Mary Bono Mack, pay attention: Here’s the model for any privacy ventures you should attempt: voluntary action by private individuals, educated by simple government actions. If you really must get government involved, teach the people to fish, so that they can protect their own privacy for a lifetime.
Because if we insist on regulating the Internet problems of the moment, not only do we expand a government that’s already to big, we risk looking pretty stupid, too. Ah, Prodigy. I never did get their modem to work.
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It’s a lazy end of the week, it seems. Not much to cover, which is why I’m dipping down to chuckling at Sprint ending much-hyped unlimited data plans as its 3G network melts under the strain of iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. I’ll say this: it should be all the harder for Sprint to claim they’re in dire competitive trouble now. Especially as, again, T-Mobile really is in trouble, unable to get the iPhone.
MetroPCS stands to benefit should the AT&T/T-Mobile deal go through, standing ready to buy assets from AT&T as part of the deal.
So let’s get government out of the way. Even rural areas see the benefit.
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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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Columbus Day winds to a close, a cold slows me down, but Tech at Night marches on somehow. You know what’s also marched on? The New York Stock Exchange’s website. The anarcho-terrorists of Anonymous promised to take that website down (note: just the website, not the actual trading computers). Well, they failed, unless you count a two minute outage as success. Heck, RedState pretty much goes down for about 5 minutes every night, and we’re not even trying.
Speaking of security: in theory I love the idea of government focusing on government Internet security, while leaving the private sector alone. It doesn’t surprise me though if it turns out Obama’s brain trust can’t even do that right. Barack Obama’s disastrous regulatory record doesn’t suggest competence.
Which is why Mary Bono Mack needs to drop her ongoing privacy investigations, because it can only lead to more power for the government online, and that won’t end well.
Remember when I gave a little cheer for the supercommittee’s plans to auction off some spectrum? that plan is getting some criticism from people who want to keep some unlicensed spectrum free. If the spectrum can’t be put to use for high-speed Internet, then maybe it’s not worth bothering. If it can, though, let’s do it.
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Net Neutrality goes to court. Great news, too: Verizon’s preferred venue won the lottery, and the Net Neutrality fight will happen in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. This is, of course, the same circuit that slapped down Net Neutrality last time in Comcast v FCC.
Oh, but here’s a big surprise. Despite the FCC claiming previously that “We look forward to defending our open Internet framework in court,” they’re actually doing everything they can not to have to defend it in court by attempting to get Verizon’s appeal dismissed. So much for that day in court.
As for Sprint Nextel, even as they sue claiming competition will be impaired if T-Mobile and AT&T join up, their own strategy update presentation admitted the truth. See the 9:46AM slide, showing the growth rate of the year-on-year net postpaid subscribers across the top four providers. In 2010, Sprint was the only one to accelerate, while AT&T saw the biggest drop in its growth. In the first half of 2011, Verizon and Sprint are accelerating, while would-be deal makers AT&T and T-Mobile look on pace to notch their third and fifth (respectively) years of slower growth.
Yes, that’s right. Sprint’s gaining subscribers at a faster clip, and is trying to keep the laggards from combining to keep the pressure (and 4G prices) up. And they’ve gotten the Barack Obama/Eric Holder Department of Justice to help, using your taxpayer dollars.
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So, LightSquared. Some say that in some nebulous way, the firm is getting unreasonable and possibly illicit support from the Obama administration. I still don’t see it though, especially after listening in on a briefing of LightSquared’s today.
The briefing discussed in depth the issues LightSquared has had with GPS manufacturers. LightSquared that they’re trying hard to be a “good neighbor” and have worked with the FCC to address all issues, to the point of giving up half their spectrum voluntarily, and standing ready to invest $50 million to help GPS makers fix the issues. Because LightSquared does claim that the only issues left involve “precision” GPS which, by design, listen on LightSquared’s spectrum.
LightSquared points out that this is legal. You can listen to whatever you want. The problem is, legally you have no leg to stand on if you receive ‘interference’ by the legitimate holder of the spectrum you’re listening to. That said, they’re still working on a solution so everyone can benefit.
Now obviously this is their side of the story. If there’s a detailed rebuttal of these claims available, I’d love to hear it and link to it in Tech at Night. I’m interested in finding the truth of this matter. We need spectrum, desperately, but I want to go into this knowing the facts.
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So, Net Neutrality has been published. Now nothing can stop Verizon’s lawsuit over the illegal power grab. Remember: the FCC has tried this before, when they went after Comcast. They lost. It’s not unreasonable to expect them to lose again.
Meanwhile, federalism continues to be trashed as Puerto Rico jumps into the game. They don’t want to pay taxes but they want to block our free market. Lovely. If only AT&T could get territories dismissed even as it tries to dismiss the anti-competitive lawsuits of its competitors.
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Regulation, Regulation, Regulation. We’re faced with it, and now the regulators are going Presidential on us and claiming executive privilege at the FCC. You want to know how they’re coming up with their marching orders for America? Too bad. Just ask watchdog StimulatingBroadband.com.
You want a laugh? George Soros-funded front group Free Press is suing the FCC… because Net Neutrality isn’t enough of a power grab. Incredible.
Jay Rockefeller is defending Net Neutrality, meanwhile, against Kay Bailey Hutchison’s withering attacks, and push for a Congressional Review Act repeal of the regulations.
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Up late tonight. Spent the better part of the last 8 hours setting up my new computer*. Lots of data to transfer around and all that. But fortunately there aren’t many new developments lately to talk about, so let’s go.
I’m going to start with LightSquared. Out of the blue, it’s been repeatedly claimed that LightSquared is “the next Solyndra,” and that some nebulous form of corruption is somehow benefiting the company. Is it possible? Certainly. But I’d like to see some proof that LightSquared received actual benefits from the Obama administration, as Solyndra got free money from the government in the form of loan guarantees.
No, I won’t accept proof that Barack Obama is a bad guy as proof that LightSquared had something going on. I’m playing the role of skeptic on this particular issue, because I don’t want it to be true. I want America to get more spectrum used for 4G wireless Internet, and I want us to have more national networks supplying 4G wireless Interent. LightSquared coming online would give us both, as LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja has said.
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