Good evening. It’s going to be short tonight, because I don’t actually have anything new to say about G—– or F— P—- tonight, as against freedom as they both are.
But I will say this about Net Neutrality: competition from new technology is the way out of any problems we have with the ISP monopolies and duopolies that state and local regulators cram down our throats. It’s not theoretical, either: Sprint is deploying 4G WiMAX service over more and more of the country.
Technology, not Net Neutrality regulation, is what we need.
Now, some people are unhappy with WiMAX. They wish every wireless provider in the US would use the same thing. Since the big boys (AT&T and Verizon) have committed to LTE, some people wish the WiMAX minority would do same. Fortunately it seems like that would be an option at some point, as Michael Turk says a WiMAX to TD-LTE transition might be relatively painless. By the time LTE demand is there, he suggests, the technology will be in place from vendors like Motorola to ease that process.
Of course, 4G tech isn’t very interesting without tools to use on it, which is why Blackberry users in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are unhappy. The UAE have set a firm date, October 11, for attacking use of RIM‘s securely encrypted Blackberry services in the country. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has already blocked the Blackberry Messenger chat service. Hey, as long as it’s neutral and transparent, who needs privacy, right? (Sarcasm off)
Also, I didn’t mean to make three out of four links to the Boy Genius Report, but that’s just how it turned out. And BGR also lets us know that Apple‘s iOS 4 has been cracked and iPhone users on the new OS will be able to install whatever apps they want using this new “jailbreak.” It’s legal under the DMCA, so there’s really no harm in trying, that I can see, if there are apps you want that you can’t get on the App Store. Just be careful, back up your data, and read all the instructions!