Late start tonight for Tech at Night. Sorry, but I’ve started a plan to get myself out of California, and to be honest I’m more than a bit nervous about the whole thing. Looking for new work in the Obama economy? Yeah.
But at least Marsha Blackburn wants to help the tech job situation by taking on Barack Obama’s twin regulatory nightmares of the FCC and the FTC. The EPA isn’t so hot, either.
Seton Motley is still plugging away against Net Neutrality, too, referencing Phil Kerpen’s new book: Democracy Denied on the Obama regulatory scheme to bypass the Congress when implementing radical ideas.
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Sorry if you missed Tech at Night on Friday. I was under the weather. But I’m back, and with so much to review.
How about legislation, good and bad? Well, mostly bad.
- Senate Democrats continue to push for senseless regulation of 4G Internet speeds, hindering vital new technology to increase high-speed Internet competition in America. Worse, Democrat Anna Eshoo is piling on in the House.
- Mary Bono Mack continues her push on privacy and security even though I don’t really see a government role in that, at least when it comes to private sector data. High profile cases do not good models make.
- Joe Barton wants to harass Amazon now, once again proving we did the right thing in not letting him head up Energy and Commerce. Seriously: If you’re allying with a Massachusetts Democrat, reconsider.
- When government comes preaching fairness, watch out: the push for a nationally-enforced Internet sales tax continues, which of course is just the first step to a joint state-national sales tax akin to the Canadian Harmonized Sales Tax. It’ll start at just one percent, I’m telling you. “One penny, for the children,” or “for seniors,” or even “for the Global War on Terror.” And then it will grow.
- We’re deeply in debt and running a massive deficit, but it’s time for a new program on “distracted driving”!
- OK, one piece of good news: Kay Bailey Hutchison is pressing the issue in the budget supercommittee of all places. encouraging voluntary incentive auctions of spectrum is great news no matter what the context, as we need all we can get. Giving the D block, previously proven to be unwanted at auction, over to civil defense is also good news, I believe. We learned that on 9/11. Look, I’d be all for auctioning it… if we hadn’t already tried and failed.
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Oh for crying out loud. For all that Washington talks tough about getting Americans access to high speed Internet, the “supercommittee” wants to tax new spectrum licensees. That’s just what we need: make it more expensive to build out America’s wireless infrastructure in order to pay for the President and his Cabinet to hand out money to their friends and political supporters. Isn’t that special? Here’s a joint letter against it from a number of industry groups.
Then you’ve got Dick Blumenthal, Al Franken, and Amy Klobuchar, leading the charge for the Democrat-controlled Senate that hasn’t passed a budget in 900 days, but wants to get government involved on what can or can’t be called 4G wireless Internet. Great prioritization here.
Spectrum’s important, though. Merely having access to a solid Internet connection lets Americans ave lots of money every year. Not just from being able to buy online, but also from gathering information, and simply from being able to stay at home. IIA did the math and American families each can save thousands of dollars a year online. And we’re busy regulating, taxing, and harassing firms like Google and AT&T, instead of getting government out of the way of investment. Yes, I’m frustrated.
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Steve Jobs died today after a long battle with cancer. He was 56. Founding NeXT would have been enough to turn anyone into a cult hero in his field. Acquiring Lucasfilm’s Graphics Group and turning it into Pixar would have made anyone a respected business leader.
But for Steve Jobs, those were feathers in his cap called Apple, the company he co-founded with Steve Wozniak, and then later saved from extinction by returning to lead it again. He led Apple to its point today as the most valuable corporation in America, measured by public market capitalization. To do that, Jobs had to beat Microsoft and he had to beat IBM. He won in the end.
Far from just a visionary, people from Apple have always said he was a hands-on leader, who had a personal stake in the success of the company and of the products he helped create. Apple ][. Macintosh. NextStep. iMac. MacOS X. iPod. iPhone. iPad. Jobs leaves behind an incredible legacy, and his death will be felt by his industry, and the world. RIP.
