by Alex Goldman
Fairpoint Communications finally filed for bankruptcy. The company purchased copper assets from Verizon at inflated prices in 2008 and made promises to local and state governments that it could not keep.
From the WISPA lists
In a thread titled “NC icing” members discussed methods for dealing with ice buildup, with many valuable recommendations. If you know a storm is coming, one recommended this coating: WX2100 and others recommended the cooking spray Pam.
Martha Huizenga reminded members that Form 477 is due on March 1, 2010.
Jack Unger pointed to an interesting presentation by the WCA on February 25, 2010 concerning cognitive radios in Sunnyvale, Calif. It’s not free but early bird registration is only $10. One panelist, Dewayne Hendricks, is guaranteed to shake up the status quo.
Content is king
A company called Spotify claims to lower subscriber churn when ISPs (not their subscribers) pay for its music service.
Hulu hopes to start charging for some services.
Amazon last week showed web retailers how not to do business. (Here’s the New York Times’ take and Wired’s article.)
Jason Calcanis showed how not to blog: see Never Dupe Your Readers.
In a test of the market, YouTube made five movies available for rent over a 10 day period. The estimated take was little more than $10,000 but The New York Times says Google claims to be pleased with the results of the trial.
Some Olympic athletes are confused by rules about what they can and cannot say on social media that are meant to protect the failing journalism industry from social media.
A UK government committee says that the latest file sharing bill up for consideration in the House of Commons violates basic human rights.
Technology and business
ICANN made another plea for the universal adoption of IPv6.
Bell Canada (misleadingly?) calls its fiber-to-the-node service “fibe” and delivers only 1 Mbps upstream except in the top tier.
Government, law, and crime
Karl Bode rails against the role of money in politics by noting that a professional Disc Golf player, whose tour is sponsored by AT&T, filed with the FCC against net neutrality.
The FCC is arguing in favor of more spectrum, but as members such as Jack Unger have warned, it’s not clear that the FCC knows the difference between closed cellular networks and the true internet that fixed wireless provides. When spectrum is made available, there’s always a risk that the rich companies will lobby for the right to buy it and to obtain exclusive use of it.
In stimulus news, the NTIA rejected the majority of BTOP middle mile applications.
Also in stimulus news, the NOFA 2 workshop in Blacksburg, VA has been cancelled due to the massive snowfall in the area.
The UK plans to deliver 100 Mbps to “most” homes nationwide by 2017. Of course, completing the project will be the responsibility of a future government.
Slashdot points to a recent study that shows that patent trolls are thriving.
I know that you would never fall for a 419 scam, but such scams sucked in $9.3 billion last year, according to a report.
In the panopticon, Google’s street view camera caught someone who illegally chopped down a tree in their year (that’s Canada).
In continued muckraking journalism, my friend Bruce Kushnick warns that the phone companies are trying to end phone service as we know it. When the phone companies stop being utilities, they will be able to fully exercise their monopoly power by raising rates, shutting down rural service (instead of selling it to Fairpoint), and crushing competition.
A group of activists in New York City started a petition asking the city’s government to tax Verizon’s cross-subsidies in order to fund local broadband projects. Few signatories so far.
Mexico is considering blocking Twitter because it’s being used to share the locations of drunk driving checkpoints.
Emissions trading in Europe was attacked by a phishing scam (h/t Slashdot).
Google asked the NSA for help against hackers.
What’s your favorite news source or blog?
I’ve started a thread with this title on the WISPA lists. Let me (and all members) know where you find developing news.
Tags: content, government, spectrum
