by Alex Goldman
The FCC has asked for comments on its strange Third Way idea — that the FCC can find a middle ground between regulation and deregulation (half-hearted regulation, perhaps). You can read the FCC’s press release, NOI, and PowerPoint presentation. There are many doubts.
“For much of the past decade, the FCC took American consumers on a costly and damaging ride,
moving broadband Internet connectivity outside the statutory Title II framework that applies to
telecommunications carriers. This was a major flip-flop from the historic — and generally successful —
approach of requiring non-discrimination in our communications networks,” Commissioner Copps said.
Genachowski continues to hope to please everyone. “Our pro-investment, pro-innovation, pro-competition, pro-consumer policies remain unchanged and they remain essential for broadband in America,” he said.
Karl Bode says that Comcast and Verizon are enthusiastic about re-examining the laws because they expect to write the new rules, having hired at least 18 former politicians as lobbyists (h/t Frank Collucio, Lou Klepner). This is spite of the fact, Bruce Kushnick says, that these companies own the current regime.
Google also expects to participate in the rulemaking, which may be a positive thing for WISPs.
Expect this to quickly become a partisan political issue, with the party in power asking for change and the party that’s out of power trying to prevent change. Some commentators think that since Comcast and Verizon own the current regime, they will oppose all change.
Harold Feld said on Twitter that recent decisions such as this one make it Christmas in summertime for cellcos at the FCC.
Expect to hear more about all of this at the regional meeting in St. Louis. WISPA is at work on this issue. You can comment too. Type the proceeding number (10-127) in this search form.
One quick aside: this article on infrastructure came highly recommended (I forget from who) and is excellent.
While the US muddles, the government of Australia is spending billions on converting its national network from copper to fiber. The government announced that it will pay the national ILEC, Telstra, 11 billion Australian Dollars for Telstra’s copper and also will lease space in Telstra’s COs (we’ll see how that works). Telstra was briefly run by a former Qwest CEO who managed to anger the government, his own employees, and customers. The subsequent CEO of Telstra re-established a good working relationship with the government, and this is the positive result.
Verizon’s canceling of wholesale FiOS highlights the FCC’s fiber failure. If your local town is considering offering Verizon a sweet deal on a franchise, let them know about the experience of Manhattan, where less than 17 percent of people have FiOS available, two years after a sweetheart deal.
Along with all the other crises we face: state and local governments are running out of money.
Business
Clearwire has announced that it is retailing 4G femtocells. Karl Bode calls AT&T’s femtocell policies unjustified. If AT&T let cell users really take advatage of cheaper Wi-Fi services, the company would lose money, so the company’s pricing policies in effect prohibit that.
Meanwhile, cellcos have formed a Wi-Fi roaming group. I don’t expect WISPs to be invited to join because I doubt that the group’s goal is to encourage Wi-Fi use by cellular customers.
Sam Churchill posted nifty links to open source manuals.
I attended a presentation on Boxee at my local Linux Users Group (LUG) aimed at recruiting app developers. Boxee is the open source social media center, and is an interesting project.
An interesting comment on Facebook — like the cellcos, it’s a communications company that’s upsetting users by intruding on their privacy as it tries to become a content provider. Note to anyone who thinks that building a social networking site is easy: AOL just gave up on it, with losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars on their Beebo acquisition.
Desert landowners take note: the Saharan desert could supply all of Europe’s power after a massive solar power installation effort (good luck working with those governments, however).
There’s a VPN flaw in systems that use PPTP, IPv6, and IPv4.
Here’s a nice tower photo. Send your links to me off list.
Peter Radizeski has written a very short version of the 50 ideas in 50 minutes speech he used to give regularly at ISPCON.
A word of warning from the trade press: beware of burnout among IT staff (and yourself).
Government and the law
I’m always looking for stories of Wi-Fi fear, but I think that San Francisco’s policy of forcing cellcos to post data concerning the radiation levels of their phones is reasonable. San Francisco clearly understands that Wi-Fi is safe — here are some excellent resources. I talked to WISPA members on the Gulf last week. I wish we could do more, as WISPA did after Katrina, but this is a completely different crisis and it’s not obvious that anything can be done. Even the berms may be ineffective. Meanwhile, BP is not only advertising on television — they’re also spending big bucks on Google ads.
Fears about ACTA, the treaty that will eventually force the USA to make a law forcing ISPs to disconnect internet users without a fair trial, continues to provoke concern but no law has yet been drafted here. “ACTA is just governments and big companies vs. Internet users and small and medium businesses,” Elliot Noss wrote. He hopes that WISPs will sign an anti-ACTA petition that already has the signatures of some noteworthy names.
The RIAA’s lawsuit against single mom Jammie Thomas-Rasset looks set to head for another deadlocked jury. The recording industry also wants $1 billion from LimeWire.
Interesting notes on a lawsuit that could have just asked for basic WHOIS data but instead demanded complete server logs. The lesson, apparently, is “don’t mess with a company that makes a product called ‘Mafia Wars’.”
One to watch, Sharon Gillett, who actually understands the internet, is in charge of a working group on making the USF support broadband buildouts. She might actually manage to avoid the traditional problem of money going to million dollar country homes on large plots of land while working families in tiny rural towns qualify for no subsidized services.
Humor: speaking of foolish lawyers, here’s the cease and desist letter the National Pork Board sent to a site advertising unicorn as “the other white meat.” I wonder how much the Pork Board paid for that letter…
Tags: acta, competition, FCC, government