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November 20. That’s the day the Obama administration has chosen to regulate the Internet after what even The Hill calls “a partisan vote” at the FCC to pass the Net Neutrality regulations. I’m hoping Verizon and/or MetroPCS will sue and win a stay before that date, though I don’t know how likely that is for a court to act that strongly.
I’ve said much about the House and its strong opposition to Barack Obama’s regulatory overreach, but Senators are unhappy as well. Kay Bailey Hutchison is ready to fight. It looks like she will push to get the Senate to go forward with using the Congressional Review Act, as the House already did, to repeal Net Neutrality.
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We’ve lost some battles lately. That’s what happens when we let a radical Democrat become President. We let Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act pass, imposing on America a Euro-style patent system that rewards lawyering, not being the first to invent something. We let the FCC pass an illegal Net Neutrality power grab, and that will have to go to court soon.
We’re even seeing some nominally Republican-run states get on big government bandwagon against AT&T, sadly joining in the effort by the Obama administration and Sprint Nextel to hinder competition and pad Sprint’s bottom line. What are Ohio and Pennsylvania doing there? Come on.
But at least we’re on track to get meaningful 4G competition. Some question the firm’s ties with the Obama administration, but I welcome progress toward LightSquared launching its network. Unlike Obama and Holder, trying to prop up Sprint, I actually want competition and lower prices.
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I’m in danger of repeating myself as the AT&T/T-Mobile saga goes on, so let me open up tonight’s post with to my latest analysis of the situation. Summary: the behavior of Sprint Nextel’s and Clearwire’s share prices, combined with Sprint Nextel’s decision to sue AT&T, should lead any observer to believe that the AT&T/T-Mobile deal benefits the 4G Internet-using public at the expense of Sprint Nextel and current market leader Verizon.
Same as it ever was, as the Talking Heads said. When Sprint gobbled up Nextel, the public gained. So, too, will the public gain if the government keeps its hands off this time.
Is Sprint in trouble? Some say yes, but the point of antitrust laws isn’t reduce competition to prop up ineffective businesses.
Help the economy, President Barack Obama. Drop the suit. Encourage your subordinates to get out of the way of job creation, innovation, and technical progress. Event the San Francisco Chronicle has run a piece explaining that.
Hearings begin September 21. Ah, government. Slow, slow, slow. Imagine life or death medical decisions in the hands of this government! Maybe they’re still trolling for some evidence that just isn’t there.
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As Labor Day winds up out here, we have a brief Tech at Night tonight. Something to watch: Eric Schmidt is downplaying talk of Google wanting Motorola’s phone patents after Larry Page pretty much said the opposite. Who’s in charge here?
HP sues its own partner over its own idea. Who’s in charge there?
A Dutch court only found Samsung phones, not tablets, to infringe on Apple’s IP. A German court still disagrees, and is blocking two Galaxy Tab models. Who’s in charge of the EU?
New speculation is out that Barack Obama and Eric Holder are suing AT&T as an attempt to strongarm the company into a weaker negotiating position with the government. We need to show this administration the people are in charge, not the state.
So much going on suddenly this week. Barack Obama and Eric Holder’s DoJ has decided to come after AT&T for its plans to merge with T-Mobile, possibly doing the bidding of donors while hindering jobs growth in America as well as nationwide 4G wireless Internet competition. Sprint’s not doing much to keep Verizon in check; we need AT&T to have the spectrum needed to do that.
So Holder wants to drive Gibson manufacturing out of the US, and to keep T-Mobile in German hands, and prevent AT&T from bringing jobs back to America. Do I have that right? It’s no wonder people rate the Internet and Telephone industries much higher than they rate the government.
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Even as the FCC hems and haws about AT&T’s quest for spectrum via T-Mobile, new evidence has come out that we simply need more spectrum for wireless Internet. The overload of the wireless networks in the parts of the east coast the felt the Virginia earthquake says it all.
And remember: new spectrum means new investment to use that spectrum, which means jobs and economic growth.
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