and The Future of Work by Joshua Breitbart

OTI’s first policy paper of 2015 focused on how mobile technology enables on-demand labor practices and ubiquitous monitoring, or can provide workers with ready access to media production tools and networks for collaboration and distribution. Who can use these technologies and networks and to what ends is determined by threshold questions of telecommunications policy: whether deployment and management are left entirely to the private market, or if baseline levels of service and basic principles of openness and interconnection are preserved.

March

A Public Interest Perspective on Local Number Portability by J. Armand Musey & Michael Calabrese

OTI released this paper urging the Federal Communications Commission to review and clarify the future role of the number portability system and the LNPA through a public notice and comment rulemaking before finalizing a vendor selection for the new Local Number Portability Administrator. Local Number Portability is the ability of a telephone customer in the U.S. to retain their local phone number if they switch to another local service provider. This paper called for the Commission to consider the broader and evolving public interest implications switching the LPNA would have.

Building Broadband Commons: Tools for Planners and Communities by Greta Byrum

As networked technologies transform the places where we live, digital participation becomes more important for access to basic rights, services and opportunities. In this paper, OTI argues that a community-led method of planning and provisioning broadband employs carefully managed partnerships, rebuilds the role of government and other institutions, and treats citizens as collaborators and experts on their own needs. As cities and towns work towards planning more collaborative, redundant, flexible, and ecologically adaptive systems in general, broadband infrastructure can be a site of pioneering resilience.

April

Controlling Internet Infrastructure, Part I by Danielle Kehl & David Post

This paper is the first in a series on the IANA transition. The initial paper explains the nature of the challenges and the opportunities presented by the transition. Subsequent papers addressed in greater detail the substance of specific transition proposals and provide recommendations concerning the key component of a successful transition process.

June

Doomed to Repeat History? Lessons from the Crypto War of the 1990s by Andi Wilson, Danielle Kehl & Kevin Bankston

This paper tells the story of the period in the 1990s that came to be known as the “Crypto Wars” and the lessons from that debate that are relevant to today. It is a story not only about policy responses to new technology, but also a sustained, coordinated effort among industry groups, privacy advocates, and technology experts from across the political spectrum to push back against government policies that threatened online innovation and fundamental human rights. While it seems like we may be on the verge of a Crypto War 2.0, this paper argues that this is unnecessary and that there is no reason to repeat our previous mistakes.

More Inclusive Governance in the Digital Age by Hollie Russon-Gilman

As part of Harvard’s Data Smart Solutions initiative, this paper assesses the new opportunities and challenges for inclusive governance in the era of digital tools. It looks at a wide set of opportunities to engage and makes a series of recommendations to participate in a new multi-stakeholder model of governance where public institutions, civil society, and everyday people can work together.

Riding the Wave by David Tannenwald, Hollie Russon-Gilman

This paper looked at how the eventually victorious Massachusetts congressional candidate, Seth Moulton, utilized digital and social media to disseminate and amplify his message.

Artificial Scarcity: How Data Caps Harm Consumers and Innovation by Danielle Kehl, Patrick Lucey

OTI examines the growth and impact of usage-based pricing and data caps on wired and mobile broadband services in the United States. In particular, we explain how data cap can make it hard for consumers to make informed choices; decreases the adoption and use of existing and new online services; and undermine online security. It is also increasingly clear that data caps have a disproportionate impact on low-income and minority population as well as groups like telecommuters and students. This paper urges the FCC to open up a serious inquiry into whether data caps are an acceptable business practice.

August

Broadband Truth-In-Labeling by Emily Hong, Isabelle Styslinger, Laura Moy

In what hopefully will be a useful resource as the FCC and Consumer Advisory Committee work to develop a standardized disclosure format for the voluntary safe harbor established by the 2015 Open Internet Order, this document updates the original Broadband Truth-in-Labeling proposal first offered by OTI in 2009. The new format has been redesigned to reflect the FCC’s current rules on ISP transparency. This format also takes into consideration research regarding consumer decision- making, as well as OTI’s unique experience examining ISPs disclosures to collect the information used to inform OTI’s annual Cost of Connectivity reports.

September

Controlling Internet Infrastructure, Part II by Danielle Kehl, David Post

This paper describes the substantive and procedural safeguards that need to be in place to ensure that the IANA transition does not undermine the principles of free and open communication on the Internet.