Today on the Verizon Policy blog Link Hoewing writes about the results of an academic research paper that looks at the effectiveness of “shaming” corporations into behaving properly. The research examines how companies respond to social pressure related to environmental causes, and shows that companies tend to improve their behavior after receiving poor rankings from independent social ratings agencies.

Hoewing uses that research to argue that self-regulation works, because it is in the best interest of the company to listen to its customers. He brings up the current issues of online privacy, where ISPs have turned to firms such as Phorm or NebuAd to profit by selling advertisements served up based on where a customer surfs:

Interestingly, a couple of years back during the debate on net neutrality, I made the argument that industry leadership through some form of oversight/self-regulatory model, coupled with competition and the extensive oversight provided by literally hundreds of thousands of sophisticated online users would help ensure effective enforcement of good practices and protect consumers.

So far that really hasn’t worked out. There are two problems with this argument for ISP self regulation. The first is that there’s little competition, meaning customers can’t vote with their feet if an ISP is abusing their privacy. Second, there’s no real transparency into who’s using such services, unless an independent agency is able to find out about it.

So, as the ISPs want to offer up their own regulations for handling your privacy online, beware of this line of thinking that says industry self-regulation will work. If carriers could be shamed into doing the right thing, AT&T wouldn’t be helping the government listen in on our phone calls.

It should hardly come as a surprise to anyone — but nevertheless a survey conducted by International Data Corporation on behalf of Zeugma Systems, a company that makes an edge router for broadband networks, shows that consumers simply hate bandwidth caps and will likely switch to another carrier if they have the option. The survey polled 787 U.S. consumers. Here are some key findings of the survey:

• 81 percent do not like the idea of establishing a bandwidth cap and charging for use above the cap.
• 51 percent would try to change service providers if their BSP imposed bandwidth caps.
• 83 percent say that do not know what a gigabyte or have no idea how many gigabytes they use.
• Even light users are opposed to the whole idea of bandwidth capping.
• Only 5 percent said unequivocally that “those who use more should pay more.”

This data is pretty close to the findings of a poll conducted by us earlier this year. Ninety-one percent of 1,159 voters said that they would switch to another ISP, while 6 percent said they would not switch. Comcast is the biggest proponent of metered broadband, with Time Warner being a close second.

In light of this data, AT&T and Verizon (and Best Buy) should make it a point to emphasize that it is cable companies and not they who are capping bandwidth and get people to switch. Maybe that would be the kind of spanking that would bring cable companies to their senses. That said, the larger issue is that the FCC and our government have helped create a broadband duopoly that has almost always worked against the consumers. We need to fix that issue before we can address anything else.

Back to the survey: about 95 percent of those surveyed said that they would happily pay for more premium bandwidth services if they can get it for services such as video, VoIP, gaming and telecommuter VPNs. Around 54 percent would switch service providers if a competitive service offered a premium tier, while another 26 percent said they would pay their service provider an additional fee for premium bandwidth services.

Take that last paragraph with a pinch of salt: this dovetails nicely with the kind of traffic management gear Zeugma is trying to sell to the carriers.

The Free Press issued a report this afternoon casting doubt on the theory of network congestion that has been cited by ISPs as the reason behind P2P blocking or broadband caps, and offering more rational solutions for dealing with sporadic congestion. It also claims that tiered broadband and limitation pricing — in which a carrier charges per gigabyte fee after users exceed a certain cap — is unlikely to become reality. Prior to the report coming out, I had spent the afternoon asking people about this issue, trying to figure out if our series of tubes is really clogged or if the carriers are merely seeking financial and/or competitive gain.

Most people believe and some data shows that not only is the Internet not as congested as the carriers want you to believe, but usage isn’t growing as fast as we’re being told. So when I view efforts such as Frontier’s 5 GB data cap or Bell Canada’s usage pricing for smaller carriers using the Bell Canada network, and offering data over 2GB, I don’t see an honest attempt to deal with network congestion — I see anti-competitive behavior. And Frontier’s cap seems particularly stupid given that Time Warner hasn’t yet begun implementing a tiered system in Frontier’s region and will offer a cap that exceeds 5 GB if it does. As the Free Press report states:

The arguments for the “need” to switch to limitation pricing essentially rest on the premise that we’ve somehow reached a magical bandwidth threshold that throws the entire industry pricing model out the window. We are being told that despite predictable growth, supply can no longer keep up with demand. The old “oversubscription” model has failed, and the only way to recoup costs and manage user behavior is through metered pricing. This seems highly implausible.

I agree, especially when I consider AT&T’s plans to upgrade its network and the cable providers talking about their plans to implement DOCSIS 3.0. If the networks are building out capacity, one would think they’d want customers to use it. Prohibitive caps make that use more expensive, and less accessible to the average users who have driven broadband growth. That’s one reason the Free Press indicates that caps will not gain in favor with ISPs. And if all they’re really trying to do to stifle video competition from sources such as Netflix, Hulu or Amazon, then it’s time for the FCC or Congress to get involved.

