There was an interesting article in this Sunday's New York Times
about a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
to extend CALEA requirements to Internet services provided by
municipal Internet service providers (ISPs), libraries, and
presumably community technology centers (CTCs). The
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA)
mandates that a variety of communications providers design
their networks so that it is easy for Federal authorities to
tap their network, including e-mail and other online
transactions. The new proposal extends these requirements to
university networks and those listed above.
The New York Times article is online, (if you don't mind
registering so that the Times, and anyone else with access
to their records, can track what you read):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/technology/23college.html
CNET also has an article:
http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-5910976.html
These articles hint at some interesting issues for municipal networks.
o The ISP business in a fairly risky business. (Note that
I am using "risk" in the financial sense, in that outcomes,
such as future revenues and expenses, are uncertain and
may have a high variance.) Exogenous events, such as
the imposition of CALEA requirements on municipal networks,
can be sudden, unexpected, and have a significant effect on
revenues and/or expenses. (The same is true for the
technology and market environments, but that is another
topic.)
o Running an ISP is a demanding task. The CALEA issue hints
at only the administrative side of things, which includes
a lot of regulatory issues as well as interactions with
your upstream ISP and all of the ISPs upstream from it.
This backs into a personnel issue, in that a range of
highly skilled people are required to successfully run
an ISP. Even after the tech bubble, the good people
are in high demand.
o There are tremendous economies of scale in running an ISP.
For example, a good legal department for a moderate-sized
ISP can probably support a much larger ISP without much
difficulty.
Having said all that, I don't think these observations provide a basis
for concluding whether a particular municipal network is a good idea or
not. Rather, I suggest that citizens ought to demand that a good
business plan, one that takes into account these sorts of issues,
if they are applicable, be created before their municipality
invests heavily in becoming an ISP.
For additional information on CALEA you can try:
The FCC's CALEA Web site: http://www.fcc.gov/calea/
The CDT's CALEA Web pages: http://www.cdt.org/digi_tele/
If you really want a better understanding of how CALEA affects ISPs,
you could dig though the NANOG e-mail archives and online
meeting pages.
Of course, there are potentially Enhanced 911 (E-911) requirements
on the horizon for voice-over-IP (VoIP) providers. Conceivably,
this would require that municipal WiFi networks continuously
track the location of all of their users and make this information
readily available to the government on demand. (Oh, and don't
let the name fool you, as it apparently does most of the press.
Wireless carriers must be able to track your location whenever
your phone is powered on, not just when you call 911. Just think
of your cellular phone as a government-approved tracking device.)
-tjs
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