Like all the other geeks in attendance, I couldn’t help myself from letting out an audible “whooo” when Google showed off an Android phone demo Wednesday that linked Street View to a compass (see video below). Sure it was just a demo, but watching the virtual-reality performance of photo-maps linked to hand motions shows how cool new applications could be when they start by running on a high-end mobile phone.

Delivering lots of cool new apps is the promise of Android, the open source mobile OS project from Google. With a much-improved iPhone-ish look and feel, the base Android platform seems ready for prime time and on schedule to launch somewhere, sometime, later this year. But I still see three big problems for Android apps that could keep the add-on market small for the foreseeable future.

Specifically the problems are:

– how many carriers are really going to offer Android phones?
– how will users find Android applications?
– how will developers convince users to take a chance and download their app?

Until Google can help answer those questions, Android apps are probably going to lag far behind those provided by big carriers on their captive hardware/software offerings, especially those designed for the already popular iPhone.

With a big crowd overall and packed rooms at Android-specific discussions, the Google I/O conference Wednesday showed there is great interest from the developer community for the idea of an open-source platform for the development of mobile apps. And the list of early winners in Google’s Android app development contest shows a wide range of creative thinking, with developers using the features of mobility and base apps like maps to build new, rich and sometimes quirky programs that would likely never get past the first gatekeeper at AT&T Wireless or Verizon.

But getting back to the problems — without a committed list of service providers, Google doesn’t have much of a market to offer developers yet. Similarly, the company’s silence on any kind of an apps marketplace means developers might be on their own when it comes to marketing their one-off ideas, adding a huge degree of difficulty, especially for smaller shops.

And the lack of an application certification process (Google said Wednesday that users will be asked to certify an app themselves at install) means another big hurdle for developers to cross, namely convincing users to trust that their app is safe, won’t break their phone or transmit personal info to undisclosed locations.

Seems like a lot to ask from users, especially those in the U.S., who historically haven’t been able to do much with their phones other than download new ringtones. Add education to the list of above problems and you see why I think this market is going to stay small for some time.

Paul Kapustka, former managing editor for GigaOM, now has his own blog at Sidecut Reports.

Network management practices employed by Bell Canada have led the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic to ask for an investigation of the telecommunications company. The CIPPIC, a University of Ottawa legal clinic, accuses the firm of using deep packet inspection tools to determine what customers are doing with their Internet connections and then blocking traffic, such as that of BitTorrent. O, Bell Canada, following in the footsteps of Ma Bell (the newer) when it comes to P2P throttling is no way to to play.

There are enough signs that Apple’s iPhone, the fast-growing mobile device from the Cupertino-based consumer electronics and computing giant, will give the still-emerging business of mobile video a turbo boost. Here’s why:

Earlier it was reported that some NBC television shows could be streamed directly to iPhone via the browser. In addition, Orb, an Emeryville, Calif.-based startup announced that it had figured out how to stream live video to iPhone and iTouch, on the unlocked devices, often referred to as “jail broken.” (Watch video). But the real boost to Internet video on the iPhone will come later this year, when Move Networks, an American Fork, Utah-based company, will release an iPhone version of its player.

Move founder and CEO John Edwards (no, not that one) stopped by in our office yesterday to meet with Liz and me and give us an update on the state of his company. He coincidentally became the first CEO to have Crash, the GigaPuppy, sit in on the meeting. Even though I was obsessed with why he raised $46 million, towards the end of the conversation, I asked him about his iPhone plans. He said Move is working on the player, but it is still early days — though he did assure us that it would be made available around the time Apple opens up the iPhone sometime later this summer.

Move’s move could have a major impact on the mobile video business. Why? Move’s video technology is used by most major networks to stream shows from their web sites -– ABC, Fox, ESPN and CBS are all Move clients. So essentially what it means is, you could go to, say, the ABC web site and watch an ad-supported episode of Lost by streaming it to the iPhone.

Move’s player can adjust the quality of the video according to the bandwidth available to the client machine. With a 3G iPhone rumored to be launching in June, Move is smart to wait out the release of its client. Even its technology is not going to be able to overcome the lousy experience of watching streamed video over an EDGE network. (Yeah, I tried watching 30 Rock on my iPhone and it sucked.)

Easy access to popular TV content that can be played back over the air without paying for it will prompt a lot of people to give it a shot. And that could spark interest in mobile video, which has been a slow starter in the U.S. market, to put it mildly. Even with the availability of Verizon VCast, Mobi TV and now AT&T’s Media FLO network, a mere 4.5 percent of U.S. subscribers have watched mobile TV, according to research firm M:Metrics. In comparison, a M:Metrics survey shows that nearly 31 percent of iPhone users have watched video on their device, while 21 percent have watched on-demand video or TV programming on their device.
I suspect there is a correlation between the screen size and video watching habits. Using an example of one — in addition to my iPhone, I like watching side loaded video content like Digg Nation on LG Vu and Nokia N95 all the time, mostly because they have screens that don’t make me squint.

One of the reasons people have a lackadaisical attitude towards mobile video is because they don’t want to pay the $10-to-$15 monthly subscription fee. In other words, ad-supported video is the way forward. That is why I think Move’s iPhone-compatible player could do the trick.

I’m getting ready to hit Sin City for next week’s CTIA Wireless show, from April 1-3, so for those of you not planning to attend — or who will attend but plan to gamble away your expense money — here’s your cheat sheet for the show.

Sure, everyone will be hoping for an announcement about the $3 billion Sprint/Cable/Clearwire joint venture that Om has dubbed the U.S. Rescue WiMax Act, and pondering both the valuation of and chances for Motorola’s handset business, but there will be a few trends to keep an eye out for as well.

Speech recognition and voice navigation on the mobile phone will be hot topics, with news expected out of vendors both big and small. An early indicator is voice mail-to-text provider SpinVox’s $100 million financing round. Look for other startups to launch similar services at the show, and for new search features and products from existing market players.

You won’t be able to walk down the aisle without running into someone offering a better way to watch, stream or create content on a mobile phone. While I’m skeptical about mobile video in the U.S., plenty of companies are still beating that drum. And with mobile content travel its two ugly stepsisters, advertising and digital rights management. There will be plenty of plays there.

All that content needs bandwidth, and the equipment vendors will be out in force with their WiMax and LTE equipment. Brace yourself for impressive upload and downlink demos as well as new service offerings such as television over a WiMax network.

In the meantime, now that the 700 MHz spectrum auction has ended and Verizon has laid out its plans, people are sure to be debating the benefits of open networks.

And finally, a 2008 wireless show wouldn’t be complete without plenty of femtocell demos and the much-anticipated launch of an Android-based phone. I, along with hundreds of other journalists, will be there, hoping to score the next big scoop. So if you see me, feel free to say hello and gently point me in the right direction.

• The Register: Qualcomm buys Phorm-alike Firm
• BroadbandReports: Time Warner Cable Will be Spun Off
• ArsTechnica: Congress Prepares Probe of FCC Chairman
• ArsTechnica: How NBC Wants to Both Filter and Use P2P
• Light Reading: AT&T Prepping for GPON
• Reuters: Google to Unveil New Ad Service for Publishers: Report

• MarketWatch: Intel Shares Fall after Chipmaker Lowers Margins
• News.com Cutting the Cord with all You Can Eat Wireless Plans
• Tech Confidential: Video Interview with Google’s VP of Content Partnerships
• Tampa Tribune: Florida Fines AT&T for Pushing Ringtones
• Broadband Reports: U.S. Eighth in FTTH Deployment
• Technology Review: Radios Built from Nanotubes

Another Mobile World Congress, and another week full of promises coming out of the wireless industry that we will find eventually use our mobile phones to access the web much like we use our PCs. While I do believe we’re closer (and some give the iPhone credit for this), I still think the finish line is far off. The cage match du jour, the fight between Linux operating systems offered by Google and the LiMo Foundation, underscores one of the big difficulties of using the mobile phone for a rich Internet experience.

There’s too much variation in operating systems and end devices, which makes it hard for developers to build applications for a mobile phone. Obviously people recognized this when it came to building applications for social networks (see: Open Social), but efforts to build platforms that span mobile phones are nascent.

One problem lies with the hardware, which varies from simple phones that serve mostly to make voice calls to smartphones that have the processing power to handle Office documents or broadcast television. There’s also an interface issue, such as whether it’s a touch screen, a scroll wheel, stylus or keypad.

Seriously, aside from finger cramps, anyone using a keypad to navigate the web is going to get really frustrated really quickly. Designing a browsing experience and services to optimize so much variety general results in designing for the lowest common denominator, or cutting them out entirely, and sticking with the few that have smartphones.

But the big problem is software — there’s too many operating systems to choose from. So the open platform zeitgeist is going mobile. AOL unveiled its open mobile developers platform earlier this week at the World Congress, based on technology assets it acquired from Airmedia, so it won’t be real until this summer. The platform allows a programmer to build applications for up to 150 different handsets using a variety of operating systems, but requires a client on each mobile phone.

Also trying to make the development side easier is Streamezzo, a Parisian startup that has raised $48 million to create its cross-platform software development kit. The kit won’t be available until Feb. 25, and requires a client on the end user’s handset. SFR, France’s second-largest mobile carrier, is running applications built on the Streamezzo SDK. Yahoo has launched a mobile widget development platform as well that went live this week, after being announced at CES in January..

On of the more interesting approaches is being taken by Chicago-based Novarra, an eight-year-old company that is working with carriers including Vodafone, U.S. Cellular and 3 Hong Kong to deliver the web to any phone, even low-end handsets. Novarra offers an appliance for carriers or a service that essentially offloads 80 percent of the data processing associated with downloading a web site to servers run by the carrier or Novarra. This cuts down on the amount of data traveling over the carrier network, and makes load times faster. Content providers such as Yahoo also use it to deliver lighter applications for mobile phones. Novarra powers Yahoo’s oneSearch via mobile.

Novarra’s success at driving data usage among its customers’ end users is exhibited by an increase of between $5 and $15 in ARPU for the carriers deploying the Novarra software. One only needs to look at AT&T’s recent profits, which were driven by wireless growth, to realize that pushing easier access to the Internet for all will drive revenue for carriers. The key is making it as convenient to use the web on a mobile phone as it is to use it from a computer.